'Nother Sip of Gin

by Rhys Ford

  “He hates losing people. It digs down into him.” Kane chewed on a corner of the bread, watching the streets outside beginning to wake. Traffic was picking up, mostly delivery trucks working through Galway’s roads as carefully as possible after a cold night’s rain. “Maybe we’ll be lucky and they’ll find a couple of people for the twins to hook up with. That way, the whole band’s in tight with the family.”

  “What? Not Con and Q?” Sionn snorted. “Okay, maybe not Quinn, ’cause he’s never aware when someone likes him, but Con? He deserves to be loved.”

  “By a musician?” Kane scoffed, shaking his head. “Don’t think so. Con needs someone stable and ready to fight for the home front. He’s married to his star, to the job.”

  “You don’t think Con can find love like D and I have?” He glanced at his cousin, amused to find a surprised look on Kane’s face. “What? This thing with him and me? It’s not going to shake loose. One thing’s for sure, boyo, you and I are going to be dealing with the two of them for the rest of our lives. Damien Mitchell’s hooked into me deep, and I’m not fighting it any. I love the daft asshole, and pretty sure he feels the same way about me. So you might as well get comfortable sharing a table with me from now on, because those two? They’re going to be taking us on some wild rides.”

  Taking a Tequila Shot

  SINJUN WAS quiet.

  Not unusual for Miki, but he was oddly quiet when Damie came downstairs, freshly fucked, newly showered, and ready for coffee. There was thinking going on behind his friend’s wary hazel eyes, obvious to anyone who knew him well enough to see the slightly spacey film in his gaze. Mixing coffee, cream, and sugar into two mugs, Damie padded into the living room and sat sideways and cross-legged on the sectional, mimicking Miki’s habitual perch against the padded couch arm.

  Miki still didn’t look up. He continued to scribble down notes over sheet music, humming out pieces as he worked. Waiting Miki out was going to take too long, so Damien shoved a cup of coffee under his nose, jerking Miki’s attention up.

  “Put that down for a bit, Sinjun.” Damien tugged at the notebook, wresting it free so he could replace it with the mug.

  “Doing something here,” Miki protested, but it was a half-assed murmur and he looked glad for the coffee. Taking a delicate sip, he leaned back and sighed when he swallowed. Peering over the cup’s rim, Miki stared at Damien. “What?”

  “What did you think about the drummer from Red Runners? She’s good.” He didn’t really want to talk about drummers, but it seemed like a good place to start. “Want to see if we can steal her?”

  “Kind of angry,” Miki muttered under his breath. “Like, really angry.”

  “Only room for one angry person in the band?” Damien nudged Miki’s knee and got the scornful glare he’d been expecting.

  “I’m not angry.”

  “Right, because you’re a ray of sunshine and rainbows.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Proves my point right there, Sinjun.” Dude joined them on the couch, and Damien scratched at the terrier’s belly.

  Since Miki’d agreed to look at musicians, they’d done rounds in clubs and bars, listening to sets and judging what they found. Some were decent. A couple were good. Most were slogging through cover tunes and eyeing pieces of ass to tumble once the set was done.

  “You’re right. She was pissed off. Might have been an off night,” Damie pointed out.

  “She spent five minutes telling me that Kane and I weren’t really a relationship because guys can’t love right without a chick in the equation,” he growled back. “A ménage, sure. But just two guys? No. What kind of fucked-up shit is that?”

  “Yeah, I thought you were going to punch her.” He did. There’d been a split second when Damie’d thought they’d both end up in jail. Miki loved sparsely and fiercely. He knew that from experience. “And she didn’t like dogs. Pity the bassist was shit. He was cute. Stupid but cute. Like a golden retriever puppy.”

  “Sionn’s going to stretch your neck if he catches you looking.” The warning was hot, a slide of anger under Miki’s whiskey-gold rasp. “Just sayin’.”

  “Not for me, jerk. For the crowd. Cute’s nice to have on stage. Main reason I dragged you up there.” Damien slapped Miki’s thigh, and the sound resonated through the living room. Dude perked up his ear and lifted a lip, giving off a warning snarl. “Hey, I was here first, dog. I get to smack him.”

