Sweet Ache

by K. Bromberg

  He skims quickly over his brother’s name but I don’t miss it. So Hunter was a part of this close-knit group of guys who are now a band and now he isn’t? There’s obviously more there. I’ve seen the animosity between him and Vince firsthand. I want to ask, want to delve but choose a safer path.

  “What happened to Benji?”

  “He’s still around,” he says, voice laced in amusement. “Ben doesn’t have a musical bone in his body. He prefers being an asshole … so he became a lawyer.” I snap my head up at him, surprised by the comment but find him smiling so I know he’s teasing. “Nah, he’s a good guy. Always looking out for my best interest.”

  I rest my head back down on his chest as the song changes. Hawke’s fingers keep tapping the beat on my back, but I still feel like there is a huge elephant in the room that we need to address. I’ve watched my brother go through some pretty serious shit, watched Rylee break down his walls, and learned that with men patience is a virtue you need to hold on to. And I’m patient, but I’m also curious.

  “So is this how you deal with all of your problems?” I ask, causing his hand to stop momentarily from playing the beat before he continues again.

  “Hmm?” he murmurs. “You mean putting the spin in your machine’s spin cycle?” He chuckles softly, his hand moving to tug the holder out of my ponytail and begin to play with my hair. “Because shit, that felt hella good. We might have to try that again sometime, minus the barge through the door thing.”

  “It was kinda hot,” I tease, earning a tug on my hair that makes me laugh. “I’d hate to see what you do when it’s just you and the guys on a tour bus then,” I joke, wanting to lighten the mood some, give him room to breathe so that he can be comfortable enough to answer.

  I love the laugh he emits; it’s free and sincere and tells me some of the weight on his mind has lifted. “I assure you the guys don’t get to see that side of me,” he muses. “And to answer your question, no, that’s not how I usually deal with shit. I take it out on Giz’s drums—pound the hell out of them for a good hour or so—but I think I’ve found my new substitute.”

  “You have?”

  “Yes. You.” His unexpected words cause a flutter in my stomach that I try to ignore. I’ll need to try harder with that because even though I’m sure he knows the right thing to say to make a woman swoon, the sincerity in his tone weaves its way into my soul and wraps around my heart. Gives me hope of possibilities that I realize I was fearing before but now really want to believe have a chance.

  I don’t know what to say but his comment has made me feel a little more secure in this ever-revolving world around us, and I want to give him something in return. I press a kiss to his chest, his heart beating just beneath my lips, and rest my chin there on top of my hand. “You want to talk about tonight?”

  “No … I don’t.” He sighs after a moment and I can all but feel his sadness return. “But you deserve an explanation after what I did to you today.”

  “Hawkin—”

  “I’m not that much of an asshole, Quin. If I’m going to fuck it out with you, you sure as shit deserve an explanation.” There is no arguing with his tone, so I keep my eyes fixed on my fingers tracing his tattoos and nod my head in silent agreement. And of course now that he is about to talk about it, I’m almost nervous to hear the explanation.

  If it’s something he keeps this close to the vest, will finding out change the opinions and feelings I’m starting to have for him?

  “Today is the anniversary of my dad’s suicide.”

  I whip my head up to look at him, shocked by the confession I wasn’t expecting, the key he handed me to unlock one of his doors, and hurt for him all at once. My mouth falls open and then I close it, and open it again, having everything and nothing to say to him.

  He keeps his eyes averted from me though. I know he’s hurting, can’t imagine the pain of having to live without a dad, but don’t know how exactly to soothe him besides just letting him know I am here for him in silent support.

  “Hawkin.” It’s the only thing I say to him, his name softly spoken.

  “No. Don’t…. I gave you the short version of it the other day. I’m sorry.”

  “Please don’t apologize,” I plead.

