Brick covered in blood
Face painted with spit
Skin the wrong color
Suck cock, called unfit
So many ways to kill us
So many ways to make us less
When’s it all going to stop
That’s just anyone’s guess
Don’t pick up that stone
Just unclench your fist
Turn the other cheek
We’re all better than this
—Bathing in Hate
LAS VEGAS’S lights drowned out the stars, bleaching the night sky to a pale dove gray. Hints of amaranthine and goldenrod flickered and lapped at the edge of the horizon, a saturated wash of radiance stealing away the dark. The strip itself bled fractals into Miki’s eyes, leaving art-deco sunbursts behind when he blinked.
There were people everywhere, a low hum of chatter fueled by the clash of horns, the clatter of a roller coaster on the side of a building, and the rushing swoosh of what seemed like a million fountains. Lights did battle to push back even the faintest of shadows, and the early-evening crowds ebbed and flowed in waves, forming into pools at each corner before the traffic lights sent them scurrying on the next tide. Double-decker busses edged in and out of the way of frantic cabs weaving through the thick traffic.
“Where the fuck are they all going?” From his spot in the passenger seat, Miki watched as a scatter of silicon-breasted, scantily clad women tottered past them on high heels. “It’s like being caught in a giant outdoor mall or something. Like one of those hamster trails.”
One lagged behind, her nosebleed-high cork wedges clopping over the crosswalk’s broad white lines. Wiggling her fingers at Damien, she nearly plowed into a round-bellied man in khaki shorts and a CSI T-shirt lumbering in the other direction, his hands clenched around a soda and a hot dog. They did a shuffling dance, exchanging smiles, then continued on their way, but not before the man snuck a backward peek at the woman’s plump asscheeks.
“Welcome to Vegas, Sinjun,” Damien replied, pulling the van into a stream of traffic when the light turned green. “And yeah, it’s less of a Habitrail and more of a theme park, where everything is fake smiles and set dressing.”
“Food’s good, though,” Forest said as he stretched his legs out. “Con and I had a great time last time we were here.”
“Yeah, I saw Connor’s neck when you got back.” Damien chuckled. “Looked like he fell into a lamprey nest.”
“He bruises easily,” Forest defended himself. “’Sides, not like Sionn doesn’t wear turtlenecks on Sunday during the summer.”
Damien spared Forest a quick hot glare. “Fuck, that one time. And it was cold.”
“It was over seventy-five. Who wears a turtleneck past seventy?” Forest prodded.
“Who wears a turtleneck?” Miki tossed out.
“We’re not staying at some broke-ass dive, right?” Rafe cut into the teasing. “Because I’m kind of sick of the no-tell motel shit, D.”
Miki’s spine knotted, and he risked a sidelong glance at Damien. D’s knuckles were white as he flexed his fingers around the van’s steering wheel. His mouth went a little tight, and then he took a deep breath, cocking his head, his mouth opening slightly. Knowing Damien as well as he did, Miki knew he wasn’t going to like what came out of his brother’s mouth, so he did them all a favor and gave Damien a swift kick to his shin.
“Fuck, Sin! What the hell?” Damien unwrapped one hand from the wheel to rub at the dusty shoeprint on his jeans. “What was that for?”
“Shit doesn’t need to be smeared around,” Miki growled, flicking his eyes once to the back of the van, where Rafe sat in a sullen slouch on the rear seat. “Let it go.”
Their bassist had been carrying an attitude since they’d left Texas, and the gig they’d played in Arizona was good enough but missed that elusive something they’d had up until their gear’d been stolen. It’d been one thing after another following the Box gig, and everyone’s nerves were stretched tight enough to pop.
Damien hissed softly, “Fucker’s been—”
“I took care of it. Just fucking get us to the Venetian.” Miki tapped at the dashboard’s GPS, changing the van’s destination address.
“We’re not staying—” Damien cut himself off at Miki’s disgruntled growl. “Okay, did you at least cancel the other reservations?”
“Where? At Ass-chaps Inn and Marriage Chapel?” He pursed his lips at Damien’s soft protesting sigh. “No, because I didn’t know where you had the goddamned reservations. It’s like a fucking scavenger hunt with you. Pay for the fucking no-show and pull into the Venetian. Their top floor suites were open… well, they got opened up for us. So just find us the fucking hotel, and we can get our brains on straight again.”
