Barret
“I’ll tell you all of it,” I say to Cleo, fingers turning a pick I’m not playing.“How it really started.”
It was one of those penthouse nights—perfume in the curtains, liquor turning the air syrup-thick, Connor’s lieutenants herding girls into rooms like props for his next press push.Roderick could ride those waves like they were nothing.Me?I drowned—every damn time.
Eddie took charge.He said I was done and that I’d finish in his room, and took me with him.
That’s the part that undoes me even now.The warm water.Slow hands.Soap that smelled like linen and a voice that said, “I’ve got you,” like he meant it.
He kept rinsing me clean while I trembled in my own skin.He tucked me in, slid beside me, and let my head find his shoulder.His mouth pressed into my hair.I slept.For the first time in weeks, I fucking slept.
I woke to a breath lodged sideways in my throat.
Not panic exactly.Just a tight awareness creeping up my spine whispering,What the fuck did you do, Barret Hetfield?
I woke up in boxer briefs that weren’t mine, throat dry, body sore in places that felt like emotional soreness, not physical.Eddie stood across the suite, fresh from the shower.His towel slung low on his hips, hair dripping.He was all clean lines and quiet power, shoulder braced on the doorframe like he didn’t know how gravity worked for the rest of us.
And he looked at me like I was something he'd been waiting to unwrap.
“You okay there, B?”
His voice was casual, but something lived under it.Hunger, maybe.Arrival.
“What happened last night?”I asked, throat sandpaper.I sounded like regret wearing a mask.
He tilted his head.“What exactly are you asking about”?
"“Did we ...”My throat closed.The word wouldn’t climb out.
He shook his head, the towel shifting a fraction lower.“No.You were too intoxicated for that.I told you we’d talk when you woke up.”
Relief hit first.Relief that he hadn’t taken what I couldn’t give.But shame came next, crashing just as hard.Shame that I’d been a mess in front of the one person I’d wanted for far too long, the one person who might have finally wanted me back.
I tried to mask it with bravado and failed.My chest ached with the need to break the silence, to ask something reckless, so I blurted, “Are you gay?”
Subtlety has never been my instrument.
“The term I use is pansexual,” he said, voice steady, thoughtful.“It means I fall in love with people—their minds, their mouths, their mischief.The packaging doesn’t matter.I’m drawn to the person first.The rest is just details.”His mouth tipped, heat sparking in the curve.“How about you?”
“Bi.”I rubbed my eyes with my hands, raw with confession.“But I hide it because fucking Connor says it’ll ruin the band if anyone finds out.”
His expression darkened.“How does he know?”
“He—” My jaw tightened.“He caught me with a roadie a couple of years ago.That’s why he’s so bent on turning me into his poster boy womanizer.”
Eddie’s jaw ticked.“Fuck, I want to kill that asshole.”
“Get in line,” I muttered, then forced a laugh, because if you don’t ask, you don’t get.“So ...you and I.Is that something that could happen?”
He dipped his chin in one firm nod.“Yeah.It can happen.”
Then he moved—shoulder leaving the doorframe, body cutting across the room like a tide already decided.Unhurried.Unstoppable.Giving me every second to say no.
“Barret,” he said when he reached the bed, my name low and careful in his mouth, making my pulse stutter.He reached out and stopped just short of touching me.“Do you really want this?”
I nodded, unable to swallow past the hunger in my throat.
He let the towel fall.
