Moxie (Rock-Hard Beautiful Book 3)

by C. M. Stunich

  “In about fifteen minutes, right?” I ask, using the phone in my hand to scroll through a list titled The Ten Best Spots to Hit in Tokyo. There are far more options than even minutes in the day, so I'm going to take extra care with my research tonight and get us all ready for tomorrow.

  A quick glance over my shoulder shows both Paxton and Copeland asleep on the bed already. The plane ride here was a grueling sixteen hours, most of which was spent napping (a small tiny bit of it might have been used for a little naked playtime in the jet's only bedroom), but it didn't seem to do much more than dent the black wave of fatigue riding on all our shoulders.

  Almost there, I think as my hands curl into fists. Almost home.

  It seems really silly to think of Seattle as my home when I haven't even once set foot in the city, but knowing the boys have roots there makes me feel like it is. I'm weirdly homesick for a place I've never even been. How strange is that?

  “Tell me about these friends of yours that are visiting the house for us?” I ask, leaning my head against Michael's shoulder. He's wearing a black wifebeater that shows off the muscled curvature of his arms and the rich royal tones of his tattoos. I pick out a cat inked into his skin and run a fingertip across it, making him shiver. “I thought you said friends were overrated anyway.”

  He rolls his eyes at me, but a playful smile teases the corners of his mouth.

  “For you,” he said, looking down at me. “I said they were overrated for you since you have all five of us. Me, I'm not even friends with these guys. I need outside people.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say, trying to hold back a yawn, failing miserably. My brain tries to convince me that a house isn't really all that important, that I should just move in with one of the guys and forget this whole silly thing. That way, I can crawl into bed with Cope and Pax right now and fall asleep.

  I sit up and rub my eyes with the heels of my hands, trying to wake myself up a little.

  “I'm still pretty close with some of the guys I went to high school with,” Michael says, shrugging like it's no big deal. For some reason though, that comes across as a lie. Why would he lie about something as simply as that? But then he keeps going and the reason for his sudden anxiety becomes pretty apparent. “They're usually reliable enough for shit like this, but they texted me a while ago and told me they couldn't make the appointment with the realtor.”

  “Oh,” I say, feeling slightly disappointed. I know I'll meet his other friends eventually, but I was really looking forward to seeing what they were like. “Who's meeting her then?”

  “Timothy,” Michael says, and his voice gets low and strained all of a sudden. Ah. That explains the subtle shift in mood I noticed just before we got off the jet. It's must've been his brother that Michael was texting in the car on the way over here.

  “He bringing Vanessa with him?” Pax mumbles from his spot lying facedown on the bed. “They gonna do it balls-deep in the empty master bedroom?”

  Michael ignores him completely and focuses his attention on me instead.

  “We haven't worked anything out between us,” he tells me, glancing back at the screen with a nervous lick of his lips. “I just texted him to see if he could do this, and luckily, he's got time. But it doesn't change what he did. Not the thing with Vanessa or any of the crap that came before that.”

  “No,” I agree cautiously, watching Michael's face and trying to gauge where he is emotionally. He seems fine, so I just forge on. “But that's awfully nice of him to do this favor for us.”

  No response.

  Mikey's staring at he computer like he's got a personal grudge against it.

  “You know that saying no such thing as a free lunch?”

  “Doesn't everybody?” I ask, playing with the ring Pax gave me, spinning it in circles around my finger. I still have no idea what this means between us, if he was even serious about the marriage thing. If I am. That night after I stayed in the hotel and talked with Muse about his past, I woke up and found the ring twisted up in the bedsheets. I almost had a panic attack at almost losing it and decided to move it to my slightly wider middle finger for safekeeping until we can get it resized.

  I don't think it bothered Pax much. I think he likes knowing that if I flip someone off, they're going to get a nice long look at the ring.

  “Well, Tim wasn't about give me a free lunch. He bribed me. When I get back into town, I have to have dinner with him.” Michael purses his lips and gives me an apologetic sort of a look. “And I have to bring you along with me.”

