“Cary!” he shouted. “Open the door!”
“Did you see him?” I panted as I caught up. Shit, the man could run. “Did he see us?”
“I saw him. He was in the yard.”
“Oh, fuck…”
He banged on the door again. “Cary, let me in!”
“You’re gonna bruise your hand.” I wrapped my hands around his arm, gently, and stopped him. “It’s soundproofed. He can’t hear you.”
Xander looked at me, and his eyes were like bruises; a tumult of blue and gray and green. He pulled from my grasp and dug his phone out of his pocket. Then he stomped away from me, into the foyer, his phone to his ear.
I followed him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m calling him.”
I waited, sitting down on the staircase and wrapping my arms around myself.
“Fuck.” He tapped his phone, hanging up. Then he started typing like mad.
“Are you texting him?”
“Yes, I’m fucking texting him.”
I tried not to take offense at his tone. He was kind of… freaking out? I’d never seen him like this.
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” he said, not even looking up as he kept typing.
“I mean… do you think that’s a good idea? Maybe it will just upset him more? He must’ve seen you or heard you coming, if you saw him. But… he closed the door, so—”
“Yeah, he saw me,” he growled. He looked at me, and I kind of shriveled at the look on his face. I wasn’t even sure if it was really directed at me or what, but it didn’t feel good. “He saw me fucking you.”
“Xander…”
He looked at his phone again and kept typing.
“What are you texting—?”
“I’m telling him I’m leaving.”
“What?” I got to my feet.
And that’s when I noticed he had his shoes on. Why did he have shoes on?
My feet were bare.
“Why?” I said, when he didn’t respond.
He finally sent his message or whatever and tucked his phone away. “So he knows I didn’t just go right back out there and keep fucking you.”
I just stood there, my mouth kind of hanging open. It felt like he’d slapped me in the face or something. I knew he was upset about Cary maybe seeing what we were just doing—dear fucking God, I couldn’t even think about that.
But I didn’t know what to say.
What could I say?
“Maybe… do you think we should use the emergency key?” I asked him, desperate to make him stay. “Go in there and talk to him?”
“Yeah, it’s a little late for that,” he snapped. “Shit.” He turned away and made a frustrated, growling noise. “Fuck!”
Then he kicked the wall.
Then he walked right out the front door and slammed it behind himself.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Xander
I was fucking depressed. Or something.
Cary wasn’t talking to me. That much was pretty fucking clear.
It had been two days, and I hadn’t heard back from him.
I’d called him, messaged him like a hundred times.
Nothing.
Courteney had called me like a hundred times, but I didn’t pick up. I couldn’t talk to her like this.
I should’ve just left her alone in the first place.
Probably.
I couldn’t stand to be home, alone, in my apartment, for another night. Calling Cary and getting no answer.
Where I might break down and call Courteney instead…
There was a decent local band playing at the Ruby, so I went there. With Lucas. I wore a cap, pulled low, because I didn’t really want to be seen like this. But I knew a few people who were there. I did the obligatory rounds.
Definitely drank too much.
Met up with Trey, who was sober as shit, as usual.
Why would I want whiskey dick, when I could be fucking some gorgeous honey?
That was his line, the one he always used to pass on the alcohol in favor of enjoying the women in the room.
The dude had it all figured out.
And shit, did they flock to him.
There were several beautiful girls at his table in the VIP room when I found him, and I sat down next to him, ignoring them, even when he tried to introduce me.
“Help me,” I said to him, leaning into his space.
“With what?” he said, looking me over. He could probably smell the gin and desperation.
“Courteney,” I said. “The little honey’s killing me.”
His mouth opened, and maybe he was about to laugh… but then he didn’t.
He leaned over to say something to the girl next to him, then nodded to one of his guys, who mobilized to clear the girls away from our table.
I sprawled back on my couch, next to Trey’s chair, where he lounged like it was his throne. I felt like a dick cockblocking him, but fuck. I was desperate.
“Tell Dr. Jones the problem,” he said.
“I need a fucking lobotomy, Dr. Jones,” I told him, slurping my drink. “I’m obsessed with her or something. Can’t stop thinking about her. Can’t stop fucking her, either.”
“So what’s the problem?” A slow, wicked smile spread across his face. “I’m still waiting to hear the problem.”
I shook my head. “I’m falling apart or something.”
“Give me a gauge here, brother. Is this an alcohol related disaster, or is this how you feel when you aren’t stumbling drunk?”
“It actually hurts less when I’m drunk,” I said, taking another swig of my drink.
“Ah,” he said, eying me. “You fucked up.”
“Huh?”
“You fell in love with her.”
I snorted, kind of a dark, ugly laugh. “It’s got nothing to do with love.” I sat up and leaned toward him. “She was a virgin. Did you know she was a virgin?”
“Now how would I know that?”
“Larissa?”
“And why do you think Larissa would tell me that shit?”
“I dunno. She wanted me to fuck her. So she wouldn’t be a virgin anymore.”
