Yeah, Connor thought, life was better once he had Forest in it. Much better.
“I love you, you know,” Connor murmured, rocking Forest in his arms. “Never ever doubt that. No matter what.”
“I love you too. Hey, you took a stool to the arm for me.” Forest grinned at him, their noses touching. “Not every guy can say that about their boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend,” Connor repeated. “That’s good. For now.”
“For now?” It was Forest’s turn to pull back but only enough so he could peer into Connor’s face. “What the hell else do I call you?”
“Yeah, about that.” Connor bent his head down to kiss the corner of Forest’s mouth. Throwing caution to the wind, he said, “I was thinking maybe sometime in the future, you might be wanting to be calling me something more.”
RAFE ANDRADE lurked in the corner of the coffee shop. He’d been introduced to the members of Sinner’s Gin before, and while Sionn was his best friend, he still felt a bit weird talking to Damien Mitchell as if the man was a normal part of everyday life.
He wasn’t starstruck. Not by a long shot. They’d been peers of sorts, but Sinner’s Gin had been on the rise while Rafe was working like hell to bring his own band down. His downward spiral into drugs had been spectacular, a nearly cataclysmic fall from grace, and he was still smarting from it.
Rafe was pretty sure if he reached back and touched his shoulder blades, he could feel the smoking remains of his wax and feather wings.
They’d been nice. Kind even, but Rafe felt the sting of their wariness. Although to be fair, Miki St. John was known to be reticent, and Damie’d been more than happy to fill up any silence with an ongoing babble about music and musicians they all liked.
It felt good to talk music with another guitarist. Even better, when the conversation drifted away from modern music to rock’s Southern roots. Damie thrummed with excitement as he began to talk about old-school blues and how he wanted to build more of his music on that platform. It must have been a much-discussed point, because Miki rolled his eyes at Rafe, and they’d laughed, sharing a moment of amusement at the man’s fervor.
It felt too damned good, and Rafe had to walk away before he emasculated himself and hugged the men in relief.
His disastrous fall left him a pariah among other musicians, and even after a couple of years of hard sobriety, many of his contemporaries still treated him like a leper.
“Shit, burn down one hotel room,” Rafe muttered darkly. “No one got hurt, and I put it out.”
He’d slunk home to San Francisco in disgrace and licked his wounds. It’d taken him nearly dying in a pool of his own vomit for Rafe to pull himself out of the gutter, and he’d be the first one to admit he’d fucked up something bad.
Still, wasn’t like he deserved being shoved into a wicker man and used as a sacrifice.
Rafe was about to go find Sionn in the knot of Morgans he’d last seen his friend in when his eyes settled on the one Morgan boy who made his heart race.
Quinn Morgan, Rafe mused, the odd duckling born into a house of gryphons.
Unlike the other Morgan men, he let his hair grow to a wild mane down past his jaw. It curled a bit at his nape, thick black waves around his strong, lean face. There was something hypnotic about the man’s dark green eyes and how they could stare right through a man.
Rafe’d spent his teenaged years avoiding Quinn Morgan. The third Morgan son had been too young, too weird, but most of all too pretty. Of course, Connor and Kane would have beaten Rafe’s face in with their meaty fists if he’d even lifted an eyebrow in the direction of their younger brother.
And he’d wanted to do much more than lift an eyebrow at Quinn Morgan.
Especially now, since the scrawny, bony boy’d grown up to be a hot, smoldering young man with graceful hands and a full mouth ripe for kissing.
“Shit,” Rafe muttered when Quinn spotted him staring. Grinning cockily back, Rafe swallowed his apprehension when Quinn began to work past his siblings and headed straight for him. “Fucking hell, now what are you going to do, Andrade?”
“Hey,” Quinn said softly. “Just the guy I’m looking for.”
“Yeah?” He played it cool. If it was one thing Rafe knew, it was how to be cool in the face of a firing squad. He’d faced them often enough. Hell, he could give lessons if he wanted to. “Whatcha need?”
“I needed to ask you a question.” Those long black lashes fluttered once, shuttering Quinn’s emerald gaze for just a moment, and then Rafe found himself drowning in green once again. Taking a deep breath, Quinn looked around first, then leaned in close to whisper into Rafe’s ear. “I kind of need to lose my virginity. And I was wondering if you could help me out.”