Screw Up (Hard Rock Roots Book 10)

by C. M. Stunich

  The reasons why could fill a story of their own.

  Treyjan frowns at me, his brown eyes the same color as the table beneath the see-through plastic tablecloth. That, too, is about as sticky as everything else in this place. It feels like years worth of maple syrup and grease from the grill have settled over the whole diner, leaving it with this grimy, fuzzy sort of feeling that both comforts and disgusts me.

  The man sitting across from me however does neither of those things. His muscles are well-defined, but they don't scream anabolic steroids at me, and the soft fall of brown hair across his forehead softens what might otherwise be an almost too handsome face. Every line is perfect, like it's been sketched, erased, and redrawn until it's perfect. I like to see a little human in the people around me.

  All I see right now is a complete and total asshole.

  “Seriously? You're going to say something as ominous as 'they're coming' and then just leave it at that? Look, I know you've seen the headlines about all the shit my band has been through—even if you won't admit to liking our music—”

  “Which I don't,” I interject, but Treyjan just keeps talking.

  “So you can probably guess there isn't a lot that surprises me anymore. I was shot by a sniper. In Kansas City of all places. I mean, who the fuck would've seen that one coming?”

  I tap my fingers on the table and hope the food gets here soon, so I won't feel as obligated to talk. I pick a piece of black Lab fur off my cami and keep my mouth shut. Yes, I've heard about Treyjan getting shot by a sniper's bullet straight through the chest, and I've heard about the massive conspiracy regarding the CEO of the world's largest record label, Spin Fast Music Group, but all of those issues, they have nothing to do with mine.

  Treyjan is a multi-platinum selling music artist.

  I am a veterinary assistant.

  Strange things can happen to him and become world news. Awful things could happen to me and I could disappear.

  The waiter approaches and essentially tosses our plates on the table without so much as a smile.

  “Why this place?” I ask and Trey shrugs his shoulders casually. The movement looks good on him, fluid and effortless. I wonder if that's the real him or if he practices in a mirror?

  “When I was a kid, if we ever went out—which was rare as fuck—we came here. This was as good as it got. Once, we had Christmas dinner here. I guess I still look at it as progress that I can afford to eat here whenever I want.” Treyjan pauses for a moment. “And, you know, there's not a lot of paparazzi in East L.A.”

  I pick up my fork and stab one of my eggs. I said scrambled; they served them over-easy and covered in Tabasco sauce. Oh well. It is what it is. I start to eat, all the while trying not to have a panic attack. If I panic, they really will find me, and I'll end up living like the character in Indecency's song last night—on the run from demons both real and imagined.

  “Where did you eat as a kid? A yacht club?” he asks and I snap my eyes up to his, watching as he takes his burger in two hands and mows down a massive bite. Treyjan Charell might be built and muscular as hell, but he's actually kind of short. Good thing I'm really fucking short, so we still fit together, I think and then realize that I'm going on like there's anything here between us except misunderstandings and mysteries. Still, the guy eats like he's six foot seven. I watch him put the burger away in about four bites—and it's got double patties.

  “Are you always this hostile?” I ask as I take a bite of egg dripping in Tabasco … and find myself surprised that it actually tastes pretty good. I try the pancakes next.

  “I don't usually hang out with groupies after shows,” he says with this cocky swagger that makes me want to stab him in the eye with his fork. I know some women find that fuck-all, I'm the shit attitude sexy, but I'm not one of them. The more time I spend around men, the more I wonder if I'm actually a-sexual. I mean, despite the being attracted to penises part. And the admiring the thick, curved shapes of Treyjan's biceps part. And the fact that we had sex last night. Maybe.

  “I am not a groupie,” I say, trying not to get frustrated. “As far as I can remember, the first and last thing that happened between us was that you yelled at those guys through the mic …” My fingers curl around my fork as I try not to let last night get to me. If I hadn't been drunk, I'd have called the cops and reported those assholes. Instead, I got married to the lead guitarist of the band that was onstage. Brilliant. “And then you punched one of them out.”

