Sweet Ache

  Fuck, here we go, Play.

  “Sounds like a plan.” The look of elation on her face is ridiculous. I hate to see what her panties look like. Shit, from my experience with desperate women, she’s probably not wearing any. “Meet me outside in ten minutes, yeah?”

  I hear the quick inhale of breath to my right from Quin and when I flick my eyes her way the glare I deserve is slicing into me.

  “Sure. Ten. Yes,” Delta Sig says as she walks back to her seat but my focus is already on Quin.

  I can see Hunter over her shoulder, and I nod to him, hoping she realizes there is someone else watching our exchange. But I see the hurt flicker through her eyes, recognize the shock evident after what I just said, and know she’s not paying attention to who else is in the room because that fire of hers is aimed directly at me.

  I choke over the words I need to say but know I need to spit them out because I already see Hunt checking out Delta Sig as she walks away, confirming my hunch that he just wants to stir shit up for me right now.

  I look at Quinlan, she’s so goddamn beautiful, especially now when all I see is anger and all I want to do is leave with her, take her to her place, lay her down, and show her the shit I feel that’s on continual spin cycle in my gut. Those feelings that are churning within me way too quick and way too fast. There are emotions stirring that I don’t want, can’t have. Hell yes, I pursued her, loved the fucking challenge she presented, and I loved the idea of Vinny boy getting another ring around his damn pink heart, but never expected this notion that just slammed into me like a Mack truck.

  That this is more than just a bet. That this is more than just about sex.

  I expected a fun fling but never expected to consider losing a stupid goddamn bet because one, no way in hell am I letting Vince touch her and two, no way am I letting Hunter either.

  How did this get so fucking complicated? How did the pressure of Hunter being here and the notion I’m going to hurt her make all of this fester up and slap me in the face?

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Way too much all at once.

  I panic momentarily, force myself to see that wanting something more than sex doesn’t necessarily mean love. It just means that I care for her and know I’m about to hurt her and hate myself for that look I know I’m going to put in her eyes. But I also know the kind of hurt I’ll inflict will be ten times easier than what I fear Hunter would do just to get back at me.

  “Ten minutes?” Quin’s voice breaks through the riot in my head, pulling me back into the moment.

  “Yeah.” I break eye contact and start to walk toward the table where my keys and phone sit on the table, anything to not see her lips shock apart and eyes widen. Anything to act normal and get the judge to lose interest and walk away. “Can you make sure that you get this all set up for the next class for me?”

  “Excuse me?” Disbelief laces her voice.

  “The PA. Next class. Got it?” The less I say the better.

  “Did I miss something here?” She’s closer to me now, and I turn to face her. I can be a callous asshole without a second thought like the best of them but hell if I’m not going to hate myself later for this.

  “Nope. Not a thing. Just gotta wrap things up here so I can meet up with a friend.”

  “A friend? Hmpf. You must have a lot of friends—kind of like flavors of the month.” The contempt is dripping from her voice, and I see her clasp her hands to prevent them from trembling with emotion.

  Shit, I know she said she was a woman okay with casual sex, but I also know that casual sex takes off the next morning once they feel it’s polite to leave. I stayed the whole fucking day until night fell. She’s got to know—like I just realized—that there is more than just sex between us. She has to. I just hope she remembers that right now as I utter my next words.

  “That’s about right. It’s all good though, at least I have thirty-one to choose from at any different time. They come and go so quick, right? Makes them easy to sample and move on,” I tell her, delivering the final blow in what I hope will get her the hell out of this room and away from Hunter.

  My phone alerts a text but I don’t even flinch because she stares at me a beat without speaking, jaw clenched, eyes blinking as she processes what I just told her.

  “Well, this flavor just expired,” she says, starting to walk toward me and for a moment I’m unsure what her intentions are but she veers to the right of me and toward the stairs there. I track her movement as she walks up the steps with determination, holding the apology back on my lips, and if the notion hadn’t slapped me in the face moments ago that I care for her, it definitely would have hit home right now.

