Jest has been on his own since his mid-teens and still blesses the chance that let him realize his dream of playing percussion in a band that has become his substitute family. Although he misses the close sharing, he doesn't expect to find a partner and certainly not one as clearly out of his element as the man who one night wanders into the club where Jest's band plays, looking totally lost and friendless.<br><br>Greene has struggled to build himself a life far from the undisciplined communal community in which he grew up. He's lonely though, and not sure how to remedy that, so he works as a game programmer in Silicon Valley until he makes a faux pas at a party. Traveling aimlessly, he meets Jest and the other members of Taken By Storm, and is intrigued but terrified of slipping back into a disorderly world like the one of his childhood.<br><br>They say opposites attract, but can a rebel drummer and an uptight programmer find enough common ground for a relationship?

A Different Drummer

Jest wasn’t hard to look at. If you mentally airbrushed out that crazy hair, the rest was pretty sweet. He obviously didn’t get out in the sun a lot. Still, he wasn’t pale enough to look unhealthy. He had muscle, too, not beach bum bodybuilder muscle, just plenty to look masculine. The hair that sprinkled his chest and clustered around his cock and balls was dark, almost black when wet. Greene figured the rest would be, too, if it were not dyed in that wild rainbow.


But I’m not going to take up with some wanna-be, new age hippie, crazy musician. No fraggin’ way. It would be like going back, like I’d never escaped all that crap. Yeah, he’s nice, or he seems nice. I can’t do that, though. I won’t.


Still, he had to admit he was tempted. Maybe it was just a rebound from Mickey’s putdown, a vague need to prove he really was attractive, appealing. He felt the surreptitious brush of Jest’s gaze, sliding to him and pulling away, only to return.


Chapter 9