STONED (Wrecked Book 1) (36 page)

“No, but you wink at my wife again and I might. She’s a cougar, likes them young and mysterious. Ain’t that right, baby?” Bear gathers Cora close and squeezes her from behind.

“That's right. I like the quiet ones; they're the ones you have to watch out for,” she teases. Yelping when her husband smacks her ass. I look over at Willow, who watches them, smiling, and it dawns on me that these two are literally the only happily married couple I fucking know. That we know! Her parents are gone, her aunt never married, I've not seen my dad since I was three, my mom since a few years after that. Hell, even Law and Judge’s dad died when they were small and their mom never remarried. And we think Arrow is the second Christ because his mom swears she wasn't even sleeping with anyone and one day she woke up pregnant. His mom is also very free loving and a bit of a modern day hippy, so who the fuck knows? He could be like the son of Steven Tyler or some shit.

“If you guys are done flirting with my wife, food’s done,” Bear says, taking Cora’s hand and walking over to the tables they have set up with grub.

Willow reaches for Lyric. “I’ll take her. You go ahead and make your plate.”

“It’s okay, Wills. I’ve got her. You go make plates. You know what I like.” I wink at her. “I’ll save us some seats.” With Lyric in my arms I take her little hand and wave at Willow. “Bye, Mommy,” and go sit us down while the guys head for the eats and Wills stands and just watches me for a minute before following.

“Mind if I sit?” Perry asks, sitting before I can answer. “You look good with a baby,” she says. I can tell that she has shit to get off her chest.

“What’s up, Perry? I can see you wanna say something, so go ahead. But if you’re gonna say some shit like, ‘Stay away from Wills and Lyric,’ save your breath, it ain’t happening.” I look down at Lyric, playing with my fingers and then back at Perry with raised eyebrows.

“Do you love her?” she asks without preamble.

“I do.”

“Are you clean?”

“I am.”

“Do you promise to never hurt her again? Hurt them?”

“I promise to try.”

Nodding in acceptance she smiles. “Well, then I came over here to tell you that I would like to be friends. You’re probably pissed at me for keeping her hidden away here, but I was doing it for her and I would do it again.”

“No need to apologize. In fact, I’d like to thank you. Thank you for taking care of her when I couldn’t and for helping her to build a life here for the two of them. She’s the strongest woman I know, but even the strongest people need help to hold them up sometimes. So thank you,” I tell her sincerely.

“Wow. You’re good,” Perry says in awe. “No wonder she gets that deer-caught-in-headlights look whenever you’re around. Willow doesn’t stand a chance.” She laughs heartily. “I love it.” Popping up she points at me. “Be good to my girls.”

“I will be good . . . to my girls.” I grin, loving the way that sounds and too fucking ready to make it happen.

The boys decide that they’re coming to The Dirty Bird. I tell them to go ahead, that we’ll meet them there so Willow and I can stop at her place so she can change.

“Do you mind if we go to my house and grab my Fender? I need to rip. You’re turning me into a pussy. All these ballads lately, making me feel feelings and shit,” I joke. “Seriously though, you’re fucking killing me. I need to get dirty.”

Willow laughs at me; she’s doing that a lot lately. “Yes, we can stop for your baby. It is the baby, right? You didn’t get a new one?” she asks, pulling up in front of her house.

“A new Fender? Woman, bite your damn tongue. Never.” I’ve had the same electric guitar since I was eighteen. Bought it from some pawn shop in nowhere Ohio, in some place that looked straight out of a Rob Zombie movie. The guy there told me it was some famous rock star’s and I grinned, gave him every penny I had, and told him, “It’s going to be.” It’s rough as hell, beat to shit, just like me, and I love it.

“I didn’t think so. I’m going to have to bury your ass with that thing.” She lets us in the house. “Sit. I’ll be down in five minutes,” Willow orders me as she bolts up the stairs. I look around her house, at all the little touches that are so Birdie and then wander upstairs to look at Lyrics nursery. It’s hands down the coolest nursery ever. Pulling my phone out I snap a couple pictures to show the designer. I want to recreate this exact room for her at my place. I slide my phone in the back pocket of my jeans and walk casually down the hall to what I guess is Willow’s room. With just a fingertip I push open the door, grabbing hold of the top of the doorframe, leaning forward and watching her flit around the room, no clue that I’m standing there. She’s in a pair of low slung, ripped up jeans, a pair of boots just like mine except girlier, and a black lace tank top thing with a giant skull on the front, birds and roses spilling from its head. Just like a million times before, I watch her flip her head upside down and shake out her hair, making it look wild, giving her that just-fucked look that makes me want to do just that. With quick steps she goes over to the dresser and slips in her earrings. She’s added dark liner to her eyes, making them glow. As she’s puckered up, putting on her red lipstick, lipstick that’s stained my cock on more than one occasion, she sees me in the mirror.

“Was I taking too long?” she asks a little breathless.

“Nope.”

“Oh. Well, I’m ready now.” With one more swipe over her mouth she covers the beauty mark that dots the center of her bottom lip making me have to adjust myself thinking about all the times I’d wiped off the pretty color at the end of the night just to see it. “Stop looking at me like that,” Willow demands.

