Bad Habit Read online

  “Shit.” Scott pocketed his phone and stepped out into the hall.

  Liam made a beeline for him, holding two shrink-wrapped packages. “Did you need the caps tapered or not?”

  Damn it.

  SCOTT TIPPED his head back to let Liam get at more of his neck. Fuck, that felt good.

  The kissing and nipping stopped.

  “Your jeans are buzzing.” Despite it being about a hundred and ten in the storeroom, Liam’s breath on Scott’s wet skin left goose bumps.

  “Uh-huh.” Everything was buzzing.

  Liam had pulled Scott in here a few seconds after they realized none of the Schimikowskis were at the bar yet. Scott thought about it being a bad idea for a few seconds and then Liam’s tongue teased over Scott’s lips and he didn’t care how stupid it was.

  “No, I mean, someone’s calling you.” Liam reached into Scott’s front pocket and pulled out the phone. Pushing away from the door where he had Scott pinned, Liam stared at the thick boxy piece of plastic with the tiny screen. “This is your phone?”

  “No money for rent, no money for fancy phones.” Scott snatched it out of his hand.

  “Right. Sorry.” Liam’s cheek showed a darker patch of red on top of the flush from the heat. “You need to get that?”

  Scott hadn’t bothered putting his contacts into the phone, but he knew the number: Jamie’s. Scott didn’t want Liam knowing about the left-foot accelerator search until Scott had something to show for it. For all Liam’s don’t make a big deal about it, he was plenty skittish about his leg. The vibration stopped.

  “No.” Scott shoved the phone back into his pocket and slipped under Liam’s arm to move away.

  “Then get back here and kiss me.” Liam reached for Scott’s arm, but he twisted free. “Or not,” Liam said. “Who was it?”

  “It’s not—” about you. But the rest of that sentence was technically a lie, even if the phone call wasn’t a reason why Liam should get that narrow-eyed jealous look.

  And the urge Scott had to wrap his arms around Liam and tell him he had nothing to worry about was the reason letting Liam pull him in here was such a bad idea in the first place.

  “My cop friend.”

  The sharp suspicion shifted to wide-eyed surprise. “Is it a cop thing? Like are you on parole or something?”

  “It’s fine.” Scott shoved the packs of beef jerky, instant soup, and cereal he’d just bought under the cot. When he looked back over his shoulder, Liam had that still-waiting look Scott remembered all too well.

  He sighed. “No, I’m not on parole. It’s car stuff. I told you. He’s got a classic Ford too. A ’68 F-100.” He tapped open the text.

  Sun. 10 AM. Quinn’s place. Remember it?

  Scott did, and he could find it again, but he hadn’t seen any signs that the guy worked on cars.

  Yeah. But Y him?

  Q’s ex-Navy. Knows vet services. Bring the bf. Jamie texted like he was the one on a pay-per-minute plan.

  Scott could back and forth with Jamie, burning up his own minutes, and still end up with no more info than he had now. Arguing about attaching the boyfriend label to Liam would be just as pointless given how obnoxiously stubborn Jamie was. Takes one to know one, Scott could admit.

  As soon as he’d tucked the phone away, Liam stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Scott’s waist.

  Scott grabbed Liam’s wrists as his hands slid down to Scott’s ass. He lifted Liam’s arms away. “What is this?”

  “Kinda obvious, man. This is me trying to get in your pants.”

  There wasn’t much space to retreat, but Scott backed up to the sink. “No. I mean, what is this?” He gestured between them.

  Though the light through the dirty window was hitting Liam’s face, his eyes still darkened in a Liam version of a scowl. “I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

  The past, no. That was all long gone. The present had them—and Scott’s guts—tangled together in a way that he needed to get sorted.

  “I don’t. Not about what happened before.” All that didn’t matter since they damned well couldn’t change it.

  “Okaaaay.” The way Liam drew out the word said he didn’t know what the hell Scott meant. Which sucked since Liam was the one who was good with words.

  “Forget it.” Scott shook his head and tried to find a way around Liam to the door.

  Liam grabbed on to Scott’s shoulders. Hard. Liam wasn’t wiry like he’d been six years ago. He’d packed on muscle. Still, Scott could free himself, though everything on the shelves would be toast.

