Aerie

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Everyone stared after Canaan as he stomped out through the kitchen, and then the door to the alley squealed open and slammed closed.

Tate glanced at Corin. “What crawled up his ass and died?”

Corin shrugged and shook his head. “For once, I have no clue.” He glanced over at me for help. “He’s usually the more levelheaded one. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him have an outburst like that.”

“I’ll go talk to him.” I headed for the kitchen, and then paused, glancing at Brock, who was leaning against the service bar. “Can I have a couple beers? Might help break the ice a little.”

Brock reached into a refrigerator under the counter opposite the bar, pulled out two bottles of local pale ale, popped the tops, and handed them to me. “Just make sure you bring the bottles back in—they’re technically not allowed outside.”

“I will.”

I took the bottles and stopped at the fryer station on the way to the back door—Xavier had a habit of always making more fries and chicken tenders than he needed, because someone was always popping in to steal some. I tossed some fries and tenders into a cup and nudged the alley door open with my hip. The brothers always parked the Silverado they shared in the mouth of the alley to prevent anyone from parking there, and so the alley was quiet. Canaan was in the bed of the truck, the tailgate open. He was lying down on the tailgate, legs hanging over the edge, kicking his feet, hands under his head, staring up at the stars. He lifted his head and glanced at me, and then rested his head in his hands again.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he grumbled as I hopped up onto the tailgate beside him.

“I haven’t even said anything yet.”

I rested the cold, sweating bottom of beer bottle on his forehead, and he just glanced at me in amused irritation. “Really, Aerie?”

I just shrugged, propped my own bottle between my thighs to free up my other hand, and touched a French fry to his lips. “Really, really,” I said in a terrible Scottish accent, attempting to sound like Shrek.

He snorted. “You suck at accents.” He snapped his teeth around the fry and chomped the rest into his mouth, taking the beer bottle and sitting up.

“Yeah, but it’s fun.”

Together, in silence, we ate the food, sipped beer, and didn’t say a word.

Eventually, Canaan hissed in frustration. “You’re really not going to ask?”

“I followed you out here with food and beer, Canaan.” I leaned into him and nudged his side with my elbow, playfully, affectionately. “Obviously your tantrum is why I’m out here. So…do I really need to ask you, ‘Hey Canaan, what are you so pissy about all of a sudden?’”

He huffed another laugh. “I think you did just actually ask, though.”

“No, I said what I wasn’t going to say, which is different.”

“In literal terms, yes, it’s different. In practical terms, not so much.” He punctuated this by tipping his beer bottle up in a long swig.

I tapped the underside of the bottle so it spilled down his shirt, making him sputter and laugh. “Don’t be a dick.”

He wiped his mouth and smeared at his shirt with one hand, shaking his head. “You’re impossible.”

I shrugged, tilting my head to one side with a coy, demure smile. “What can I say? It’s a gift.”

Canaan just shoved a handful of fries into his mouth, finished them, and then cut his eyes at me. “Fine, I’ll bite.” He finished his beer, set it on the lip of the bed, and lay down. “Tate being pregnant fucks everything up for everyone, and I’m pissed off.”

“You’re not pregnant, and you didn’t get her pregnant,” I said. “I know you guys are twins and all, but it’s not really your problem, is it?”

He actually laughed at me as he sat back up. “Aerie. You’re not serious, are you?”

I stared at him. “I mean…yeah?”

He shook his head. “How’s Corin going to go back on tour when Tate is pregnant, or when the baby comes?”

I frowned. “Back on tour?”

Canaan’s answering frown was puzzled. “Um, yeah, back on tour. This year in Ketchikan isn’t permanent. Or, at least, it wasn’t supposed to be. It was meant to be one year, which is almost up. The plan was we’d spend the year here, help the brothers with the business, build up our own record label and all that, and start over as a new band. Go back on tour. Come back here to record and all that, use Ketchikan as our home base, but…” He shrugged. “That was the plan.”

“And Tate being pregnant throws a big ol’ monkey wrench into those plans.”

“Exactly.”

I lay back on the bed this time. “I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

“Thought about what?” Canaan asked, lying beside me.