One thing Miki’d never gotten used to was the Strip’s smell. It permeated everything, getting down under his skin and then filling his nostrils with its odd mix of booze, cotton candy, and sex. Despite the early-evening hour, the sidewalks were already littered with plastic cups and cardstock flyers advertising the hottest places to see naked women.
“When’d they get an M&M store?” Damien craned his neck to stare up at the building.
“It’s been there for years,” Miki said, shoving him back into the driver’s seat. “You’ve always just been too drunk to notice every time we came through.”
“Shit, I’d have crawled in there and ate myself sick if I’d known.” He twisted around in his seat. “When did this place get so fucking busy too? I don’t remember it being this busy.”
“You’ve never driven the Strip before. Last time we were in Vegas, we got in at four in the morning, and they shuttled us in through the back. Don’t you remember trying to hump that happy Buddha they’ve got over at Planet Hollywood?”
“I can’t even remember being at the hotel.” Damien sighed. “God, I was so fucked-up back then. Now look at me, yawning my ass off, and it’s not even seven o’clock at night.”
“It’s over to the right.” Miki’s stomach was a mess. “Do valet.”
He’d made a call before they left Arizona, pleading his case as quickly as he could before the others made it back to the van. The tension between them was odd, tight in spots around Rafe and sometimes, he had to admit, even himself. Forest and Damien seemed to be holding up, but there were signs of cracking, especially when the drummer audibly growled at D when his hand drifted too close to Forest’s bacon at the roadside diner they’d stopped at for breakfast.
“So the whole hard tour thing we’d agreed to is kind of out the window for Vegas, then?” Damien grumbled.
“Once again, only you wanted to do this shit, Mitchell,” Rafe grumbled.
“It’s been good,” Forest interjected. “A couple of shitty things but mostly good.”
“I don’t think Miki getting stabbed the first time we hit the stage qualifies as shitty. That was more than shitty,” their bassist shot back. “And did you forget the shit someone smeared all over our windows in Georgia? Or the asshole who spray-painted crap all over the sides of the van in Phoenix? ’Cause waking up to someone telling you to fuck off and die is really fucking great.”
“Yeah, just park, D.” Miki shook his head at Damien before he bitched back at Rafe. “Look, a couple of paint cans, and then it was all good.”
“It was kind of fun to tag up the van,” Forest offered. “Come on. At least it looks like something a rock band would own now.”
There were still flecks of gold, blue, and purple under Miki’s nails from their impromptu art project to cover up the neon pink death threats they’d found on their van after the Phoenix gig. The van wasn’t any prettier—none of them ever claimed to be an artist—but it definitely was going to go down as the most unique thing he’d ever ridden in. Razor blades got the paint off the glass, but there was no fixing the car’s finish. Now the van had the band’s name in thick print on either side, with flower-eyed sugar skulls and flames filling up the spaces in between. Miki’d gotten a tortured smile from Rafe when he’d been handed the gold paint, and Miki told him to do the lettering since he had the best handwriting.
Miki hadn’t been disappointed with the results, but Rafe’s apathetic shrug at the band’s praise had him worried. The Rafe he knew couldn’t even spell apathetic. He was passionate about everything and anything, and when asked what was wrong, Rafe simply shrugged again, tightening his mouth up, then handed Miki back the empty gold-splattered cans.
The Venetian was busy, and the band’s van stood out like a sore thumb among the limos and smartly dressed people milling about the front entrance. A sign pointed them to general parking and valet, but Miki pointed to the main driveway.
“Wait, the Palazzo or the Venetian? Where the fuck am I going?” Damien groused.
“Right there. You see that guy up there? Head over to him.” Miki smacked Damien’s arm. “Just pull up.”
“It’s on the wrong side. I can’t—”
“You’re fucking part British. It’s on the right side for you. Just go over there.” He sighed heavily while Damien maneuvered around a stream of people in their way. “See? He’s waving you to go over.”
“He’s not waving for me to go over,” Damien replied sharply. “That’s the universal sign for get your piece-of-shit van out of our driveway, you skanky whore.”
“I swear to God, if you don’t fucking park—” Miki sat back in his seat as Damien slid the van into a space between two taxis, then brought the vehicle to a stop in front of the doorman. “Jesus, was that so fucking hard?”
Damien turned to glare at him. “Some days—”
The driver’s side door opened, and a beaming young man nodded at them. “Welcome to the Venetian. We’ve been expecting you, sirs.”
