Out of the Blues (4 page)

Hands over his shoulders, I had to have his tattoos in my palms. I stroked his skin, whispered his name, and whimpered when he dropped his weight onto me. His hard dick slid against mine like it had met its mate and mine was just too hard to care that it was a dick and not a hot pussy that it was fucking. He didn’t kiss me. I didn’t want him to kiss me. He held himself over me, his gaze locked with mine as we rubbed off on each other. “I’m going to come,” he said, his face not that far from mine. I could smell his toothpaste.

“I am too,” I said, wondering what his toothpaste would taste like.

He didn’t make a sound when he came. His eyes glazed over and he looked surprised. I felt his cum wash over my belly and my dick and that was it. My first taste of gay sex and I was trembling under a big marine like a little girl.

When he could breathe again, he crawled off me and left me on the bed without a backward look.

When he was finished cleaning up in the bathroom he left me to wallow in my own fucking shame like I deserved.

Chapter Six

In which Kilby goes redneck crazy.

Hunter sat across from me at the local honky-tonk he and Harper had rented out for a joint ‘gettin’ hitched’ party. The place was out in the boonies not far from the mid-century revival they’d converted into a lake resort and was more of a dive than anything I ever expected to find the Foxworth twins entertaining in.

“You look different, Kilby?” Hunter leaned over the scarred table and winked at me almost as if we were sharing secrets. “Relaxed or incredibly tense, I haven’t decided.”

I shrugged and held up my hand to get the passing barmaid’s attention. I wanted a damned pitcher of beer at this point. The house band was giving me a damned headache. “Where the hell did you find these guys? They’re terrible.”

“Don’t be a music snob, Elvis. I know you live up near Music City but man…okay they are really terrible. I don’t think I can handle another cover of an 80’s hairband song.” Hunter grinned; he was tanned and his hair was streaked with blond from the sun and his smile made his eyes twinkle and I loved my brother with all my heart. “You know Harper and I are in the room next to yours, right?”

I sat very still. I found the vivacious beauty he’d mentioned as she bopped around the dance floor with a group of girls, women, they were women, I corrected myself. She wore a pair of brown cowboy boots and blue jean shorts so short I was sure she’d freeze to death outside in the early November night air.

“So, yeah, we’re right behind you and I heard something, and you both look like you are avoiding each other, and you both look like—”

“Shut up, Hunter,” I growled at him as the waitress brought two more bottles of what we were both drinking. I was on my third beer. Hunter had a Perrier. Fucking carbonated water.

Hunter laughed and the lead singer on the stage announced that the band was taking a break. The audience screamed louder than they had for any of their songs. “Poor kids don’t realize they’re being applauded for the break and not for their singing,” Hunter said. He was amused, I was not. He looked at me as if I had done something wrong.

Besides walk in on my brother’s future brother-in-law sleeping nude and proceed to want to fuck his brains into the headboard.

“Shut up, Hunter,” I said again, pointing at him when his mouth opened and I knew he knew what I’d done. He laughed again.

“He looks like a completely different person. The way he was yelling…I can only assume that you are very good at whatever it was you did to him.”

“You assume it was me? Why is that?” I was going to deny touching Mason Foxworth until the day I died.

“Because I saw you go into the room, and he yelled ‘Kilby, fuck me, Kilby’….once or twice,” my about to be shunned step-brother said in a voice that sounded remarkably like that of his future brother-in-law.

“Jesus.” I swiped my hand over my face. Had the whole fucking hotel heard me blow the guy?

“We’re the only ones on that floor. So, Kilby, relax okay. I’m just ragging on you.”

“I can’t relax.” I’ve never been able to relax in a crowd. And right now I was about ready to jump out of my skin and it had nothing to do with the manbun wearing fashion victim with the sweetest dick I’d ever tasted. I watched him with a group of people, mostly guys; a couple of girls would drift in and touch his arm and laugh and flirt with him but he didn’t notice.

“He’s keeps darting looks this way. Like he’s trying not to, but can’t seem to help it. And you keep watching him. And I’m wondering, considering he came probably three times, if you got off.”

“I will break your neck, Hunter.” I’d had about enough,
too
much of enough actually, but I’d ridden over here with Hunter and I was about to move on from beer to some Jack. Because I was fucking out of my mind if watching some kid I’d just had sex with…and…the sister jumping up on the stage and turning the microphone back on stopped everything I’d been about to do to my brother for finding my predicament amusing.