  “Me?” I ask, surprised. These two have some serious healing to do together. Why would they need or want me at their first meeting together since the incident? “What for?”

  “Because he knows we're dating now. I told him you were the love of my life and that he better get used to it.”

  “You said that?” I ask skeptically as Ransom steps away from us and gazes out the windows at the glittering lights of the city.

  “Yep,” Michael says and then there's an incoming video chat from Tim that breaks the mood sizzling between us. I know he knows that I'm waiting for him to say it, that the suspense is killing me. I love you. I wonder how long it'll take him to say those words? They're simple, easy enough, and I can tell he's feeling me as much as I'm feeling him, but … this is Michael, after all. The last one of my guys to join the group, the one that I was afraid I'd never have. But he came through last minute. It'll be the same with this, I think. No, no, I I know.

  I trust him.

  “Tim,” Michael says, hitting the button to accept his brother's call and succinctly summing up this meeting with a single word. The screen fills with Timothy Luxe's face, a very familiar set of purple eyes staring back at us through the round frames of some pretty unfortunate looking tortoiseshell brown glasses. I compare them to the ones Muse is wearing right now, glancing up to look at him as he comes over to sit on the edge of the bed behind our chairs. His have a thick black frame and this edgy look to them that says he's too hip to care whether they're in style or not—which, you know, they are.

  “Good morning, Mikey,” Tim says, his crew cut hair and suit a strange contrast to the little white and yellow craftsman bungalow behind him. It looks too cheerful, too whimsical for the businesslike nature of Michael's brother. “It's good to see you,” he hazards, but Michael doesn't look particularly thrilled at the prospect. “I'm glad you called.”

  “I didn't,” Michal says blandly, crossing his arms over his chest. “I texted.”

  Tim sighs.

  “Either way, it's still really good to see you. And … it's Lilith, right?”

  “It is,” I say, trying to be polite to Timothy, but also keeping in mind what he did to his brother. As much as he might've hurt Michael though, all I can think is that that's also the reason he's mine now … “Thanks for doing this,” I add when I realize neither of them is prepared to say anything else at the moment.

  “It's not a problem,” Tim says, pausing like there's something he wishes he could add but is too afraid to. After a moment, it looks like he just gives up on whatever it is for now. “Realtor's in the driveway.”

  The phone screen switches from his face over to a woman in a white blouse, white blazer, and a pair of black kitten heels. As our view swings around and pans the neighborhood, I see that the bungalow is nestled on a quiet street of little houses with little yards, most of them lush and green and well kempt. Even through Tim's shaky smartphone video I can see how steep the road is though.

  “It looks so … suburban,” I say with a small laugh, glancing back at Ransom as he studies the bustling city outside the window. It's surreal to think that I'm sitting in Japan in a hotel at one in the morning while Michael's brother walks around one of the most average looking middle class neighborhoods I've ever seen. It feels like it should be the other way around somehow.

  Me, Lilith Goode, a world traveler? I'm still getting used to the idea.

  “You're always welcome to join me and Pax at ou
r apartment,” he says with a sly smile. “It's right by Pike Place Market, so there's always shit going on. In fact, maybe you should move in and take his place and he can move out and live with one of his boyfriends.”

  “Shagging wanker,” Paxton mumbles, but I notice he doesn't bother to move from his spot on the bed. Muse just chuckles. I find all their interactions to be pretty fucking cute. Paxton and Michael have that 'best buddies' sort of a relationship going on. I try to imagine what it'd be like to see them kiss and get this little thrill shooting down my spine.

  Although it'll probably never happen … They've both got that stupid alpha male thing going on. But it's a nice fantasy.

  “Can you see alright?” Tim asks a few seconds later, clearly standing at the house's front door. Two of his fingers are directly in the middle of the screen, blocking most of the view.

  Michael sighs and does a face-palm, making me laugh.

  “Man, we can't see shit,” he says, lifting his head up, long dark hair sliding across his face. “Move your fucking fingers, bro.”

  Tim mumbles something we can't really hear and adjusts his hands.

