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“Don’t,” Slash said when I opened my mouth again to thank him. “We covered the thing about thanking me already,” he reminded me.
“Right,” I agreed. “But I really do appreciate it. I just want you to know that,” I told him, putting my tea down on the nightstand, using a random piece of paperwork as a coaster.
“Noted,” he said, standing there watching me as I kicked out of my shoes, pulled off my pants, then undid my bra from under my shirt before climbing onto the bed. “You got any shit at the motel still?” he asked.
“My weekend bag, yeah. I told Jack I wasn’t sure if I was coming back.”
“I’ll send someone over tomorrow to get your shit. And settle the bill,” he told me, toeing out of his shoes, then coming toward the bed. “Figure you can borrow one of my shirts until then. Or maybe Dell or Morgaine have something you can borrow.”
“It’s gonna have to be your shirt,” I told him, tapping my boob, then my hip. “I’d stretch out their stuff.”
“That’s not a bad thing,” he told me with a smirk as he yanked off his shirt, then removed his pants, climbing on the bed in just his boxers. “Drink your tea,” he demanded, reaching for a remote and flicking on the TV.
He searched around for a minute before settling on something and I felt a smile tugging at my lips asThe Golden Girlstheme song started.
“Did you buy this for me?” I asked, smiling over at him.
“Need your comfort show after the time you’ve been having.”
And if that wasn’t just the fucking sweetest thing.
“Don’t,” he said again, shooting me a raised brow look when I wanted to thank him again.
“Right,” I agreed, settling in to finish my tea and try to focus on the TV, but my mind refused to think of anything except the fact that I was in bed with Slash and we weren’t fucking, and that everyone in the building knew that something was going on with us, and it was all just… okay.
All the rules, all the boundaries, all the worries I’d had about seeing someone who was in my circle of people was for nothing.
When I set the mug down on the nightstand, finished, Slash’s arm slid under my back, curling me up onto his chest.
And it was so foreign, yet so, so welcome.
“Slash?” I asked after a moment of lying there, just listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat.
“Yeah?” he asked, his hand settled at my lower back.
“What’s your real name?” I asked.
There was the shortest of pauses, before, “Strauss.”
“Strauss,” I repeated, liking the sound on my lips. “I like it. It’s different,” I told him. “It suits you.”
“Why’d your mom name you Nyx?” he asked.
To that, I let out a small laugh.
“That was back before all the drinking,” I told him. “She’d been a little over-the-top back then. A little obsessed with gothic shit. She said she wanted to give me a fearsome name because any girl who wanted to make it in this world would have to be that. Fearsome.”
“Ma hit the bottle a lot, huh?” he asked, and his hand was starting to drift up and down my spine, soft, hypnotic.
“Let’s just say that I was uniquely qualified to tend bar fresh out of high school for a reason,” I told him.
“What about your old man?”
“He cut out early,” I told him. “My mom was… a lot when she was drinking. And she was always drinking. He’s a decent guy. Paid child support even though my mom never went after him for it. I mean, she spent it on booze, but he did send it. He settled down in Sacramento with a bunch of kids and a wife that wasn’t so difficult.”
“Is your ma still around?” he asked.
“She lives over in the trailer park,” I told him. “I, ah, actually… I stored the second set of bricks in my old childhood bedroom,” I admitted, realizing I’d left that part out before. Probably because my mom was a touchy subject for me. “It’s really well hidden,” I assured him. “She already sold everything of worth in that room.”
