The North American leg of the Bound & Bellicose tour had officially ended. It was mid-afternoon over a week later when my gaze traveled over to the bassist in the partially fogged mirror of his bathroom.
We’d just finished up in his shower, which I actually hadn’t minded Loren holding me hostage inside since it was the size of a small closet with black stone walls, a tiled floor to match, and water that rained from the ceiling like a gentle waterfall.
The bamboo bench built into the shower’s alcove was pretty sturdy too.
Shifting my feet guiltily, I told myself not to get hung up on how I’d ended up in his bed last night. I wasn’t sure I could explain since nothing had changed. I was very much scared shitless of his determination to move too fast.
I knew the conversation wasn’t over.
It was right there in his eyes that it wasn’t far from his mind.
Noticing me watching him, Loren slowed the circular motions his long fingers made as he worked the chemical exfoliant into his skin. It was his third cleanse since he started on his face after the almost painful-to-watch scrupulous flossing, brushing, and rinsing of his teeth.
“What’s up?” he asked when I continued to gape.
“Nothing.” I tried and failed to hide my smile as I brushed the tangles from my hair. Unlike Loren, I’d already finished with my face and teeth. “It’s just that watching you is like using a white towel after a long shower. It’s a truly humbling experience.”
I felt like I was still dirty even though we’d stayed in the shower until the water turned cold and my skin pruned.
I watched Loren’s pearl-white teeth sink into his bottom lip as the heat in his gaze turned up a thousand notches. My poor vagina emphatically protested his thoughts since she was still bearing the brunt of Loren’s attention last night, again in the shower, and Houston’s visit before the sun was fully up this morning.
Rich was back to being distant again, and I cursed myself for not keeping my word and getting to the bottom of it. I’d been too busy hiding to uncover their secrets.
Now I questioned if I cared anymore.
I wondered if I had the fortitude to chase someone who seemed so unsure about me.
The answer was no. I didn’t.
“You have nothing to worry about,” Loren said with all the confidence of a man used to getting what he wanted. “When we’re old and gray, and I’m struggling to get it up, rest assured there won’t be a part of you my tongue hasn’t touched.” Leaning over from his spot at the double vanity, he placed a sensual kiss on my neck that tasted like cherries and made my knees weak, even as he lewdly groped my ass. It wasn’t until he pulled away enough to meet my gaze that I caught his drift. “Not one.”
Giving my ass one last pointed squeeze, he resumed his high-maintenance routine.
I returned to my room to dress for the day, and by that time, Loren still wasn’t done perfecting his hair, so I tiptoed back out of the room and made my way downstairs. “Black is the Soul” by Korn was blaring, and it led me right to Houston.
I found him sitting at the island in their kitchen that was just as dark, Victorian, and gothic as the rest of their castle and scowling at the laptop in front of him. He was so into his search that he didn’t notice me standing next to him until it was too late.
“Are you writing a book?” I asked him when I read the headline of the medical article he was reading.
Quickly shutting the laptop closed, Houston regarded me long and hard. “You’re synesthetic.”
First, the song he’d written from my point-of-view as if we were one mind and now this. I was starting to feel uncomfortable, though strangely not creeped out, which was disturbing in itself.
No, I was having trouble coming to terms with the fact that I would never be able to hide from Houston Morrow. Never.
Suddenly, I was on the defensive.
“Or maybe everyone else is just doing it wrong, and you’re synesthetic,” I elusively pointed out. “Ever think of that?” My heart thudded as I waited for his answer while Houston waited for mine with all his composure intact.
I sighed when the staring contest ended with me silently accepting that Houston was just as assertive without needing to speak a word.
“I didn’t find out until a couple of years ago that not everyone—correction—no one I’ve ever met perceives sound through color.”
“Chromesthesia,” he said simply for confirmation.
I nodded. “It’s not always just color. Sometimes it’s shapes and movements too. The only constant seems to be music. Regular sounds like a dog barking or a horn honking have no effect.” The faint scent of the ocean warned me of my distress when I wondered if Houston thought I was a basket case now.
“And this?” he asked me, tapping my wriggling nose when I tried to push the emotion away. “What are you feeling right now?”
I took a step back.
My lips parted, but no words came.
He couldn’t know that.
After three years of searching for articles and conversing with strangers through forums, I hadn’t been able to name how or why I tasted my emotions or even smelled them. I’d already been scanned, prodded, and tested for tumors and dementia. The closest I’d come to finding an answer was other synesthetes who feel their emotions through colors, temperatures, and spatial sense. But none whose emotions caused them to hallucinate tastes and smells.