  This grip felt like it could lift Scott off the floor. “I don’t want to. I know I fucked up. What we had—Christ, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since I saw you again. I know you probably won’t ever trust me—”

  “Don’t.” Scott meant to say it with force, but the tiny room was airless and it came out more like a whisper. It was so hot in here he couldn’t think, with still more heat trapped between them where they touched, chest to thighs, where Liam held him.

  “Then what? Tell me how to fix it.” Liam’s pleading mouth was too damned close.

  Scott shut his eyes, but he was too far gone. He grabbed Liam’s head and kissed him, rough and mean. Liam met him there, just as hard, grip shifting like he’d shake him.

  “Fuck you,” Scott panted. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to come back into my life and fuck me up again, you bastard.”

  “I know.” Liam released Scott’s shoulders and wrapped him in a hug instead.

  “Things can’t just be like they were.” Eyes still squeezed shut, Scott rested his fisted hands on the shelf behind Liam’s head.

  “Okay.”

  But the word felt like a promise against the sweaty skin of Scott’s neck. A dangerously easy thing to believe. “Stop agreeing with me, you shit.”

  Scott felt the laugh more than he heard it, a vibration in Liam’s chest, but only a trace in his voice.

  “Okay.” But the amusement faded from his voice as he went on, “I get it. We’re different people than we were—me literally.” He bumped Scott’s leg with the one that was hard in weird places.

  And that was the problem. Liam had changed. But Scott hadn’t. He was still the stupid ass who wanted Liam Walsh to promise he’d love Scott forever. That he’d never leave. Scott didn’t have to touch his forearm to remember the infinity symbol the raven’s wing covered.

  When Scott didn’t say anything, Liam squeezed him again, then eased the grip. “I know things can’t be the same. I know it won’t be easy. But it’s not like it was always easy then.”

  Scott grunted in agreement. Bitching over errands, over whose fault the giant puddle in the bathroom was, over whether Liam really needed to drop everything to go visit his mom in rehab. Again.

  There’d been that one huge fight too. Liam had brought some guy from his chemistry class home, supposedly to go over their labs, and then acted like he didn’t know the guy was interested in a hell of a lot more than Liam’s lab notes. Scott still wasn’t sure what had made him crazier: Liam’s oblivious “we’re just studying” or the knowledge that the guy was exactly the smart, together, non-fucked-up asshole Liam ought to be with instead of Scott. After getting into a snarling fight with Liam, Scott had walked out after putting his fist through the wall and slept on a work buddy’s couch for two nights, until he was sure he was over the urge to fuck things up in a way that would guarantee Liam went running to Chem-Lab Dude.

  Scott met Liam’s gaze, a steady clear-eyed stare that challenged Scott to deny the memory. He opened his hands and slid his palms down either side of Liam’s spine.

  If Liam was willing to accept that things weren’t always gonna be sunshine and cotton candy, maybe they had a chance. With a long breath, Scott sighed out “Yeah,” knowing Liam would hear an agreement to more than just the memories.

  Liam’s quick smile made Scott’s stomach leap in stupid, stubborn excitement, and he tightened his
jaw to avoid smiling back.

  “So, maybe if we’re both not working, we could do something, see how it goes?” Despite the smile, Liam’s voice was hesitant.

  Scott tilted his head. “Are you asking me out?”

  “I—yeah.” Liam dropped his gaze.

  Scott ran a hand through Liam’s hair, cradled his skull. “Hm. Dating seems kind of weird when we’ve had our tongues in each other’s asses. But I guess we can give it a shot.”

  Liam punched him in the shoulder, not hard, but Scott let it push him backward. Then he put his hands in his back pockets.

  Thinking of Jamie’s text, Scott asked, “You work tomorrow morning?”

  “No. But the band’s meeting here at three because of our show tomorrow night.”

  Scott nodded. “I’ll pick you up at nine thirty.”

  “At the corner.”

  Though Scott knew Liam was smart to keep his mom from weighing in on this until they even gave it a shot, Scott said, “So I’m your dirty little secret now?”

  “God, I hope so.” Liam grabbed Scott’s face and kissed him.

