Sweet Ache

by K. Bromberg

  Keep telling yourself that, Play, and you just might believe it. Being whipped is the least of the things I need to worry about. Thinking I’m falling in love with her is a tad bit larger.

  I shake my head in shock as the realization hits me right now when I can’t do shit about it. The panic I expected to feel should this day ever occur doesn’t come because I’m scared, but rather because of how bad I fucked this up. I may finally have found a woman I’ll let in my battered heart and then lost her all in one fell swoop.

  Stellar.

  My eyes sweep back over the benches and see no one, not even Vince. I told the guys I didn’t want them here but despite that I still expected Vince to be here representing the band. And a small part of me is shocked that Hunter’s not here. I wouldn’t put it past him to want to watch his brother pay for his sin, take a little bit of joy out of me being in the legal hot seat for once. It’s a fucked-up thought but it’s true. Besides, he’s pissed at me enough right now because I’ve cut off his funds, so I’m thankful he’s skipping this party.

  “Man you’re making me nervous,” Ben says in my ear, and thank fuck whatever was up his ass ten minutes ago when he walked in this courtroom has been removed because last thing I need right now is him being an asshole to the judge and jeopardizing my freedom. “There’s an accident on the ten. We just missed it but that’s why the judge is late. Just relax.” He draws the word out and if I hear the term one more time I’m gonna flip my shit.

  If only traffic was the reason that Quinlan isn’t sitting behind me too. I’d bet a million times over that were things right between us, I could ask her to be here, but think I should refrain from doing what got me into the mess with her in the first place.

  I tug on the collar of my shirt and wonder how in the hell Hunter can wear these damn shirts on a daily basis. I’ve got enough things trying to tighten around my throat and suffocate me, last thing I need to add to it is a shirt.

  “Ben?” the feminine voice behind us says.

  “What’s up, Steph?”

  Steph? I turn to see who she is, surprised by the tiny, eye-catching woman behind me when I’m so used to Ben’s usual male aide. She holds out my phone and looks at Ben, asking if it’s okay for me to take it.

  “Mr. Popular,” he teases. “Sure. It’s not like the judge is here anyway.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” I mock as I reach out to take my phone the same time Steph closes her hand.

  She gets flustered when our skin touches and jerks it back. “I’m sorry…. I didn’t mean to … Here.” She shoves my phone out to me, face turning red. I realize the same time Ben starts chuckling that Steph is nervous because of who I am. Poor thing, trying to do her job and not fangirl at the same time.

  “Thank you,” I murmur as I give Ben a look, wondering if she has the job because he’s hitting the hottie. Her skills outside of the office are presumably more important, and by the sheepish look on his face I know the answer.

  I take my phone, relieved to have something to fidget with even if it’s just for a moment. And then once it’s in my hand trepidation floods me because I worry that it’s going to be from Westbrook, something wrong with my mom.

  My heart suddenly vaults into my throat when I glance down and see it’s from Quinlan. We need to talk. We hit a sour note and need to find the right chord again, decide where to go from here. Call me when you can. Good luck.

  I have to hold in a childish whoop of excitement. Relief mixed with hope surges through my system and I swear that I’m so emotional over her text because I’m inundated with anxiety right now about the trial, but shit, I’ll take whatever I can get from her at this point. I need to get my foot in the door so that I can explain, prove to her that I know I fucked up and I’m not really that guy. I’m this guy, a man still a little out of tune but a helluva lot more in sync than I was back when I made that stupid-ass bet with Vince.

  Right when I start to text her back, as I’m trying to figure how to say the million things running through my head, I hear, “All rise.”

  “Fuck,” I mutter as the bailiff announces the judge’s presence in the courtroom. Perfect damn timing.

