No Stranger
Title: No Stranger
Author: Tas (tasyfa)
Fandom: Green Day RPS - Billie Joe Armstrong/Mike Dirnt
Characters: Billie/Adrienne, Billie/Mike, others
Prompt: 22: Blindfold for the 50kinkyways challenge ( My kink prompt table.)
Word Count: 5410
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I own only the words; the people own themselves and the events are fictitious.
Dedication: Kisses to looking_spiffy for the thumbs-up. ♥
Summary: Tré throws a lot of parties, but Adrienne usually finds herself pleasantly intoxicated and talking to people she hasn't seen in a while - not trying to explain her husband to his lover.
Author's Notes: Associated song: Come Here, Boy by Imogen Heap (lyrics). This can be read as a stand-alone GD fic, however, it also functions as a prelude to the Saints universe, which series was co-written with looking_spiffy. It is mixed genre - that means slash and het, for those unfamiliar with the term - and in fact, it's far more heavily (and explicitly) weighted on the het side, as it's in Adrienne's POV. If you're looking for just slash, this ain't the story for you. Also, warning for angst, sex, humour, so on and so forth. :-)
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Adrienne wished that Mike had chosen to get shitfaced on something besides beer. When the boys got drunk on Tré's concoction, with all the lemon twists, their breath smelled kind of lemony. Kind of clean. Worlds away from the sour mustiness of second-hand hops.
"I still not sure I to'ally get it but thank you. Thank you for talkin' to me. I' means… it means really a lot," he slurred. "You love him, I know you do. An' so do I. So… this's the way it's gotta be. I get that."
He mumbled on in the same vein and she smiled, patting his arm. Maybe this had been a good idea after all. She'd heard Mike's belligerent demand over the chatter of the party - Explain it to me again! - and looked over to see that he'd cornered Billie, with what had to be the millionth empty beer bottle dangling from his hand and a red face that suggested trouble. No one else had seemed to notice, but Adrienne was attuned to her husband and his bandmates - especially Mike. It was hard not to be when they'd been fucking since before she'd met Billie Joe.
She'd left the inane conversation and inserted herself into the confrontational one, hoping to get Mike to realise that this was neither the time nor the place to have this out. Even after most of a bottle of wine, Adrienne knew that. Somehow, her oh-so-smooth defusion of the situation had morphed into pathetically grateful hazel eyes when Mike had asked her for the explanation instead, and the next thing she knew, Billie had slipped away and she was lying on a bed beside Mike in one of Tré's many rooms, staring at the shadowed ceiling while she talked and trying not to breathe too deeply in Mike's direction.
"Adie?"
She glanced over, about to apologise for having spaced out, when Mike's mouth came down on hers in a hard kiss.
Adrienne squeaked, small hands fluttering against his shoulders in vain. Her mouth had opened reflexively in shock and Mike's tongue pushed inside to caress hers. Her head spun at the feeling of thin, firm lips covering hers, the aggressive taste of him beneath the sourness of the beer flooding her senses. The rhythm was oddly familiar - recognisable on a deep level - and she stopped struggling as it sank into her, kissing him back.
It was only when a moan rose in her throat that she realised where that instinctive response had come from: he kissed like Billie.
Adrienne shoved Mike back onto the other side of the bed. "Stop, Mike, okay? Just stop. That's not the answer."
Blue eyes filled with horrified guilt and he stumbled over his attempts to apologise. She shook her head, a rueful smile appearing.
"Don't. It's okay, all right? I'm fine, you're fine, it's fine." Her voice softened at his visible distress. "Mike, I'm okay. Don't worry about it, really."
He gave a weak smile and began, "I dunno what I was thinkin', I ju-" His sentence halted in the middle as his face paled dramatically. "Oh, fuck."
She watched in astonishment as Mike propelled himself to his feet and sprinted unsteadily across the hall, banging shins and elbows along the way. The painful retching sound informed of the reason for his hasty exit and Adrienne groaned, laying back on the pillows. "Fucking excellent. That's the best ego boost ever."
A moment to wallow in self-pity - because really, the first time someone kisses you and they run to the toilet to upchuck? Not so flattering - and then she hauled herself up and straightened the bedclothes before padding out into the hallway to stand at the bathroom door while her friend, her husband's lover, rinsed the taste of her and of vomit out of his mouth.
"Sorry," he offered with a grimace, patting his face dry.
Adrienne half smiled. "C'mon, let's get you to bed." Shock and heat flooded Mike's face and she laughed. "To sleep it off. One kiss, even one like that, does not earn you a fuck, sorry."
He blushed harder as she helped him down the hall and she shook her head. "How you grew up with Billie and Tré and stayed so damn innocent, I will never understand."
"It's an art form," he said loftily and they both laughed as she fumbled open the door, guiding him inside and pulling the covers back before letting him sprawl.
"This's Tré's room."
"Yeah, you should stay undisturbed in here. I'll let Tré know and he can decide whether he wants to sleep with you or somewhere else."
Slightly clearer blue eyes blinked at her, startled. "Um, you know that… you know it's just me and Billie, right? That Tré doesn't… I mean, we don't all…"
"That you don't suck or fuck Tré? Yes, I know." Adrienne watched in fascination as Mike flushed brilliantly, a little niggle of unease worming into her brain at his vivid embarrassment. You'd think that sort of thing wouldn't bother him anymore but apparently it did. Not for the first time, she wondered whether this reserve was because of her - if he were like this when he and Billie were alone. Did the walls come down only with the person he loved?
Dismissing it as usual, she shrugged and grabbed the waste basket from the ensuite bathroom, placing it beside the bed just in case. Mike caught her wrist as she turned to leave and she looked back into an earnest face.
"You never thought about it?"
She understood immediately what 'it' meant, though his tone was not at all suggestive, purely curious. Mike made room for her as she sat on the edge of the bed and tried to answer.
"In the beginning, yeah. I did. When I first found out about you - before Billie even realised that I knew, that I'd seen you making out - I thought that might be the only way I'd be able to be with him. But… It's one thing to know that you guys are sleeping together out on tour, away from home, and that it has nothing to do with me. It'd be something else altogether to know that what you were doing specifically excluded me, you know, that I'd be part of it when I was there but pushed aside when I wasn't. It's different when the relationships are separate."
Mike was nodding slowly as she talked, and Adrienne gave him a little smile. "By this time, we would probably be totally awesome in bed together, from both of us knowing how to please Billie Joe. But I just can't see it happening. And to be honest, Billie has never mentioned it, either."
"That little double standard he's got going." He rolled his eyes.
