“Hey, I grew up on that shit, rattling around the back of my mum’s tin can Fiat Panda while she lurched us home from school. Me and my sister called it the death song for fucking years after.”
I want to ask if his mom was wasted at the time, but it doesn’t matter. She’s dead and the past is the past. “That’s the first time your phone has rung since you got here. Did you change your service plan?”
“Yup. An hour before you showed up. That’s why I was annoyed with everything in the entire world, because I wanted to get it done and call you, but shit kept getting in my way.”
I start to smile, but his frown distracts me. “What’s wrong?”
He holds up the phone. “It was Molly. She wants me to watch her at open-mic night, and she goes on in ten minutes.”
Fuck. Open-mic night. I usually take a Xanax an hour before, so I’m still half stoned by the time it comes around, but I’ve been so obsessed with Joss that I forgot.
My gaze flits to the hallway and the cracked bathroom door.Take one now.
No. I can’t. For a big guy, I’m a serious lightweight. Can’t string a sentence together after a single dose of those motherfuckers. If I take one now, I’ll make an ass of myself.
Joss comes back to the couch. “Will she be upset if I don’t go?”
“No,” I tell him honestly. “But she’s the best in town.”
“No one ever told ya that’s you?” Joss tips me a wink and presses a knee to the couch again, casual this time, without his cock in my mouth, and it makes my heart thump so loud I fuckin’ flinch.
Joss sees. Grins a little, but it’s laced with concern. He cups my jaw in his scarred hand. “Tanner said Molly sings every week. I can catch the next one.”
He’s not wrong. But knowing he’s dodged something for my benefit sits awkward inside me. It’s bad enough that I live that life. I’m not putting that shit on him, even if us staying right here on this couch means I get to touch him again. “We should go. She likes when she can see her friends in the crowd.”
“Okay.”
Joss doesn’t move.
Neither do I.
The clock in the hallway ticktocks in time with my pulse.
Fuck it. I grab him and pull him down. Smash our mouths together and tangle my hands in his hair.
I kiss us breathless, and when I pull away, he’s as messy as I feel.
He’s laughing. “All right, mate. That your idea of calming me down?”
“Nah. Just wanted to go out with a bang.”
Something flickers in his face. There and gone so fast I can’t be sure I haven’t imagined it. Then his trademark humor is back. His dry gaze and wicked smile. “This isn’t over.”
I take a breath. I knew that already. How can it be, when my entire body still thrums so loud I can hear it every moment he’s not speaking? “Rain check?”
“A short one.”
“How short?”
Joss nips my bottom lip, then pulls back, taking his addicting body heat with him. “Short enough that I don’t throw you against that fucking bar and get us both arrested.”
15
JOSS
Every time I think I have a handle on how I feel around Kai, something happens to blow my certainty to smithereens.
“Stop me if I fuck it up.”
