Had Bryan actually turned her down? I could hardly believe it.
“He’s a player, Lace.” I zeroed in on that, knowing it would hurt her.
I was a bastard, but I was her bastard. I was keeping her. I’d crush my best friend, crush whoever, do whatever I needed to do to keep her.
“He played you like he plays all of them. Bored with his usual. Curious about you, probably. If you think things are different, march up there and ask him for clarification.”
Or better yet, an idea took root and grew like an ugly weed in the unholy soil inside my mind. I’d told her numerous times that Bryan wasn’t the innocent boy she once knew. Tonight, I’d show her.
“I don’t need to ask,” she mumbled, her head still down.
“Okay then.” I wedged my ringed thumb under her chin and lifted her head. “We mark this down as experimentation. One never to be repeated with him or any other guy. You feel me?”
I felt like a pussy for allowing her a pass. But way back at the beginning of us, she’d given me one. Soon, I’d make sure her story jibed with his before I beat the ever-loving shit out of him.
“Yes, I feel you.”
I removed my thumb, took her hand, and led her up to the street level. Walking together, yet working our way around other pedestrians on the sidewalk, we reached the club without incident or any further talking. I assumed she was reeling inside like I was. The glances I’d shot her way seemed to confirm my assumption.
Inside the club, there was no sign of Bryan or the others, but her brother was at the bar, an untouched tumbler of whiskey beside his clenched hand. Somehow the bartenders on duty always slid him his preferred drink when he arrived, even though he was underage.
“Hey,” Dizzy said too casually, taking us in. “Looks like you two sorted it out.” His mouth formed a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
I got it. Dizzy was worried for his sister, and for the band. He had everything riding on the future of Tempest, just like the rest of us.
“Bry in the dressing room?” I asked.
“Yeah, said to tell you he’s waiting for you. King and Sager took off to grab a bite. I told ’em sound check was off. Am I right?”
“Fuck yeah.” Releasing Lace’s hand, I moved in front of her. “Stay with your brother. I’m gonna have a word with Bry, then I’ll come back and have a few more with you.”
“War,” she called, before I’d taken more than a few steps away from her.
“Yeah?” I turned back to look at her.
“Don’t, um, hurt him, okay?” She twisted her hands.
“Babe, he’s my best friend. You’re my woman. You fucked up, and he fucked up. Don’t make it any worse.”
Nodding, she dropped her gaze.
My anger returning full force, I stomped past empty leather booths and skirted around cocktail tables by the stage with the chairs turned upside down on top of them. I hit the back hallway, feeling a little upside down myself as I pushed open the dressing room door, and my best friend turned to face me.
“She okay?” he asked. Not backing down from my wrath, Bryan met me in the middle of the small room.
“She’s with Dizzy. Talk. I want to hear what happened from your mouth before I bust you wide open for touching her.”
“I kissed her.”
“You more than kissed her. You tasted her. I saw you, Bry. That was no chaste lip touch. Don’t bullshit me.”
“Yeah, okay. Fucking hell.” His gaze on me, he raked a hand through his hair. “I have feelings for her, man. You know I do. But she’s with you, and so I have no play. I tried to explain that to her, but she was upset. I don’t like seeing her upset.”
Neither the fuck did I. But I didn’t know fuck-all about comforting her, because when the fuck had anyone ever comforted me?
“A kiss, a taste. It went too far. But only to that point.” He lifted his chin and beckoned me. “Bring it. I deserve it. I fucked up.”
I was a mean motherfucker and he deserved it, so I gave it. Choices had consequences. Cause and effect, a Southside specialty.
Bryan felt me when I finished. But I wasn’t nearly through.
Lace
“What the hell was that, Lace?” Dizzy asked, shaking his head at me.
“I love him,” I said simply. To me, that explained it all. Besides Bryan, my brother was the only other person I could share that truth with before I had to bury it.
Bryan had kissed me, and yes, it had been as amazing as I’d imagined. But he hadn’t returned the words, and he’d walked away afterward. It obviously hadn’t been a transcendent experience for him.