  I realize that Quinlan never turned around to see my brother behind her. She doesn’t have a clue why I just did what I did.

  She walks right past the judge at the same time he stands, nodding a polite greeting to her but eyes still focused on me. What I’d give to tear off after her right now, clear the hurt I just put from her eyes, but at what cost since the two people who can ruin my fate are sitting here in the same fucking room? I wince at the sound of the doors slamming shut with force at the top of the theater and pull in a deep breath as I prepare to face my brother and whatever shitstorm he’s hedging toward.

  Today’s brutal enough, can’t I just deal with it my own way without him making it worse?

  “Well, that was awkward,” he says in that mocking tone of his. “You had her already and what, she wasn’t good?”

  My fist clenches and it takes everything I have to turn my back to him and walk toward the side of the auditorium and turn the PA system off. Normally talking like this with Hunter or Vince or one of the guys would be okay—our sex lives are an open book—but I don’t want to hear him talk about Quinlan or about how good she was or wasn’t. He doesn’t deserve to know.

  Hell, I don’t even deserve to know. She’s way too good for me.

  “What’s up?” I call out to him, trying to act nonchalant and ignore his comment when I’d rather shove him up against the wall and tell him just what I think of him and his bullshit. I step into the small alcove, and I swear to God it still smells of the sex we had earlier. The pang of guilt stabs again but it’ll never be deep enough to inflict the pain I deserve after what I just said to her. I flip the switch and turn around as fast as I can. I don’t want him ruining what happened in here between Quin and me either.

  When I emerge back into the theater, he looks at me expectantly. “So what gives? Blondie’s bad in bed so you moved on to sexy sorority girl? Because she’s definitely more my type.”

  My patience is gone and my temper boils but he just said the words I needed to hear. I’ve caught his attention with Delta Sig.

  “Yeah, something like that,” I defer, running a hand through my hair in exasperation. “I need to get going. She’s waiting. Do you need something?” And when I glance up to the seats now, I find that the judge has slipped out and it’s just him and me. A sigh of relief flickers through me despite the tightrope I’m walking with him.

  “Oh, you’re going out with her right now?” he says, lifting his chin up the stairs, motioning his hands across his chest like the letters Delta Sig girl wears on display.

  “Mm-hm.” I stuff my keys in my pocket as my phone alerts me of another text.

  “I’m tagging along with you, man. Want to see how bad you blow it with this chick so I can swoop in and save the day.”

  “Dream on, dude. Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?” He’s pushing buttons, and I’m in no fucking mood for his shit right now, especially today. Can’t he get that he’s not the only one who suffers from the memories this day evokes? I know I’m fooling myself thinking he does. “How’s your counseling appointments going? Huh, Hunter?” I meet his eyes, the need to see if he lies to me front and center.

  “Next week is my first one.” His eyes dart to the left and then back to mine.

  “You think I’m going to buy that bullshit lie?” I can hear the incredulity
rising in my voice, the stress of the last fifteen minutes taking its toll. “You think I’m here paying a penance for something I didn’t fucking do to save your goddamn ass and you get to skip out on your end of the bargain?” I step toward him, fists clenched, teeth gritted, patience gone. “You fucked up last time, lost your chance at a whole helluva lot…. You gonna risk more now?”

  “C’mon brother, you know I’m good for it.”

  I just look at him as truths I push aside every day about my brother come crashing down around me. I continue to hold out hope but I don’t have to ignore the anger. “Don’t you dare c’mon brother me! I don’t care what you’re fucking good for because right now it seems like you’re not good for a fucking thing!” I yell, my finger jabbing him in the chest. “I took the fucking fall for you. Jeopardized my freedom, my career, my band for you, and you stand here like it’s no big fucking deal.”

  “You and your precious career!” he sneers.