Trey shook his head at me—like I was the biggest fucking fool in the galaxy. Then the dimples appeared in his cheeks. “Is that the line she fed you? And you believed that shit?”
“The fuck do you mean?”
“I mean, that is not why she wanted to fuck you. She wanted to fuck you, right? She definitely never asked me to punch that V-card.” He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender as he read the look on my face. “Just sayin’.”
“So… what do I do?”
“About what?”
“Told you. I can’t stop thinking about her. And yes, it’s a fucking problem.”
“Why? Why do you need to stop thinking about her? Why do you need to stop fucking her?”
“Because she was a virgin. Did you not hear me? She’s too good for me. And Cary fucking knows… It’s a whole fucking disaster.”
Trey just stared at me.
“What?”
“Naw, man,” he concluded. “You’ve just gotta be honest with yourself. About what the fuck you are. And what you want.”
“Okay. So what the fuck am I? According to her, I’m a pig and a slut.”
“Really? Who else have you been fucking?”
I just stared at him blankly. Then I slugged back the rest of my drink. “I dunno. Fucking no one.”
“You’re a wreck.” He chuckled.
“And your point would be…?
“You’re like… an emotional virgin, man. Welcome to the world of grown-ass feelings.”
“’Scuse me? Huh?” I slammed my empty glass on the table and looked around for the waitress.
“It was her first time having sex, right? But you, my man… You’re an emotional virgin,” he enunciated. I tried to listen, but what the fuck was he talking about? “It’s not thinking about her that’s got yo
u all fucked-up. It’s feeling her.” He patted his hand on my chest. “You’ve got all kinds of feelings in there that you don’t know how to deal with, huh?”
“No. No, man. It’s got nothing to do with feelings.”
“You’re obsessed with that little honey? That’s got everything to do with feelings, man. If you didn’t feel anything for her… you’d just forget her. She’s causing you way too much bullshit for you not to be feeling her.”
I shook my head, annoyed. Where was the goddamn waitress? “I’m not fucking feeling her, Trey.”
“Aww now, don’t lie to Dr. Jones while you’re lying there on my leather couch.” He grinned and sipped his water.
I flopped back on the couch. “You’re a dick. You gonna charge me for this now, too?”
“It’s simple, brother. And I’ll tell you this for free.” He leaned on his knees and looked me in the eye. “Emotional. Virginity. You’ve never been penetrated by cupid’s arrow before. Hurts like a real bitch the first time, doesn’t it?”
* * *
I woke up the next day feeling even more fucked-up.
Hungover, too.
By late afternoon, I was still lying around on my couch. Skipped meeting Trey for a workout like I was supposed to.
What the shit was that thing he said about cupid last night?
I’d never been fucked by cupid or something?
What the fuck did cupid have to do with any of this?
I kept checking my phone, but Courteney hadn’t messaged me yet today. Come to think of it, she’d gone silent sometime yesterday morning.
Stopped calling. Stopped texting.
And I really wanted her to keep calling, even if I wasn’t gonna answer.
Christ. What a fucking shit show.
I wanted to know how she was doing. I did.
I fucking cared.
A lot more than I fucking wanted to right now.
But I didn’t message her.
Just like when she was sixteen and I left town with Steel Trap… I left her the fuck alone, because it was the right thing to do.
Something told me, just like it did then, that she’d be alright. She’d be better off without me.
She’d be way the fuck better than I was doing.
Maybe because she didn’t just get fucked up the ass by cupid or whatever.
I spent the rest of the day making a vortex playlist. Ash had sent over his, along with Summer’s, Matt’s and even Danica’s. I was fucking annoyed everyone else in my new band—and even my lead singer’s girlfriend—had made one for each other and I wasn’t asked to play along.
Well, fuck them.
I made one, and I sent it to all those fuckers.
The goddamn Players.
They’d better be planning to loop me in on this shit in the future.
Summer was the first to respond, like five minutes after I sent it out.
Summer: Jesus I’m an asshole. I should’ve asked you for this long ago.
Summer: You’re an angel Xan.
Wasn’t sure how to take that, but at least I felt a little less pissed off.
Then I lay on my couch, awake, well into the fucking night, in front of the TV. Trying to convince myself that maybe I could actually pull this off.
Leave Courteney alone.
I could just let her go. My terms were fucking only, and she wasn’t down with that. She’d made that clear.
Well, too bad.
Fucking was all I had to offer. And if fucking her was gonna make me lose my best friend…
… my brother hasn’t really been my brother since I was fourteen years old.
Fuck. She was right about that.
Cary hadn’t really been my best friend since then, either.
Since Gabe died.
I mean, he still was. You know… in my heart and stuff.
Shit, this blew.
I’d just have to wish her well, and be done with it. I did care about her, so I’d wish her all the good shit in life that she deserved, and I’d go on with my life.
Xander Fucking Rush, drummer of the soon-to-be chart topping, award winning, world tour rocking Players.