“But he doesn’t love me,” I said quickly to clarify. “He’s honorable. He’s loyal to War, even though I practically threw myself at him.” I rubbed the center of my chest where the hurt continued to burn.
“Okay, if you say so.” Dizzy gave me a quizzical look. “Do you want a drink?”
I started to say no. Growing up with a mother like ours, I’d never seen the allure in drinking. But I nodded, taking a big sip from the tumbler he slid my way. It tasted nasty, but I needed the liquid courage. I’d put Bryan in that situation, thinking there was something between us worth risking the current storm raining shit on all of us.
I took several sips as Dizzy reached over the bar, grabbed an empty tumbler, and filled it with the same amber liquid. The hurt-burn inside my chest had just started to give way to the medicinal flames of the alcohol when Dizzy spoke again.
“You sticking with War?”
I nodded.
“You love him too?” he asked softly.
“Yeah, Diz. I just . . . it’s different. They’re different.”
For War, affection and anger were linked. I didn’t know if it were even possible for him to extract one without losing the other.
For Bryan, there was anger too, but also tenderness. If the right woman came along—obviously, not me—he would do everything in his power, not just to have her but to shower her with his affection and keep her safe.
Dizzy put his hand over mine. “Then you trust War to do right by you?”
“He has for the past year.” I slid my hand away and took another sip of courage. “It’s me that screwed up tonight, not him.”
“Not asking whether or not you trust him not to step out on you.” Dizzy frowned, his eyebrow piercing catching and reflecting the light from the pendant hanging over the bar. “Do you trust him when it comes to the band? We both know how he is, and I remember him cutting you out of it without much cause once before. Now with this, that doesn’t seem like a good precedent.”
“You think he might try to manipulate my affection? Dangle my place in the band in exchange for doing what he wants me to do. Is that it?”
Dizzy nodded somberly, and War reappeared as if conjured.
“C’mon.” He stomped right to me. His expression and his eyes dark, he grabbed my arm. “Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Dizzy said. “What’s going on?”
“I’m taking my woman out. You got a problem with me, Lowell?”
My brother’s words and the warning in them rang in my ears. It wasn’t only my position in Tempest that could be lost because of my choices.
“It’s okay, Diz,” I said. “I know what I’m doing.” But suddenly, I wasn’t so sure. The man who held me seemed more an agent of wrath than a solicitous boyfriend.
“I hope so, Lace.” The crease between my brother’s brows deepened.
“No show tonight,” War said, his dark tone matching his expression. “Bry’s in no condition to play, and I have some things I need to get straight with Lace.”
I dug deep for my attitude. Finding it, I brandished it once we were through the club and outside. “What things might those be?”
“It’s time to make you mine. But before I do, I think you need to see the world around you a lot more clearly.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my eyesight,” I said, hurrying to keep up with his long strides.
“You have a limited perspective. My fault, not yours. I used to think it was cute.” War gave me a disapproving look. “Your innocent schoolgirl facade. But you’re not a girl anymore, and you’re not innocent, just uneducated.”
I frowned. “Just because I haven’t done all the things you have doesn’t mean I’m uneducated in the ways of the world. It just means I’m not jaded by them like you are.”
“We’ll revisit this discussion later,” War said cryptically.
• • •
Later, revisiting wasn’t necessary, and it came way too soon.
Inside Kyle’s apartment, I wasn’t so far from our school, which I only thought was rough; or from my uncle’s place, which I only thought was inhospitable; or from my boyfriend, who I only thought was dangerous.
Here, War was rough without any soft edges, inhospitable to the point of nearly being cruel, and so dangerous, no one made eye contact with him unless he made it first.
“She’s a pretty one.” The second dealer War introduced me to gave me the same leering once-over the other one had. “Martin likes blondes.”
“I don’t give a fuck about Martin Skellin’s fetishes,” War said. “She’s my girlfriend. He can like her all he wants. He just can’t touch.”
