Kiss Me Twice Part 1, Page 2

  I decided to go hunt up her address now, before we opened. Then I’d see if Mal or Dorian could go check on her... probably Dorian. Mal would be in class and besides, he would focus in on my safety, not Meg’s. Don’t get me wrong, Dorian was hella protective of me too, but he could see a little bit clearer when his testosterone was engaged.

  I scurried to the front door to make sure it was locked while I was back in the office, and promptly screamed when it flew open and I collided with the person coming in.

  Behind me, Humper yowled and hissed, not appreciating the intrusion to his nap.

  The person grabbed me by the upper arms, hands digging in to the point of pain. My body went rigid, and while I wanted to lash out, to scratch and claw and hiss to free myself, I found myself instead sheathed in ice, trapped inside of myself with fear.

  “Adele. Adele! It’s me.” The hands holding me shook, sending my ice coating falling to the floor to shatter. I blinked, images swimming in front of my face before Meg’s pretty and terrified face came into view.

  “Let go!” I snapped, shoving at Meg with both hands. I knew this was Meg, I could see that clearly enough, but my instincts had taken over and I wanted to get free.

  But when I pushed Meg, she flinched. This reaction from my laid back friend was so out of character that I remembered where I was.

  “Sorry, sorry!” Every part of me wanted to run, to retreat back into the anonymity in which I’d cloaked myself for the last two years. But miraculously, I was somehow able to stand my ground, to shove the memories that my fright had brought out in me back down into my core.

  “Jesus, Adele.” Meg hurriedly stepped away from me, rubbing her hands up and down her upper arms. “Chill. It’s just me.”

  Locking my reaction inside of me and throwing away the key, I tried to get a freaking grip. “You scared me. I wasn’t expecting anyone to come in the door like that. And I’ve been worried about you. Are you all right? It’s not like you to be late.”

  Meg avoided my question, locking the door behind us, then rounding the counter. Pulling a brownie from our basket of day-olds, she peeled back the plastic wrapping, then attacked the treat with a vengeance that had me taking a close look at her.

  “Meg?” I ventured, following her behind the counter, but she shook her head and held up her hand, mouth full of chocolate.

  Meg, a former beauty queen, avoided sweets like I avoided junk food. This was clue number one that my fears of this morning had some basis. Clues two and onward could be seen in her skin, so pale beneath her carefully maintained tan that it was almost translucent, as well as the heavy smudges beneath her eyes and the slight tremble of her fingers as she pressed the chocolate to her lips.

  I was still trembling myself, a knee jerk reaction to the echoes of my own trauma.

  This isn’t about you.

  “Meg, tell me what happened.” I whispered this as she swallowed the last of the brownie. The sugar had done her well... there was the slightest hint of pink creeping into her cheeks. Wanting to perk her up even more, I poured her a cup of the freshly brewed coffee and, even though most days I knew she would protest, dumped in enough sugar to form sludge at the bottom of the cup.

  She raised an eyebrow, but sipped at the hot drink regardless, wrapping her fingers around the paper cup and sighing. She met my eyes, and I blinked as I realized that I’d never seen her without a full face of makeup before. Her big brown eyes looked softer, more vulnerable without their habitual eyeliner, perfectly contoured eyeshadow, and inky mascara.

  “I’m sorry I’m late. So sorry.” Hopping off the counter, she started to fill the coffee canisters with a manic energy that I recognized all too well—she needed to keep her hands busy. “I didn’t sleep last night, at all, and then finally dozed off this morning. I slept right through my alarm.”

  “Why didn’t you sleep?” Feeling like I would put her more at ease if I worked alongside her, I started to wipe down counters, even though the closing staff had already done it, and there wasn’t really anything to clean.

  Meg was silent for so long that I thought she wasn’t going to answer me at all, and I was wondering where to go from there, when she finally spoke, her raspy tone tinged with something I’d never heard in it before—fear.

  “My ex tried to break in last night.” Setting one of the canisters down on the front counter with more force than was strictly necessary, she heaved out a deep breath, then muttered a curse as I stopped what I was doing and just gaped at her.

