Sweet Ache

by K. Bromberg

  I should have stopped her, pushed her back right then and told Vince to get the fuck out, but the mix of alcohol, the ache in my nuts wanting to finish what we had started earlier, and the taste of her kiss … it ruled out any thought of stopping. And then thank fuck she said no and changed her mind, stopping everything I didn’t want to happen but thought she wanted.

  Then of course I was so fucking busy being pissed at Vince for pushing the issue, and making her so uncomfortable. How did I let the situation get that far? What the fuck was I thinking?

  I let her walk away when I should have fucking run after her immediately rather than five minutes later with a hurt fist and complete panic. But how she found out about the bet, I have no clue.

  I rack my brain for the millionth time, even though I know who must have told her because while I was looking for the tuning fork I ran into Hunter. My fucking brother looking for a handout but instead I told him to get the fuck out.

  He had to have told Quin. The only other people who knew were the guys and I know they wouldn’t have ratted me out even though I deserved it. They knew without me saying it how much she’d come to mean to me. Shit, I let her in when I let no one in.

  But that still makes me question Vince and his full-court press on the matter. It sucks to be committed to being in this house with the guys when one of them is someone I don’t really like right now. The one who knows me better than anyone, who I’m trying to figure out what the fuck kind of game he’s playing.

  Add to that the shit I should be worried about, my court date in two days. My do or die. The thought of the possible outcome makes me throw back the rest of my drink. I’m surprised Ben hasn’t called to prep me on yet another thing I need to do or say since I stood him up for our scheduled meeting to go over details. I stopped answering his calls so I’m sure beating down my door will be his next move.

  The idea of beating down the door has me thinking of my pathetic-ass self and how I left the house for the first time last night to force Quin to talk to me. How I stood on her porch forever, waiting her out, when I should have been at Ben’s office.

  The fucked-up thing is my mind should really be focused on my court date on Tuesday, but it’s not. It’s on a long-legged, wavy-haired blonde who owns my thoughts. I know they say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but fuck that shit. Absence makes you want to drink a fifth and pass out so you stop thinking and feeling. Both make your gut twist so why not take the one that numbs you?

  Living the dream, man.

  “Are you ever going to leave the studio or do you plan on looking like you’re homeless for the next tour?” Speak of the bastard. I look up and just glare at Vince, my frustration fueling my anger, my temper on a hairpin trigger ready to hammer forward at the slightest pull. And he’s pulling. Fucking stellar. “Some chicks dig the unshowered, unshaven, I-look-like-shit look. It’s working for Jared Leto, so I guess it’s worth a shot.”

  “Leave me the fuck alone,” I grumble, wanting to fall back under the veil of my comfort: music and my Jack and Coke.

  He rubs a hand over his unshaven face and moves his lower jaw back and forth. “You gonna punch me again?”

  “You gonna piss me off again?” I ask, raising my eyebrows. First my brother and then Vince. What is it about Quinlan that makes me want to defend her at all costs? It’s like some switch has been flipped in my head and all of a sudden I’m thinking things I’ve never allowed myself to think or feel before.

  And of course the realization comes now that she’s not around, so I shove it back down and read it as desperation on my part, unable to accept the truth of our situation just yet.

  “Doesn’t take much these days,” he muses.

  “You got a fucking point, Vinny?” I ask, slamming down my pen on the pad of paper, causing the crumpled candy wrappers to fall to the ground, and then he chuckles and that makes me even more pissed off. “What is it with all of this, huh? Why are you riding me so goddamn hard? You won your fucking bet, now back the fuck off me,” I shout at him, my pulse racing, my anger mounting when he just smiles that goddamn smirk that taunts and irritates me all at once.

  “That all this was, a bet?”

  “Yep.” It’s all I’ll give him because one, I don’t want to talk about it, and two, he doesn’t deserve shit for an explanation about what this is or isn’t. It’s my damn business, not his.

