THEN
“God, that was amazing,”Tyler says, packing up his guitar.
“Right? I love this bar. The sound travels so well that it was like everyone was on stage with us.”
I can still hear the crowd cheering us, the beat of the drums strumming under my skin, making me shiver, Tyler’s smokey voice belting out the lyrics we wrote together.
“Did you see those guys up front? They couldn’t have looked more out of place if they tried,” he says.
“Do you think those were the A&R Scouts we were told about?” I ask.
Tyler shrugs. “Who knows. They seemed to smile and nod a lot when Rock Plasticity was playing. What kind of fucking name is that?”
I laugh. “The name of a band who’s never going to make it.”
He closes the guitar case and stands, pulling me to him. When our lips meet, the rest of the room ceases to exist. I don’t care about scouts, other bands, or the crowd of people walking around us backstage.
“Do you think we’re ever going to make it?” Tyler asks into my lips, his kisses tamer but no less intense.
“Yes.” I don’t know if he’s talking about us as a couple or as a band, but the answer will always be yes. “Hey, do you want to come for a sleepover in the pool house with me?” I wiggle my brows.
He pauses. “Um…I do, but…”
“You want to go home to your dad.” I cradle his handsome face, running my thumb over his cheek. “You don’t need to be afraid to tell me what you want, Tyler.”
“It’s not fair on you. I want to be with you. More than I can ever express in words, but my dad’s treatment…fuck, I’m so scared, Mik. He’s not been well.”
If I could take his pain away, I would in a heartbeat. In the four years since his dad’s liver disease diagnosis, Tyler’s been on a permanent edge. It’s like he’s afraid his dad will die if he’s away for too long. God forbid he has any fun.
I see the guilt in his eyes every time he allows himself to act like the twenty-year-old he is.
“Come on. Let me take you home,” I say, but not before I kiss him again.
We walk out of the bar into the warm late-summer night. Outside, the sky is surprisingly starry, considering the light pollution of the city. My car is a couple of blocks away, so I take Tyler’s hand in mine as we make our way in silence.
He doesn’t say much on the drive to his place. As usual, I walk him inside because we only have the weekends, and any time I can steal with him helps me through the week when I’m at college, pretending to be interested in the business degree my dad made me pick.
At least he accepted the compromise to go to UCLA instead of Harvard. I couldn’t have coped with being on the other side of the country after Tyler decided to skip college and take a job in Port Haven to stay with his dad.
His dad is already in his room with the light off. I can see Tyler fighting the urge to open the door to check if his dad is okay.
I grab his guitar and take it upstairs to his room while he checks on his dad. He’s been sleeping in the guest room downstairs so he doesn't put additional strain on his body by using the stairs all the time.
Tyler’s room is much smaller than mine, but it’s familiar and cozy. The walls are filled with photos of him and his dad, us playing together, and posters of Queen in various concerts around the world. When he turned fifteen, I gave him a giant poster of the best music venues in America. It’s filled with sticky notes, ranked according to where we dream of playing one day.
“Hey,” he whispers before closing the door and taking his boots off.
I sit on the edge of his bed and wait for him to sit next to me. When he does, I push him down on his comforter and hold him.
His arms go around me, and he holds me tight.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m a hundred years old,” he says.
“Sometimes you behave like it too,” I tease, which earns me a smack on my ass.
I press into him, and our lips meet like there’s a gravitational pull making it impossible for us to be so close and not be joined.
“I should go. You’re working tomorrow. You need to sleep.” I state the facts out loud because if I don’t, I’ll be tempted to ask him if I can stay and then distract him until we’re both cum-stained and sated.