  He exhales a breath, his fingers still playing idly with my hair in a gesture so contradictory to the tumultuous emotions emanating off him. “When I was nine, I was home sick. My mom went to pick Hunt up from school and my dad stayed home with me. I went downstairs to get a toy—a Transformer—and he was there. He was ranting and pacing and nervous and the things he said confused me….” His voice fades off as my heart squeezes in my chest at the sadness that begins to suffocate the room around us. “He made me promise him things about my mom, about Hunter, about how I’d live my life…. Then he made me stand there and watch him load the gun … made me watch him pull the trigger.” Hawkin’s voice that is usually so melodic in tone is hollow when he says the last words, and the absence of his trademark warmth speaks volumes. Tells me this man understandably still mourns the loss of his father, the loss of his innocence, and everything else his father took from him that day that I can’t even fathom.

  The silence around us is deafening as I reach out and lace my fingers with his, my thoughts racing over the damage that was done to his psyche that day. Questions fly through my mind: Why make your son watch? Why did he commit suicide? How can two sons left by their father end up at such odds when they probably used each other to get through it?

  “What was his name?” I ask, unsure what else to ask but needing him to know I care.

  “Joshua,” he says softly and then falls silent for a beat. “He told me …” He clears his throat from the emotion clogged there and it breaks my heart. His chest stills beneath my cheek as he reins in his emotion and continues. “My dad said that he was weak, loved my mom too much, and that he just couldn’t deal with it all anymore. By today’s standards, I’m sure he’d be diagnosed with depression, something that might explain things, but looking back through the eyes of a child, we never saw it…. He was just our dad. The man I idolize.”

  I press another kiss to his chest, his heart beating erratically against my lips, and it’s not lost on me that idolize is present tense despite the amount of time that has passed. My mind turns to thoughts of my own father, who still seems larger than life. How as a child he protected Colton and me from life’s harsh realities and yet Hawkin was thrust right into them with a front row ticket.

  “I’ll never understand why he did it, why he called me in there. Why he left us. It’s hard even now for me to admit how selfish he was for making me stand there and watch him. For making me promise to live a life by the standards he couldn’t himself live out. He saddled me with the burden of proving it’s possible to do what he couldn’t and survive….” He falls quiet, and I just lie there in silent reassurance, my eyes welling with tears I don’t want him to see. Tears for the little boy he was, the damage it caused him, and for the grown man still feeling guilt over it all this time later.

  Scars run so deep sometimes, the invisible ones cutting the deepest of them all.

  “He ruined us that day—my mom, Hunt, me. But the fault lies on me too because I still want to make him proud somehow by doing it. I can’t not. Something’s wrong with me, I guess … I don’t know.” He shakes his head and blows out a breath in frustration.

  “Nothing’s wrong with you,” I murmur, not wanting to overstep my boundaries. “You’re just trying to honor your word. No one will ever fault you for standing by that.”

  He just falls silent and I worry that maybe I said something he didn’t want to hear. All I can think about is this little boy with stormy eyes and the invisible scars he wears beneath the surface, the burden of being the man of the house after it seems like the house fell down around them.

  “My mom has never been the same since. I’ve always said I lost her that day too. Our house was always filled with the sound of her singing or the clas
sical music she was trying to teach us when the classics we’d much rather have been listening to were the rock variety. Then after … she was just this shell of herself…. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

  “There’s nothing I can say,” I murmur; all of the words on the tip of my tongue wouldn’t express even an iota of what I really mean so I just keep quiet, pulling him in tighter to me, appreciating the fact that he trusted me with his story.

  “Nothing to say.” He shrugs when he lifts his head up to finally meet my gaze. His eyes are heavy with sorrow and I wish I could take that away from him for a moment, a day, so that he can live free of the burden of it. “Hunter … I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “We were close for a while. We hit high school and he started to fall apart. Sports games without our dad in the stands, my mom so lost we had to turn to friends to teach us how to drive … He fell into a bad scene for a while.” He shakes his head and lays it back down, his eyes returning to the ceiling but not before I can see the pain, the guilt he carries in his eyes.