"Yeah. Though to be fair, it isn't only his. I'm not balanced the way he is. I'm well aware that I have a preference for cock." She bit back a giggle at his consternation. God, Mike was far too easy to tease. And that right there was another part of why she had never suggested they try it: Adrienne couldn't reconcile her own sexual behaviour with Mike's. As a friend, his blushes and discomfort amused her and endeared him to her. As a lover, she thought that she would feel constrained to hold back - to try to fit herself into what he saw her as, instead of allowing herself free reign the way she did with her husband. She might not have Billie 365 nights a year, but the nights she did have him, she had all of him, and he all of her.
"You deserve better, Adie. You do," he insisted over her vehement head shake.
"No. I deserve who I want and who I love, and both of those are Billie. Life with a professional musician requires compromise and some sacrifices on both sides and we make them. At the end of the day, I believe it's worth it, Mike. He's worth it."
"Okay," he said softly, blue eyes sleepy and inscrutable, and she couldn't tell if he was agreeing with her or simply understanding what she had said. Adrienne didn't suppose that it mattered, really, so long as he had understood.
"You and I both know that he has a lot of faults, Mike. One of them is that he is unbelievably bad at reading minds in day-to-day life situations. He will rarely know that you want something if you don't explicitly tell him. But he's also unfailingly loyal." She rose, placing a kiss on Mike's forehead and tugging the sheet over him. "If you truly want him to stop seeing other men - to make your relationship exclusive - then you need to tell him, negotiate the terms of it." Her voice softened. "I have no doubt that he'll abide by that if you ask it of him. If that's what you need, then ask."
She left Mike all but asleep, hoping that he would remember what she'd said, because she really did not want to have to go through it again. In fact, by this time Adrienne was much, much too sober after having had that discussion.
Several glasses of wine and far less intense conversations later, she made her way to the bathroom. Upon exiting, a hand clamped over her mouth, muffling the scream as she was pulled back against a lithe body.
She had just begun to struggle when lips pressed behind her ear wetly, the kiss accompanied by humming in a voice she knew.
"Asshole!" Adrienne hissed at her husband, half laughing and half pissed off as his hand slid down around her waist. "You scared the daylights out of me."
"Sorry," Billie murmured, not sounding contrite at all. "Couldn't resist."
She relaxed back against him as he continued kissing her neck. The soft dampness of his mouth covered her skin and she grew hyperaware of his touch: the light strokes of his fingers at her waist, the solid erection pressing into her backside. Then his hand dipped to reach under her knee-length skirt, gliding up her thigh seemingly in slow motion, the fabric bunching around a tattooed wrist.
"What are you doing?" She frowned at how breathless her question sounded.
He laughed as his fingers reached the wisp of silk between her legs and resumed those light strokes. "How'd we manage to have two kids if you don't know what I'm doing?"
"Funny." Adrienne couldn't help but laugh with him even as her breath hitched with a rush of desire that mirrored the moisture soaking her panties and his maddening fingers. She knew he could feel it, too; his exhalation sharp and rough as teeth scraped her ear lobe.
"Billie, we're in the hallway. The bathroom is right there. We're at a party full of drunk people who're gonna need to piss and/or puke and they're gonna see us."
Her arm curled around behind his neck anyway, a tiny moan escaping at his nonchalant, "So?"
Her hips moved a little, echoing his rhythm - seeking more pressure. But when Billie went to move the wet silk aside, she twined her fingers in his and pulled his hand away, twisting to look back at him. "You want in?"
"I want in," he confirmed, husky.
"Then you find us some privacy."
His mouth quirked in a half smile and hazel eyes glittered with heat. "Yes, ma'am."
Her skirt dropped back into place as he tugged on her hand and led her down the hall to the second last room. Distantly Adrienne noted that this was the third bedroom she'd been in tonight, though only the second man. The thought made her vaguely uncomfortable and she pushed it away, opting instead to close the door and pull Billie to her for a kiss.
He came willingly, covering her mouth and snaking his tongue inside to meet hers with the dual smoke of whiskey and cigarettes. She gave herself to the intoxication of his taste, breaking only when she needed, finally, to breathe.
She licked her lips, staring up at him. "Where were we again?"
A smirk appeared and Billie leaned in closer to nip at her bottom lip. "I believe we were talking about this."
There was nothing subtle about it now: he hiked her skirt up to her waist and dragged her panties down in one smooth motion, leaving her to kick them off as his fingers pressed against her and then inside her, eliciting a whimpered cry.
Slow, the slide of callused fingers inside her, slow and easy, slippery when her body matched his speed, his thrusts; riding his hand with her back against the wall and his mouth on hers, capturing every moan.
"Billie Joe," she gasped.
He didn't quite stop kissing her, mumbling, "Yeah?" into her mouth.
"Bed."
That interrupted him - made his eyes crinkle as he laughed and then there was the brief ache of emptiness as he hoisted her into the air, hands on her hips, and propelled them towards the bed. They landed amidst more laughter and scrambled to free themselves of clothing, he faster than her as she wriggled out of her bra in time to be pushed onto her back, her legs shoved wide as his mouth settled against her, tongue teasing her clit.
Fire shot through her. "Jesus Christ, ever heard of foreplay?"
His chuckle rumbled over sensitive skin. "Last I checked, this was foreplay."
He gave her no chance to reply as he licked at her, delicately, aggressively, everything in between until Adrienne forgot she'd made any objections and simply rose to meet each stroke of his tongue with a moan.
Her legs spread wider - impossibly so when his fingers rejoined the dance, pushing tight inside her pussy and then withdrawing, separating, coated in her slickness, one slipping into her ass as his thumb penetrated in front, and oh fuck you that was when his mouth moved up her belly to latch onto her nipples and tease each into diamond hardness as his hand worked.
"Billieeeee," she whined, and laughed when he did.
"Fickle bitch. I love you," he told her, warm smile lighting his face before it disappeared from view and Adrienne clutched tight to cropped dark hair as he lavished attention on her clit, fingers still thrusting, and her vision imploded with a cry.
She had a moment's breathing space and then she used her grip on his hair to pull Billie Joe up beside her and onto his back so she could slither down and take his cock into her mouth with as little warning as he'd given her, watching him arch with a sense of satisfaction. "Fuck," he ground out, lips still shiny with her juice and she sucked harder, only beginning to let her hands wander when hazel eyes that shone like dark honey with his need pinned her.
"Adie. I want in."
