Page 50 of Echoes of a Muted Song

He freed my other foot, and I stood naked on cold tile, once he removed my final sock. Fortunately, my underwear had been peeled off with my jeans, so there was nothing left but to follow him beneath the warm spray and allow him to wash me quick, but thoroughly.

Somehow, he even managed to keep my hair from getting too wet. I hated going to sleep with wet hair. It always left the pillow damp, even in the morning. In this case, it was already morning and I intended to sleep a good eight hours, maybe even nine, since we weren’t even doing sound check until eight tonight. Food I wasn’t even awake enough to give a shit about, though I knew I’d be ravenous by the time I woke.

Drifting, I let him dry me off and lead me to the bed that I fell face first across, the softness rising up to welcome me. The last thing I heard, before the lull of sleep pulled me under, was him chuckling in my ear and murmuring, “I guess we’re sleeping sideways.”

Chapter 24

(Draven)

“How the hell do we have a split vote when we have an odd number of people voting?”

My text to speech device, turned up to its loudest setting, drowned out even the grumbled attempt at whisper-speak that Claude had been attempting since Ozzy had pulled him aside and had a firm conversation with him about boundaries and behavior.

While he hadn’t made the announcement yet of which drummer would be replacing him while he was away for his medical appointments, I knew from our conversation Friday night that he’d already chosen Kit.

When I’d pulled my phone out Saturday afternoon to find the first flight back to the Providence airport he’d flown out of, Ozzy had stopped me.

“No, hold off on that,” Ozzy said. “We told them we’d make the announcement Mondayso that’s the timetable we’re sticking with. I want to see if Claude makes an effort to tone it down or if he just keeps right on with the bullshit. From all accounts, he was pretty quiet backstage during the show last night. I’m curious to see how he does tomorrow, when it’s just band members and guards hanging out.”

“What does it matter, if you’re not going to use him as a replacement?”

“’Cause now I need to see if it’s worth continuing to spend the time mentoring him,” Ozzy explained. “And maybe because I’m still holding out hope that the over the top attitude was due to nerves and misguided competitiveness. I can work with both of those but there’s nothing further that I can do for him if that’s just the way he is.”

“Fair enough. Johnny will be relieved to know you’re going with Kit. He’s already taken a liking to him and loved the way he lent his voice to the sing-along by the fire pit last night.”

“Man, talk about surprised when I first heard him. If I didn’t already think so highly of him as a drummer I’d suggest he look for a band to front.”

“Then it’s a good thing you do think so highly of him in that regard because I’d hate to picture any scenario where we only had Claude as an option for your replacement.”

“I mean, if we seriously stepped in so much shit that we needed a sacrificial lamb to buyus safe passage, I could see where having him around could come in handy, otherwise, no, nope, nothing else comes to mind.”

We’d chuckled at that, then left the conversation alone, now that I knew where Ozzy’s thoughts were at, my focus on making sure everything was set up for the show, which had been phenomenal. Now it was Sunday afternoon and we’d gathered in Jagger, Robbie, and Keegan’s suite to work out how we intended to spend the day together.

I watched everyone looking around at everyone else, shoulders shrugging in response to my question about a tie vote, and rolled my eyes.

“Okay,” I typed. “Everyone who voted for food, strip clubs and chicanery, raise your right hand.”

I did a quick count, pausing in front of Keegan to nudge his knee. “Your other right, fucker,” I grumbled at him.

Everyone chuckled when he switched hands, while I just shook my head and made a mental note of whose hand was raised this time, so I could try to figure out who the hell hadn’t voted.

Claude’s hand being in the air was no surprise, nor were Keegan’s, and Dash’s. Seeing Jagger choose going with Keegan over hanging back with Robbie at the beach sort of came as a shock, until I remembered that Jagger hadopted to remain by Robbie’s side the last three times a vote had come up. Balancing time in a poly relationship, especially one that took place while living a mostly nomadic lifestyle, could not have been easy, but so far they were doing an awesome job of finding balance.

Rebel looked torn, then it dawned on me that he’d had his hand up for chicanery the first time I’d asked. Now, he had both hands up and just looked sheepish when I cut him a look.

“Okay, so now we have one undecided fucker, great, that settles nothing,” I typed, “which of you bastards didn’t vote the first time?”

“It, um, was me,” Kit said, a slight flush spreading out across his nose. “I didn’t know that I was supposed to. Sorry.”

Unlike Claude, who’d automatically assumed that he got a vote, Kit just looked sheepish as he squirmed in his seat.

“Nothing to apologize for. You now hold the deciding vote in how we spend the rest of our day, so what’ll it be?” I typed.

I’d known when I’d declared the day to be one of group bonding where we’d be spending our time together that the guys would have differing thoughts on what that time should look like.

While option A was chicanery and shenanigans, option B involved the beach, a bonfire, swimming, and lounging around on the sand. Ozzy, Mickey, Robbie, and Johnny hadquickly opted for that one, and I suspected that to be the way Kit was leaning, too. Now to wait and see if he’d actually have the guts to say that out loud.

“The beach,” he said after looking around at everyone.

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