Tangled Weeds (The Road to Rocktoberfest 2024)

Four

Easy

I woke the next morning to Liam wrapped around me with not an inch of space between us which explained the hard on I woke up with and was trying to ignore. “We have today off, right?” Liam asked, sleep heavy in his voice.

“Yes, go ahead and sleep. I’m going to go to the bathroom.” I kissed his cheek as I stood and hurried across the hall to the bathroom, then when I finished, I walked out to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Of course there wasn’t shit inside. We’d been gone too long for that. I placed an order for grocery delivery and after that I ordered some food delivered because I’d probably die before I could cook something from the groceries.

By the time Liam wandered out of the bedroom looking deliciously rumpled and cute as hell, I’d put away the groceries and the food had arrived. “Here you go, babe,” I said as I handed him a coffee.

“Oh, thank you. I don’t know why I’m so tired. I was fine last night,” he said before kissing my cheek.

“We’ve been going nonstop for weeks. Once you stop it all hits you,” I said and took a big drink of coffee before opening the breakfast I’d ordered. “Sit with me, I ordered you an omelet.”

“Oh, you’re the best. Thank you,” Liam said before opening the box I gave him and wasting no time taking a bite. “This is great.”

We sat a while longer and finished our coffee after we’d finished eating. “You ordered groceries too?” Liam asked.

“Well, I’m not completely helpless,” I said and knew he knew exactly how bad I was at keeping food on hand while we were home.

“So, what’s on the agenda for today?” he asked as he stood and threw away our trash and organized some of the groceries I’d put away earlier, before then opening and closing all the other cabinets.

“I think we should go get some groceries. I know you bought the basics, but we should probably stock up on some frozen and canned items so when we come home there’s something here at least.” It wasn’t just me that didn’t like to shop, Liam wasn’t much better, so I knew it must be dire if he even suggested it.

“Are you sure? Because I can think of about a million other things I’d rather do. Like clean the bathroom, weed the yard—”

“Okay, I get it. But we need to go. Let’s just do it now and get it over with.”

“Under one condition,” I said, and he gave me a worried look.

“What would that condition be?” Liam asked.

“We barbecue and have everyone over,” I said and hoped he liked that idea. We’d just been cooped up with the guys for a week, but it was strange not having them around and I had to admit I missed the camaraderie. He grinned at me knowing exactly what I was thinking just like he always did.

“Are you cooking?” he asked.

“I was thinking we could ask your parents over. Your dad is famous for his barbecue,” I said. Liam’s parents were not very involved with the band and even though he spoke fondly of them, they were never available when we invited them. They were around the same age as my parents, but they were much more introverted and so far, had only seen us play through recordings of our shows. I wanted to change that.

Liam’s hand went to the back of his neck, and he looked down at the floor. “I’m not sure. You know how they are.”

“Yes, I do. But we’re going to keep inviting them until they finally say yes.” I pulled him in for a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. “Come on then, we’ll buy enough for a small army and what we don’t cook we’ll freeze.” He smiled at me then and the two of us hurried out the door.

“I’ll invite them, but I really have no clue if they’ll show up.”

“Baby, it’s okay. Like I said, we’ll just keep inviting them. They’ll get tired of us bugging them eventually. Why don’t you see if Rory and Kai want to invite their families.” He was on the phone then sending text messages to all of our friends and family. As soon as he had sent them, he was getting replies and only stopped looking at his phone long enough to get into the passenger seat.

“Kai and Rory are in, and they’re asking their parents. Glenn is in and he’s bringing all the kids, fuck,” Liam grumbled. We all loved Glenn’s family, but his kids were crazier than the four of us were when we all got together. And there were so many of them. Every time he was home for more than a day it seemed like they’d be pregnant again. “My parents say they have other plans.” He rolled his eyes as another message came through. “Drake and Enid say hell yes free food.” We both laughed at that.

“Kai’s dad says he’ll take care of the barbecue if we buy the supplies,” I said as I glanced at my phone. “Thank god.”

“Yeah, we don’t need to call the fire department today,” Liam said, and both of us laughed again just before Liam’s phone rang. “Hello?” He put the phone on speaker so we could both hear as we continued to sit in the car.

“Liam, this is Dale. Rory invited us to go to your barbecue, but I know for a fact none of you can cook all that well. Now while Kathleen and I would love to go, neither of us want to get food poisoning. How do you feel about the two of us taking care of the food? If you want, you can go out and get some side dishes, snacks, and whatever you want to drink. We’ll go get the meat and main dishes.”

Liam looked at me and shrugged his shoulder. “Hey, Dale, this is Easy. We would LOVE to have you help us. We were just saying how we didn’t want the fire department to need to come out today.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t be good,” Dale said and laughed. “Are you going shopping?”

“Yep, we were just leaving to go to Costco. We can get the meat and everything there. I don’t want you to have to pay for it if you gotta cook it.”

“That’s fair. How about if I send you a list, would that help?”

Liam’s eyes lit up. “That would be great. Otherwise, we’ll end up spending a small fortune on a bunch of crap we’ll never use,” he said and settled his hand on my leg.

“You got it, Kathleen and I will figure it out and text it to you before you get there. Oh, and what time are you wanting to eat?” Liam and I once again stared at each other. We really were more the throw some alcohol and chips on the table and call it good, kinda people.

“How about we plan on being at your house around four and eating around six or maybe a little before that?”

“That sounds great, we’ll tell the guys to be here so they can help,” I said.

“It’s a plan, and I’ll get your list to you.”

“Thanks, man,” I said and watched as Liam hung up.

“Well, looks like we don’t have to worry about poisoning anyone,” he said with a smirk.

“Thank god for that, let’s do this.” I tried to muster up the same enthusiasm I had when we were on stage as I started the car and drove away from the house, just as a text came through.

“We got the list.” Liam smiled and waved the phone at me.