  I look at Ben, down at my phone, and know I have only seconds but at the same time I fear if I don’t respond, Quinlan is going to think … I don’t know what she might think. I shove the phone over the railing behind me to Steph. She looks at me with surprised eyes. “Go give this to Vince. He should be here any minute. Have him call her. Tell her I’ll call her when I’m done.” I swear I sound like a pathetic sap but she just nods. Now, I just hope I’m right in thinking he’ll be here.

  The severity of what the next few minutes, hour, who knows how long, may have over my life hits me again, as I stand and face the front of the courtroom. The quick reprieve I felt with Quinlan’s text is gone immediately with only the lingering whisper of possibility as the judge walks in.

  Just like I do before taking the stage to calm my nerves, I hang my head down, close my eyes, and take in a fortifying breath. I can pretend all I want that I’m a hard-ass, that this isn’t a big deal, but when it comes down to it, the man before me with the black robe holds my fate in his hands.

  The silence stretches as he sits down, and then I hear throats clearing—the press filling the benches behind me, waiting to report my fall from grace. I know if I get off, it will be a blip of a byline, but if I get sentenced it will be this week’s cover of People. My pulse thunders in my ears and I feel like my shirt is strangling me as the pins and needles I’m standing on begin to jab their way into my confidence.

  “So, Mr. Play”—I look up when the judge’s deep baritone hits my ears to meet his eyes—“are you trying to fulfill the middle cliché of the sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll reputation …?”

  Chapter 34

  QUINLAN

  Be there in thirty.

  When I stare at the text once again, giddiness soars through me. I know we need to talk about things, sort out the creases, but at the end of the day, I want Hawke in my life and a chance for whatever this is to take its course.

  I finally want it to rain.

  Anticipation runs rampant as I look out the front window again. I’m nervous, excited, and a little unsettled at the text. I’m not sure what I was expecting in response to my text. Maybe a bit more enthusiasm? I don’t know. I’m overthinking this, know he said he would be here in thirty minutes and that in itself says he hasn’t moved on and wants to try to work things out.

  Being cautious is okay, but it doesn’t take away the toll of the emotional wringer I’ve been through the past few days. Plus, I just plain don’t want to be hurt any further. I need to play it all by ear when he gets here, follow his lead.

  Add to all of this the notion that the hearing must be over and if he’s getting here this quickly, then it must have gone in his favor. At least I think that’s how it works, but my clean record is proof of my naïveté of the judicial system.

  Busying myself, I put some music on, and then shut it off, not wanting to appear like I’m trying too hard. In a fruitless attempt to waste time, I check my makeup, pull my hair up, and then let it back down.

  When the knock sounds at the door, my breath hitches, nerves jittering through me from head to toe. I rush to the door and then force myself to stand there for a moment so that I can retain some of my dignity. I smooth my hands down my shorts and slowly open the door.

  A cautious smile spreads across my lips at the sight of him in the just-setting sun’s light, which halos his silhouette. My rush of nerves collides with cautious optimism. He looks different from how I’ve ever seen him, sans his beloved vintage rock T-shirts, and wears a button-up dress shirt and slacks. My first thought is that he needs to change because he looks nothing like my rocker boy and too much like Hunter, but I really don’t care, he’s here and we’re going to figure out how to navigate this minefield together.

  “Hey,” I say softly, stepping back.

  “Hey.” He steps into the fo
yer and angles his head to stare at me a moment, eyes guarded, an impassive expression on his face. For a split second I fear that he’s here to instigate more conflict but after a beat, his eyes searching for something I’m unsure of, his mouth turns up into a soft smile.

  I want to step into him, hug him, hold him, kiss those lips of his, but I don’t sense the same on his side. I’m confused—I should be the one who’s guarded and pissed and yet I feel like he’s the one acting that way. Then it hits me that something must have gone wrong at the hearing. Oh shit.