  “Is that better?”

  “How old are you again?” Michael asks as the phone shakily pans across a cute little foyer with what looks to be original hardwood floors and original casings around the dual archways on either side. One leads into a dining room and the other, the living room. “Like ninety-seven? Don't you know how to use a fucking cell phone?”

  “I'm thirty-four, Mikey,” Tim says with a sigh, following the realtor through the dining room and into the kitchen. It's galley style, with new cabinets and shiny black appliances. Obviously it's staged to sell with a little tray covered in lemons and limes sitting atop the butcher board countertops.

  “Timothy isn't familiar with the old-school art of sarcasm,” Michael continues, clearly enjoying picking on his older brother. “Or the ancient practice of not sleeping with your little brother's girlfriend.”

  Our view seems to hop and then flops onto the floor, curses following along behind it as Tim picks up his phone from the ground and checks the screen for cracks. He stares right into it, looking Michael straight in the face.

  “I'm sorry about what happened with Vanessa,” he starts, but Michael's waving his words away.

  “Are you? What part? When you impregnated her? When you let me believe that was my baby? Or your most recent transgression at the hotel? I'm just trying to clarify.”

  “I never wanted to hurt you,” Tim says, steeling his voice, sharing a little of that wild anger that I see in Michael. Looks like they both have it. “But I was … I am in love with Vanessa. I was trying to find a way to tell you that might spare your feelings.” His turn to gesture at us which mostly just makes the camera quiver and shake.

  “This is making me dizzy,” Muse says, standing up and stretching. He's shirtless, as usual. “I'm going to assume those green square packaged by the electric kettle are green tea and make some. Want any?”

  “No thanks,” I say as he moves away, pushing his glasses up his nose and letting Ransom take his place on the edge of the bed.

  “Drama's too good to pass up,” he says, eating some licorice he got from a vending machine down the hall. There were several other vending machines next to it including one that sold batteries. According to Muse, there are also vending machines around Japan that sell used women's panties. I really would rather not run into one of those.

  “How can you be mad at me? Weren't you already cheating on Vanessa with Lilith?” Tim asks and then pauses. “Sorry,” he says, mostly to me.

  Michael grits his teeth, but I put a hand on his knee and he seems to calm down considerably.

  “Actually, no, Timothy, I did not. I was celibate for a year waiting for her. You know, the last twelve months that you guys were fucking like bunnies. Remember that?”

  “Michael Elliott Luxe,” he snaps, sounding more like an angry father than an older brother. Tim pauses to breathe dramatically through his nose. “Please, stop. I do love you. And I didn't want things to happen that way. But I really do love Vanessa; you never did.”

  “Can we please just finish the tour?” Michael asks with a long sigh.

  “Mikey,” Tim starts again, but his little brother just stands up and gestures to his seat.

  “Sit here, Lil,” he says. “Decide if you like the house. If you do, let's make an offer. Tim, you have my email, right? You can have the realtor send all the paperwork digitally.”

  “Where are you going?” I ask as Michael grabs a shirt and slips it on, heading for the door.

  “To take a quick walk. If I'm not back in an hour, I'm probably piloting some mecha robot somewhere and fighting crime. Call me.”

  “So you do watch anime!” Muse calls out as Michael slips through our hotel room door and closes it behind him. “I knew it,” he mumbles, taking over my empty chair. “That lying ass.”

  “Do you think he'll ever forgive me?” Tim asks after a moment, still walking through the house, one of his fingers partially obscuring the screen again. I decide not to say anything about it.

  “I know he will,” I reply, thinking of that conversation between Pax and Michael on the beach, when Paxton was encouraging him to block Tim's number. He's the only living family member I have left; I'm not blocking him. “Wait until you see him in person,” I suggest, watching as he climbs the steps to a loft with slanted ceilings. The current owners of the house have it staged as an additional bedroom with a mattress artfully situated on the floor over a patterned rug. The way they've got it set up, it looks artsy and purposeful, taking advantage of the low ceilings to make a cozy retreat.

