by Tricia Lynne
I heard Kat’s sharp inhale the same time I saw Declan look up.
His sexy grin fell away, and so did his eyes. When he turned back to the bartender, the grin was in place, but looked forced.
I met Jamie’s gorgeous smile as he crossed the room. Kat’s reality was slapping her in the face, too. She could call me a coward all she wanted, but she was every bit as guilty as I was.
“Hey, sweet cheeks.” Jamie scooped me into a bear hug. “Did you come just to see me?” He didn’t let go but backed away enough to see my face. My eyes flicked to the bar. “Ah, well. You win some, you lose some.” His gaze flitted over my shoulder to Kat and back. “It’s about damn time, too. He is one miserable sonofabitch lately.” He scratched at his mohawk and all three of us went quiet as the other guys behind us left.
“Awwwkwaarrd,” I sang, and Jamie gave me a shy smile.
“Soooo, Jamie. This is my friend, Kat. Kat likes skinny-dipping, Nordic blond gods with pierced peens, and the occasional donkey punch.”
“Avery!” She slapped my arm.
“Kat, this is Jamie. Jamie likes long-legged photographers with great asses, needlepoint, and a finger in one of his bad touch areas.” Eyes widened, Jamie shot a look at Kat with his mouth hanging open the slightest bit. “Wish me luck.” I glanced at the bar.
Kat squeezed my arm. “You don’t need it, sweetie. Just do you.”
Jamie nodded before he chucked me under the chin and pushed my shoulder. Then he took Kat’s hand and led her toward the back.
The bartender gave me a once-over as I approached.
“Hi, stranger,” I directed to Declan.
Declan didn’t turn, but I felt that tug between us. Maybe the thread wasn’t broken after all, just badly frayed and in need of repair.
“Can I get you something?” The bartender’s tone was pleasant, but the look said fuck off.
“No, I’m good.”
She wandered down the bar and busied herself with garnishes.
“Finally made it down for the festival, huh? You get to see many bands?” God, that voice of his—shivers rolled down my spine as that raw bass danced over my skin like nearby lighting.
“No, we got in a couple of hours ago. It was last minute.” Leaning an elbow on the bar, I gave him space as I studied his profile. He had a fading bruise over his temple and purple knuckles wrapped around his glass.
“Huh, you going back tonight?” He shot me a quick, guarded glance.
“No. Kat pulled some strings and got us a room.” He was guarding his gaze and my heart broke a little more, if that was even possible.
Declan stared over his glass at a TV above the bar. “Well, it’s almost over, but at least you’ll catch a few bands.” His jaw ticked and there were heavy shadows under his eyes. His hair had grown out, more on the top and shorter on the sides. About an inch long and sexily mussed.
“So, is this what we’re gonna do, Declan? We’re gonna make small talk like you don’t know me?” I tilted my head, tried to get him to look at me.
He didn’t bite.
He sipped his drink, sucked in the ice, let it fall into the glass. “Isn’t that what you had in mind? A clean break? Like it never happened?”
“That was the plan,” I said with a desolate sigh. I gave in, let my fingers brush through the short hair at his temple. “It didn’t take, though.”
Declan’s eyes cut to me hot and angry, his face cold and emotionless.
I ran my finger over his bruised knuckles. He held that damn drink like a lifeline. “Looks like you’ve been getting into trouble.”
His brows drew down hard. “Why are you here, Avery?”
“To see you.”
“Why? I thought you said everything. Isn’t that why you—” He cut off, putting a lock on the emotions with a shake of his head. “You know, if you’re just hard up, Matt’s crawling around here somewhere.”
He wanted to punish me.
I could bite, too, and he knew it. “Why would I be here to see Matt? I mean, if I were hard up.” I gestured loosely at him. “I seriously doubt his cock is bigger than yours. Seeing how I’ve dropped a dress size, I thought I might measure up to the other groupies now.”
