Lead singer of the start-up band Four Real, Tricia Donahue left her hometown with one question. How can you love three men at once? She’s convinced herself that it can’t be done—not without living up to her family’s infamous reputation. Now, years later, lead guitarist Michael Hill is touring with world famous TRE, far removed from the small town band he once called his family. Home will never be the same until he makes things right. Keyboarder, Pete Morello and drummer, Marty Pierce were always close, but when the one girl they ever loved disappeared from their life, their casual threesomes and life’s hard knocks revealed the feelings they share for each other. Reunion time for four best friends with unfinished business means they will finally face the music. Fantasy…meet reality.
Excerpt:
Tricia flicked her finger into the running water for the fourth time, waiting for it to get hot. She shook her head, wondering which was worse, burning extra gas for the old hot water heater or running the stove twice as long trying to boil cold water. Sometimes there didn’t seem to be a good answer, not without costs at both ends.
Hot dogs in the fridge was
the one constant thing she could count on when it came to her mother. That
wasn’t saying much, she knew. But Tricia had celebrated the unopened pack tucked
into the crisper drawer nonetheless.
She’d showered and changed,
not wanting to fully admit why. It was easier to tell herself that she just
needed to relax. That didn’t explain the extra ten minutes she took wrestling
her hair into a perfect messy ponytail and the three different lip gloss shades
she tried from her makeup pouch.
When the doorbell rang she
nearly jumped out of her skin. Hill was alone, his acoustic guitar slung over
his shoulder. Tricia half expected to find Marty and Pete behind him on the
porch. Whether she was hoping for a chaperone, or an audience she wasn’t sure.
“Hey,” he said with something
expectant in his sapphire eyes.
“Hotdogs are boiling,” Tricia
said, knowing that it didn’t answer the question she’d read in his gaze.
“Cool,” he replied with a
nod. He stepped through the doorway into the modest living room and smiled. “The
place hasn’t changed a bit.”
“Except for the new couch.”
“And the new you, all grown
up.” Hill took three slow steps towards her. “I can’t even describe how much I
missed you.”
The burn on Tricia’s cheeks
couldn’t quite rival the chills down her spine. “I missed you too, Hill.”
He stopped in his tracks and
just looked at her for a moment. Tricia suddenly felt pinned in the narrow path
of his gaze. He took two steps closer, pressing into her personal space, only
inches from touching.
“What are we doing? Why are
we dancing around this?” He said, the heat of him through the hoodie permeating
her cotton t-shirt. His lips brushed against hers; his hands found their way to
the curve of her jaw.
“I don’t know.” Right then
with the pads of his fingers pressing just hard enough to show her that he
didn’t want to let go for anything, Tricia could not think of one good reason
why they shouldn’t kiss. So she took a leap of faith and leaned in, catching
his lip with a soft nip of her teeth before he released his hunger for her. He
kissed her so deeply that Tricia melted in surrender.
His hands sought every part of her, falling
over her shoulders and onto her breasts as he lowered himself to his knees and
inhaled her sex though her jeans. It was a purely animalistic gesture, one that
hadn’t the tiniest relationship to a cool and practiced seduction. He grabbed
hold of her ass cheeks and pressed his nose to her crotch, taking big deep
breaths of her scent and letting out blasts of heat through the layers of denim
and lace that stood in his way. Tricia moaned, and he did it again.
“Oh, damn T,” he said and
raked his fingers into the waistband of her jeans, working her button loose and
ripping down the zipper. He took another purchase of air against her panties
and exhaled with a flat tongue finding the very top of her clit. Her skinny
jeans curled like a shedding skin as he tore them from her legs. Then she was
in his arms, her jeans still bunched at her ankles, her black lace thong soaked
already, more from her own anticipation.
He carried her into the small
kitchen, where a big pot of water gurgled and steamed. Tricia was placed onto
the counter, in the corner where two walls of cabinets met. Her bound ankles
dangled for only seconds before Hill slung the bunched denim over his head, to
rest on the back of his neck. His mouth was on her then, lapping at the already
drenched lace. He laid his tongue flat against her clit, leveraging the texture
of the fabric against her overly sensitive nub. He sucked on the scrap of
fabric and then worked his tongue around the side for a swipe of tender flesh. The
contrast of his silky tongue was mind-ravaging. Tricia moaned and Hill didn’t
stop for even a moment to look at her. Next, two fingers were inside of her,
her cunt taking lavish slurps from them.
“Fuck, you are so wet,” Hill
whispered, and stood to crush his mouth against hers again.
