Page 53 of Filthy Rock Stars

He turns. “Yeah. Coffee?”

We look at each other, a little awkward in the daylight. Then I manage a smile.

“Sure. Thanks.”

I cross and take the mug, our fingers brushing together, and Nico gets a cup, not quite hiding his smile.

Am I allowed to kiss him? But before I can decide, he scratches his chin and talks. “Thanks for inviting me to sleep over.”

“Yeah. I’m glad you stayed.”

He bites his lip. “I can sneak out right now, if you need.”

“No.” I sip the coffee, bitter and hot. “Stay. I want you to. We should probably talk anyway, yeah?”

He nods, his voice picking up. “Right. I do have some questions.” His eyes dart to the side, and I notice the little hotel notepad is out and covered with his tidy, ordered handwriting. “I don’t want to bombard you right away, though. I mean, without your coffee.”

My mouth twitches, my smile growing. He’s excited or nervous, probably both, and it’s adorable either way.

“Sorry,” Nico says with a gentle laugh. “I just woke up kind of hyped. I haven’t slept over with anyone in a while.”

“Neither have I,” I admit. “And don’t apologize. It’s fucking cute.” I give him an eyebrow waggle, then grab the hotel phone and hit a couple buttons. “You like breakfast foods?”

“Sure.”

“Which ones?”

Nico shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t know. All of them?”

I nod as room service picks up. “Could we get your five best breakfast dishes up here?” I catch Nico’s eye. “Orange juice?”

He wrinkles his nose. “Grapefruit?”

“And grapefruit juice. Thanks.”

Nico laughs as I hang up. “The five best dishes?”

I rub my belly. “Didn’t you work up an appetite?”

He grins. “I guess I did.”

I take a seat at the counter that separates the kitchen from the rest of the room. My urge is to lead him back to bed, but I know the second we get there, I won’t be able to take my hands off him long enough to talk.

“You want to talk about my band,” I say, cutting right to the chase. “Is that right?”

“Yeah.” Nico slides onto the stool beside me. “I just don’t understand why you’re so close with Elle and Adrian. I read online that you’ve been best friends since you were all kids, and there are a million pictures of you together where you look like siblings practically… Can you help me understand?”

I might have already fucked this beyond repair, but I know I owe him the truth. So after another gulp of scalding hot coffee, I nod and give it to him.

“We were teenagers together, and we were best friends,” I tell him. “Hell, siblings might be a better way to put it. We fight like siblings, anyway.” I shake my head, searching for a way to explain myself.

“I was always a loner,” I tell him. “Growing up in a small town, I saw the same faces every year, but I was an outsider. My parents yelled at each other every night, loud enough for all the neighbors to hear, and I didn’t like sports or any of that shit. My mom and dad both wanted me to be some typical jock homecoming king. They expected me to redeem the family, but I was too busy acting like a smartass in school and obsessively playing my guitar in the basement.”

Nico gives me a lopsided smile. “Keyboard with headphones in my bedroom.”

I chuckle. “Right. And sci-fi novels when no one was looking.” I keep forgetting that he does understand me, better than people who have known me for my whole life. “The point is I kept to myself. Fine. But then Elle moved to town and started at the junior high. She was this tough rocker girl, like no one I’d ever met, and we instantly started trading music and chilling. She was the first person to ever see me for who I am, and pretty soon, she started dating Adrian from a nearby school, pulling him into our orbit. Hell, I remember the first time I played guitar for both of them, Elle gave me this big compliment, and I sat there in shock because no one ever gave me a fucking compliment. I came out to Elle, Adrian helped me realize my family was messed up, the three of us spent all junior year egging the car of the handsy science teacher…”

I swallow, really remembering how much I care about my friends still, something that’s usually too painful to acknowledge.

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