“Hey, y’all,” she shouted into the mic and I grabbed the edge of the table as reverb rattled the hurricane glass on the table. And me. I was rattled. I couldn’t hide how rattled I was when noise like that hit me.

“Kilby?” Hunter lost his grin and laid his hand on my forearm. I was breathing heavy, his touch was heavy and hot and I wanted to tear his arm off for just touching me. This wasn’t good. It had been years since I’d done this.

“I’m okay. I need to get out of here soon, I think.” I didn’t want to tell him why.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll drive you back.” He didn’t even ask why. I must have looked like shit if he gave in that quickly.

“Shit, I’m sorry about that,” Harper said into the mic, her voice was lower and the volume wasn’t blasting this time. “Okay, so, while the band is taking a break…let’s give them another hand, they were awesome…to do this for us, because they were…just awesome.” She paused for effect, and I had to give her props for saying exactly what everyone was thinking without actually being a bitch about it. “So, I am so happy to see all of you. I think graduation was the last time I saw some of you…and that was seven years ago. God, y’all, how has it been seven years already. We are getting old. But hey, y’all, I am so happy. Hunter and I are happy that you’re here to celebrate with us. In a couple of days we will be saying our I Do’s and settling into old married people life. But tonight we’re all going to be young and get shitfaced. And while I’m up here, and my brother is here, looking gorgeous as ever, say hey to Mace, y’all. I had to beg him.
Beg him
! To come to my wedding and be my best man of honor. He didn’t want to. He’s up in Napa being a lawyer and right now he’s going to do exactly what I say because he made me beg and promise not to…make him sing. So guess what? I’m not going to make him sing but I am going to make him play for us so I can sing, because I’ve had enough to drink to think this is a great idea. Oh hey, band guy, can we borrow your guitar since you’re not using it?”

Her voice was thickly accented and perky as hell, but somehow I found that endearing. She wasn’t drinking. Neither she nor Hunter was drinking. Mason Foxworth was drinking…bottled water. Why was I the only one drinking? “Did she just say they graduated seven years ago? And she thinks they’re old. Fuck, what the hell does that make me?”

“Besides the oldest person in this place?” Hunter thought he was so fucking hilarious.

“I graduated fourteen years ago. And thirty-two is not old.” I was becoming argumentative. Time to go home. “Fuck, it’s what? Ten o’clock and I’m ready to go home and take a nap. Shit, I’m old.” I drained my beer and my brother laughed at me.

“That’s one opinion, bro. A wrong opinion but you keep on with what gets you through the night.”

“He’s seven years younger than me, Hunter.” I didn’t want to have this conversation.

“And you want him so badly you’re sweating.”

Was I sweating?

“Kilby, it’s been four years. He’s a grown man. If he wants to hook-up with you while you’re both here, then don’t fucking sweat it. Get laid. Be happy about it. Go home Sunday and find someone you like and get on with your life because four years is a hell of long time to go without getting any, man. A long fucking time.”

“Too fucking long, and how would you know? I don’t tell you everything.”

“You don’t tell me anything, but I’ve known you most of my life. I remember when you threw up because you kissed a boy and the guilt ate at you so much you thought you were dying. Man, your mother was a damned saint.”

I remembered that day. I kissed a boy at bible school when I was fourteen. The summer before high school. I’d wanted to kiss him for years but he only came around in the summers. So we kissed and maybe got to first base. I was so messed up over what had happened that I was physically sick by the time I got home. Hunter had found me on my hands and knees throwing up in my mother’s rose bushes and crying because I thought I was being punished. I came out to my family that night. “My mother was a saint.”

“I miss her so much. She died before I really got a chance to tell her how much I loved her. God, I miss her.” Hunter sighed, maybe there were tears in his eyes. “Our parents accepted you, Kilby. You were a kid and you were letting it tear you apart, and my dad and your mom, they sat there with you and they told you it was okay. That you weren’t going to hell and that it was okay to love another boy if that’s what you wanted. I remember that even if you don’t. I was all of eight or nine at the time. It’s one of the things that stayed with me you know. I idolized you and there you were telling our parents that you were gay and that you’d leave if they wanted you too.”