  “Say what?” My own issues were forgotten as alarm skittered through my veins. “Are you okay?”

  She laughed, but there was no amusement in the sound. “Yeah. I’m fine. Just shaken up.” Coffee canisters lined up like little soldiers on the counter, she started to toy with the empty baked good baskets that, please God, we would be able to fill once the bakery delivery arrived.

  “I—what happened?” A knock at the front door broke through the air. I glanced over to find Cliff, a ninety something year old veteran who was one of our most steadfast regulars, all but prancing from foot to foot, eager to get inside and get his caffeine fix. Grimacing, I held up two fingers to let him know I’d be right there.

  Cliff likes to have a blueberry muffin the size of Texas along with his coffee. And we didn’t have any at all. Not that that really mattered, I supposed, with what Meg was telling me.

  “He—Dave—got hammered last night and decided to come bang on my door at midnight. We broke up three years ago, but he’s a little nuts, and decided that last night was the perfect time to come show me that I still liked cock—namely, his cock.” Anger crept into her words, and while I was glad that she was shaking off some of the numbness, it led my own demons right back home.

  “Oh my God!” My mouth went dry, and unbidden, the memory of being in the hospital, of being told that things happened to my body that I didn’t remember flooded through me. I desperately pushed them down to focus on Meg. “Wait a minute. He? Your ex was a he?”

  Meg snorted indelicately as she pulled Cliff’s favorite mug down from a shelf. “Yeah. That should have been my first clue.”

  Holding the cup under the canister of breakfast blend, she filled it, leaving room for just enough cream to change the color, the way Cliff liked it. I knew she too was hoping to butter him up in the absence of baked goods.

  “I’m fine, Adele. I’m sorry I’m late. It won’t happen again.” Her tone was now brisk, and I knew I was being shut out. I wanted to press further, but her pointed stare reminded me that I have secrets of my own, too.

  But still...

  “Do you want to come stay with me for a while?” I didn’t elaborate, but I knew all too well what it was like to be alone, to feel the razor sharp edge of terror at every car door slamming, every voice, every creak of a floorboard. “The guys are with me most nights, but they... ah... well. The spare room is still empty.”

  She cocked her head at my blush, the ghost of a smile curving the corners of her mouth. Meg was one of the very, very few people who knew about my... I guess it was called a triad. And, Meg being a pretty liberal lover herself, was of the opinion that it was fine to get off on what got you off on, so long as you didn’t hurt anyone else.

  “It means a lot that you’d offer, and it’s super tempting, especially this morning.” This time Meg was the one who held up a finger for Cliff, who was knocking again, clearly desperate for his caffeine. “But I’m going to go get a taser when I’m off work today. And maybe sign up for a self defense class.”

  Brushing her palms briskly over the thighs of her skin-tight jeans, she nodded, and with that, it was like she was back in control of her life. “He’ll be sorry if he tries to mess with me again.”

  “Are you sure?” I couldn’t lie... I just didn’t understand. It had been almost two and a half years for me, and I still battled the fear. “How can you just... forget it like that?”

  “Oh, I won’t forget it.” Meg tossed this grimly over her shoulder as
she crossed to open the front door, to admit what we privately called the Grumpy Old Men club, five early birds led by Cliff. She followed them back toward me, watching as I served them coffee and promised muffins on the house, as soon as they arrived. Once the flurry of activity died down, she tucked a golden strand that had fallen loose from her ponytail behind her ear and continued.

  “I can’t let him dictate how I run my life.” Something about the way she said this told me that she was referring to more than herself.

  My stomach tied itself into a tight knot as she held my stare.

  I’m not letting what those boys did dictate my life. At least, not since I met Mal and Dorian.

  Was I?

  Meg distracted me from this disturbing thought by nodding down at my forearms. “Nice tats. How come I’ve never seen them before?”

  I frowned slightly, following her stare to find that I’d pushed my sleeves up, and the wildflowers that decorated my arms—the marks of the girl I’d been so very long ago—were bared for the world to see.