  “Come in.” I lead him down the hall, trying to figure out how I need to proceed, because feeling uncomfortable was the last thing I’d expected in this reconciliation. I stop just inside the family room and turn to face him. “Look, I hate that this is awkward, hate everything about this situation except for the fact that you’re here and I want to try to make this work and figure out how we can move forward. Hawke,” I say his name, a plea in a sense as he stands there, jaw clenched, body stiff, but then he steps toward me. And so I ramble on, unable to help myself. “When I look at this all, the bet and the night at the party, I feel like it’s one clusterfuck of a misunderstanding and so we have to …” My voice trails off as he reaches out and cups the side of my jaw, thumb brushing over my bottom lip. My breath hitches and that electric current of our connection is still there, so much stronger after my skin has been starved of his touch.

  He opens his mouth to say something and closes it again, words unspoken, and the moment is full of conflicting emotions. When he does it again he just shakes his head and pulls me into him, wraps his arms around me, and holds me tight. Our bodies fit together perfectly but something seems off to me. At first I chalk it up to the change in his cologne that makes him seem not like my rocker boy, but then realize that he’s so tense, strung so tight that it’s affecting me. But I hold on to him, absorbing the feeling of his body against mine and the knowledge that I made the right choice to reach out to him.

  When he doesn’t say anything, I become even more worried. “How did the hearing go?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he murmurs into the crown of my head with a deep breath. The heat of it warms my scalp as my mind worries itself into circles trying to figure out what exactly happened.

  “Really? Please just tell me your piece of shit brother was there, stood up, and actually took the blame for once.” I wince, worried I’ve overstepped my boundaries, but at the same time seeing him this upset is disconcerting.

  He releases me the minute the words are out of my mouth and walks into the kitchen, his back toward me, and pounds a fist on the counter so that the few dishes stacked on it rattle from the force. I startle from the sound as he braces his hands on the counter and hangs his head down in silence.

  “I’m sorry Hawke. I don’t know what happened today.” I trace the strong lines of his back, my heart lodging into my throat as I attempt to explain my comment. I know how it goes, you can bad-mouth your own kin but no one else can. Shit, I have Colton for a brother. I’ve bitched about him countless times before but the minute someone else does, my back is up and my mouth is on the defensive.

  But then again, Colton has never tried to ruin everything I’ve worked for either.

  “Look, I just …” I really want him to turn around so that I can see his expression but when he doesn’t, I continue. “I see how much of a burden he puts on you, how even when you know you are doing the right thing, it affects you … eats at you … and I just want you free of that. I know you love him, Hawkin, no one would ever question that, but you work so hard at everything and you need to be able to live without the constant shadow following you of what he’s going to fuck up for you next. So I’m sorry I said it but not sorry all the same.”

  Silence hangs heavy in the air between us, and this reconciliation feels so very different from what I ever imagined.

  “I need a drink,” he says, voice strained as he shoves back from the counter, eyes flicking to mine before he starts pacing like a caged animal.

  I watch him for a beat, his hand pushing through his hair, jaw tense, and it’s nearly impossible to tear my eyes from watching the inner turmoil eat him alive. “Sure. Of course. Jack and Coke?” I ask as I move toward the cupboards to pour him a drink.

  “Just Jack.”

  I pull out the bottle of Jack Daniels from above the refrigerator and grab two glasses and set them on the kitchen table near where he’s pacing and lost in thought. I take a seat, every part of my body aware of his nearness. It’s like my nerves are a damn light switch and anytime he’s near me I’m flicked on, in every sense of the word.

  He stops when he pulls himself from his thoughts and approaches the table as I sit down. The clink of the bottle’s neck as it hits the glasses fills the room as he pours us both a drink. I stay quiet, accept the glass he offers me even though I’ve never drunk Jack Daniels straight before, and just hold it in my hands. I watch him raise his to his lips and toss the amber liquid back without so much as a wince from its burn.

  He finally looks up to me as his tongue flicks out to lick a drop off his lip. The smile he gives me doesn’t reach his eyes, and I hate how that makes me feel so off-kilter. It’s almost as if he’s nervous, agitated, like a trapped animal, and I want to roll my eyes at the thought but that’s the only way I can explain it to myself.