“What did you tell them to look for? Something that looks like a clown threw up on it?” Rafe asked, reaching for the van’s side door handle. Another hotel employee got to it before he did, and Rafe nearly tumbled out of the open door. Forest grabbed his waistband, pulling him back. Patting Forest’s shoulder, he mumbled, “Thanks, man.”
“No problem.” Forest scratched at the sparse golden scruff on his chin. “I really want a shower and a shave. If you bashed your head on those cobblestones, we’d have to go to the hospital smelling like armpit and ass. Not something I want to do.”
“Again,” Rafe added. “Because I’m pretty sure that’s what we smelled like in Boston.”
“What the hell’s going on, Sinjun?” Damien grabbed Miki’s arm, holding him back while the others headed into the hotel lobby ahead of them. “You don’t give a shit where we stay, and you sure as fuck don’t call ahead for ass-kissing.”
“Just fucking get inside the damned hotel.”
If his stomach was in knots before, it was goddamned macramé by the time his shoes hit the hotel’s marble floor. He scanned the lobby for his Hail Mary’s response and found it quickly in the four broad-shouldered men standing to the right of the front door.
“Fucking A.”
“Shit, Miki,” Damien exhaled. “What the fuck have you done?”
They were a broad wall of Irish aggression and toughness, sharpened to a keen edge by an Irish woman’s wit and a solid man’s granite sensibility. Dwarfing the crowd, the Morgans and their Murphy-Finnegan cousin were all smiles and Gaelic charm, animatedly talking to one another and oblivious to their lovers, who stood near the door. The youngest of them turned, his hyperaware senses catching a shift in the crowd, or perhaps Quinn was so tied in to Rafe’s heart he could feel the other man close to him. For whatever reason, Brigid’s green-eyed son shifted, and his face lit up brighter than the Vegas strip.
“Rafe!” Quinn’s uncharacteristic shout stilled the others, and they turned nearly as one, grins plastered on their faces.
Kane was in front of Miki before he could take another breath, and the marble and gilded lobby spun around them as Kane wrapped his arms around Miki’s waist and held him tight. He breathed in Kane’s scent, burying his face in the crook of Kane’s neck and then struggled to get in another mouthful of air around Kane’s embrace. Fingers were in his hair, a strong grip cradling the back of his head, and Miki let himself be spun around again, wrapping his own arms around Kane’s shoulder and torso.
He felt so fucking good in Miki’s arms and against Miki’s skin. The knot in his belly began to unravel, leaving only a sop of sourness behind. He didn’t give a shit if they were kicked out of the hotel. Miki fully intended to chew Kane’s face off in a long kiss. Thankfully, Kane obliged. Kane’s lips found his, and Miki bit at them, nipping to get a full taste of Kane’s laugh when he pulled back.
“God, you look a mess, Mick,” Kane murmured, then brushed his mouth over Miki’s cheek. “Still, it’s damned good to see you.”
“Don’t get me wrong, K,” Miki whispered in his lover’s ear. “Because you know I love you and everything, but I’m really fucking glad you got Quinn to come over. There’s something wrong with Rafe.”
RAFE WASN’T sure how someone cheated at Rock-Paper-Scissors, but he knew Miki somehow had. The suite… the goddamned penthouse suite… was bigger than every single one of his childhood homes combined. Standing in the middle of the fussy living space with its eight-seat dining room and grand piano, Rafe wondered how the hell he’d ever thought he wanted more than what he already had.
Especially since he seemed so willing to throw it all away.
“Do you want coffee?” Quinn called from a room deep in the suite. “Or… water? There’s like a small gym in here with about ten cases of water. This is nuts. I can just hear Mum complaining about the waste. Do you think they throw it all away every time someone leaves? How would they know someone didn’t contaminate it all?”
Rafe swallowed, listening to Quinn’s gentle patter. His lover’s familiar wandering through subjects and words, examining the world, with its constant stream of visual stimulation and noise. He could hear Quinn getting into everything, opening drawers and picking things up only to put them back down. The household staff would be driven crazy by the time they vacated the suite, probably stuck spending at least half an hour putting things back where they belonged because Quinn would carry something from one room to the next.
His eyes stung, watering with hot tears, and Rafe gagged on the lump growing in his throat. Shoving his hands into his jacket’s pockets only made things worse, especially when his fingers brushed over the lump of Kleenex he’d balled up and tucked away.
