“You bastard!” she screeched.
“That’s right, I’m a bastard. But I’m a bastard who could’ve f**ked you just now and gone back to ignoring you tomorrow. Would that make you feel better? Because that’s all anything between you and me would ever be.”
“She doesn’t love you like I do. She won’t. No one ever will. She’ll f**k you over and f**king walk away like that other cunt did. Why can’t you see that?”
“I already see that. It doesn’t make any difference.”
“No. You love me. You have to.” Tears in her voice now. Shit. “You have to. What we had…”
“What we had was something you could go out and have with any motherfucker in this building. Fighting and sex and more fighting. Maybe you need that toxicity to be fulfilled, but I don’t. It wasn’t love, Raina; it never was. It was something else. It was ugly.”
“That is what you need,” she said, voice seething in the dark. Her hands found his thighs—she must be up on her knees—and he was so off-balance he almost fell back on the couch. Fuck, he had to get out the door. “Not these squeaky-clean sunshiney bitches you and Brian have. You need ugly. No one else will understand that about you.”
“Then I guess I’ll be alone.” He shook her off, stepping back out of her reach and just then realizing he needed to stuff himself back in his pants in a big friggin’ hurry, before she got to him again and he did something stupid.
“Seth…?”
“What.”
“I can’t live without you.”
Amazing, that the angry little she-devil on stage, the unhinged banshee every guy in the crowd would’ve killed to take home and have her violate him twenty different ways, was reduced to this weak, sniveling, disjointed plea in the dark. Over him. He wanted to stay angry at her, but all he could muster at the moment was pity. And sadness, that he could understand. Hell. He’d been there.
He was there now.
“Here’s a thought, Raina. Try.”
He was zipping up his fly when the door flew open.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was amazing. Brian seemed to know every person in this building. At least ten of them stopped him to ask about ink. Most of them he indulged for a minute or two, ever edging toward the back. Always, the questions involved some variation of, “When are you gonna leave that one-horse fuckhole and set up shop here, man?” Perish the thought that he and Candace should leave. At least he always replied with, “I’m needed there way more than I am here,” which was comforting.
A few girls stopped him too, of course. Macy stuck close by his side, earning more than a few weird or outright hostile looks. Brian commented to her that he couldn’t wait to see how many texts Candace received alerting her that he was here with some other chick. When they reached a door to the side of the stage, a huge, black-clad bouncer who looked like someone from pro wrestling cut a glance their way. Great. This was probably going to be trouble.
She should’ve known better. Brian’s clout wouldn’t be denied. Grinning, the guy put out his hand, and Brian grasped it, engaging in those quick back-slapping half-hugs guys did. They exchanged obscenity-laced small talk for a minute while Macy shifted her weight back and forth, impatience eating at her. At last, Brian asked, “Ghost back there, man?”
“Haven’t seen him come out. He all right?”
“I think his head’s a little f**ked up.”
“I think more than his head is f**ked up.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Were you fuckin’ here just now?”
“Actually, no, we were late.”
“He demolished his fuckin’ guitar, bro. I mean, that shit goes down on a regular basis around here, but it’s not like him. Great show, though. Sucks you missed it.” The guy looked at her, doing a quick once-over, then raised his pierced eyebrow at Brian. “Where’s the Candy girl?”
“Back home. This is her friend. She’s the one needing to talk to Ghost.”
The big guy scoffed and shook his head. “Somebody needs to do something with him.”
“Can we get back there? We’ll take care of him.”
“Sure thing.” He winked at Macy and jerked his head toward the door. “Go on back, sweetheart.”
“Thanks,” she said, knowing she wasn’t heard over the rambunctious crowd. Brian preceded her through, and she crossed her arms, wrinkling her nose at the smell. Pure alcohol and enough weed that she would probably flunk a drug test tomorrow. But at least there were fewer people. Her head was beginning to pound.
Brian had apparently been back here before too; he checked a few different places, asked a few people they ran into. No one had seen Seth since he left the stage. At last they encountered a short guy with a Mohawk making out in a hallway with a purple-haired girl even shorter than him. He held a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and when he broke away from his giggling partner, he took a swig that probably drained half the bottle. Spying Brian and Macy coming toward them, he held it out in greeting.
“Ross! You catch our set?”
“Missed it. I just need Ghost. Where is he?”
“Probably passed out.” This time he held his bottle toward a closed door at the other end of the hall. “I saw him go in there. No, wait.” He grinned. “I saw Raina go in there too. So he probably ain’t passed out. I’d leave him alone all the same.”
Macy’s heart all but stopped. Brian echoed the words that exploded in her mind, in exactly the tone she thought them.