“Everything, I guess.” Now that I had a moment away from all the drama that had started the moment Tate announced her pregnancy, I began to process what had just happened. I started to freak out. “Shit, shit, shit, shit.”

Canaan eyed me sideways. “Now you’re having a meltdown?”

“I haven’t had time to process it, yet. Tate is pregnant. Tate has no plans of ever being a model again.” I rubbed my face with both hands. “I—that throws a monkey wrench into my plans.”

“Tate is pregnant.”

“Tate is pregnant,” I echoed him, as if repeating the phrase could force a deeper understanding of the reality upon me. “My twin sister is going to have a baby.”

“My twin brother is going to be a father.”

“Tate is going to be a mommy.” I sat up, my heart palpitating. “Canaan, what the fuck are we going to do? If Tate doesn’t want to be a model, if she wants to stay here and just be a mother, or if she has some other plans, what do I do? We made our name in the fashion industry as a single entity, as Tate and Aerie, Aerie and Tate, the twin models. The next Mary-Kate and Ashley. If Tate is out, where does that leave me?”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Canaan yelled. “Cor and I have been in a band our whole lives—ever since we first discovered music when we were four years old. I had an old, out-of-tune, missing-strings guitar of Dad’s and Corin had a bucket and some sticks. We even wrote our own songs. We’ve been doing this as a unit since…since before I could even piss into the adult-height urinals. Without Corin, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I mean, can a pregnant woman go on tour? What if she doesn’t want to? What if…what if he doesn’t want to tour with me anymore? This fucks up everything. That’s what I’m pissed about, Aerie.”

I laughed bitterly. “Yeah, well, now I am too.”

A long silence stretched between us, then.

“Canaan?”

“Yeah.”

“What about us?” I asked this in a quiet voice.

We both sat up at the same time.

“What do you mean, what about us?” He sounded wary.

“Us, hanging out together.” That wasn’t the only way I’d meant that, but it was obvious from his wary reaction that he wasn’t ready for the other conversation.

“I mean, I don’t know.” He sighed. “I don’t know. These past few weeks have been…different, and fun, and challenging, and I love it. I just…”

“It was never meant to take the place of you and Corin?” I suggested.

He nodded. “Yeah, I guess.” He shot a quick glance at me. “Which doesn’t mean I think any less of the music and you and I make together, Aerie. I mean that.”

“I know.”

“It’s just…Bishop’s Pawn was…we were good. Corin and I can do some incredible stuff together. And me, as a musician—I don’t know how to put it…but in some ways it feels like my identity as a musician is sort tied in with Corin. Which becomes a problem, now that he and Tate are…like, super serious or whatever.”

I laughed. “They’re gonna have a baby together…I sure as fuck hope they’re serious or whatever.”

I left it at that, my eyes on his, and I was intentionally leaving a giant gaping opening for Canaan to talk about us, as a couple. But he didn’t. He was the first to look away, and I know he caught the intent behind the silence that followed, but he ignored it.

Yeah, he wasn’t ready.

Which…I understood. It’s not like I was sitting here expecting a ring or a declaration of love. But I’d like to know where we stand. What we are. What he wants from me besides the obvious. I mean, not that I’m in any way complaining about him wanting me for the obvious, since I want him for the obvious just as much.

But…I want more than that.

I want him to want more than that. I want him to pursue the more with me. I don’t want to be the aggressor, the pursuer. I’m not super hung up on traditional gender roles in a relationship—not at all. I’ll ask a guy out, I’ll pay for meals, I’ll be the first to make a move to bring things into the bedroom, and I won’t think twice about any of that. The issue is, I’ve gotten used to doing that stuff. It’s become habit, to the point that I’ve started hating letting guys do things for me.

Don’t ask me out. Don’t pay for me. Don’t make the first move. It’s safer if I do it. I’m less likely to get shot down that way. I mean, I doubt there are many men who would turn me down for a date, and even fewer who would turn me down if I made it clear I wanted things to move to the bedroom—that’s not arrogance, it’s just reality. And yeah, a lot of guys are pretty happy to let me pay for my own shit on dates. I don’t think less of men for any of that, either.

