Chapter 20

 

 

We held onto each other

In the rain and at the dawn

People told us we wouldn’t make it

Said we’d die off and be gone

I’m here for every step

Every inch of every mile

Down to our very last breath

Till it hurts too much to smile

—Every Mile

 

THE CONTRACTOR kicked ass. Well, and Jules kicked it as much as anyone else, Forest amended.

After three weeks of hard-core renovation and design fights with the decorator, they’d gotten Marshall’s Amp back up and running. No small feat, considering the place looked like an Alderaan diorama by the time Rollins and his crew’d finished with it.

The damage to the outer wall had been extensive, and much of the old brick had to be tossed. Using what could be salvaged, they’d instead broken up the formerly unrelieved wall with colored glass bricks and long windows. It lit up the inside of the coffee shop even before the wood floors and paneling had been stripped down and restained.

Now the coffee shop gleamed with the mod vibe Jules longed for. Deep pinks, greens, and chrome accents, and miles upon miles of pale honey wood. Realigning the counter away from the kitchen door opened the space up even more and made it easier to flow take-out customers out of the shop without tangling with anyone seated at the retro-style lounge chairs Jules found at a discount furniture store. Reupholstered and arranged around low glass and wood tables, they were comfortable, and he eyed one, wondering if he’d been insane when he’d agreed to the pink tweed.

She’d practically begged Forest to let her blow a few thousand dollars on a lava lamp wall sculpture, a six-foot-wide rectangle backlit in changing neon lights. He’d agreed as soon as she’d brought it up, and now he was glad for it. Dominating a formerly dead space near the long wall, the modulating blobs looked… cool.

Nearly as cool as he felt.

They’d decided to hold a soft opening, a small gathering of friends and family as a kind of test drive. A freebie meet and greet with coffee and nibbles of pastries on an invite-only kind of thing. Forest figured no one would come by.

He’d forgotten his lover was related to half the police force, and the other half seemed to drop by just for shits and giggles. Still, with the Amp’s spacious interior filled with Irish lilts and laughter, Forest felt… content.

Fuck that. He was goddamned happy.

“Holy shit. This is what happy feels like.” He looked around the shop, sifting through the sea of Morgans until he found Connor standing in a semicircle with a couple of his brothers. They were laughing about something, but Con must have felt Forest’s gaze because he looked up and their eyes caught. Winking, Con gave Forest a small off-kilter smile, and the warmth in his belly kicked up a notch.

The espresso machines were doing a brisk business, and the smell of roasted coffee beans and sugary pastries drew in people off the street. Jules gave him a curious look, as if to ask if she should kick out the uninvited, but Forest shook his head, mouthing for her not to worry. They had enough food to feed five armies, especially since the cops and firemen the Morgans dragged in seemed much more interested in coffee and chatting than donuts.

Not something he’d ever thought he’d see, cops not interested in donuts—but as he glanced over at Connor who was licking chocolate off his fingers, Forest was kind of glad he only had to keep one cop in ganache-enrobed pastries. The oldest Morgan boy definitely knew his way around a chocolate donut.

And Forest was more than happy to help him work off that chocolate afterward.

“Hey, Forest.” Miki nudged him in the ribs. “You doing okay, dude?”

“Yeah, just kind of… things are good,” he replied, glancing around the room over the singer’s shoulders.

“Freaky, isn’t it?” Miki leaned against the counter, brushing up against Forest’s side. They’d come to be good friends—close friends. Bonding over a shitty childhood could do that to a couple of guys, but most of all, Miki was an all-or-nothing kind of guy. Still, Forest had hope he could bring Miki around to seeing Brigid as one of the best things to ever happen to them.

He wasn’t holding out a lot of hope, but he was going to try.

“You get all happy inside,” Miki continued softly in his distinctive raspy purr. “And then you kinda want to check yourself because it feels so fucking wrong. Makes you a little scared.”

“Makes me a lot scared,” Forest admitted. “You ever get used to it?”

“Dunno,” he replied. “Haven’t yet. I still get up in the middle of the night and touch Kane to make sure he’s real. Sometimes I worry about being in a coma, and this is all bullshit my mind’s come up with to keep me busy or shit.”

“But I’m not in a coma,” Forest snorted. “Shit, at least I hope not.”

“Nah, maybe I dreamed this for you too,” Miki said, pushing off the counter. “Or maybe Damie’s doing it. You know, so we both have better lives. He’s good like that.”