  I’d covered those up for over two years now, trying to just blend in, to just get by. And instinct had my fingers twitching, antsy to hide the marks from prying eyes once again.

  But with Meg’s words echoing in my ears, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Tracing a finger over the bright pink petals of a wildflower, I examined the ink like I was seeing it for the first time.

  “I got them a long time ago.” I finally told her, my words hesitant. “They’re not really representative of who I am anymore. That’s why I hide them.”

  “We wouldn’t be who we are today if we didn’t still have the building blocks of who we were.” Giving me a friendly pat on the butt, she nodded, determined. “Like Dave... I wouldn’t be where I am now, wouldn’t be happy, if I hadn’t gone through what I did with him. So don’t hide it, baby. Embrace your true colors.”

  With a nod at the ink that I usually tried to not even think about, she bustled off to greet the delivery man from the bakery, who was balancing a large stack of pink cardboard boxes. I noted with amusement that, even though Meg wasn’t interested in men, and even though she’d had the night from hell, she couldn’t help but lay the full force of her charm on the poor guy, who turned beet red and stuttered.

  That was how sure Meg was of herself. And me? Life was still good... but the fact that Meg’s situation so quickly made me feel sick to my stomach told me that I wasn’t as over my issues as I thought I was.

  Still... I left my sleeves rolled up, giving my tattoos room to breathe.

  It might not be much... but for right now, it was all I had.

  DORIAN

  The shitty apartment I’d lived in for the last six months was quiet as I pushed through the front door, even though I knew that my roommate Malachi was home.

  Roommate? Yeah, that was a right joke. Mal was in no way just my roomie. Friends for the last two years, he was that, yeah, but with the strange relationship between me and him and Adele? He was more. Definitely more.

  Fuck if I knew what to call it, though. He wasn’t my boyfriend... at least I didn’t think so. We didn’t do... that. But Adele was our girlfriend.

  And this was why the two of us had been staying at Adele’s place six out of seven nights a week lately. Not only were we all happier when we were together, but Mal and I...

  Well, we hadn’t really figured out the dynamics when it was just the two of us.

  Hell, I didn’t even know what I wanted, when we were in that arena, so to speak.

  I’d had an eye for the ladies since my mom caught me playing doctor with the little girl next door when we were just little. Being in a semi-popular band allowed me to indulge, swimming in a sea of sex whenever I wanted. I’d had threesomes before Mal and Adele—but they were always with two other girls. No crossing of the swords, never mind that I’d never thought any different about those who do.

  But with Mal... what had started out as sharing a woman because neither of us could give her up was... changing. I’d initially started the bit of grab-ass between us as a joke, because man, but my mate needed to lighten up once in a while.

  But the tighter the bond between the three of us grew... the more confused I got. I was crystal clear on my feelings for Adele—I loved her. Not that I’d told her that yet, in so many words. It was too soon.

  But I did—I loved her. I wished with everything I was that I could erase her past trauma. And the kinky side of me wanted to see her submit in the bedroom—wanted her to completely let go.

  But Mal? He wasn’t just a friend, not anymore. You couldn’t be naked with a guy, rubbing all up on your girl and not develop some kind of bond.

  But... even being open-minded about sexuality, didn’t mean that it wasn’t strange to think about a friend... a dude... that way.

  In typical Dorian fashion, I shrugged it off to deal with later. Snagging a can of cola from the small fridge in the absolutely freaking dingy little kitchen, I banged a fist on Mal’s door, then pushed through without waiting for a response.

  I found him lying face first on his bed, wearing nothing but boxer briefs. This was a frequent occurrence, since the heating system in the old building wasn’t very well regulated.

  But Mal’s reaction to me suddenly coming upon him in his skivvies was not normal.

  “Dude! Boundaries!” Scowling at me while his cheeks flushed, he grabbed for the polo shirt lying beside him on the bed. Rolling to an upright position, he tugged it over his head, the muscles of his abdomen rippling as he did.

  And the fact that I noticed his muscles doing anything didn’t escape my notice. But that thought got tucked away for later too, leaving me with no choice but to call him on his bullshit.

