Release Me (The Music Within Book 2) (4 page)

“Cade,
wait,” Johnny Danger, the lead singer, called after him. Cade stopped as he
reached the elevator. “Cade, I’m sorry about Lex. He’s still holding out hope
his brother will be back behind the kit. Let me talk to him, please.”

Cade
shook his head. “No, I get it. I had a band that was protective of each other,
too. But I need to find a group who fits with me and vice versa. I just didn’t
get that. No offense.”

“None
taken, but if you change your mind, please give us a call.”

Cade
nodded before he stepped onto the elevator. Johnny’s defeated form retreated as
the doors closed. Cade leaned back against the wall and let out a long sigh.
Why did he feel relief it hadn’t worked out? He knew why. Cade wasn’t ready to
leave Nashville just yet. It was too close to a little town in Kentucky. As
soon as he exited the front door of the building, he flagged down a taxi and
told him to take him to the Batman building. He had no idea of the structure’s
true name, but the driver didn’t question him. He dropped him off in front of
the doors where Mal had disappeared earlier. Cade paid the man then hurried to
the parking garage. Just as he opened the door to the second floor, he saw
familiar tail lights heading toward the exit.

Cade
hurried back down the stairs, but he was on the opposite end to where he needed
to be. Still, he ran toward the truck, yelling at Mal to stop, but he was too
late. He caught part of the license plate and texted the letters and numbers to
himself. Cade leaned over, bracing his hands on his knees to allow his
breathing to steady. A car horn behind him caused him to jump and his heart to
race even faster. He didn’t realize he’d stopped in the middle of the pathway.
He moved to the side, allowing the driver to go on past. Cade could either hail
a taxi and hope to catch up with Mal on the freeway as he headed north, or he
could forget about this practical stranger who invaded his mind every other
minute of the day. Instead of hailing a taxi, Cade took off walking. He knew he
was being irrational when it came to Mal, so he decided to grab a beer.

Even
though it was just after noon on a weekday, the sidewalks of downtown were full
of people taking in all Music City had to offer. He stepped into the first
honkytonk he came to and ordered a beer. He didn’t worry about being
recognized, even though he didn’t have his trusty bodyguard, Carl, watching his
back. When 7’s Mistress broke up, two of the bodyguards had formed such a bond
with Tag and his family that they also left the road. Mack and Gus had gone
into business for themselves and opened a private security company. Carl had
taken off to spend time with his aging parents but assured Cade, as soon as he
was ready to hit the road again, he’d be there for him.

 As
Cade tossed back his second beer, he wondered how Mal’s meeting went and if he
had gotten whatever it was he needed out of the trip. He knew it was a
longshot, but he tapped out a text to the only person he knew of who could get
him the information he so desperately wanted.

Mal

Mal
had no idea how he got home. The words
I’m sorry
coming from his
attorney’s mouth did nothing to ease the pain of hearing the other words that
came after.
The developer offered Mr. Smith more money than he could refuse.

All
his long hours at the bar and on the farm had been for nothing. The sacrifices
he’d made over the years left him and his momma with no farm. No home. They
were going to lose it all. Land that had been in his momma’s family for
generations was going to be turned into a strip mall. That in itself didn’t
make any sense. Arlo wasn’t big enough for a strip mall. The people from
neighboring towns already had their own stores, so why the fuck would they
drive to nowhere to shop? The hardest part about all this was telling his ma.
She would blame herself just like she always did, but he knew where the blame
rested – right on top of his fuckhead of a father. Mal slammed his hand against
the steering wheel, cursing the bane of his existence, who was currently in
prison up in Eddyville.

As
soon as he looked up, Mal realized he was sitting in front of the bar instead
of the gate leading down the driveway. He knew better than to start drinking
this early, but fuck if he didn’t need something to calm his nerves. He
unlocked the front door then locked it behind him. Mal didn’t need to turn on
the lights to find his way through the small room. He’d made the walk from the
door to behind the bar thousands of times over the years.

Before
Dwight had gone to prison, the bar had been fairly successful. Melanie, who was
three years older than Mal, did her part to help take care of the place. Their
father had done his best to drink up all the profits, but somehow, Melanie and
their mother had managed to keep the place afloat. Mal took care of the farm
before and after school. At the time, they’d had over two hundred head of
cattle spread out over a thousand acres. There had been no time for a social
life, no time to do all the things teenage boys did. Now, Mal had less than
thirty cows, and as of that morning, the number was dwindling.