  “I punched all of them,” Treyjan says through a mouthful of French fries. As hot as he is, that' just plain gross.

  “Mouth closed when you chew, please,” I say and he gives me this look that clearly says go to hell, bitch.

  “Well,” he continues, still talking with fries in his mouth. I seriously want to leap across this table and slap him on his lightly stubbled face … trail my fingers down the hard line of his jaw, tease his lower lip with the pad of my thumb.

  My nipples pebble beneath my shirt, but I act like I'm completely unaffected.

  “I looked up annulment shit online. If we both weren't of sound mind or whatever, we can get the marriage annulled. I'm not about to formally announce on any legal platform that I'd dropped some acid, but I guess we can just say that we were both drunk. That should do it.”

  “That's fine with me. Actually, when we're done here, I'm leaving. Do whatever it is that you need to do. You don't actually need me to get it annulled, do you?”

  “No,” Treyjan says, and I make myself smile.

  “Didn't think so.” I pause and look down at my plate. For whatever reason, I'm finding it difficult to look at his eyes. They're ringed in liner, narrowed and sexy as they gaze across the table at me with a heavy dash of mischief sparking in their depths. As rude and annoying as he is, I bet I could have a lot of fun with Treyjan Charell. Maybe I already did and I just don't remember it? “Why'd you invite me out to lunch then? To see if you could pry my secret from my lips?”

  “I brought you out because I've never been married before. I might never be married. I figured I'd treat my bride to a nice meal before she rides off into the sunset.”

  I almost grin at that.

  Almost.

  But then I see an all-too familiar face gazing at me through the window.

  They aren't just coming for me.

  They're already here.

  My entire body goes cold from head to toe and my throat closes up, cutting off my breath so abruptly that I don't even have enough air left to gasp.

  No.

  Memories flicker behind my eyes, but I push them back, fighting with each gasping contracture of my chest to breath in oxygen and breathe out the pain.

  “We have to go,” I whisper to Trey and he gives me a weird look. “Now. Please. Just get me out of here.”

  Standing up, I collide with our waiter and knock several plates of piping hot food to the ground. Doesn't matter. I have tunnel vision in that moment, and I can't see anything but that man's face, the crooked set of his lips and the nose that was broken one too many times.

  He's making his way down the sidewalk as casual as can be, but I know that look, that walk—there's nothing casual about that at all.

  A frantic look around the restaurant reveals absolutely zero other ways out. There's a fire exit in one corner, but it's blocked by a booth filled with patrons (wonder how illegal that is?), so I decide to try for the kitchen. Even though I can see most of it through the pass-through window, that doesn't mean there isn't a door back there. Anyway, where the hell else am I going to go?

  Out there?

  Past that man?

  I don't fucking think so.

  I start to run, but the waiter grabs onto the back of my shirt, shouting at me about the food, asking me what the hell is wrong with me, demanding that I pay. Treyjan tears his grip from me and our eyes lock. In his, all I see is confusion, but there's no time to explain.

  I start to run.

  As soon as I hit the dirty, c
rusted orange tile floors of the kitchen, I see that there's a back door that's propped open. Two old women in hair nets and greasy aprons are smoking and shooting the shit together; I breeze right past them and keep running. The ugly but sensible shoes I'm wearing don't seem so silly now, do they? If I'd been tottering around in heels as tall as the Empire State Building, I wouldn't be able to sprint like this, now would I?

  Treyjan catches up to me in less than a minute, and I hate that while I'm panting for breath, he's moving with this effortless grace that seems at odd with his slouchy swaggering attitude.

  “Tell me why we're running?” he asks, but since I actually need all of my breath to keep moving, I don't respond.

  I also have no idea where we're going.

  “This way,” Treyjan says after a while, reaching down and taking my hand.

  As soon as our fingers connect, it's like an electrical circuit was just completed, shooting these volts up through my hand and into my arm, my chest, jump-starting my heart. I swear, I run almost twice as fast after that, my body fueled by more than one kind of adrenaline.

