Heartstrings by Sierra Riley Read Free Book Online Page A

think of some clever insult, something he could lob Blake’s way to defuse the bomb before it even blew.
    But when Blake reached the bar, he didn’t immediately speak. He hovered there, awkward, and that caught Cal off guard.
    Their eyes met. Cal wet his lips, suddenly self-conscious. He imagined he looked greasy and worn out, after such a busy night. Why would that even matter?
    Blake’s eyes, that peculiar shifting shade of blue-green-yellow, slanted away from Cal after just a moment, as though he couldn’t bear the eye contact.
    The son of a bitch seemed embarrassed about something.
    “Cal,” he said. And the sound of his name on Blake’s lips dug into Cal like a fish hook, barbs twisting deep. He remembered what it sounded like when Blake said that name as a whimper, as a cry, as a moan...
    “Blake,” Cal said, nodding congenially. He performed the action with the robotic, jerky motions of a body following a script. He wasn’t sure what else to do.
    Quiet fell over them like a blanket. Blake drummed his fingertips in a nervous staccato on the bar top. In that silence, Cal took in the subtleties of Blake’s presence: the hint of fresh, clean aftershave he wore, the way he raked his teeth across his bottom lip as he stared off toward the door. Blake brought every one of Cal’s senses to life in a way nobody ever had.
    Cal wanted to lunge across the room, pull the fire alarm, and run away.
    But he didn’t. He stood there like an idiot until whatever Blake was pondering came to an end.
    The two men spoke up at the exact same moment.
    “I had something—”
    “I really enjoyed—”
    They shut up, then stared at each other. Cal narrowed his eyes. Blake did too. Cal licked his teeth again. Blake stood up a little straighter. Finally, Cal cleared his throat and waved a hand in concession, beckoning Blake to speak first.
    “I had something for you,” Blake said, at long last. He said it with about as much joy as a doctor delivering a cancer diagnosis, which was a weird way to prepare someone for a gift.
    “For me?” Cal asked, unsure.
    “Yeah. It’s…” Blake hauled the guitar case up and set it atop the bar. “It’s been collecting dust for a while.”
    “Why?”
    Cal tried to avoid viewing the gift with suspicion, but it was hard not to. After so many years apart, this was how Blake chose to break the ice? Crash Cal’s bar, play a show without his consent, and give him a fucking present? Blake was always the sort of guy you could count on to commit grand emotional gestures that passersby might not understand, but this was all over the map even for him.
    “I got it for you back before,” Blake said. He didn’t extrapolate further. He didn’t have to. Cal had the funny feeling neither of them had the physical ability to speak the words aloud: back when things were better maybe, but no back when we were friends and certainly no back when we were fucking.
    “You’ve got a guitarist in your band,” Cal said, unsure. “Why not give it to him?”
    Weirdly, that got a laugh out of Blake. A bright, sparkling laugh that warmed a place so deep inside Cal it felt like it brushed his very core.
    “Yeah, I do. But uh, he’s a dickhead.” Blake straightened up again, looking down toward the battered black guitar case on the bar top. “Not that you aren’t also a dickhead.”
    For some reason, even in the insult felt like a term of endearment. Cal touched the guitar case with his fingertips, dared to flick the clasps and lift it open. Inside was a lacquered acoustic guitar, deep brown wood with some simple but tasteful filigree adorning the neck. Its steel strings gleamed in the bar’s low light, its wood still shiny with a hint of polish.
    It smelled... new. Fresh. Even though Blake had said it wasn’t.
    “We made it,” Blake said. “Pop and I. For your birthday. Your twenty-third birthday.”
    Once, when Cal was in grade school, Lisa Dickinson had kicked him in the balls over a disagreement on the