Reflex

by Madelynne Ellis

  “Also, don’t get yourself too comfortable, Mr Starfish. We’re sharing, remember. That means you don’t get to hog it all.”

  Spook conceded a few inches of mattress by wriggling a little closer to the right-hand edge, where Xane helpfully relieved him of his high-tops and socks, then set to work on his belt buckle.

  “You’re way too good at that.”

  “Must be all the practice I have.”

  “Yeah. Well, don’t you get any ideas.”

  Xane’s eyes glinted in the lamplight, and a smile stretched his lips. “About what? Having my wicked way with you?” He hitched his pierced brow. “Aren’t you the guy who once offered to pay me to go down on you?”

  “Fuck, you’re not supposed to remember that.”

  A dry laugh tickled Xane’s vocal chords. “Oh, I remember it.” He tapped a finger to the flat of Spook’s stomach just below his navel, then drew the finger down his happy trail. Spook automatically tensed, but Xane just laughed and relieved him of his belt.

  “You think teasing is funny right now? After the night I’ve had.”

  “Teasing you is always fun. Besides, I’m here and horny, and because of you I’m not getting any.” His dark hair surrounded them like drapes.

  “I didn’t make you come.”

  “You haven’t made me come,” Xane corrected him. “That’s exactly the point. If you’d like to rectify that?”

  “Get off me.” He batted at Xane’s forearm.

  “Sure?”

  “Xane, I don’t—”

  “Want me?” That earned him another chuckle. “Yeah, you do. A not insignificant part of you would like to ram your cock down my throat until I gag and plead for mercy. Pretty much the only reason we’re not doing that is because you’re too drunk to stand upright long enough.”

  “It’s not the only reason,” he said. Their gazes locked, and Xane bowed down so that their brows pressed to one another.

  “Alcohol isn’t the answer, Spook.”

  “Shagging me isn’t the answer, Xane.”

  “It’d be fun though.”

  “The aftermath wouldn’t be.”

  “No,” his friend sighed. “You’re right on that one.” He lifted his head, and gently stroked his fingertips over the cuts and bruises on Spook’s face.

  “You love them, Xane. Just because this place is full of shadows…” Spook raised his hand and placed his palm flat against the centre of his friend’s bare chest. “I’m sorry.”

  “About what?”

  “Being a burden.”

  Xane flashed him a disingenuous smile. “You’re not. You never have been.”

  “I am, and you have enough of your own demons to wrangle without having to cattle prod mine. Do you think because I’ve had a few I can’t see how tetchy you are? I know you well enough to realise when you’re only half joking about shagging me.”

  Xane’s next breath was sucked through his teeth. He curled his hand over the top of Spook’s and pried Spook’s fingers away from his body. “You’re wasted. You need to sleep.” He stood. “Do I need to strategically position the waste bin?”

  “Think I’m all puked out.”

  “Good. Okay, lift your arse.”

  Spook performed a perfectly presented half bridge.

  “Show off.” Xane peeled his jeans from him, and tossed them on the floor. He leaned over from the side of the bed to work on opening Spook’s shirt buttons. Well, they were really Xane’s buttons, but as he’d offered the shirt…

  Spook watched his long nimble fingers work on peeling the edges of the fabric apart. His little finger traced the black halo inked above Spook’s left nipple before sliding the sleeves down Spook’s arms. He seemed right on the verge of saying something else.

  “Xane?”

  “You need to sleep.” He held Spook’s gaze a moment, then turned away.

  Spook pulled the duvet up to his chin.

  “If you want to tell me how much you’d rather shag me than Allegra, then you can do so in the morning.”

  Xane didn’t immediately leave, but remained a silhouette against the window.

  “I almost did after the award’s ceremony last year.”

  “You almost told me?”

  “I almost fucked her. I definitely did things, and let her do things, and said, and made promises about things that I shouldn’t have.”

  “You didn’t fuck her that night?” Xane turned back to him. “You’re a fucking nightmare. Christ, what am I supposed to do with you? The whole idea was that you nailed her.”

