A FILTHY Engagement: a filthy line novel

by Kidman, Jaxson

  Of course Sab wanted to hit The Down first.

  I laughed it off and put my guitar down and walked to the door and went outside for a breath.

  Nash followed me.

  Always up my ass with something.

  “Glad you and Jay talked,” he said.

  “We didn’t talk.”

  “You worked it out.”

  “Nothing is ever worked out.”

  “For the record you’re both right and wrong,” Nash said.

  I looked at him. “Fuck Mitchy.”

  “I agree.”

  “And you know what? Fuck Raunchy Recks too.”

  “It makes for a good story,” Nash said. “We’ll battle them on the road.”

  “I hope I see Neo or Ven in a bar… so I can fucking knock them out.”

  “In time,” Nash said. He punched my arm. “That’s a good song we have.”

  “Every song is good.”

  “It’s about Candice,” Nash said. “I can see it. Feel it.”

  “And what’s that mean, Nash?”

  “You’ve never been in love, have you?” he asked with a laugh.

  “You know the ring I gave her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You remember that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Old man Rourke,” I said. “Telling us how shitty we were. Demanding we learn the theory of music before we could play.”

  “I know, Dex,” Nash said. “We left the studio because of him. And you stole that ring out of his bag. And wore it hoping you’d see him and he’d see it.”

  “For all I know that ring meant shit to him,” I said.

  “But now it has meaning, doesn’t it?”

  “You have your own engagement to celebrate,” I said. “And a wedding to plan. Don’t worry about me, Nash.”

  “You’re my brother,” he said. “And this entire thing has been crazy. Of all of us… you could fake an engagement. Except I completely forget that somewhere inside your chest there’s a heart. That’s why the music means so much to you. That’s why being on the road soothes you. That’s why this shit with Mitchy gets to you. And it’s why you haven’t blown this thing up with Candice yet.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see about that,” I said. “I have to go meet up with Toby and the lawyers again today.”

  “You know you’re not getting into trouble here,” Nash said. “Filthy Line doesn’t do time behind bars. At least not unless it’s an overnight thing.”

  The door opened behind Nash and the rest of the band came out.

  That was just as another SUV pulled up.

  The backdoor opened and out stepped Toby.

  “Should we talk here or go for a ride?”

  “Barry and Franklin in there?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Toby said.

  “Riding around with you fuckers will kill me,” I said.

  “I’ll get more whiskey,” Nash said to me.

  I watched as Barry and Franklin climbed out of the back of the SUV.

  I needed more than a glass of whiskey.

  I needed Candice.

  * * *

  We sat around a table that wobbled.

  We could afford anything we fucking wanted but this table… this old, shitty card table was the one where we sat, got drunk and high, and wrote our first single. Toby managed to keep the table for us and we cherished the damn thing.

  The rest of the guys were scattered around, talking, playing guitars, doing whatever.

  Toby folded his hands.

  Then he grinned.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You’re all set,” Barry said.

  “Meaning?”

  “It’s all gone,” Toby said. “The first arrest is a wash. The second one is there but nothing’s happening. There’s a fine that I took care of.”

  “And on behalf of yourself, Filthy Line, and SLECK you’re sorry and won’t do it again,” Franklin said.

  “It was easy,” Barry said. “Shocked me. But this whole thing worked. The sympathy from the fans really pushed it over the top.”

  “You and Candice were a hit,” Toby said. “It was perfect. She was real. You’re a rock star.”

  “And now you can do what you want,” Franklin said. “Just as long as you don’t get arrested again.”

  “Even if he did…” Toby shrugged.

  “I don’t want to hear that,” Barry said.

  “Well, he does have a point,” Franklin said. “We could throw the same story. The business and life tore them apart.”

  “We’ll save it for the strip club stories,” Toby said. “That’s where he’ll be going when this is over. Right, Dex?”

  Toby smiled big at me.

  I stood up.

  I slammed the folding chair shut.

  I swung it through the air like you’d see on some wrestling show.

  Toby fell out of his chair as I threw mine.

  If he hadn’t moved, he would have taken the chair to his face.

  The chair smashed into a collection of bottles.

  They all shattered.

  I walked out of the rehearsal space again.

  This time nobody followed me.

  I took out my phone and looked at Candice’s name on my screen.

  All of our texts.

  I guess it was time for her to go, right? And she didn’t have to fake it. She wouldn’t have to tell her story. It would just be… over.

  Over.

  I walked to the SUV and opened the back.

  “Mr. Toby…”

  The driver looked at me and closed his mouth.

  I found a small bottle of whiskey and made it my best friend.

  My thoughts ran fast and ran deep.

  Toby finally emerged from the building.

  He knew better than to push at me when I was pissed.

  “I’m not sure what you wanted to hear there,” he said. “Or hear now. So I’ll choose a more neutral way of talking, Dex. Your ass isn’t going to jail. You don’t need to fake anything you don’t want to fake. And I was just fucking around with you in there. I need you out of trouble. SLECK wants more songs. And we’re talking tour dates too.”