But all those men…

They’re not Canaan.

They were never serious.

It’s never been…real, I guess.

But this is Canaan.

Sex with Canaan has been better than I’d even fantasized, better than I expected, and better, honestly, than any sex I’ve ever had. It’s just superior in every way. His body fits with mine perfectly. His cock fills me just right, not so big it hurts, but just big enough to stretch and burn and ache and throb when he’s inside me. He kisses me like it’s the first time, every time. He has a wicked talented tongue, and is not only willing but eager to use it on me. He’s mostly dominant in the bedroom, but totally willing to let me take the lead when the mood strikes and, being a musician, he’s got great rhythm.

I want a deeper emotional component to our relationship.

There, I said it.

I’m terrified of going after that, though, because if I make the first move and he shoots me down, I’ll be wrecked. I tried that once, and the result is my deepest, darkest secret.

And fuck no, I’m not going into that. Not with Canaan, not with anyone, not ever. Not even Tate knows.

“Aerie?” Canaan’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

“Hmmm?”

“I lost you there for a minute,” he said.

“Oh…just thinking.”

“About what?”

I shrugged. “A lot of stuff.”

He eyed me. “That sounds like a blow-off.”

I sighed. “Yeah, a little bit of one.”

He chuckled. “That’s a first—never heard anyone admit to blowing me off before.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you what I’m thinking, it’s just that…a lot of it is stuff I’m not ready to talk about at all. A lot of stuff I’m still working through, I guess.”

He nodded. “I get that.”

We both glanced up as Corin came out through the kitchen.

“Cane, I think we should—”

Canaan cut in. “Nope. Not ready to talk about it with you, bro.”

Corin stopped short. “Dude, what’s your—”

Canaan hopped off the truck’s tailgate and rounded the back end, walking away. “Don’t push it, Cor. I’m not ready, okay? I just…I need a bit of time.”

Canaan rounded the corner and vanished, and I hopped off to follow him.

Corin grabbed my arm, stopping me. “Hey, what the hell is going on with him?”

I sighed. “I feel like if I get into it with you, I’ll be betraying Canaan’s trust. He’s your brother, Corin—he’ll talk when he’s ready to talk, okay?”

“He talked to you about whatever he’s pissed about though?”

“Well…yeah. A little.”

Corin paced away, hands laced on the top of his head. “I—we’ve had fights before, obviously, I mean—we’re twins, we quarrel. But this just…it feels different.”

“That’s because it is different, Corin.” I tried to smile at him, but I knew it was coming off sad and pitying.

“I don’t get it.”

I frowned at him. “Come on, Cor—you really don’t have any idea why your twin brother could possibly be pissed off right now?”

He turned back to me. “I mean, I know this is unexpected, but—”

I backed away from him. “I have to go, Corin.”

“But—”

“He’s your twin, he’ll come around. Just…give him time.”

“Yeah…yeah. You’re right.” He turned away, tossing a wave as he reentered the kitchen. “Go.”

I followed Canaan and found him in their studio, his electric guitar plugged in, headphones on his ears, his fingers flying, eyes closed. He was standing with one foot propped up on the amp, glossy brown hair loose around his shoulders, head down and bobbing rhythmically. I closed the door quietly and snuck into the studio to sit on a stool, watching him, wishing I could hear what he was playing.

He played a minute or two more, and then his hands went still on the strings, head still bowed as the last note faded in his headphones. He opened his eyes, saw me, and smiled. He tugged the headphones off his ears and let them hang on his neck.

“Hey.”

I tossed my hair. “Hey. Long time no see.”

He snorted. “Funny.” He gestured at the rack of instruments. “There’s a ukulele over there. Wanna jam?”

I slid off the stool and eased the uke out of the rack, pulled the stool closer to Canaan’s. I played a few chords, testing the tuning, adjusted the pegs a touch, and then glanced at Canaan, waiting for him to lead us off. He hooked a toe around another stool and tugged it over to himself and perched on it, settling his guitar on his knee. A moment or two of fiddling with the tuning, twisting knobs, reaching out a toe to tap one of the pedals on the floor near the amp, and then he shifted and wiggled, let out a breath—I recognized these movements as his giveaways for preparing to play.