  “Your idea, and hers, maybe. Not mine. I can’t. I can’t ever.”

  “I’m going to fuck you just so you get over yourself.”

  “In your dreams.”

  “Hmm.” Xane’s gaze drifted across the bed, as if he was envisaging action that wasn’t taking place. He didn’t move for several moments.

  “Aren’t you coming to bed?” Spook asked.

  Xane’s gaze remained focussed on a patch of the pillow to the left of Spook’s head.

  “I’ll let you snuggle.”

  That got him the chuckle he was seeking. The shadows fled Xane’s face. He bent and gently brushed his soft lips to Spook’s clammy brow. “In a bit. I’m going to text Dani. Right now, I’m too wired to sleep.”

  -9-

  Xane lingered in the doorway, the light of the lounge behind him, Spook a pale blur amid an ocean of white. How was it they were so easily able to call one another on their bullshit? The truth was, he was tetchy as hell, and all Spook’s cravings that he bottled up so damn tight came crawling out when he was wasted. Touch—fleeting, more lingering, so complicatedly nuanced, the man was clearly starved of sensation. Sensations every inch of Xane’s psyche ached to provide. Not because there was some deep connection between them, but because at his core he was a selfish git with a host of anxieties about not being wanted.

  He hadn’t been wanted. He was the inkblot on his parents’ perfect lives. The constant reminder that no matter how effectively they sold the mirage of wealth, beauty, and power, the foundations of their Photoshopped marriage consisted of yard wide cracks and termite infested timbers. He hadn’t thought about them in a long while. It was this place. Their mark remained even years after their passing.

  Walk away, Xane. Walk away.

  Xane finally trundled back into the lounge as the wall clock chimed 4a.m., a time when everyone with half a brain was fast asleep. Eschewing the sofa, he turned off all the lights bar one and poured a drink, but left it untouched upon the table, while he paced a triangle between the sofa, window, and the point on the floor where he’d dropped his jacket. Grit scratched at the surface of his eyes. Rubbing them only made the sensation worse, but he knew he wouldn’t sleep, so what sense was there in trying? Too many thoughts were tumbling around like rocks inside his head battering the grey matter, and conjuring a seemingly never-ending cavalcade of events and images: Spook falling into his arms, the tear in his perfect lips; Steve on the green below, his hand clasped over his nose and blood running through his fingers; Dani desperately pulling at the hem of her dress so that he wouldn’t see the scars of her abusive childhood. On and on, one memory running into another.

  He wrapped his arms tight around himself, but that only seemed to serve to make the memories more invasive.

  Air. Maybe the whisper of the sea breeze would help blow away the shadowy threads entwining him.

  Out on the balcony, the pre-dawn air rolling in off the coast still held a breath of midnight. Within moments his teeth were chattering. Still, Xane lingered. His hands wrapped tight around the icy railings as he willed the iron to ground him via some tenuous connection to the earth.

  Nothing.

  Down on the street, a car crawled by with the headlights dipped. Xane turned his back to the view over the marina, and gazed at his inky reflection in the full length glass doors. A frown creased his features. Here he was allowing himself to be swallowed up by events he couldn’t change, w
hen all that truly mattered was that he’d managed to provide Spook with the shoulder he so desperately needed to lean on.

  A shadowy figured padded towards him from across the room. For a moment, he thought it was Spook woken and come to find him, but as the shadow got nearer it resolved into Steve’s image.

  Steve as he’d been the last time they’d both stood in this room. Steve as he’d never see him again, flesh and whole, alive and vital.

  Xane blinked and the spectre dissipated.

  Back inside the suite, Xane returned to the drink he’d poured. It went down in two swallows, and hit his stomach like a stick of dynamite. The obvious solution was therefore to down another slug, this one straight from the crystal-topped decanter. Suitably fuelled, he returned to the bedroom, where he stripped down to his briefs and climbed into bed.

  Spook mumbled something but otherwise didn’t stir.

  Xane held out his phone and snapped a selfie of them both, which he forwarded to Dani.

  Xane: Arrived safely. One of us is sleeping like a baby.

