by Tracy Wolff
Once they reached the studio, he headed toward the front door with her hand still firmly clasped in his. She stopped him with a murmured, “I’m going to get going now.”
“You don’t have to leave,” he told her.
“Yeah, I do. This is between you and them.” She nodded toward the recording studio’s front porch, where Jared, Ryder and Quinn now waited impatiently. They must have been watching for them from the windows.
He followed her gaze then nodded grimly. “At least let me walk you to your car.”
She stared at him incredulously, as did the rest of his bandmates. “I’m fine,” she finally told him. “You need to stay here and fix this.”
…
Poppy was right. He did need to fix this, did need to make them understand why his decision was the best one—the only one—for Shaken Dirty. But since he didn’t have a fucking clue what he was going to say, he figured taking a couple more minutes wouldn’t hurt.
“I do. But it’s not going anywhere.” He glanced at the others. “I need five more minutes.”
“What you need is your fucking head examined,” Quinn snapped back. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
“Five minutes,” he repeated, knowing it would only antagonize his best friends more. But he’d walked out on Poppy the other night to go on stage after going down on her in that alley. After his whole wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am performance there, he was damned if he was going to do it again, even if the band was falling apart around his ears.
At this point, taking two damn minutes to walk her to her car wasn’t going to cause any more damage than had already been done. To prove it, he looped an arm around her waist and propelled her toward the path that led to her car.
“They want to talk this out because they think there’s a solution.” He lowered his mouth to hers, dropped a kiss on her shiny pink lips. “Plus, it occurred to me as we got back to the studio—despite what we’ve spent the better part of our time together doing—I don’t have your phone number. And since I’m no longer an official member of the band, I won’t be seeing you—”
“You are, absolutely, still an official member of the band. Both you and the label have what I assume are ironclad contracts for a reason—so that hotheaded idiots can’t just decide to blow up a billion dollar band in a pissing contest.”
“Who are you calling a hotheaded idiot? Bill Germaine or me?”
“Both of you! That whole fight in the kitchen was ridiculous, and I’m sure your manager and lawyer will tell you that.”
“I’m sure my manager and my lawyers will be glad to see the back of me. I’m a fuck-up—”
“I really wish you’d stop saying that!” She huffed in exasperation. “It’s—”
“True,” he told her, dropping another kiss on her too-tempting mouth. “It’s true, and wishing it wasn’t isn’t going to change anything.” He pulled out his phone. “Now, give me your number and I’ll call you later after I calm the other guys down. Maybe we can get ice cream or something.”
She lifted a brow. “Ice cream?”
“Well, it’s not like I can take you for a drink. And dinner seemed a little too presumptuous.”
“Seriously? Your dick was in my mouth less than fifteen minutes ago and you think dinner is too presumptuous?”
God, she sounded hot as fuck when she talked about blowing him. “Well, maybe not dinner. But definitely the fact that I’d like my dick to be in your mouth or some other part of your body again very soon…”
“Yeah, well, I don’t sleep with unemployed musicians, no matter how talented they are. So if you want to put your cock anywhere near me tonight—”
“You don’t actually think that’s going to work, do you?”
“Hey, I’m just stating the facts.”
“Are you now?” He fisted a hand in her shirt and yanked, hard. She tumbled forward, straight into his arms. “Something tells me I can change your mind.”
She let him kiss her again, and this time it was her tongue tracing his lips. Her tongue sneaking inside to stroke along his cheek, the roof of his mouth.
The kiss lasted longer than he’d originally intended, but seeing as how she was clinging to him, her body soft and sweet and pliant, he sure as shit wasn’t going to step away. Not when just the feel of her pressed against him brought him more pleasure than he’d had in a long, long time.
When she finally broke away, she didn’t go far. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest. “I want you to fix this,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged, blew her words off because if he let himself imagine it, let himself feel how much it hurt to just think about leaving Shaken Dirty, he’d never get out the door. “Not going to happen.”
“Wyatt, please—”
“I’ll try.” He said it more to placate her than anything else, and he could tell by the twist of her mouth that she knew it. Before she could get herself wound up again, he shoved his hand in his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Now, on to more important things. What’s your number?”
She stared at him for long seconds, her gaze so fierce that he couldn’t help feeling like she was trying to see inside of him. He was about to look away, to break off this unwitting battle of wills, but she did it first, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe he was real. But she rattled off her cell phone number, so he counted it as a win.
Before either of them could say anything else, he heard gravel crunch on the trail behind him. He didn’t need to look up to know it was Jared who had come after him. He was the impatient one, after all…
“I’ll be there in a minute, Jare,” he said without ever taking his eyes off of Poppy.
There was a disgruntled silence—Jared was also really good at speaking without uttering a word—but eventually he heard footsteps retreating, and they were alone again.
“How did you know it was Jared?” she asked.
“Because I know him and the other guys better than they know themselves.”
She looked surprised, but all she said was, “And they know you the same way?”
He’d walked into that question like an idiot, but that didn’t mean he had to answer it. Didn’t mean he had to tell her anything he didn’t want to, no matter how perceptive she was. Or how much he wanted her.
