Page 10 of Bend

“I can go.” I reached for my glass, feeling a little guilty because when I thought about it, he probably didn’t get much downtime at all, and now I was interrupting.

Mars reached out, the brush of his hand across my wrist light and surprising. “You’re fine. Maybe I need to take back what I just said; I wasn’t meaning for you to read between the lines there.”

“Hazard of the job, I suppose.” I gave him an airy smile and settled back in. “So since I’ve got you alone now, I’ve been dying to know”—I watched as his brows pulled together as his expression became guarded—“Mars… is that a nickname?”

Mars took a slow swallow from his glass, then licked his lips and shook his head. “My mom liked themes. Got a brother named Uranus, then there’s Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune. And Pluto—he’s the youngest.”

“Technically, Pluto is no longer considered a planet.”

“Yeah, well, no one really likes him anyway. He was a surprise baby.”

I blinked at him and burst into laughter, and after a moment, he grinned and joined in.

I didn’t resolve the mystery of his name right then, but after another couple of rounds, Ididconvince him to finally give me that interview I’d been wanting. Thank you, alcohol and conversation hearts.

8

Mars

“That it?” I asked when Eli fell silent behind the camera. He’d set it up on a tripod next his hotel room window and indicated I should sit in the chair he dragged over once we’d gotten up to his room. I’d blame me giving in on the whiskey, but the interview hadn’t been much of a deal. I thought I’d get nervous like I sometimes did when I was put on the spot, since public speech had never been my forte, and aside from being wary of cameras in general, I hadn’t wanted to sit there trying to stammer out something smart in front of Eli. But just as with the old local we’d interviewed together, Eli kept it loose, and it felt more like we were having a conversation. After five minutes, I’d all but forgotten the camera was running and just focused on Eli, his sparkling eyes and quick smile. He had warmth and interest that bled out of every pore, and goddammit if it didn’t have me actually wanting to answer his questions. I still didn’t know what my interview could possibly add to his documentary, but then, I wasn’t the director.

I stretched my arms over my head and caught Eli raking me with his gaze as he said, “I do have one more question, actually.” He posed it lightly, casually, with another one of those playful smiles as I scratched along my jaw and nodded. “Hit me.”

He fiddled with the camera. “Did you enjoy watching me the other night?”

That was a swift kick in the ass back into sobriety.The other night. It’d been more than a week since that night, but I felt the immediate creep of heat over my neck as I straightened in my chair, like I’d just been caught in the act. And shit, at this point, I figured honesty was the best policy. “I didn’t hate it. Though I wanted to, I’ll tell you that much. Guess that makes me a perv. I didn’t watch the whole…” I gestured and cleared my throat. “But I would’ve if my conscience would’ve let me.”

He blinked, seemingly in surprise for the honesty, then raked his teeth over his lower lip, that action alone running my spine like fire. I’d been on a low simmer around him all night, but now I was well on my way toward actually sweating. So much for ignoring him. It’d been easy to do when I was busy and when I was just dealing with some stupid candy heart taunts. It was a lot harder when he was sitting in front of me, pinning me with a gaze that had suddenly caught fire. “How’d you know?” I asked, curious.

“I didn’t. It was just a hunch because you were acting off when we were trying to settle the interview times.”

I laughed and rubbed a hand over my eyes at having outed myself. “There’s those reporter tactics I was waiting for. So what, you want me to make an apology or something?”

Eli gave me a funny look. “Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re being thick-headed on purpose or not.”

“Me either,” I cut in, eyeing him as he came around the camera toward me.

“It’s definitely not an apology I’m after.” He stopped right in front of where I sat, then took a step closer, forcing me to tip my chin up if I wanted to keep my gaze locked to his, which I did. He had nice eyes, big and warm, hazel with bits of blue. “Didn’t you say something about dishing it out recently. You going back on that?”