  I want to tell him that wasn’t his job, his responsibility to fix because he was suffering too, but he continues before I can find the right words.

  “I think a part of him thinks my dad favored me, held me to a higher standard by having me be there with him. He doesn’t get the images I have to relive every time I think of my dad. Blood gushing like a fountain, pooling around my feet frozen to the floor. The echo of the gunshot slamming into my goddamn skull, haunting my dreams, and making me jerk to look when I hear a car backfire. The promises I had to make, the only things I have left to make him proud of me.” He scrubs a hand over his face, his five o’clock shadow chafing his hands, and all I want to do is gather him to me, hold him tight, and try to take the memories away for him, but know I can’t.

  He’s baring his demons to me and I’m worried what damage has occurred by him dredging up the memories I’m sure he keeps locked tight.

  “Music was how I coped. I lost myself in it—the lyrics, the beat—and it allowed me to step outside the situation, allowed me to feel alive again when I was dead for so long. We formed a band sophomore year in high school—Hunter, Vince, Rocket, Giz, and me. It was my salvation, my daily catharsis from the shit fucking up my head. We kept at it and started playing clubs before we were old enough to drink. Had a couple of gigs we played regularly for a while but the lifestyle was bad for Hunter. He slipped back into the shit he delved into in high school. Started needing the drugs more than the music, I guess. Missed gigs, fucked-up chords on stage … The guys started getting pissed, knew he was going to blow our chance.

  “Then we had a scout in the crowd one night. He talked to us after and came to a few more of our sets at different clubs. One thing led to another and then another and he wanted to sign us, but he wanted Hunter gone because he was a liability. He was right but fuck, what was I supposed to do? He promised to clean up, drop the drugs, and then he never showed for the performance we had for the record execs because he was so coked up he passed out. They offered us the deal as long as Hunter wasn’t on the ticket.” He falls silent, the strife raw in his tone at having to make a decision between his anchor and his life preserver. “Anyway, the guys told me it was my decision, that they understood if we had to pass the contract up.”

  “Wow.” I don’t even realize I’ve spoken until he speaks again.

  “Exactly. That’s how good of friends they are to me, willing to give up their dream so that I didn’t have to leave my brother behind. It fucked me up for a while—the guilt still does, I guess, but I chose the band. Told Hunter if he couldn’t get his shit together that it wasn’t fair to everyone else to throw the years of hard work away.”

  I draw in a deep breath, trying to wrap my head around the decision he had to make and the added weight it must be on his already burdened shoulders. And I also think he’s fortunate that he has friends like the guys who offered to give up the possibility because he meant so much to them. It also explains the tension between them all to an extent.

  “And then of course we hit it big and I could see his resentment eat at him. Watched as he tried to undermine situations between the guys and me but they stood firm from our shared history and always had my back. So he moved on to everything else he could fuck up for me.”

  By now my head is spinning at all of this information, so I just nod. His eyes reconnect with mine and give me the courage to comment. “And that’s where I come in?”

  “Fuck if I know.” He blows out a breath, his free hand reaching down and grazing over the length of my jaw. “I couldn’t save my dad, but I tried to save Hunt … still am in a sense. I pay him a portion of my cut because guilt eats at me, I guess. Either that or I’m stupid … but I promised my dad I’d take care of him and I’m trying to. Am I enabling his habit that he can kick every so often before he uses again to deal with his shit? Probably. Do I cover for him, when I shouldn’t? Always … but it’s getting old and I’ve started resisting more and more, causing him to become more bitter, going after anything I have to prove he’s better, I guess. Restore that ego of his I damaged. Women, family, friends. Anything I want, he tries to fuck up in his own personal vendetta to get back at me.”

  “So then kick his ass and tell him to leave what’s yours alone.” The comment comes out as a reflex, and I immediately regret the inadvertent declaration. I cringe and avert my eyes knowing that’s like the kiss of death to a guy, particularly one like him who’s probably used to changing women like he does his underwear.

