“Lizzy? I know.”
“But you don’t know why.”
“And you do?”
Ash nodded.
“And let me guess… if I tell you I love you, you’ll tell me.”
Ash curled his lip. “He was fucking your friend’s mother. That’s why.”
“What?”
“Werthwood. He was with Lizzy’s mother. They had been going out secretly for a while. Lizzy knew. I guess she thought she was getting herself a new daddy. Then you showed up and Werthwood dumped her mother. For your mother.”
“Bullshit, Ash,” I said.
“I have no reason to lie to you, angel. All I needed to do was talk to Lizzy. That poor girl’s heart spilled everywhere around me.”
Ash got into his truck and turned it around and drove away.
The words played in my head.
Lizzy? Her mother?
That’s where this entire thing came from?
Lizzy wanted me to find the truth of Werthwood as revenge… or something…
I got back into the car and saw a text waiting from Uly.
Still waiting doll
He sent the same picture of the two guitars from last night.
I felt my teeth chatter with anger and anticipation.
Ash texted me the address where Uly and Hil were.
I put the car into drive.
I lit a cigarette.
Then I said to myself, “This better be a good fucking song.”
* * *
The cafe was at the end of an old building.
It had big windows, but they were covered up from the inside with what looked like old blankets. On the brick wall above the front door was the faded outline of where a sign used to be.
I couldn’t tell if it was Benny’s, Barry’s, or Borry’s…
Something with a B for sure though.
I pulled at the front door and it was locked.
I threw my head back and laughed.
Of course it’s fucking locked.
I pulled at the door a few more times and then reached for my phone.
That’s when Uly appeared at the door.
He turned the heavy lock and opened the door for me.
“Nice of you to show up, doll,” he said.
“Hey, beauty, there you are…”
I turned my head and saw Hil sitting on a counter, smoking a cigarette.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“Just a place,” Uly said. “Still working on getting things up and running. Call it a side project. To kill some time.”
“To have a place to play,” Hil said. “Before shit hit the fan.”
He jumped off the counter, dropped his cigarette to the floor, and stepped on it.
“You know it’s a little sad that you had to open your own place to play,” I said. “Doesn’t make you sound like rock stars at all. Makes you sound like pussies.”
“You want to say that again, beauty?” Hil asked. “Not sure where you think roles were reversed here…”
“What are you going to do?” I asked. “Set me up again? Send me into a fight I wasn’t ready for?”
“You were ready, doll,” Uly said. “There was no choice. Did you come here to listen to us play or bitch at us?”
“Both,” I said.
Hil walked toward me. The smell of leather and smoke hit me. It made me take a deeper breath.
“Look, beauty, we can go back and forth,” Hil said. “You know me, I’d love to do that. Doesn’t bother me one bit. I can get you so angry that the only thing that can calm you down will be my-”
“Just play the song,” I said. “And make it count.”
As Hil moved toward the stage where there were two guitars and two old barstools, Uly took his place.
He grabbed my hand and with the pinky of his other hand he stuck it through the ring. The ring with the missing diamond.
“You’ll have to tell me what you know,” he whispered. “Everyone talks, doll.”
“Do you really want to mess with me right now? You have no idea what-”
“Yes I do,” he whispered. “Everyone talks. You were always part of this, Belle. Part of us. Part of Them. And what you did proved it.”
“That wasn’t for you,” I said. “That was for me.”
“And everything we do is for ourselves,” Uly said.
“So we’re all just bad and greedy?”
“Welcome to BFH, doll,” he said with a wink. “Hope you’re not leaving yet.”
I heard a whistle. “Uly, let’s go. Before I change my fucking mind on this.”
Uly pulled away but outstretched his arm, making it look like this dramatic moment between us of not wanting to let each other go.
I had to give him credit.
It made my heart race a little.
When I saw movement from the corner of my eye, I turned my head and saw Ash walking from the back of the unfinished cafe.
Uly climbed up on the stage next to Hil.
They grabbed their guitars and sat down.
I looked around the cafe.
It was just bare walls and nothing else… well, not even walls. The walls were ripped down. It was just the building. Wires ran all over the place, lights just dangled above our heads. It was like someone gutted the place, left the floor and the stage, and called it quits.
Ash stood next to me, his arms at his sides, his focus on the stage.
“What is this place?” I whispered to him.
Ash looked at me. He curled his lip. “You won’t let it go unless I tell you…”
“So just fucking tell me, Ash,” I said.
“Hil’s mother bought the place,” Ash said. “There was a time when she was going to give up her law career and run a cafe. A little shit cafe. Probably something to do with Hil’s father. Not sure, angel. But when my father married her, he told her to keep the place. Maybe it was a romantic gesture in case she ever wanted to do something else. Or maybe it was all about money. I don’t really give a shit about this place. Uly and Hil used it all the time to practice or play smaller shows. Okay?”