  I imagine sleeping up there with all my boys.

  Mmm.

  “I'd totally smash my head into that ceiling,” Ransom says, sucking on the end of a piece of licorice. You'd think he said something like I want you to suck my cock, baby for how my body reacts to the sound of his voice. My thighs clench together and I feel a slick warm heat building. I school my face so Tim won't notice. “But it's cute.”

  “It is cute, isn't it?” I say as Michael's brother dutifully continues the tour, heading outside and through a small garden, sunshine streaming over rows of flowers and green-green grass. It's the same color as my eyes. That makes me smile.

  What makes me grin however is inside the tiny studio at the back of the lot.

  A pair of glass fronted French doors opens into a big, wide room with windows on three of the four walls. There's nothing in there currently, just shiny wood floors, recessed lighting, and one big empty wall that'd be perfect to cover in canvases.

  My breath catches and I notice Muse's mouth curling into a smile against the rim of his tea cup. His glasses fog with the steam for a moment before he lowers the drink.

  “This is the one, isn't it?” he asks in a quiet voice.

  “Is that too impetuous of me?” I respond, glancing his way.

  “Sure. But isn't this entire relationship based on impetuous decisions? Seems to be working okay so far. Besides, how long has this place been on the market? Two weeks?”

  “I think so,” I say as Tim hears our question and checks with the realtor.

  “Two weeks,” he confirms and Muse's dark brows go up.

  “A week longer than most places in Seattle proper right now,” Ransom says, voice low and silky. “Are they taking multiple offers?”

  “They are,” Tim says without having to ask.

  “Then let's add one to the pile,” Muse says firmly, setting his cup aside.

  I try and fail to hold back a surge of excited energy, standing up and throwing my arms around Muse first and then Ransom. I end up sitting in Ran's lap while Muse takes over the main seat, having a quick conversation with the realtor and then coming up with an offer.

  “No contingencies,” he says, “cash payment. That should seal the deal.”

  I try not to get too excited about it; I know how crazy purchasing a house can get. The
re's a good chance our offer won't be accepted, that we won't even receive a counter offer, especially in a market as hot as this.

  But Muse … he's got practicality down to a science.

  By the time we get back to Seattle, I'll have a place of my own.

  I'll have a home.

  Tokyo is fucking weird.

  I think that's one of the reasons I like it so much.

  My mouth curves up at one corner as I stand at the edge of the stage, one boot perched on a speaker, the microphone brushing against my lips. Below me, the crowd is thick and sweaty, drenched in glow stick necklaces and bracelets, waving them like neon colored swords in the air. I'm sure a good portion of these people have no fucking clue what the bloody hell it is that I'm saying, but who cares? Good music doesn't require translation, and Beauty in Lies … we make damn good music.

  “I've got another song for you,” I say, and the audience goes batshit nuts. They don't understand me and they're excited anyway. Heh. I've heard that Japanese concertgoers can be a little reserved. Whoever said that obviously never met any of these people. “It's called Lickspittle,” I tell 'em with a pair of raised brows.

  I climb up the rest of the way on the speaker and rest one of my palms against the low ceiling. Technically, we're in a club right now in Shibuya, in this area known as Love Hotel Hill. As in, hotels with strange ass décor and weird names specifically made for the purpose of fucking. Yep. Welcome to Tokyo, my friends.

  “This song's about my mum,” I say and then pause. “My kaasan.”

  Hope I'm saying that right.

  I turn and look at my boys, hopping down from the speaker and waving my left hand to start the music, like some sort of conductor in an orchestra. Only … this is so much fucking better.

  The boys start this one out hard, rocking the stage, smashing their feet against the ground, rocking their heads with the angry growls tearing from their instruments.

  I spin back around as they suddenly stop, the only sound following the gentle boom-clap from Cope's drums.

  “You're a … fucked-up, twisted little soul,” I sing, my voice gentle and low, easy to listen to. “You might think you're not at fault. But you're imposs-ible.” I make sure to break that last word up into two easy, bite-size little pieces. “Your faults are unforgivable.”