SAFELY tucked away under tarps strung between two metal shed-like structures on the warehouse roof, Damien was already hiding when one of the Morgan behemoths stamped up the stairs.
A few days before, he convinced Sionn to help him drag a couple of beanbags upstairs, angling them so he could lay in one and have a piggyback amp on the other. Now with a shelter from the elements, Damien bundled up in layers and fled to the roof when the world pushed in on him, losing himself in the music he coaxed from one of his old guitars.
Kane had been very serious about Miki saving all of Damie’s life in boxes and crates. Nearly every guitar Damie ever hoarded was stacked carefully either in a spare room or in the never-used, dusty studio downstairs. Sinner’s Gin was entombed in Miki’s warehouse, trapped in mosquito-flecked amber in the hopes of being released by some mad scientist.
“Just because you can,” Damie murmured over his strings, “doesn’t mean you should.”
It’d been a problem he’d wrestled with ever since he and Miki spoke about the band. He needed the lights and screams as much as he needed to shape the music that poured out of him. Sinjun wasn’t the ego-whore he was, but he missed the family they’d once had, even if it meant tearing their lives apart slogging from city to city. Neither one of them had realized they’d been living on borrowed time. Now as they licked their wounds and broken spirits, the stage was still a lure, a temptation both of them missed drinking from.
The arrival of a throaty-motored beast of a car had reaffirmed Damien’s decision to take some breathing space, especially when he heard Kane’s brother complain about the front door.
“I just knock.” The man’s voice was a bass drum, rolling up from three stories below. Damie couldn’t quite make out what the mother said, but her lilting Irish scold was hot in amazement at her son’s stupidity. “What bell? That? That looks like it’s a part of the door! If it’s a doorbell, it should be on the side. And lit up or something. Who the hell designed this place? Escher?”
Apparently, the son was either driven out by his raptor mother or he’d been sent in search of Damien, because he nodded at the guitarist when their eyes met, not surprised to see Damie wedged into his hiding space. He was about to tell the Morgan spawn to get his muscled ass back downstairs when the man held up a couple of beer bottles and a bag of chicharrónes.
“Ah, you bring tribute.” Damien set his guitar down next to him and leaned over to clear off the other beanbag. “Come, approach so I may bless you. Connor, right?”
The Morgan in question nodded and handed Damie the bag of rinds, then popped open both bottles. Setting one down on a plastic crate sitting between the beanbags, he laughed with a mouthful of suds at Damien’s orgasmic noises after crunching on a rind.
“Oh fucking hell, these are almost as good as sex.” Damien hissed at the spicy aftermath rising up in his mouth as he chewed. “Goddamn. Really, where the hell do you get these?”
“My da makes them.” The Irish in Connor’s voice was more pronounced than his brothers’, a hair less than Damie heard in Sionn’s rough murmurs. “Mum makes him cook outside in a stockpot fryer. She was always afraid one of us would fall into it and she’d be out a dishwasher.”
“You sure your dad’s not gay?” Damien dug out another rind and slid the velvety curl into his mouth. “I’d marry him.”
“And Sionn? What about him?” Connor gave him a look as he took another swig.
“I’ll keep him on the side.” He waved a chicharrón in the air under Connor’s nose. “If he’s tasted these, he’d understand.”
“Huh.” The man’s noncommittal grunt was as bland as the rinds were fiery.
Sniffing at the threatening scent of rain in the air, Damien asked, “Did you come up here to hide from your mom or to drag me downstairs?”
“You think I hide from my mum?” Connor’s mouth quirked to the side.
“I think any sane man would hide from your mom,” he replied smoothly. “Miki’s crazy, and he hides from her.”
“Yeah, it pisses her off, but she won’t say anything.” Connor groaned, rolling his shoulders. “We keep telling her to let him come to her, but Mum’s not that… patient. Give her time. She’ll have you in her sights soon enough. And yeah, I’m hiding first, then probably dragging you down with me. She wants to cook you guys dinner. Says something about you all having to eat something besides steak and fried chicken.”