Heart Broke (Hard Rock Roots #8)

by C. M. Stunich

  “My dad found it under my bed two weeks later and made me eat it. It was covered in ants and smelled like ass.” Dax sighs roughly, a groan escaping his lips as he leans his forehead into me. “I hate him so goddamn much. I wish a tornado would rip from the sky and thrash him a hundred times worse than it got me. Hell, I wish it would kill him.”

  “What happened?” I ask, sensing that little nugget of rage and pain that Dax picked up during our short stay apart. “You can tell me, you know. That's what I was trying to get at last night. I'm here to help.”

  “I've put too much on you,” Dax says, shaking his head. “Way too much. You shouldn't have to put up with it. It's not your problem.”

  I turn to face him more fully, straddling his knees in a highly suggestive manner. It should be sexual, but it's not. Well, okay, so maybe it is a little bit, but what the hell, I'm trying to be respectful to Blair, but I'm not dead.

  “You're right. It isn't my problem, but when I agreed to date you, you became my care. So I care, Dax. I really do. Please. Get it off your chest.”

  Instead of looking at me, Dax parks his chin in his hand, elbow resting on the arm of the chair as he closes his eyes. His lids are covered with dark shadow and liner, obscuring his Born Wrong tattoo. I have the strongest urge to reach up and rub it all away, expose his inked flesh with my thumb.

  “My dad …” A pause. “Arnold told me that my mother cheated on him in a bar bathroom.” Dax sucks in a harsh breath. “The thing is, that doesn't really matter to me. In fact, none of it does. The only that really matters is that maybe I'll never know. There are two sides to every story, but my mother … she doesn't have a voice anymore.” Another pause as I suck in a breath and try to figure out how best to handle this. Dax doesn't have a mom; neither do I. Life seriously blows dick sometimes, doesn't it? I want to comfort him, but I'm not sure I know how. “Anyway,” he continues, opening his eyes and waving his hand dismissively. “Arnold said she didn't want me, that she spent her entire pregnancy in misery. My whole life, the only thing that got me through his bullshit was thinking that if she'd lived, things would've been different. She would've loved me. Arnold would've loved me.”

  Dax sighs and leans his head back against the chair as I reach up and brush some dark hair off his forehead. I'd like to see what he looks like with his natural blond, but if he wants to dye his hair again, more power to 'im. I'm all about letting people float their own boats—so long as that water doesn't drown anybody else in the process. Fucking Hardings. Fucking Hammergrens. Fucking Washingtons. Oh, and while I'm at it fucking Bushes and fucking Clintons and fucking Trumps. Fuck 'em all.

  “I wish I had some sagely words of wisdom for you,” I say and Dax lets out a small, nervous laugh. My fingernails trail down the sides of his face, scraping across the slight brush of stubble on his face. “But nothing I say will really matter because I don't know either. The only person that can make this okay is you, Dax. You have to be okay with not knowing. Hell, you have to be okay with the idea that maybe Arnold is telling the truth, and you have to be okay with the fact that it doesn't fucking matter. Arnold hates you, maybe, and your mother, maybe she might've hated you, too. We all have shit clogging up our pasts, but we also have access to a pretty fucking awesome plunger called the future.” Dax laughs again and cracks an eyelid to give me a look.

  “That's deep, Sydney Charell. A shit-filled toilet and a plunger? I feel much better now.” But at least he's fucking smiling when he says that. I slap his cheek gently and lovingly.

  “I ain't a poet,” I say, leaning in to press a bubble gum perfect kiss to Dax's lips with a wet smack. “And I ain't a writer or a songstress or even Naomi Knox, but I've got hard knock knacks and knowing how to tell bullshit from truth is one of them. You'll be okay, Dax, if you just let yourself be okay.”

  His gaze drifts over my shoulder to his comatose friend, but I force it back to me by leaning in and feathering my words against his lips.

  “You can support Blair and her family. You can sit by her bedside, and you can brush her hair, but you can't keep blaming yourself for this. It won't help her, and it won't help you. If you let yourself, you will be okay. I can't say it with pretty words, but I can quote shit.” I smile and summon up my best singing voice (if I try real hard, I can make myself chorus less like dying vultures and more like a teenage boy in the midst of puberty). “Faceless faces and barren voices can't pull me out because I'm in too deep, and my love is killing me. If I don't turn a key on my past then I'll never make it out alive.”

