Faster We Burn

me. “You two.” He pointed at us with his guitar pick. “Mads Langer, ‘Beauty of the Dark’, duet. You up for it?”
    I looked at Stryker, but he didn’t look surprised.
    “What a good idea, Allan. I’m mad I didn’t think of it myself.” Stryker turned slowly to face me, a grin on his face. Oh, he so planned this. He’d played the song for me a few days ago, and I’d loved it so much that I’d been listening to it ever since and humming it under my breath.
    “You set me up,” I said, shoving him a little.
    “Hey, anything to hear that gorgeous voice of yours.” I looked around and everyone else looked guilty.
    I pointed at all of them. “You all suck, by the way.”
    That response elicited laughter just as we heard footsteps on the stairs before Trish walked through the door with the blue-haired cousin/stepbrother from the funeral. I nearly choked when I saw that they were holding hands.
    “Sorry we’re late,” she said, blushing. The guy, who was still nameless, gave us all a little two-fingered wave.
    “Hey, that’s my bad. I’m Max.”
    “Nice to finally meet you, Max ,” Stryker said, and it wasn’t my imagination that he gripped his violin extra hard. Haha. Protective big brother strikes again.
    “That’s my brother, Stryker. You can ignore him. I know I do,” Trish said, leading Max into the room and making the other introductions.
    “This is Katie,” she said when she got to me. I stuck my hand out and he shook it, his eyes widening at the mention of my name.
    “So this is Katie. You were right,” he said, turning toward Trish and putting his arm over her shoulder. “She does wear a lot of pink.” She shrugged and he gave her a kiss on the forehead.
    I always thought Will was crazy for thinking about alien abductions or radiation poisoning, but I was beginning to suspect that Trish either had a concussion, or she’d swapped personalities with some other girl. That was the only plausible explanation for this behavior.
    “Nice to meet you,” I said, watching Trish’s personality shift. Oh, she was going to dish later.
    All of us had made an attempt to get her to spill about Max, but until now she wouldn’t even give us his name or speak about him in any way.
    “I hope we’re not intruding. Just…keep doing what you were doing. We’ll be over here,” Max said after the introductions, taking a seat on the floor and pulling Trish down after him. She settled against him, and they shared a secret smile.
    I gave Stryker a look, and he was giving Trish the Grant Glare. I usually only saw it on her face, but now he wore it like a favorite, well-worn t-shirt.
    “Hey,” I said, poking him in the ribs. “Your overprotective is showing.”
    He turned off the glare when he looked at me.
    “I don’t like him,” he hissed at me. “He’s…got blue hair.”
    “Yeah, you can never trust those blue-haired guys. As opposed to those guys who bleach their hair.”
    He looked at me and I tried to do the eyebrow raise, but I didn’t think I got it quite right.
    “Okay, okay.” Everyone else was sort of watching us and also watching Trish and Max, who were in their own little world.
    “So, we ready to do our duet?” I was willing to go along with it if it would take some of the heat off Trish. I had to poke him in the chest to get him to focus. Damn. I’d never seen him like that. For all the fighting he and Trish did, I had no idea that he’d be like that when Trish finally found a guy. Yet another side of the mysterious Stryker Abraham Grant.
    “Let’s rock it,” I said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. It took a second, but he set his violin under his chin as a hush fell over the room. Why had I agreed to do this again? I was about to stand up and say “never mind” when Stryker started playing, and I had no choice but to start singing.
    Stryker came in with me and even without practicing, we followed each other’s lead and melded our voices together. It was like making love with him. In some ways it was just as intimate. Another way for us to have no space.
    We finished and the room was silent. Then Allan started a slow clap that turned into a round of applause complete with whoops and whistles. I blushed and Stryker put down his violin so he could give me a steamy kiss. I had to pull away before it went any further. Even with a room full of people, I was ready to rip his clothes off and have my way with him.
    “Get a room!” someone yelled, and we broke