Page 8 of Jinxes and Drumsticks

“So much,” I say. “You?”

“Me and half the band,” he says with a wink.

I blink, feeling my face heat. “What do you mean?”

“You’ll see,” he says, rolling his eyes as he looks back at the bar.

I follow his gaze to see a tall, slender person with fae-like features. Their ginger hair is bunched in two messy space buns and they have the most gorgeous eye makeup on. They kiss the tips of their fingers before blowing me a kiss.

“See?” he says. “Safe to say you have a line forming. I don’t know how I can compete with a hot enby or our intellectual sad-sack-vocalist.”

“No way,” I say. “I thought Oren was Ace!”

He laughs. “Oh, okay, you’re one of those fans,” he says, messing with some of the wiring on the monitor.

My heart sinks immediately and when he meets my gaze again his face falls. “Oh, no, don’t make that face, Little Bird. I’m just kidding. But no, he’s not asexual. He’s aromantic. Unfortunately, he’s very sexual when the person interests him. All it took was you talking about fucking Sumerian mythology and he was all heart-eyes-emoji about you.”

“Oh…”

“Why do you still look crestfallen?” he asks. “Sweetheart, you’re hot as hell. This is supposed to be gassing you up.”

“Well, yeah, it’s nice, don’t get me wrong. But, like—I dunno, it seems like you’re trying to set me up with someone else, and I spent the last six hours thinking about kissing you.”

He stills, and I go still too as other fans start to fill the room behind me. I’m not really sure what to make of his expression. For a moment, I wonder if I misread the situation. Maybe he just likes to flirt but doesn’t actually like to seal the deal at all. Maybe it was rude of me to mention something like that. Was it too heavy-handed?

But then, he unceremoniously hops down from the stage and steps up to the partition. He brackets my face in his hands, and before I can think of how to react, his lips crash into mine.

I let out a soft sound, my hands balling up uselessly in front of my chest. His labret piercing is cool and hard, but his lips are impossibly soft as they slide with practiced ease over mine. One of his hands leaves my face to ball tightly in the back of my hair, where he tugs the angle of my head back in such a pleasantly painful way that I can’t help but sigh out a moan against him.

His tongue sweeps into my mouth. His split tongue. It takes me by surprise, stilling me for a moment, but he doesn’t relent. The two halves swirl in tandem, deepening the kiss with a pleasantly overwhelming sensation, making my whole body warm and tingly.

There is a sort of roughness about the way he kisses... I absolutely love that. I don’t know if it’s because most of my sexual experiences have been with Bastion (and Bastion is kind of a dick) but I like it rough.

He retreats, his tongue flicking my upper lip before he captures my lower lip between his sharpened teeth and bites down just hard enough for it to hurt a little. All the while, his hand stays fisted in my hair, holding me still in such a deliciously possessive way. All I want to do is kiss him again, but that unrelenting grasp tells me I don’t get to do that right now.

He leans over me to whisper in my ear. “Keep your promise, little bird. Come meet me in the back after you enjoy the show, and I’ll show you kisses you haven’t even dreamed of.”

I release a shaky exhale. “Okay,” I manage to get out, before he relinquishes his possessive touch and climbs back onto the stage, giving everyone a theatrical bow as if he’s just reached curtain call. The entire crowd erupts in applause, and it’s all I can do to adjust my hair and try not to look too embarrassed.

When I look behind me, the room is almost totally full. The venue buzzes with the ambient hum and cloying humidity of a bunch of human bodies crammed into one little space. A few faces in the crowd look a little put out when I meet their eyes. Some of them are shooting the honest-to-gods evil eye at me.

I reach for the velvet chord of my necklace and idly fiddle with its pendant. The Nightingale Pearl sits cool and large as a jewel beetle, wedged in the jaws of the pewter skull setting one of my more macabre antecedents picked some decades ago. Powerful magic, powerful enough to guard against little jinxes caused by covetous envy.

I breathe easier holding the pendant between my thumb and forefinger. A sort of security blanket that’s belonged to me since my mother fled Del Lune before my mind could lock her face in my memory.

I look back toward the stage as Oren, Satoshi and a guy I can only assume is Fletcher come out onto the stage. Oren grasps the microphone, unwinding its cord from the stand and testing it. Fletcher slings his mint green telecaster over his shoulders and checks his pedal board, clicking each one off and on as he strums a few chords. Satoshi scrutinizes the setup of his bass before looking over at Damien, who rewards him with two middle fingers.

I snort a laugh, glad Satoshi can’t hear me.

Oren smiles into the mic, brushing a hand back through his hair as he asks with a calm affect, “What the fuck is up, Del Lune?”

Damien enhances Oren’s greeting with some blast beats that leave me feeling breathless. My heart hammers against my sternum in answer. More screaming. The crowd surges forward, pushing my slight frame against the barrier. I inhale as deeply as I can, but there are so many bodies pressed around me that even a lung full of air doesn’t seem to actually supply my brain with any oxygen.

“A little bit of housekeeping before we go all in. If any of you have been to one of our shows, you know the fucking rules. Rule one: Don’t fucking throw things—”

“Rule two: don’t fucking trap people in the pit who are trying to get out,” he says before holding up his thumb, index and middle fingers. “Rule three: don’t be a fucking creep. If I hear about anyone getting fucked with out there, we’re going to fuck you up ourselves.”

A warm drone of well-timed feedback rings out from one of the massive amps, a response to Fletcher holding his guitar near its case. A few solitary beats from the drums. Hard, trilling thumps as Damien’s two-toned eyes watch Oren’s back.