The Other Side of Wrong

by Christi Barth

  There was pressure and rhythm and Cassidy honestly couldn’t find the word to describe it because a series of explosions were relaying down her nerve endings, starting from her core and working out to every limb.

  His other hand slid inside the gaping slit on the side of her dress to knead her breast. Jake’s thumb flicked over her clit and she was gone. Ridiculously fast. Amazingly mind-blowing. Her whole body quaked. Jake crowded up against her more, so she could brace herself against his solidity as she trembled.

  And then her heart trembled when he pressed soft kisses along her temple as he withdrew his hands and straightened her skirt.

  A dry mouth had Cassidy grabbing for her drink as he pulled himself back together. She drained it in three fast gulps. Now what? Would they join the party? He probably needed to be seen tonight with Riptide.

  This cruise to nowhere was a fundraiser for music programs in D.C. schools. The organizer had invited everyone headlining in the area this week to come and be proof that an interest in music wasn’t a dead end. The last thing Cassidy wanted to do was give any false hope that every little kid would grow up to be a rock star.

  But she did know, all too well, that music could get through to kids when nothing else could. Could save them. Or give them the strength to save themselves. So, she’d not only agreed to appear, but was writing a hefty check herself.

  Plastering on her stage smile, she asked, “Should we go convince these movers and shakers to open their wallets?”

  “Yeah.” He stared at her with an unreadable, flat expression. Jake brushed his thumb along her lower lip. “I just…this was amazing, Cass.”

  “Agreed.”

  His arm dropped to his side. “It can't happen again.”

  And as he explained why, her heart broke. Not for the loss of whatever future they might’ve shared. No, her heart broke for the burden pressing down, suffocating Jake. A boulder of guilt and responsibility that sat between him and what he loved best.

  Cassidy desperately wanted to do whatever it took to lift it from him.

  She just wasn’t at all sure that he’d let her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Cam clapped Jake on the shoulder as they walked backstage with the crowd still screaming and clapping behind them. “You rocked tonight.”

  A quick shake sent sweat flying from Jake’s brow. It’d been hot under those damn spots. Even after he’d ripped off his tee shirt and flung it at the crowd. “Right back at ya.”

  It was the same thing they’d said to each other at the end of every single concert. Kind of an after-the-fact good-luck charm. The words popped out, automatic, but as much a part of finishing a gig as taking a bow after the last chord.

  This time, though, that quick back-and-forth shook Jake to his core. He stopped, putting a hand on the cinderblock wall because it actually felt like his world was reeling.

  What if he only got to hear Cam say that two more times? What if he only got to play with these guys two more times? The thought of cutting them out of his life, cutting music out of his life, was as unimaginable as cutting off an arm.

  Being faced with the reality of giving this all up was so damned hard.

  Jones jammed a shoulder against his to get him moving again. As they rounded the corner toward the green room, the applause was still audible. Not polite. Not yeah, good show, but I gotta get to my car before 14th Street turns into a parking lot.

  Applause that kept going for this long meant the crowd had a fucking experience. That they’d taken in the music like air and made it a part of them. It meant this new music they’d slaved and sweated over resonated with fans. That it worked.

  Jake slapped a hand against the top of the doorframe. “Holy shit, that was great.”

  “Yeah.” Cam nodded. “Good to know you didn’t lose your touch in those months you sat on your ass in Jersey. Jones and me, well, we were a little worried…until we remembered we had a backup if you’d lost your mojo. Because it went so well when Dylan filled in.”

  “Yeah, as well as he filled your sister too, Watson,” Jones cracked.

  Cam’s eyes narrowed to a squint. “Dude, you can’t make dirty jokes about Ariel. We laid down that rule like a decade ago.”

  He batted away Cam’s words with one hand like they were an insignificant gnat. Then Jones headed straight for the metal tub of ice and beer. “I figured that ban was lifted when she started sleeping with our keyboard sub. I still love her to death, but c’mon—she posted a dick pic of Dylan on the Internet.”

  “No, all she did was take it. Her boss stole it and posted it.”