Such a simple statement, a resonant echo that set her blood alight and she rose onto her knees, straddling him, one hand guiding his erection as she sank down, gaze locked on his, watching full lips open wide with a moan too gloriously loud for their fragile privacy, the cords of his neck standing out as he thrust up into her, meeting her with a wet slap of ecstasy that found expression in both their cries.
Billie's eyelashes fluttered and a small smile graced his lips as Adrienne began to roll her hips in a fluid rhythm. "What?"
"What, what?" she queried, genuinely confused.
"You're looking at me like you're not quite sure what to make of me." His smile erased any potential edge and she smiled back, realising what he meant.
"You're just so thin. I'm not used to it yet." His ribcage stretched his skin, every line clearly visible, and she'd spoken the truth: she hadn't seen him this skinny since he'd been a kid, just barely old enough for her to allow this. And he hadn't been home long enough from touring for her to adjust.
"Yeah, no more 'Fat Elvis'." She rolled her eyes and he grinned, then looked to the side and reached awkwardly for the black and white scarf she'd discarded. "Here. Don't look, then."
Her motion slowed as he sat up and wrapped the scarf around her eyes, tying it behind her head and encouraging her mouth to open with a tender kiss. Adrienne could taste herself on him as the kiss deepened and her speed picked back up. She pushed him away and heard him laugh as his body flattened, hands cupping her thighs as her pleasure ballooned with the feel of him inside her, his scent surrounding her.
She squeaked in surprise when suddenly he sat back up, one muscled arm clamping around her to anchor her to his chest as he rolled them over.
"Ow." Adrienne bounced on the mattress, the knot in the scarf uncomfortable underneath her head, and Billie yanked it off, taking what felt like a good chunk of hair with it. "Fuck, be careful."
He kissed her in swift apology and the magic of it moved them right back into fullblown lust as he reached down, bringing her legs up to hook over his shoulders and oh God she was bent in half like this but her muscles felt like liquid as he pounded into her, her eyes closed now aganst the oncoming rush and the wet crush of mouth to mouth that included any stray skin either could find and muttered nonsense on both sides.
It hit Adrienne first, a storm swell of pleasure that made her sob out his name to a growl of affirmation, feeling the unfamiliar sharpness of his hipbones cracking against her thighs with bruising force as she rocked under him, with him, and then at last he buried his face against her neck with a low shriek, muffled by skin and sweat.
She stroked his back, becoming reacquainted with the prominent knobs of vertebrae as Billie Joe struggled to breathe, and when at last his muscles relaxed under her hands, Adrienne manouvered her legs down, clasping him behind his thighs, ankles hooked to keep him pressed to her for just a little longer, the weight of him comforting.
"Mmm, better than kissing Mike." Billie mumbled into her hair. For a split second, her earlier musings on the nature of Billie and Mike's relationship rose in her mind, and she thought he'd meant better for him. But the soft kisses that had been sweet only a moment before felt tarnished as his smug tone sank in and Adrienne realised that her husband must have overheard some of her conversation with Mike. With his lover, not hers. Trying to fix their mess. And his response to her efforts had been this.
Her body iced over and her skin burned where it touched his.
"Get off me." The snarl was barely audible even to her own ears. He heard the words, but he obviously missed the danger because he stroked a hand down her arm, murmuring her name. Condescending, or nearly so. Sated, because, of course, he'd gotten what he wanted. She'd come to him and she'd come for him the way she always did. Billie Joe was a weakness that Adrienne had never been able to deny. For the first time in their history it shamed her, because for all the pleasure and the laughter, this had not been honest. This had not been an act of love, after all, but merely one of possession.
She didn't - couldn't - dispute that she belonged to him, not now, not after all this time and with all that her heart and soul held for him - but it would damn well be on her terms. The sooner Mr. Rock Star re-learned that, the better.
"Get off me!"
Eyes wide, he rolled to the side and Adrienne scrambled to her feet. She stared down at Billie, her chest heaving far more from the incandescent fury sweeping through her than from the carnal activity.
"You selfish prick, how dare you? How dare you try to control what I do or who I kiss? Do you even know how many people you've kissed, Billie Joe? Men, women, boys, girls - if you'd fucked even a quarter of the number of people you've kissed, I'd say you were the most promiscuous person I'd ever met, and that is fucking saying something. And yet you have the nerve to drag me in here, make me think that you actually want me, because you're pissed off that I kissed someone? Where the fuck do you get off?"
Hazels grew wider still as he started to buy a clue. "No, no, it wasn't like that, I just wanted-"
"To prove that you could fuck me whenever you feel like it. Well, guess what? It worked. You can." She was trembling now, the backs of her eyes prickling hot. He wouldn't get tears from her, though, not tonight, not in front of him. He hadn't earned that privilege.
"Adie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way. I didn't. I just… I saw you helping him walk and thought I'd see if you needed any help, and you were talking about him kissing you, and laughing, and I-I don't know, I guess I wanted to… connect, with you or something." The words gushed out of him, stumbling over each other, and she had to give him points for honesty but as the saying went, it was too little, too late. He'd already used her.
Adrienne crossed her arms, noting in a distant corner of her mind that his gaze followed the movement of her breasts automatically; that a tiny part of her was pleased by that but mostly it added to her fury.
"My eyes are up here, Armstrong."
He flinched. She only ever resorted to his last name when she was well and truly angry, and she could see the awareness growing that this time, he had transgressed. It wasn't petty, it wasn't stupid, it was real and he'd fucked up.
Her lips compressed into a thin line when Billie said nothing else. His mouth opened several times, and closed equally as often, the songsmith finally at a loss for words.
When Adrienne broke the silence, her voice was crisp and clear, and deadly. "We have an arrangement, you and I. To say it like that makes it feel cheap, doesn't it? Like you're in it for the cover story and maybe the tits and I'm in it for the money. We both know that's not the truth but you sure as fuck made me feel like it was just now.
"Uh, uh!" She shook her head sharply, not even deigning to unfold her arms, and whatever Billie had been about to say died. He watched her, hazel eyes attempting speech too, but she was not in the mood to listen. She had too much left to say.
"You wanted me to explain things to Mike and I did. He should have known better than to drink so much when things were so incredibly fucked up. Hell, we all should have known better. But we didn't, and so here we are. I took him aside, and I helped him wrap his mind around it as best I could, and he kissed me. Because he wanted to know how it was that I could do this - that I could live my life knowing that half the time you're in someone else's bed."
Dark eyes glittered as she began to gesture, her natural habits emerging as her tone became tight and intense.
"But what I gave Mike was the nice version, Billie Joe."