  He takes us down an alley with a small brick wall at the end of it and then, before I can register what the hell we're going to do now, he yanks me forward, wraps his hands around my waist and lifts me up to the top of it. While I'm still sitting there breathing hard and imagining the imprint of his fingers against my hips, Treyjan pushes himself up with an easy bunching of muscles in his inked arms.

  For a moment there, the black knitted beanie on his head slides back just a bit and the sun kisses his hair with golden lips. His eyes shimmer with this zest for life that I wonder if I'll ever be able to understand. And his mouth … the way he licks his lower lip in frustration does all sorts of funny things to my tummy muscles.

  And my vagina. That, too.

  “Still running for your life? Or are we taking a vacation here?” he snaps, waking me from my stupor. I swing my legs over the wall, drop to the ground and keep running.

  On the other side of the wall is a grassy, hilled area that leads to a small park. Children laugh and scream from the multi-colored play structure while their parents lounge around on benches and enjoy the Southern California summer sun.

  Me, I just collapse next to a water fountain and slam my palm on the silver button, glad that this one's child-sized so I can drink out of it while still on my knees. Glancing to the side, I see Treyjan's tight-tight jeans stretched over the bulge of his crotch and all those funny tummy-vagina acrobatics that were going on earlier get way worse.

  Treyjan just crosses his arms over his chest and looks down at me like he's sure I'm an escaped mental patient or something. The sprawling tattoo that covers his chest peeks out above his shirt with skeletal eyes, watching me.

  “Since I saved your ass back there, do I get the story now?” he asks me, but I just scoff and rise to my feet, moving out of the way for a glaring mom to push her son up to the water fountain.

  “I don't recall you saving my ass,” I say, but Treyjan is already reaching out and putting his palm across my mouth.

  “That guy outside the diner, the one in the jeans and the glasses, who the fuck was that? Because I punched him as hard as I could in the neck in front of the entire diner.”

  Now that gets my attention.

  I stare at Treyjan, blinking rapidly as I thank the universe that for once in my life, I did not trip. Me, Netty Forester. If I believed the universe was capable of miracles, that would qualify as one of them for sure.

  “You punched him in the neck?” I ask, but Treyjan's still just standing there in a pair of slouchy blue jeans riddled with holes and tears, three black leather belts with big metal buckles in the shapes of skulls, bats and a guitar draped around his slim hips like snakes. His boots are slick and black and dripping with buckles and his shirt is about three sizes too small.

  In short, Treyjan Charell is nothing but dangerous, wild temptation.

  If I were Eve, he would be my apple.

  “So who is that guy and what did he do to you? For a chick as uppity as you to start bawling in front of a stranger probably takes a fucking hell of a lot.”

  I purse my lips at the word uppity, but decide to let it go. I'm still too short on breath to start lecturing.

  “He's my fiancé,” I say and that one really gets Trey's attention.

  “Are you fucking serious? I just punched out your goddamn fucking fiancé?! Weren't satisfied with kicking me in the balls just once, huh? Talk about a real kick to the nuts. You cheat on your man and then get me to beat him up. Smart. I like your style.”

  Treyjan scowls at me, sarcasm dripping from his lips as he starts to turn away.

  But he doesn't get it. He doesn't get it all.

  “I didn't choose to have him as my fiancé,” I snap back, curling my hands into fists and feeling about a million miles away from comfort. The life I grew up in was all a lie, a sham, and the world I ran to is cruel and dark and twisted. Here I am, standing in front of a guy that I may or may not have fucked last night—he'd only be the second man ever for me—that's covered in tattoos, that has a wicked mouth, that's actually kind of mean and now I have tears running down my face again.

  “No, don't cry,” he says, sounding as pained as he did in the hallway back at his house. But not like some guys, like he's annoyed that I'd even dare show so much emotion in public or in front of him, but more like it actually hurts him to see me upset. To see a girl upset is what I meant. I don't think it matters if that person is me or not. “Come on, I'll get you a hot dog at that stand over there if you'll just … if you'll just stop.”