  The silence kills me so when I look back up, I don’t expect the lopsided grin that spreads lazily on his face and lights up the sadness in his gray eyes, but it’s such a welcome sight. “What’s mine, huh?” He angles his head to the side and stares, lips pursed, eyes reflecting the thoughts flickering through his mind. “You staking a claim, Trixie?”

  Is the sky blue? If I worried that his confession was going to push me away from him, I was way off base because now I only want him more. Deciding to demonstrate, I sit up and climb over his lap so that I’m facing him, my legs straddled on either side of his. His brow furrows and lips turn up as his eyes never leave mine, questioning my actions without using words.

  When I bend forward and brush my lips to his, my bare breasts skimming over his chest, and then lean back so that I can see some of that discord clear from his eyes. “If hot sex on my washing machine is part of this claim,” I say pressing my mouth to his again, slipping my tongue between his lips to tempt and tease in a seductive dance before pulling back again, “then hell yes, I’m in.”

  He laughs softly, and the momentary playfulness makes me feel a bit more settled. But I can feel the weight of sadness begin to descend again and before it can grow roots, I slip my arms around him and pull him into me. With our positioning, his head rests just under the curve of my neck and I can feel him hesitate slightly, can feel the unease with his sudden vulnerability, but I don’t let go. I know this can go one of two ways because a man’s vulnerability is akin to having his heart lie on the outside of his chest, unprotected and defenseless.

  It also means it’s open to possibility.

  My gut instinct that he needs to be comforted could backfire. I could be so off base and scare him the hell away, but he came here. He needed me. I feel his hesitancy, his want to rein in the emotion, be strong and not break with weakness. Fulfill his promise to his dad.

  And then he reacts, tightening his arms around me, gathering me into him. An exhale of a stuttered breath, fingers pressing desperately into my back, silence settling around us as he holds on and finds the comfort I’m offering without strings or claims. And yes, I know we’ve had sex already, been as close to someone else as we possibly can be, but at the same time, this feels ten times more intimate in the moment than the joining of our bodies.

  I run my hands up his muscular back, slide my nails in his hair and scratch his head gently in a silent show of support. His response reminds me of a little boy needing some
one to comfort him so I do just that. I hold him tightly, pressing kisses into the crown of his head, fingertips grazing his skin, our hearts beating in time with each other’s.

  We sit like this for some time, the songs changing on the speakers overhead, the feeling of our naked bodies pressed skin to skin an added bonus.

  “Did something happen tonight to upset you besides the obvious?” I murmur.

  He sighs, the heat of his breath warm against my neck. “I got into it with Hunter after trying to distract his sights from you with that sorority girl. If he thought she was what I wanted, then he’d go after her, and not you.” I hear the honesty in his voice, and I smile softly, the hurt he caused me forgiven. “Then we got a call—Mom was having a rough day so we went to see her and things only got worse from there. She wasn’t happy to see me because … That’s another story.” He blows out a breath, the keys I need him to hand out going back into his pocket. “So I hit up a bar and drank till the anger lessened … but I just kept thinking about you. I needed to see you and you wouldn’t respond or pick up the phone, so here I am.”

  “I’m sorry you had such a shit day,” I tell him honestly, struggling trying to process everything. I don’t have much to contribute so I’ll say the one thing I can. “I’m a big girl, Hawke. I have no problem telling your brother to go to hell myself.”

  His laugh is low and derisive. “I know you can but Hunter’s an all costs kind of guy, and I always wonder how much there is of Dad in him. They ruin someone else while self-destructing on purpose. Dad was larger than life but everything was in extremes. Hunt’s the same way.” He adjusts our position so that he leans back, my body now falling into his, and he sets his chin on my shoulder. “Jealousy is a nasty bitch, sometimes. I love my brother—it’s just how it goes—but most of the time he uses our past as an excuse to pardon his actions, his drug habit, and the ruin it leaves in its wake…. And while I may love him, that doesn’t mean I have to like him all the time either.”