  My effort to quote Naomi Knox's words—or even Hayden's voice—is pathetic at best, but it makes Dax smile and, when I glance over at Blair Ashton, I think there's a ghost of a smile hovering under her skin, too. Even if I imagined that part, it's worth it. So totally worth it.

  Even when my song ends up on TV, too.

  “I'm pissed the fuck off,” I say with a tight smile, my fingers curled around the armrests of my chair. Paulette Washington looks right back at me, no visible flicker of humanity anywhere on that perfect face. If she turned out to be an android, a perfect Beverly Hills Barbie Doll robot, then I wouldn't be surprised. Eh, maybe it's more apt to say she's like a character from Monster High, the worst kind, the one the rest of the dolls are scared shitless of. Her box would come with a knife for stabbing people in the back and a tube of teeth whitening toothpaste to keep those pearlies at eye blinding level. Whorror McBitch would be the title on the box.

  “Remember to rephrase each question as part of your answer. The viewers are only going to hear your words, not mine,” she says as she adjusts herself in her chair and continues to smile at me. And I thought her sister was a nightmare. Huh.

  I close my eyes for a moment and suck in a deep breath.

  “I was pissed the fuck off to learn that there are cameras in Blair's hospital room,” I correct, raising my hands and cupping them around my mouth like a megaphone. “Is nothing sacred anymore?” I shout at the assembled crew and cast. Ponytail especially doesn't seem bothered by the news. She's just happy that everything's running on schedule. Sex scene, check. Emotional hospital scene, check. Now all we need is some violence and our Hard Rock Roots portfolio will be complete—and all within week one. How exciting. “How could you ask her family to sign over her rights like that? Especially when there's a chance she may never wake up? What kind of monster are you?”

  “That was a little too clinical,” Paulette says, tapping her stylus against her lower lip as she scans the screen of her iPad for a moment. “Try something like 'when I heard there were cameras in Blair's hotel room, I was pissed the fuck off'. It sounds more natural that way. Oh, and please don't refer to me like I'm sitting here. It would be more appropriate to talk about the show as a non-present entity. For example, 'how could they ask Blair's family to sign over her rights like that? What kind of monsters are they?'”

  I close my eyes for a moment to catch my breath and hear my brother's bitching approaching the door to our makeshift confessional room. It's some unused office/sitting room on the first floor, opposite the one where Dax and I fucked. Even with all these people, it seems there's no shortage of space in this house. Speaking of …

  “How the hell did Turner end up buying a house that you just happened to own? Hmm? Can you explain that one to me?”

  Paulette sighs and waves her hand at the camera crew.

  “Cut!” she shouts, sounding exasperated. Like, god forbid I screw with her perfect little universe. Paulette sets her iPad down on her skirt and leans in towards me, her pearl earrings swaying with the motion. Her makeup isn't as plain today which kind of freaks me out. Instead of nude lips, she's sporting something that looks an awful lot like MAC's Antique Velvet. If I wasn't wearing Candy Yum-Yum right now, I might be intimidated. Maybe. “Listen to me, Miss Charell, nothing happens by accident in this town.” Her lips curl up in a rictus grin, one that reminds me of Cohen's corpse-y smile. Ugh. Gross, much? “The Washingtons dabble in luxury real estate and r
eal estate development. It didn't matter what house that idiot picked. Whatever it was, in some way, it'd belong to me.”

  “So he didn't really have it built?” I ask as I raise a blonde brow. “Your husband?” I'm fishing for information, but Paulette doesn't seem to give two fucks about that. She readily admitted to killing Cohen Rose, so why not this? I take a quick look around, but don't see Brayden anywhere nearby. Good. I have a feeling he might not exactly agree with this. I think his words were: stop stirring up so much goddamn trouble. Too bad trouble's my middle name.

  “Oh, he did. Custom, spared no expense.” Paulette leans back, crossing her legs at the ankle, caressing her folding chair like it's a throne of gold. She thinks she owns the world, this woman does. And hell, what do I know? Maybe she does? But I'd still like some answers here, and she seems willing to give 'em. “The fact that this was the house Turner chose? Fate. That was fate.”