When he just shrugged, she looked like she was going to say more. But if it was about the label or the band or how he should deal with Bill Germaine, he didn’t want to hear it. Not right then and maybe not ever. Some things really were better left unsaid.
And so he kissed her one last time, making it count, making sure she felt it from her sex to the soles of her feet. Then he helped her into her car before she even knew that was what he was doing.
For long moments, she just sat there in the driver’s seat like she’d forgotten how to operate a vehicle. But eventually she turned it on, turned it around, and headed back down Quinn’s long, winding driveway to the isolated street that led off the island.
And he was left staring after her, wondering what the fuck he’d just done.
Chapter Twelve
When he finally made it back into the studio—ten minutes after the five he’d allotted himself—Wyatt found his bandmates waiting for him. And if he’d thought they’d looked pissed before, it was nothing compared to what this latest wait had done to them.
Ryder was pacing, hands yanking at his too long hair. Quinn was muttering to himself as he scrolled through his phone like a madman. And Jared…well, Jared was glaring at the door like he was waiting for Satan himself to walk through it. And the second Wyatt did, the guitarist was out of his chair and across the kitchen.
Wyatt knew the punch was imminent, but he didn’t try to defend himself. Hell, after all the shit he’d caused, he figured Jared had at least one free shot coming. They all did. Of course, that was before the guy’s fist connected with the side of his face—it had been a long time since they’d settled things by fighting,
and Wyatt had forgotten just how hard a punch Jared had.
No time to categorize the damage, though, not when Jared was already pulling his hand back a second time. “What the fuck did you think you were doing?”
Wyatt just raised a brow at him, his gaze going between Jared’s face and his fist. “I gave you one.”
“Is that supposed to scare me? After three months in rehab you look like a gust of wind would blow you away. You sure as shit laid down for Germaine like it would.”
That set him on edge despite himself, and he gave up discreetly trying to catalog the damage to his face so that he could shove Jared, hard. “Fuck you. You don’t know anything about it.”
“I don’t know anything about—” Jared broke off. Ground his teeth together. Worked at unclenching his fists. “Fuck you. Nobody knows more about your shit than we do. And we’ve always had your back. Always. So you want to explain to me why the fuck you pussed out the second Germaine put a little bit of pressure on you?”
“I didn’t puss out.”
“Sure as hell looked that way to me.” Jared glanced over his shoulder at the others. “What about you guys? Didn’t it look like that to you, too?”
“Stop being a dick,” Quinn told him, his voice ringing through the room with an air of finality. “And both of you come sit down so we can talk this out.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Ryder said, even as he pulled out a chair to sit down. “Wyatt quitting the band isn’t an option.”
“It’s the only option. You know the label’s just going to keep pushing you about me—”
“And we’re just going to keep pushing back,” Jared interrupted, looking at him like he was a moron. “Why the fuck do we pay a small fortune to our lawyers and management if we’re just going to roll over and let them fuck us?”
“It’s not about rolling over! Can’t you see that?”
“All I see is you backing off from a fight. And that isn’t like you.”
Wyatt snorted. “Who the fuck are you kidding, Jared? It’s exactly like me.”
“No,” Ryder interjected. “It isn’t. If you were going to walk away from this fight, you would have done it a long time ago.”
“I tried. You wouldn’t let me.”
“Damn right,” Jared snorted.
Quinn shot him a look. “So what makes you think we’re going to let you do it now?”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” Ryder told him. “And if you think we’re going to let you make the wrong one here, then you’re out of your fucking mind.”
“It’s my decision.”
“It’s our decision,” Jared countered. “This band has always been a democracy, and three beats one every way you look at it.”
“You don’t get it.”
“No, you don’t get it!” Quinn pushed back from the table so fast his chair tipped backward and crashed to the ground. No one even looked at it. “We’ve stood by you for ten years, Wyatt. Ten years. Through the drugs, through the self-mutilation, through rehab, through relapses…what makes you think we’re going to cut you loose now?”
“Because it’s time!” he yelled. “Because I’m a fuck-up and I’m always going to be a fuck-up. Nothing you do is going to be able to change that. No matter how many rehab programs you put me in, no matter how many shrinks you drag me to, it’s not going to change. I’m still going to fuck up. I’m still going to ruin everything!”
“So what?” For the first time all night, Jared’s voice was low. Calm.
It confused him, had Wyatt turning around to stare at the guy who’d been his best friend for more than a decade. “I don’t—what do you mean?”
“I mean, so the fuck what if you screw up again? So the fuck what if you end up ruining this tour? We already have more money than we can ever spend. And even if we didn’t—even if the label came after us and somehow got it all in a breach of contract suit—so the fuck what? You think a big, fancy house is worth more to us than you?
“You seem to forget we came from nothing. Money didn’t matter. Only the music did. If you think that’s changed just because Quinn drives a fancy pink motorcycle now, then you’re even more screwed up than I thought you were.”
“For the record,” Quinn interjected, “the motorcycle has sentimental value.”
