Page 31 of Patchwork
“Fair enough.” I laugh. “I’ve got a whole bunch of pork chops I could throw on the grill. Why don’t you text Piston and tell him to spread the word. Cookout here tonight. It’s Arrow’s turn to bring the beer.”
“Cool,” Milo agrees cheerfully, handing Onyx’s guitar back and pulling out his phone.
Diva sneezes in annoyance at the mild disturbance, jumping off Onyx’s lap and prancing out of the room with a flick of her tail.
ONYX
In less than an hour, the smell of charcoal and grilling meat is filling the air and his friends are scattered around his backyard, along with their motorcycles, which they’ve pulled right up onto his lawn. The sun is starting to get low in the sky, but it’s still an hour or so from setting, taking just enough of the edge off the early summer heat to make it a perfect evening.
Arrow and Lewis brought a fluffy white dog with them, and Piston showed up with a cat that’s almost as goofy looking as Diva, with one eye and a slightly crooked tail. I didn’t think you could put a cat on a leash, but it seems pretty happy with itsharness on, lounging in the grass, swatting at the dog every time it bounds over to try to make friends.
“So, you grew up here?” Lewis asks conversationally.
“Yeah. It was too quiet and boring when I was a teenager, but honestly I’ve been missing it,” I confess, casting a glance at Hero on the other side of the yard, standing by the grill with a pair of tongs and a funny apron that says “Hi hungry, I’m dad” on it. I’m guessing it was a present from Milo, and seeing him preen when he came out wearing it was enough to make me terminally swoony.
“Really? So you think you might stay?” The question has ‘gossip’ written all over it, and Lewis leans in with his hand on his chin and a glint of interest in his big blue eyes.
I chuckle and shrug. “Who knows?”
His question sends my mind right back to my phone, turned off and tucked away in the nightstand next to Hero’s bed. I’ve been avoiding it since I got here, but eventually I’m going to have to charge it and return some calls. But doing that sounds about as appealing as a root canal.
“Sneak attack,” Jag shouts from behind me, and before I know what he even means by that, an explosion of white confetti blinds me.
“What the fuck?” I laugh, batting the tiny bits of paper out of my face. I catch a few in my hand, and upon closer inspection, they look like little white tadpoles or something.
“Cumfetti,” Jag announces, cackling as he raises the gun in his hand and blasts me with another burst of sperm shaped confetti.
“Mature,” Lewis mutters, batting the cumfetti out of his face too. “Didn’t anyone ever explain consent to you?”
Jag puts his hands on his hips for a second and screws up his face like it’s really costing him a fuckton of energy to give this topic some thought. Or maybe the scrunched look on his face isbecause his neon green pleather pants are blinding him. Hard to say.
“If I got you your own cumfetti gun, would you be more amenable to the cumfetti wars?” he asks.
Lewis seems to consider it for a second before he sticks out his hand to seal the negotiations. “Deal. I want a cumfetti gun on my desk by this time next week and a ceasefire in the meantime.”
“I can live with that.” Jag shoves his blaster into the waistband of his too-tight pants and shakes hands.
“You love to see diplomacy,” Arrow says blandly, coming up behind Lewis to wrap his arms around him and nuzzle his neck. He chuckles and picks a few more stray cumfetti out of Lewis’s hair.
“Can I get one too?” I ask.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Jag says.
“Did you just blast my boyfriend with your weird paper sperm?” Hero ambles over to ask.
“He was merely a casualty of war.” Jag holds his hands up in surrender.
“It’s okay, we’ve already negotiated a ceasefire until all sides can arm themselves,” I assure Hero.
“Sounds fair,” he says with a serious nod.
“How’s the food coming?” Milo asks, rubbing his stomach in an exaggerated plea for sustenance.
“Few more minutes,” Hero assures him, looping his arm around my shoulders and nuzzling my ear. The casual affection melts my insides and sets off the now familiar ache in the pit of my stomach.
All of this—Hero’s easy touches, his friends’ silly antics—it’snice. I stoop down to pick up my guitar, and start strumming it casually, matching the happy, mellow beat ringing in my ears while everyone chats. Something no one tells you about doing something creative that you love for a living… over time it stealsthe joy of it. I used to write music and play my guitar when I felt like it, when I wanted to take the music in my head and let other people enjoy it too. Now I have to do that on demand, according to a schedule that everyone but me has control over. I missed this, playing just because.
Hero brushes another kiss to my cheek, and I switch up the notes to match the smoldering beats that fill me as his whiskers tickle my skin. He meets my gaze, and we share a quiet, simple smile that fills me with more joy than thousands of screaming fans ever could.