  The onset of the coming night darkens the room as he pours another glass. He sets the bottle down, sits in a chair next to me, body angled so that we face each other, knees touching. He blows out a breath before taking a sip of the Jack, and meanwhile the air has thickened with tension and the disquiet of the unknown in what lies ahead between the two of us.

  “You wanted to talk?” he asks, eyes locked on mine, expression undecipherable, almost like he’s detaching himself from me, and I hate it.

  “I need to hear about the bet from you. I need you to make me understand why you didn’t tell me when things changed between us…. They did change, right? I mean I’m not making that up, am I?” The silence stretches during which he grants me a slow, even nod, words unspoken but his eyes show that he’s conflicted. “Hawke … I’m a pretty forgiving person, but you hurt me. I may have overreacted with the Vince thing, but finding out about the bet from Hunter was a blow to more than just my ego.”

  He nods again, the drink now gone. I narrow my eyebrows as I watch him pour another. “I’m sorry. It was a mistake, a band thing that normally I would have let run its course—”

  “But you did let it run its course,” I tell him, wanting to make sure that he sees my side of the argument.

  “I know, that didn’t come out right. Look.” He scoots closer, so that one of my knees is between his. “At first it was a real thing, the bet…. But you’re right—things changed and I fucked it all up. The thing with Vince … Well, that was …” His voice trails off as he leans forward, his eyes darkening, a sheepish smile on his face.

  I meet him halfway, hungry for his kiss, his taste, to demonstrate the intimate connection between us because even when we haven’t been able to communicate well in the past, our bodies have. And maybe that’s what we need, this little sip of each other to remind us what we have between us so that we can begin again.

  Chapter 35

  HAWKIN

  Relief sifts through my body like an hourglass, slowly filling me with the knowledge that this whole bullshit charade is over and done. I’ve fulfilled my last promise to Hunter and now he can sink or swim on his own.

  Hell yes, I love him, will help him if he asks for it, with limitations, but my days of being his father are over.

  When I glance over my shoulder to where Vince sits a few rows back, there’s a smile of relief on his face. He showed up even when I told him not to. Like I always say, the guy would go to bat for me in a football game if I asked him to. I lift my chin toward him as Ben nudges me to turn back around and not piss off the judge, who is finishing his parting words.

  The judge knocks hi
s gavel, locks eyes with me, and gives me a stern warning nod. I nod in kind, letting him know I understand his message, that this will be my only reprieve from getting time, before he rises and walks into his chambers.

  The minute his door closes, I slump in my chair and the courtroom becomes a flurry of activity. Reporters rush out of the room so that they can call in the verdict to their boss, which will most likely squash the story because it’s nothing as exciting as a conviction would have been.

  “Thank fuck,” I say in an exhale of breath, my head resting on the back of the chair as I throw a silent thank-you out to the universe for letting me catch a break.

  “Gotta earn those big bucks you pay me somehow, now, don’t I?” Ben says, throwing my comment back in my face from what feels like forever ago.

  I sit up and stick my hand out to him—and it’s such a formality after everything we’ve been through over the years, but I need him to know how much I appreciate his guidance and expertise through the whole ordeal. He glances down at my outstretched hand and just grins, knowing this is the only admission I’ll give that he knows what he’s doing and is good at his job. He shakes my hand and squeezes it a little too tight, before reaching out and patting me on the back.

  “Thanks, Benji. I owe you one.”

  “I’d say anytime but if you lie for your brother again,” he says, daring me to tell him that I wasn’t covering for him, “I love you enough to tell you that I won’t defend you. I told him the same thing right before I came in here as well.”

  “Told him what? That you won’t defend me or him?” I ask off the cuff, so distracted by the chaos of emotions swirling around in my body that it takes me a second to hear what he has said. “Whoa, wait. You called Hunter just to tell him that?” I can’t believe that with his complete disdain for my brother he even took the time to seek him out.