comfortable with,” I answered with a shrug. “If you want to, I mean. There’s no pressure.”
He seemed to be considering it, which was better than telling me to fuck off and leaving, and that was the worst-case scenario that had been playing in my head for a while. “Okay,” was his eventual answer. Just “okay.” Like I’d asked him to meet me at a new bar or something.
I raised an eyebrow. “You really want to?”
“I’ve always been curious,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll try anything once.”
That was a risky thing to say to a dom, but I decided not to tell him that. He wasn’t going to be around anyone besides me, anyway. The thought was enough to make me want to murder some theoretical asshole who only existed in my fucked-up mind.
Not that there would be any shortage of guys all over him the moment he walked into a club alone. If he really was curious, that was reason enough to teach him, so he wouldn’t get mixed up with someone who’d take advantage of his naivete.
It was sufficient justification for me to proceed, even if it was only half the truth. “Alright, then. I can take you with me to the club, if you want.”
His eyes widened slightly. “We have to do it there?”
“No, definitely not.” Shit, I was already freaking him out. “There’s just a lot of equipment, and I figured you could get a better idea of the range of kinks you’re interested in. See it first-hand. We don’t have to do anything the first time.”
“Oh,” he said, seeming a bit more relaxed. “Yeah...I’d like that.”
With that, he flopped back onto his side and snuggled against my chest. I pulled him close, taking in his scent and listening to him breathe until he fell asleep.
That had gone a hell of a lot better than I expected. Now I just had to hope the club wouldn’t scare him off the moment we walked in.
Chapter 7
Chaz
Even Judy couldn’t save me from the malaise brought on by my involuntary vacation. Raf had been busy, but the morning after I’d gone over to his place, he suggested we meet up at the club on Friday. I wasn’t sure it counted as a date. Hell, I wasn’t even sure what that night was. I just knew that somehow, it was different from all the other times we’d hung out.
Different in a good way. Different in a way that scared the hell out of me.
Since I still had two days to kill until Friday, and I didn’t want to be so pathetic I just waited around until he wanted me, I went to the music shop a few blocks away from my apartment. Home felt too quiet lately, and the quiet was louder than anything.
The tour couldn’t come soon enough. I missed the electric noise of the crowds, and the constant chaos and companionship of being stuck with everyone on the tour bus, even if I pretended like I hated it, too.
I’d had stage fright when we first went on tour, and I still wasn’t stoked on the spotlight, but that wasn’t something I really had to worry about. Dante and Raf were “the hot ones.” Cash was the burly daddy bear type all the twinks swooned over. I was just...the other guy. In fact, more than a few Rolling Stone articles had referred to me that way, but it was kind of nice. I could usually walk around without being recognized, as long as I wasn’t with one of the others.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t blame fame for all the weird looks I got anyway.
“Charles!” the plump older man behind the counter called. “Long time, no see.”
Andrew was a semi-retired musician who had owned Tune In for as long as I’d been alive, and the shop was one of the few things that hadn’t changed over the years. When I wasn’t bugging Dante and Raf, I split my free time between Tune In and the comic book shop that used to be on the same street. Andrew had always tolerated me messing around with his used guitars even though he knew I wasn’t gonna buy anything, and he’d gotten me started when I finally decided to commit to learning the bass.
“Yeah, I guess I have been kind of a recluse,” I laughed, going over to the counter to give him the secret handshake that had seemed like the coolest thing ever when I was thirteen. “How’ve you been?”
“Oh, you know me. Becky