He couldn't hold back at that. "The nice version? What the fuck is that, the nice version? Are you trying to say that what you've told me all these years has been a lie? That, what, you feel differently about shit now, too?" His voice cracked like it had as a teenager, signalling the parallel rise of his emotions more clearly even than his incredulous, angry tone.
"No, it's all true: I do love you enough and trust you enough and respect that you have this duality of nature aspect to you. I do respect the relationship you and he have, and that it predates our marriage. Every fucking word of that is true.
"But it's also true that I do this - I created this - because this way, it's out in the open. I know where you are. I know who you're fucking. I know you're being safe about it. It isn't this thing eating away at our marriage the way a secret like this would; like a double fucking life like yours would, if I didn't know. Or worse, if I suspected it. Because I know that I would know, but what I don't know is if I could confront you on it. If I could stand to lose you over it. Because I love you that fucking much, you asshole."
She couldn't even read him now, hanging on too tightly to her own control. But she could tell that he was listening. Pale and silent, he was listening.
"I give you your freedom because it's mine to give this way, and because I know you well enough - I know your body well enough - to know that if I didn't, you would take it anyway. I have my life without you, and I need it. I need that space. And this is part of what you need in your life without me.
"Get out."
"What?" he blurted, startled back into speech by the blunt order tacked on to her passionate outpouring.
"I said, get out. Put your clothes on and get the fuck out of this room."
She remained motionless, watching him dress, hopping around in an effort to get his pant legs on and then the fly done up in record time. The speed pleased her; it meant that he'd taken her seriously, and Adrienne was very fucking serious indeed.
She didn't speak again until his hand was on the doorknob. "Billie Joe."
He turned to face her, eyes wary. Residual anger of his own glimmered there too but he'd clearly realised that this was not the time to express it - that hers took precedence. "Yeah?"
"I think the only other thing that should be getting into those pants for a while is your own hand." His eyebrows shot up. Adrienne had not cut him off before. It wasn't her style to deprive herself of something that she enjoyed as well, but with how sullied he had made her feel, she wanted time to purge that before she'd let him back into her bed and her body.
"And if you ever come home smelling like pussy instead of cock, you'd better hope that your fans like the way you sing soprano."
He swallowed, whitening a little, but he didn't try to offer any defence or reassurance that he wouldn't do such a thing. Billie simply nodded in acknowledgement and left the room.
Adrienne sank down onto the bed. "Fuck." He throat hurt and so did her chest but she could not cry, not now. She still had to get through the rest of this fucking party. She dropped her head between her knees and took several deep breaths.
God help me, I really said it. Reaction was setting in and she couldn't stop shivering as she got back into her clothes. She saw Billie's almost full drink on the bedside table, leaving a water ring on the sturdy wood, and recklessly she shotgunned it, grimacing at the watered down, lukewarm liquid. It burned her already sore throat and she wondered hopelessly if there had been a better way to handle it - all of it. From Mike, to unloading on her husband, to being too weak to resist Billie because she loved him too much.
She snorted in wry amusement as she realised it had not even occurred to her not to step in and talk to Mike, regardless of the fact that she tried not to interfere in that relationship. But he was Mike. There was Billie, and there was Mike, and there was Tré. Sometimes she felt like instead of marrying into the band, she'd married the whole fucking band. The three of them came as a fucking set.
The three of them came as a set.
Adrienne rose to her feet, swaying when the alcohol hit her bloodstream, and stumbled out of the room.
She found Tré talking to a group of people in the living room, his pink cheeks attesting to a much higher level of alcohol consumption than her own, though not necessarily higher drunkenness. He had a high tolerance, Tré did. High. She tapped him on the shoulder.
"Hey, Adie, what're you-"
It was all he got out before her mouth captured his parted lips, her tongue pushing inside to catch the fizz of lemon and the tang of tequila. He responded instinctively for a moment and then pulled away, blue eyes huge.
"What the shit? What was that for?"
"Mike," she told him. "And Billie. Mike and Billie. And you. You come as a set. Three of you, you know." She wobbled in place and he slid an arm around her waist, flashing a smile at the onlookers.
"I'll be back soon, ladies and gents. Help yourself to some more beverages. Maybe not quite as many as this lady here, though."
A few laughs and the crowd moved on to more interesting things as Tré guided Adrienne along the hallway in a mildly humiliating echo of her trip with Mike.
"I put Dirnt in your room, Cool. I didn't know where else and I knew that wasn't gonna be spoken for."
The fury-born adrenalin rush was wearing off and she yawned as Tré lifted her onto the bed in yet another guest room.
"Mike kissed me in the one across the hall," she announced as he manouvered the bedspread out from under her. His raised eyebrow was eloquent - and blond, almost, lighter than his hair was right now; did he use an eyebrow pencil? - so she elaborated, "An' Billie got stupid about it and fucked me down there somewhere." Adrienne waved a hand, bringing it in close afterwards to stare mournfully at the state of her manicure. "Fuckdammit, I broke a nail. Bastard."
"I like my parties to be interesting but you're taking it to extremes there, missy." She saw him frown and then he slid onto the bed and pulled her close, pillowing her head on his chest like a child. She snuggled in.
"You and Bill all right, then?" Tré asked and she sniffled a little.
"He used me, Tré. I'm pissed. But I'm not kicking him out or leaving him or anything, if that's what you mean." Adrienne scowled at the brightly patterned shirt beneath her cheek.
"Okay," he soothed, arm tightening around her shoulders. "I doubt it's as bad as all that. But," he backtracked when she drew a furious breath, "I'm not the wronged party here so what do I know, right?"
She sighed. "He just… he can't control me like that, Tré. He can't. I will not allow it."
He chuckled. "For a guy who gets to have his cake and eat it too, Billie can be remarkably fucking stupid. But his heart's in the right place."
"Yeah," she agreed, reluctantly. "Yeah, it is. Still."
They lay in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Adrienne lifted her head. She met puzzled blue eyes, her own speculative, and then she stretched up and pressed her lips to Tré's.
He opened to her and she let him set the rhythm, lazy and lovely and like no one she'd ever kissed before. He tasted of lemon still; somehow pure, and when she dropped her cheek back onto his chest it was with a deep certainty that whatever may have happened tonight, and whatever it might lead to in the future, her marriage would come out intact.
Tré whistled low and long, but he waited to speak until she was on the edge of sleep.
"Adie?"
"Mmm-hmm?"
"Just so you know, if you weren't married to one of my best friends, I would totally fuck you right now."
Adrienne hiccoughed a laugh. "That's nice." She patted his stomach, listening to him giggle, and slumber claimed her with a smile.