“Raina? What the f**k is she even doing here?”
Mohawk’s make-out partner kept trying to kiss him, tugging his face toward hers. He let her for a second, and just as Macy was ready to step between them and pry them apart, he broke away. “Mark had her come.”
“I’m sure he didn’t check with Ghost about that.”
“All the same, she’s here. And in there. With him.”
Macy’s entire universe had focused on that door. The two guys went on talking, but she wasn’t aware of anything but that freaking door. And what might be going on behind it. Her head rushed with blood; she trembled all over.
“…the f**k did you give him, Gus? Are you out of your mind?”
“Hey, he asked me— Dude, I’d grab her if I were you!”
The last was said as her mind finally snapped and she stalked toward that door, every step seeming to make it farther away rather than closer. She hoped she never reached it, even as she knew she had to.
“Macy, wait!” Brian caught her arm, and she yanked it from his grasp, the tears already building.
“Stop it.”
She reached for the knob; he grabbed her again and planted her back to the wall, inches away from her intended destination. “No, babe, I’m not going through this shit. I’m getting you outta here.”
“He wouldn’t…be with her, would he?” How humiliating, how f**king mortifying, that Brian, that anyone would see her like this. For that, she hated Seth Warren right then. Hated him and hoped she never saw him again—except to open that door and scream at him what an idiot he was for getting back with that…that…whatever she was.
She’s someone who knows him better than you, looks like he wants, acts like he wants, almost had his child, for God’s sake. And what are you? Someone he thinks will break his heart someday. While she might be off her damn rocker, she’s someone who would never do that. And he knows it.
“Macy, he’s drunk. And possibly on something else, according to Gus. Even if he is with her…he’s not in his right mind.”
“I can’t know this and not confront him.”
“I can’t be a part of it. The guy just lost his grandmother. He just lost you. For weeks now, he’s had to deal with Brooke and his f**king brother. My advice, Macy, is to go back home and hash it all out once he’s back and coherent. This isn’t the way.”
The tears spilled, and all of her hatred wasn’t reserved for Seth right then; a little of it was for herself, for letting herself be so upset. For letting herself be affected. Brian, tight-jawed and angry, didn’t let his burning blue gaze leave hers for a moment. Probably trying to reassure himself she wasn’t going to snap and start screaming. “All right?” he finally said. “I’ll take you to get a hotel room. Then I’ll come back and take care of him, whoop his ass, whatever you need me to do. But I need to make sure he sobers up.”
“He makes a habit of this, does he?” she said bitterly.
His eyes narrowed, and she knew all of his anger wasn’t at Seth, either. “No. Not really. But I can distinctly recall one other time.”
“Are you trying to put the blame for this on me? Because that’s bullshit, Brian. I know that’s your ‘boy’ and all, but if he’s in there screwing her, it’s because either he wants to be, or he was stupid enough to get hammered with an unstable ex floating around. Grief is no excuse. He shouldn’t be here in the first place.”
“I know it’s his fault, all right? But I’m not letting you go in there all the same.”
The hell you aren’t. “Fine,” she huffed, crossing her arms and staring at some blurred fixed point to the right of Brian’s head. Hesitantly, he let her go, first one hand and then the other falling away. She did her best to look whipped and miserable—hell, that wasn’t a stretch.
“Look, I’m sorry.” He gave her a gentle nudge toward the direction they’d come from. Mohawk and the object of his affections had moved on to a more private locale, at least. She let herself be led away. “We’ll get you settled, and then you can call Candace, and you girls can rage all night about what slimy pigs we are.”
“Sounds good,” she said, giving a sad little chuckle. “You’re not a slimy pig, though, Brian.”
“I had my moments before Candace came along. Don’t write him off yet, Mace. Give him a chance to explain.”
“I intend to.” She cast a sideways glance at Brian. He’d gone off alert.
I intend to…right f**king now.
Whirling, she sprinted back toward the door, reaching it and flinging it open almost before she even registered Brian’s exasperated, “Aw, damn.”
A swath of light cut through the otherwise dark room and lit up everything she never wanted to see: Seth fastening his jeans, Raina on her knees in front of him. Both of them winced from the sudden illumination, Seth cursing as Raina leaped to her feet. He looked ready to fall off his.
“What the hell is going…?” His voice drowned away as recognition filtered through his eyes. “Macy? Oh, fuck— Macy!”
That expression, that dawning devastation on his face, was damn sure not what she’d hoped to see as she and Brian made the drive over. She turned and darted away. Brian was leaning back against the wall, arms crossed, head lowered. He looked up and only watched her race past. But she heard him intercept his friend.