Free Dangerously Happy by Varian Krylov Page A

there, taking the pipe when Steve passed it to him, I didn’t dare really look at him because I was sure my expression would give everything away. Hoping to hell I didn’t sound as weird and nervous as I felt, I said, “Thanks, man,” or something equally bizarre, and went to grab a beer. I wished the other guys would get off their stoned, lazy asses so we could rehearse, because there was no way I could keep my shit together sitting around in a cozy little circle chit-chatting. Dodging danger, I went and got my guitar, and quietly practiced the new piece I’d played for Dario the week before. When the guys decided to stop getting stoned and start rehearsing, I played the piece for them. I wasn’t all that surprised that they didn’t have the same enthusiasm as Dario for something so far from our usual repertoire. Over in his armchair, I’d noticed Dario listening while I auditioned the song for the group, and now he was watching, listening to the guys’ limp response. From all the way across the loft I couldn’t tell if he was giving me a small smile of empathy, or smirking in disapproval of the group’s timid attitude about stretching our range. Actually, I think his expression was completely neutral. As if our agreement about keeping the thing between us secret meant he couldn’t even have an opinion about the band’s cold reception of the song that he’d expressed so much admiration for.
    After rehearsal, we all hung out, and when the pipe got passed my way I took a hit, and when the pipe came around again I took another. Stoned, I was calm and still and quiet. While the others talked and joked, I absorbed the sights and sounds and smells courting my senses—Dario’s patient smile as Jamie and Tom endlessly debated the plausibility of a zombie finding its way into the food cart elevator of an airplane, the yeasty smell of the beer I was sipping intermittently, the fizz of it on my tongue, the zen chime of the intercom and Dario’s baritone voice, sexy even when he was handling a transaction with the delivery guy, the mingled sweet and spicy aroma of the Hawaiian and the sausage and pepperoni pizza we’d ordered from the indie place down the street, the flex of Dario’s angular jaw as he chewed, the motion of Steve’s animated hands while he gave a long explanation too elaborate to follow of how he would escape a city overrun by zombies in which he was the lone survivor. The contours of Dario’s pecs and nipples under his gray, long-sleeved T-shirt. Dario’s dark eyes fixed on Tom, fixed on Steve, fixed on Jamie, and never fixed on me because he was being careful for my sake. Eventually, when the collective buzz had more or less worn off, we left, and I went to my car, and the rest went down the street and around the corner to Tom’s car. I turned on my car, turned on the radio, and without releasing the parking brake I texted Dario and asked if I could come back up. He answered within a few seconds.
    We smoked a little more. Fooling around and fucking stoned was incredible. Transcendental, to steal Dario’s word.
    “ You were staring,” he said when we’d been lying there silently holding each other for a while in post-orgasmic bliss.
    “ Hmmm?”
    “ After rehearsal. You must have been pretty stoned. You were staring at me. I don’t think you realized.”
    “ Oh. Sorry.”
    He laughed. “I don’t mind. I could feed off you gazing at me like that all night long. But it might not fit too well with your plan of silence and secrecy.” His fingers combing through my hair was delightfully sedating. Did I even care if everyone figured out something was going on between us? In that blissed-out moment I couldn’t imagine what the suggestion of something sexual happening between me and Dario would trigger in me. My veins flooded with endorphins and testosterone, all I cared about was the feel of his body pressed warm and close against mine, and that sensuous, tranquilizing touch of his fingertips