  “You bet your ass my career, you prick. Who do you think funds your lifestyle? Your habit? Did you forget where your monthly payoff from the band comes from? I pay you from my cut you asshole merely because the guilt eats at me that you forced me to make a decision, keep you on and ruin the band’s collective career or force you out to get help and save myself….”

  “You’re real good at saving yourself.” He fists his hands. “But you sure as shit suck when it comes to saving others now, don’t you.”

  His words knock me back a staggering mental step. I stare at him eyes wide, disbelieving that he actually just went there. I grit my teeth and take a less than calming breath. “Not everybody wants to be saved, Hunt.” We stand in a silent standoff, our words doing much more damage than our fists ever could. “You included, right? You gonna save yourself? Get help for your habit? You can blame me all you want … but your jealousy is on you—”

  “I’m not jealous!” he yells back, voice thundering around the room as I’m hit hard with his resentment. And it doesn’t fall on deaf ears that he didn’t refute my comment about his habit or anything else but his jealousy.

  “You’re not? Try again, asshole. You think I don’t hear the comments, see your bullshit, know you try to undermine anything that goes good for me? You think I’m that fucking naive to your game? Undermining deals, throwing a bag of blow my way the minute you see the sirens reflected in the windows of the house? You use my guilt against me, so back the fuck off me and own it!”

  My mirror image just stares at me, chest heaving, eyes glaring, and animosity pulsing off him in waves and crashing into mine. “I’m not jealous of you and your bullshit career. Daddy’s favorite sure is fulfilling his potential while leaving me with the raw end of the deal, having to take care of Mom.”

  “Take care of her? I believe I foot the bills.” I step into him, chests bumping against each other. “Besides, I didn’t realize getting high was taking care of her—because you’re still getting high, aren’t you? Drugs more important than promises, right?”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Right back atcha, brother! At least my conscience is clean.” I say the words but my father standing before me pressing the cold steel to his chin flashes through my mind. My conscience is anything but clean because I didn’t try to stop him. I shove the thoughts from my mind. Try to step up to the plate and be the heavy hand that Hunter needs to clean up his act.

  “Can’t be too clean since Dad’s dead, right choirboy?”

  We circle like caged dogs waiting for the chance to rip each other apart. We’re purposely trying to hurt each other, and it’s going to do nothing good for our relationship but fuck if it doesn’t feel good to let it all out right now. To hurt someone else for a change rather than sit back and take it.

  “Clean is something you know nothing about,” I grate the words out. “What’s your drug of choice now? Coke? What’s next? Heroin, so you can really fuck up our lives?”

  “People are going to hear you. Calm the fuck down—”

  “Don’t you dare tell me to calm down when it’s my goddamn ass on the line! Let them hear me!” I yell at the top of my lungs. “You afraid for them to find out? Huh? Are you?” I goad him. “Then do what you fucking promised. Clean yourself up! I’m taking the fall for you this one time, Hunt, but no more. I’m done. You’re my own flesh and blood, man, but this is bullshit.”

  “Figures. You get all high-and-mighty this year with your recording contracts and your whores … think you’ve proven yourself to the world and yet the only thing you’ve proven to me is that you’re a selfish bastard just like he was. Like father, like son.”

  His words cross the short distance between us and slam into me like a battering ram. In that split second I don’t register that I know he’s just taking a potshot to shut me up from calling his bullshit on the carpet. I don’t process anything except my fist cocked back and the rage screaming through me to take the shot, do the one thing I want so badly but know will do nothing to ease the pain in my soul.

  Make me be just like him.

  “Can’t do it, can you?” He taunts me, wants me to hit him so that he has something else to hold over my head.

  My arm trembles with the rage I feel inside. At him. At Dad. At Mom. At Quinlan for looking at me with those eyes that I don’t deserve looking at me. At fucking everything.

  I see a flicker of regret glance through Hunter’s eyes. And that tiny show of our connected DNA pulls me back from the brink because I fear that I have so much rage pent up inside me, if I hit him I won’t be able to stop.

