Beat of the Heart

I shoved my overnight bag at him, catching him in the gut. “Douchebag.”

“Oomph,” he muttered before grinning. “I’m just glad to have this bad boy back. Seems like it’s been in the shop forever.” He opened the passenger side door for me.

“Thank you,” I replied as I climbed inside. Just before I collapsed on the seat, AJ smacked my ass. When I turned back to glare at him, he licked his lips suggestively. My response was to maturely stick out my tongue at him. He chuckled as he closed the door and made his way around the side of the Hummer.

When AJ cranked up, a Runaway Train song started playing. I cut my eyes over at him. “You were seriously listening to your own music?”

“Nope. I had it on so you could listen to my music,” he replied, as he pulled out of my driveway.

“I heard it last night. Wasn’t that enough?”

“I’m not convinced you’re a diehard fan yet.”

“I would think the fact that I’m a diehard fan of you and your amazing cock would cover me.”

My words caused AJ to momentarily swerve on the road. When he had recovered, he glanced over at me. “I promise that I’ll turn on some country for you in a little while.”

I couldn’t help grinning at both his reaction to my words and his compromise. “Okay, it’s a plan.”

Since my house was further out of Atlanta in East Cobb, I was not as far away from Jake’s farm as AJ was. Even in his Hummer, his lead foot made good timing. As we got off the interstate and onto a two-lane road, our surroundings melted into an emerald blur of trees lining the road. “Wow, this really is out in the boonies.”

“And we’re not there yet,” AJ replied with a grin.

“So you come out here a lot?”

AJ bobbed his head. “Yeah, Jake’s dad and stepmom moved in next door to us when we were twelve. At first, we just got to hang out together every other weekend, but we still got tight. Then Jake started having me come out here to visit. I’d spend weeks at a time here in the summers.” He turned to me with a smile. “I guess you could say our band was born up here in the boonies. We weren’t more than fourteen, but Jake would play guitar, one of his cousins, Teague, would join in on bass, and then I did the drums. We became Runaway Train.”

In my mind, I tried to picture a teenaged AJ pounding out the rhythm, giving his heart and soul to his garage band, or barn, performance. “How you’d get the name?”

“Jake and his emo-shit self.”

“Seriously?”

AJ chuckled. “Yeah, after his parents divorced, he got really obsessed with the song Runaway Train by Soul Asylum. Writing songs like he does, Jake’s really into deep symbolism shit. Me, I liked it because it made me think of Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train, and that was the first song I learned to play besides all the Hispanic music of my uncle’s.”

“When did the other guys come into the picture?”

“We met up with Brayden when we were all freshman at Georgia Tech. Teague left us high and dry to become some aeronautical engineer or some shit, so we recruited Rhys, who was doing his pre-law at Emory.”

“He’s the baby of the group, right?”

AJ snickered. “Yeah, he’s just twenty-three. He’s basically a genius—motherfucker graduated from high school at sixteen and started college right after. He comes from rich as hell, society assholes down in Savannah, so they weren’t thrilled when their golden child, and only son, left school to take up with us.”

“That sucks.”

“They suck, trust me.”

I cocked my head. “What did your family think of you being a musician rather than a…”

“Business Major.”

“Ah, I see.”

He shrugged. “They were worried about how I would make a living at first, but they didn’t disown me like Rhys’s parents did.”

“Poor guy.”

“Things are a little better between them now. My parents are pretty laid back. I mean, at the end of the day, they want my brother, sister and me to be happy. They didn’t go apeshit when Antonio came out when he was so young—they supported the fact he was gay.”

“Good for them.”

“Yeah, they kinda flipped their lid more when Cristina got knocked up at eighteen and then eloped.” He glanced over at grinned at me. “And before you ask, they were almost as pissed about her not marrying in the church as they were that she was pregnant. We’re hardcore Catholics.”

“So are we.”

My thoughts left my own family to focus on AJ’s. I couldn’t help wondering what they would think of me—if they would think I was good enough for their oldest son.

“They’ll love you, Mia.”

I jerked my head to gaze incredulously at him. “But I—”

He smiled. “I could tell what you were thinking, and I know what the answer is. They’ll love you.”

“Thanks,” I murmured, as I let my mind wander to whether he could love me.

Taking a right turn, we started down a gravel road. A swirling cloud of dust was kicked up in the Hummer’s wake. We finally arrived at a sprawling, two-story farmhouse that looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The outside was white-frame with blue shutters, and it had an expansive front porch, with rocking chairs, that ran the length of the house. Flowers, of all colors and sizes, dotted the front walkway. “Oh wow…this is beautiful,” I said.

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” AJ peered through the windshield. “Sometimes after being on the road, I forget just how amazing it is—I mean, the house is over two hundred years old. When Susan, Jake’s mom, bought it, she did a little renovating.”

Craning my neck, I spotted a barn and some stables down the hill. From behind the barn, I could see a cloud of smoke, and I knew that must be where the bonfire was that Jake had mentioned before. “Come on, let’s go meet up with the guys,” AJ urged.

I’d barely gotten my door open when a giant Golden Retriever stuck its head in to lick my feet. “Well hello to you, too,” I said with a smile.

AJ laughed as he turned off the car. “That would be Angel—Abby’s dog—and the worst excuse for an attack dog you’ll ever find.”

After I hopped down, I scratched behind Angel’s furry ears. “Aw, she’s too sweet to be mean. Aren’t you, girl?”

Angel yipped a response before running around the side of the Hummer to greet AJ. He bent down to kiss her forehead before giving her an epic rubdown. “Okay, girl. Take us down to the others.” Holding out his hand, I slipped mine into AJ’s.

Rolling waves of green grass swayed in the breeze as we made our way down the hill. The air was crisper and cooler up here in the mountains. As our feet crunched along the gravel, I tried not to let my anxiety of hanging out with AJ’s band-mates overwhelm me. Last night when I was with Abby and Lily, I had felt so comfortable and included. It was like I fit in immediately. And as far as the guys of Runaway Train, I couldn’t have asked for a better welcome. So, even though I shouldn’t have felt so worried, I still felt apprehensive. When we turned the corner around the barn, Angel barked and then ran ahead of us to alert the others we were there.

With his back to us, Jake stood at a massive stainless steel grill, which was emitting some delicious meaty aromas of steak and burgers. “Yo douchenozzle, we’re here,” AJ called.

With a grunt, Jake laid his spatula down. “Nice to see you finally made it, twatcake.” When he turned around, I snorted at his attire. Over his shorts and faded T-shirt, Jake was outfitted in a bedazzled, black ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron with glittering silver lettering. He glanced down at it before meeting my amused gaze. “Abby got this for me.”

“Very manly,” I replied.