Quinn found him there, leaning against the window and facing the long corridor leading to the penthouse’s double doors, staring at nothing and wondering how the hell he was going to tell Quinn he’d made a mistake falling in love with a fuckup like Rafe.
“What’s the matter, Rafe?” Quinn’d lost his shoes somewhere in the suite, his bare feet barely making any noise on the living room carpet.
His green eyes were troubled, shrouded in worry, and Rafe ached to reach out to him but knew if he so much as felt Quinn’s skin under his fingertips, he’d lose every ounce of shaky control he had over his emotions. Crossing over to where Rafe stood, Quinn studied him with every step. Coming up close, Quinn twisted his fingers into Rafe’s thin T-shirt and leaned into him.
“Tell me what happened. Did the guys say something? Do something to make you mad?” A heartbeat later and Quinn asked the one question that would always break Rafe’s heart. “Did I?”
“Oh God, fuck no, Q.” Rafe uncoiled and reached for Quinn. Cupping his lover’s handsome face, Rafe hitched his breath, and his tears tore apart his defenses, dampening his cheeks. He kissed Quinn gently, then murmured, “There is never ever anything you can do to make me mad. Okay? Nothing.”
“I don’t know about that.” Quinn’s smile wavered like Rafe’s voice, but he attempted one anyway. “People can get pretty mad at me. Hell, someone even tried to kill me because I couldn’t remember his name.”
“Guy was fucking crazy,” Rafe whispered, pulling Quinn in close. The lump in his pocket seemed to burn into his side, but Rafe didn’t want to let Quinn go. Not when he seemed to make the world quiet around them. “That was so not on you.”
“My mum’s got a bullet wound that would say otherwise, but it’s nice of you to think so,” Quinn replied. Returning Rafe’s soft kiss with one of his own, Quinn sighed into Rafe’s open mouth. “Now, tell me what’s wrong, because I know you, Andrade. You’re carrying something on your shoulders that’s heavier than a fallen angel’s wings.”
There were few times in Rafe’s life when he couldn’t dance away from the truth. He’d spent a lifetime conning and dealing to get just that little bit more to make it through another day, and his instincts told him to lie, to reassure Quinn Morgan with soft words and comforting noises. His mind laid out everything for him, how to seduce the soul-shattering questions being thrown at him and feed Quinn’s deep passions with a night of hot sex and cold beer.
He could do it. Rafe knew he could. Quinn’s trust glimmered in his face, his guileless, open expression full of a love so unconditional it hurt Rafe to look at him. Quinn would take anything Rafe said to heart and defend it to his last dying breath if he had to. There was nothing Quinn wouldn’t do for him… including swallowing every bitter lie Rafe told him.
Taking a deep breath, Rafe opened his tear-hot eyes and trusted the tiny voice in his heart telling him Quinn would do anything for him… including stay.
“I did something really fucking stupid in Austin,” he heard himself say softly. “And I don’t know what to do now, because I fucked up so bad, Q. So fucking bad.”
“You’re going to have shit happen, Rafe.”
Quinn’s expression changed to one Rafe’d only seen on Donal’s face, a mix of affection, tolerance, and a readiness to kick ass if needed. His arms tightened around Rafe’s waist, and Quinn stepped into the space between Rafe’s legs until they were snugged up close. “You’re going to do shit too. If you took a step off of where you need to be, it’s not going to be the end of the world. Not for us. Not for you.”
“You don’t know what I’ve done, Q,” Rafe spat back. “And this fucking crap—”
“Maybe less flogging yourself and more telling me what happened?” He cocked his head. “Because right now, I can’t help you if I don’t know what we’re dealing with.”
Such a simple word… we’re… and it was enough to unman him.
He buckled, and Quinn caught him up, holding Rafe’s weight easily. Catching his balance, Rafe stumbled over to one of the suite’s couches, letting Quinn guide his steps. The tension in his muscles made him stiff, and he hurt everywhere, wound up too tight around a nest of worry. His ass hit the cushions, and Rafe fumbled with his pocket, trying to extract the tissue wad. His fingers were cold, unresponsive, and Rafe’s guts felt like they were shredding with every breath he took.
“Let me help,” Quinn said softly, moving Rafe’s hands out of the way. A second later, Rafe’s pocket was empty, and Quinn was unwrapping the tissue. Staring down at the nearly florescent-green pills in his palm, Quinn examined them, then turned them over. “Ecstasy? Why do you have E?”
