16
Slade
Ihated Jack for all the ideas he put into my head. Every night I went to bed hard, hoping that would be the night Jack snuck into my room like he promised, waking me with his fingers pressing inside of me, readying me for his cock. I even made sure to clean myself, no matter how tired I was, wanting to make sure the experience was as good for him as it was for me. And yet, here we were, almost a month in and he had yet to deliver on his kinky suggestion of getting started while I was still asleep.
It was, yet, another night I was sitting home alone. Jack was busy with the renovations at The Lodge, and, now that all of the work Eli had been putting off until he had time to tackle it was finished, I was bored out of my mind. Eli had never promised me full-time hours, and I considered myself damn lucky that he’d given me as much work as he had. Now, I was down to working three nights a week, which left at least one night alone every week while Jack was at the club.
I shuffled around the apartment, trying to find anything I could to clean. There wasn’t anything out of place, because I had made it a point to clean up every day. Just one more way I was changing to try and keep Jack happy. I didn’t want him to have any reason to find me lacking. So much for never compromising my independence for the sake of a lay—no matter how hard he rocked my world.
I loaded up a first-person shooter game on my console, but my mind kept racing and I was unable to concentrate. After the fourth time my character was killed, I tossed the controller to the other end of the couch and eased my way onto the floor. I reached under the couch, quickly finding what I was looking for. I pulled out the notebook Jack had brought me about a week after we decided to see where things went. He’d been shockingly cool with me setting rules for him, too.
When pressed, I hadn’t been able to think of many, other than no radio silence. I didn’t cope well when I felt ignored. I’d added at least one day a week that was for us, because I’d wanted to see if he’d agree or not. He had and, since then, every Monday was spent together. We usually did boring stuff, like grocery shopping, but he always made it worth my while to not whine.
“You’re an artist, sweetheart,” Jack had pointed out, handing me a small gift bag. Inside, I found a bound notebook and a set of pencils.
“I think you may be confused about what type of art I create.” These looked better suited for someone who couldn’t help but sketch whatever inspired them the moment the mood struck. Calling it creating was almost as much of a stretch as claiming I was a songwriter. Mostly, I sat around my dark apartment, bleeding out onto the paper. I wasn’t even sure most of my shit was all that good. Lord knew we never even got a tenth of the response when we played my original songs as we had covering other’s hits.
“Don’t sell yourself short. No, you don’t draw, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t making art. I want you to start spending a few minutes a day writing something. Maybe the words turn into songs, maybe they don’t, but you’ll never know if you don’t put the pencil to the page. And for your information, I chose pencils instead of pens because you’re bound to make mistakes and need to go back to fix things.”
Holy shit, he’d really thought about this. The lump in my throat made it hard to breathe. Jack guided me into the living room. He sat back at one end of the couch, grabbing the remote, but he didn’t turn on the TV immediately. Instead, he watched me, waiting to see what I would do. I settled at his feet the way I almost always did. I stared at the bag, scared to take out the gift he brought me. Would he expect me to show him? Would he check up on me to make sure I was writing every day? That had never been the way my mind worked. It truly was an emotional outlet for me, nothing more.
At the time, I’d thought it would be impossible to write every day, but, again, I seemed weak to push back when Jack added a new rule to my list. Most days, I pulled out the notebook from where I kept it hidden and set a timer for myself.
I flipped through the pages, reading over lines that only I had seen. I worked through both lyrics and melodies, scribbling a few notes in the margins of the pages. So far, I hadn’t worked up the courage to pull out my guitar. If I put the pieces together, I’d want to play for Jack, and I worried he’d pressure me to talk to Eli about playing at the club. But, damn, if I didn’t want to play for him and face whatever challenge he threw down for me. Even if I never made music from a stage again, I longed to perform for an audience of one. I wanted to say to him through a song everything I couldn’t bear to say directly to him.
But it was too soon, wasn’t it? A month wasn’t long at all, especially for someone who spent as much time as I had insisting that he would never get trapped in a relationship. I was just getting into the second verse of a new song when I heard my phone ringing from the bedroom.
Before Jack, I would have ignored the noise and continued working. Now, I hopped up, racing through the apartment. My heart faltered a little when I saw a ridiculous selfie of Jordan staring back at me.
I shouldn’t feel that way about my best friend calling, and now my insecurity had been replaced by a heaping dose of guilt. I’d given Jordan a piece of my mind when he had ghosted me for the two men he now lived with in some sort of freaky triad relationship. I didn’t get how you were supposed to make a relationship work with two people, much less more than that, but it worked for them so who was I to judge?
“Hey man, what’s up,” I answered.
“Eli gave me the night off,” Jordan informed me. “He said I should call you and see if you wanted to hang out.”
“Way to make a guy feel pathetic,” I grumbled. I knew he hadn’t meant anything by it, but the fact that one of his partners had to suggest we spend some time together was an indicator that we were drifting from one another. That sucked. I didn’t want to think a day might come when Jordan and I were just coworkers. “You know, there once was a time when the two of us were inseparable, J. What happened?”
“We fell in love,” he responded. With the wistful tone in his voice, it was hard to not imagine little hearts floating in the air over his head. He was lost for them, but me? Nope. Not going there.
“Speak for yourself,” I retorted.
“You can try and deny it all you want, but you and I both know damn well you are gone for Jack.” I wished Jack and Doug weren’t brothers. I wanted to be able to talk to my best friend about my issues with the relationship we were building, but it didn’t feel right to talk to Jordan when he was sleeping with the brother of the man that I was completely hopeless for.
And I was, wasn’t I? As much as I swore it would never happen to me, I truly loved Jack. I hated when Jordan was right.
“Are you still with me, Slade?”
“Shit. I must’ve zoned out. What were you saying?”
“I was telling you to get dressed. I’ll be there in twenty and we’re heading down to The Ginger.”
“Do we have to?” I hadn’t been to The Dandy Ginger since the night of the band’s last show. We’d always considered that to be our home base of sorts, and I worried going back there would put my head in a bad place.
“Come on, Slade. You can’t avoid it forever. I know things have been tough since the band split up, but it’s time for you to show everyone they’re not going to keep you down.”
“Have you been moonlighting as a motivational speaker,” I teased. Jordan had always maintained a sunny outlook, with the notable exception of right after he and Tyson split up, but even that had turned out in his favor. During a very brief pity party, he had managed to snag himself two sexy daddies who would kill for him.
And thanks to them, you found one of your own, the voice in the back my head reminded me.
