by Tracy Wolff
Poppy gasped at her father’s callous words, and it took every ounce of strength she had not to hurl something back at him. But she wasn’t here as the label’s marketing director—or as Bill Germaine’s daughter. She was here as a lowly social media expert who needed to keep her mouth shut.
Still, she couldn’t help easing forward some, as if putting her body between Wyatt and the computer screen would somehow shield him from her father’s attack.
Jared must have had the same thought, because suddenly he was there, too. “Wyatt doesn’t do drugs,” he grated out. “Not anymore.”
“Fuck this shit,” Quinn snarled at the same time, yanking out his cell phone. “I’m calling our lawyers.”
“He just got out of rehab,” Ryder said, as Quinn started scrolling through his contacts. “You need to give him a chance, Bill. He can handle this—”
“Let me be very clear here. I don’t need to do anything,” her father said. “I have lawyers of my own, and we’ve already let a huge breach of contract slide because Caleb wanted to show you guys that we believed in you. But Wyatt’s addiction is a liability. It cost this label a lot of money and it can’t be allowed to happen again. The insurance company and I both need some reassurances—”
“You already got your reassurances,” Quinn told him, and he looked colder and more frightening than she had ever seen him. Even in concert, he was the jokester. The one who kept things light. But as he stared down her father there was none of that lightness in him. Instead, there was only rage. “And you’ll get triple whatever money you lost with this tour.”
“Yeah,” Jared agreed. “We settled this nearly two months ago. Nothing has changed.”
Her father didn’t back down. Instead he lowered his eyebrows in that way that told her he was digging in his heels and preparing to be a total jerk. Not that he had to try very hard at either—the stubborn jackass gene was strong in him. “I’ll only get my money back if this tour actually goes ahead as scheduled.” He shifted his gaze to Wyatt. “And so far I have to say I’ve seen nothing that encourages me to believe that will be the case. Everything about Wyatt Jennings is a construct or a lie. Why should this whole rehab thing—his third time in rehab, by the way—be any different?”
“You want me to quit?” Wyatt asked, his voice hoarse but steady.
“Of course not—” Caleb started, but again her father interrupted him.
“That’s exactly what I want you to do.” He stared Wyatt down. “It’s what you’re good at, isn’t it? Better you quit now than in two months when it costs me tens of millions of dollars.”
“The fuck is going on here?” Ryder demanded, his face livid.
“Look,” their manager interjected. “This is getting out of control. Let’s everybody cool off and we can reschedule—”
“Fine.” Wyatt interrupted him with a shrug. “If that’s what you want, then I’m out.”
Poppy turned to stare at him in open-mouthed horror. As did the guys in the band. Wyatt couldn’t quit—he just couldn’t. His playing was the backbone of the whole band. He set the rhythm, created the drum fills that had helped make them famous. Their sound would be totally off without him. It would be—
“Fuck you,” Quinn roared. “You aren’t quitting.”
“This is total bullshit.” Jared slammed his fist down on the kitchen table. “And it isn’t happening.”
“If you quit, we all quit,” Ryder told him. “And then Bill will never get his lost revenue back.”
It was exactly what Poppy had expected them to say—she knew this band. Knew how they felt and knew how they operated. They had kicked Micah out because he had betrayed them. But Wyatt’s addiction was something else entirely. They’d stood by him the last three months, and they would stand by him now, no matter what. Her father wasn’t loyal to anything but his bottom line, so he didn’t understand that kind of allegiance. Even after the guys had ponied up fifty percent of the insurance deductible themselves, he still thought strong-arming them was going to work.
Sure enough, her father started blustering as soon as the guys lost their shit, going on about contracts and lawyers and ruining them. Their manager was talking just as fast, threatening legal action against the label if they forced Wyatt to quit.
And Wyatt…Wyatt just stood there, shoulders hunched, hands shoved deep in his pockets. Looking for all the world like a guy who had just lost everything. Like a guy who’d thought he didn’t have anything left to lose.
Taking matters into her own hands, since she and Caleb were the ones who were going to have to fix this mess, she walked over to the laptop and tried to once again catch her brother’s eye. She couldn’t end this farce of a meeting and still keep her cover, but he could. More, he needed to.
He must have seen the look on her face, because he responded with a quick, “Let’s take a few minutes and then reconvene after everyone’s had a chance to cool off a little.” Then he was logging off the call and taking her father with him.
As the teleconference dropped, the sudden silence was overwhelming. At least until Jared turned to Wyatt and demanded, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Chapter Nine
He didn’t know what he was doing. Didn’t have a fucking clue, in fact. He just knew that it felt like what was left of his world had just come crashing down around his ears.
Had he really just quit the band?
Had he really just quit the only thing in his life that made any fucking sense at all?
His gut churned like he’d been on a week-long bender, and for a second he was sure he was going to be sick all over Quinn’s cherry wood floor. But in the end, he managed to swallow the sick down as he stared blankly at his feet and tried to figure out what the fuck he was supposed to do now.
The only problem was, he didn’t even know where to start. He was lost. Completely fucking lost without the band. Without his identity as the drummer of Shaken Dirty. Without these guys who had stood by him through so fucking much.
