“Hey, I’d just found out Damie was… that Damie.”
“Took time out to fuck him though, right?” Kane’s eyebrow inched up over his forehead.
“You’ve seen him,” Sionn pointed out. “Would you have?”
“Miki’s mean when he’s pissed so… um… nope.” The man grinned. “And from what I can tell, it’s not just fucking between the two of you.”
“No, it’s not.” He peered down the neck of his beer bottle as if he could find answers to his life’s questions in its froth. “Guess he and I should talk, eh?”
“Probably.” Kane mulled. “Or you could stick your head in the sand and wait for it to fall apart on you. You know, how you normally do shit.”
“Unfair, cousin,” Sionn muttered.
“What’s unfair?” Damie’s voice made them both jump, and Kane had the good grace to look slightly guilty before turning back to the steaks. Poking Sionn in the shoulder, Damie leaned over and whispered into his ear, “Talking shit about me, Irish?”
“How do you like your steak, D?” Kane asked softly, and the guitarist narrowed his eyes at his friend’s lover.
“Probably going to be well-done, but I prefer bloody.” Damien tugged at Sionn’s shirt, urging him up out of the seat. “Come on, Murphy. You and I are going to have a talk.”
THOSE words were enough to make Damien’s stomach clench with fear, and saying them… out loud… and to the man he’d been cuddling up to every night in Miki’s guest room sent him into a shivering case of frozen nerves. But he knew he’d have to say them. Their lives were going to change. He knew it deep inside. After days of being poked and prodded, physically and mentally, he’d found a comfort in Sionn’s arms.
Damie just needed to know if that comfort was going to be there for him when the shit fully hit the fan or if it was going to be yanked out from under him like a rug he wasn’t good enough to stand on.
He’d needed a bit of courage, so a stealthy gulp at a bottle of Jack burned in his stomach. He’d snagged one of Miki’s kreteks and lit up the clove cigarette once he and Sionn were outside on the roof. They’d both stopped long enough to grab a jacket, and Damie found himself automatically reaching for the hoodie Sionn’d given him to wear to the Morgans’. Sliding his arms into the fleece, he’d caught the other man hiding a brief smile before turning away to mount the stairs to the warehouse’s rooftop.
Exhaling a plume of smoke, he stared out at the city beyond the hill, wondering at the lives behind the sparking lights. Sionn slumped down into one of the wicker lawn chairs Miki or Kane had dragged up and hooked his feet onto the edge of the short wall surrounding the roof. By grabbing a belt loop, he tugged Damie down, spreading his legs slightly so the guitarist could sit sideways on his lap.
“You smell like a ham.” Sionn’s kiss was a light brush on Damien’s neck, and he leaned back, hoping the man would continue the touch. He wasn’t disappointed. Sionn’s arms came around him, and his teeth raked over the spot.
“You like ham,” he pointed out, blowing his next exhale downwind of the man.
“I like bacon too, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to come up here to suckle on a porker,” Sionn teased. “I don’t mind the cloves, love, but you only grab one of those when you’re troubled.”
“I’ve been grabbing a lot of these this past week,” Damien admitted softly. He stabbed out the half-smoked kretek and lobbed it over to a sand-filled trashcan by the access door, hissing and pumping his arms up in mock victory when it went in smoothly. “And Mitchell scores a three pointer!”
“Talk to me, Damie,” Sionn murmured into Damien’s shoulder blades, ruffling his shirt with a whisper. “What’s bothering you so much that you’re smelling like Christmas dinner?”
He took a breath, the cold San Francisco air stinging his clove-scented lungs. Miki’d told him he thought Damien was the most fearless person he knew, but sitting in Sionn’s lap, Damie decided his friend must have known some fairly chicken-shitty people, because he was more of a bundle of nerves than a twink’s prostate.
“With all of this stuff that’s been going on… with me trying to get my head back together… fuck, my life back together….” He stumbled over what he wanted to say, hoping to find words that would make some sense of the chaos burbling up in his mind. “Fucking hell, Miki’s the one who writes lyrics. I should have had him write me down something to say.”