Tricia couldn’t remember the
last time she had wanted something so badly. Yet something forbidden and
selfish quaked at the back of her mind. The setting was familiar and so were
the feelings. The entire time they’d been together Tricia had put the brakes on
when things got too hot, and it wasn’t to preserve her virtue. The images
saturated her mind; the need was far too potent to ignore. As turned on as Hill
got her, there was a part of her that called out for his two friends, and in
truth they were the other loves of her life. Before all the kissing and their
initial forays into oral sex, it had been easy to fit in the middle of Hill,
Pete and Marty. Flirtations were tossed back and forth with each of them at a
breakneck rate. Casual touches disguised more needful intentions. But when Hill
had the green light on her pleasure, she drowned in the guilt of wishing Pete
and Marty were close and ready to have their piece of her too. So before Hill
could get a condom on, she’d end it, telling him to stop. How could she deserve
his pleasure, when she knew it wouldn’t be enough?
No, things hadn’t changed
much at all, because her cunt ached for him and yet her heart knew that it
wasn’t just for him alone. “Hill…,” she spoke against his lips.
“Yeah, baby?”
“I can’t do this.” She
reached between her legs and stilled his hand, pushing him away with the other.
Hill had to duck back under
her legs, as they were still locked around him by her jeans. The moment he was
free from her she hopped off the counter and scrambled to get them in place. Her
wetness mocked her. Her heart ached at the look in his eyes.
“You’re still mad about the
song,” he said.
Tricia blinked at him and
opened her mouth. Then she closed it. The next time she began to speak she knew
a lie would come out, but knowing it didn’t stop her. “Yes. Sorry.” She turned
from him as the tears gathered in the corners of her eye. What was wrong with
her? Hill wanted her. Marty and Pete belonged to each other. How screwed up was
she that the simple answer to be with Hill and Hill alone didn’t seem to make
sense? “I think the hotdogs are ready.”
“Yeah, right. OK, I get it.” Hill
ran his thumb over his glistening lip and darted his tongue over the tip. He
adjusted himself then, shifting his hard shaft to no avail. It still stabbed at
his zipper.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Stop saying that. I
understand.”
But he didn’t understand at
all. Tricia busied herself with the bread box, searching for the buns she’d
expected would be there. “Sorry, we only have white bread.”
Hill raised his eyebrow at
her. “Language, young lady.”
That made her smile. He
always had a way of accomplishing that. “Then I’m not sorry,” she teased, thankful for the lightened mood.
“I think that might be
worse,” he laughed softly.
Hill sat down at the table
and pulled a flip pad and pencil from his back pocket. He held it up. “Old
school.”
Tricia smiled, and put a
steaming hot wiener atop a slice of white toast on the table in front of him.
“This too.”
“True. Guess I kind of like
things that way.”
“You don’t miss your big time
life in L.A.? Not even a little bit?” She sat down across from him and picked
up her hot dog, squirting some ketchup on it before taking a bite.
He shrugged. “I feel like a
different person out there. No family, no one who really knows me.”
“I moved to Manhattan for
that exact reason,” Tricia said on half a laugh.
“You running away and me
running back, and that is the story of us, T. We’re never running towards the
same thing.”
Tricia flashed her eyes at
him before grabbing the relish. “Always running in the wrong direction.” She
took another bite of her hot dog and chewed. “Right past my own reflection.”
Hill didn’t say anything. He
just picked up the pencil.
Tricia weighed the next
thought that came to mind and tried to decide if it should come out. In the
end, there wasn’t a choice. He heart needed to speak. Hill was her only
translator. “Don’t think you can hear me with this bad connection.” Tricia
didn’t look up from her plate.
“T, I can always hear you.”
“Just write, Hill.”
“Yes ma’am. Bad connection.” He
wrote the words. “That’s the refrain.”
“You think?”
“Yeah. We got a bad
connection.” He looked up at her with a measure of sadness in his eyes that cut
her in two. “It fits.”
She tucked her lips inward in
the absent way that always drew a snide remark from her fourth grade teacher. Chewing on the answer won’t make it taste
any better.
“Carla says that I should go
with you to L.A. to straighten everything out. She made me promise I would
leave as soon as possible.”
Hill nodded. “She called me
while I was on the way over here to check if you’d agreed to go.”
“You two are conspiring
again.”
“Whatever it takes.” He took
another bite. “What’s the next line?”
Tricia got up to look for
something for them to drink in the fridge. “Coke? Sorry there’s nothing
harder.”
“Coke is fine.” Hill said,
picking up the pencil. “Nothing harder…” He tapped the eraser on the table to a
beat of his own making. “Nothing harder than touching perfection.