“Surprises me as fuck you’d know what they are,” Rafe confessed in a hot rush.
“My dad’s a cop. You don’t think he’s shown me what stuff looks like so I don’t take it?” Quinn leaned over, placing the tissue and its contents on the table in front of them. “Now, why don’t you be telling me exactly what happened so we can work out what we need to do?”
Once Rafe started talking, he couldn’t get the story out fast enough. His phone rang a couple of times, burbling from its spot on the dining room table where he’d left it, and Quinn’s chirped once before he turned it off and tossed it across the couch. With his legs crossed and his hands wrapped around Rafe, Quinn simply listened.
“Fucking him never even crossed my mind, but the pills, damned if I didn’t want them,” Rafe confessed. “That’s worse, you know? I don’t know if that makes any sense, because I’d fucking sooner die than cheat on you. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know. But taking the pills would have been cheating on yourself,” Quinn replied, squeezing Rafe’s hands. “Why’d you keep them?”
Quinn never asked if he took any. So fucking like Quinn to ask about why he still had them and not if he’d swallowed one. Rafe exhaled the fear he’d been holding inside of him and shook his head.
“No fucking clue. Every time I go to toss them, I just… can’t.” He couldn’t explain the trembling in his body when he’d held the wad over the toilet. “It’s like I just need to make sure I’ve got them every fucking day and not take them. And it’s pissing me off, Q. It’s seriously fucking pissing me off, because suppose one day… one fucking day… I just say fuck it and pop them? Then what? I mean, it’s goddamned fucking E, of all things. How stupid is this?”
“Because it’s safe. Or your brain thinks it’s safe,” Quinn said firmly. “It makes sense. It does. Like Mum’s Dead Sea chocolate ice cream container. The one she’s had in the freezer since we were kids but she’ll never eat because if she does she’s admitting she’s given up on her diet.”
“I’ve seen her eat ice cream. At your birthday party,” Rafe reminded him. “You’re telling me she’s still got that damned pint sitting in the back of the freezer?”
“For years. And I ate that ice cream fifteen years ago and filled the container back up with water so it had weight.” Quinn grinned. “But it’s like a shrine to something she’s not fighting anymore. She’s never going to be that size zero, and that’s okay because she’s eating healthy and working out. You’re always going to be an addict, and that’s okay too, so long as you keep the poisons out of your body and talk to me. Or go to a meeting. Did you go to one?”
“No. Because we were… I don’t want… the band, Q. The guys. Miki knows, but….” Rafe scrubbed at his eyes, wiping at the grit in them. “I fucking hate talking to them about it. Asking them to stop their whole damned lives because I’ve got to go hook up with some people sitting around in a circle because we’re too damned weak to stop doing drugs.”
“You are not weak, Rafe.”
Quinn surprised him, cupping Rafe’s face and forcing him to meet Quinn’s gaze.
“You’re genetically screwed up. Just like me. I need chemicals to help me keep on the tracks, and your body wants chemicals because it’s an asshole. Our bodies need things, some good and some bad. Yours is just on the bad side. And as much as I hate taking my meds, I take them because I know life gets too tight around me if I don’t.”
“And if I do, life just gets too fucked-up,” Rafe whispered. “So you think I held on to the pills because I’ve got some masochist thing going on with my head?”
“A little bit. That and you’re kind of stupid about complicating things when sometimes the easiest thing to do is ask for help,” he replied, dropping his hands. “The guys know you’re an addict. It’s not a surprise. If Damie’s willing to stop and look at the world’s largest wasp nest, I’m pretty damned sure he’d be willing to put the tour on hold for an hour so you can hit up a meeting. But you have to tell them, Rafe. Just because you got into this on your own, love, doesn’t mean you have to stay in it by yourself.”
“Miki’d kick his ass if he said no.” Rafe chuckled. “And yeah, he’d never say no. I’m a fucking idiot, Q.”
“Yeah, sometimes,” Quinn said, snagging the wad up from the table. “Now I’m going to toss this in the toilet, and you’ve got to go apologize to the guys for being an asshole to them.”
That brought Rafe’s head up. “What? Someone told you I was being an asshole?”
“I’ve known you for years, Rafe. When you get pissed off at yourself, you’re an asshole to everyone around you.” Quinn stroked his thumb over Rafe’s lower lip. “I love you, but asshole is kind of your default setting. It’s probably why you and Damien get along so well.”