The singer wandered off to find his brother, dodging a chattering pair of women walking away from the cream and sugar bar. Snagging a lemon bar bite, Forest popped the treat into his mouth and chewed, wondering if he could ever taste the tart citrus sweet without thinking of the lemon chiffon soap Con used. Or how good the man’s skin smelled when they had sex in the shower.

A familiar shape appeared to linger just in view of the Amp’s main picture window, and Forest frowned, wondering for a fraction of a second why he knew that indistinct form, when it dawned on him. It was Ginger, and the warmth in his soul crackled up quickly, turning to an ashen sourness thick enough to choke on.

“Are you all right, love?” Brigid came up to him and put her hand on his back. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Maybe you should sit down.”

“No, um….” He stumbled over his own tongue, unsure about what to say—what to do, really. He’d not seen his mother in months, and when he’d paid her bail, she hadn’t even come by to thank him. Now she hovered outside, obviously turned off by the show of police in the shop but wanting something bad enough to slink about at the perimeter, probably gathering enough of a spine to walk through the door. “My… mom’s here. Outside.”

“Do you want me to get rid of her for you?” Connor’s mother asked gently. “’Cause I can, you know. It’d be my pleasure. I won’t even use a knife to do it.”

He looked down at her, startled but not surprised. For all of her soft voice and sweet Irish tone, Brigid’s eyes glittered with a fierce anger. She’d been a constant in his life since Rollins invaded Con’s—their—home. Between cooking dinners and stuffing the freezer, she’d plied Forest with cookies, hot coffee, and most of all, a constant chatter to fill the quiet he often found himself falling into.

She’d gone with him to buy a car, working the salesperson down to the bone in price. Then they’d spent the afternoon making ice cream with a bemused Damien and a wary Miki. When Brigid finally wrangled a wide smile from the singer with an impromptu game of throwing chocolate chips at his mouth to see if Miki could catch them, Forest felt his first tingling awareness of a life outside of what he’d known. Of what he’d expected. Sitting in the Morgans’ kitchen, surrounded by decades of family and love, Forest found himself not longing any more.

It was the weirdest day of his life—the most normal day he’d ever had—but it was weird.

When Connor came by to ooh and ahh over his newly purchased Honda SUV, he’d let the man lead him up to the widows’ walk and sat there in the waning sun, holding Con’s hand as Donal readied a massive BBQ for the family’s Sunday gathering. It was perfect—sitting between Connor’s raised knees and basking in the sun.

The moment became sublime when Connor leaned over Forest’s shoulder to kiss his ear, then murmured, “Love you, a ghra.”

Forest couldn’t let his mother—wouldn’t let his mother—ruin this for him. Not when he’d not even let himself dare to dream of living a life he’d seen others lead.

Shaking his head, he replied, “No, but thanks. I’ve got to—this is something I’ve got to do myself.”

“I’m here if you need me, honey.” Brigid’s growl was a soft mewl compared to her son’s rumbling whiskey of a voice, but it bore as much of a bite. “You go and tell her what you need to, but when she tries to pull any shit, you remember I’m there with you.” She tapped his chest, right above his heart. “In here. No matter what, I’ve got you, son.”

“Thanks, Bridge.” Forest kissed her cheek, and one of her curls tickled his nose. “Tell Con where I’m at if he asks.”

 

 

“SO ROLLINS is sick?” Captain Leonard frowned over his coffee. “What the hell is porphyria? And why the hell didn’t they find it when he was in prison?”

“It’s genetic,” Connor explained to his boss. “He had records of migraines, but they figured it was bad eyesight or something else. Why look for zebras when you hear hoofbeats? Doctors went after what they thought was the problem. It’s not common. They don’t know if they can cure it either. He’s too far gone.”

“Mad King George’s disease,” Kiki said. “Makes people delusional. Even hallucinate. They don’t know if he’s ever going to be really okay. It was left untreated for too long. Some talk of suing the prison docs, but shit, those guys are risking their lives to give out flu shots. They gave him the best care they could. The court’s going to have to see what they can do for him. DA’s still pressing him for murder. That’s not going to change.”

“So he’s nuts,” Leonard stated. “They’re going to let him walk.”

“Can’t. He’s a danger to himself as much as to society,” Connor pointed out. “They put him on suicide watch. No matter what the doctors say, Rollins isn’t coming out again.”