He plucked a single string with his pick, and a long low note filled the studio; he held the note, sliding his finger up and down on the fretboard to make the note quaver. Another moment, and then he tilted the guitar toward the amp to create feedback, sliding his finger down the fretboard so the note howled up the register before he switched to a different string, a different note, which he then drew out once more.

I heard my part in my head, a quick looping series of chords that would circle around Canaan’s melody. I hunched over the ukulele and strummed the first chord, went immediately into the second, strummed there a few times in a quick rhythm, and went back to the first chord, then the second. I strummed but the next time I did this, it was in a lower key, and Canaan provided a harmonic counterpoint as he peeled out another long quavering high hum. We didn’t have to talk about it, we didn’t consult. This was improv, and I’m at my best when I’m improvising. I feel the music, hear the next part in my head…I can almost taste the notes as they flow through me, almost see them; I’ve always wished I could have synesthesia, the ability to see sound as colors. As Canaan ran with his riff—hammering on from note to note in slow, sliding progressions—I continued my looping series of chords, dropping my register when he went up, going up when he went down, my ukulele creating a skirling counterpoint to his guitar’s slow wail.

There was still something missing, though. What was it?

Ah, there it was—I felt it, and since we were alone and just jamming, I went with it, let it out.

I started humming, a low note at the bottom of my vocal range, soft, quiet. And then, as we kept playing and our counterpoint harmony increased in intensity, his notes coming faster together, my chords skirling faster and faster around his, I let my voice creep higher and higher, louder and louder, from a hum to a vocalization, from a vocalization to a wail. It built and it built, until Canaan wasn’t just hammering on from note to note but shredding now, and my fingers were flying on the fretboard, strumming as fast as I could, holding a long high howling wail. I was rocking on the stool as I held the note, strumming hard, fingers aching as I danced from chord to chord in an absolute frenzy, faster than I’ve ever played.

We held the frenzy, carried it to its absolute maximum, and then Canaan glanced at me, nodding once, twice, and a third time—on the third nod, we both silenced our instruments.

And just stared at each other, stunned at what we’d just done.

“Holy shit, Aerie.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“That was…” He shook his head, at a loss for an accurate description of his feelings.

“It felt like sex,” I blurted.

“Exactly.” He stared hard at me. “But not just any sex.”

“Really crazy intense sex,” I added, “where it’s so good you’re just sort of stunned stupid at the end.”

His gaze didn’t waver from mine. “So, in other words, like every time we have sex?”

“Jamming together felt like fucking, for you?” I held his gaze in turn.

“Yeah, it kind of did.” He tilted his head side to side. “But…more intense, in some ways.”

“How?”

“Music is…it’s deeply, intensely personal. For me, at least. Playing like that with you, it…it felt like sharing something unique.”

“You jam with Corin all the time,” I said, trying to not let this conversation go where it felt like he was taking it; I didn’t want it to go there because I doubted he was going to say what I wanted to hear, and I didn’t want to feel the hurt and disappointment I knew was waiting for me on the other side.

“Yeah, but that’s different. He’s my brother and my twin, and you of all people know how that’s different, Aerie.”

“Yeah, but—”

“With you, it was…cathartic, and…exhilarating. With him it’s just comfortable and familiar.” He broke the stare, glancing down as he idly fiddled with his whammy bar. “With you it’s…I went to a different place, mentally, emotionally.”

“I did too.”

He glanced up at me again. “Aerie, I—” he broke off, sighing in frustration, his eyes searching mine. I could see a billion different thoughts and emotions rippling across his expression, none of which he seemed capable of verbalizing.

“Don’t, Canaan,” I said, my voice low, almost a whisper. “Not right now.”

“Don’t what?”

I plucked a string. “Don’t go there. Not yet.”

“Why not? I thought you’d want—”

I interrupted him. “I do, but not now. With everything that’s going with Corin and my sister, plus my mom, I just…it’d be too much.”

