'Nother Sip of Gin - Rhys Ford Page 0,36
its seat, resting his arms on its low back.
“What did you guys do?” The chair squeaked again when Forest turned toward Miki. “I need some help with this. Seriously.”
Miki’s shrug was an elegant display of casual apathy. “We kicked everyone out, stayed home, and pretty much spent the weekend eating what we wanted and fucking.”
“You scare me with your lack of romance,” Damien drawled.
“It’s what we wanted to do. Steak and sex.” Miki’s mouth quirked into a grin. “What’s wrong with that?”
“’Cause Forest and Con are kind of the minivan and two-point-five kids kind of guys.” Damie must have caught the look of terror forming on Forest’s face because he patted him on the shoulder. “Nothing to be ashamed about. Let’s face it, you’re pretty much straight-up married. Probably have been since the first time he saw you. It’s kind of puke-inducing, but we all live with it.”
“You make us sound like some kind of romance novel.” His protest was weak, but Forest gave it his best go. “We fight. Sometimes.”
“When was the last time you guys screamed at one another?” the guitarist prodded. “And not in the please-fuck-me-harder kind of way?”
Miki snorted and Forest dug into his memory, looking for discord. Puffing out his cheeks, he said, “I didn’t like the color he painted the back room. I was pissed off about the contractors dragging their feet at The Sound and kind of took it out on Con.”
“Yeah, how’d that work out?” Miki cocked his head, his deep hazel eyes glittering under the studio’s bright lights. “Ended up fucking, right?”
Since his memory vividly tossed the ache in his back after the hours-long session he and Connor had on the kitchen floor, Forest kept his mouth shut.
“Look, there’s nothing wrong with the two of you,” Damien declared. “Hell, you’re the most stable one of us. Be happy about that. We all work on different levels. Yours is just more—”
“Normal,” Miki cut in. “Really fucking normal.”
“Nothing wrong with normal.” With a nudge of his elbow, Damien nearly unseated his brother. “Be nice.”
“I am nice. I’m telling him to go have a good dinner and fuck Con’s brains out.” Miki kicked at Damien’s shin, missing when the tall guitarist mockingly danced out of the way.
“I’m not saying dinner and a fuck isn’t the way to go,” Damien told Forest. “I’m just saying dress it up a bit. Candles. Tablecloth. Good silver. Go the whole nine yards. Shit, go for—”
“Don’t do that, Forest,” Miki disagreed.
Damie crooked one black eyebrow. “You got a better idea, Sin?”
“Yeah, keep it simple, dude. Don’t get crazy.” The singer shook his head at Damien’s snort. “You and Sionn like the whole cruising down the coast and doing stupid weekend shit. Forest and Con, they stay home and wallpaper the living room.
“Look, Forest, you and me, we’re trash. Sure someone picked you up, brushed you off, and gave you a life, and well, I got Damie, so you kind of win there.”
“Nice bus you tossed me under there, asshole,” Damien grunted.
“Yeah whatever, D. Thing is, Forest, we’re still kind of feeling our way through shit. Now we’ve got this crazy-ass family and a couple guys who want us. So we feel kind of pressured to fit in to that nuthouse.” Miki bit at his upper lip and looked up at Forest through his lashes. “See, we don’t have to fit in, I mean. Con and Kane love us for who we are. Do what you guys like to do. Just fucking ride with that. Trust me. I learned that from Donal.”
“HOW MANY goddamned fairy lights do you need here?” Kane grumbled from his perch on a picnic bench. The wood-slatted seat rattled as he stretched to hook a string of tiny white lights over a pergola beam. “This shit’s for setting the mood, not lighting up your backyard so the Space Shuttle can dock.”
Connor studied his brother through the wisteria vines weaving through the patio’s pergola. His shoulders ached a bit from stringing what seemed like thousands of lights across the twelve-foot span. Not for the first time, he wondered what he was thinking when he built the damned thing. They only had a third of the span left to go, but the wisteria seemed determined to fight them.
“It’s got to light up the whole thing or it’ll look stupid.” Connor worked yet another line through a gap in the thick vines, scraping his knuckles open. “I want it to look… romantic.”
“And lights are going to make this jungle