CHAPTER 1
SHILOH
FROSTBITE AND NOSTALGIA
Fuck,it’s cold.
I should’ve known that coming home for the holidays was a bad idea. Nothing good ever happens when I return to this snow-covered mountain hellhole, especially when the locals think “tattoo artist" is code for “criminal degenerate with questionable morals”.
God forbid I make art for a living.
It’s that exact thought that has me wishing I were literally anywhere else—like, say, I don’t know, getting a root canal by some backyard dentist with questionable hygiene. Instead, I’m standing in line outside Carol’s, the only bar in town, while every nosy soul in Blue River stares at me like I crashed their Sunday sermon.
I'm freezing my tits off, and the line just keeps growing with faces I barely recognize anymore as Isearch the crowd for Jovi, my best friend since middle school.
When I spot the Santa hats and flashing reindeer earrings, I instantly cringe. This is a fucking rock concert! Couldn't this town go one night without embarrassing itself? We are in the presence of rock royalty.
Tonight, Stone Cold is playing, a masked rock band Jovi and I have been obsessed with for years, and she got me a backstage pass for Christmas.
I’m still giddy just thinking about it.
They’re here for some sort of “Home For The Holidays”concert, and honestly, it’s kind of bizarre to realize that my favorite band hails from the same tiny shithole town I do.
So yeah… Here I am.
Home for the holidays.
Coming back here was definitelynoton my end-of-year bingo card, but after my ex, Cam, and I broke up, I figured it was as good a reason as any to finally drag myself away from the city and make a trip home to visit my parents. Meeting my favorite band in person should at least make the experience of being back here somewhat bearable.
The moment I got here, the first thing out of my parents' mouths was, “Where’s Cameron?” The look on their faces when they learned that he had ended things with me made me feel about two feet tall.
Apparently, I was too much for him.
He wanted someone he could bring home to his mother, not a twenty-four-year-old woman who owns a tattoo shop.Honestly,it’s his loss, even if my parents see it differently. I'm not about to lose sleep over some asshat with a pin cock who came in literally three pumps every time we had sex.Nope.Tonight, Jovi and I have plans for the first time in years, and I am not going to let this town, or my lame as fuck ex, get in my way of a good time.
A lot has changed in the six years I’ve lived in the city. For starters, I’m not that awkward girl in high school anymore. I’ve built a life I can actually be proud of. I skipped college, much to my parents' disgust, and worked my damn ass off, squandering almost every penny I ever earned to qualify for a business loan. Yet, no matter what I accomplished, how many awards I received for my art, Cam still never took me seriously.
Screw him.
It’s a rare day in Hell for me to care what somebody thinks of me, though it took some growth to get there, let me tell you. And yet, the moment I start scanning the crowd for my best friend, my thoughts drift immediately to the three people whose opinions of me ever mattered. The ones who have haunted my every waking thought since I left Blue River.
My heart starts thudding like a drum in my chest, my teeth chattering from the cold, as I sweep my gaze across the growing crowd behind me, half hoping, half dreading to spot them.
Axl, Phoenix, and Zane.
The ones who star in my most sinful and depraved fantasies, still occupying my mind all these years later.
God, just saying their names in my head makes my stomach somersault and my thighs clench in ways they absolutely shouldn’t. They were as effortlessly magnetic as they were mystifying, and calling what I had for them acrushwould be a severe understatement. I spent years fantasizing about their sharp edges and perfectly sculpted muscles, wondering what it would feel like to have them wrapped around me.
Owning me and claiming me in ways that no one else ever could.
I tried for so long to ignore the way my heart basically flatlined every time they were near, because it meant that the feelings I had for them were way more than I was prepared to unpack, and I couldn’t risk my heart like that.
Zane, Axl, and Phoenix were the reasons that no other man ever felt right to me. Not when I had witnessed the love they shared for each other. It was raw, honest, and powerful in ways that nobody around here ever seemed to understand.
The town almost imploded when they found out that the Stone brothers shared a boyfriend. Yet, they didn’t care what anyone thought about it. Well, if they did, they never showed it, and it sure as shit didn’t stop them from being together.
They inspired me in ways they’ll never know,because life really does go on, with or without the approval of others.