  “So we’re back to square one on our drummer.” Miki scratched at Dude’s ears.

  “Yeah,” Damien agreed. Now was the time to bring up the favor Sionn’s aunt asked of him. “Since we’re back at square one, there’s someone Brigid wants us to meet.”

  A Touch of Irish

  Fire and hurt brought you to me

  Had nothing in me but pain

  You wiped my tears, Held on to my heart

  And showed me how to live all over again.

  —Love and Life

  FOREST’D GROWN up inside of The Sound. It cradled him in a way; drywall boxes were his pubescent cribs, while sound boards rocked his sleep with often discordant lullabies as musicians struggled to find their own place in a universal orchestra. He’d replaced every water-stained tile in the ceilings, side-eyed the wiring kraken in room three an electrician swore was legal, and sweated at least seven gallons a year behind aging drum kits for a few dollars when a band needed a percussionist.

  And never once in the years he’d bled, sweated, and cried in the brick building he’d grown up in, did Forest think he’d be playing in the nucleus of a not-yet-famous rock band.

  His foster father, Frank, always told him bands rose and fell quicker than a runner’s breathing. It was rare to be at the start of the next big thing. Even rarer to have a hand in its creation. But standing in The Sound’s Room One, Forest knew in his marrow his life was going to spin out completely away from the path he’d found himself on the day Frank’d pulled him out of the dumpster and put him behind a set of drums.

  And all because of the two men breaking down their equipment a few feet away.

  Damie was talking to Miki, but then Damie was always talking. He moved constantly, his mind a flick of thoughts skimming through life, discarding ideas only to circle around back to them. When Forest first met the charismatic, talented guitarist, he’d wondered how Damien’d ever gotten Sinner’s Gin to the heights they’d reached. Forest soon learned that behind the constant chatter, tasting, and testing was an intense focus and drive, willing to push or cajole the world into doing what Damien Mitchell wanted.

  He’d been swept up into Damien’s river, carried along on its current while he’d fought to find some kind of balance in the rapids. Forest found his way soon enough, afforded a respect he wasn’t quite sure he’d earned yet, but Damien was sure.

  Damien was always sure.

  Sinjun—Miki St. John—was another matter entirely. Feral and antisocial, Miki was Damien’s cricket, the not-so-small voice of pragmatic, coarse reason who wove words into tapestries or sharpened them to a keen edge so tight most people didn’t realize they’d been cut until they were bled out. If Damien was the personality, Sinjun was the soul. A dark looming angel held aloof by his nature and gutter-hard when drawn in close. Forest hadn’t been sure if he’d like Miki. The singer held back, the antithesis of the sensual slither who crawled across the stage and coaxed people to scream or weep his name, but against the bright sharp of Damie’s willful nature, Miki was oddly a rock, pitted from abuse but standing firm and strong.

  He also seemed to be the only one in Creation able to put a leash on Damie’s wilder notions.

  There was an ache in Forest’s shoulders, as familiar to him as his own skin, but it resonated deeper than it had before. Muscles cramping from hours of laying down beats, countless repetitions and changes until a song went right in someone’s head, he’d always left the studio rather happy the ordeal was over and he could soak in a tub of hot water.

  This time—these past few we
eks—he’d regretfully run his hand over the hot skins and wished they could go on.

  Playing with Damie and Miki was like bathing in fire and earning phoenix wings in return. Forest never wanted it to stop. Even as blisters rose up on his fingers and his calluses bled along his palms, he fell into the music, drinking it in and filling himself all the way to the dark recesses of his soul where he thought the light would never touch.

  Now the band—his band—touched him there.

  Just like his lover, Connor.

  Connor Morgan.

  If the band was mind-blowing, being with Con was… impossible to believe.

  But here he was, sitting in The Sound while Damien Mitchell argued about how to coil up cables, and Forest was looking at a three-month anniversary with a man he loved with all his heart.

  “You guys have been together for a while.” Forest slowly twisted the chair he was sitting in, moving it back and forth. “I mean with your… boyfriends.”