And so, in the end, he didn’t answer Jared’s question. He didn’t say anything at all, in fact, except for a mumbled “Sorry.” And then he was out the door before he lost it completely.
He walked in a quick, straight line away from the studio, beating a hasty retreat until he’d put some distance between himself and the back of the main house. When he got to the beginning of the large copse of trees that shielded the back acre of Quinn’s property from the dwellings—and the dwellings from curious fans who’d managed to sneak or talk their way onto the island—he leaned against the closest tree and reached for his cigarettes. He needed something—anything—to concentrate on besides the craving crawling through his veins like poison. Or salvation.
He found Poppy’s lollipop instead and that—that was what finally made him lose it. That was what finally put a crack in the composure he’d been trying so fucking hard to hold on to.
He hurled the damn candy away from him as hard as he could, watched as it slammed into a tree about a hundred feet away before falling harmlessly to the forest floor.
It wasn’t enough, wasn’t close to being enough. He whirled around, started to pound his fist into the nearest tree. Only the thought of the damage it would do to his hands—to his ability to play music—had him pulling his punch at the last minute.
But then he remembered that it didn’t matter, that he wasn’t Shaken Dirty’s drummer anymore. And he slammed his fist straight into the tree’s trunk.
Pain reverberated though his hand and up his arm as his knuckles split open under the force of the impact. He didn’t give a shit. In fact he relished the pain because it took the place of the cravings—and the anguish that was slowly ripping him apart. Desperate for the emotional numbness, he pulled his arm back, prepared to hit the tree again.
Except this time, he didn’t get the chance. Because suddenly Poppy was there, her cool hands wrapping around his arm. Staying the punch. Freezing him in place.
“Stop!” she
told him, her voice low, firm, and more compassionate than he deserved. “You’ll destroy your hands if you keep that up.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said with a shrug, pulling his arm from her grasp and turning away.
“It does matter,” she answered. “It will always matter. You’re a drummer—”
“I was a drummer. Now I’m—” He broke off, not knowing what to say or how to even complete the sentence. Being a drummer was everything to him. It was his whole identity, his whole life, and if he wasn’t one anymore, then he didn’t know what the fuck he was.
Except an addict. He’d always be one of those, wouldn’t he?
He wanted to deny it, wanted to pretend it wasn’t true. But it was. He knew it was. Just like he knew if he could get his hands on a gram of smack right now, he’d do it all. Smoke it, shoot it, fuck, at this point he’d snort the shit up his fucking nose. Anything to get away from himself for a while—to get out of the skin that hadn’t fit right for as long as he could remember.
He closed his eyes at the thought, flexed his hand, tried to concentrate on the pain. On the cravings. On anything, on everything, but the past he couldn’t take back. The mistakes he couldn’t get away from unless he was so far gone on drugs and booze that he barely knew his own name.
It didn’t work.
Then again, no fucking surprise there. He’d been trying to perfect that trick since he was a kid and it had never fucking worked. Would never work. He was stuck in his own head until all the bullshit he couldn’t leave behind finally destroyed him once and for all.
He pulled back his arm, determined to hit the tree again and again—to break himself against it until there was nothing else to concentrate on but the pain. But in the end, he couldn’t do it, not in front of Poppy. Not when she was standing right in front of him, her face pale and her big, brown eyes wide and worried.
He couldn’t stand it—couldn’t stand the way she was looking at him, like she was afraid he was going to fall to pieces at any moment. Couldn’t stand the idea of losing it in front of her and looking totally pathetic. And he definitely, definitely couldn’t stand her pity—or the fear he saw lurking deep in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he told her, finally breaking the long moments of silence that stretched out between them. “I didn’t mean to lose it like that.”
“You didn’t,” she answered.
As one they looked down at his bruised and swollen knuckles. “Yeah. Right.”
She took his hand then, rubbed her thumb gently over the back of it. “It’s okay,” she soothed. Her voice was soft—gentle—and he could tell she was trying her best not to spook him. Almost like he was the deer and she the hunter.
Because he didn’t like that analogy—or the kernel of truth to be found in it—he reached forward and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her toward him.
She came, but it was obvious she was wary. Nervous. He wondered if she regretted coming after him. If she wished she’d sent someone else.
He wouldn’t blame her if she did. God knew, even he wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have to be. He’d spent most of his life wanting to shed his skin like a snake. To leave behind who he was and start over as someone new.
Someone better.
Someone who hadn’t fucked up everything he’d ever touched.
No way would he pick himself if he had the choice. Not in a million years.
And yet, even as he told himself that, he didn’t let her go. He couldn’t, not yet.
Not when her body felt so soft and warm against his arm. And not when her chest was rising and falling so rapidly, her full breasts straining against the soft cotton of her hot pink tank top. If he moved, just a little, her nipples would brush against his chest.
Because he couldn’t resist the temptation of that, he did, taking that last little step that closed the gap between them completely.
She gasped, her eyes growing even wider as his body pressed against hers from chest to thigh.