Author: Tas (tasyfa)
Fandom: Green Day RPS - Billie Joe Armstrong/Mike Dirnt
Characters: Billie/Adrienne, Billie/Mike, others
Prompt: 22: Blindfold for the 50kinkyways challenge ( My kink prompt table.)
Word Count: 5410
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I own only the words; the people own themselves and the events are fictitious.
Dedication: Kisses to looking_spiffy for the thumbs-up. ♥
Summary: Tré throws a lot of parties, but Adrienne usually finds herself pleasantly intoxicated and talking to people she hasn't seen in a while - not trying to explain her husband to his lover.
Author's Notes: Associated song: Come Here, Boy by Imogen Heap (lyrics). This can be read as a stand-alone GD fic, however, it also functions as a prelude to the Saints universe, which series was co-written with looking_spiffy. It is mixed genre - that means slash and het, for those unfamiliar with the term - and in fact, it's far more heavily (and explicitly) weighted on the het side, as it's in Adrienne's POV. If you're looking for just slash, this ain't the story for you. Also, warning for angst, sex, humour, so on and so forth. :-)
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Adrienne wished that Mike had chosen to get shitfaced on something besides beer. When the boys got drunk on Tré's concoction, with all the lemon twists, their breath smelled kind of lemony. Kind of clean. Worlds away from the sour mustiness of second-hand hops.
"I still not sure I to'ally get it but thank you. Thank you for talkin' to me. I' means… it means really a lot," he slurred. "You love him, I know you do. An' so do I. So… this's the way it's gotta be. I get that."
He mumbled on in the same vein and she smiled, patting his arm. Maybe this had been a good idea after all. She'd heard Mike's belligerent demand over the chatter of the party - Explain it to me again! - and looked over to see that he'd cornered Billie, with what had to be the millionth empty beer bottle dangling from his hand and a red face that suggested trouble. No one else had seemed to notice, but Adrienne was attuned to her husband and his bandmates - especially Mike. It was hard not to be when they'd been fucking since before she'd met Billie Joe.
She'd left the inane conversation and inserted herself into the confrontational one, hoping to get Mike to realise that this was neither the time nor the place to have this out. Even after most of a bottle of wine, Adrienne knew that. Somehow, her oh-so-smooth defusion of the situation had morphed into pathetically grateful hazel eyes when Mike had asked her for the explanation instead, and the next thing she knew, Billie had slipped away and she was lying on a bed beside Mike in one of Tré's many rooms, staring at the shadowed ceiling while she talked and trying not to breathe too deeply in Mike's direction.
"Adie?"
She glanced over, about to apologise for having spaced out, when Mike's mouth came down on hers in a hard kiss.
Adrienne squeaked, small hands fluttering against his shoulders in vain. Her mouth had opened reflexively in shock and Mike's tongue pushed inside to caress hers. Her head spun at the feeling of thin, firm lips covering hers, the aggressive taste of him beneath the sourness of the beer flooding her senses. The rhythm was oddly familiar - recognisable on a deep level - and she stopped struggling as it sank into her, kissing him back.
It was only when a moan rose in her throat that she realised where that instinctive response had come from: he kissed like Billie.
Adrienne shoved Mike back onto the other side of the bed. "Stop, Mike, okay? Just stop. That's not the answer."
Blue eyes filled with horrified guilt and he stumbled over his attempts to apologise. She shook her head, a rueful smile appearing.
"Don't. It's okay, all right? I'm fine, you're fine, it's fine." Her voice softened at his visible distress. "Mike, I'm okay. Don't worry about it, really."
He gave a weak smile and began, "I dunno what I was thinkin', I ju-" His sentence halted in the middle as his face paled dramatically. "Oh, fuck."
She watched in astonishment as Mike propelled himself to his feet and sprinted unsteadily across the hall, banging shins and elbows along the way. The painful retching sound informed of the reason for his hasty exit and Adrienne groaned, laying back on the pillows. "Fucking excellent. That's the best ego boost ever."
A moment to wallow in self-pity - because really, the first time someone kisses you and they run to the toilet to upchuck? Not so flattering - and then she hauled herself up and straightened the bedclothes before padding out into the hallway to stand at the bathroom door while her friend, her husband's lover, rinsed the taste of her and of vomit out of his mouth.
"Sorry," he offered with a grimace, patting his face dry.
Adrienne half smiled. "C'mon, let's get you to bed." Shock and heat flooded Mike's face and she laughed. "To sleep it off. One kiss, even one like that, does not earn you a fuck, sorry."
He blushed harder as she helped him down the hall and she shook her head. "How you grew up with Billie and Tré and stayed so damn innocent, I will never understand."
"It's an art form," he said loftily and they both laughed as she fumbled open the door, guiding him inside and pulling the covers back before letting him sprawl.
"This's Tré's room."
"Yeah, you should stay undisturbed in here. I'll let Tré know and he can decide whether he wants to sleep with you or somewhere else."
Slightly clearer blue eyes blinked at her, startled. "Um, you know that… you know it's just me and Billie, right? That Tré doesn't… I mean, we don't all…"
"That you don't suck or fuck Tré? Yes, I know." Adrienne watched in fascination as Mike flushed brilliantly, a little niggle of unease worming into her brain at his vivid embarrassment. You'd think that sort of thing wouldn't bother him anymore but apparently it did. Not for the first time, she wondered whether this reserve was because of her - if he were like this when he and Billie were alone. Did the walls come down only with the person he loved?
Dismissing it as usual, she shrugged and grabbed the waste basket from the ensuite bathroom, placing it beside the bed just in case. Mike caught her wrist as she turned to leave and she looked back into an earnest face.
"You never thought about it?"
She understood immediately what 'it' meant, though his tone was not at all suggestive, purely curious. Mike made room for her as she sat on the edge of the bed and tried to answer.
"In the beginning, yeah. I did. When I first found out about you - before Billie even realised that I knew, that I'd seen you making out - I thought that might be the only way I'd be able to be with him. But… It's one thing to know that you guys are sleeping together out on tour, away from home, and that it has nothing to do with me. It'd be something else altogether to know that what you were doing specifically excluded me, you know, that I'd be part of it when I was there but pushed aside when I wasn't. It's different when the relationships are separate."
Mike was nodding slowly as she talked, and Adrienne gave him a little smile. "By this time, we would probably be totally awesome in bed together, from both of us knowing how to please Billie Joe. But I just can't see it happening. And to be honest, Billie has never mentioned it, either."
"That little double standard he's got going." He rolled his eyes.
