“She doesn’t have my vote. Your brother does, I swear.” He reaches over and grabs my hand and pulls it to his lap, pressing my palm into his hardening cock. “And she definitely does not have this. This is all yours.”
I am grinning like a lunatic. “Good. Now as much as it pains me to say this, give me my hand back so I can get us to the motel.”
He lets go and I regretfully lift my hand from his crotch. Half an hour later we’re parked in front of a short, squat ocean front motel that looks like it hasn’t had a lick of work done to it since it was constructed in the mid-seventies. We get out of the Ferrari and Grant turns to us. “Seriously? This place looks…. Like it isn’t a five star.”
“We’re a cover band, not The Rolling Stones,” Joe tells him squinting his dark eyes to look up at the building. “It got great reviews on the booking site and it’s literally two buildings over from the hotel the reception is in.”
He points to the wood and brick high-rise that looks infinitely newer and fancier than the place we’re about to check into. “And before you say anything this place is eighty a night and the other one is two-twenty and only had two available rooms. We’re not bunking up like this is sleep away camp. You snore, Grant.”
Grant is about to argue when Chase adds, “And you fart in your sleep. Loudly. You used to wake me from a dead sleep in boarding school with those freaking fog horn sounds.”
“Only when they had Taco Tuesdays in the cafeteria, shithead,” Grant mutters and I think he says something else, but Joe and I are laughing so hard I don’t hear it.
We check in and they give us two rooms side-by-side on the third floor and two side-by-side on the second. Chase grabs all the key cards and hands them out casually, like he isn’t making sure I’m the one next to him, but that’s exactly what he does. We both have the top floor rooms. Joe and Grant are beside each other one floor down on the other end of the building. This couldn’t be more perfect.
“So, we’ve got about an hour before we should head to the venue and set up,” Grants says. “Let’s get comfy and meet back here in forty-five?”
We all nod and head to our rooms. I unlock mine and start to step inside, but Chase passes me to get to his room, grabs me by the arm and drags me with him. “Shouldn’t I at least put my stuff in my room. To make it look like I’m staying there?”
“Nah.” He taps his keycard on the lock panel and the green light flashes, so he pushes the door open. “They both know I’ve been with dudes before and although they probably don’t want me to hook up with you because of the band dynamic, they aren’t exactly going to do a room check or anything.”
“They know?”
“Joe was my college roommate,” he reminds me. “That’s when I started messing around with guys and so sometimes, while he waited in the study lounge for the sock to come off the door handle, he’d see who left. And Grant, well I told him because he lives below me and we work together and he’s my oldest friend. I trust both of them with my life. They’re not going to tell anyone.”
“But you don’t think they’d be cool with us?” I ask as I follow him into the room.
“No,” Chase answers flatly as he pauses to pull back the curtains on the large window at the front of the tiny, but clean room. There’s nothing but beach and ocean stretched out before us. It’s honestly pretty fucking great. I walk up behind him to admire the view. “Not because they don’t like you, but because they know me. I’ve refused to do anything more than a one-night stand before. And, well, Grant knows that fooling around with Bennie is what had him bail on the band.”
“Ah. I get it,” I say as Chase turns away from the view to look at me. “But if they knew this wasn’t just a one-time deal, and that I’m not going to throw a tantrum and leave the band, would they be cool with it?”
“Yeah. I think they would,” Chase replies. “We’ll find out in six months, two days and…. Roughly five hours.”
He leans close and drops a slow, easy kiss on me. I snake my arms around his waist. I can’t wait for Chase’s birthday. I push my hips against his but he moves back. “Sadly, we don’t have time for any really fun stuff. I wanted to run the set list with you again.”
“Argh,” I let out a garbled groan of sexual frustration. “I hate being responsible.”
He laughs and pushes me back until I’ve dropped into a small shockingly cozy chair by the window and then he pulls a crumpled piece of paper from his back pocket. He starts reciting our songs. We are doing a lot of stuff we haven’t done live together, but they’ve done with Bennie. I’m confident I can pull it off, and did well with all of them in our rehearsals, but I think they’re all still a little nervous.
“I feel like we need another slow tune,” Chase scratches his chin and his eyebrows pinch as he thinks about it. I look out the window and something pops into my brain.
“That notebook of yours had lyrics in it about an ocean.” I turn to look at him. “Something about the audacity of oceans or something. I remember it sounded cool.”
“It’s called Dauntless,” Chase replies.
“Like your business?”
“Told you it was my favorite word. The song came first. When I was in college.” Chase looks wildly uncomfortable suddenly. He’s bouncing his weight from one foot to the other. He starts pacing. Five steps toward the door, five back, and repeat.
“It’s about the man I want to be. That I intend to be. One day,” Chase says in a voice that’s a pained, whispered confession. He clears his throat and stops pacing. “I feel like the ocean is dauntless. Like it’s scared of nothing and if it’s determined to claim something — a ship, a beach, a person, whatever — it does it. Boldly and without regret. So I use it as a metaphor in the song. Anyway, why are we talking about this?”
He is so agitated discussing his music that when he starts pacing again, I almost think he’s going to go more than five steps and open the door and head right out without another word. But he doesn’t, he pivots back toward me after that fifth step. I pull myself out of the chair. “It’s a slow song, right? I could tell by the chords you jotted down next to the lyrics.”
“You’re a nosey fucker with a photographic memory, huh?” Chase laments but he seems more awed than mad.
“Yeah. Kinda.” I give him a gentle smile and reach out and grab his hand not currently death-gripping the set list. “You could always perform that. Acoustically. I’m sure you’ve done it a hundred times if it’s the first song you ever wrote.”
“Yeah. Alone. Never in front of an audience.” Okay now his agitation seems to have exploded into full-blown anxiety judging by how wide his eyes are.