“Like what?” I ask innocently. Feeling anything but. I don’t bother adjusting this time, letting my cock swell against my fly, the piercing biting into me and evident, I’m sure, against the soft denim.

“Like you want to eat me.”

“I do want to eat you,” I tell her in a throaty voice as she sidles past me.

“Don’t, Stone.”

“Don’t what, Birdie?” Following her down the stairs, I watch her ass sway.

“You know what.” She grabs her leather jacket out of the front hall closet and turns her back on me to slip it on. While she’s faced away, I slide my hand into her back pocket, molding my fingers and palm to the rounded cheek. She startles and then stills.

“What are you doing?” Willow practically hisses.

“Your phone was coming out of your pocket,” I say casually.

She raises her arm in the air, her phone clutched in her hand.

“Oh, well, it must have been something else then. My bad.” Like I didn’t just get caught up in the moment and totally feel her up, I slide my hand out and ask, “Should we go?”

Willow glares at me over her shoulder and walks out the front door leaving me to follow. And I do, grinning all the way.

Willow

STONE RUNS INTO THE HOUSE
to grab his Fender while I wait in the car. We’re running late as it is, and I don’t trust going in with him after what went on at my place just now. He can’t help himself anymore than I can help responding to him.

In less than three minutes he comes jogging out the door, minus his baseball cap and in a different shirt. Squinting his eyes, he stops at the hood of the car. Rolling down the window, I pop my head out. “What’s wrong?”

“Headlight’s out. We’ll take the truck and I’ll fix it tomorrow,” he tells me, coming around to the driver’s side and opening the door for me.

“Shit. That’s the third time in the last couple months,” I complain as I gather all my stuff.

“I’ll look at it tomorrow, don’t worry. Probably a bad connector or something.”

“When’s the last time you had to wrench on anything?” I ask on our way into the garage and his truck.

“Not that long actually. I bought another truck a few months ago to work on, keep me busy on the days when I felt like I was going stir crazy.”

Helping me into the truck, he hands me his guitar and closes the door.

“That’s really awesome. We had so much fun with this one.” And we had. So much. Back when things were easy, before all the fame and crazy schedules. Not that I believe that’s what went wrong, just that things were easy before all of that.

“Yeah, we did. I should have the truck shipped over. You can help me with it.” He looks over and grins.

When he fires up the truck, the rich sounds of Chris Stapleton fill the cab. “Whiskey and You.” The sorrowful, melody gives me chills before the words wrap around my heart and squeeze. Stone turns it up and softly sings along as he navigates the side streets to the bar. I lean my head against the glass and watch him. The song is beautiful, haunting, and hits close to home. He’s been surprising me with his choice in music lately. Not this though, there’s not a musician alive who wouldn’t appreciate the brilliance of Chris Stapleton. Just that Stone isn’t usually a ballad guy, and he’s been embracing the hell out of them, despite all his protests. The song is ending just as we pull into a parking space. As the last note fades, Stone kills the ignition and we just sit. Letting the poignancy of the song wash over us for just a moment longer.

“You’re letting your country show again. Sam Hunt the other day, Chris just now. Better be careful, cowboy,” I tease, to throw some lightness on us because if we gave into it, we could sit and pick apart how that song is too much of him and us and all that we’ve been through.

“You know me, little bit country, whole lotta rock and roll.” He flashes me hand horns and sticks his tongue out Gene Simmons style. Instinctively picking up what I need from him.

“Oh my God, you're so obnoxious,” I laugh when he nods in agreement. With a wink and a promising smile, he gets out of the truck and I have to remind myself that I can resist him. That I can’t make this too easy for him. That he’s hurt me over and over and even though I’ve forgiven him for what he did when he wasn’t himself, I don’t know that I can ever forget. And that’s our biggest obstacle right now, although I’m not even sure how true that is anymore.

The Dirty Bird is packed when we walk in. Wall to wall bodies. Stone puts a hand to the small of my back and flips his guitar to his back as we make our way through the crowd, waving at Bear who is already behind the bar and stopping here and there to sign things people thrust at him. Seems like word is out that Wrecked is in town and they like to frequent The Dirty Bird.

Carleen stops as she walks by. “The guys are on the roof. They’ve been waiting for you.”

“Thank you,” I shout over the noise. Tugging on Stone’s hand, weaving through the mass, I don’t stop until we’re at the door to the roof. Dane is standing there, looking all aloof. The boys must have picked him up on the way. Probably smart. He cracks a small smile when he sees me that looks more like a grimace, but it’s huge from him. I pat him on the chest as we pass and head up the stairs.

“There’s a rooftop?” Stone calls from behind me.

“Yep, we only open up when the weather is nice, and this is where the stage is if it’s open. I love it. It’s like doing an outdoor concert and then they pipe the sound throughout the whole bar so once we meet capacity up here they can still hear the music downstairs.”

We come out on the roof and I scan the area for Law’s tall ass and find them sitting at a table next to the stage, kicked back and laughing when we join them.