Fuck. I just might have to cut this jam short with that image floating in my head.

I close my eyes, feel the music for a minute—the beat, the rhythm, the notes—before I can jump in. My body rocks to it instinctively as I find my chords to join the guys. And it’s easy enough to do because we’ve been playing together for so long that I know where Vince is going to go with his riff and how to come in when it starts to fade some. Gizmo leads me into the jam, and Rocket rolls in right after me.

I concentrate, fingers moving to hit those first notes in synch with the guys, and I open my eyes for a moment to glance over at Vince to make sure he’s good with where I took it on my side. He nods his head as he chimes back in. Knowing we’re in sync, I close my eyes again, let my head hang down, and allow the world around me to slip away with each passing note as I become a part of the music that has saved and comforted me most of my life.

Losing myself in the music, I let go all of my anger from the fucked-up phone calls tonight from Hunter begging for money to probably get his next fix. The beat erases my past, bit by bit, memory by memory, sadness by sadness until all that’s left is the here and the now: my best friends around me, Quinlan watching me, the music cleansing me from responsibilities I never asked for.

“You built me up. You tore me down. Left me to wear your poisoned crown …” The lyrics I’ve been toying with come without warning, and I’m so in my own head that I don’t even realize I’ve said them aloud until I notice Rocket slow down his pace to keep with what I’ve belted out. I keep my head down, trying to avoid feeling vulnerable as I sing the words that come to mind and tell my story, but it’s no use. Putting my thoughts to words then penning words to paper before turning them into lyrics is equivalent to cutting open my soul to expose the dirty, dark, bloody secrets I hold close. Every fucking one of them.

And yet I continue the temporary purge of my misgivings.

“I am not weak. I am not strong. Just a man left walking in a world where you made sure I don’t belong.” My voice breaks on the last word, and I squeeze my eyes shut as my fingers still on the guitar. The room falls silent around me, Gizmo’s labored breathing from drumming the only sound of life.

“Holy fucking shit, dude!” Rocket says, surprise and admiration lacing through his voice. “Was that the shit you’ve been working on? Just … wow!”

He says something else that I don’t catch because I’m so busy trying to come to grips with the things I just said, the feelings I just scraped from the scars on my soul that now feel open and raw. The things everyone around me knows about already. But coming out this way, through the emotion of a song, is so much more real than a monotone blow by blow.

I sucked at school but I remember learning that Orwell said good writing is like a windowpane. Too bad my lyrics are more like tempered glass, reflecting how I’m so broken and shattered, the shards never falling because they’re being held up by invisible strings. Someday though all the pieces are going to come popping out one by one, till all that’s left is a gaping hole surrounded by irreparable shatters.

I feel hollow now, afraid to look up, afraid to keep my head down because more memories might come that I don’t want to think about. I feel more vulnerable than I have in a long fucking time and I know for a fact it has to do with Quinlan. I’ve let her in when I usually keep everyone at arm’s length unless it’s for that quick rocking in the sheets before I roll them out the door.

The realization hits me that maybe now after hearing my from-the-heart lyrics she’ll realize who I am, what I come from, and that I’m not enough for someone like her. Yes, I’ve told her about my past but something about music reinforces the damage within me.

The thought hits me hard because hell yes, we’re fucking good together but at the same time, she’s got her shit together, her life together, while my number one hits don’t mean shit when my life’s shadowed daily by the next phone call from Westbrook, the next request from Hunter, the continual demise of my mom.

When I pull myself from my thoughts and find the wherewithal to raise my head, Vince is making sure the recording is there and then I see him flick the switch turning the soundboard off. Rocket and Giz are nowhere to be found. He meets my eyes with a nod of his head, a shift of his eyes over to where Quinlan sits behind me, and then walks toward the door.

I track his movement, too chickenshit and embarrassed to meet her eyes just yet. Vince stops with his hand on the door and says, “You did good, man. Let’s hope it feels as good for you to get out as it did for us to hear.”

All I give him is a single nod in acknowledgement as I fiddle with the strap on my guitar before he closes the door. Sighing softly, I turn around on my stool, eyes still focused on my fingers as I rein in the needy bullshit I don’t want to deal with right now. Hell, right now? Who am I kidding? How about never want to deal with.