  “I still get to make jokes for a month. After that it’ll be nothing but full-blown respect, I swear.”

  Part of Jake wanted to know what the hell was the story with Ariel. Last he’d heard, she was a workaholic publicist for a big label. This sounded…interesting. And yes, joke-worthy.

  But the bigger part of Jake couldn’t get past Cam’s teasing remark. Couldn’t accept it as their usual I love you like a brother so I’m gonna poke at you ’til you blister banter.

  He stopped, mid-reach for the stack of towels on the edge of the sink. And asked the scariest question ever. “Did you offer Dylan my spot? Permanently?”

  “How could I do that? Seeing as how I didn't know you'd given it up.” Cam crowded up right in front of him, crossed arms pushing against Jakes sweaty chest. “Is that what this is? Are you giving two weeks’ notice while our chords are still fucking echoing in this hall?” His voice got louder by the end. Loud like his mic had died and he was still trying to project to all seven-hundred people in the audience.

  “No.” His hand fisted around the towel, wishing it was something harder that would make a crunching noise as he bore down. It was impossible to even look at his bandmates. The residual high of performing again drained away so fast that he almost got dizzy.

  Jake wasn’t ready for this conversation. Even though he knew that Cam had every right to push him into it. “I don't know,” he ground out between clenched teeth.

  “That’s not good enough,” Cam shouted.

  Jones abandoned his beer to stand between them, arms outstretched to push them a couple of paces apart. “Hey, bring it down to a mezzo forte, okay? The last thing we need as we’re closing in on our shot at being signed is someone out in the hall hearing this fight and posting all over the Internet that Riptide is breaking up.”

  With a jerky nod of understanding, Cam continued in a flat, quiet voice. “What happens after we finish the next two concerts, Jake? Will you run back to Jersey to cover for the dad who never once supported you? Or will you stay with us and fight for Riptide’s future?”

  “Hell, for all I know, we won't get picked up by a label.”

  Shit.

  That was the wrong thing to say. It was the desperate to change the conversation thing to say. But mostly, it was hurtful, not at all true, and so not helpful. It wasn’t like pouring gasoline on a fire. It was like turning a volcano upside down and shaking hot lava onto a fire.

  Jake wished like hell he could reel the words back in. Or that Cam, his best friend, knew him well enough to know that he regretted them.

  From the way Cam’s eyes flared wide, he wasn’t in an empathetic mood. “Is that what you really want, Jake? The easy way out?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “You want us to fucking fail? To spend all this time, work so hard, pour all this money into this tour and just fail? So that you don’t have to grab your sac and stand up to your father?”

  “That’s not what—”

  A slash of Cam’s hand through the air cut him off. “Don’t bother trying to explain. You’ve got a choice to make. Which is messed up to even say, because I thought you chose Riptide way back when we dropped out of college together to start it.”

  He yanked open the door and slammed it hard behind him.

  “He’s pissed at you,” Jones said, unnecessarily.

  “Yeah. I got that memo loud and clear.�
��

  “He’s not the only one.” Grabbing another beer, he followed Cam out the door.

  Jake buried his face in the towel. Welcome back to the band, he thought. All he’d wanted for two months was to be back here, with his best friends, doing what he loved.

  And he’d fucked it all up.

  Jake climbed the burgundy carpeted stairs. Which matched the few inches of burgundy wall he could see between the floor to ceiling artwork. The Mansion on O Street was a famous mansion/hotel/hideaway for rock stars, politicians, and even—supposedly—spies. Above all else, though, it was filled to the brim with oddities. Everything from a Miss USA crown to a signed John Lennon letter. Cool if you wanted to chill and wander. Not cool when you just wanted to slam into your room and forget this night happened.

  “Hi there.”

  The sex kitten purr had Jake jerking his head up. At the top of the stairs, more beautiful than any of the paintings on the wall, stood Cassidy. Not in her sexy, glittery concert dress, but in yoga pants and a tank top with unicorns on it.

  If anything could drag him out of this crap mood, it was her.