  He didn’t expect a reply, at least not for another couple of hours, but miraculously his phone beeped within seconds.

  Dani: I remember that bed. Why does he look like he just got laid?

  Xane: Please. Even I have the decency not to jump a drunken mate.

  Leastways, these days he did. He couldn’t swear to that always having been the case.

  Xane: We’ve only been apart a few hours, do you really still doubt my commitment to you to that extent?

  Dani: I’m teasing you. Why aren’t you in dreamland along with him?

  “Because I miss you,” he mouthed at the device. “I feel like I’m adrift.”

  Xane: Why aren’t you? Did I wake you?

  Dani: Not exactly.

  Presumably that meant she was in bed but hadn’t managed to drop off yet either.

  Xane: What were you doing?

  Luthor: Shagging. I was delivering raptures until you interrupted. Seriously, Xane. Talk about coitus interruptus.

  Fingers of heat, lust, and jealousy raked across his chest, and then fisted around his cock, rendering him immediately hard. Of course. He was fool to imagine they wouldn’t be utilizing the chance to enjoy some together time as a couple. Sometimes it was easy to forget that his lovers enjoyed a relationship that existed independently of him, just as he shared intimacies with each of them independently of what they all had together.

  It still left his nose twitching. He tapped the top of his phone against it trying to chase away the prickles, but all he succeeded in doing was leaving a lip print behind on the screen.

  Xane: I’ll call. Put me on speaker phone so I can join in.

  Luthor: No fucking chance. She’s all mine tonight. Do you know how rare it is I get Dani to myself? This is my chance to show her I’m every bit as good a shag as the arrogant dick head rock god she’s besotted with. Man, I’m going to do dirty, twisted things to her, that even you and your magic dick won’t be able to scrub from her mind.

  When had their relationship become a competition? “Head butting memo not received,” he almost typed.

  Xane: You don’t need to prove anything to her. She knows you’re a gift from God, and so do I.

  Luthor: :D

  Xane: You’d better at least tell me about this later.

  Luthor: Ha, ha, ha… No way! We’ll be silent about it until the end of time.

  That clinched it. The pair of them were probably doing nothing more exciting than snuggling together in one of the tour bus bunks, surrounded by inebriated roadies and assorted hangers on.

  Dani: Xane, he’s threatening me with gaffer tape if I even think about telling you.

  Xane: Luthor, don’t be a prick. You should never use gaffer tape. It’s liable to take off a few layers of skin. If you must use coercion to ensure her silence, then at least do so mindfully.

  Luthor: ???!

  Xane: There’s a roll of bondage tape in the cubbyhole to the right of my pillow.

  Xane: And other stuff. Don’t judge.

  Luthor: BONDAGE TAPE!!! WTELF

  Xane: Play safely. Luvs yas <3

  Dani: Sweet dreams. We’ll be with you soon.

  Luthor: Um, WE can play with this tape stuff after the gig tomorrow night, right?

  Luthor: Toss ya for who gets to top.

  Xane chuckled, then tossed the phone aside. Yeah, that wouldn’t be necessary. By tomorrow night, he’d need restraining. Not that he replied saying so. Two could tease. Of course, that didn’t mean his overtired mind didn’t instantly conjure six different scenarios in which Luthor trussed him up and fucked him senseless. He snuggled down and closed his eyes, smiling to himself. He could sustain himself on fantasies.

  -10-

  DEATHSCYTHE STUDIOS, ENGLAND.

  “You’ve worked with Black Halo, haven’t you?” Ronnie Bush muttered around a mouthful of bacon butty.

  Allegra, still bleary-eyed from a night of broken sleep, squinted at him as she finished pulling her bright red hair back into a messy knot. Ronnie, as he so often did, sat draped, lounge lizard like, sideways across one of the two swivel chairs in the sound suite, his legs crooked over the arm, with his phone in one hand and the remains of his breakfast in the other. The cloying scent of bacon grease wafted up from the scrunched paper wrapper he’d left on top of the main control board. Ronnie was sweet, but he was also an animal with zero respect for property, his environment, or personal space. Luckily for him, none of those things mattered much in his chosen career, or at least they were massively outweighed by his bubbleicious butt, a not bad singing voice, and the sort of smile that knocked women of every generation for six.