Sometimes I wondered if I would have preferred it that way. My emotions, including the good ones, had ruined my ability to appreciate simple things like roses and cinnamon when I actually encountered them.
“What do you mean?” I was back to being elusive.
Houston closed the gap I’d placed between us, making it clear I wouldn’t get away with it. “Tell me,” he demanded softly, and I found I hated his casual confidence much more than his forcefulness. It was much easier to deny him when he was being a dick.
“Desire tastes like cherries, shame smells like olives, happiness tastes like chocolate, sorrow smells like roses…should I keep going, or do you get the point?”
Houston’s hands drifted underneath my sundress, where he placed his hand on my hips before backing and trapping me against the window behind me. “And what about me? What do I smell like?”
My heart skipped a beat as vanilla filled the air.
“How do you know I feel anything at all?”
“The same way I figured out you were a hundred times more complicated than you let on, Braxton Fawn. I haven’t stopped paying attention.” When he kissed me, he forced my lips to part and my mouth to accept his tongue. I moaned in response. It was a desperate, broken sound. Whatever emotion Houston was responsible for evoking, I was drunk with it by the time he let me up for air. “And I never will,” he warned me.
I shivered just as Loren sauntered into the kitchen, fully dressed and brazenly debonair. If there was ever a walking example of perfection, he was it. To my ears, I sounded like a love-drunk fool, but the way the three of them overwhelmed me, separately and definitely together, it was hard to care about anything other than giving in to them.
“Can you stop groping my girl?” Loren griped. His eyes weren’t even on us. He was focusing on fastening his expensive-looking watch as he stood by the door with a scowl. “We’ve got somewhere to be.”
“She’s not just yours,” Houston reminded him.
“Keep fighting over me like I’m a chew toy, and I’ll dump the three of you for me, myself, and I.”
Houston’s head swiveled back down to me, and his lips twitched as amusement lit up his eyes. “Damn, baby, Rich isn’t even here. He gets dumped too?”
“Yup.”
Just not for the reason the two of them believed.
Even now, Jericho was missing-in-action, and my pride wouldn’t allow me to ask. I didn’t want to know if he was avoiding me again.
Finished fastening his watch, Loren looked up, and then he leaned back with the bottom of his right foot planted against the wall. “What color panties are we wearing today?” he inquired with a smile.
Suddenly, I was standing in a field. There was grass as tall as my waist, and I could almost feel the flower petals slipping between my fingers as I walked. I knew the answer Loren was looking for because I hadn’t forgotten the day I became Bound, either.
“Black like my heart.”
I saw the pride in Loren’s eyes and knew I’d always be theirs.
Jericho still hadn’t returned when we left for the hour-long drive to Portland. To make matters more annoying Houston and Loren were pretending not to know where he’d gone or what held him up.
I didn’t want to be the kind of girl who didn’t ask the important questions because she was too afraid of the answers. Day after day, it seemed that was exactly who I was allowing myself to become. I wouldn’t know how to let them go if they forced me to, and it was obvious that Jericho had secrets.
Would we survive them?
My stomach filled with dread when the answer didn’t come. My mind couldn’t seem to settle on a single theory of what he kept from me because my heart refused to believe any of them. When I realized my hands were actually wringing in my lap, I forced them apart and swallowed past the phantom taste of sour milk.
Fuck this.
Disgusted with myself, I had my phone in my hand and typing before I even knew what I would say.
Where are you?
Green apples burst on my tongue when he answered right away. I hadn’t expected that.
Jericho: Home.
I scoffed, which drew Houston’s attention to me briefly as he drove with one hand and fiddled with the radio with the other. Finally allowing myself to ask the question that’s had my heart trapped in my throat since he first started to pull away, I typed my response.
Are you avoiding me?
My hands shook as I watched those fucking bubbles appear and disappear for what seemed like an eternity. Despite knowing the truth, I wasn’t as prepared for it as I thought.
Rich: Yes.
I didn’t get to figure out what I should say to that before he sent another text.
Rich: We need to talk.
Loren was saying something. I didn’t know whether it was to Houston or me as Houston parked his truck in front of a low stone wall of a small, dirt parking lot. I didn’t respond to Loren as I texted Rich instead.
About?
He forced me to watch those bubbles dance long enough to make me fear the worst, only for him to send another cryptic one-word response.
Rich: Later.
I hated him.
Feeling like I was going to vomit, I hurriedly pushed open the front passenger door of Houston’s matte gray G-Wagon and climbed out to inhale the fresh air. I could feel their attention, but I couldn’t face them yet. They’d know what I was thinking, and they’d make excuses for him.
No, I texted Rich as the smell of embers filled my nose. I want to talk now.