Without so much as a flinch, he sipped, spit the ice back in the glass. He knew I’d bite back and was counting on it. Declan was going to try to run me off and damn if it wasn’t that transparent.
“What do you want from me?” He sat his glass down, staring at it.
“A chance to explain. To talk.”
“Now you wanna expl—” He shook his head, bounced his foot on the rest. “Like you gave me a chance to explain?”
“Declan, I wish I didn’t know how it felt, but I do—seeing that tramp all over you, it broke something in me—hurt more than it should have for a girl who was trying so hard to keep things casual and light.” A mirthless laugh forced its way through my lips. “I should have known that wouldn’t work. Not with a man who lives in the dark.”
He gave me a sarcastic chuckle. “You think that’s what it’s about? That I think you tried to fuck Matt? Clear your conscience. He told me you two didn’t fuck.”
“Every time my eyes close, I see that cum dumpster with her mouth on you. What do you see when you close your eyes?”
He looked at me fully, eyes angry, smile cold. “There’s a difference, baby. What you saw was really an accident. I wasn’t a willing participant. You, on the other hand, were aiming to kick me in the nuts.” He looked away, dismissing me. “My nuts don’t shrivel like that, and I’m not interested in taking up the games you played while you were slumming on vacation.”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I wouldn’t….I never thought of you as slumming. I would never think that.”
“Well, what I thought was that you were different. Turns out you were just another piece of ass looking to get banged by the band. Shit, the only difference between you and my mother is that you were smart enough not to get pregnant.”
Anger flared through my pain. “Fuck you, Declan. What about you, rock star, huh? Tell me, is it more of a cliché to be the angst-ridden lead singer who fights just because he can, or the ‘woe is me’ drunk Irishman who crawls into a bottle like his father before him?”
He turned to face me, his eyes heavy with suggestion, mouth a self-satisfied smirk. “That’s it, Avery. Keep it coming. You give me some more of that temper of yours and I’ll take you backstage and fuck you till you can’t walk straight.” Declan trailed a knuckle over my breast and I stepped out of reach. “So long as you leave when I’m done.” He turned back to the TV.
My eyes welled with tears I refused to give in to. “Why do you want to hurt me?”
His gaze shifted to the bar before he exhaled long and tired. “Two-way street, baby. You shouldn’t have come here.”
He pushed off the stool, bracing his palms against the bar top, his head slung forward to avoid my eyes.
“Wretched Souls,” I said in a soft voice, clinging to my own arms. “Both of us.”
His brow furrowed; his profile pained.
“Do you feel better?” My voice broke with weight. “Now that you’ve put me in my place. Do you feel better? I came thinking maybe we could see our way through. That you’d give me a chance to explain, but I’m not a masochist, Declan. I know who I am now.”
He turned his head and, finally, looked at me. Really saw me. His face flashed with surprise before what looked like regret crept in around his eyes.
“No.” He shook his head almost imperceptibly. “No, I don’t feel better, sweetness.” Declan pushed off the bar and turned to walk away. Pausing, he spoke over his shoulder. “Wake up, Avery. Go back to reality. It was all just a dream.” My throat tightened with a pained choke, my chest following suit as tears roll
ed down my cheeks in fat quiet drops.
“Cher? Avery, don’t cry. Shit.” Mattie pulled me into a hug, rubbed his thumbs over my cheekbones, brushing the tears away. When had he come in? “He just needs a good ass whoopin’.”
“How much did you hear?”
His lips thinned into a grim line. I knew he could see the shadows under my eyes and the hollowed cheeks, the sadness that wouldn’t leave me alone and the darkness swallowing me whole. The same things I saw when I looked at Declan.
Matt laid his chin against my head and let me cry my silent tears. When they finally slowed, he met my eyes. “You need to come back for the set tonight.”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s important, darlin’. There are things that still need to be said. Things you need to hear. Please? Do this for me?”