“See? Was that so hard?” I asked.
“Painfully.”
The strum of a guitar stole my attention from Ash.
Uly’s eyes burned at me. Then to be a prick, he stopped strumming his guitar and pulled his sunglasses over his eyes.
Hil’s face was as icy as his eyes.
I didn’t even realize there were speakers on the stage and above them.
Microphones near their guitars.
Microphones near their mouths.
Like this was a real show.
Hil strummed his guitar a few times and then looked at Uly and nodded.
They nodded four times and started to play.
It was a song I had never heard before.
Chills climbed up and down my spine.
Uly and Hil didn’t even look at each other either.
They just played.
Uly’s fingers started to climb up his guitar.
The two guitars sounded amazing together.
I bit my bottom lip and felt the pain from Tinsley’s cheap-shot punches.
Bitch.
Ash moved his left hand and touched my right hand. He gripped my fingers tight.
Sort of holding my hand.
I looked down at his hand and smiled.
This was our love.
Chaotic and messy.
But that was okay.
I looked back to the stage and let out a breath.
Uly and Hil kept playing.
Then they looked at each other.
For a second.
Hil was the first one to sing….
“I miss you tonight, Penelope…”
* * *
My heart was in my throat listening to the song.
Both Uly and Hil ripping through lyrics about Penelope. Sometimes singing so quiet and sweet and in harmony with the guitars. Sometimes working their way to a scream. Growling. P
issed off.
I held your hand while the thunder clapped,
I kissed your tears when you were too scared to walk,
We started to drown, I taught you to swim, I put my head in the water that you said would never hurt me. But all along you wrote your words. The pages of this fucking mystery that I could never fucking solve…
It was really, really good.
Then together they started to sing.
Going into an almost whisper.
Hil shut his eyes.
I couldn’t tell if Uly’s eyes were shut because of his sunglasses.
I miss you tonight,
Penelope…
And I’ll miss you next week,
Penelope…
Then I’ll write you a song,
Penelope…
Maybe I’ll get over you,
Penelope…
They backed away from their microphones and kept playing their guitars.
Back to the same music they started with.
Uly moving his hands up the guitar and then slowly back down.
He and Hil strumming the same chords over and over…
And then they were done.
Uly stood up first and put his guitar down.
He rubbed his jaw.
Hil tossed his guitar to the side.
It hit the stage with a loud boom.
When he stood up, he grabbed at his neck and ripped off both of the necklaces he always wore.
He put them on the barstool.
He and Uly looked at each other like they wanted to kill one another.
Ash squeezed my hand tighter.
My heart started to pound in my chest again.
“Don’t fucking look at me, Hil,” Uly said.
“You’re lucky I don’t break your fucking jaw,” Hil said.
Uly turned to face Hil.
Ash whispered fuck and broke away from me and ran toward the stage.
Uly and Hil were going to kill each other over a song.
Over Penelope.
Because of me.
eighteen
I stepped outside and Hil looked at me and nodded.
“Have a smoke with me, beauty,” he said.
“Can’t pass that up,” I said.
I lit a cigarette and watched as he leaned against the wall.
Looking bad, cool, sexy, deadly… insert cliché bad boy word.
“It’s really that bad?” I asked him.
“What do you think?”
“I think you should tell me what happened.”
“What did you hear?”
I laughed. “She worked at a cafe. Her parents owned it. She fucked up your hearts. Broke up the band.”
Hil nodded. “Anything about pregnancy in there?”
I didn’t reply.
I wanted him to tell me the story.
“She was fucking perfect, beauty,” Hil said. “From the second I saw her… just perfect. I was smoking out front of this cafe and she was staring at me. And we literally just stared at each other the entire time. Through this piece of glass. It was almost symbolic… that she would always be that way. You know me, beauty. I just go for what I want. So I did. The first thing she told me was that I needed to quit smoking. And stop being a gross asshole.”
“And that probably just turned you on,” I said.
“Hard as a rock, Belle.”
I sighed. “Hil…”
“That was just the beginning,” a voice said.
I turned my head and Uly and Ash were outside too.
“I had met her, flirted with her, got her number, and we were texting all the time,” Uly said.
“Everything was supposed to be a secret,” Hil said.
“Not for us,” Uly said.
“Yes it was,” Hil said. “She liked it that way.”
“Did she know about the band?” I asked.
“She watched the shows there,” Hil said. “Show after show…”
“I loved playing there,” Uly said.
“So did I,” Hil said. “I loved it more.”
“No, you didn’t,” Uly said.
Hil flicked his cigarette away and pushed from the wall.
Uly checked to make sure his sleeves were rolled up enough.
I looked at Ash.
He didn’t seem to care now.
“What happened then?” I asked.
“What the fuck do you think happened, beauty?” Hil growled at me.
