Page 51 of Red Hot Harmony

The light spilling from the corner of the window was crawling toward the bed, and the width and length of the rectangle told me it was still very early, earlier than I would have liked to wake up after a night of sex, but the beat of anxiety somewhere in the pit of my stomach grew stronger and stronger.

Fuck. I needed a cigarette.

Carefully, so as not to wake Camille, I shimmied toward the edge of the bed and checked the nightstand drawer, only to find an obscene number of condoms. At least despite all the bad habits I’d accumulated throughout my turbulent career—many of which were pretty much a blatant abuse of my own body—I hadn’t succumbed to fucking strangers without a rubber.

I guess there was hope for me.

Naked, I padded into the kitchen, where, in one of the drawers, I finally found what I was looking for—some candy.

I stood at the window overlooking the city and stared at the heavy cloud of smog hanging above the ribbons of traffic, alive and moving, and at the endless stretch of buildings that became skyscrapers, then warehouses, and then morphed into the poorest parts of L.A. Funny, I could see it even from here, the desolation that ruled those neighborhoods, the mesh of dull grays and bright graffiti and the walls with chipped paint. One of those unkempt houses was where a boy came from. A boy with nothing but a beat-up guitar and riffs in his head.

A boy who’d grown up and done it all and found no solace in any of those wild things until now…until this moment as the warm, gentle sensation inside his heart started whisperingI belong, I belong, I belong, I belong.

The sugar in my mouth was a familiar distraction, but it wasn’t sufficient to drown the sudden unease that pinched at my nerves. The itch right beneath my skin was still there, like a colony of ants, poking and prodding and asking to do something about it.

But what?

I didn’t know.

I couldn’t explain the reason behind the anxiety. Was it just a nicotine craving? Or was it the dread of not being enough again...not being loved?

The thought made me shudder. I bit into the candy and it crumbled between my teeth, little pieces melting against my tongue and slipping down my throat.

“Hey?” Camille’s voice came from behind me.

I spun around and saw her standing at the door, leaning against the frame. Barefoot. She was wearing my shirt, the black one I had on last night. It was wrinkled and hanging off one shoulder, but she looked cute in it.She looked cute in my clothes.

“Wow, who needs modesty when you’ve got all that?” Camille’s face shifted, expression somewhere between a laugh and a shock. She gestured eloquently at my state of undress and I could tell she was trying very hard not to look below my neck.

“If my memory serves me right, you were all overthatlast night,” I pointed out, swallowing up the space separating us but stopping a couple of feet short. The trash can was conveniently nearby and I tossed the rest of the candy there.

This was weird. I couldn’t remember what the etiquette was for the morning after, because I couldn’t remember a morning after where I’d wanted a woman to stay.

“Ah, yes—” She was blushing. “Apparently, you made quite an impression.”

I realized it was strange for her too, this urge to be intimate when neither of us knew how to actually be intimate, so I did what I felt was the right thing to do. I moved closer, cupped her face and kissed her on the lips.

And everything fell back into place.

“So is walking around naked something you do often?” she asked, looking up at me and smiling. There were traces of mascara beneath her eyes, and for some reason, I didn’t hate this disheveledI’ve been fuckedlook on her. Probably because she’d been fucked by me.

“Only when I have the right audience.”

She laughed.

“Are you hungry?”

“A little.”

“Do you want to get breakfast? We can have some delivered. Or go out. There’s a place nearby.”

“I’d love to, but...I think I need to relieve Harper of babysitting duties. He’s supposed to be covering at the boutique today.”

I breathed in. And out.

She wasn’t just mine. She belonged to a lot of other people and I needed to remember that. “Rain check?”

“Absolutely.”

---