Rich: We will, baby. Tonight. I promise.
Fuck you.
My phone had only just confirmed the text was delivered when it started ringing immediately after. I stared at Rich’s name on the screen before turning it off completely and shoving my phone in my crossbody.
I didn’t want to talk anymore.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to cry.
I wanted to do both while murdering Rich for making me feel this way.
And then I wondered how long before Houston and Loren did the same. How long before they slowly and torturously broke my heart into little pieces too?
I felt heavy arms circle my waist, but I fought them.
They tightened just before the point when breathing would have been impossible, and finally, I relaxed. “It’s not what you think,” Houston whispered when he felt my surrender. “He’s not having second thoughts.”
“How do you know that?” I returned flatly. “You’re in his head uninvited too?”
Houston squeezed my waist before turning me around to face him. I couldn’t handle the intensity of his stare that bid me to trust him, so I dropped my gaze to his feet.
Houston lifted chin right back up.
“I know because there’s no such thing as getting over you.”
Feeling the butterflies in my belly take flight, I rolled my eyes instead of melting into him like I wanted. I wasn’t ready to believe him yet. “Jericho will tell you what he’s thinking when he’s ready.”
“Is this how it will always be?” I snapped as I pulled away from him. “I hurry up when you want, and I wait when you want?”
First, they wouldn’t allow me the time to consider the implication of being with all three of them. Now they were keeping secrets and expecting the courtesy of patience—virtues they failed to show me.
Maybe I’m the one who should be having second thoughts.
I was ready to walk away, if only for a moment to breathe and think, as I backed up another step.
I didn’t get further than that before Loren, who’d snuck up behind me, kept me trapped between them.
“Something we should know?” he casually inquired while he left me facing Houston. His tone was sinister, like he’d read my thoughts.
Ignoring the metallic smell permeating the air, I lifted my chin, hoping it would be a warning to them.
“You’re both dicks?”
Loren’s chuckle was quiet as he gently pushed me forward to get me going when Houston stepped away and led us down the forested trail.
“You’re not worried about being recognized?” I asked them when we passed people jogging or walking here and there.
Houston shrugged as he kept his gaze fixed ahead and his jaw tight. “It’s home.”
His meaning became clear when we encountered a few who recognized Houston and Loren—and even me—and welcomed them back before going on their way.
Here in Portland, they didn’t have to be gods.
They were able to be the men they were underneath. And I got to enjoy them too.
It was a ten-minute half-a-mile hike to the old stone ruins. I didn’t understand why they brought me here since the crumbling structure covered in moss, missing a roof, and had nothing around but woods and more woods wasn’t much to look at.
I didn’t understand until Loren informed me that Bound’s first performance had taken place here. At Witch’s Castle. I looked around, feeling my resolve weaken as Loren recounted that night, allowing me to see the face of their humble beginnings with my own eyes. It had been just another high school kegger in front of a crowd of fifty, but it counted.
It counted because I knew despite the secrets they kept that they were trying.
Houston, Loren, and Rich were letting me in.
They were stumbling through the dark, but they were determined to find their way. For that promise, as the scent of vanilla and morning dew mixed, I would be patient.
We stayed out for hours as they showed me around the city where they grew up. The sun had long set when Houston drove us through the iron gates that separated the public land from the private hideaway Bound had procured for themselves. They’d left most of it untouched and as wild as they had found it, only carving out what they needed and allowing the rest of the forest to cloak them. The seclusion was terrifying and liberating at the same time.
But I knew it couldn’t last.
Eventually, the tour would end, and I’d have to go back to L.A. We still had months before that happened, so I wouldn’t dwell on it now.
When their home came into view, the first thing I noticed was Jericho’s green and black sport bike parked out front and felt nerves tie my stomach into endless knots.
The house was quiet when we made it inside. Houston and Loren went straight to their rooms to shower off the day while I drifted to the guest bedroom, wondering if Jericho would find me.
I realized he wouldn’t have to when I walked into the bedroom and found him in my bed.
His eyes were closed, dark lashes brushing his cheeks, pierced lips subtly parted, and his chest slowly rising up and down while he lay on his side with the muscled arm his head was propped on stretched toward my pillow.
He’d fallen asleep waiting for me.
Waiting to finally have the talk that I fought and failed all day to push from my mind.
He was still fully dressed and entirely in black—plain T-shirt, expensive jeans, and high-top sneakers. The dark color only emphasized his pale skin.
As quietly as I could, I tiptoed back out of the room and to the guest bath across the hall. He hadn’t been snoring as usual, which meant he might not have been that deep in his sleep. I didn’t want to risk waking him since I knew he’d been having trouble.
