'Nother Sip of Gin - Rhys Ford Page 0,35

bled, sweated, and cried in the brick building he’d grown up in, did Forest think he’d be playing in the nucleus of a not-yet-famous rock band.

His foster father, Frank, always told him bands rose and fell quicker than a runner’s breathing. It was rare to be at the start of the next big thing. Even rarer to have a hand in its creation. But standing in The Sound’s Room One, Forest knew in his marrow his life was going to spin out completely away from the path he’d found himself on the day Frank’d pulled him out of the dumpster and put him behind a set of drums.

And all because of the two men breaking down their equipment a few feet away.

Damie was talking to Miki, but then Damie was always talking. He moved constantly, his mind a flick of thoughts skimming through life, discarding ideas only to circle around back to them. When Forest first met the charismatic, talented guitarist, he’d wondered how Damien’d ever gotten Sinner’s Gin to the heights they’d reached. Forest soon learned that behind the constant chatter, tasting, and testing was an intense focus and drive, willing to push or cajole the world into doing what Damien Mitchell wanted.

He’d been swept up into Damien’s river, carried along on its current while he’d fought to find some kind of balance in the rapids. Forest found his way soon enough, afforded a respect he wasn’t quite sure he’d earned yet, but Damien was sure.

Damien was always sure.

Sinjun—Miki St. John—was another matter entirely. Feral and antisocial, Miki was Damien’s cricket, the not-so-small voice of pragmatic, coarse reason who wove words into tapestries or sharpened them to a keen edge so tight most people didn’t realize they’d been cut until they were bled out. If Damien was the personality, Sinjun was the soul. A dark looming angel held aloof by his nature and gutter-hard when drawn in close. Forest hadn’t been sure if he’d like Miki. The singer held back, the antithesis of the sensual slither who crawled across the stage and coaxed people to scream or weep his name, but against the bright sharp of Damie’s willful nature, Miki was oddly a rock, pitted from abuse but standing firm and strong.

He also seemed to be the only one in Creation able to put a leash on Damie’s wilder notions.

There was an ache in Forest’s shoulders, as familiar to him as his own skin, but it resonated deeper than it had before. Muscles cramping from hours of laying down beats, countless repetitions and changes until a song went right in someone’s head, he’d always left the studio rather happy the ordeal was over and he could soak in a tub of hot water.

This time—these past few weeks—he’d regretfully run his hand over the hot skins and wished they could go on.

Playing with Damie and Miki was like bathing in fire and earning phoenix wings in return. Forest never wanted it to stop. Even as blisters rose up on his fingers and his calluses bled along his palms, he fell into the music, drinking it in and filling himself all the way to the dark recesses of his soul where he thought the light would never touch.

Now the band—his band—touched him there.

Just like his lover, Connor.

Connor Morgan.

If the band was mind-blowing, being with Con was… impossible to believe.

But here he was, sitting in The Sound while Damien Mitchell argued about how to coil up cables, and Forest was looking at a three-month anniversary with a man he loved with all his heart.

“You guys have been together for a while.” Forest slowly twisted the chair he was sitting in, moving it back and forth. “I mean with your… boyfriends.”

“Sinjun’s past a year, I think.” Damie straightened, popping his head up over a console. “Shit, I don’t know exactly how long Sionn and I’ve been together, but we did a six-month thing. How come?”

“Con reminded me we’ve been together for three months today. I’m kind of thinking I need to do something, but I’ve got no fucking clue.” He shrugged. “I’ve never even really dated someone before, and now… this.”

“Yeah, the this part’s the hardest.” Damien nodded. “That family’s big on anniversaries and stuff. Sionn made a big deal about hitting half a year. Went down to Napa Valley and just lazed about. Sin, what’d you and Kane do… shit, have you guys been together a year? More?”

“More.” Turning around an old dining table chair Frank’d dragged in years ago, Miki straddled