Page 93 of Out of Tune
“Wes. Wes. Wes.” His name, but also the only thing that my mind can wrap its mind around.
Has it ever been this good? How can it be this good and we’re barely doing anything?
Because it’s him and because it’s you. Because everything is better when it’s the both of us. Music. Sitting and watching a sunset, even miles apart.This.God. This is the best.
He presses harder against me, and I snap. A strangled cry crawling out of me as an orgasm fizzles through me.
His thumb brushes over my cheek. “Avery, are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” And then I see it, the tear he caught. “Oh. I’m good. So good.” I sniffle. “I’m just so happy.” A laugh quakesthrough my body at the realization. Another tear slips and this one he kisses away.
I’ve filled the space where happiness lives with feeble substitutes. Now that I’m experiencing the real thing. It’s like a damn has broken and all the joy I’ve been depriving myself of is spilling out.
“I’m just so happy too.” A soft smile on that wonderful, tortuous mouth of his. All for me. He flushes. “So…do you, maybe…” He pauses, cheeks growing a shade darker. “Have pants I could borrow? I. Shit. The sound of you. It just...” He stumbles over the words. “I came.”
“That easy?”
“When it’s you.”
“It was easy for me too.” To feel, to allow my body to melt and enjoy without a thudding pressure to look a certain way. Pleasure was just one more thing in my life that had started to feel choreographed, but this was messy and perfect. And like so many other things, he’s helped me reclaim it.
We slowly get up from the couch. I fish out a pair of my gray sweatpants. The beauty of being the same height is that they fit him pretty well. After he’s done, I clean up and change in the bathroom. In the mirror I see where he’s left marks around the curve of my breast, touching the spots tenderly.
“Nice shirt,” Wes says from the foot of my bed as I reenter the room.
My gaze falls to my body and the age-softened T-shirt that falls to my thighs. Fool’s Gambit is written in red block letters over my chest. “It was on top of the stack.” I step forward so I’m standing between his spread thighs. “But it’s good to know you like it.” His face tilts up to me and I brush my hand over his hair.
“Let me stay for breakfast. We can watch the sunrise, and it will be so good,” he says, and I see the rest of what he means in his eyes.We’d be so good if you let us.
“Stay.”
22
Avery
November 2025
Thunder pounds and the wind rattles in a way that sounds like someone talking.
I shift and groan on my bed, Wes’s body draped over mine. His heartbeat is steady under where I’m using his chest like a pillow.
Another crack of thunder. Close. Right outside the house.
“Avery! I will pick this lock if you don’t let me in!” That was definitely not the wind and absolutely my friend who has flown out for the first show. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Wes,” I hiss as I shake his shoulder. “You need to get up.”
He grips my hip harder.
“Wes,” I try again, and this time his sleep glazed eyes flutter open, framed by thick lashes.
“Is it time?”
“Evelyn’s here. You need to go.”
He bolts up, so the blankets fall off him. “Where?”
“I don’t know. Just hide before she breaks down the door. I’ll see if I can take her out back so you can leave.”