  “Sinjun’s past a year, I think.” Damie straightened, popping his head up over a console. “Shit, I don’t know exactly how long Sionn and I’ve been together, but we did a six-month thing. How come?”

  “Con reminded me we’ve been together for three months today. I’m kind of thinking I need to do something, but I’ve got no fucking clue.” He shrugged. “I’ve never even really dated someone before, and now… this.”

  “Yeah, the this part’s the hardest.” Damien nodded. “That family’s big on anniversaries and stuff. Sionn made a big deal about hitting half a year. Went down to Napa Valley and just lazed about. Sin, what’d you and Kane do… shit, have you guys been together a year? More?”

  “More.” Turning around an old dining table chair Frank’d dragged in years ago, Miki straddled its seat, resting his arms on its low back.

  “What did you guys do?” The chair squeaked again when Forest turned toward Miki. “I need some help with this. Seriously.”

  Miki’s shrug was an elegant display of casual apathy. “We kicked everyone out, stayed home, and pretty much spent the weekend eating what we wanted and fucking.”

  “You scare me with your lack of romance,” Damien drawled.

  “It’s what we wanted to do. Steak and sex.” Miki’s mouth quirked into a grin. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “’Cause Forest and Con are kind of the minivan and two-point-five kids kind of guys.” Damie must have caught the look of terror forming on Forest’s face because he patted him on the shoulder. “Nothing to be ashamed about. Let’s face it, you’re pretty much straight-up married. Probably have been since the first time he saw you. It’s kind of puke-inducing, but we all live with it.”

  “You make us sound like some kind of romance novel.” His protest was weak, but Forest gave it his best go. “We fight. Sometimes.”

  “When was the last time you guys screamed at one another?” the guitarist prodded. “And not in the please-fuck-me-harder kind of way?”

  Miki snorted and Forest dug into his memory, looking for discord. Puffing out his cheeks, he said, “I didn’t like the color he painted the back room. I was pissed off about the contractors dragging their feet at The Sound and kind of took it out on Con.”

  “Yeah, how’d that work out?” Miki cocked his head, his deep hazel eyes glittering under the studio’s bright lights. “Ended up fucking, right?”

  Since his memory vividly tossed the ache in his back after the hours-long session he and Connor had on the kitchen floor, Forest kept his mouth shut.

  “Look, there’s nothing wrong with the two of you,” Damien declared. “Hell, you’re the most stable one of us. Be happy about that. We all work on different levels. Yours is just more—”

  “Normal,” Miki cut in. “Really fucking normal.”

  “Nothing wrong with normal.” With a nudge of his elbow, Damien nearly unseated his brother. “Be nice.”

  “I am nice. I’m telling him to go have a good dinner and fuck Con’s brains out.” Miki kicked at Damien’s shin, missing when the tall guitarist mockingly danced out of the way.

  “I’m not saying dinner and a fuck isn’t the way to go,” Damien told Forest. “I’m just saying dress it up a bit. Candles. Tablecloth. Good silver. Go the whole nine yards. Shit, go for—”

  “Don’t do that, Forest,” Miki disagreed.

  Damie crooked one black eyebrow. “You got a better idea, Sin?”

  “Yeah, keep it simple, dude. Don’t get crazy.” The singer shook his head at Damien’s snort. “You and Sionn like the whole cruising down the coast and doing stupid weekend shit. Forest and Con, they stay home and wallpaper the living room.

  “Look, Forest, you and me, we’re trash. Sure someone picked you up, brushed you off, and gave you a life, and well, I got Damie, so you kind of win there.”

  “Nice bus you tossed me under there, asshole,” Damien grunted.

  “Yeah whatever, D. Thing is, Forest, we’re still kind of feeling our way through shit. Now we’ve got this crazy-ass family and a couple guys who want us. So we feel kind of pressured to fit in to that nuthouse.” Miki bit at his upper lip and looked up at Forest through his lashes. “See, we don’t have to fit in, I mean. Con and Kane love us for who we are. Do what you guys like to do. Just fucking ride with that. Trust me. I learned that from Donal.”