Liking that he seemed to be defending me after I screwed up, I scooted closer to his side.
“War, old buddy.” Sniffing and rubbing his nose, Kyle joined us.
I’d seen him when we entered his apartment. It was impossible to ignore a bunch of guys, him being one of them, doing lines of coke off a naked brunette who was lying on the coffee table. She was still there, letting guys flick their cigarettes on her like she was an ashtray.
Why would any woman sink that low?
“I’d be more careful about spouting absolutes regarding Martin in front of Gary if I were you, War,” Kyle said, tipping his head toward the leering dealer.
“I’m not a blabber, you douchebag.” Sneering now rather than leering, Gary suddenly produced a blade.
“You’re such a hothead.” Kyle didn’t even blink at the knife. His pupils probably couldn’t get any smaller if he did. “Put that sticker away, Gary. This is a party. Find a girl and party. No disrespect. Just good times, tonight. ’Kay?”
“Okay.” Gary closed the blade and pocketed it.
“Good man.” Kyle patted him on the back as he turned away. “Ready to go upstairs?” he asked War after only a brief scan to acknowledge me.
“Fuck yeah,” War said.
My heart sank. I didn’t think upstairs would be better than downstairs. Unfortunately, I was right.
“It smells bad up here,” I whispered to War, gripping his hand tighter. I’d had a death grip on him since we’d traversed the maze of blitzed-out heroin junkies on the stairs.
“Didn’t notice. More accepting of my surroundings, I guess,” he said roughly, pulling me with him into a narrow bathroom with two vanities.
“What’s your poison going to be tonight?” Kyle asked, his back to us while he opened a cabinet door. Withdrawing a large ziplock bag, he turned and set it on the rusted countertop between the sinks with a flourish like it was a gift. It was colorful like a gift. The large bag contained a bunch of smaller ones filled with pills grouped together by color.
“What’s in there that’s good?” War asked, peering with more than a little interest at the bag.
“Uppers, downers, the usual. Got coke in the bedroom.” Kyle glanced at me. “If you want it, it’s all yours.”
“I don’t do drugs,” I said firmly and tugged on War’s arm. “You made your point. Take me home.”
“Your uncle’s place isn’t home, and you know it. It’s a temporary accommodation, same as mine.” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re home when you’re with me.”
“It doesn’t feel like home,” I said, but as soon as I made the statement, it rang false.
Kyle’s apartment was eerily similar, not in layout, but in goings-on to the one Dizzy and I’d shared with our mother. I only thought I’d put that world behind me, but it had been there all along, lurking in the periphery. Just because I chose not to peer into the darkness anymore didn’t mean the darkness didn’t remain.
“I see you’re feeling me.” War met my gaze in the mirror, holding it captive. When I nodded, he turned to Kyle. “Maybe another day. I’ll take you up on the bag of treats and the bedroom.”
“Your choice. Whatever you want, man.”
“Thanks.” War clapped him on the back, then turned to me. “Go on out. Back into the hall, babe.” He jerked his chin the way we’d come in. “Space is too narrow for anything but single file. You first.”
“Okay,” I said, not entirely sure that was true. It would just be a tight squeeze.
A couple was nearly having sex in the hallway in front of me. War had to have seen them, and I believed he meant for me to see them too.
My forward momentum came to a stumbling halt when I realized it wasn’t just any couple. It was Bryan and Missy.
“You pretend I’m him,” Bryan said to her gruffly. “I’ll pretend the way I do. No talking. It works that way.”
He yanked her skirt up and turned her against the wall. Her back was to him, and his was to me, his jeans and boxers down around his knees. His ass was tight, round, and so perfect.
I flushed and must have gasped, even as my stomach lurched to my throat.
Missy turned her head, looking over her shoulder at me as Bryan sucked on her neck. She narrowed her ice-blue eyes. “What’s your problem, Lace?”
Unable to speak, I just stared. If I could, I would have begged the ground to swallow me up whole.