“The motorcycle’s an embarrassment,” Ryder told him. “But you’re not, Wyatt. I thought you knew better than anyone that Shaken Dirty’s about more than the bottom line. It’s about more than the money, more than the fame. It’s about the four of us doing what we love, together. Where we do it or how much we get paid for doing it—that’s just the details, man. And yeah, if you fall off the wagon again, it’s going to hurt all of us. Not because of the money. But because we don’t want to see you die, man.”
He wasn’t going to touch that, not when a lump the size of a watermelon had already taken up residence in his throat. He’d always known he’d take a bullet for these guys, but to hear them say they’d do the same for him—when he wasn’t worth it, when he couldn’t be counted on, when he’d stood by and watched his own father die without lifting a finger to stop it, for Christ’s sake—fucked with him on a whole new level.
Still, he wasn’t yet a big enough pussy to say any of that, so he shoved all his screwed up emotions down deep and concentrated on what he could talk about. On what should matter to his friends.
“You say that now, but your money’s safe. What happens if you really do have to pay? If you lose millions of dollars—”
“We already paid.” Jared cut him off mid-sentence.
“Shut up, man,” Ryder hissed, elbowing him in the gut.
For long seconds, shock held him hostage as his brain tried to comprehend what Jared was telling him. “What the fuck does that mean? What did you pay? Who did you pay?”
“You think keeping you was easy when we were so insistent about dumping Micah?” Jared asked.
“Shut up,” Ryder said again, even more forcefully this time.
“It doesn’t matter,” Quinn added quickly.
“It does matter,” he and Jared said at the same time.
“I want to know exactly what he’s talking about,” Wyatt continued, as the room grew eerily silent.
“We ponied up a fuckload of money to keep you after the breach of contract,” Jared told him. “To the label, to Micah. Shit, even to management.”
“Exactly how much is a fuckload?” Wyatt demanded, as rage and heat and shame slammed into him like a runaway eighteen-wheeler.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ryder said again.
“How. The fuck. Much?” When they continued to stare at him blankly, he swore—loud and vicious. “If someone doesn’t start talking right the fuck now, I’m walking out that door and I am not coming back.”
As he waited for their answer, fury had his voice and hands shaking, had his head feeling like it was going to blow up.
Quinn must have figured out that he meant what he said, because the keyboardist was the one who eventually spoke. “Nine million, total.”
“Dollars?” he asked incredulously. “Nine. Million. Dollars?” He sat down at the table before he could fall down, as the number reverberated through his head. He buried his face in his hands. Tried to think. Tried to breathe. Nine million dollars. Nine. Million. Dollars. “Jesus Christ, are you insane?”
“It’s beginning to feel like it, what with the way you’re trying to throw your career away. And ours with it.” Jared sounded tough, but he was the first one to pull a chair up right next to Wyatt and sit down.
“We already told you. The money doesn’t matter,” Ryder repeated.
“Of course it fucking matters. What are you going to do when I screw up again? Where are you going to be?”
“Same place we’ve always been,” Quinn told him. “Hanging out together, making music, watching one another’s backs. We’ve been doing it since we were seventeen. I think it’s a little late t
o try to learn anything different now.”
“Yeah, especially since none of us wants things to be any different than they are.” Jared clapped him on the back.
For long seconds, Wyatt didn’t say anything. Not because he didn’t have things to say, but because he didn’t trust himself to be able to say them. For the first time in more years than he could remember, he was afraid that if he opened his mouth, his voice would crack. Afraid that if he unclenched his jaw, he’d end up blubbering like a baby.
He didn’t deserve this loyalty, didn’t deserve this generosity. Not with all the shit he’d pulled through the years. Not with all the mistakes he’d made and all the times he’d fucked them over. Nine million dollars. They’d paid nine million dollars just to keep him around. Him.
The guy who’d been a screwup since he was six years old.
The guy who’d destroyed his family one person at a time.
The guy who couldn’t keep his shit together long enough to make it through a concert, let alone an entire world tour.
And yet here they were. Jared, Ryder, Quinn. Backing him, even knowing it was a sure bet that he was going to fuck up again. Standing by him even though it had already cost them more than they should ever have to pay.
Even his mom had given up on him. Drank herself to death when he and the memories of what he’d done—what he’d failed to do—had gotten to be too much. Why the fuck were they still hanging around?
“I don’t get it,” he finally said, when he thought he had a chance of getting the words out without completely humiliating himself. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
For the first time since he’d walked into the kitchen, they glared at him like he really was a fuck-up. Jared clenched his fist like he was contemplating hitting him again, and Quinn looked like it was taking every ounce of self-control he had not to kick his ass.
“If you can’t figure that out,” Ryder said eventually, “then I don’t know what the hell we’re even doing here.”
He wanted to say what they wanted to hear, wanted to give them the answer they were all waiting for. But he couldn’t do that, because he didn’t get it. He didn’t understand why they would risk everything on him when he’d shown them over and over again that he wasn’t worth it. That he couldn’t be trusted.
