'Nother Sip of Gin - Rhys Ford Page 0,70
anyone else sitting next to him as the vintage black GTO roared down the coast, eating up the miles in a growling purr not unlike its owner, who sat in a boneless sprawl in the passenger seat. They’d left San Francisco before the sun kissed the sky, curling bits of fog in their wake, the car’s headlights cutting through the milky air as it hunted for its path out of the city. They’d stopped for coffee and some food. Or at least Kane grabbed food. Miki, in true Sinjun mode, grabbed a dozen crispy hash brown patties and munched on them while Kane drove, dipping the pieces in a weird ketchup, minced green chilis, hot sauce, and mayo concoction he’d made in a short drink cup at the convenience store they’d stopped at.
“It’s amazing you even have a stomach lining,” Kane muttered, shaking his head at the amount of sauce Miki coated on each piece. “I can smell how hot that is from here.”
“That’s the garlic powder.” Miki chewed carefully, then grinned while offering a bit to Kane. “Want some?”
“No, I’m driving, and that shit will give me a heart attack.” He gave his husband a quick glance, memorizing the easy smile on Miki’s face. The sunrise gilded the stretch of mountains behind Kane, but the golden light danced and played over Miki’s fine-boned features, a beautiful blend of Thai and Irish he’d gotten from his star-crossed parents. “Well, either what you eat or just looking at you will make my heart stop, so I’m going to keep my eyes on the road and my mouth clean of the toxic waste you mixed up back there. Just be sure not to burn your tongue off with that shit. It’ll be hard to kiss you without it.”
“Pfah,” Miki spat back. “I’d be more worried about not being able to sing. Need a tongue for that more than kissing. Be kind of cool if you could get a prosthetic octopus tentacle for a tongue, yeah? But only if the suckers worked. You could get all the Cheetos dust at the bottom of the bag without getting it all over the place.”
Kane risked another glance at Miki, checking to see if his husband was pulling his leg. Nope, he decided, Miki was deadly serious, lost in the idea of a tentacle tongue. Shaking his head, he said, “A ghra, your mind takes you to some strange places.”
“Hey, you wouldn’t be saying that if I had a tongue that could wrap around things,” he snorted. “Well, more than now. A chameleon tongue wouldn’t be too bad either. You could snake stuff out of other people’s ramen bowls, like shoyu egg or maybe a fishcake.”
“And to think I thought a nice long car ride would be relaxing and romantic, yet somehow it’s become all about tentacles and sticky tongues.” From the corner of his eye, he caught a bit of a smirk on Miki’s mouth. “You like car rides. Hell, you agreed to come on this one.”
“That’s ’cause you like long car rides, and I’ll go wherever you want and how you want to get there,” Miki pointed out. “You keep forgetting I spent a lot of my life on the road. You see Zen and chatting. I see looking for a place to piss that doesn’t have rattlesnakes and maybe someplace we can stop to eat something that won’t kill us. Driving is a journey for you. For me, it’s a destination. Life can’t go on until you’ve stopped and made some cash or made your fingers bleed.”
“So not a good thing, then? Tours?” Kane prodded, pulling Miki along. His husband rarely talked about being on the road, only bits and pieces about bad food or screwed-up sound checks. There was a lot about Sinner’s Gin Kane had never heard about, and even though he was there for Crossroads’ formation, he was on the outside looking in. “Why’d you guys go on the road for the Absinthe tour? I know Damie was gung-ho but—”
“Yeah, that tour went to shit and back, didn’t it?” Miki snorted. “More crap than usual, but really, it was about the same. Small hotel rooms, shitty food, assholes who give you shit about looking like a girl when you just want to grab a burger and stop moving for a while. That’s what a tour’s about. But Damie was right. We needed that shit. You can’t really play music with someone unless they’re fucking embedded into your life, under your