“You should totally be a natural redhead Keygan,” Alan Ashby commented, pointing to his own carrot colored locks. I raised a brow and rolled my eyes at him in a sardonic manner.
“And why is that?”
“Because you’ve got such a short fucking fuse dude, I mean seriously, you’re a true ginger in disguise,” he explained, laughing when I stuck my tongue out at him. Alan got his kicks by teasing me all the damn time. Some days it was more irritating than others, but right now I was in too good of a mood to be put out with him.
It was an off week. My band wasn’t on tour and neither was Of Mice & Men so we were all kicking it at Austin’s place. There was a keg, a few blunts passing around the crowd and yet we were all chilling it on his couch, smiling and teasing one another about stupid things that happened on tour. My band was just as raucous as Alan’s, but at the moment I was just happy to be here. I was happy to be in the home of the man that I had a major crush on even though I knew my awkwardness would get the best of me and I’d never fess up…but still. Just being in close proximity to him was enough to content me for the moment.
“You want one?” someone suddenly offered, a cold item draped over my shoulder. I blushed and glanced up at the familiar voice. “It’ll help with the annoyance I see written on your face.” I stuck my tongue out.
“Shush Austin, not you too,” I teased and he smiled.
It was hard to look away when he smiled. His whole face lit up, lips stretching wide over pearly white teeth and eyes brightening with myriads of color as the incandescence he felt spread. Flesh was toned to muscle, hair side swept and well kempt. Body was tattooed as though the very skin was more canvas and an artist had painted him more than one color, designs and emblems weaving their way up to his throat. He was wearing a tank top, well defined arms exposed and captivating.
I felt stupid after a second and snapped out of my reverie.
“You alright?” he asked, suddenly sitting next to me. I shrugged, taking a swig of the stinging liquid that managed to cool my nerves. Alan was seriously starting to piss me off with his talk of my ‘unnatural red headedness’ as he called it. I wanted to slap him upside the head with his guitar and continue to beat him until he apologized, but that was a bit extreme.
“So how are you liking the time off?”
The question caught me off guard. Austin didn’t make small talk with me, he barely made small talk with anyone because he would go off on a random tangent and begin a story. It was a little…odd to say the least and I raised a brow.
“Are we making small talk Mr. Carlile?” I jested, smiling and absentmindedly flirting with him. I rolled my eyes at myself, realizing how awkward I would become when I realized we were flirting again. It always happened and I ended up finding an excuse to walk away.
“Hey will you come with me for a sec?” Austin suddenly asked and I furrowed my brow.
“Where?” I questioned. He shrugged.
“Don’t you trust me?” he replied and I chuckled softly, shaking my head.
“A little too much I think,” I whispered to myself, but turned to him and smiled, “Yeah of course. What’s up?”
“I just…” he paused, seeming to try and figure out what he was going to say. It didn’t make sense. He wasn’t usually tongue tied and bashful around me, we were friends. We were fellow band friends, toured together, got drunk together, smoked together and did plenty of other things. I mean we had never kissed or gotten that far, but we flirted occasionally.