  I finished off the small bottle of whiskey and smashed it at Toby’s feet.

  “Sounds good, Dex,” Toby said.

  He turned and walked to the door.

  He opened it and paused.

  When he looked back at me, he was smiling.

  “You fucking stupid rock star,” he said. “You fell in love. You fucking fell in love. And now you don’t know what to do. You can’t just slip a twenty into her thong and tell her to leave. And you can’t just kick her out of your bed because you secretly want her to stay.”

  “Candice doesn’t wear thongs,” I said.

  “Good to know, Dex.”

  Toby went inside and I curled my lip.

  I needed to…

  You need to go fuck someone. Right now, Dex. End this now. Ana will be a play thing for a little while. She knows the deal. She wants it anyway. A simple fucking call…

  I looked at my phone and the screen lit up.

  A text message came through from a number I didn’t know.

  Dex. It’s Cali. Candice’s sister. We need to talk. Meet me at the cafe please.

  * * *

  Again, I wasn’t drunk.

  But I wasn’t sober either.

  All I wrote back to Cali was OK and left it at that.

  I had Toby’s driver take me to the cafe.

  I needed to see what this next round of bullshit was going to be.

  Was she going to try and convince me to dump her sister? Maybe it was time for this snotty bitch to realize the truth. That Candice and I had been faking it all along.

  Cali stood outside the cafe, clutching her purse like I was going to steal it from her.

  I made sure to bring another little bottle of whiskey with me so I could get through this.

  “You showed,” she said.

  “I
did,” I said. “Now what? Are you going to try to lecture me on life? I’m not some puppet, Cali. I know you’re used to controlling everyone in your little bubble…”

  “This isn’t about me or you,” she said.

  “It’s about Candice. You don’t approve of me. Or our arrangement.”

  “How could I approve?” Cali asked. “And me being here is going to end up ruining my relationship with her. But I have to be here. I have to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Tell you the truth.”

  I laughed. “I can tell you some truth too, Cali. Save it.”

  I turned away.

  “She’s in love with someone else, Dex,” Cali said.

  I stopped and curled my lip.

  “Did she tell you about her business?” Cali asked.

  “She did,” I said.

  “Did she tell you about Trent?”

  I spun around. “What the fuck is this?”

  “Or why she’s in my basement?”

  “This is what you want to do, Cali? Talk about her past?”

  “Past?” Cali asked. “Trent still texts her. They never broke up. She just left.”

  “Left…”

  “He helped her with the business. He was a part of it. There was money involved. Then feelings. I warned her of everything but she didn’t listen. She never listens to me. And I don’t want to do this, Dex. I swear I don’t. But I can’t let her marry you out of spite. And that’s what it is. She’s with you to get Trent off her back. And what happens with you? You’re going to be real? True? Faithful?”

  “You get to decide what kind of relationship she has then?” I asked.

  “My sister is not going to be stuck with some rock star and a bunch of drunk whores,” Cali said.

  “Right. You can see the future.”

  “You’re drunk right now, Dex. It’s the middle of the day.”

  “She loved Trent?” I asked.

  No, Dex, no… don’t do that… it’s the whiskey talking… it’s not you…

  “She did,” Cali said calmly. “The business started to fail. And Candice just curled up. She let it crumble and thought she was going to lose Trent too. So when the business failed, she took off, just thinking it was over with Trent. But it never was. She never faced him. And he never gave up on her. I told him to give her some distance. And time. Which he has done. But he’s been in contact with her.”

  “She could just change her number,” I said.

  Cali laughed. “And you don’t know why she hasn’t done that, huh? Unbelievable. You know, you’re a rock star. You want to throw some shitty ring on a pretty girl’s finger and marry her? That’s your life. You know you can leave her, throw her some cash, and make her go away forever. But that pretty girl is my sister. She’s the only family I have, Dex. Our mother never took care of us. I took care of Candice. And just when I thought I had everything set up for both of us, that woman came out of nowhere and gave Candice hope. Candice gave our mother her phone number… and that was years ago…”

  “That’s why she won’t change her number,” I said.

  “She grabs onto hope sometimes to her own detriment,” Cali said. “Just like this thing… you’re wild and free. You’re the bad she’s fought off. And I get it. It’s appealing. You’re the opposite of the risk it was with Trent.”

  “And I’m the stepping stone,” I said.

  I drank the rest of what was in the small bottle of whiskey and dropped it to the ground.

  “I’m sorry, Dex,” Cali said. “I don’t like you but I don’t want to hurt you. I mean, I don’t even know how you feel about my sister. How you honestly feel.”

  I backed up to the SUV. “You want the truth, Cali? I love her. I fucking love her. I love everything about her. And I love everything about her life. Including you.”

  “Dex…”

  I put my finger to my lips and shook my head.

  I didn’t want to hear another word from Cali’s lips.

  Back in the SUV, I grabbed another small whiskey bottle.

  I stared at my phone for a little while as the driver just cruised around town like I told him to do.

  I wanted to text Candice.

