“You know what,” Zakk said, smiling over at his friend. “I hope I’m there to see that.”
“Trust me. You will be.”
Chapter 16
Sleep: Forever Overrated
For the second time, Zakk found himself wandering around in the dead of night, and like before, Tripp had woken up before Zakk could make it to the end of the hall. Now they walked hand in hand beneath a red-tinged moon, and if that wasn’t creepy enough, Tripp had chosen the moment to tell him about the ‘haunting’ on their tour several years before.
“It was like nails on a chalkboard,” Tripp said, swinging their arms as they walked. “Every time I heard it a shiver went down my back. I swear it sounded like the metal was fixing to part and whatever was there was about to crawl into the bus with us.”
“It wasn’t Winter with a metal hook or something? ‘Cause I could see him doing that and denying all knowledge, despite scaring everyone else half to death,” Zakk said.
“That was everyone’s first thought, since he wasn’t around the first time it happened, but there was video of him and Tavis at the after-party and Tavis swore up and down he never lost sight of Winter for long enough that he could have slipped away to do it,” Tripp replied. “Besides, he was on the bus the second time it happened, and even if he’d tell you otherwise, he was losing his shit over the noise too.”
“Now that’s hard to imagine.”
“No shit, which was how we all knew it was real.”
“So, I’m guessing it wasn’t a branch or something equally innocuous?” Zakk said.
“Tell you what, I’ll answer the question when you explain what the hell innocuous is,” Tripp declared.
Snickering, Zack guided them past the pond they’d previously fallen in, taking care not to step off the edge and reacquaint himself with one of Kermit’s cousins.
“Guess after all these years, some of Damien’s language quirks are beginning to rub off. Not that I’m going to tell him that. Next thing you know, he’d be slipping one of those Word-a-Day calendars under my pillow, hoping I’ll learn by asbestos or something.”
“Dude, I don’t know what word you’re looking for, but I don’t think it’s that.”
“Meh. It’s like when you absorb the knowledge just by being in contact with the book.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s an actual thing.”
“Probably not.”
“So…innocuous?”
“Harmless.”
“Why the hell didn’t you just say that then?”
“I dunno, Why the hell don’t you just tell the rest of the story and stop giving me shit?”
“Because you make it so easy.”
Zakk flipped him off and promptly found himself tugged against Tripp’s chest, the man’s low, growly voice rumbling in his ear.
“Can’t do both at the same time so you need to pick one. Me telling the story, or me fucking you until you can’t move?”
“Why can’t you do one and then the other?”
“Never said I couldn’t but I’d still need you to figure out the order you want them in.”
A shiver tore down Zakk’s spine that had everything to do with arousal and not how chilly it got in the desert at night, though damn, the extremes were a bit…much.
“As much as I’d love to have you fuck me right now, I’m not about to go eye to eye with a scorpion to have that happen,” Zakk grumbled. “I’m all for adding a hint of danger to spice things up, but that’s crossing a line I didn’t know I had.”
“So are you saying there is an acceptable level of danger as long as poisonous arachnids aren’t involved?”