  “In all the years I’ve known you, man … like forever … I never took you for a pussy. Guess there’s always room for one to change though, isn’t there?”

  As much as I want to shove my chair back and unleash my hurt on him right now, to get out all of my pent-up frustration and anger and misery on him, I just clench my fists, grit my teeth, and glare. Instead I take a deep breath and stand up, eyes locked on his, and head for the door, suddenly needing to leave the room I’ve used as my sanctuary for the past few days.

  “You don’t get the girl, Play, if you don’t fight for her.” His voice is low and even as it hits my ears, stopping me in my tracks, hand on the door.

  So many thoughts whirl through my head and to fuck it up further, I’m just not sure which one I want to hold on to when all I want to be holding on to is Quinlan.

  “Dude, I’ve been fighting my whole life, maybe I don’t have any fight left.” It’s the biggest bunch of bullshit, deep down I know that, but right now I need to find the life left in me before I can find the fight there.

  Vince belts out a laugh but it falls flat, telling me that as much shit as he’s giving me, he’s concerned about me and what deep end I’m going to jump off now. I keep my back to him, one foot out the door, because I can’t let him see how lost I am right now. If he does, he’s gonna say shit to me, force me to see stuff that I’m just not ready to acknowledge aloud just yet.

  “Sometimes you have to fight in order to be free,” he says into the uncomfortable silence, and all I can do is nod my head because there’s nothing I can say. “I’ll leave you be, Hawke,” he says finally after a deep sigh, “but I hate seeing you like this and love seeing you like this all at the same time.”

  When I look over my shoulder at my oldest friend and my most honest sounding board, I realize that right now I love him and hate him all at once. I want to question what he means but know he can only be referring to the one difference in my life over the past few months, Quinlan.

  “You’ve lived long enough by your old man’s principles; maybe it’s time you start living by your own.” We stare at each other a beat longer before I nod my head and turn around to walk out.

  I used to think that holding on to my dad and the promises he extracted from me were the one thing that made me stronger, but now I suddenly realize that sometimes letting go is when you can truly show your strength. Vince’s words just reaffirmed that. The problem is, I think I’m holding on to the wrong person while letting go of the right one.

  Chapter 31

  QUINLAN

  Open your goddamn door.

  It’s an echo of several texts I’ve gotten over the past few days but this time it’s from a different person. I groan at the sight of Colton’s text about ten seconds before the pounding begins on the front door.

  I pull the pillow over my head and try to shut the noise out, try to shut out the things that I really don’t want to talk to my brother about. And then after I get him out of my house I’m going to lay into Layla for getting ahold of him and sending him over here.

  Can’t a girl just wallow in self-pity for a day or so …? Well, more like the five days I’ve called in sick to Professor Stevens, but who’s counting?

  “Go away,” I shout to the walls of my room as if he can hear me and just keep the pillow there, my mind immediately drifting to Hawkin and his endless phone calls and texts. The first ones worried about where I was and asked me to let him explain what had happened. That he didn’t want to share me with anyone because he wanted to be the only one to bring me pleasure and no one else. That the surprise was another instrume
nt to add to our pleasure play, not a threesome. Vince had misinterpreted something he had told him, and it led to a clusterfuck of a misunderstanding. That he wasn’t mad at me for stopping the situation and that he did chase after me but he couldn’t find me so he sat in the studio to wait for me to come back. But I didn’t.

  Misunderstanding, my ass.

  How can he say all of that when in the end I was a mere casualty of band fun time? But that’s where things get murky for me. If I was just a pawn in their fucked-up game, why take me to see his mom? Why protect me from Hunter, who in the end, ironically, was the one who protected me from Hawkin? All of it doesn’t sit real well with me, but I need to wait for the dust to clear from this disaster because right now I’m looking at the situation through my emotional goggles.

  I laugh into the pillow at how damn stoic I sound when I’m still upset and … I miss him. I stayed strong though and ignored the texts as long as I could until my anger got the best of me. I succumbed to my emotions with a single word response: Liar.