  Paulette drums her French tip nails against the armrest of her seat and continues to stare back at me, her brown eyes like two pools of dirty anti-freeze. Cold. Inhuman. Toxic. Her outfit today is yet another shade of power bitch, some black slacks and a red blouse with frills all around the throat, like frothing blood.

  “And the hospital? You pulled that clip and posted it online within an hour? How? Why?”

  “Vulnerability, Miss Charell. Everybody has it; everybody wants to pretend they don't. When I added you into this gig, I thought you were a throwaway, some sex toy for Dax to play with.” I feel my lips purse tight, but I've heard worse. Way worse. Would I like to slap a bitch? Sure. But that wouldn't get me very far, now would it? “But you're proving to be very interesting, the perfect addition to the Hard Rock Roots lineup.”

  “What the hell are you planning?” I ask as her eyes twinkle. Seriously, twinkle, like a fucking star or something. That shit doesn't just happen by accident.

  “My turn to ask a question,” Paulette begins, sitting back and crossing her arms over her chest. “How did you feel when the Hammergren family yanked your contract with Tattoo Terror, something you'd legitimately and rightly earned on your own right?” I could be surprised by Paulette's statement—but I'm not. I figured as much when Brayden Ryker snatched me up from the studio in a van. If the Hammergrens own—or owned if you count the stunt that America pulled—Spin Fast Music Group then why not Tattoo Terror? Why the fuck not? “And how does it feel to know that your new gig with Tin Dolls is simply a byproduct of this whole horrible situation? That our scouts never in a million years would've bothered or cared to photograph you on your own merit?”

  I feel my jaw clench tight, but I can also see that the cameras are still rolling in the background. She might've gotten most of what she wanted from me, but she won't get everything.

  “I get to flash my tits for money. What's there to complain about?” I say with a smirk, settling back into my chair. In the background, I hear the creak of my brother's wheelchair, whipping around to find him invading my space with an annoying as fuck smirk on his face.

  “Yeah, I have a complaint. Nobody wants to see that shit,” Trey says in his best Turner Campbell voice.

  “This is a confessional. Get the fuck out of here,” I snap as he grins big at me and then puts his hands on the armrests of his wheelchair. With a grunt and a curse, my little brother lifts himself up and rises to his feet.

  “Well, would you look at that?” Turner asks as Trey stands shakily behind his wheelchair, fingers wrapped around the handlebars for support. “The Crippled Dick rises to his fucking feet. It's a goddamn miracle. Doesn't it take, like, months of therapy to do that shit?”

  Trey glares at his asshole friend before making a sound in his throat and scowling.

  “Yeah, dude, it like, does. How long do you think it's been since I got fucking shot? Do you have any concept of time?” And then he mutters something under his breath. I think it's stupid bitch, but who the fuck cares?

  I cross my arms over my chest as Sydney ruffles her brother's hair, a huge smile on her face. Treyjan Charell might be a disgusting sack of shit, but she loves him and I respect that. It's almost enough to make me forget about Blair and the hospital and … okay, well not almost. Fuck the Ashtons. Profiting off their daughter's misfortune is sick, so fucking sick. I run a hand over my face as Turner lifts a guitar out of the case by his feet and strums his fingers down the fret.

  “I got your Blackjack back, bro,” he says, referring to the guitar. It's a Schecter with a silver skull and crossbones inlay on the fretboard, and a whole hell of a lot of attitude. I definitely prefer Naomi's Wolfgang Stealth, but I think the Blackjack suits Trey's style. With twenty-four jumbo frets, the neck is fast and fucking furious to play—or so I've been told. Unlike Turner or Ronnie or Naomi, I don't have a second musical talent. For me, it's drums, drums, and more drums. “When you gonna be able to put your crippled ass back to work and play it?”

  “Go to hell, Turner,” Trey says, but he stumbles back around to the front of his chair and sits down, freeing up his hands to take hold of the guitar. From the corner of my eye, I watch Naomi watching him. Her eyes are dark and her fingers are twitching on the sheets like she's two seconds away from dragging her ass out of bed and stealing the guitar away, making it sing like a chorus of angry demons.

