Page 1 of Little Red Merlot

Chapter

One

SILAS GREEN

I don’t want to open my eyes. I know what I find when I do will only shame me. Getting blackout drunk and waking up naked in a bed with fuckall only knows who is on either side of me is the sort of stupid shit I did plenty of when the band and I were young. Back then, it was just part and parcel of being a rocker. Play music, get wasted on the party favors flying around backstage, wind up mindlessly taking whoever was willing up to whatever hotel room the label put us up in for the night. Rinse and fucking repeat.

That shit gets old, though. Predictably. When old timers warned there would be a time when the music forced us to choose partying or playing, we’d laughed them off. I remember being so confident I’d always be able to balance rocking and raging. Filled with arrogant overconfidence, I thought I was immune to the burnout and breakdowns they foretold.

But I hadn’t been.

Two years ago, standing on the actual ledge of a hotel balcony, high on blow and convinced I could fly, it was only the lucky hands of my bandmates pulling me back through the window that saved me from going splat. Since then, I put myself through rehab, found some fucking humility and stability, and stopped the self destructive shit that was driving me into an early grave.

I thought I did, anyway. I’m pretty sure opening my eyes is gonna force me to face up to failing with my new sober living life. A life I don’t think is super sober now. Searching through the fog and shadows swirling through my memories of last night I can’t find a legitimate reason why I’m naked and octopussed around what I think is a man at my back and a woman at my front.

“We know you’re awake, Si. You can open your eyes.” The man’s bass voice moves the air and rustles the too-long hair at my temple, and the feel of springy male chest hair between my shoulder blades has my morning wood hardening into painful stone. My balls feel like lead weights, tight to my body as though they want to crawl through the cock currently nestled against the cotton panties of the woman on her side in front of me. The crush of her tits against my diaphragm is a perfect counterbalance to the masculine cage of arms from behind me.

Whoever I’m in bed with, they know the nickname only those closest to me ever use. Nobody calls me Si but my bandmates and their families. I crack one eye open, scared shitless to see what I’m fairly sure I’m about to.

“Mrs. Anders….uh…ma’am…oh shit….sorry…shoot…oh fuck. Did I—” My words disappear, leaving only stutters and humiliation.

The woman, whose panties my cock is currently trying to invade, is Ava Anders. My drummer Jameson’s mother. Which means…

“Breathe, boy.” The mountainous bear of a man spooned around us both is Huck Anders. Jameson’s father. By the feel of the scorching cloth-covered iron branding its way between my ass cheeks, it’s his nearly naked and turned on father.

Fuck my actual life. I’m in bed with my best friend’s parents. My bandmate. My very intense, very protective, very temperamental and quick with his sticks drummer.

I’m fucked. I don’t need to remember whatever the fuck happened last night to know that.

Chapter

Two

HUCK ANDERS

I meet Ava’s pale blue eyes over Si’s shoulder and have to stifle the chuckle that wants to burst out. The boy’s panicking, and I feel her arms tighten around him even as my own lock to keep him in place. What happened to him last night was fucked up, but fortunately, we were there to prevent things from really going off the rails.

Silas has been sober for a couple years, a fact we know damn well from watching the shit he went through to get clean. So when Ava and I arrived backstage for the afterparty celebrating the closing night of our son’s band’s tour and saw Si totally wasted, we knew something had happened. Something bad.

“What happened last night?” His voice sounds so small, and my heart aches for the guy who tries so hard to be strong and make good choices.

“I feel you panicking, boy. You don’t need to. We got you. You’re safe and unharmed.” Ava and I have known Silas Green since our son, Jameson, brought him home from college and announced he was dropping out to form a band.

At twenty, Si was a brash handful with no regard for himself and hardly any for anyone else. Raised by grandparents who considered their duty done when he turned eighteen, he was already adrift when Jameson introduced us all. Back then, he was just a punk-ass brat who drove my wife and me crazy. We were worried he’d drag Jameson down with him, but instead, our levelheaded son constantly reined Si in.

Only three years later, when their band, The Assembly, was topping charts and playing to sold out venues, Si hit rock bottom and nearly took down the whole band with him. It had been the hardest thing I ever did to stand chest-to-chest with the broken young man and order him into treatment. He’d been so scared the other guys, our son Jameson, their lead singer Quinn, and their bassist Rhodes would replace him.

I understood where his fears stemmed from, but all Ava and I could do was watch from the sidelines and help on the rare occasions Silas let us in. After all, it’s not as if the mother and father of his bandmate had any right to his life. Even if bringing him into our lives and hearts was something we’d felt the urge to do almost from the start.

Ava and I have always had, well, I guess it could be called a bit fluid of a marriage. When the kids were young, we kept ourselves mostly to ourselves. We wanted to avoid any awkward conversations about why Daddy had a boyfriend or why Mommy was sitting in another man’s lap. Things changed once the kids were grown and the nest was empty, which happened younger for us than for most, considering Ava and I were high school sweethearts who finished having kids by the time we were twenty.

My wife has spent the better part of her lifetime devoted to me, but it’s easy to see she’s got more love to give than one man can ever receive. And watching her share her love with men I choose for her has always been a kink that cranked my chain. If they were also men open to accepting a bit of extra attention from me, too, well, so much the better.

“What did I do?” His breaths are deeper, more regular, but his slender body still tremors in my arms. Ava tucks her head under his chin, nuzzling her lips against his throat, and I feel his near silent groan vibrate through his back into my chest.

“Not a damn thing, boy. You were drugged. Jameson thinks you picked up a water bottle meant for Rhodes. Said something about a stalker that’s been dogging him? Bob said he’s got security looking into it. You were pretty loopy, so Ava and I brought you to the room with us to sleep it off.”

Tension bleeds from his muscles until he’s a melty armful of man between us. Ava’s eyes sparkle up at me when she lifts her head from under his chin, and I realize it’s possible not every bit of him has relaxed. She winks at me, and I let her take the lead. After Si tugged off all his clothes last night and demanded we take off ours for a snuggle slumber party, he’d been nearly impossible to resist.

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