  And you can’t undo harm you’ve done to your family. I know this because I’m living proof. I can’t undo what our dad did; I can only try to make it better.

  Goddamn higher road. Taking it is bullshit when some days I’d rather drive off the edge.

  My heart’s pounding with rage and my head doesn’t want to be filled with regret I can’t take back, so I lower my arm. I’ve gotta get out of here. Got to get some fresh air and have a few beers to calm the fuck down. And then call Quinlan to try to explain why I said what I said.

  “We’re done here, Hunt.” I put my hands out in front of me to tell him I don’t want to do this anymore because I still sense his rage.

  “I haven’t used since that night.” His voice is quiet, resigned, and laced with the only apology I think I’ll ever get from him.

  I nod my head in acceptance of his confession, but know that with Hunter his regret is fleeting and it’s only a matter of time before he moves on to resent something else. Time and again he’s proven this truth so I take what I can get when I can get it.

  “She’s waiting for me,” I say with a lift of my chin toward the exit, keeping pretenses up. “I’ve got to go.”

  We’ve been arguing for so long, she might not still be there. I glance down at my phone to see how long it’s been.

  Oh fuck. The texts read urgent from Westbrook. I turn to Hunter.

  “It’s Mom.”

  Chapter 20

  QUINLAN

  “I don’t need your shit, Colton.” I roll my eyes and flop back on the couch, phone still at my ear when all I want to do is pretend I have a bad connection and hang up. I love my brother dearly but on top of the crap day I’ve had, I don’t need his two cents over him finding out about my date with Luke.

  I ignore my line beeping another incoming call from Hawkin for what feels like the hundredth time since I left the seminar today. I opened up and he shut me down. I don’t want to think about it or the sting from my dashed hopes and the emotions I sat thinking about during the damn lecture while all the while he was thinking about Delta Sig girl. My eyes burn with tears I refuse to shed because this is on me and ignoring my damn mandate for casual only.

  “Q, you’re obviously upset, you won’t tell me why, which means it’s over a guy, and to top it off I find out you actually went on a date with the dickwad? I mean two and two—”

  “Does not equal four,” I say, exasperated. “It’s nothing. No one. I?
??ve already moved on.” Like hell I have but he doesn’t need to go into big-brother mode more than he already has.

  “Fucking women,” he mutters, causing me to laugh. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  The sincerity in his tone makes me smile softly at that side very few get to see to his hard-assed demeanor. “Yes. I promise,” I tell my brother.

  “You’d tell me if it wasn’t, right? I don’t need an excuse to kick Luke’s ass but it wouldn’t hurt either.”

  Testosterone much? Jeez. “Colton! He was nothing but a gentleman.”

  “Okay, okay. Just tell me one thing,” he says. “Is the asshole you’re upset over a racer?”

  The laugh comes freely now at his relentless and inherent dislike of Luke Mason. Hawkin’s voice fills my mind despite the pang it causes. Rocker trumps racer. “No. A musician,” I deadpan.

  “Fucking figures,” he grumbles. “That’s even worse.”

  “Yep. You know me—I make all the wrong decisions with all the wrong guys,” I say, imagining the look on his face at that comment.

  “Fuckin’ A, Q … What the—”

  “Night, Colton,” I tell him with a smirk on my face. I’ve fulfilled my little-sister duty to torment her older brother for the week.

  “Night.” I love the exasperation in his voice because it means I was successful.

  I hang up the phone and toss it on the couch beside me and scrub my hands over my face trying to ignore my racing thoughts even though I know they are going to win in the end anyway. I glance over to the trash can, where an empty cookies ’n cream half-gallon ice-cream container sits on the top. Ironically, I ate the dessert earlier as I tried to process what the fuck happened after the lecture today. And I’m still just as clueless now as I was before the rigorous workout, the soak in the tub, and the call from my brother.