  “One step at a time,” Sydney says, giving me a look from across the room. Our alone time together is pretty much nil at this point. There's always something to do, someone trying to creep into our bedroom. Not that I blame them; the bedrooms and bathrooms are the only places that are off limits to the cameras. We go out, a crew follows us. We stay in, and the hidden cameras around the house track our every movement. Even the hospital isn't safe as Sydney and I discovered by accident.

  Fuck.

  “This is good enough for now. I think even at this level Trey's capable of chasing you down at your shoot and wreaking havoc,” Ronnie jokes with a small smile, watching as Sydney continues to fuss with Trey's hair. She glances up at him, a fucking vision in a loose tank and jean shorts, high heels the color of coral but twice as bright. It's hard not to look at her, to get sucked into that vortex of color and brightness. She's like the sun, and me, I feel like the moon, something dark enough to reflect back her light.

  “Damn straight. I don't know how I feel about my sister posing naked. Freaks me the fuck out.”

  “I've been stripping for ten years,” Sydney says with a loose shrug of her shoulders. The baggy white fabric of the tank slides down her arm and reveals a bright pink bra strap, covered in lace. Bet you can guess what happens to me then. Bingo. “You guys need to chill out and relax. I think I can manage myself at this point.”

  “Thirteen years,” Trey corrects. I give him a look meant to shut him down, but all he does is glare back at me from his wheelchair. “You always say ten, but it's been thirteen.”

  “You know what,” she says as she leans down and flicks him behind the ear. “Why don't you shut the fuck up, you little smart ass.” Sydney stands up straight and gives me another look from across the room, one that says let's get the hell out of here. These group meetings are great and all, a way to stay grounded, to keep track of all the bullshit that's going on around us, but I need a frigging break every once in a while.

  “Question,” Naomi says, her voice much more normal, less broken than it was the first day she got here. Thank God. I need some normal in my life, and even if Blair doesn't wake up … Shit. It's hard to even go there, but if she doesn't, then I need the music back. I need Kash and Wren and Naomi and Amatory Riot, and I need to try like hell to make things work right again, to figure out where I belong.

  “Anything you want, baby doll,” Turner says, hooking his hands together behind his head, his face this disgustingly tender mixture of feelings that I find hard to look at. Guess I'm not the only emo bitch in attendance today, huh? I have a strong urge to pick at him, but I don't think that'll go over too well right now.

  “Call me baby doll again, and you'll be in even hotte
r water than you already are—if that's even possible,” she adds under her breath, reaching up to push her blonde hair back. Naomi's got on this loose black tank, the paleness of her arms a strange contrast against Sydney's wrist to shoulder mural. They're standing so close right now, it'd be hard not to compare them. I find that I like Sydney a hell of a lot better—even if her singing leaves a lot to be desired.

  My lips twitch with a small smile, one that slides off my face when I find Naomi glaring at me.

  “What?” I ask, trying not to snap at her. Things have been tense since she threw the fucking laptop at me. But seriously? Hypocrite much? It's okay for her and Turner to have a sex tape, but not me and Sydney? Whatever.

  “Brayden hinted at … something about Tyler, right?”

  “Yeah,” Ronnie replies, even though Naomi's still looking at me. Her gaze swings over to him, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, his dark hair razored and perfect, clean and straight, nothing at all like the old Ronnie, the one we started our nightmare tour with. “He said if we listened to him, played along with his shit, that maybe … we could get Travis' son back. Sounds like a fucking fantasy to me, but what the hell do I know?”

  “What about Cassie?” Naomi croaks, starting to cough. Turner's there in a split second with a glass of water. I watch as our new lead singer yanks it from his grip with a scowl and chugs a swallow. Me, my blood goes completely cold and my breath hitches hard enough to make me wince.

  Cassie. Hayden's daughter. Hayden's and Eric's daughter. The one that Stephen adopted, the one that somehow, through no fault of her own, lead America to find our band, use us, drag us into this crap.

  My heart starts to beat frantically and my eyes close. I'm suddenly having a hard time standing, putting out a hand to lean against the wall. Hayden. Fuck. I know everybody hated her and hell, sometimes I did, too, but I still miss her. Shit, but I do. She was my friend—a crappy friend sometimes—but still my friend.