He spotted his mother moving through the crowd, and Connor looked past her, searching for Forest. He missed something Leonard said, and rather than ask the man to repeat it, he nodded and let Kiki take the conversation as they moved on to talking about the police department’s new rugby team and its slim chance of winning against Fire and Rescue’s brutes.

“That bitch who gave birth to him is outside,” Brigid muttered at her oldest son, her voice low enough to carry up to his ears but not much farther. “Bring the Hummer around. I’ll grab a knife from the kitchen and take care of her. We can dump her in the bay. Maybe there’s enough crabs left down by the bridge they’ll eat her body.”

Connor excused himself from his conversation with Captain Leonard. Grabbing his mother by the elbow, he led her away to a more secluded corner. He saw his father’s eyebrows raise in question, but by the expression on Donal’s face, Connor knew he was feeling more sympathy than curiosity. After all, the man had several decades of dealing with the Finnegan he’d married. If anyone knew when to get out of Brigid’s way, it certainly was his da.

Connor just had to figure out if it was one of those times.

“What do you mean, she’s outside?” Connor bent his head down to hear his mother over the rumble of conversation in the shop. “Here? What does she want?”

“She wants to destroy him,” Brigid growled back. “God, I hate her. I want to stab her eyes out with a fork. I’d do it, too, if I wasn’t sure your da would arrest me. What’s wrong with that man? Sometimes, I think his mum dropped him on his head.”

“Forest?” Connor tried to follow his mother’s heated rant. “You think he was dropped on his head?”

“No, your da! Donal,” Brigid sighed. “Pay attention, boy. Focus. What are we going to do about that woman?”

“What’s up?” Damie edged in. “Something wrong with Forest? Where’d he go?”

“Probably too many people. I’d duck too,” Miki cut in, and Connor sighed, wondering how he’d ever thought he’d have a private conversation with his mother anywhere near Forest’s band mates. Catching the look he got from Con, Miki frowned. “What? No?”

“Unlike you, freak, Forest likes people,” Damie snorted, then nodded to Brigid. “No seriously, what’s up?”

“His mother’s here.” Connor held up his hand to ward off the rounds of suggestions on how to deal with Ginger Ackerman he knew would be offered up. “Mum just wanted me to know.”

“Why’s she around?” Miki cocked his head. Jerking a thumb toward Brigid, he said, “He’s got a new one. Mom 2.0. Much fucking better.”

The interruption was worth it just to see Brigid’s emerald eyes glittering with tears at Miki’s casual remark. Her arms lifted, and the singer found himself caught up in a fierce hug. To his credit, he didn’t wriggle free immediately, and it took a second or two for his shoulders to stop being stiff, but eventually he hugged her in return, patting her back awkwardly until she let go.

“You should go see if he needs some help.” Brigid turned to Connor, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “Maybe run her off into the street where I can hit her with a car.”

“Gotta love you, Bridge.” Damie grinned.

“I’d kill for any of you.” She sniffed back. “God, that woman just boils my teeth. Connor, you’ve got to….”

“I’ll see if he needs me,” he promised as he clasped his hands onto his mom’s shoulders. “But Mum, he’s a strong guy. He can take care of himself.”

“But he shouldn’t have to,” Brigid shot back. “That’s your job. Just like he takes care of you. It’s how a marriage works. Good marriages.”

“I haven’t asked him to marry me, Mum. Too soon. Probably scare him off. Hell, scares the shit out of me just thinking about it,” Connor admitted, holding up his cast-wrapped arm. “I’d like to get this piece of shit off of me first. It’d be nice to have hot rock star sex without worrying if I’m going to bash his head in.”

Miki eyed Connor and snorted softy. “Dude, if you’re worrying about bashing someone’s head in during hot rock star sex, then you’re doing it all wrong.”

 

 

IT WAS hard seeing her. Not because of the changes in his life but because a part of him ached to see his own mother shuffling back and forth on a street corner, her arms wrapped around her too-skinny body. Even in broad daylight, she scanned passing cars, looking for something—someone to take her in.

He’d done that with her. That looking. That hoping for a trick so he could get something to eat. Have enough money to stay someplace warm.

Then he’d spat in Franklin’s face when the man gave him what he’d wanted, what he’d needed. But Forest couldn’t abandon her. Not then, when he’d still held onto the lingering belief she’d always been there for him.

Only to discover she’d abandoned him long before Frank ever came into the picture.