  Except, of course, the fact that blue balls would probably make the night worse. Cassidy, bra-less and in sleepwear fired up about a dozen fantasies. None of which Jake could follow through on with his band mates somewhere in this crazy warren of rooms.

  Excitement at seeing her, however, did have Jake taking the last half-flight of stairs two at a time. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve got a room, just like Riptide. I’m playing with you guys now, so I go where you go.”

  “But you didn’t stay for our half of the concert.” He’d noticed. His eyes had been glued to Cassidy for every song. But as soon as the stagehands started switching up the equipment for Riptide, she’d vanished.

  “Oh, but I did. I hid in the lobby and watched through a cracked door. I didn’t want to be a distraction on your first night back in the saddle, so to speak.”

  That was more thoughtful than he deserved. Jake lobbed back some naked honesty. “I looked for you,” he said in a low voice, outstretched fingers trailing against hers.

  “I couldn’t take my eyes off of you,” Cassidy admitted. “Seeing you perform in person is electric. It made me exhausted and energized at the same time. You played a hell of a set.”

  “Thanks.” Her praise felt real. More real even than the in-the-moment applause. Because Cassidy wasn’t just a fan, caught up in the excitement of a live show. She knew music. Knew if he hit a clinker of a wrong note, or if he cut off too soon. “Don’t suppose you can help me find my room?”

  “We’re all in the same house.” She lifted their now joined hands to point at a full-length mirror. “You’re just one secret door away from your bed.”

  “How far away is that from Cam’s?” Jake muttered as she pulled on the ornate frame to reveal a doorway into a connected rowhouse.

  “Cam’s?” Cassidy’s already arched brows shot up. “Not mine? What’s up with that?”

  They went down two steps, and then back up four into another hallway, this one wider but still cluttered. “Sorry—but I’m guessing your ego can take the dent.”

  “If necessary.” Putting one hand on his cheek, she asked softly, “Did something happen with Cam?”

  “We had a fight.” It took all of Jake’s control not to lean into her touch. It was more soothing than four ibuprofens chased with a shot of tequila. “After the show. It got bad—and it didn’t really get finished,” he realized. Huh.

  “About what?”

  “I had a great time on stage tonight. So great that I worried if they’d offered Dylan my spot. And I made the mistake of asking that question.” He saw his door with the funny handle and hustled forward to unlock it. The hall wasn’t the greatest place to unload this conversation.

  Her eyes popped open wider than an anime character. “Your spot? Did you quit Riptide?”

  “Funny, that’s exactly what Cam asked. Which is when everything fell to shit.”

  Cassidy toed the door shut with her sneaker. Then she crossed her arms, facing Jake. “But did you quit?”

  “No.” He scrubbed his hand through his hair. Talking to Cassidy about this was a million times easier than talking to Cam. It was still tough, though. And yet, good to get out of his head and bounce off of another person…who wasn’t ready to jump down his throat if he said the wrong thing. “Not yet, anyway. I might have to.” Thank God the weird couch was right behind him, because it was too damn hard to stand anymore with the weight of all this pressing down on him 24/7. “I don’t fucking know. That’s the truth.”

  She sat down next to him and started rubbing his forearm, up and down in slow strokes. It was heaven. “What happened when you explained?”

  “It came out all wrong.” Jake fell back against the cushions. “All I did was make things worse. Which I would’ve said six hours ago was impossible.”

  Curling her feet under her, Cassidy snuggled into his side. “Rough re-entry into Riptide-land?”

  “The trouble is, we were in the middle of a fight when I left, two months ago.” Jake curled his arm around her. Cassidy fit there as well as if they’d done this a hundred times at the end of a hard day. “Hell, we’d been in one for six months before that. Not like we were sniping at each other every day or couldn’t work. Most of the time everything was great. Until it wasn’t.”

  “Because…” she prompted.

  “Because I’m still mad at Cam screwing us over.” It almost came as a surprise to Jake. He hadn’t dwelled on it, or even though about it since going on hiatus. He’d been too miserable missing Riptide to remember any of the bad stuff. But being back tonight, fighting with Cam and getting the even worse I’m disappointed in you treatment from Jones? It bubbled his lingering resentment to the surface. “Do you know the story behind the suckage that was Triangulation?”

