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.Parker held his peace, staring silently up108 Ashlyn Kaneat the stars and leaning against the side of the building as his breathfogged up the air in front of him.He looked like a man with somethingto say, or at least with something on his mind, but he was lockeddown—there was no way Jake was going to get anything out of himtonight.It was too far to walk to the hotel, and there was too muchtemptation waiting for them back inside the bar, so when Parker finallycomplained of thirst Jake ushered him around the back to the parkinglot and managed, after several very frustrating attempts, to open thedoor to the bus.Jake"s sense of something is very wrong here only intensifiedwhen Parker went directly to Jimmy"s smoke box and started rolling ajoint, but Jake wasn"t about to jump in and stop him.He wasn"tParker"s keeper, and who knew, maybe he would actually relax a littleand Jake could stop wondering when he was going to snap.Parker finished rolling and lit up, sliding down onto one of thecouches in the back of the bus.Jake could see the change in his postureafter just one drag; his shoulders relaxed, his head fell back, and hisknees parted.“Aren"t you going to give me the third degree?”If Jake had had any more to drink, he would have sworn it was apod person sitting in front of him and not his sweet, somewhat naïvefriend.He had just enough sense to remember that Parker had traveledthe country before this, alone, and that he was almost certainly nowherenear as innocent as Jake thought he was.“Would you tell me?”Parker took another drag and then pulled the joint away,regarding it thoughtfully.“Probably not.”“Not much point then, is there?”“I guess not.”For a couple of heartbeats the silence stretched out into all cornersof the bus, and then Jake sat down next to Parker on the couch.Theonly light besides the lit end of Parker"s joint was the glow of thestreetlights filtering through the tinted windows; it made the spacebetween them seem too small.Or maybe that was the contact high.Jake couldn"t be sure.“Parker….” He hesitated.“Are you okay?”American Love Songs 109Parker passed him the roach, and in the space of one breath thatstrange, alien Parker was gone and Jake"s best friend was back, if alittle more messed up than Jake had ever seen him.“It"s just some badmemories,” he reassured him—or, well, he tried, anyway.Jake wasn"tready to be reassured just yet.He pinched out the smoking end of the joint and ditched it in anashtray.“I know you said you don"t want to talk about it, but if youchange your mind….”There was something dry in the twist of Parker"s lips, but then herested his head against Jake"s shoulder, and Jake forgot to be on hisguard.“Thanks,” he said.Jake just “hmm”ed in response.Sitting there in the almost-dark time passed differently, and Jakedidn"t know how much later it was when Parker raised his head andlooked at him, eyes mere glints of light in the night, and Jake couldn"thelp but feeling that this was someone new again.He"d already seenParker-his-friend and Parker-not-his-friend and now this was—“Parker—”Parker kissed him.For a couple of heartbeats, Jake was too stunned to do anythingother than sit there like an idiot and let Parker kiss him.His lips weresoft and sure but a little chapped, and it took his tongue running overthe seam of Jake"s lips for his paralysis to snap, and even though a partof his brain was absolutely screaming about what a bad idea this was,Jake didn"t hear it.He reached up to drag Parker on top of him, butParker had anticipated the move and was already climbing into Jake"slap, pressing him back into the couch, his hot, slick tongue invadingJake"s mouth.With a downward thrust that had to be deliberate, hesettled himself down with his—well, everything, actually—pressed upagainst Jake"s.Jake bit Parker"s lower lip in a show of appreciation, then stuckhis hand down the back of his pants just to make sure he got themessage.Shuddering in a deep breath, Parker pulled his mouth away for amoment, leaning his head against Jake"s until Jake couldn"t handle the110 Ashlyn Kanewaiting anymore and kissed him again, softer and more controlled.Thekisses melted together into one long, hazy impression of mouths andhands and lips and tongues and teeth and noses; for once Jake happilyignored his dick and focused on Parker.God, he"d never expected—butit was Parker; Jake should have known.He was just thinking of how best to broach the subject of what todo now when Parker pulled away again, and Jake let him, running hishands up and down Parker"s back soothingly, needing to touch.“Parker,” he said again, his voice sounding unbelievably wrecked to hisown ears.Parker dropped his head on Jake"s shoulder again, and his bodysagged.As foggy with beer and smoke and lust as Jake was, it took hima minute to realize that Parker had passed out.32“Fuck,” he muttered, throwing his head back against the couch asthe enormity of what had just happened caught up with him.“Doublefuck.” He was not allowed to make out with Parker in the tour bus.Oranywhere else, for that matter.Parker was Jake"s best friend and thatmeant he was Off Limits.Furthermore, he obviously had some kind ofintimacy issues if Jake had never even seen him flirt with anyonebefore, or maybe he had some other kind of issue that had caused himto get drunk and then high and they could write this whole thing off asa stupid, intoxicated mistake.Fine.They were mature, they were adults—they could do that [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]