“I don’t want you to think I’m not—that I don’t—”

“Canaan.” I reached out and put my finger to his lips, silencing him. “Shush, okay? Play about it, if you need to get it out right now. We’ll talk…just later.”

It was odd; that I was the one avoiding the conversation he was stumbling into. But…it was obvious to me that he hadn’t really thought this through; that he hadn’t come to grips with his feelings. He still needed time. And, honestly, so did I. Yes, I wanted more with him, but I wanted it to happen in a way that would set us up for long-term success. Stumbling into things blindly would just create more trouble.

Best to stick to having earthshaking sex mostly devoid of intense emotional connection. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there was a very real and very undeniable bond between Canaan and me. There were very real emotions in our sexual relationship. But it was all…subsurface, so to speak. Unexplored. Unspoken. Buried deep.

Truth be told, I was afraid.

Of Canaan. Of the connection. Of us. Of us not panning out.

See…down deep, in my heart of hearts, I’m a romantic. But I’m always the pragmatic one between Tate and me, the less outwardly emotional one. The thinker and planner versus Tate’s reactionary, put everything out there, seat of her pants personality. Tate is fiery and fierce and not just a little crazy, and a lot impulsive—obviously, seeing as she’s pregnant. Me? I tend to stay in my head more than I should. I overthink things. I keep my emotions pinned down inside me.

It’s weird, though. Because Tate is emotional and crazy, but when it comes to the deep stuff, she doesn’t ever deal with it. I may be outwardly emotional in a crisis or something, but I still deal with my shit. I cry when I need to cry. Tate lets it all build up until she has this epic blowup, whereas I tend to blow up in the moment. After Tate has her explosion, she’s done and over it, whereas my explosion is just the start of me spending hours, if not days, running the situation in my head over and over and over again.

It’s complicated, is what I’m saying.

I’m emotional, but I’m also not.

God, boys are right—we are complicated.

Canaan was watching me as all this flitted through my head, my finger still on his lips, our eyes locked, searching each other.

“Okay.” He nodded, sighing. “Fine. Talk later, play now.” He grabbed my finger and playfully bit down on my fingernail.

Which was hot…providing a nice little distraction.

“Canaan, it’s not that I—”

He put his finger on my lips. “Now who’s trying to talk about things? I thought you wanted to jam instead of jabber?”

I grabbed his hand, keeping my eyes on his and, with excessively over the top eroticism, slid his finger into my mouth. I pursed my lips around his digit, and we mimicked oral sex.

“Goddammit, Aerie…”

I licked his fingertip before letting him take his finger back. “What?” I asked, playing coy.

“Now I’m horny.”

“We literally just fucked, Canaan. Like, less than an hour ago.”

“And when you suck on my finger like that, it makes me horny all over again.”

“It does?” I asked, pretending innocence. “And why would that be, do you think?”

“Because you sucking on my finger makes me want you to suck on my cock, Aerie, that’s why.”

“Oh.” I set the ukulele aside. “I see.”

“You see?” He played a little riff, absentmindedly noodling. “What is it you see, Aerie?”

“I don’t know, Canaan. What is it you think I see?” I stood up, prowling toward him.

He stood up, backing away from me toward the door to the studio, and I followed him; his guitar’s cord was long and curly, like an old-school telephone cord, long enough that he could walk across the entire studio and lock the front door so no one could interrupt us. He eyed me as I stalked toward him, communicating my arousal in the spark of my eyes and the sultry sway of my hips.

His casual noodling turned into him playing a song, which took me a moment to recognize as “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails. We shared a grin at his choice of song as I stopped inches from him.

“I think you see that when you look at me like that, you make my cock so hard it hurts.” He tilted his guitar away from his body.

I dropped my gaze to his zipper, which was straining, bulging. “I see.” I sank to my knees, staring up at him. “You know what I see?”

He kept playing “Closer.”

“What do you see?”

“A painfully hard cock in desperate need of a good sucking.”

“Is that so?”

“Do you know the words to that song you’re playing, Canaan?”

“Sure. It was one of the first songs I learned how to play and sing at the same time, just because it was so dirty and I was thirteen.”