I even caught Loren two nights ago forcing him to bed when I woke in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Neither of them had noticed me standing there watching them. Rich had seemed out of it, which I guess too many sleepless nights in a row would do to you, and Loren had been too focused on his task.
He’d been gentle with Rich, which surprised me at the time and even now. I couldn’t forget how softly Loren spoke with his hand on Jericho’s back as he coaxed his best friend to bed. That tender moment belied the tension I’d glimpsed in Loren’s shoulders just before they disappeared inside Rich’s room.
I pondered if the reason Jericho was having trouble sleeping had to do with me as I took my time in the shower. It might not have been super late, but the exhaustion clinging to my bones said otherwise. Whatever Jericho and I needed to talk about, I decided it would have to wait until morning.
Feeling refreshed, I stepped from the bathroom sometime later, wrapped in nothing but a towel, only to freeze in momentary terror when the shadows near my bedroom door moved. My heart didn’t stop trying to flee my chest until I finally recognized the tall, slim figure they belonged to.
“Jericho?”
I immediately tensed when those silver eyes seemed to look right through me. To add insult, he walked away without responding, and I frowned as I watched him go.
Something was wrong.
His slow steps were heavy as if he were in a trance. I called his name again when he reached the end of the hall and again received no response. As confusion and alarm battled each other, I debated alerting Houston or Loren.
Rich disappeared as he turned down another hallway, and the fear of leaving him alone decided for me.
I hurried after my drummer, closely trailing him down the long hallway until we reached the grand staircase leading to the first floor. Every so often, I’d call his name, but I never dared touch him, and I didn’t know why.
Still ignoring me, Jericho headed toward the arched doorway and the stairs that led to the tunnels underneath. I quietly followed him down, the stone steps rough and cold beneath my bare feet and my exposed skin chilled by the unrelenting draft. Together, we walked through one of the tunnels partially lit by sconces until we reached the practice room that doubled as their man cave. The rest of the tunnels led all over, but this was the sole entrance into the tower.
Wondering if he’d led me here purposely, I hesitated only a moment before following him inside. If he had, maybe it was to talk. I didn’t appreciate his creepy tactics, effective though they were. Words would have worked just fine.
Still so very confused, I stood warily by the door as Jericho walked deeper into the room.
He still hadn’t acknowledged me.
Instead, he stopped in the middle of the room, and I watched the back of his head turn as he looked around as if searching for something.
“Jericho,” I called, my tone firm and my patience gone.
Apprehension returned with the force of a Mack truck when he strode over to the side table next to the leather sofa, slid open the drawer, and pulled something out. I didn’t see what it was until he sat on the sofa with a pen in one hand and a set of papers that looked like they’d been folded and unfolded a hundred times clutched in the other.
His torpid gaze scanned them and the words printed on them. A moment later, Rich became agitated, gripping them hard enough to make them crinkle and ball up at one corner.
I forgot my unease as worry made my feet carry me closer to him. “Talk to me, Rich.”
My mind began to turn when he gave no reaction to my desperate plea. None. And then it all clicked into place.
He wasn’t ignoring me. He couldn’t hear me.
Because Jericho wasn’t even awake.
He was sleepwalking.
My suspicions were confirmed when, despite the anger he displayed only a moment ago, he calmly placed the papers on top of the black trunk they used as a coffee table, brought the pen to the material, and began writing. He made slow, lazy loops as he signed what I guessed was his name since he was done rather quickly.
Then…as if nothing had occurred…he stood from the sofa.
Jericho’s mind was still on autopilot when he ambled by me. Even though I was worried, I didn’t follow or call after him.
I watched him go.
The moment I was alone, my focus shifted to the papers, and I cautiously drifted closer.
One would think they were a bomb, and there were only ten seconds left to detonation. Quietly, I battled with the angel and the devil on my shoulders. I had no right to read what looked suspiciously like legal documents.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t, the devil draped in red whispered in my ear.
I felt like I was on autopilot, too, when I lifted the papers from the table. The first thing I noticed was Jericho’s signature, messier than usual and crammed into the top corner of the page. But it wasn’t his name signed in the wrong place that had me frozen in horror and confusion. It was everything that came after.
It was the smell of roses.
It was the emotions that I should have felt but didn’t.
Because there was only sorrow.
The grief that gripped me wouldn’t allow me to feel anything else. It wouldn’t allow me denial or frustration as I read the words again.
I was already looking for a reason to forgive him.
So it didn’t allow me anger.
It didn’t allow me disgust or guilt or envy.
Because allowing those things would bring me hope that Jericho wasn’t lost to me forever and that…my rending heart could not do.