For Matt. As far as Declan went, I’d hung my ass out. Tried to tell him how I felt about him, but he refused to hear it. I knew who I was, knew I was strong enough to confront my fears. If he wouldn’t listen, there was nothing more I could do.
Pulling out the sleeve of Matt’s T-shirt, I used it to wipe my nose. I’d been a shitty friend even though Matt had been there for me. I owed him that much. “Okay.”
He laughed, his dimples making an appearance as he rubbed my arms with that soothing way he had. “We go on at nine. I gotta go change, there’s snot on my shirt. Don’t leave after, okay? I’ll find you.” I nodded and he turned away. “I’ll send Kat out.”
Declan
Sweat pouring down my chest, I’d already shed my shirt. The crowd at the Dirty Dog was always on the wild side, but tonight it was intense. I absorbed it all and gave it back to them. I demanded the audience’s full attention and they gave it to me, and despite the way I’d been fighting with the rest of the band, we were playing better than ever. Everything Avery had said earlier I’d put into every fucking note, every strum, every movement I made onstage.
And I was drowning. Every fucking moment that passed that I wasn’t with her, I slipped further into the black.
I was angry. Not at her, at myself. For being this man instead of the man she deserved. Seeing the tears in her eyes earlier without going to her was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but it was for her own good, and I wasn’t strong enough to watch her leave again. It was self-preservation at its finest. Even now, I was a selfish motherfucker.
I let the beat consume me, but it wouldn’t drown out my thoughts as I closed my eyes, pulled at my hair, and rocked into each thump of the bass until the song ended to thunderous applause.
“We’ve got a brand-new one for you to finish up tonight.” My voice was even grittier than normal. “See, our drummer is pissed. He says me and Jamie always sell off our best stuff to the bigger bands. And I keep telling him…” I turned to look at Matt, “Why in the fuck would you want to give up playing the Dirty Dog to move to the convention center across the way where the crowd is faceless and hidden behind bright lights and big money?”
The crowd roared approval. “Anyhow. A band even my gran has heard of, Breaking Chains, is in the studio now, laying this one down for their next album.”
The crowd thundered even louder.
“Tell the story, D.” Jamie’s voice cut in from the other mic.
“What?” I shot Jamie a dangerous look.
“I’m not gonna play it, and these folks won’t get to hear it here first, unless you tell the story.”
I was murderous and let it bleed into the look on my face, but Jamie held his ground.
The fucker had me by the dick and he knew it. This crowd was gonna rebel in a big way if they didn’t get to hear Breaking Chains’ new song.
I turned back to the mic, and dropped my head, stared at some unseen point on the stage as I searched for words. “I started writing this one about a month ago back home in NOLA.” Was she here? No, she was smart. She’d gone.
Did I wish she was here?
“Shit…it starts with a woman.” I grinned for the crowd. “One that was never supposed to get under my skin, but ain’t that always the way?” I cocked an eyebrow and they cheered me on. “When you least expect it, Fate walks up and grabs you by the balls. Tells you she has other plans.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her and wanna talk to her. To touch her, feel her sweet curves against me. Not a single day, that I don’t miss her, that my soul doesn’t miss hers….She will forever be the measure of women, but deserved a much better man than me. So, I have my dreams at night where she waits, the only light in my dark existence….This is, ‘Threadbare Soul.’ ”
Jamie played the acoustic intro, and I slung my guitar behind my back. Grasping the mic in both hands, I brushed my lips against its surface, remembering the feel of her lips against mine.
Yes, I wished she was here. I wanted her to here this song just once and know the truth of it. She was my confessor, and this was my rosary. I wanted her to know this song was my love letter to her.
The music poured over me, and when the rest of the band came in, it became heart-wrenching and razor-sharp, as raw as my emotions.
My lyrics painted a picture about bittersweet time and expiration dates and the distance between souls. How it didn’t make me love her less but left me so empty and alone.
I sang about being trapped in the dark and how it consumed me, my light having fled. That I went through the motions, feeling nothing without her, and that no matter how far away, she was always with me in my thoughts, in my dreams, the only time I felt whole and alive.