“Hey, Mom.” She turned when he spoke, startled for some reason to find him staring down at her.

Ginger looked like shit. Worn and scrawny, he caught her lighting a cigarette off the end of another, puffing furiously to get the thing going. A couple of burned-out stubs lay at her feet, their smashed filtered ends a fan of greasy brown and white.

“Hey.” Her eyes, so much like his, flicked over his shoulder. “You alone?”

He looked around, wondering for a half second if someone’d followed him out, but other than the stream of people coming in and out of the Amp, it was just the two of them. Handing her the cup of coffee he’d brought for her, Forest nodded.

“You want to go inside?” He regretted asking as soon as the words left his mouth. Asking opened him up to her rejection, and Forest didn’t know if he was ready to deal with that on top of the already long and trying day.

“Nah, not my thing.” Ginger took the coffee and sipped at it, making a face. “Not enough sugar. You know I like things sweet.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied wryly. The refusal didn’t sting as much as it had in the past. So much had changed in the past few months.

“I didn’t know this was going on.” She waved her long press-on nails at the store. “Or I would have come by some other time.”

“No, it’s good,” Forest said. “I’m not here as much as I used to be. I don’t live above the studio anymore.”

“The cop putting you up?” Suddenly her eyes narrowed, and he could see her brain ticking away. “Shit, good job. He’s got some money. I’ve seen that car of his. Milk that for as long as you can.”

“Mom, it’s not like that,” Forest began to protest, but Ginger’s face grew ugly.

“It’s always like that, you fucking idiot,” she hissed at him, glaring at a woman who glanced at them as she passed by. “Get what you can and get the fuck out. Hell, leave him wanting your ass and work him. Shit, you can keep him going while I hook you up with a guy I know. Play two guys if you have to. Haven’t you learned that by now?”

“Mom, I love him,” he told her in a quiet voice. “He loves me. It’s not like that.”

“You are so fucking stupid.” Her hiss turned hot, scalding his face when she exhaled a vodka-soaked puff of smoke at him. “You’re nothing but a piece of meat. You’re fooling yourself if you think you’re anything more than a hot hole for him to put his dick in. Take what you can get and leave before he decides to take his shit back. Jesus Christ, you’re stupid!”

He had to look away. It still hurt. She still hurt. He had to feel around the edges of his pain, searching through it like he’d done a broken tooth once, probing at it to see how bad it was and if he could stand the pain just a bit longer. Frank’d paid to have that tooth filled, then coughed up even more money to get it capped when it went all dark side. It pretty much described their entire relationship—that tooth—and Forest’s heart echoed with regret he’d not thanked the man sooner.

Through the sting of his tears, Forest saw Connor standing by the door, his thumbs hooked into his jeans pockets as he watched them from a distance, a silent sentinel waiting—just waiting for Forest to indicate he was needed. Their eyes met, and Connor smiled, melting away the choking cold of his mother’s words.

“I’m not going to live your life with you,” he finally said, breaking through the muttered rant Ginger’d worked herself into. “I can’t. I don’t want to. Yeah, Connor might hurt me. Hurt my heart. It’s a part of life, and we’re going to rub each other the wrong way sometimes, but the good of it is so fucking worth it. He trusted me to love him. And I’m going to do that. For as long as he’ll let me.”

“You’re—” Ginger started, but Forest cut her off.

“If you need something, like—to help to get off this shit life you like having, I’ll help you,” Forest promised. “But you’re not going to take me with you. I won’t let you do that to me. I won’t let you do that to what I have with Connor. You’ve got my number, Mom. I’ll always answer it for you, but that’s all you’re going to get out of me.”

Then he turned and walked away. Toward Connor. As his mother screamed behind him.

“She’s a piece of work. And not in a good way,” Connor said when Forest reached him. Wrapping his arms around Forest, they kissed lightly, briefly, but it was enough to set Forest’s insides on fire. Pulling back, Connor asked, “You okay?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Better. With you.”

 

 

IF SOMEONE’D asked him if he’d be head over heels in love a year ago—hell, six months ago—Connor would have said love needed time to grow and build. He’d never thought a single moment would change his life. Sure as hell not on a raid and never in a million years in the form of a blond drummer with a quiet voice and a fierce soul.

Forest didn’t just turn his life upside down. No, the man’d turned Connor’s soul and heart over, forcing him to take a good hard look at himself and admit he could find happiness in a place he hadn’t ever dared to imagine before.