  “I hate to break it to you, my friend, but I know what you look like naked, unless last night has escaped your memory already.” I lounged insolently against the door frame, but really I was watching the emotions play out over his face.

  Mal had always been uptight, but after he and Adele first imploded, he chilled out some. Changed.

  Though I suppose that our... triad, for lack of a better word... would throw off people a lot less conservative than Mal.

  Mal didn’t reply, just staring back at me, those bright blue eyes of his fierce with something I couldn’t quite decipher. Finally, as if he was willing himself to just chill out, he raked his fingers through his dark hair, adjusted the glasses on his nose, and sucked in a deep breath.

  “Yeah, Sorry. You just startled me.” Clearly uncomfortable—and the two of us were rarely that—he made a show of marking his place in his textbook. “Was there something you wanted?”

  “Just wanted to warn you that it’s about to get really loud in here.” With every girl I’d ever been with, I would have taken this opportunity to push them out of their comfort zone a bit. Those little pushes were usually followed by mind blowing sex.

  But I’d have had to be blind, deaf and dumb not to see that Mal was miles away from being ready for that.

  Hell... even I didn’t know if I would ever be ready for that... or if I wanted it. And since I always knew what I wanted and, more, how I planned to get it, I pushed this away too.

  “Yeah, Pax has his panties in a twist and called a band meeting. I think he’s just worked up about the next show, so we’ll probably end up rehearsing. I’ll tell them to hold that off until after you get to class, yeah?” I gestured down at Mal’s textbook.

  He shook his head. “No, I’m packing up anyway. Gonna head to campus early. Do what you have to do, man.”

  The sound of the front door banging open interrupted our conversation. I heard the loud, obnoxious voices of my band mates Pax and Wyatt, followed by the opening of the fridge door. Rolling my eyes, I pushed off of Mal’s doorframe and waded into the ruckus of friends who had known me since we were scrawny middle school kids with guitars and attitude.

  Clearly that kind of bond had led Pax to think he was entitled to the single remaining beer in the fridge. I grabbed
for it as my two mates settled themselves on the ugly as hell couch that had come with the apartment.

  He held it out of my reach with a taunting smile. “You’ll be begging to buy me drinks to express your undying gratitude after I give you the news.” Smirking, he popped the tab and chugged half of the beer in one swallow.

  I considered decking him. I was pretty laid back, but I also didn’t care for being bested.

  “Spit it out then.” I turned my glance to Wyatt, who just shrugged and pushed his glasses up his nose. Funny, I thought his big plastic rimmed glasses made him look like a tool playing at being a hipster.

  So when Mal walked into the room, now fully dressed in that same fitted black polo shirt, and a pair of dark wash jeans, I wondered why I thought that he looked awesome in his.

  “Earth to Dorian. Stop ogling your boyfriend and pay attention.” Wyatt smirked as I tore my attention away from Mal.

  “Fuck you.” I replied mildly. The guys knew about what I had going on with Mal and Adele, and I knew them well enough to know that they really didn’t give a shit—more pussy for them. But to call Mal my boyfriend?

  My feelings were involved to the point that I couldn’t tell if Wyatt was just taking the piss or not. From the corner of my eye I watched Mal’s back stiffen a bit, but he relaxed, so I glossed over the comment.

  “Where’s Levi?” The door opened as the words left my mouth—Jesus, why didn’t we just hold our next concert here? Everyone was clearly right at home.

  “You’re late,” Pax snapped at Levi as our spiky haired drummer meandered in the door. His arm was around his new girlfriend, Mercedes. The tangles in her light, silky hair, and the red striped welts rising on his forearms, told me exactly why these two were so late.

  Levi was into pain. And though they’d only been together for a month or so, I was of the opinion that he’d found the girl of his dreams.

  “So stop flapping your jaw at me and tell us what’s got a stick up your ass.” Levi collapsed into an oversized, ancient armchair with a sigh that could only be described as satisfied, and pulled Mercedes down into his lap. She giggled; Pax and Wyatt snorted with disgust.