“Where’s the fire?” he asks as he steps in my path. “You’re like a woman on a mission running across the grass and I’m not going to say I mind the view.” His eyes flicker down to my breasts and I immediately cross my arms in front of myself.
“None of your business,” I say as I try to skirt around him. His hand flashes out and grabs my upper arm and I’m more annoyed than anything because I don’t want to deal with him or his shit right now. This is only my second or third encounter and the man can take a hike. I can see why Hawkin has warned me about him.
“What’s this?” he asks, pulling me into him as I try to yank my arm from his grip. I notice his lip is swollen, like he’s been hit, but by the time I process the thought, he speaks. “You’ve been crying? What did wonder boy … oh, OH, you must have found out.” The knowing tone in his voice has me tilting my head in question and narrowing my eyes. “I’m sorry. I told him you deserved more respect than to be the endgame of one of their stupid band bets.”
The words hit my ears but don’t really register. My lips open and close but nothing comes out as I try to ask what bet but I think deep down I already know, vague hints of a conversation flickering briefly through my subconscious.
“Bet?” I croak when I’m finally able to speak, and I’m not sure if I want to know more or would rather be left in the dark. I know I should write off what he’s saying after the staunch warnings Hawke’s given me about how his brother will try to hurt him at all costs, but that red flag warning deep down has me standing still rather than walking away.
“Yeah, it’s so fucked up.” He shakes his head and releases my arm now that I have no desire to run. “To bet that Hawkin can get you in bed by the end of the seminar and that Vince had to be in on it for proof to prevent him from getting one of those stupid fucking hearts? That’s just fucking cruel.” He says the comment off the cuff but the way his eyes bore into mine, I know he’s waiting to see my reaction.
And fuck yes I have a reaction. About a million of them all at once as my mind suffers the whiplash from five minutes ago, realizing I loved him, to this. My body starts to tremble as the shock hits, and I keep telling myself that Hunter is just being a dick and trying to hurt me to get to his twin. But those memories that were on the fringe come back with a vengeance now: little comments from the guys here and there, Hawke’s immediate dismissal anytime I’d bring up their band bets, the poker game where Vince told me the last bet they had was trying to get a woman into bed in a certain time frame.
And what the hell, they were mocking me the whole time? And of course I walked right into it when I said it made perfect sense to need a third person to verify that the sex really happened. The laugh they must have been having at my expense. I recall Hawkin’s face and the warning glare he gave when Vince told him we were talking about their stupid, damn bets.
What happens in the band, stays in the band.
I want to scream, want to cry, want to rage, but all I do is stand here in the shadow of night with a man I don’t really like and my feet rooted to the ground, afraid to run and wanting to flee. Humiliation wars with devastation to see which one will take the crown and it doesn’t really matter because if I hadn’t realized I was in love with Hawkin before, I sure as hell do now.
Hunter stands silently in front of me and I can’t bring myself to look at him because it’s like a slap in my face since he’s the mirror image of his brother. But I need to move because his presence is rubbing my nose in my own stupidity, lifting the blinders I wore when I went with Hawkin willingly.
I feel so silly being hurt so deeply by the deception but after he took me to see his mother, after letting me in his inner circle, after protecting me from Hunter, I thought that we were more than this. I sure as fuck didn’t think I was a crass band bet made to occupy their time.
Sniffing back the tears that burn, I just shake my head in disbelief because I will not let myself cry. I prefer the numbing void I feel right now to the pain that I know will hit sooner rather than later because the saddest thing about betrayal is that it rarely comes from the people you’re expecting it from, your enemies. It comes more often than not from the ones that care about you. Or in my case the one I thought cared about me.
Everything is quiet outside as I silently fall apart and question myself in every way possible. My chest constricts as my heart takes in the finality of it all, the misjudgment, the humiliation, and without a single word, I turn on my heel and leave.
Chapter 30
HAWKIN
If I can get the lyric to come it will be a sign that she’ll talk to me today. I laugh out loud into the empty studio, my own voice coming back to me with that tinge of hysteria to it. What the fuck am I thinking? That a perfect lyric means she’ll forgive me for fucking up royally when I should have come clean a long-ass time ago?
Scrubbing my hands over my face, I try to focus on the chords again but when I look down, my hands are on the neck of the guitar, the one I strapped her to before I fucked her. My mind lingers on the memory of that night: the soft, the wet, the hard, the fast, the guitar pick, and every goddamn moan in between. I can remember the look on her face, the way she made me feel, and all I want to do is chuck it across the room and hold it closer to me all at the same time. I’m a pathetic fucker but I’ve never been through this shit before, never knew how goddamn bad it hurts.
No wonder there are so many fucking love songs written.
My mind flickers where I don’t want it to go, in those deep dark recesses where the wild things are, to my dad, and for a moment I understand his desperation that day. Shit, I’m just losing a girl when he stood to lose his wife and two sons. I’m going fucking crazy right now since she’s refused to even speak to or see me in the last three days—I can’t imagine how he felt.