Hunter looked so much like his father. The resemblance punched me in the gut. His dad was probably around the same age I am now on that night. I remember Hunter standing on the porch, his hands wrapped around the railing, tears streaked through the dirt on his face. He’d played hooky from bible school and I went because I wanted to spend time with… “I don’t remember his name.” I was half-listening to Hunter’s bride bickering with the band members as she offered them money for the guitar. “I mean, the guy. I can’t remember his name.”

“I can’t remember my first girlfriend either. Well, okay yeah I do, but that just means I’m smarter than you. Anyway, Kilby, the point is, I know you’re not out. I know you’ve still got that ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ mental thing going on. Even the military has dropped that, brother, maybe it’s time you stopped punishing yourself because you lived and he didn’t. You need to live your life and be happy and if shagging my woman’s very pretty brother…then more power to you.”

“I got the guitar. Only cost me a thousand bucks. Mason Foxworth get your ass up on that stage and don’t make me hunt you down,” Hunter’s bride shouted from across the room. She could be heard down the street without a microphone. “Don’t make me sic Kilby on you. He’s a big damned Marine. And hot too, he’ll drag you up here and make you play for me.”

I swear to God every eye in the place was on me and the only one I could see was Mason Foxworth’s pretty hazel eyes looking at me in sheer horror. Did I stand out that much that everyone knew it was me she meant?

“Former Marine Sgt. Kilby Adams, y’all, isn’t he gorgeous? I am so lucky to be marrying into that family because my Hunter is just as gorgeous and I love you, honey.” She blew him a kiss from across the room while a group of men dragged her brother up to the stage.

“I know, honey, love you back. Stop embarrassing my brother, okay, and your brother. Just sing, sweetie, and we’ll go home and make the neighbors gossip.”

“It’s not gossip if it’s true.” She sighed and handed the guitar to Mason of the sandy blond manbun that was straggling gorgeously around his adorable face. “My husband has a big….hey, Mace, I bought you a guitar….heart everyone. I love you honey.”

“Is she drunk?” I had to ask Hunter because I was beginning to question the woman’s sanity.

“Stone cold sober and playing every person in this room. She was born with a platinum spoon in her mouth, been around the world, grew up with models and rock stars, but she’s just one of them and that’s what she wants. Mace looks like he ate a bug.”

“I’m not singing,” Mason Foxworth said to his sister and the microphone caught his lush baritone voice.

“Of course not. You’re my accompaniment. Sit down and be a good Dixie Chick.”

“Oh hell.” I heard him sigh as he settled on the nearby stool. “It’s going to be one of those nights.”

“It’s our friends and family, Mace, and I love you.” She covered the mic and leaned over to whisper in his ear. Something flitted across his face and the guitar strummed to life. The electric had sounded harsh in the first set but in Mason’s hands it lost its strident tone and he leaned over to pluck out a chord or three before adjusting.

“This is out of tune.”

“That explains so much.” Harper deadpanned then pointed to a table off in the corner. “Is that Kenny Owens? It is, hey Kenny, come up here and play the bass. I’ll just give these guys another couple thousand and they can take the rest of the night off. They won’t mind.”

“Jesus, Harper, why don’t you just get the whole band back together while we’re at it. Shit, that’s what you’re doing isn’t it?”

“I can’t help it if Tyler Jenkins is here, too. And there’s all of us in one room. How about that?”

“I hate you so much right now.”

“You love me… now what you want to play?”

A big blond with a badge on his hip walked up on the stage and took the sticks the drummer had left behind. They all joked around together and the drummer started the count and I couldn’t breathe when the guitar started. Mason’s fingers flew on the strings dragging sounds out of the instrument that the kid who owned it had probably never heard before. “Dammit, I’m rusty, Harper. You’re going to pay for this.”

“Just play, honey, like Cody taught you.”

Cody Gillette. Arden Monroe’s third ex-husband was Cody Gillette and the man would have practically raised Doug Foxworth’s children if I remembered correctly.

“That explains so much,” I said when Harper’s sultry voice filled the room. Gone was the southern belle, in her place stood a poised diva with a voice to make every talent scout in Nashville cream their shorts. Beside her, her look-alike brother laid out a bluesy melody line, his eyes closed as he played, and his face relaxed completely for the first time since I’d met him. Harper sang the words to a song their stepfather had made famous, her voice making the song seductive and not at all the way I’d taken it to mean when it was climbing the charts all those years ago.