  Then of course he responded with a flurry of responses, each one getting more and more adamant, followed by unanswered phone calls, to which I responded, A bet? That’s all I was to you? Fuck You. That message set off another round of calls that then turned into two random appearances at the house in which he pounded on my doors. At least this time I was smart enough to have my laundry room door locked.

  I refuse to give him the time of day.

  The only part I get a small amount of pleasure in is that I know the stake of the band’s bets. I know that Hawke didn’t prove shit to Vince. So that means the asshole has to ink a pink heart on his wrist for losing, and every time he looks at it, at least I’ll know he’ll remember me. That makes me happy.

  And that makes me sad.

  Fuck. I don’t want it to make me feel anything and yet it makes me feel everything. I can close my eyes all I want, pretend all of this never happened, but there’s no way I can close my heart off to the ache that’s nestled deep within me.

  The pounding continues and I know my brother—he’s not going to stop until I open the door. Go away, I text.

  The repair bill for a broken door is going to be expensive then. You’ve got 5 minutes. Starting now.

  A frustrated groan falls from my mouth as I chuck my pillow across the room and push myself off the bed. I glance in the mirror and start laughing because I am heartbreak personified: curls wild, a pillow crease in my cheek, and a smudge of the chocolate bar I ate last night on my tank top. I look like hell.

  So I shuffle into the bathroom and brush my teeth, because even I have limitations to my slumming, plus I throw my hair up in a clip so that I look less miserable for appearance’s sake.

  Three minutes left.

  With a roll of my eyes, I pull open the front door and let it swing back on its own before turning to walk back down the hallway without even looking at my pain-in-the-ass brother.

  “You look like shit.”

  “Yeah thanks. So do you.” I raise my middle finger in greeting over my head and smile at how dysfunctional this routine of ours is and yet I love it.

  I walk to the couch and plop down, grab a blanket and wrap it around my shoulders. Colton takes a seat across from me, dark hair hidden underneath his beloved lucky ball cap and green eyes assessing me. I wait for the smart-ass comment I can see lighting up his eyes but it never comes. “That bad, huh?”

  “How’s Ry doing?” I change the subject to tell him I don’t want to discuss it.

  “Taking lessons from me on avoidance, now?”

  “Had to learn something from you, right?”

  “Did you wake up on the wrong side of the fucking bed or what? Oh wait, my bad, it doesn’t look like you’ve left your bed in forever.”

  I know he’s giving me the tough love shit but don’t want that right now. And at the same time I know if he were to sit beside me and pull me into a hug, I’d start bawling the tears I’ve withheld for five long days. The floodgates would open and that’s just too much like rain and rain makes me think of how it’s like love and … I don’t want to go there.

  My traitorous bottom lip trembles and his face softens. “The musician?”

  I nod my head morosely.

  “Did he cheat on you?”

  “No.”

  “Dump you?”

  “No.”

  “Be an asshole?”

  “Well, he is a guy,” I say, cracking a slight smile.

  “I take offense to that comment,” he says with mock irritation. Or at least I think it’s mock.

  “Well, considering you used to be the king of assholes when it came to women, you shouldn’t be.” I shrug, suddenly thankful for his intrusion into my misery. He grunts at my answer and accepts it without further argument. “It’s hard to explain,” I confess but for some reason I don’t want him to know the whole extent of it. I’ve got to get my head on straight. Why in the hell am I protecting Hawkin when he played me like a fiddle?

  Well shit. I guess there’s another instrument I can add to our band—unfortunately this one didn’t bring me pleasure.

  Colton scrubs a hand over the stubble on his jaw, so out of his element right now, uncomfortable at having to give advice to a female.

  “Dude, you’re not George Clooney or Jason Statham so that look went out last year. Time to shave,” I tease, trying to ease his uneasiness, and at least I get a chuckle from him.