"Yeah. Though to be fair, it isn't only his. I'm not balanced the way he is. I'm well aware that I have a preference for cock." She bit back a giggle at his consternation. God, Mike was far too easy to tease. And that right there was another part of why she had never suggested they try it: Adrienne couldn't reconcile her own sexual behaviour with Mike's. As a friend, his blushes and discomfort amused her and endeared him to her. As a lover, she thought that she would feel constrained to hold back - to try to fit herself into what he saw her as, instead of allowing herself free reign the way she did with her husband. She might not have Billie 365 nights a year, but the nights she did have him, she had all of him, and he all of her.
"You deserve better, Adie. You do," he insisted over her vehement head shake.
"No. I deserve who I want and who I love, and both of those are Billie. Life with a professional musician requires compromise and some sacrifices on both sides and we make them. At the end of the day, I believe it's worth it, Mike. He's worth it."
"Okay," he said softly, blue eyes sleepy and inscrutable, and she couldn't tell if he was agreeing with her or simply understanding what she had said. Adrienne didn't suppose that it mattered, really, so long as he had understood.
"You and I both know that he has a lot of faults, Mike. One of them is that he is unbelievably bad at reading minds in day-to-day life situations. He will rarely know that you want something if you don't explicitly tell him. But he's also unfailingly loyal." She rose, placing a kiss on Mike's forehead and tugging the sheet over him. "If you truly want him to stop seeing other men - to make your relationship exclusive - then you need to tell him, negotiate the terms of it." Her voice softened. "I have no doubt that he'll abide by that if you ask it of him. If that's what you need, then ask."
She left Mike all but asleep, hoping that he would remember what she'd said, because she really did not want to have to go through it again. In fact, by this time Adrienne was much, much too sober after having had that discussion.
Several glasses of wine and far less intense conversations later, she made her way to the bathroom. Upon exiting, a hand clamped over her mouth, muffling the scream as she was pulled back against a lithe body.
She had just begun to struggle when lips pressed behind her ear wetly, the kiss accompanied by humming in a voice she knew.
"Asshole!" Adrienne hissed at her husband, half laughing and half pissed off as his hand slid down around her waist. "You scared the daylights out of me."
"Sorry," Billie murmured, not sounding contrite at all. "Couldn't resist."
She relaxed back against him as he continued kissing her neck. The soft dampness of his mouth covered her skin and she grew hyperaware of his touch: the light strokes of his fingers at her waist, the solid erection pressing into her backside. Then his hand dipped to reach under her knee-length skirt, gliding up her thigh seemingly in slow motion, the fabric bunching around a tattooed wrist.
"What are you doing?" She frowned at how breathless her question sounded.
He laughed as his fingers reached the wisp of silk between her legs and resumed those light strokes. "How'd we manage to have two kids if you don't know what I'm doing?"
"Funny." Adrienne couldn't help but laugh with him even as her breath hitched with a rush of desire that mirrored the moisture soaking her panties and his maddening fingers. She knew he could feel it, too; his exhalation sharp and rough as teeth scraped her ear lobe.
"Billie, we're in the hallway. The bathroom is right there. We're at a party full of drunk people who're gonna need to piss and/or puke and they're gonna see us."
Her arm curled around behind his neck anyway, a tiny moan escaping at his nonchalant, "So?"
Her hips moved a little, echoing his rhythm - seeking more pressure. But when Billie went to move the wet silk aside, she twined her fingers in his and pulled his hand away, twisting to look back at him. "You want in?"
"I want in," he confirmed, husky.
"Then you find us some privacy."
His mouth quirked in a half smile and hazel eyes glittered with heat. "Yes, ma'am."
Her skirt dropped back into place as he tugged on her hand and led her down the hall to the second last room. Distantly Adrienne noted that this was the third bedroom she'd been in tonight, though only the second man. The thought made her vaguely uncomfortable and she pushed it away, opting instead to close the door and pull Billie to her for a kiss.
He came willingly, covering her mouth and snaking his tongue inside to meet hers with the dual smoke of whiskey and cigarettes. She gave herself to the intoxication of his taste, breaking only when she needed, finally, to breathe.
She licked her lips, staring up at him. "Where were we again?"
A smirk appeared and Billie leaned in closer to nip at her bottom lip. "I believe we were talking about this."
There was nothing subtle about it now: he hiked her skirt up to her waist and dragged her panties down in one smooth motion, leaving her to kick them off as his fingers pressed against her and then inside her, eliciting a whimpered cry.
Slow, the slide of callused fingers inside her, slow and easy, slippery when her body matched his speed, his thrusts; riding his hand with her back against the wall and his mouth on hers, capturing every moan.
"Billie Joe," she gasped.
He didn't quite stop kissing her, mumbling, "Yeah?" into her mouth.
"Bed."
That interrupted him - made his eyes crinkle as he laughed and then there was the brief ache of emptiness as he hoisted her into the air, hands on her hips, and propelled them towards the bed. They landed amidst more laughter and scrambled to free themselves of clothing, he faster than her as she wriggled out of her bra in time to be pushed onto her back, her legs shoved wide as his mouth settled against her, tongue teasing her clit.
Fire shot through her. "Jesus Christ, ever heard of foreplay?"
His chuckle rumbled over sensitive skin. "Last I checked, this was foreplay."
He gave her no chance to reply as he licked at her, delicately, aggressively, everything in between until Adrienne forgot she'd made any objections and simply rose to meet each stroke of his tongue with a moan.
Her legs spread wider - impossibly so when his fingers rejoined the dance, pushing tight inside her pussy and then withdrawing, separating, coated in her slickness, one slipping into her ass as his thumb penetrated in front, and oh fuck you that was when his mouth moved up her belly to latch onto her nipples and tease each into diamond hardness as his hand worked.
"Billieeeee," she whined, and laughed when he did.
"Fickle bitch. I love you," he told her, warm smile lighting his face before it disappeared from view and Adrienne clutched tight to cropped dark hair as he lavished attention on her clit, fingers still thrusting, and her vision imploded with a cry.
She had a moment's breathing space and then she used her grip on his hair to pull Billie Joe up beside her and onto his back so she could slither down and take his cock into her mouth with as little warning as he'd given her, watching him arch with a sense of satisfaction. "Fuck," he ground out, lips still shiny with her juice and she sucked harder, only beginning to let her hands wander when hazel eyes that shone like dark honey with his need pinned her.
"Adie. I want in."