He
knew the right thing to do would be to go home and mend the fence before any
more cows were lost. Mal grabbed a bottle of Jim Beam Ghost and went around to
the other side of the bar where he’d never once sat in all the years they’d
owned the place. Pulling out the stool Cade had used on the night before, he
lowered himself onto the seat and poured a generous amount of the clear liquid
into a glass he had filled with ice. He didn’t sip the first glassful. Instead,
he downed it in one go before pouring another. This one he let sit and cool off
around the ice.

As
he swirled the bourbon around, he thought of Cade sitting on this same stool,
ignoring all the women who attempted to get his attention. Mal had seen too
many people drown their sorrows in alcohol, and Cade had been no different. The
wannabe cowboy had kept his eyes on his whiskey glass for the most part, but
Mal caught him looking his way a few times. Half the time when a woman
approached Cade, he completely ignored their advances. The other half, he’d
barely gruffed out a “No, thank you”. When the gorgeous blond said he wanted a
blowjob, it took every bit of restraint for Mal not to lock the door and drag
him to the back room they used as an office.

At
the thought of dropping to his knees and taking Cade into his mouth, Mal’s dick
decided it wanted to play. Fuck it. He downed the alcohol and climbed off the
stool. He might not be able to have Cade, but he could get laid. He would go
home and mend the fence. He would make arrangements to borrow his neighbor’s
backhoe so he could dig a hole for the dead animals. After he got cleaned up,
he planned to head back downtown to Primus. It wasn’t the weekend, but there
would still be someone there who would want to hook up with him.

Mal
put the bottle back in its spot on the shelf. As he took a mental inventory of
all the bottles lining the space on either side of the frosty mirror, an ache
twisted at his heart. He had put in so much time in this place. He had cursed
this place every time he set foot in the door instead of being able to go do
something he wanted to do. Now, as much as he hated the bar, it was going to be
taken away from him. Taking a look around, he stepped out the front door and
did something that he hadn’t done in almost eight years. He left and didn’t
return to open the bar that night.

What
little breakfast he’d eaten earlier threatened to come up as soon as he pulled
into the driveway. Moe and Curly waited patiently for the truck to pull up to
the house. Mal had paid a hefty sum for three Australian Cattle pups, but the
cost had been worth it. He trained them to stand guard over the house while he
was gone. They helped him round up the cattle, and they offered him
unconditional love that he knew he’d never find anywhere else. At twenty-six,
Mal was used to the empty spot in his soul that would never be filled with a
partner. Unless he moved to a big city where gays were accepted, he would
always live with the longing of having someone to share his bed with. His life
with. He unconsciously rubbed at the scar running across his chest the way he
did when his thoughts turned maudlin.

Knowing
he couldn’t sit there forever avoiding his momma, he got out of the truck and
went inside to change clothes. He didn’t have many dressy clothes, and the ones
he did have weren’t what most people would call dressy. His wardrobe consisted
of old jeans, t-shirts, flannel button ups, and boots. When you worked a farm
and tended bar, you didn’t need anything else.

He
greeted the dogs, giving them lots of love. When they didn’t take off toward
the back of the property, he knew everything was status quo. He punched in the
code to the alarm before letting himself in the kitchen door. Mal froze when he
saw his momma sitting at the table. She never sat at the table and waited on
him unless something was wrong. “Ma, what is it?” He immediately went to her,
kneeling in front of her so she could “see” him.

Her
hazy eyes were red from where she’d been crying. “Oh my dear boy, I have failed
you. In so many ways, I let you take the burdens of a man when you were just a
boy.”

“Ma…”
he tried to stop her, but she placed her fingers over his lips.

“No,
Malcolm. Let me say this. I should have kicked Dwight out a long time ago, but
I was weak. We would have been better off without him here, but I was scared.
Scared of what he’d do to me, but more than that, I was scared for you and
Curtis.” She reached out and touched his scar through his shirt. “I was right
to be scared, and if I had left him sooner, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Mal
placed his hand over his mother’s, allowing her touch to soothe him, even if
her words couldn’t. Somewhere deep down, he did blame his mother for not
protecting him, but in his heart he knew it would have been short of
impossible.

“You
don’t have to tell me how the meeting went. I can smell it on your breath. I
want you to listen to me, Malcolm. I want you to go live your life. Find
someone to make you happy. I don’t care how far you have to go to do that, but
I want you to start living.”

“What
about you? Where will you go?” Mal’s heart raced in his chest. Never had he
thought about leaving Arlo. This was his home, however unhappy he felt.