“I’d love to hear you sing it to me, then.” I licked my lips as I teased him, tracing the zipper with my fingernail. “Serenade me while I suck your cock.”

“For real?”

I flicked open the fly of his jeans and slowly lowered the zipper. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

He tightened the strap of his guitar so it was higher up and tight against his body. “Holy shit, Aerie.”

I tugged his tight black jeans down his thighs and then his underwear. “That’s not how the song goes, Canaan.”

“Okay, okay, um…” He breathed out a shuddery breath as I palmed his length. “‘You let me violate you…’”

He sang the intro as I fisted his length a few times, and then, when he started the first verse, I took him into my mouth, swirling my tongue around the plump head.

“Mmmm—” This was a sound of surprise from me as I backed away. “You taste like latex and semen.”

He was strumming, in between verse and chorus. “I’m…sorry?”

“You have alcohol upstairs?” I asked.

He nodded. “Sure. Some vodka, I think.”

“Then I’ll just have to rinse the taste out of my mouth with some vodka while you return the favor.”

“Sounds—ohhhhh shit—sounds good…”

The oh shit was because I had, without warning, returned his thick, straining cock to my mouth, taking him as deep as I could all at once. He was game, though, and kept playing and singing. The fact that he was struggling to keep his thoughts together, struggling to remain coherent as I went down on him honestly only heightened the intensity of his performance of the song. He was pausing now and then to suck in sharp breaths, letting them out in long gusty sighs before going back to singing, and occasionally he’d stutter over the lyrics, or stumble as he devolved into groaning.

I was watching him, watching his face as I pumped his cock at the base, watching his expression shift with his emotions. Canaan was normally pretty hard to read since, like me, he tended to keep his emotions off of his face. Now though, I could read him easily.

I mean, obviously the primary thing he was feeling was pleasure, seeing as I had my mouth around his cock. But beyond that was a myriad of other emotions. He kept playing, his eyes closed as he sang the second verse, and then he started the chorus and his eyes snapped open, and his gaze was intense, fierce, hungry, and each word of that chorus he was singing directly to me, for me, meaning each and every word.

You know the song—turn it on and listen to it, and picture this:

Me, on my knees. My hands around Canaan’s long thick perfect cock, stroking him slowly as I wrapped my mouth around the tip, tongue circling. Imagine Canaan, a guitar in his hands, fingers playing that low, snarling, erotic, driving riff, staring down at me, singing those beautifully raw and delightfully dirty lyrics to me, but you have to hear his voice, rough and straining, gasping here and there as I took him deeper and sucked harder, the raw power of his voice compelling in its vulnerable intensity.

Picture him, tattoos on his arms shifting as he played, lip ring glinting as he sang, septum moving with the rhythm of his head as he nodded to the beat. Picture him staring down at me, willing me to hear in him singing more than just the words. Chocolate-mocha puppy-dog eyes piercing and hot, long brown hair thick and glossy and loose.

Picture me, both hands fisted around his cock, stroking faster and faster beneath my mouth, then letting go to claw my fingernails down his hairy, muscular thighs. Picture me, taking him into my throat and backing away again and again, eyes turned up to watch him as I slid the upper few inches between my lips, over and over again, sucking, cheeks hollowing.

Canaan was growling the lyrics, the final chorus, as I brought him closer and closer, until he was gasping and his hips were driving and he was stuttering over the final repetition of the chorus.

“Aerie…” he breathed.

And then he came.

I pumped him slowly through his orgasm, cheeks hollowing, throat working as I swallowed his cum. Canaan was holding back, wanting to fuck my mouth, but stopping himself. I wondered if I should tell him, sometime, that I secretly want him to stop holding back, to give me his wild side, his rough and uncouth and dirty side. Oh, we get plenty dirty together, but he’s always considerate, to a degree. As nasty as we can be together, there’s an element of restraint to the way he fucks me.

And I want that edge gone.

But I don’t know how to tell him that.

I’ve been trying to communicate that without words, in the way I am with him.

But…he hasn’t picked up on it.

I need to just tell him.

God, there seems to be a running theme here, doesn’t there?