Such a simple statement, a resonant echo that set her blood alight and she rose onto her knees, straddling him, one hand guiding his erection as she sank down, gaze locked on his, watching full lips open wide with a moan too gloriously loud for their fragile privacy, the cords of his neck standing out as he thrust up into her, meeting her with a wet slap of ecstasy that found expression in both their cries.
Billie's eyelashes fluttered and a small smile graced his lips as Adrienne began to roll her hips in a fluid rhythm. "What?"
"What, what?" she queried, genuinely confused.
"You're looking at me like you're not quite sure what to make of me." His smile erased any potential edge and she smiled back, realising what he meant.
"You're just so thin. I'm not used to it yet." His ribcage stretched his skin, every line clearly visible, and she'd spoken the truth: she hadn't seen him this skinny since he'd been a kid, just barely old enough for her to allow this. And he hadn't been home long enough from touring for her to adjust.
"Yeah, no more 'Fat Elvis'." She rolled her eyes and he grinned, then looked to the side and reached awkwardly for the black and white scarf she'd discarded. "Here. Don't look, then."
Her motion slowed as he sat up and wrapped the scarf around her eyes, tying it behind her head and encouraging her mouth to open with a tender kiss. Adrienne could taste herself on him as the kiss deepened and her speed picked back up. She pushed him away and heard him laugh as his body flattened, hands cupping her thighs as her pleasure ballooned with the feel of him inside her, his scent surrounding her.
She squeaked in surprise when suddenly he sat back up, one muscled arm clamping around her to anchor her to his chest as he rolled them over.
"Ow." Adrienne bounced on the mattress, the knot in the scarf uncomfortable underneath her head, and Billie yanked it off, taking what felt like a good chunk of hair with it. "Fuck, be careful."
He kissed her in swift apology and the magic of it moved them right back into fullblown lust as he reached down, bringing her legs up to hook over his shoulders and oh God she was bent in half like this but her muscles felt like liquid as he pounded into her, her eyes closed now aganst the oncoming rush and the wet crush of mouth to mouth that included any stray skin either could find and muttered nonsense on both sides.
It hit Adrienne first, a storm swell of pleasure that made her sob out his name to a growl of affirmation, feeling the unfamiliar sharpness of his hipbones cracking against her thighs with bruising force as she rocked under him, with him, and then at last he buried his face against her neck with a low shriek, muffled by skin and sweat.
She stroked his back, becoming reacquainted with the prominent knobs of vertebrae as Billie Joe struggled to breathe, and when at last his muscles relaxed under her hands, Adrienne manouvered her legs down, clasping him behind his thighs, ankles hooked to keep him pressed to her for just a little longer, the weight of him comforting.
"Mmm, better than kissing Mike." Billie mumbled into her hair. For a split second, her earlier musings on the nature of Billie and Mike's relationship rose in her mind, and she thought he'd meant better for him. But the soft kisses that had been sweet only a moment before felt tarnished as his smug tone sank in and Adrienne realised that her husband must have overheard some of her conversation with Mike. With his lover, not hers. Trying to fix their mess. And his response to her efforts had been this.
Her body iced over and her skin burned where it touched his.
"Get off me." The snarl was barely audible even to her own ears. He heard the words, but he obviously missed the danger because he stroked a hand down her arm, murmuring her name. Condescending, or nearly so. Sated, because, of course, he'd gotten what he wanted. She'd come to him and she'd come for him the way she always did. Billie Joe was a weakness that Adrienne had never been able to deny. For the first time in their history it shamed her, because for all the pleasure and the laughter, this had not been honest. This had not been an act of love, after all, but merely one of possession.
She didn't - couldn't - dispute that she belonged to him, not now, not after all this time and with all that her heart and soul held for him - but it would damn well be on her terms. The sooner Mr. Rock Star re-learned that, the better.
"Get off me!"
Eyes wide, he rolled to the side and Adrienne scrambled to her feet. She stared down at Billie, her chest heaving far more from the incandescent fury sweeping through her than from the carnal activity.
"You selfish prick, how dare you? How dare you try to control what I do or who I kiss? Do you even know how many people you've kissed, Billie Joe? Men, women, boys, girls - if you'd fucked even a quarter of the number of people you've kissed, I'd say you were the most promiscuous person I'd ever met, and that is fucking saying something. And yet you have the nerve to drag me in here, make me think that you actually want me, because you're pissed off that I kissed someone? Where the fuck do you get off?"
Hazels grew wider still as he started to buy a clue. "No, no, it wasn't like that, I just wanted-"
"To prove that you could fuck me whenever you feel like it. Well, guess what? It worked. You can." She was trembling now, the backs of her eyes prickling hot. He wouldn't get tears from her, though, not tonight, not in front of him. He hadn't earned that privilege.
"Adie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way. I didn't. I just… I saw you helping him walk and thought I'd see if you needed any help, and you were talking about him kissing you, and laughing, and I-I don't know, I guess I wanted to… connect, with you or something." The words gushed out of him, stumbling over each other, and she had to give him points for honesty but as the saying went, it was too little, too late. He'd already used her.
Adrienne crossed her arms, noting in a distant corner of her mind that his gaze followed the movement of her breasts automatically; that a tiny part of her was pleased by that but mostly it added to her fury.
"My eyes are up here, Armstrong."
He flinched. She only ever resorted to his last name when she was well and truly angry, and she could see the awareness growing that this time, he had transgressed. It wasn't petty, it wasn't stupid, it was real and he'd fucked up.
Her lips compressed into a thin line when Billie said nothing else. His mouth opened several times, and closed equally as often, the songsmith finally at a loss for words.
When Adrienne broke the silence, her voice was crisp and clear, and deadly. "We have an arrangement, you and I. To say it like that makes it feel cheap, doesn't it? Like you're in it for the cover story and maybe the tits and I'm in it for the money. We both know that's not the truth but you sure as fuck made me feel like it was just now.
"Uh, uh!" She shook her head sharply, not even deigning to unfold her arms, and whatever Billie had been about to say died. He watched her, hazel eyes attempting speech too, but she was not in the mood to listen. She had too much left to say.
"You wanted me to explain things to Mike and I did. He should have known better than to drink so much when things were so incredibly fucked up. Hell, we all should have known better. But we didn't, and so here we are. I took him aside, and I helped him wrap his mind around it as best I could, and he kissed me. Because he wanted to know how it was that I could do this - that I could live my life knowing that half the time you're in someone else's bed."
Dark eyes glittered as she began to gesture, her natural habits emerging as her tone became tight and intense.
"But what I gave Mike was the nice version, Billie Joe."
