Page 74 of Sycopation
What? “Umm...” He stared at Dom.
“Jesus, you guys have wanted into each other’s pants since the audition.” Dom rolled his eyes. “Then you were such shits to each other with the taunting and teasing. It was getting damn annoying.”
Ray didn’t know what to say. Zavier was blatantly not looking his way at all as he poured two mugs, though his smile was that fucking know-it-all number he wore sometimes. Ray settled on watching Mish.
She shrugged. “I’m with Dom on this. You guys got it out of your system?”
It was Zavier who answered. “No.” A simple word. He handed Ray coffee and sat next to him with his own. “Not at all.”
Now Dom had that fucking smirk. “Yeah, didn’t think it would be that easy for either of you.”
Well—yeah, Ray wasn’t satisfied with only one night with Zav. Didn’t expect it to be just one night, either. Especially not when it came to the whole spanking and ordering part. He wanted more of that—and more of Zavier screwing him into mindless pleasure. But also more of that singular understanding. The way Zav had tucked him in.
Shit. Because he hadn’t expected Zavier to take care of him like that. His cheeks heated and he sipped his coffee. “Um, what were you guys talking about before I got up?”
They all moved cagily. Well, not Zavier—he pulled out his tablet, woke it up, and handed it to Ray. “Tell me what you see.”
Shit.Shit. It was a photo of him and Zav, standing outside the concert venue, when he’d been so fucking upset at Carl. You could see both their faces. His was full of anger and pain, and Zavier was a picture of sex and determination. They looked exactly like two men about to go fuck.
Which they had been.
“We’re...this is right before we came back to the bus.”
Zavier nodded, took a sip of coffee, and scrolled the photo up so the headline appeared.
ENEMIES OR LOVERS?
Oh. Ray scrolled the photo back and took another look. Yeah, okay. They might have also been about ready to scream at each other. “I—what do we do about it?”
Zavier grunted. “Let me show you a few other things.”
More photos, this time from a couple concerts. All of Ray or Zavier or both. And their expressions when they looked at each other—holy shit. No wonder Dom wasn’t surprised.
“I didn’t realize I was so—” Ray waved a hand “—obvious.” He sipped his coffee to steady him.
“Same, actually. Usually I’m more opaque.”
Mish rose and got her own coffee, and one for Dom. “Both of you are so open when we’re onstage.” She settled back down onto the couch and lifted an eyebrow at Zavier. “I’m guessing you were a lot less expressive when playing in an orchestra.”
Zavier seemed to think about that for a while. “It wasdifferent. There was passion, but it was more personal, more contained. Shorter bursts.”
Mish nodded. “Well, there you go.”
Ray eyed the tablet. “You have another tab open.”
“Ah. Yes. That one.” Zavier waved at the tablet. “Open it.”
Ray clicked on it and stared. “This is a fanfic site.” Then he read and his stomach dropped straight through the floor of the bus. It was a fanfic page for Twisted Wishes. Real person fanfic. And he was staring at the category list for Ray/Zav. The number of fics was impressive, given that Zavier had been in the band all of two and a half months. “Fuck.”
Part of him was really creeped out. He wasn’t a fictional character to play around with. Flesh and blood. Real feelings. But another part of him was a very curious. “Have you read any of these?”
A pause while Zavier drank some coffee. Then he shrugged. “I skimmed a few. You’re not you and I’m not me and some of the acts—well. I think we’d need to be made of something a bit more bendable than bone.”
Dom snorted.
“Yeah, but they got any good ideas? Should we be taking notes?”
Zavier pinned Ray with a gaze that made the rest of the world drop away. “I have a much better set of notes for that, Ray.”
