Sloe Ride (Sinners, #4)

“Sionn.” It wasn’t a question. More an affirmation and one Quinn generally agreed with. “What’s he done now?”


“I feel like I need to have this conversation someplace I can rage.” Miki shifted under the blanket, sitting up against the pillows. “Fucking lying here is… what the hell? Is that your cat?” He peeked under the cover. “She’s got a damned sweater on. Your butt-naked, ugly cat is wearing a damned sweater, Quinn. There’s something wrong there.”

“Harley’s not naked. She has fur. It’s just very short. And the sweater keeps her warm.” Quinn sighed. He liked Miki. He liked Miki for Kane. Mostly because the mercurial singer kept Quinn’s older brother jumping, and despite his deep affection for Kane, there was something satisfying about watching the guy who bossed him when they were kids get his comeuppance. “Again, what’s Sionn done now?”

“Fucker brought Rafe up. Sionn wants Damie—wants us—to let him audition. They’re downstairs going at it.” Miki stiffened when Harley crawled off of Quinn’s legs and went searching for a new place to perch. Quinn guessed she’d found one somewhere on Miki’s body. “Swear to God, that thing bites me, and I’m going to turn it into a wineskin.”

“You don’t even drink wine, Sinjun.” Miki’s bluster was more bristle than fang, and Quinn knew it. He thought on the Rafe he’d once known and compared him to the broken-spirited man he’d seen at Forest’s coffee shop. When they’d been younger, Rafe’d always thrown himself into the troubles he’d caused but never dragged anyone in with him. He’d also never asked anyone for help getting out of them. “Did Rafe ask Sionn to do that? Ask Damie?”

“He says nope.” Miki tensed again as Harley undulated over them, a feline basking shark moving through her warmed lair. “D got all—”

Damien hit the rooftop running. He cleared the access door’s threshold before it’d begun to swing back and was nearly halfway across the long stretch of roof when it clicked shut behind him. If Quinn thought Miki’d gone stiff when Harley touched him, he was practically stone as Damien approached the tucked-away pillow mound.

“Where the fuck did you go?” Damien snarled, his feet pounding away the distance between them. “You don’t fucking walk away from me when there’s shit going down.”

“Fuck you back, dude. That shit downstairs wasn’t even about me. That was between you and your guy.” Miki was gone from under the blanket, sliding out before Quinn could protest the cold. Harley mewled her displeasure, and he flipped the cover back over them, trapping what little warm air was left. “So yeah, I walked. Because it was none of my fucking business.”

“It was about the band. So yeah, it involves you, asshat,” Damie bit back.

The fog was rolling in thicker, refusing to let the sun in, and Quinn wondered if he and Harley could slide past the other two and back downstairs without them noticing. When Damien’s angry gaze spilled over him, he tightened, aware he’d been caught in a trap he couldn’t chew out of.

“Instead you’re up here bitching about me to Quinn? When you should have been down there backing me up?”

“I’m really not a part of this,” Quinn volunteered. It was uncomfortable being caught between the rough sandpaper of a relationship—especially one he didn’t understand at times. Damien and Sinjun were… volatile, sipping fire from a hose volatile, and they were passionate about everything—music, their friendship, their loves, and now, as Quinn was recently made aware, their fighting.

“The band right now is you, D,” Miki tossed back at his friend. “And yeah, I came up here to bitch with Quinn ’cause sometimes he’s the only sane one in the house.”

“You’re the reason I want a damned band. We’re—”

“Really. I came up here because I wanted to read. And it was six in the morning. None of you are supposed to be awake this early.” Reaching down under the blanket, Quinn tried to fish a reluctant Harley out so he could beat a hasty retreat. “And… I don’t know if there’s an and. There’s probably a but, because there always seems to be a but. But maybe not. And yes, there it is. The but.”

The cat was definitely not cooperating, and Quinn sat up to peer under the blanket at her smug, wrinkled apricot face.

“You are not helping. Come here,” he hissed at her. Harley ignored him, lifting her leg up to chew on her toes as she did every morning when Quinn got up for coffee. It was their routine—and a lost one at that.

He hated not having a routine. Or at least knowing where and when he could be without someone else being there next to him.

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