He couldn't hold back at that. "The nice version? What the fuck is that, the nice version? Are you trying to say that what you've told me all these years has been a lie? That, what, you feel differently about shit now, too?" His voice cracked like it had as a teenager, signalling the parallel rise of his emotions more clearly even than his incredulous, angry tone.
"No, it's all true: I do love you enough and trust you enough and respect that you have this duality of nature aspect to you. I do respect the relationship you and he have, and that it predates our marriage. Every fucking word of that is true.
"But it's also true that I do this - I created this - because this way, it's out in the open. I know where you are. I know who you're fucking. I know you're being safe about it. It isn't this thing eating away at our marriage the way a secret like this would; like a double fucking life like yours would, if I didn't know. Or worse, if I suspected it. Because I know that I would know, but what I don't know is if I could confront you on it. If I could stand to lose you over it. Because I love you that fucking much, you asshole."
She couldn't even read him now, hanging on too tightly to her own control. But she could tell that he was listening. Pale and silent, he was listening.
"I give you your freedom because it's mine to give this way, and because I know you well enough - I know your body well enough - to know that if I didn't, you would take it anyway. I have my life without you, and I need it. I need that space. And this is part of what you need in your life without me.
"Get out."
"What?" he blurted, startled back into speech by the blunt order tacked on to her passionate outpouring.
"I said, get out. Put your clothes on and get the fuck out of this room."
She remained motionless, watching him dress, hopping around in an effort to get his pant legs on and then the fly done up in record time. The speed pleased her; it meant that he'd taken her seriously, and Adrienne was very fucking serious indeed.
She didn't speak again until his hand was on the doorknob. "Billie Joe."
He turned to face her, eyes wary. Residual anger of his own glimmered there too but he'd clearly realised that this was not the time to express it - that hers took precedence. "Yeah?"
"I think the only other thing that should be getting into those pants for a while is your own hand." His eyebrows shot up. Adrienne had not cut him off before. It wasn't her style to deprive herself of something that she enjoyed as well, but with how sullied he had made her feel, she wanted time to purge that before she'd let him back into her bed and her body.
"And if you ever come home smelling like pussy instead of cock, you'd better hope that your fans like the way you sing soprano."
He swallowed, whitening a little, but he didn't try to offer any defence or reassurance that he wouldn't do such a thing. Billie simply nodded in acknowledgement and left the room.
Adrienne sank down onto the bed. "Fuck." He throat hurt and so did her chest but she could not cry, not now. She still had to get through the rest of this fucking party. She dropped her head between her knees and took several deep breaths.
God help me, I really said it. Reaction was setting in and she couldn't stop shivering as she got back into her clothes. She saw Billie's almost full drink on the bedside table, leaving a water ring on the sturdy wood, and recklessly she shotgunned it, grimacing at the watered down, lukewarm liquid. It burned her already sore throat and she wondered hopelessly if there had been a better way to handle it - all of it. From Mike, to unloading on her husband, to being too weak to resist Billie because she loved him too much.
She snorted in wry amusement as she realised it had not even occurred to her not to step in and talk to Mike, regardless of the fact that she tried not to interfere in that relationship. But he was Mike. There was Billie, and there was Mike, and there was Tré. Sometimes she felt like instead of marrying into the band, she'd married the whole fucking band. The three of them came as a fucking set.
The three of them came as a set.
Adrienne rose to her feet, swaying when the alcohol hit her bloodstream, and stumbled out of the room.
She found Tré talking to a group of people in the living room, his pink cheeks attesting to a much higher level of alcohol consumption than her own, though not necessarily higher drunkenness. He had a high tolerance, Tré did. High. She tapped him on the shoulder.
"Hey, Adie, what're you-"
It was all he got out before her mouth captured his parted lips, her tongue pushing inside to catch the fizz of lemon and the tang of tequila. He responded instinctively for a moment and then pulled away, blue eyes huge.
"What the shit? What was that for?"
"Mike," she told him. "And Billie. Mike and Billie. And you. You come as a set. Three of you, you know." She wobbled in place and he slid an arm around her waist, flashing a smile at the onlookers.
"I'll be back soon, ladies and gents. Help yourself to some more beverages. Maybe not quite as many as this lady here, though."
A few laughs and the crowd moved on to more interesting things as Tré guided Adrienne along the hallway in a mildly humiliating echo of her trip with Mike.
"I put Dirnt in your room, Cool. I didn't know where else and I knew that wasn't gonna be spoken for."
The fury-born adrenalin rush was wearing off and she yawned as Tré lifted her onto the bed in yet another guest room.
"Mike kissed me in the one across the hall," she announced as he manouvered the bedspread out from under her. His raised eyebrow was eloquent - and blond, almost, lighter than his hair was right now; did he use an eyebrow pencil? - so she elaborated, "An' Billie got stupid about it and fucked me down there somewhere." Adrienne waved a hand, bringing it in close afterwards to stare mournfully at the state of her manicure. "Fuckdammit, I broke a nail. Bastard."
"I like my parties to be interesting but you're taking it to extremes there, missy." She saw him frown and then he slid onto the bed and pulled her close, pillowing her head on his chest like a child. She snuggled in.
"You and Bill all right, then?" Tré asked and she sniffled a little.
"He used me, Tré. I'm pissed. But I'm not kicking him out or leaving him or anything, if that's what you mean." Adrienne scowled at the brightly patterned shirt beneath her cheek.
"Okay," he soothed, arm tightening around her shoulders. "I doubt it's as bad as all that. But," he backtracked when she drew a furious breath, "I'm not the wronged party here so what do I know, right?"
She sighed. "He just… he can't control me like that, Tré. He can't. I will not allow it."
He chuckled. "For a guy who gets to have his cake and eat it too, Billie can be remarkably fucking stupid. But his heart's in the right place."
"Yeah," she agreed, reluctantly. "Yeah, it is. Still."
They lay in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Adrienne lifted her head. She met puzzled blue eyes, her own speculative, and then she stretched up and pressed her lips to Tré's.
He opened to her and she let him set the rhythm, lazy and lovely and like no one she'd ever kissed before. He tasted of lemon still; somehow pure, and when she dropped her cheek back onto his chest it was with a deep certainty that whatever may have happened tonight, and whatever it might lead to in the future, her marriage would come out intact.
Tré whistled low and long, but he waited to speak until she was on the edge of sleep.
"Adie?"
"Mmm-hmm?"
"Just so you know, if you weren't married to one of my best friends, I would totally fuck you right now."
Adrienne hiccoughed a laugh. "That's nice." She patted his stomach, listening to him giggle, and slumber claimed her with a smile.