  Damn. Dirty was right. Liam tonguefucked Scott’s mouth as he shoved Scott’s shirt up. He squeezed Scott’s pecs, working his nipples with rough strokes of his thumb. Scott’s head dropped back as need rocked him, making him buck his hips into Liam’s to get a little friction going, a little pressure to take the edge off.

  Liam lifted his head to pant, “Can we fuck?”

  Stupid questions sputtered through Scott’s head. Tomorrow? Right now? While we try this out?

  But his brain wasn’t driving. “Yeah.” He groaned.

  “So get your pants off.”

  Scott yanked at his fly, then froze with his jeans and boxers around his ankles as Reeve’s voice echoed through the bar.

  “Scott? Damn. Where the hell are you? I totally owe you a blow job.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  LIAM’S INSIDES went cold and hollow. His fingers tightened in Scott’s shirt. “So you trade blow jobs with Reeve now?”

  Scott straightened from yanking up his jeans and gave Liam that one-eyebrowed smirk. “Jealous?”

  “No.” Liam snapped it out to keep the fuck-yeah truth from spilling out. Maybe Liam wasn’t the only one who needed to keep things secret.

  “Sure ’bout that?” Scott was laughing at him. Not out loud, but Liam saw it behind Scott’s eyes.

  Cheeks flashing with heat, Liam tried to shove past Scott toward the door. Of course he stepped wrong.

  Scott caught him, fingers vise-tight on Liam’s upper arm just as Reeve slammed the door open.

  “Did you see it?” Reeve demanded. “Oh, hey, Liam. You saw—” His gaze flicked between them. “Uh, fucking or fighting?”

  Scott released Liam’s arm. “Neither.” He edged around Reeve and through the door.

  “Wait,” Reeve called.

  “Gotta take a piss,” Scott tossed back.

  Reeve stared into the hall for a second, then shook his head. “Cranky motherfucker.” He swung his phone toward Liam’s face, voice extra nasal with excitement. “Look at this, Liam. Fucking look.”

  Liam tried, but with Reeve waving the phone around, it was hard. Grabbing it from Reeve’s fingers, he caught the headline “Listen to This,” the local arts newspaper’s listings of live music for the week.

  Sunday. 9 P.M. Schim’s Tavern. Blow the Moon.

  Too soon to say what sound the band, formed from the remains of the predictably pedestrian Backward Gaze, will ultimately claim as home, but BTM currently features genre-bending covers and a grunge metal grind on originals, all boosted by the new velvet-voiced vocalist and a lead guitar who can shred. Now’s your chance to hear them before they’re cool.

  Recommended.

  A dreamlike high buzzed through Liam’s brain. The velvet-voiced vocalist in that review couldn’t be him. It was the same weird disconnection he felt sometimes when he stared down at the space where his leg had been, trying to hold two different realities in his head.

  Reeve yanked the phone back and smacked Liam’s shoulder hard enough to anchor him in the now.

  “I know. I’m seriously gassed. Can you believe Scott set it up?”

  “What?”

  “Dude from the paper, he called me for background, said Scott had gotten him in here on Friday and told him about us. BTM. S’cool, right? Big T or little T, you think?”

  Scott got a local music critic here to listen to the band? Scott knew a local music critic?

  Reeve’s phone erupted with the horror movie shriek that was his ringtone. “’S Dev,” he told Liam before answering. “You saw it, right? Hell to the fuck, yeah. Hang on a sec.” Reeve tapped his phone and looked at Liam. “Tell Scott I owe him one.”

  But not a blow job. Liam nodded and turned to go.

  “And hey.” Reeve’s voice didn’t sound anything like his usual friendly neighborhood stoner schtick. “I don’t know what the fuck’s going on with you two, but you keep your shit from messing with the band. Got it?”

  Liam swallowed back the instinctive Yes, Sergeant and instead answered with a smarmy salute knowing damned well that if he’d been any good at following orders, he’d—well, he’d still have two legs, for one thing.

  LIAM FOUND Scott leaning against his Mustang and smoking. Scott made eye contact and then tipped his head back as if to cram as much lung blackener as possible in his next drag. The demand that Scott explain what the fuck he’d meant by “neither” dried up and died on the back of Liam’s tongue.

  How did Scott make everything he did look so goddamned sexy?

  Liam leaned on the car next to him and reached for Scott’s cigarette.