Yeah, Connor thought, life was better once he had Forest in it. Much better.

“I love you, you know,” Connor murmured, rocking Forest in his arms. “Never ever doubt that. No matter what.”

“I love you too. Hey, you took a stool to the arm for me.” Forest grinned at him, their noses touching. “Not every guy can say that about their boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend,” Connor repeated. “That’s good. For now.”

“For now?” It was Forest’s turn to pull back but only enough so he could peer into Connor’s face. “What the hell else do I call you?”

“Yeah, about that.” Connor bent his head down to kiss the corner of Forest’s mouth. Throwing caution to the wind, he said, “I was thinking maybe sometime in the future, you might be wanting to be calling me something more.”

 

 

RAFE ANDRADE lurked in the corner of the coffee shop. He’d been introduced to the members of Sinner’s Gin before, and while Sionn was his best friend, he still felt a bit weird talking to Damien Mitchell as if the man was a normal part of everyday life.

He wasn’t starstruck. Not by a long shot. They’d been peers of sorts, but Sinner’s Gin had been on the rise while Rafe was working like hell to bring his own band down. His downward spiral into drugs had been spectacular, a nearly cataclysmic fall from grace, and he was still smarting from it.

Rafe was pretty sure if he reached back and touched his shoulder blades, he could feel the smoking remains of his wax and feather wings.

They’d been nice. Kind even, but Rafe felt the sting of their wariness. Although to be fair, Miki St. John was known to be reticent, and Damie’d been more than happy to fill up any silence with an ongoing babble about music and musicians they all liked.

It felt good to talk music with another guitarist. Even better, when the conversation drifted away from modern music to rock’s Southern roots. Damie thrummed with excitement as he began to talk about old-school blues and how he wanted to build more of his music on that platform. It must have been a much-discussed point, because Miki rolled his eyes at Rafe, and they’d laughed, sharing a moment of amusement at the man’s fervor.

It felt too damned good, and Rafe had to walk away before he emasculated himself and hugged the men in relief.

His disastrous fall left him a pariah among other musicians, and even after a couple of years of hard sobriety, many of his contemporaries still treated him like a leper.

“Shit, burn down one hotel room,” Rafe muttered darkly. “No one got hurt, and I put it out.”

He’d slunk home to San Francisco in disgrace and licked his wounds. It’d taken him nearly dying in a pool of his own vomit for Rafe to pull himself out of the gutter, and he’d be the first one to admit he’d fucked up something bad.

Still, wasn’t like he deserved being shoved into a wicker man and used as a sacrifice.

Rafe was about to go find Sionn in the knot of Morgans he’d last seen his friend in when his eyes settled on the one Morgan boy who made his heart race.

Quinn Morgan, Rafe mused, the odd duckling born into a house of gryphons.

Unlike the other Morgan men, he let his hair grow to a wild mane down past his jaw. It curled a bit at his nape, thick black waves around his strong, lean face. There was something hypnotic about the man’s dark green eyes and how they could stare right through a man.

Rafe’d spent his teenaged years avoiding Quinn Morgan. The third Morgan son had been too young, too weird, but most of all too pretty. Of course, Connor and Kane would have beaten Rafe’s face in with their meaty fists if he’d even lifted an eyebrow in the direction of their younger brother.

And he’d wanted to do much more than lift an eyebrow at Quinn Morgan.

Especially now, since the scrawny, bony boy’d grown up to be a hot, smoldering young man with graceful hands and a full mouth ripe for kissing.

“Shit,” Rafe muttered when Quinn spotted him staring. Grinning cockily back, Rafe swallowed his apprehension when Quinn began to work past his siblings and headed straight for him. “Fucking hell, now what are you going to do, Andrade?”

“Hey,” Quinn said softly. “Just the guy I’m looking for.”

“Yeah?” He played it cool. If it was one thing Rafe knew, it was how to be cool in the face of a firing squad. He’d faced them often enough. Hell, he could give lessons if he wanted to. “Whatcha need?”

“I needed to ask you a question.” Those long black lashes fluttered once, shuttering Quinn’s emerald gaze for just a moment, and then Rafe found himself drowning in green once again. Taking a deep breath, Quinn looked around first, then leaned in close to whisper into Rafe’s ear. “I kind of need to lose my virginity. And I was wondering if you could help me out.”