  Fuck that.

  I wanted to call her.

  Tell her I loved her. Tell her this crazy fucking idea of mine turned into real love.

  But she loved someone else.

  And this was just pretend all along.

  I didn’t call Candice.

  Instead I called Toby.

  “Dex, where are you with my driver?” Toby asked. “I have a meeting with-”

  “Shut the fuck up, Toby,” I said.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  I drank more of the whiskey and knew I had to make this right.

  “Toby, I need you to track someone down…”

  20

  Candice

  I hadn’t heard from Dex for an entire day.

  Before real panic could settle in and hang around, Toby called me. I didn’t know his number but at that point, any number that called I would have answered.

  “Are you alone?” Toby asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Why? Where’s Dex? Is he okay?”

  “You might want to sit down. Or better yet, get ready to go out.”

  “Go out?”

  “You have a date.”

  “A date. Right. With Dex?”

  “No,” Toby said. “I’m sorry, Candice.”

  “Sorry for what?”

  “Look, everything is taken care of now.”

  I curled my lip. Toby was talking like some mob guy, wanting to say something but not wanting to say something at the same time.

  “What are you talking about, Toby?”

  “Everything with Dex worked out,” Toby said. “Everything’s going away now. He’s good.”

  “He’s good. Right.”

  “You know, what you did was really amazing, Candice. It worked. You really saved him. And honestly, the rest of the band. And me. This thing is bigger than life sometimes.”

  “Toby, I don’t care about that stuff,” I said. “Why are you calling me? Where’s Dex?”

  “He wanted me to call you. To make the arrangements. For your date.”

  “My date…”

  “The ending, Candice,” Toby said.

  I ended the call.

  I hung up on Toby and threw my phone to the bed.

  Tears filled my eyes.

  The ending?

  I looked at my left hand.

  There was always an ending. That’s how this was supposed to go.

  The tears were fought back into my body and I grabbed my phone off the bed.

  I tried to call Dex but he didn’t answer.

  So I had to send him a text.

  Face me so I can give you your ring back. Tell me to my face what’s happening.

  My hands shook as I stared at the screen.

  It became blurry from the tears pushing back at me.

  One tear fell and hit the screen.

  I swiped my thumb across the tear.

  Dex sent me a text.

  Be outside in 5

  I covered my mouth and started to cry.

  I sucked in a breath.

  I needed to calm down.

  “Aunt Candice?”

  I froze.

  I wiped my cheeks.

  When I turned, I smiled at Carter.

  “Hey…”

  “Are you crying?”

  “No,” I said. “Stubbed my toe on my nightstand. Hurts like a bitch.”

  Carter giggled. “Can I show you something?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Carter had his tablet in his hand and showed me the screen. “Do you think this guitar is cool?”

  My heart ached. “Yeah.”

  “Will you send it to Dex? Like he said…”

  I didn’t want his heart to feel like mine did.

  “Yeah, I’ll send it to him,” I said.

>   I took a picture of his screen with my phone.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Carter asked.

  “Yeah,” I lied. “That damn nightstand.”

  Carter walked up the steps.

  I went out the basement door and walked around the house.

  I didn’t want to see anyone.

  Except Dex.

  And there he was.

  Big time rock star in the black SUV.

  The vehicle stopped in the middle of the street and the back window lowered.

  Dex looked like hell.

  Sad. Lonely. Drunk.

  “Toby called me,” I said. I touched the ring on my left hand and wrestled it off. “You couldn’t even call me?”

  I threw the ring into the backseat.

  “You’ll get yours from me soon,” he said.

  “What the hell does that mean, Dex?”

  “All the truths, sweetie,” he said. “It makes sense now. You never wanted anything out of this. You were just there. You didn’t fear the interview. The pictures. It’s like you wanted it that way. You wanted to be seen with me. You wanted to be… heard…”

  “Dex, whatever you did have arranged, I’m not doing it,” I said. “Open the door. I’ll come with you. So we can talk about everything. I’m… I’m…”

  I’m in love with you.

  Dex winked at me. “Hey, it all worked out. We got what we both wanted. I was going to let you keep that ring though. A little memory of a crazy time. I’m going to text you an address. You should be there. It’s my gift to you, sweetie. The truth. Please don’t run from the truth. Don’t let one failure dictate your entire life. Promise me that.”

  “I’m not promising anyone a thing,” I said.

  “If you don’t show up later…” Dex shook his head. “Whatever. It’s your life, Candice. Just don’t ever feel worthless. And not beautiful. You took a wild rock star’s life and fucking changed it. That takes strength.”

  Dex leaned forward and knocked on the window separating him and the driver.

  The SUV pulled away.

  A text came through a few seconds later.

  With an address.

  Where he wanted me to show up.

  I shook my head.

  Then another text came from Dex.

  You and Trent deserve this second chance, sweetie.

  * * *

  I grabbed Cali’s phone out of her hand and wanted to break it. But then I realized that would hurt Carter too. If there was an emergency or something and Cali didn’t have a phone…