Come this time next year, I’d be cutting an album with Ashley Player, Summer Sorensen, Matty Brohmer, and who knew, maybe some killer guitarist, with Brody Mason and a shit-hot record producer at the helm, and Trey Fucking Jones pumping that shit out to the world, courtesy of Brick House Records.
Hot parties and hot fangirls to follow. More than me and my dick could ever keep up with.
I’d have more than fucking plenty to keep myself busy.
Too busy to dwell on Courteney Clarke.
I’d find someone else to take care of my dick… let someone else take care of her heart.
Fuck me.
I could leave her behind. Sure.
But there’s no way I’d ever forget her.
She was part of me. Part of my life. Part of my heart, just like her fucking brother was… Like Gabe had been.
And she always would be.
How could I stand knowing her like I’d known her, being as close to her as I’d been, and not be able to touch her again?
Watch some other asshole marry her… and make perfect little babies with her or something?
Jesus.
And now she had me thinking about fucked-up shit like making babies.
This was no fucking good.
She was making me feel waaay the fuck too much.
You’ve just gotta be honest with yourself. About what the fuck you are.
Yeah, maybe.
Maybe I was just gonna have to be the asshole I was on this, and go ahead and break her heart.
Before she broke mine.
* * *
Three days.
Three fucking days I hung out at my place, alone, pretty much flat on my belly on my couch, and felt… fucking everything.
Three long days, Courteney let me get away with this shit.
She was way more mature than I gave her credit for most of the time, because she didn’t chase after me. She didn’t text me anymore or call me or send pics of her tits.
She just left me alone.
She was more mature than I was, maybe.
At least she let her feelings come screaming out before they consumed her.
I’d been so fucking careful about that… ever since the accident.
I’d battened down the hatches on my emotions for so damn long, when all this shit with Courteney and her brother finally cracked the seal… they all just came pouring out. I could see that now.
How I’d been holding onto my own feelings about everything with some kind of death grip. Shoving them back into the shadows. Picking up and moving on before that shit dragged me down, like it dragged Cary down.
And when I finally gave up and let go… all the feels just ran me right over.
So there I lay, flattened.
Sometime toward the end of day three, when I was working up my nerve to call her, tell her I was letting her go… just trying to figure out if I could talk to her without falling apart… she showed up at my door.
I buzzed her in and managed to look in the mirror. I hadn’t shaved or showered or anything. Hadn’t really looked at myself in three days.
Jesus. What a mess.
I scraped a hand through my hair and opened my door.
Courteney stood there, and to her credit, when she saw me, she didn’t recoil or anything.
She cocked her head and looked past me, into my place. At all the shit on the floor.
Actually, all the shit was… everywhere. I was usually pretty neat and clean. I’d been called a “neat freak” by some of my friends on tour. So sue me, I didn’t like dirt and mess.
But right now, everything I’d touched in the last three days was lying right where I’d left it. Dishes, food, clothes… everything. On the floor. On the kitchen counter, the dining room table, the couch. It was like I’d left a trail of couldn’t-give-a-fuck in my wake.
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And then planted myself face first on the couch, repeatedly.
Feelings blew.
Guilt and pain and regret and self-pity and self-loathing and frustration and shame and fucking fear… All the shit that ran through you, trampled right over you, when someone you loved disappeared from your life.
When one of your best friends died in a fire… and your other best friend drowned himself in the guilt and the pain and the regret, the self-pity and self-loathing and frustration, the shame and the fucking fear.
Who had the stamina for this shit?
I couldn’t take all the fucking feels anymore.
And yet… when I looked in those honey colored eyes of hers, I fucking cracked.
I had every warm and fuzzy feeling that ever existed for this girl. When she frowned at me a little, my heart fucking broke.
How could I let her go?
“Hey,” I said. My voice cracked. I hadn’t actually used it in three days. Hadn’t talked to anyone. Hadn’t seen another human being.
Unless you counted the Gilmore Girls.
I’d watched a fucking Netflix marathon, or at least kinda stared blankly at it with the sound off.
“Hey,” she said softly.
I sighed. “How the hell does Cary do this shit?” I leaned on the door, holding it open as she stepped into my place. I shut the door behind her as she kept looking around.
Then her pretty eyes landed on me again. “Um. I don’t think he actually does… this.”
True enough. I’d never seen Cary’s studio looking like this fucking disaster. He, too, was kinda compulsively neat, and I’d definitely never caught him binging on Gilmore Girls.
Courteney found a small square of kitchen counter that wasn’t covered with crap and set her purse carefully down.
“I figured I’d given you enough time for your pity party,” she said, carefully, and looked at me. “So. You finished?”
“Yeah.”
She perused the dirty dishes. The beer bottles. The takeout containers encrusted with food.
“Jeez. All you need is some sad country song playing.”
“I don’t listen to country.”
She looked at me, and just shook her head a little. I couldn’t even imagine what it was she saw right now.
Filthy Beautiful: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players #2) Page 35
