I fall asleep with two truths ringing in my mind.

I don’t like my parents. And I absolutely adore poetry.

Chapter 5 : Before

Scotty is watching me from a barstool as I tap at the drums nervously. It's been two weeks since that first date in Keegan's record store, and I still haven't brought Peyton home. She's flirted, and we've done dinner, and constant texting. She still comes by to listen to us play, but she scooted out before I could talk to her last week, texting quickly that she had a class early the next morning.

Which might be true. It might be she doesn't want to get serious enough that she's meeting Scott

"You need to get laid," Scott says, and I flick him a dirty look.

"Have you even kissed her yet?" he asks, and I duck behind the drums. He barks out a startled laugh, half choking on his beer. "You haven't. Shit, bro, you're losing your touch."

"Shut the fuck up," I growl. "I'm not fucking this up because I'm horny."

Scott laughs again and I stand abruptly, glaring at my brother.  Amused blue eyes meet mine, red hair framing a private smile that tells me I'm not in trouble, but I'm skating close to it.

Peyton reaches out and snags Scott's Redd’s, sipping from it as she saunters up to the stage and climbs up. She's wearing a tight little jean skirt that rides up a little when she steps up, and I get the quick flash of her smooth thigh, the hint of bright blue of her panties before she's on the stage and stalking toward me.

She moves with a prowling grace that make me hard, and I swallow, watching as she closes in on me.

"You’re horny and you won't touch me?"sShe murmurs, soft enough that even in the still quiet of the bar, only I hear her words. "I must be reading your signals wrong, Jokes. I thought you were in this."

Disappointment shimmers in her bright eyes, and I move without thinking. For once, the voices hissing that she's too good for me are silenced as I drag her into me. Her body is hot and soft under the jean skirt and a tight-fitting tank that caresses every fucking curve. I drop my head down, skimming along her skin as I murmur, "Sweetheart, I've gotten off every day for the past three months, thinking about your tight little body in my bed. Thinking about kissing you until you can't think and watching you fall apart while I'm buried in your perfect pussy."

She makes a tiny gasp against my ear and I lick a line across the curve of her neck and she shudders, her hand coming up to clutch my shoulders, nails digging in.

"You like that, don't you? That I've spent months hung up on you. That I've come all over myself thinking about you."

She whimpers and I swallow my smile as I pull back. Stare in her eyes as she struggles to breathe evenly. "How wet are you right now, Peyton?"

She licks her lips and my dick twitches. I swallow a groan as she comes up on tiptoes and leans in, her lips brushing against my ear as she whispers, "Fucking soaked."

I have her against me before I realize I moved, and her lips are against mine and it's every fucking thing I expected. Wanted. Fantasized about for months. Her hands are on my shoulders, nails digging in, and I fucking love it. I lick along the seam of her lips, my hand coming up and framing her face as the other finds her waist, the smooth band of skin between her skirt and her top. I catch her bottom lip, tugging softly, and her nails bite down as she gasps. I shift her, twisting and pushing her back until she hits the wall. One leg hitches up around mine and I groan as her tongue slides against mine and her skirt rides up between us.

I’m about a minute from dragging her into the back stockroom and fucking her against the cases of beer. She grabs my hand, and brings it between us as her leg drops. I pull back a hairsbreadth, startled, and her blue eyes are fierce and hot on mine as she guides my hand down the front of her skirt.

I’m too aware of the people behind us, and the girl in my arms, the way she’s pushing me past every fucking boundary I know.

Then I feel her, her pussy smooth and soft and so, “Jesus, you’re so fucking wet,” I hiss, my fingers slipping through her folds. Her eyes are closed, and her mouth is slightly open, as she moves against me in the tiniest thrust, her clit rubbing against my palm.

It might be the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen.

“Rike,” Scott yells, but he seems very far away. The bar is impossibly quiet, and she’s shuddering in my arms. I twist, coming in front of her a little more, pushing her deeper into the shadows of the wall and my fingers sink into her.

I swallow my curse as her nails dig in again, pain flashing through me and slamming into my cock, and her lips open.

I kiss her, taking the scream as she spasms around my hand, wet heat and shuddering silky muscles and the scent of sunshine and sugar all around me as I drink down her screams and kiss her like I’m dying.

Slowly, slowly, she settles, her body relaxing against the wall, and I slip my hand from her skirt, straightening it.

I just finger-fucked Peyton in the middle of a bar. A not empty bar.

What the actual fuck is wrong with me?

She grabs me by the jaw as I step away from her and her eyes are furious and hot, and my mouth goes dry. “Don’t you dare regret this, Jokes. Don’t you fucking dare.” She pushes past me before I can protest, before I can say anything, and I wait a second, trying to get my composure and to get my fucking hard-on to go down before I turn to face the entire room.

I feel someone at my back, and glance at Scotty.

“I got the room cleared,” he says. “Before you guys went at it like fucking rabbits.”

He grins, and I want to punch him for seeing that even as I’m glad he had the presence of mind to clear the room.

“I wasn’t thinking,” I mutter.

“No, but going without sex will fuck with anyone’s head. And Siren looks like she was into it.”

“Quit calling her that. Her name is Peyton.”

He glances at her from the corner of his eye. Peyton is settling into her booth in the corner of the bar, opening her computer and going to work like I didn’t just molest her onstage.

For the first time, my heartbeat settles.

She wanted it just as bad as I did.

“Of course she did, you fucktard. You might be horny but you don’t fucking assault girls. Just keep that shit off the stage—we’ve got people coming in.” He says, answering the thought I didn’t realize I’d voiced.

I glance at him and nod. He point at the back bathroom and I follow his wordless directive.

It’s tiny and stinks and I close the door behind me, leaning on it.

I can fucking smell her on my skin, and I groan.

Because I’m fucking hard. Again.

Chapter 6 : After

I want to peel back

The cryptic smile and the

Quiet logic, the cynical amused

Faces that you show the world.

(Rike’s poems to Peyton)

“I think I need to see her.”

Rike glances at me. We’re in the hospital cafeteria, sitting across from each other in a booth. He’s been sketching for almost an hour while I journal. But I haven’t really written anything. It’s been over a week since I woke up, and my days have a pattern. Morning physical therapy and counseling. Texting with Rike. Afternoons spent playing card games and listening to ridiculous jokes while he stares at me with cloudy blue eyes that are full of secrets.

I wish I knew why he was here. I wish I didn’t feel like he was hiding something from me. And I wish I was brave enough to demand to know what it was.