I told her my nights were cold and endless, how I missed her beautiful eyes and the feel of her mouth against mine, and in the hook, I laid my heart at her feet. I sang how much I longed for sleep to wrap me tight, because in dreams I could hold her and I wasn’t swallowed by the dark. In dreams, I felt the warmth of a light that disappeared when I woke, where the threads of Fate waited to slice through me again. But in my dreams…that’s where I found the only light to ever soothe my frayed and tattered, threadbare soul.
The last chord faded and I felt a warmth consume my chest, the knot of pain under my ribs easing for the first time in a month. As the crowd blew up with applause, something strong pulled at me like I was attached to a string and needed to follow it to its beginning.
Finally, I cleared my throat. “Yeah…It’s ah, well, it’s the first of its kind from us. We don’t really write the softer stuff. But now you all can say you heard it first at the Dirty Dog, before it ever hits Breaking Chains’ new album.”
I put a hand in the air. “Thanks for coming out tonight, Austin. You all certainly know how to make us feel welcome. When you’re in New Orleans, look us up at Whiskey Moon.”
Chapter 30
Avery
The crowd picked up a chant, “BlackSmith, BlackSmith, BlackSmith.”
“Man, I looove playing Austin,” Declan said with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes, and more whistles and applause broke out as the band left the stage.
I’m not sure when, but at some point, I clasped a palm over my mouth to keep the flies out.
“You okay?” Kat asked as she wrenched her hand from my iron grip and wiped the tears from my cheeks. “Let’s go to the bathroom and get you cleaned up.”
Arm around my shoulders, she led me to the restroom. When we came out, Matthias was waiting against the wall, fending off women.
I gripped the front of his shirt, hauled him down to my face. “Was that what I was supposed to hear, Mattie? Is that what needed to be said?”
“Yeah, part of it.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, turning me down the hall.
Kat put a hand on his biceps, slowing his progress, and he turned, giving her a pointed look. Something passed between them before she let go, following as a bouncer unhooked a rope ushering us through.<
br />
Matt led me down a backstage hall, then stopped, circling around to face me. A shoulder leaned against the wall; he engulfed my hand in his big palm as Kat leaned against the wall on the other side of a door.
“I could’ve told you, darlin’, but you needed to see it for yourself. Hear it for yourself.” I heard a light tap on the door behind Matthias as he cupped my jaw, leaned toward me, and whispered, “This is because I care about you both.”
Matt pressed his lips to mine, fitting us together in a way that was as soft as it was sweet. Though he made no move to push it further, the intention wasn’t that of one friend to another. Confusion set in. Then shock. The kiss was chaste and tender yet layered with delicate emotions that I didn’t understand. And he knew my heart belonged to Declan.
I pressed against his chest to stop him when Matt spun, ripped away from me as someone big, and equally as strong, latched onto his shoulder.
“You motherfucker. I told you—” Declan’s bruised knuckles connected with Matt’s mouth and I startled backward into Jamie and Kat.
All hell broke loose.
Declan pummeled Matt again, a left to the cheek, then a right to the chin. “You never fucking touch her. Never.” A swift, hard shot to Matt’s ribs and he heaved backward against the wall.
“Declan!” His name shredded my throat as Jamie grabbed me around the waist. “Let go.” I struggled, but he wouldn’t relent.
“Let ’em go, Avery. This needs to happen.”
Declan connected a hard uppercut to Matt’s solar plexus, doubling him over.
“Let me go, dammit!”
“D needs to hit him, sweetie. And Matt wants to be hit. Let them get this out.”
“What?” I stopped struggling.
An uppercut to the chin rocked Matt’s head back, sent him sliding down the wall to the floor. He wasn’t even protecting himself. “He’s not fighting back. You have to stop this!”
Declan fisted Matt’s hair, cocked back his right for another punch to the head, this one aimed at the temple.