Pixie shook her head, but butterflies of excitement where building in her stomach. She felt like a bottle of champagne that had been shaken.
“I want what everyone else has,” Dred said. “What Trent has with Harper. What Cujo has with Drea. They simply have each other and are building their lives from there. I want you and me, only we’ll have Petal too.”
“But what about Jordan?”
“We talked. Jordan is staying with the other guys while we are here. Then we all go on tour together. After that, who knows? But I told Jordan that he’ll never be alone. I’ll set him up a room in the new house so he can stay with the guys or live with me.”
“What happened? Can you tell me?”
“There should be a bottle of wine in the fridge. Why don’t you grab it, and find us some glasses while I go check on Petal. We’ll talk and then I’ll give you a tour.”
Pixie wandered into the kitchen and ran her hand over the cool white countertop. The double-door fridge was intimidating, but was already well stocked. Their friends had been busy. She found the glasses in the third cupboard she looked in.
“Here.” Dred walked back into the great room. “Let me open that.”
Once they were seated and drinking the delicious white wine, Dred began. “I think we owe our lives to Ellen who ran the home we lived in, and Maisey, our social worker. They made us their family. Shit, we were even groomsmen at their wedding. Maisey encouraged us to build a family with those we lived with. She used to say real families don’t get a choice either. Your sibling is your sibling, and you just need to make it work. Her thought was why should group homes be any different?”
Pixie smiled at the sentiment. She’d done the same with Cujo and Trent.
“Anyway, she decided to buy us musical instruments to give us all something to do. This was before Lennon joined us. We had a drummer named Adam, but that’s a whole other story for another day.”
Pixie put her wine glass down and curled up next to him. She could only imagine how painful his memories were to share.
“So Lennon came to live with us, his last name is McCartney by the way. His mom might have been a selfish bitch, but at least she had a sense of humor. Anyway, we started a band. From that day on, we did everything together. We made up songs, which nine times out of ten were crap. We put on shows for our carers. And we got in shit, and fought, and were generally assholes. None of us were perfect.”
Dred put his wine down and pulled her across his lap to kiss her gently.
“Jordan was rescued by social services. I guess that’s the only way to say it. It’s his story to tell. But suffice to say that what he escaped from was the worst of all our stories. When he was finally able to join a group home, he . . . I don’t know what the word is . . . but I guess he found a safety he’d never known.” Dred remembered the way he needed to walk through the house in the middle of the night, and check everyone was home. “When it came time for us all to start leaving, Jordan started to panic. And even though he’d been over to the apartment we were renting, the idea of moving freaked him out too. So he did something out of desperation to let us know.”
Pixie gasped, and Dred squeezed her tightly. “That day, we promised ourselves if it took living together for the rest of our lives to make him feel safe, we would.”
“I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you or the others,” Pixie said.
“You can.” His eyes were full of concern. “You lived through shit too.”
“Yeah, but before Arnie, me and mom did okay. It wasn’t all bad. What you went through, it was your whole life. At least there was a period in mine when I felt loved.”
“I never knew what that felt like until I met you.”
“Oh Dred, I do love you. I love you so very much.” Desperate to show him just how much, she pressed her lips against his and began to open the buttons on his shirt.
Once they were all open, Pixie pulled her T-shirt over her head and leaned forward to kiss a trail along his jaw, down his neck, and across his chest so she could lick and suck his nipple.
Dred groaned and reached around to her back. She felt her bra snap open and sat up to remove it. Moving quickly, she knelt between his legs. His belt opened easily while his zipper was strained by his erection. Pixie ran her teeth along his length through the denim.
“Just like that,” Dred gasped, grabbing her hair.
She wiggled his jeans down and freed his cock. It was the first time she’d ever given anybody a blowjob. Looking up at him, she licked the rim of his head and smiled when his eyes rolled back in his head. She sucked the tip into her mouth, using saliva to make it nice and wet. Gripping his shaft, she slid her hand up and down, matching the strokes of her mouth.
“Fuck, Pix. Yeah. Oh, fuck. Like that.” His hips jerked beneath her, and she used her other hand to cup and squeeze his balls.