Bryan turned his head, and one of his beautiful gray-green eyes widened. The other was nearly swollen shut. He had a cut on his cheek and another on his mouth, probably from War’s rings.
I noted those things as if from a distance, as if I were floating and looking down at myself.
But I was no longer floating in safe and known waters. I was in a vacuum without any air.
War
Lace was mad and wouldn’t talk to me. I think she suspected that I had a hand in orchestrating the scene with Missy and Bryan, and she was right.
It seemed like the right kind of justice, her getting the same type of unexpected blow I’d had seeing her and Bryan on the beach. It was a Southside fairy-tale ending. Or it would be, eventually. Because Lace no longer thought Bryan’s shit didn’t stink.
Another benefit? She now knew life wasn’t fair. She’d grow up, set aside her crush on Bryan, and we would move on. Well, we’d move on when I returned as the biggest man on campus and took her to prom.
King grinned. “This limo es muy genial.” It’s very cool.
“Sweeter than the taxi we had to take to SFO after those assholes at Zenith lowballed us,” Sager said, exchanging a commiserative glance with King across the aisle.
Dizzy and Bryan were on the other side of them, up by the driver. As far away as they could get from me, and totally uncommunicative.
Not everyone approved of the way I’d handled the situation with Lace. But so what if there were a few minor difficulties to sort out?
Tempest was an emerging rock band with two major labels courting us. After jumping through hoops at two home offices, we were now cut loose in LA with a $250,000 offer from Zenith and a $300,000 offer from RCA. That was a potential $50,000 to $60,000 for each of us, including Dizzy and Bryan. Money enough for them to get over it.
“We’re going to a strip club tonight,” King said, making eye contact with me. “You wanna come with?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sounds like fun.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Dizzy asked, speaking to me for the first time since I brought his sister back to him in pieces at his uncle’s place. “Lace gets wind of it, she’s not gonna like it, and she’s already pissed at you.”
“It’s not me she’s really pissed at.” I caught and held Bryan’s gaze. The swelling
around his eye had gone down. He didn’t look so scary anymore, just miserable.
“I’ll go,” Dizzy muttered.
“You going, Bry?” I asked, extending an olive branch, but he glared back at me like he wanted to beat me over the head with it.
“No.”
“Suit yourself.” I put on my shades and leaned my head back. It was only a couple of miles to our hotel, some swanky place on Bellaire. A couple of miles didn’t seem far. But the driver had told us it would take at least forty-five minutes to get there.
The distance between my best friend and me wasn’t that far either, but if $60,000 and strippers couldn’t put him in a better mood, it might take a lot longer to regain Bryan’s friendship than I’d anticipated.
• • •
Lace
A text from my brother popped up on my phone, and I replied.
Dizzy: How you holding up?
Lace: Same, Diz. Don’t fuss.
Dizzy: Worried about you.
I sighed and leaned my head back against my pillow in my room, hot tears leaking from my eyes. He’d worry more if I told him the truth.
I crushed the paper in my grip. It could wait until he and the others returned from LA. Dizzy had kept me in the loop. I knew because of him that no final decision between RCA and Zenith had been made without me. We had serious offers from both labels, though RCA’s offer was higher.
I hadn’t spoken to War directly. He’d left me a couple of voice mails, saying we’d discuss the specifics of the offers after prom. He’d dropped a few hints that made me think there was something in the contracts that I wouldn’t like. I figured I was getting a smaller cut than the guys. That pissed me off, but what leverage did I have? I needed whatever I could get, now more than ever.
There wouldn’t be any scholarship.
I sniffed back the rest of my tears. Tears that happened in private didn’t count, especially when everything in your life went to shit.
Needing to wash my face, I got up and went out into the hall. Then I was going to call Chad. I needed to talk this through with someone who was in my corner. He’d once been there for me. Surely, he could be again.
SOUTHSIDE HIGH: Rockstar Enemies to Lovers Romance (Tempest World Book 1) Page 23