“You okay?” he asked, his thumb burrowing under her shirt to stroke the silky smooth skin of her waist.
“Me?” She sounded breathless and incredulous all at once. “I came out here to ask you the same question.”
He forced a grin he was far from feeling. “Don’t worry about me, sweetheart. I’m always fine.”
“You sure about that? Because you don’t look fine.” Once again her fingers ghosted over his battered hand.
He shrugged. “Just trying to do what’s good for the band.”
“You’re what’s good for the band, Wyatt. Anyone with a brain or any musical knowledge whatsoever knows that much.”
“Not Bill Germaine, obviously, and he’s one of the smartest guys in the business.”
“Bill Germaine is an asshole who can’t see past his bottom line to save his life.” Her response was much more adamant—and vicious—than he’d expected. “He’s so wrapped up in what happened three months ago that he’s not looking down the road to three months, or three years, from now.”
“He is looking down the road—to however long it’s going to be before I fuck up and fall off the wagon again.”
“Is that what you’re planning on doing? Falling off the wagon?”
“I’m not planning on it, but I’ve spent my whole life being a fuck-up. I can’t blame him for being concerned that I’m going to do it again.”
“You should blame him. It’s his job to be behind you right now.”
Her voice rang with conviction, and he appreciated the support, he really did. But she didn’t know what she was talking about. Not when it came to this. “It’s his job to sell Shaken Dirty albums and tour seats. Coddling me isn’t in his job description.”
“Coddling you, no. But he should have your back.”
He shook his head, grinned indulgently. “You’re a lot more naive than you look.”
“It’s not naive to expect a little human decency from a guy you’ve made tens of millions of dollars for.”
He wasn’t sure what it said about him that, despite everything going on, watching her get all worked up was turning him on. Then again, from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her, everything about this woman had made him hot. “It is when I’ve also lost him millions of dollars. Besides, all label guys are the same.”
“No, they aren’t,” she insisted. “And you shouldn’t have to put up with what he just pulled on you.”
“Whatever. He was just saying what needed to be said. It’s all good. No big deal.” He forced the words out when all he wanted to do was curl up in a ball and howl.
He’d quit the band because it was the right thing to do, because it would protect the people who mattered most to him in the whole fucking world. But that didn’t mean losing Shaken Dirty hadn’t just ripped a giant hole right through the center of him. Because it had.
Fuck, had it ever.
“Are you serious right now?” She grabbed his arm, got in his face. “It’s a huge deal. This is your career! You need to get on the phone with your lawyer and your manager right now and figure out what your options are. Then you need to go back to Germaine from a position of strength. He wants Shaken Dirty, and he wants you guys bad. It’s obvious today was just a fishing expedition. He wanted to see how far he could push before you fought back. You need to show him—”
He stopped her with a kiss. He knew he shouldn’t, knew that touching her was a bad idea when he was this screwed up. He was spiraling down again, his life getting out of control, and the last thing he wanted was to mess her up, too. To drag her down with him when all she was doing was trying to support him. But what he’d done in there was still too new—the wound too fucking raw—to just sit here and listen as she went over it. Besides, when confronted with unsavory business stuff or kissing Poppy…let’s just say it was a no brainer.
Still, for a second he thought she was going to keep talking. Her hands came up to his shoulders as if to push him away, and the look in her eyes told him she had a lot more to sa
y, that she wasn’t going to be so easily derailed. But when he wrapped both arms around her waist and pulled her body flush against his, she let her eyes flutter closed and melted against him.
She felt good pressed against him like this, soft and warm and perfect. He nipped at her lower lip, sucked it between his teeth. She gasped, her hands tightening in his shirt, and he took instant advantage, licking inside her mouth to stroke his tongue around and along her own.
It was their first kiss, he realized as he delved deep. Despite what had happened in that alley a few nights ago and on the porch a little while ago, this was the first time he’d actually kissed her. Fuck. He was an even bigger dick than he thought.
Determined to make up for his callousness, he tangled his hand in her hair and tugged her head back. Then he slowly stroked his tongue along her full lower lip, loving the sounds she made. Loving even more the way her hands greedily clutched at him.
She felt so good, tasted so good—like cream and honey and sun-warmed summer peaches—that a part of him wanted to stay right here, like this, forever. He’d been wanting to get his hands—and his mouth—on her again ever since he’d walked out of that alley to go on stage the other night. So much so that when he’d seen her on that porch this morning, he hadn’t been able to resist touching her. Even knowing it was the worst thing he could be doing right now—his counselors had warned him about trying for even a casual relationship until he’d been out of rehab at least six months—he couldn’t let her go. Not right now, when every single cell in his body was calling out for her. Craving her.
She turned him on like nothing had in a long time, her sweetness and honesty and concern going a long way to soothe the demons inside of him. He didn’t know what it was about her that silenced the noise in his head, that beat back the cravings and the pain, that gave him the opportunity to just be. He didn’t know, but in that moment he was grateful for it—grateful for her—and he was going with it. Savoring it—and her—as he deepened the kiss and explored her like he rarely bothered to explore anything anymore.
