With that and a thundering slam of the door, she left.
Chrisclosedthedoorto his apartment, a smile immediately stretching his lips as he hung his keys on the key holder that looked like a Marshall amp.
He appreciated his independence and solitude more than most people, yet he couldn’t deny that arriving home to the mouthwatering smell of whatever Leah was cooking was better than being alone. She still had a long recovery ahead of her; the recurring nightmares after the hell her ex had put her through were still brutal. But watching her in the kitchen, bobbing her head and whisper-growling the lyrics of what he assumed was Dark Omen’s last album, was a fucking fantasy after seeing the pale, dead-in-life girl she’d been two years before.
Waving his arms like a tube man under the threat of a hurricane, Chris waited for her to notice his presence. He had done it only once, stood behind her and pinched her sides, but never again. The panic attack she had that day almost sent him to his grave. So, yeah, nope.
Leah finally turned around with a brow raised.Jesus. She’d dyed her hair red, pink, and purple during the last two years, but there was no way he’d get used to seeing it in this short style that hardly reached her shoulders. Well, maybe he would. It had only been two weeks, and it didn’t look bad. He just missed her crazy-long waves.
“Are you having a stroke?” she asked sardonically, taking her earphones out.
“If I were, I’d have died before you even noticed.” He touched the back of his hand to his forehead.
“Such a drama queen.” She rolled her eyes, but he didn’t miss the hint of a smile in her voice.
Chris blew her a kiss and went to his room. “What’s for dinner?”
“Nothing for you,” she said, loud enough for him to hear.
“Meanie!” he whined, getting a boisterous laugh in response.
“Idiot!”
He grinned from ear to ear.
Naked as a jailbird, with the comfy clothes he wore around the house in hand, Chris walked out of his bedroom and into the bathroom to take a shower. Even with the windows open, smoking in the rehearsal room had been a bad idea. It reminded him of the times when smoking in nightclubs and pubs was allowed; everything from your eyelashes to the sheets the next morning stunk.
As steam formed in the air and in his lungs, he vigorously scrubbed his body, except his abdomen. Nu-huh, that part was still healing. No way he was going to fuck it up after the last six-hour tattoo session. He couldn’t wait to complete the piece, a dark realism demon’s fae, extending from his stomach to his chest.
Chris sighed and tossed his head back, letting the water cascade down his body, part of that day’s tension washing away with the shampoo and soap. Dark humor and sarcasm might be his most fluent language, but that didn’t mean things didn’t affect him, too. Hannah cheating on Erik had definitely triggered something inside his head.
After his father had left his mother for a younger woman, Chris’s life and every attainable dream for the future blurred right in front of him. He hated it. Not having to take care of Maria, his sister, when depression swallowed his mom, but the pain that man had caused. He hated the shadow his mother, Camille, had become. Hated that his own selfish ass had stolen his right to behave like the fool most twenty-somethings are. That he’d forced a year hiatus upon his band.
His parents had been together since high school, but because his father didn’t know how to cope with a midlife crisis, everything they’d built crumbled in the blink of an eye. It’d hurt for a long time. Having to force his mom to eat and take her meds while dealing with his sister’s teen drama and taking care of the house wasn’t fun.
In the end, they overcame those dark times and thrived, but cheating was a topic that still bothered hima lot.
Another sigh.
Once he was done, Chris turned off the tap and stepped out of the shower, dragging the mat with his feet towards the sink. He dried his skin, applied some Aquaphor over the new tattoo, and re-dressed, walking back into the open spaced living area.
“How did she take it?” Leah looked at him out of the corner of her eye, filling two plates to the rim withKäsespätzle, a German version of mac and cheese. His fave.
“As expected.” He shrugged. “She blamed it on Erik and bitched about how we’re nothing without her.”
“Jesus…”
“Yeah.”
“What are you gonna do with the concerts you have in December?”
“I don’t know,” Chris said as he folded the napkins, placing the forks over them. “We’re fucked. Having to pull out now… ugh. We’re gonna lose tons of money if we don’t find someone soon enough. I hope Luca and Uwe hear back from their contacts, so we have an answer by the end of the week. Two weeks top.” He poured water into some glasses.
Leah put the plates on the table and sat in front of him. “That’d be awesome, yeah.”
“By the way, would it be okay if Erik moved in with us until he finds somewhere else to live?”
“Not that I mind, but why?”