  “HOW MANY goddamned fairy lights do you need here?” Kane grumbled from his perch on a picnic bench. The wood-slatted seat rattled as he stretched to hook a string of tiny white lights over a pergola beam. “This shit’s for setting the mood, not lighting up your backyard so the Space Shuttle can dock.”

  Connor studied his brother through the wisteria vines weaving through the patio’s pergola. His shoulders ached a bit from stringing what seemed like thousands of lights across the twelve-foot span. Not for the first time, he wondered what he was thinking when he built the damned thing. They only had a third of the span left to go, but the wisteria seemed determined to fight them.

  “It’s got to light up the whole thing or it’ll look stupid.” Connor worked yet another line through a gap in the thick vines, scraping his knuckles open. “I want it to look… romantic.”

  “And lights are going to make this jungle look good?” Kane squinted back at his brother. “You’d have been better off hiring a landscaper to come in and set it all on fire.”

  “We like it kind of wild out here.” Con caught his brother’s smirk. “Don’t be an asshole. I mean, the garden and the trees. A little bit overgrown is nice. And keep doing the lights. He’ll be home soon, and I’ve got to make sure the food’s ready.”

  “He’s with Damie and my Mick. You’ll be lucky if you see him by next weekend.” Kane got down from the bench, then grabbed another string of lights.

  “Nah, he knows today’s something special for us. Three months, man. Who’d have thought?”

  Con certainly hadn’t. Not this early in his life. And certainly not the blond he was waiting for to come home. If someone’d told him a year ago he’d be hooking up with the very-male drummer of a rock band, Connor would have told the guy to sit down and put his head between his legs until the blood rushed back into his head.

  Now, he was kind of the guy doing the sitting.

  There’d always been a pressure on him. Twisting his skin around him so tightly, Connor was never sure if he’d ever be able to breathe. Then came Forest. Quiet, easygoing and sweet-faced Forest, an enigmatic gilded gift dropped into his lap by Fate and pure dumb luck.

  The fact Forest was male made things… problematic. Mostly for Connor to wrap his head around Forest’s presence in his life, but once he had, Con knew in his gut, they were all in. No questions asked. Full steam ahead.

  There’d been some shit given to him in the locker room. His size didn’t matter to the cowardly fucking asshole who shoved panties through the slats of Con’s locker while he was on call, but other than that and a few mutters, him hooking up with Forest mostly rolled off Con’s back.

  It was in the quiet t
imes between them that Connor realized Forest was probably as overwhelmed as he was.

  He’d seen the date and thought of doing something nice. Something low-key enough so Forest didn’t think he was crazy, but Connor wondered if it were enough. His parents—God, his beloved-damned parents—did things big. From dinners to gestures to romance, his parents constructed celebrations lasting weekends and sometimes beyond even then.

  The Italian takeout Connor grabbed on the way home and shoved into the oven to keep warm was a long way from an evening gondola ride through Venice after a five-course meal.

  “God, this sucks.” Connor studied the patio, weaving a string through the final panel. “I should have gone… bigger. Done something bigger.”

  “Don’t look at me. Miki’s about as sentimental as a rock.” Kane dusted his hands off. “We should test these damned things. Did you plug them in before we started all of this?”

  “Yeah, who do you think I am? Brae? Of course I tested them.” Con frowned, trying to recall if he’d plugged the strands in before dragging them outside. “Or at least pretty sure.”

  “Well, let’s give it a whirl. ’Cause I think we’re done.” His younger brother maneuvered his way around the picnic table and grill.

  After grabbing one end of an extension cord and the main lead to the fairy lights, Kane plugged them in and waited. The pergola remained dark, long strands of purple wisteria drifting in the light breeze rolling through the Victorian’s backyard.

  “Well, shit,” Con spat.

  “Hold on, I see the problem.” Kane held up his hand. “Extension cord’s not in.”

  A snick of a plug going in and the patio lit up, a sea of tiny steady stars amid the dark leaves and pale purple blooms. The glow was soft, washing over the set-in tiles under Connor’s feet. The conifers edging the fence were enormous verdant sentinels, holding back the city from the long yard’s intimate space. With dusk falling, most of the flowers were closing, but the fragrance of roses and wisteria carried on the air.