  “Yes, I’ve worked with Black Halo,” she responded. Also, was in fact engaged in a semi-almost-not-quite-really relationship with one of the band, but she kept that titbit to herself. Relationships were personal, had no bearing on her work, and what she had going on with Spook Mortensen wasn’t enough of a something to weather commentary. There would be commentary. Ronnie liked nothing better than to talk at length about celebrities.

  Alle’s guts knotted again, as they’d been doing all night, but she resisted the urge to check her phone just in case she’d missed a call or a message from Spook. The device was set to full volume and vibrate. She’d have known if he’d reached out.

  Oblivious to her predicament, Ronnie skated his chair towards her. “Good. Then you’ll want to know all the latest.” He flashed her that ridiculously wide and effusive grin of his that normally would have had her grinning back. Today, she only managed a tired smile.

  Ronnie liked to start the day with a rundown of all the salacious celebrity gossip. He particularly liked to focus on bands… rock bands, metal bands, the occasional boy band member let off the leash. Keeping an eye on the competition, he called it. Being a nosey busybody was what she called it, but she couldn’t deny it made for a relatively gentle start to the day. Leastways, normally it did. After the night she’d had, not so much. She didn’t want to discuss the ins and outs of people’s lives. She was only interested in one life – Spook’s. When they took a coffee break, maybe she’d ignore Xane’s warning and call Spook rather than waiting for him to make the next move. “I’m guessing you haven’t seen what went down last night?” Ronnie was squinting at her like he was trying to figure something out, but his expression relaxed the moment her head came up, and her gaze met his.

  “What happened? Did someone get hurt?” She tried to make it sound like she had zero inside knowledge. Really, she didn’t. Xane hadn’t stayed on the line long when she’d told him Spook was in trouble, and his later text had been frighteningly abrupt. He’d promised everything was all right, but hell, she wasn’t so sure she believed him.

  She and Spook touched base every evening, and frequently during the day too, if he was stuck on a tour bus—like he was set to be today –and she wasn’t working her socks off in the sound booth – he knew she was, so perhaps that’s why he was silent.


  “You all right?” Ronnie asked. “You seem a bit rumpled today. I got you a croissant if you’re hungry.”

  Ronnie shoved the paper bag from off the soundboard into her face. “Eat it. You look like you could do with the sugar rush. You can have some of my slushie too, if you like.”

  “Uh, no.” She pushed both offerings away, her stomach threatening to revolt at the idea of food.

  Ronnie sniffed, and popped the straw of his icy drink into his mouth. His cheeks hollowed out as he sucked, revealing twin dimples. “Something’s up with you today.”

  “If you mention PMS I’m going to make you sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks or the Smurfs. Either, both, maybe a combination of the two. I’m fine, I just didn’t get enough kip last night.”

  Bless him, Ronnie’s eyes just twinkled. He nodded his acceptance of her explanation, and waited for her to find a perch on the second of the swivel chairs. “So, Black Halo,” he began. “They were playing somewhere in Italy last night—”

  “Genoa.”

  “Genoa. Okay, right. Anyway, it sounds like it got well mental.” His hands started moving. They always did when he got wrapped up in a tale, lending emphasis to his stories. “A guy got beaten to a near pulp at the arena, and rumour is it was one of the band who started it. And then, get this, one of them attacked a reporter at the after party.”

  “Attacked!” Her heart dropped into her boots.

  “Attacked,” he echoed.

  “Jesus. Who? Why?” She didn’t know them all personally. She knew all the stuff about them out there in internet land, but her interactions with them had been restricted to Spook, Xane and Ash. Honestly, she couldn’t imagine any of them decking a reporter. “I’m not sure I believe it.”

  Ronnie pivoted round. “Jeez, missus. I didn’t realise you were a super fan. Did I dare to disparage your favourite band?”