Page 38 of No Rhyme or Riesling
“Can I just say,” Adam murmured, “I amsofucking glad that I came over tonight.”
John laughed. “You and me both.” He took in a deep breath through his nose, then finally registered the scent of whatever Adam had in the oven. “Christ, that smells good. What is it?”
“Huh? Oh. Cottage pie. I made the crust from scratch.” Adam winced. “Hence the flour everywhere. I should go clean that up.”
John chuckled, then shifted his weight, getting ready to get up but not lifting off the boy yet. Instead, he nuzzled behind Adam's ear as he said, “I'm going to go shower. If you get all that mess cleaned up really well, I'll give you a nice reward after dinner.” He punctuated the statement with a roll of his hips.
Adam gasped and tried to rip himself out from under John in his hurry to go do as he was told.
John finally let him up and chuckled as he watched the boy scramble out of the room. Adam didn't even bother to stop and put his pants back on first. John picked them up, along with Adam's underwear, and folded both neatly before setting them on top of the dresser, then he straightened the bedspread and picked up his own discarded clothing on his way to the bathroom.
He threw away the condom and got into the shower. John found himself smiling as he stood there under the hot water. He could get used to this. Coming home to Adam, even when he wasn't expecting the boy. Even to the messy kitchen and the loud music, which was still playing. Fucking the day's tension out of both of their bodies, then sitting down to dinner and a movie before enjoying one another all over again.
Of course, it meant his plans for the evening had gone right out the window. He couldn't very well sit and work on a song about Adam while the boy was right there. Granted, he had done exactly that when they'd written “December Dreams,” butmaybe that was part of why the song never lived up to John's expectations, besides being the wrong music genre.
No,Adam's Songneeded to be a complete secret until it was done.
John got out of the shower, frowning when he realized the music was off.Weird. He would have thought Adam would keep it on to entertain himself while cleaning up his mess. John quickly dried off and pulled on a pair of lounge shorts before padding out to the kitchen.
He jerked to a stop at the sight before him. Not a bit of the mess had been touched, so his kitchen still looked like a disaster zone, but that wasn't what really caught his attention.
Adam sat on the floor, leaning back against the cabinets, his bare legs bent and his elbows braced on his knees. His phone was in one hand, and the bottle of chardonnay was in the other.
Christ. That bottle had been almost full an hour ago. Now it was more than half empty.
John watched as Adam brought the bottle to his mouth and chugged down several swallows.
Fuck. John shuddered at the sight. “Adam?”
The boy barely reacted at first. He took another few sips of the wine before he slowly looked up.
Then burst into tears.
“Shit,” John muttered, throwing himself down in front of Adam and trying to pry the bottle away so he could pull Adam into his arms.What the hell happened?
He was about to ask the question aloud when Adam finally released the bottle and collapsed against him.
“I tried calling Dakota,” Adam choked out between sobs. “He sent me a text about a song he heard that he thought I should sing at the wedding, so I was gonna tell him that I won't be singing at the wedding–”
John blinked in surprise as Adam paused to suck in a breath. Adam wasn't singing at the wedding? Last he'd heard, that issue had been resolved. But apparently something had changed in the past couple days and Adam hadn't told him about it.
“But I opened my contacts and went to press Dakota's name while I was shutting off the music so I could hear him,” Adam rambled on, wiping tears from his cheeks, only for more to instantly appear, “except Dakota's name is right under my dad's in my contacts and I must have accidentally hit the wrong one while I wasn't looking at what I was doing because it went straight to voicemail and then I heard–” Adam broke off, sucking in another breath before a fresh sob tore out of him.
John held him tight and rubbed his arm. “Heard what?”
Instead of speaking an answer, Adam held up his phone and tapped on the screen. The phone rang once, then immediately clicked over to voicemail.
“Hi, you've reached Frank Barnes. Please leave me a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Have a great day.”
John's body jerked in shock. “Fuck,” he gasped, staring at the phone. He hadn't heard that voice in nine years, but even without Frank stating his name, John would have recognized it anywhere. It was the voice that haunted his nightmares, the one that threatened to kill him if he ever touched Adam again.
A robotic, female voice announced that the mailbox was full, and Adam quickly jabbed at the button to end the call.
“It's stupid, right?” Adam asked, dropping his phone on the floor. “Still paying to keep his line active after all this time? Except sometimes I forget his voice. Like, who even does that? Who forgets their dad's voice? But I do sometimes and then I have to hear it again but this is all I have and it's both not enough and too much and then every once in a while I call it on accident and–” He broke off sobbing again.
John closed his eyes and inwardly cursed while Adam curled up against him. He eyed the phone on the floor between their legs, idly wondering if Frank Barnes's ghost might somehow pop out of the device. John held Adam tighter, glancing in the direction of the table where he'd left his own phone.
He wondered if he should play Frank's message for Adam. Give the boy another piece of his dad's voice.