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Ash said.
“I can defend myself,” I said to Ash. And then I walked up to Hil. “Sorry about your heart, Hil.”
“My heart is fucking fine,” he said. “Uly was the one who ruined everything.”
“Fuck you,” Uly said. “I will knock every tooth out of your mouth.”
I looked back at Uly. “The rings…”
Uly shook his head. “Fuck that.”
“Just tell her,” Ash said. “Tell her everything. Who cares? She was a terrible person. She got to both of you. And she tried to get to me.”
“What?” I asked.
“She tried to get to me,” Ash said. “That was her game. And when she faked the pregnancy… then karma came to get her.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning she got pregnant for real,” Uly said.
“What?” I asked.
My head was spinning, trying to figure out who to look at.
Hil then touched my chin to keep my focus on him.
His breath smelled like a cigarette.
“Listen carefully, beauty…. Penelope got pregnant for real.”
* * *
Ash slipped his arm around me and kept me close to him.
He definitely didn’t like when Hil touched me.
Uly and Hil were on opposite ends of the world.
Pacing as they traded glances.
There was nothing calm about anything though.
They wanted to fight each other.
“Listen, angel,” Ash said. “East vs. West was happening again at the time. We had to take care of that fight first. On top of that fight, there was some bad blood with HCH. But it was all coming together. Until Penelope told me she was pregnant.”
“So you and her…?” I asked.
“No,” Ash said. “Never. Not even close.”
“She ran to him, afraid,” Hil said. “Soft heart over there.”
“Fuck off,” Ash said.
“All of you fuck off,” Uly. snapped. “I took on the Rulz by myself. I went to the ditch and fought. I pushed everyone back and off of us. I wrote the songs. I set the shows. I pushed hard for everything we wanted.” He looked at Ash. “And I pushed you to that tattoo shop. And what happened, Ash? You ran away when it fell apart.”
“You wrote the songs?” Hil asked, ignoring Uly’s comment to Ash. “I wrote them too. We wrote the songs together. Even that last one…”
“About Penelope,” I said.
“She knew what she did,” Uly said. “The first pregnancy… I bought the ring. Okay? I thought I had it figured out. My mother’s crazy enough that she would have bought into it. We would have had to have waited to get married, but whatever.”
“But it was fake,” I said.
“Fake,” Uly said.
“That wasn’t enough though,” Hil said. “For either of us.”
“Stupidly,” Uly said.
“Then she really got pregnant,” Hil said. “So I bought a ring.”
“She told you it was yours?” I asked Hil.
“She told everyone it was theirs,” Ash said. “I had to find out what really was going on. I found out she was rich. And she was just some rotten bitch. Her parents owned everything. She pretended to be this broke girl at the cafe. And all she wanted was attention.”
“She got it,” Uly said. “She got all of the fucking attention.”
“We took the diamonds out of the rings,” Hil said. “And we gave them to her. And that was that.”
“Turns
out she had a serious boyfriend all along,” Uly said. “That was the guy who got her pregnant. Some pointed nose motherfucker who was too rich for his own good. Two families deciding on who should love one another.”
“And then she was gone,” Ash said.
“Then the fucking music stopped,” Hil said. “Uly took off.”
“I didn’t fucking leave,” Uly said. “You left. You left me hanging on stage, Hil.”
“To a show that meant shit to everyone,” Hil said.
“You were too busy looking for her lookalike.”
“Fuck, stop it,” Ash said.
I grabbed the front of Ash’s shirt. “No. Don’t stop it. Let them do this.”
“Hear what she said?” Hil asked. “Let them do this…”
Uly took his sunglasses and beanie off and handed both items to me.
He nodded. “Let them do this…”
I swallowed hard.
My hand tightened around Ash’s shirt to keep him from getting involved.
Did I just start another war?
* * *
When Ash finally stepped in, the damage was already done.
The corner of Uly’s right eye was bleeding.
Hil’s lip had been opened to the point where he could spit blood like it was watery red jelly.
All their cuts and marks from the fight with the Rulz were either reopened or hidden by fresh cuts and marks.
Ash stood between Uly and Hil.
“Did you even love her?” Uly asked Hil.
“That’s the fucked up part,” Hil said. “I did. I let her crush my heart.”
“Does it matter now?” Ash asked.
“I said never again,” Hil said. “Then Belle showed up.”
I sucked in a breath and held it.
All three of Them looked at me.
My face turned red like I was guilty of something.
“Fucking Belle,” Uly said.
“What did I do?”
“Everything, angel,” Ash said.
“You reminded me of what Penelope felt like,” Hil said. “I never wanted to feel that again.”
Hil knocked Ash’s arm away and went back into the cafe.
I handed Uly his beanie and sunglasses back.
He wiped blood off of his face as he put himself back together.
NOT SO Special: a bay falls high novel Page 18
