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Nobody looked twice at him.
No one else bounced up and down and tried to point a cell phone his way.
Sliding low in his seat as the plane took off, he stared out the window, hoping he wasn’t making the biggest mistake in recent memory. After all, Zakk had offered to come to him. Never once had he suggested that Tripp needed to get away from his issues by coming to him. Would be interesting to see what kind of welcome he’d get, and how Winter would handle his little disappearing act. That is, if his brother bothered returning to their house to see that Tripp was gone.
Chapter 3
Bury ourselves in music
“Where the fuck does he get the nerve!” Zakk raged as he threw his phone on the overstuffed grey couch and flopped on the cushions after it.
Across the room from him, sprawled sideways in the matching easy chair, Dez just raised an eyebrow over the legal pad he was scribbling on, then turned his attention right back to the song.
“Do you know what he said to me?”
There was a pause, pen scratching over paper that rattled a little when Dez readjusted the pad. Dez’s hum was probably a word, not that Zakk had a clue what it was. Finally, he grunted and dragged the pen over the paper in harsh scribbles, a sure sign he was crossing something out. “Was kinda hard to miss,” Dez muttered, peering over the top of the paper at him. “You had it on speaker phone again.”
“More like I’ve gotten so use to having it on when we’re jamming it’s become habit now. You could just come over, you know.”
“And have my own version of that conversation with Riley when I came stumbling through the door at four AM. No thanks. I’m liable to say the wrong shit, he’d blow it completely out of proportion, and I’d spend the rest of the morning unruffling his feathers, one god damned feather at a time, instead of sleeping.”
Snickering, Zakk couldn’t help but feel bad for Dez and Riley, that his longtime friend had such a hard time accepting that their new guitarist and front man was completely into him.
“You just need to pin him to the bed and fuck all the self-deprecating thoughts out of his head.”
“Not a bad idea, might need a few days off from the songwriting though.”
Dez truly looked like he was contemplating it too, with the way he’d stopped tapping the pen on the edge of the pad and started staring off across the room like he was already picturing what he planned to do to Riley.
“Take as long as you need. You guys can’t go out on the road like this.”
“I know. It was why I had no intention of dating him in the first place.”
“Do you regret it?”
“I don’t want to,” Dez admitted. “I’ve walked away from too many people I’ve cared about to want to do it again. And in this case, it’s not like I can go too far.”
“You’re damned right about that,” Zakk grumbled, still pissed that a band that had nearly driven Dez to quit performing altogether had the nerve to repeatedly try and lure him back into playing with them.
“The thing that frustrates me the most is how Riley acts like he believes me when I’m right in front of his face, then as soon as I’m out of sight he starts creating these whole scenarios where I’m running off with someone else.”
“He’s always been his own worst enemy.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t come into this relationship looking to fight battles with ghosts. It’s lose, lose all the way around and I don’t have the energy for it.”
“Seeing as we were up at two this morning still working out the chords to this song, I won’t ask if you’re sleeping but have you talked to Riley about it any, or you know, woken him even if it’s just to hear him complain about how unholy the hour is?”
He got a laugh out of Dez with that, which was good, because the dark circles beneath his stormy eyes were beginning to be worrisome.
“With the petty shit that keeps coming up between us, I didn’t think it was a good time to discuss something serious.”
“Who knows, maybe it would help shake him out of whatever is going on in his head.”
“Doubtful, seeing as how it ain’t about him!” Dez sucked in a breath and seemed to count before exhaling. “Sorry, that was uncalled for.”
“I’m not judging. At the moment, I’m giving serious consideration to kicking off our first meeting of theMy Boyfriend Has Repressed Issues That He’s Constantly Taking Out on Meclub with a cranberry SoCo.”
“We can call this meeting to order with you splashing a little Sprite in mine.”
