Sloe Ride by Rhys Ford Read Free Book Online

he’d grown up around. The one time he needed to just be normal , and he couldn’t do it.
    The stupid bravado he’d somehow scraped up from the tiny bit of Irish snarl he’d inherited from his parents whispered away when Rafe’s hot gaze seared into him, a swirl of misty smoke caught in the wind of Rafe’s flaring challenge. In that second Quinn was back in high school, standing on the edges of his brothers’ circle, listening to Rafe’s burled rasp turn deep as they bantered about sex and trouble.
    He’d so wanted to be a part of that—longed to reach out, touch the sunburst heat of Rafe’s body and feel the strength in his crush’s lean hips and powerful arms. Instead he’d run then too.
    Back then, he’d been a thirteen-year-old awkwardly hanging out with his older brothers, hoping their coolness would rub off on him. It was funny how even a decade or so later, he was pretty much still hoping that would happen—but it never did.
    “Seriously. Stupid. Degrees out the ass, and you can’t even talk to someone you’ve known for years?” Quinn grumbled, trying to ease his way past the people gathered in front of the shop. “It’s not hard. You do it with other people, right? Shit, why the hell can’t you do it with Rafe? He’s just another guy. Just another damned guy.”
    A cool bath of fresh air splashed a bit of the heat in Quinn’s face, and he hurried over to the rental he’d gotten from the Audi dealer. There were footsteps behind him, a heavy tread he chose to ignore, because if he turned around and found Rafe there, he’d… probably sink down into the ground.
    He turned anyway. Not Rafe. Hipsters. Hairy-faced, boot-wearing young men who wouldn’t be out of place in one of Quinn’s classes and definitely heading to Forest’s coffee shop. Quinn couldn’t decide if he was disappointed or relieved it wasn’t Rafe.
    Until he turned back around and found himself nose to nose with the man he’d just fled. Seeing Rafe again was like being punched in the nuts by one of his younger sisters, not as powerful but angled in such a way he ached in places not even touched.
    With his sun-streaked golden-brown hair, a body hard enough Michelangelo would long for a block of marble, and a mouth Quinn still tasted in his dreams, Rafe looked like the rock star he’d been. Or still was. Quinn wasn’t sure where Rafe stood with his career or his music. Or if it even mattered anymore.
    No, the music would always matter. Regardless of what the world did to him, Rafe would always submerge himself in his music. It was one of the few constants of Quinn’s horrible teenage years, discovering a lanky Rafe sprawled out on one of the beds in the attic room, cradling a bass to his body, and working through deep threads of rolling grumbles.
    Rafe fucking Andrade.
    Quinn hated how Rafe made him feel. Or loved it. He wasn’t sure about that either.
    “Hey, hold up there, Q.”
    Rafe’s fingers were a hot sear through his shirtsleeve where he grabbed at Quinn.
    “And come on, dude. When have I ever been the one you’ve run from?”
    “Nearly every single fucking time,” Quinn muttered under his breath. A part of him wanted to shake Rafe off and push him back inside where he belonged, with all of the people who didn’t stumble over their own brains to make conversation. “It’s okay. I’m not—”
    “You’re not what, dude?” His fingers gentled, but they stayed wrapped around Quinn’s upper arm. “I think I ran over one of the kitchen guys to make it out the back door before you took off. I’m sorry. I fucked up. I always seem to say the wrong damned thing and—”
    “So not you. Mum says you out-Irish the Irish.”
    “Your mom’s pretty easy to con shit out of,” Rafe shot back, giving Quinn his mad-pirate grin when Quinn yanked his arm away. “Sure, deny it, but she’s like Wendy with the Lost Boys. Or Little Bunny Foo Foo—and we’re the field mice. Come on, dude. It’s me. Rafe, long-time