“I’m
moving in with Melanie. It’s high time that sister of yours did something other
than spit out babies. She left you with the bar and all the responsibilities. I
don’t care if I have to sleep in the bed with Matilda and Megan. I’ll make do.
You have taken care of me long enough.”

Mal
lowered his head to his mother’s lap and let the tears flow. She ran her
fingers through his hair and offered soothing words. When he had no more tears,
he wiped his face and kissed hers. “I need to mend the fence. Even if they’re
takin’ everything we own, I can’t sit back and let any more of the cows be
decimated. I’ll call Walt and get his backhoe over here tomorrow so I can bury
the ones that were hit durin’ the night.” Mal hesitated but found the nerve to
ask, “Ma, do you think you could spend the night with Melanie tonight? I want
to go downtown for a little while, and I don’t want you here alone.”

His
mother was smart enough to figure out why he wanted to go to Nashville, but she
never voiced her opinion on his being gay. “Of course. Are you going to see
Cade again?”

He
should have known she would bring him up. “No, Ma. He’s gone. I just need…”

“Shh.
You don’t have to say anything else. You go do your work, and I’ll call your
sister. I love you, Malcolm. You’ve been the best son a mother could hope to
have.” The tears slowly crept down her cheeks.

“I
love you, too, Ma.” Mal rose and made his way to the back of the house. He
paused at his sister’s bedroom door and noticed the bedding had been
straightened. It wasn’t perfect, so he knew Cade had tried to right the quilt.
He entered the room, and the scent that was all man assaulted his senses. Mal
straightened the bed, and before he went to change clothes, leaned down and
breathed in deeply.

It
took longer than he would have liked to mend the fence, but it was done. Mal
had taken a long time in the shower, prepping and shaving, just in case tonight
turned into something more than a blowjob in a hidden hallway. Shower time also
included tugging on his hard dick that wouldn’t stand down because thoughts of
Cade wouldn’t stay out of Mal’s head. More often than not, Mal tried to keep
his fantasies to good looking actors or country singers, not someone he knew.
Every once in a while, he would picture the face of his former best friend,
Tyler. The image of Tyler bent over a couple of hay bales while Mal pounded him
from behind weren’t just fantasy, but a stark reminder of how things used to
be.

At
sixteen, your libido doesn’t much care where you put your dick as long as the
recipient is a willing hole, but he and Tyler had declared their love for each
other early on when they decided they wanted to be more than best friends. They
spent as much time together as possible, and that meant Tyler helped Mal with
his chores since he wasn’t allowed to go anywhere other than school and back.
Their afternoon trysts became more frequent until Dwight got home from work
early one day. He had been laid off from his job, and he was fit to be tied.
Mal and Tyler were so into fucking each other, their moans and groans were the
only sounds they were aware of. Dwight roared when he caught sight of the boys,
Mal balls deep in his best friend.

Dwight
came at them, cursing and threatening both of their lives. Mal told Tyler to
run, which he did. He didn’t have time to pull his pants up before his father
attacked him. Dwight pulled his knife from its sheath and slashed across Mal’s
chest, intending to kill him. Mal passed out soon after and awoke in the
hospital.

He
pushed the horrible memory to the back of his mind so he wouldn’t start
sweating and ruin his shirt. It was the same one he’d worn to see the lawyer,
but he only owned a couple of nice shirts, and this one wasn’t dirty. He pulled
the truck into a parking lot a few blocks down from the nightclub. He would use
the time walking to calm his nerves. It wasn’t as late as he’d planned on
getting there, but he was anxious to find someone to be alone with. Mal waited in
the short line, showed his ID to the bouncer, and entered the loud building
filled with other men who were also looking to hook up.

Mal
had often been called good-looking. Plenty of women who came in the bar made
sure he knew it. Being in the small Kentucky town meant that no man who ever
sat in his establishment ever let him know it or made eye contact longer than
to order a drink. In Primus though, men turned their heads to watch as he
walked by. Some reached out for his hand trying to entice him to the dance
floor, but Mal had to have a drink first. The scar on his chest itched for
attention anytime he thought about being intimate with another man, but he
ignored the stark reminder of that day his father had tried to kill both him
and his mother.

Mal
squeezed his way between two cute men and ordered a double glass of bourbon.
The sweet looking guy on his right stood barely five foot seven and had on more
eyeliner than Mal had ever seen his sister wear. The one on his left was
taller, but so skinny he looked like he’d break in two if someone of Mal’s size
even thought about sticking his dick in the boy. He knew the guy had to be
older than boy status to get in the club, but he couldn’t have been over
twenty-one. He barely looked like he was old enough to shave.