  Her nose crinkled. Adorably. “Rumors. Gossip. Probably not anywhere close to the truth.”

  Jake didn’t talk to anyone about this. Not when it happened, and they were reeling. Not when they worked their asses off in a cabin in the middle of nowhere to come up with a fix. Not during this tour that was their last chance.

  Partly because he was loyal as fuck and would never throw Cam under the bus to anyone who’d repeat it. He trusted very few people in the music biz to keep their mouths shut around a nugget of gossip this huge. And partly because Cam and Jones were his closest friends, so who the hell else could he unload to?

  But Cassidy…she was trustworthy. Because she sat on the same tiny pedestal of rock stardom. That meant she understood the need for absolute discretion.

  God, it would feel so good to finally get it all off his chest. Jake stared across the room at a funky lamp. “If Cam comes out looking like an idiot, it’s closer than you think. He slept with a woman from the label.”

  “Um, last I heard, no label requires their rock stars to be celibate. Talk about an impossible-to-enforce contract clause. It’d take the ‘sex’ out of their decades old ‘sex sells’ marketing plan.”

  Jake shook his head. “This time around, they used sex to sell Cam on a shitty plan. They wanted to push us in a new direction. A fake sound, something they thought was trendy and hot, but we knew it was crap. Not Riptide’s thing at all. Suzy slept with Cam long enough to convince him the new sound was the way to go. That it was good business. He talked me and Jones into it, against our instincts and significantly better judgment.”

  “Oh, no.” Her hands flew to her mouth.

  “She dumped him the minute we stopped recording. Advance reviews were almost as shitty as the songs deserved. It flopped. And just like that, we were has-beens. An embarrassment. And our label wouldn’t back us to try another new sound, one that would fix everything and put us back on top.”

  In the past, Jake would’ve vaulted off the sofa and headed for the liquor cabinet to wash the taste of that story from his mouth. Tonight, though? He was content to sit, a
bsently stroking his fingers through Cassidy’s silky-soft hair.

  “I’m…shocked. At his stupidity. As musicians, we’re artists first, before performers. We have to trust our gut. Nobody else. Because the music that we craft is a part of us.”

  That. Exactly that. Word for word. Cassidy summed up so succinctly what he’d messed up with long strings of swear words every time he’d yelled at Cam. Smiling down at her, Jake asked, “Where were you a year ago when I needed to hear that?”

  “Touring New Zealand, I think.”

  “Smartass.”

  “Isn’t that what first attracted you to me? Oh, wait...it was my actual ass.”

  “I think that’s a chicken or the egg sort of thing.” Smiling—which was a nice change from how he’d stormed into the Mansion—Jake stood to pace. There wasn’t much room for it, but he didn’t need to be thinking about Cassidy’s ass when he was close enough to touch it. “The bottom line is that Cam knows he screws up. Nobody feels that pain and bitterness more than Cam does. But because of how much he took the blame upon himself, I never unleashed all of my anger onto him.”

  “Do you want to? Just yell at him? Reduce him to a quivering, abject, pile of stammering apologies?”

  It’d be a lot easier if he could get it over with like that. Except… “Nah. It wouldn’t fix anything. Cam sure as hell couldn’t feel any worse. I guess I never got to vent all my mad out about how he screwed us over, though. Snarky comments every couple of weeks didn’t do the trick.”

  “Is that what this hiatus was partially about? You're pouting?”

  Pulling his eyebrows together until he swore they touched, Jake growled, “Hell, no. I’m a big, studly man. I’ve never pouted a day in my life.”

  “Oh, my apologies.” Cassidy winked at him. “Stud.”

  He rubbed just above the bridge of his nose, where it felt like an emotional headache had been growing for months. Just under the surface. Like those zits that hurt like crazy but wouldn’t erupt.

  “But I won't have to make the hard decision about whether or not to leave Riptide if we don't get picked up by a label. Which comes back around to all of this being Cam’s fault. So, I’m pissed. But I can’t tell him.”