  “You know you’re kind of being a bitch when I just stopped by because I’m worried about you.”

  And that comment right there knocks the snarky wind from my sails because he’s right, I’m being an ass because I’m hurt. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” I blow out a breath and watch my fingers tracing the pattern on the couch. “This is just …”

  “What happened?” he asks, scooting to the edge of his chair.

  “I was the stake in a bet.”

  “Excuse me?” The pitch of his voice escalates and his posture changes instantly, going into full-force protective brother mode. I cringe; I didn’t want to go there with him, but I want to confide in him at the same time. “His name.” It’s not a question.

  “Hawkin Play,” I say ever so quietly but Colton does a double take when he hears the name.

  “As in lead singer of Bent, Hawkin Play?” I just nod. “Shit, I liked their music too. Dare I ask what the bet was?” He’s feeling me out and I just sigh.

  “No, you don’t want to know.”

  “Fuckin’ A,” he growls, the muscle in his jaw pulsing as he tries to rein in the rage for my sake. “I don’t need to ask…. I’m a guy. I can imagine….” His voice trails off as I watch him struggle with the dueling emotions, to sympathize with me through anger or through comfort. I just nod when his gaze meets mine, saying yes to all of the above. “You know I’m going to kick his ass now, right?”

  That first day I drove Hawke home flashes through my mind, when he commented that my brother must have gotten in a lot of fights protecting my virtue. The irony.

  I don’t say anything, just keep watching my fingers trace the fabric aimlessly. “You really like him, don’t you?” The solemnity and compassion in his voice make my heart swell. My lack of an answer is one in itself. “Shit, Q, if Rylee were here she’d say some shit like ‘Never give up on someone that you can’t go a day without thinking about.’”

  I groan, as that’s the last thing I want to hear. “And you’d say?” I lift my eyes to meet his.

  “Fuck, I suck at this shit.”

  “Yes you do, but other than ‘what’s his address’ so you can go knock his teeth out”—Colton’s face lights up at that comment—“I want to know what advice you’d give me. Please.”

  He rolls his eyes and it looks so out of place on the badboy thing he has going. He leans forward and places his elbows on his knees as he twists his lips in thought. And I have to admit it’s pretty damn cute that he’s actually being serious and thinking of some big-brotherly advice.

/>   “You really like the guy?” he asks.

  “Yeah, I do,” I murmur without even having to think about it, sadness once again owning my heart.

  “Even though he fucked with you?” He stares deep within me, and even though I’m ashamed about the situation, I can’t turn off my feelings.

  “Mm-hmm.” I want to avert my eyes, feeling ashamed, but I know Colton won’t pass judgment on me since he’s done a whole helluva lot worse than still care for someone who’s wronged him.

  “Look, the way I see it, trust is kind of like a piece of paper. Once you wad it up, tear it, mark it … sure you can fix it, flatten it out, tape it together, do what-the-fuck-ever to it, but it will never be perfect again…. So the question you need to ask yourself is can you live with the marks on the paper? Can you move forward knowing it’s imperfect from here on out?”

  I stare at my brother, so dumbfounded by him right now that if I didn’t love him madly already, I would in this moment. His words are so poignant and hit home in places so deep inside me that my mind starts to whirl with thoughts I’d shoved away.

  “But fuck, what do I know? I’m just a guy,” he says, suddenly uncomfortable. “Just”—his voice fades off as he tries to figure out what to say—“whatever you decide, just make sure it’s right for you, you know? Look at me—I’ve been crumpled up, thrown away, and taped back together more times than I care to count, but Ry’s okay with that. She says it makes me imperfectly perfect, whatever the fuck that means, so I guess it must be good,” he says with a smirk. I knew his arrogance wouldn’t be held at bay for too long.

  “Perfect belongs nowhere near your name,” I deadpan, having to knock him down off his pedestal some.

  “You’re just jealous,” he says before he falls silent again as he studies me. “You okay?”