I considered for a moment. Most of my life on the road or on the tracks, in this case, was spent putting everything else before me. Les and Evan’s needs, Les and Evan’s schedule, smoothing over any bumps that cropped up with the goal of keeping the musicians on tour unaware so they could focus on the music. It was an important job, and often an invisible one. I liked it fine that way, but damn, it was hard for me to pretend I didn’t also like feeling “seen” the way Eli was capable of. And right now, the way he was looking at me was something I felt to my core. I didn’t want it to stop.

So I gave into the craving that had been building inside me since that night watching him. I trailed my fingertips up his thighs and kept on going until they met the warm skin below his shirt. “Not going back on it, nope.” When I spread my legs wider, he filled in the space with a single step. “I’m not a city boy like all those photos on your phone.” There’d been hundreds of them, one shot after another, Eli in the company of all sorts of beautiful, elite types.

“Yeah, I got that part.” Eli snorted. “And I’m not as city-slick as you seem to think I am.” He put his hands on my shoulders, easing lower until he leaned in and I found the softness of his lips pressed to mine. That first point of contact was firm and warm, and I slid a hand around the back of his neck, anchoring my fingers in his hair to hold him still. He licked the corner of my mouth and then the inside when I opened up, and then everything deepened and intensified until we were kissing each other recklessly, my hips moving against his as he straddled me, my cock hard and aching, and both of us breathless and strung out on arousal.

I was on the edge of the chair, about to topple off as Eli ground into my lap, when he swore and detached, flopping onto his back on the carpeted floor as he panted out. “Need a second. I really don’t know what it is about you because—and I’m going to be honest here—you’re not my usual type as we’ve both well established, but god, when I’m around you it’s like I have no self-control over what’s happening to certain parts of me.”

“Especially your mouth.” I grinned, then chuckled and slid to the floor with my back against the chair. Eli rolled onto his side to face me while we caught our breath, and I dragged a fingertip up his side, lifting his shirt to expose his ribs and the ink that ran down it. “There a story behind this?”

“Sort of?” He swallowed visibly and shifted around. “It was originally supposed to be a bunch of thorns. Just this massive thicket of branches and thorns, skulls, and skeletons. Very macabre.” He paused, wrinkling up his nose, seeming to debate before he spoke again. “I was diagnosed with testicular cancer five years ago, and I did a bunch of chemo, all that shit. Had the offending testicle removed and I was just fucking bitter about it, you know? I got this idea in my head that that was the perfect way to show my triumph over it all until my brother told me I was being an idiot. My boyfriend at the time had bailed midway through everything. I was sick and exhausted all the time and yeah, I wasn’t much fun to be around. But I listened to my brother and put those plans on hold and waited a while until I’d mentally recovered more—I mean, it was a nut, right? Not a lobotomy or death. But I still wanted something. A little reminder.” He put his hand over his eyes like he was trying to shade them from some kind of judgment on my part. “It feels so cheesy to explain. I usually don’t, actually.”

I traced the lush leaves and flowers that coiled around his rib cage and flourished with color over his heart, then reached for the hand he was using as a shield and dragged it away until he gave me a self-conscious smile.

“But anyway, there it is. It’s my ode to new growth, new life.”

I stretched out beside him and pushed him onto his back. “I like it. Not that you went through that, but I agree with your brother. This seems more you.” Eli pulled in a quiet breath as I put my lips to a blossom just beneath his pec and kissed it, then rested my chin on his chest and said, “Marcel. That’s my full name. My mom heard it on a soap opera and thought it was ‘elegant.’ Guess she was hoping that’d somehow set my life course toward the white-collar world or something.”

“Marcel Camden.” Eli let the name roll around in his mouth, then laughed as he tugged at the disheveled mop of my hair and wound it around his fingers. The little tugs and caresses he gave to my scalp felt good, and I let my forehead droop forward, rubbing my lips over his warm skin. We were lonely, both of us. The logical part of me knew that, tried to tell me not to make too much of this. “You really, really don’t look like a Marcel.”