And I feel awkward for the first time ever with her but I know it’s only the mixture of alcohol and exhaustion and shit with Hunter that’s making me feel this way.

“So …” I say, trying to find my way through the minefield I’ve led us into. “I’m feeling a little …” My voice trails off as I find irony in the fact that I’ve just sung lyrics so honest and telling, and yet now I’m uncomfortable saying how I feel about it.

“Did you say something?” she asks, her tone chock-full of confusion that has me lifting my eyes to meet hers. “Sorry, I wasn’t listening. I was too damn busy thinking about having sex with you.”

The smile comes naturally to my lips, and it matches the desire that’s a constant when she’s around. “Is that so?” I rise from my seat, swing my guitar to rest against my back, and walk toward her, wondering how she can know a comment like that is just what I needed to break up my sudden discomfort.

Standing in front of her, I enjoy listening to her breath hitch when she runs her eyes up the length of my body. And then those eyes of hers—liquid amber—lock onto mine, her eyebrows lifting as if to say What are you waiting for?

And I don’t know why I’m waiting, but there is something about the moment, the lyrics, her being here that makes me want to stand here a minute and let it all sink in before I lose myself to her.

Because that’s what’s going to happen. I can deny it all I want, tell myself I’m a man who needs no one, let alone the same set of lips to kiss him before sleep each and every night, but I’d be lying to myself. And not very well either. Maybe it’s Quin, maybe it’s the idea that I’m finally so fed up with Hunter I know the last straw is about to break. Maybe it’s the realization that my mom may still be here but I really lost her all those years ago…. I’m not sure. What I do know is that I crave the normalcy of a relationship, a home life without the constant shadow of grief and weight of a promise that’s not mine to keep.

I crave the love that will make me weak and know it’s not in the cards for me.

Her hands on my hips shock me from the shit suddenly clouding my head and bring my thoughts to exactly where they need to be. Right here. Right now. On her and how she’s touching me and just what I should do with this guitar.

She pulls me closer and I go willingly, my dick front and center as she sits before me. I gasp, a shot of straight lust streaking down my spine when she snakes her fingers beneath my shirt and scrapes her fingernails along the top of my waistband.

I’m instantly hard—it’s a thing with her—where when I’ve had more than my fill over the years it sometimes takes me a minute to catch up to the predictability of the moment. But when Quinlan touches me, I’m already thinking about how I’m going to want another night with her when the sex we’re about to have is over.

Wanting more sex is a given, but rarely with the same woman time and again.

Her fingers make quick work of my zipper but instead of pulling my pants down, she leans forward to where my cock is now begging for attention and looks up. A slow siren’s smile turns up the corners of her mouth before she darts her tongue out to wet her lips and fuck me; between the hunger in her eyes and her mouth open and willing, I know she’s about to destroy me in every pleasurably painful way possible.

She leans forward and presses her mouth to the material snug over my cock and blows hard and long. The hot air from her mouth seeps into the fabric and feels like it’s wrapping around my dick. It’s like she’s giving me the hint of a blow job, the tease of what she can do, and it feels so fucking good, I roll my head back and enjoy it.

Quinlan does it a few more times as her fingers tease the small amount of skin that she’s bared. I roll my head to the side as she tugs my jeans and boxer briefs down, my dick springing up when she clears it. And before I can open my eyes and look down at her, she has me in her mouth.

Our brief conversation from earlier flashes through my mind: handing her my latest test results showing a clean bill of health, her showing me her pack of birth control pills and a promise her test results are the uneventful kind like mine.

And thank fuck for the forethought of that conversation because a blow job with a condom on is nothing compared to the feeling of a wet, warm mouth sliding over rock-hard flesh.

I hiss out a breath, maybe her name, I don’t know because that would mean I’d have to think and right now there is absolutely no thought as her tongue slides across my head, dipping in to lick the drop of precum there. She wraps her lips around my crest, that fucking fantastic tongue owning me as it circles around and turns my knees to Jell-O. I’m gonna come on the spot.