Page 8 of The Deviation
“I doubt it.” Johnny huffs out a laugh. “See they made this pact when they got together. To stay small, be content as a pub band. They love to perform but,” he shrugs, “they’re not looking to make it big.”
“Then what are they doing here?” I throw my arms out to indicate the crowd surrounding us and the music saturating the night air. “Small pub bands don’t tend to end up on festival stages. Not unless they want something more.”
Johnny’s smile is resigned, bitter even. “We all want something more, don’t we? Doesn’t mean we should get it.” There’s a brief hesitation, a tightening of his jaw, and then he closes what’s left of the gap between us. His hands grab hold of my waist and he pulls me close. “Then again, sometimes we find exactly what we want, and we realise wecanhave it.” The way he looks at me then, fucking me with his eyes, the way he brushes his hips against mine in a perfect blend of uncertainty and longing, all of it sends my pulse kicking into overdrive.
Hell yes, he can have me.
Deep in the recesses of my brain, there’s a howl of frustration. The survivor in me needs the name of the band Johnny’s talking about so I can escape Arthur long enough to catch their set tomorrow. If they’re as good as Johnny says, winning them over could get me my promotion, ensuring mine and Hannah’s security for years to come.
But the man in me has other ideas. He reaches out with his hands but keeps his mouth firmly shut. Johnny’s desire to change the subject is as obvious as the pulsing in my cock. To backtrack now would be pushing too hard in the wrong direction, and I don’t want to ruin whatever is happening between us. Besides, the band he thinks so highly of could be shit. What the hell does a pharmacist know about good music? The whole thing is probably a dead end, anyway.
“Calum.” Johnny’s voice is a low rumble in my ear.
The battle I’m waging inside my head breaks up as every argument, both for and against getting that name, rolls over in slutty submission. “Yes?”
The current song finishes, to a half-hearted smattering of applause, and I expect Johnny to speak now he has the chance. Instead, he waits patiently for the next song to begin. That’s when he leans in, bringing his lips right up close to my ear so I can hear him over the fresh onslaught of noise. “I can’t think of anything interesting to say, but I like being this close to you. So, I’m willing to say anything that comes to mind.”
Laughing out loud, I drop my forehead to his shoulder. How he manages to be so artless and charming at the same time is beyond me. He has to be either a master flirt, or utterly hopeless. I turn my head, angling my mouth closer to his, desperate for a taste. But I don’t want to get it here, where we have an audience and any random homophobic arsehole could ruin our delight with a single harsh word.
I straighten, looking into those endless, brown eyes as I hold out my hand. “Walk with me.”
His face breaks into a grin as he threads his fingers through mine. “Lead the way.”
FIVE
______
JOHNNY
The thrashing melody of the stage fades into the background as we emerge from the back of the crowd. A gust of cool autumn air causes goosebumps to erupt on my bare arms. I lift my face to the star-studded sky and breathe the night deep into my lungs. It does nothing to calm my blood. The mess in my head keeps right on churning.
There’s no way I can tell Calum I’m a musician now. It would look like I confessed in the hope of wrangling a management deal out of him. That couldn’t be further from the truth. My whole spiel about Fifth Circle making a pact to stay small was no bullshit. The band is my hobby—a creative outlet for the musical quirks I never managed to shake loose. It will never pose a threat to Calum’s job, though I doubt he’d see it that way.
I jam my hands in my pockets as Calum and I walk side by side. My heart pounds a bass line inside my chest with every step. Thump. Thump. Thump. Anticipation. Trepidation. Possibly the beginnings of panic. I don’t know, it’s kind of hard to tell. I focus on putting one foot in front of the other, although I have no idea where we’re headed or what will happen when we get there.
All I know is, the thought of kissing this man makes my taste buds tingle, and I haven’t felt that way in a really long time. If I need to keep my secret a little longer to make it happen, so be it.
“We could head back to my place,” he suggests in a low voice. “Have a drink. See what the night brings.”
I slow to a stop, my mouth hanging open as I wonder what happened to the kissing part. Do people seriously skip straight to offers of sex without so much as an evaluative lip lock? What if it turns out we have no chemistry? We could get all the way naked only to discover we’re all spark and no fire.
Or worse, we could have sex and it could be bad. I’ve had exactly one sexual partner in my life, and Calum isn’t even the same gender as Ellie. I could be total shit at pleasuring a dude!
“I um…” I search for a way to distract him while I attempt to get my shit together. “You’re a local?”
He grins. “No, but my hotel isn’t far.”
“Right, of course.” I stand there scuffing the crap out of my boots on the well-trod grass. Calum looks on with an expression of bemused curiosity.
Finally, he takes hold of my hand and tugs me back into motion. “I grew up on the outskirts of Sydney,” he says as he leads me in the direction of the amphitheatre—and away from the festival ground exit. “My sister and I moved up to Brisbane about eighteen months ago, after Hannah graduated high school.”
Calum’s hand feels solid in mine, and my pulse rate settles back into a reasonable rhythm. “Why the move?”
He takes his time choosing a response. “We needed a fresh start.”
It sounds so simple when he says it. As if packing up and moving interstate is no big deal. “Your parents weren’t upset about both their children moving away at the same time?”
His lips press into a hard line. “No,” he says before clearing his throat. “What about you? Where do you hail from?”