  Instead, I feel those carefully crafted shields coming down around me. Broken glass shatters; it cuts. I feel like I'm bleeding to death in the middle of a sunny Los Angeles city park.

  It takes Treyjan Charell about two seconds to step forward and wrap his arms around me, pull me close, and tuck me in against his chest.

  He smells faintly like Old Spice, laundry detergent, and soap—nice and clean—but there's this underlying bite of fresh sweat from all that running we just did. His shirt's a little damp in the front where my cheek's pressed up against it.

  The best part of it all though? It's how warm he is, how tightly he squeezes me. There's something else, too, some sort of need buried deep inside of him. As close together as we are right now, I can feel it. It seems ancient and empty and desperate, like it would pull me down that dark hole and let me fall forever.

  Wrapped up tight like this, I almost want to.

  “Goddamn fuck and shit,” Treyjan curses after a few seconds, startling the hell out of me. I grew up thinking curse words were pure sin, but over the years, I've come to terms with the fact that they're just syllables with meaning, like any word out there. Saying the doesn't burn the time; hearing them doesn't eat at the soul. And yet, wow. Treyjan curses like a sailor just come to port. “Those piss drinking paparazzi motherfuckers.”

  I glance over my shoulder and find a horde of people with cameras pointed straight at us.

  “We need to bail, babe,” Treyjan says, stepping away from me and looking down with this sort of bewildered expression on his face. For a second there, I see a small crack in his a-hole guitar douche facade. “Damn, you really are fucking short, aren't you?” he asks, and I punch him as hard as I can in the shoulder.

  Unfortunately all that really does is make my hand ache like hell.

  “Let's go,” he says, reaching down to take my hand again.

  The sensation of his warm, tattooed fingers curling around mine is something I don't think I could ever forget.

  Not even if they find me.

  Take me back.

  Make me stay.

  Not even then.

  “Your wife's like, fucking tame as hell,” Turner says, standing in the entrance to the living room. He's drinking a beer with one hand and smoking a cigarette with the other. When my friends say they're going straight-edge what they mean is no crystal, no angel dust, no acid
. Tobacco, pot, and alcohol are all still fair game. Yeah, we run a little loose and easy over here.

  “She's not my wife,” I mutter under my breath, snagging a smoke of my own and lighting up. Our manager—this short, pale little dude named Milo Terrabotti—always looks like he's about two heartbeats away from a coronary when he sees us smoking in here. Too bad for him. It's our motherfucking house—all ten thousand square feet of it.

  “Uh.” Turner flicks his gaze over to me, teasing his lip rings with his tongue. When he starts lifting up fingers—beginning with the middle—I know I'm trouble. I cross my arms over my chest as he rattles off a list. “First off, you like, legally married her. Then, you consummated it all formal and shit. Now, you're telling me she's moving into the house. Pray tell, bro, what are we missing here that constitutes a marriage?”

  “Love,” I blurt before I can stop myself.

  Bag of dicks.

  Did I really just say that shit out loud?

  Turner starts laughing, this awful guffawing sound that ends up with us in a scuffle. The beer bottle crashes to the floor and breaks as my best friend gets my head in a lock and tries to humiliate me in front of Netty.

  “Hey, Ronnie!” Turner calls out as our drummer makes his way down the stairs in a torn, baggy tank top and low slung jeans. His Australian wife, a drummer from the now defunct band Ice and Glass, pauses in the foyer next to him, their new baby held tightly in her arms. “You hear that? The only thing Treyjan's missing in his new marriage is love.”

  “Get the fuck off of me, you piece of shit!”

  I manage to wrangle my way out of his grip and then immediately throw myself at him again.

  As usual, shit escalates until my lip is bloodied and Turner's huffing and grinning through a reddish stain on his teeth. It takes Ronnie's intervention to keep us from moving this forward.