  Scott shifted hands and held it away. “You’ll fuck up your voice.”

  “Right. Because secondhand smoke is good for it.”

  Scott exhaled away from Liam’s face, then stubbed it out on the side of his boot before tucking it back into his pack.

  “I didn’t mean—” Liam realized how stupid his protest would sound and shifted gears. “Reeve said he owes you one.”

  “Wanna watch me collect?” Scott’s sidelong smirk teased Liam’s cheek like a touch.

  The urge to smile battled the jealous burn in his throat at the thought of watching someone else—no, Reeve—suck Scott off. Of seeing Scott dig his hands into Reeve’s dreads to yank him farther down on his dick. Imaginary Scott looked at voyeur Liam with lips wet and open, eyes dark and needy—

  “Fuck, no,” Liam snapped out.

  Scott stared at him hard and Liam swallowed. Scott hadn’t acted like an asshole about Deon. Even now Liam didn’t know if trying to be together meant they were going to be exclusive. He didn’t want to ask now. It had been hard enough getting Scott to agree to this much; Liam didn’t want to push too hard.

  “No, I don’t want to watch,” Liam said more softly.

  Scott grunted, and Liam knew Scott was wishing he hadn’t tapped out his cigarette. He drummed his fingers on the hood instead.

  Liam gave up staring at the whitewashed bricks and looked over at Scott. “So, pretty big social circle you got now. First the cop, now a music critic?”

  “Huh?” Scott stopped drumming his fingers.

  “Reeve said you got some guy from the Charming Rag to come see us Friday, when we opened for CCC.”

  Scott shrugged and crossed his ankles. “I let in a guy who said he was from the Rag. But I did it mostly because he was with someone else I knew who I owed a favor to. Still made ’em pay the cover.”

  Scott’s lips pushed out, his brows raised, and Liam fought a laugh at the smug expression. Scott had always bitched about the bosses he’d worked for but was downright protective of Schim’s.

  “Same guy asked me questions after your set, so I told him to call Reeve,” Scott added. “Honestly, dude seemed like kind of an asshole.”

  Liam grinned. “Well, that asshole gave us a kickass review. Recommended people come to our show tomorrow.”

>   “No shit.” Scott’s eyes, sunlit and shining, locked on Liam’s face. “Looks like you’re headed for the big time.”

  At that moment, Liam would have given his other leg to be able to write music like Reeve so he could write a song that would make Scott McDermott always look at him with pride so bright in his eyes. Liam might as well have been a little kid again, wishing his mom wasn’t too high to do more than glance at the art projects he brought home, to hang them up on the fridge like she did now for Kevin and Justin.

  “It’s just one review,” Liam reminded them both.

  “Gotta start somewhere, right?”

  “I guess.”

  Scott drummed his fingers again. His blue work shirt was open over a ribbed white undershirt, the cutoff sleeves exposing every line and curve of his inked arm. Liam’s fingers itched to trace the designs. The raven covering wrist and forearm, then a twisted tree with bare limbs, a mustang. Liam studied Scott’s shoulder. A feminine profile, almost obscured by blowing hair, a date Liam remembered beneath it. Jenny, Scott’s sister.

  The cops had given Scott a few things that had been found with Jenny’s body. That picture, Jenny as a teenager turning away from the camera as a long-haired seven-year-old Scott looked up at her.

  A chill ran down Liam’s spine. Scott’s mom. His sister. Liam. Scott had been left so many damned times. And here he was, giving Liam the chance to do it again. He’d never deserve someone as loyal as Scott. Liam was bound to freak out and fuck up by leaving again. Hurt him again.

  One thing the past few years had taught Liam was that he didn’t have all the answers—hell, he didn’t know shit. How was Liam any better than Ross if Liam took Scott down with him?

  “For fuck’s sake.” Scott’s snarl jerked Liam out of his unfocused stare.

  “What?”

  “You tell me. I can practically hear you grinding gears.” Scott pointed at Liam’s head.

  Here was Liam’s chance to actually be a hero. To say he’d changed his mind, admit he was a walking disaster, and tell Scott to stay far away. Instead, Liam pushed his ass away from the car, steadied himself with a hand on the hood, and turned to face Scott.