“Wow, really?” A tiny bit of jealousy prickled over his skin. “It shows.”
“Thanks.” That cute shyness stole over Dominic again. “You were pretty amazing yourself. I don’t do a lot of improv performance, especially with guys I don’t know.”
“So get to know me.” Trey silently prayed he was reading the guy right.
“Yeah?” Dominic’s dark eyes roamed up and down, taking stock, and yes, Trey had read him right. “You don’t have any place to be?”
“Only place I have to be is wherever you’re going.”
That sharp, feral grin from onstage returned. “I need to take my instruments back to the hotel first.”
“Hotel room?”
Dominic laughed, a deep, velvet sound that rippled over Trey. “Don’t get any ideas. I’m sharing it with three other guys who may or may not be there.”
“Bummer. I’d invite you to my place, but I live with, like, eight other people. Technically my apartment is with two, but the whole rental is like a frat house, and there’s no real privacy.”
Something flickered in Dominic’s eyes. “Then let’s drop off my stuff, and we’ll go from there. It’s not like the city’s shutting down anytime soon. I’m sure we can get into some kind of trouble.”
“Count on it.”
As they made their way through the club, Trey made a mental note to thank Danielle for insisting he go out. He had a good feeling that this impromptu visit to Off Beat was going to have a very, very happy ending.
TWO
Dom silently cursedtwo things on the short walk to Lincoln’s car. First, that one or all of his three bandmates could be back at the hotel room and give him a hard time about picking up a guy at an open mike. Second, that tonight was his last night on the shore. XYZ had played the three different gigs that had brought them to town, and they’d budgeted out one more night just to hang at the boardwalk before returning home to Philadelphia tomorrow morning.
He’d known Coop for all of thirty minutes, but he already liked the guy. He knew his way around a keyboard, and he had a beautiful voice. Like Bruno Mars and James Blunt got together and had a love child. That was Coop’s voice.
It also didn’t hurt that Coop looked like a younger, less goth version of Adam Lambert. Thick brown hair, big green eyes, gorgeously high cheekbones. His skin was so smooth he looked airbrushed, and he’d radiated with a boyish kind of joy while singing. Everything about him appealed to Dom, and he couldn’t wait to see that toned body naked.
Maybe his bandmates wouldn’t be at the hotel. It was still earlyish, and if they were boozing it up on the boardwalk, they probably wouldn’t tumble back into the room until late. Still,Dom was crazy private about his sex life, and even though all three of his bandmates were also gay, he didn’t want anyone stumbling over him and Coop getting it on.
Lincoln’s beat-up Dodge was parked in the far corner of the shadowy parking lot. Dom shoved the key into the trunk and snapped it open. “You can put the keyboard in there,” he said.
Coop obliged without a remark about the piece of shit Dom had borrowed. His hotel was only ten blocks up, and while the Yamaha wasn’t super heavy, he’d called dibs on the car because the ocean air was bad for his violin. The other guys got to use Shore Transit. Snagging the car while avoiding telling them why exactly he needed it had been a fun song and dance.
Not.
Dom tucked his violin case onto the rear driver’s-side floor. Lincoln always gave him a hard time about how much he babied that thing, but it was over a hundred years old and cost more than they’d made since founding XYZ nearly four years ago. Dom’s parents would kill him dead if it got broken or damaged.
“So which hotel are you at?” Coop asked.
“Sand Dune, seaside.” Dom unlocked the passenger door with the key, passing close enough to Coop to smell his cologne. Spicy and warm.
“I know it.”
“I figured.” He circled the front of the car to his side. “Beatrice pulled you out of the crowd, so I take it you’re a local.”
“Moved here a few years ago. Before that we spent a lot of family vacations down here.”
They both got into the car. Dom winced at the way the bucket seat squealed. At least the engine roared smoothly to life.
“Your car?” Coop asked.
“My best friend’s car. He’s all super proud of it because he fished it out of a dump and restored it.”
Coop made a show of inspecting the cracked interior seating. “This is restored?”
