by Ella Fields
It was all I could do to nod, but when I caught sight of my brother and the others heading this way, I made a move for the exit, grabbing Aiden. “Come on. We need to go.”
Ignoring me, he sidled right up into Everett’s face, and though they both seemed evenly matched, I knew Everett wouldn’t fight fair, if he could even fight in his state, so I tugged on Aiden’s hand. “I mean it, Aiden. Please, let’s go.”
Everett’s nostrils flared. Though he kept his gaze firmly on Aiden, he no doubt heard me.
“Fine,” he gritted, eyes trained on Everett. “Lead the way, Petal.”
I didn’t like the way he put extra emphasis on the nickname to rile Everett up, but I was just relieved he’d relaxed enough to head outside with me.
Any relief I felt withered and died. We weren’t on the street for two seconds before I heard Everett. “Clover!”
Aiden’s hand was tense and clammy around mine as we kept walking, rounding the corner to where a group of people were standing around, talking and smoking.
“Clover, don’t fucking walk away from me.”
“Clover?” Aiden asked, halting.
“Jesus,” I said, my hand releasing his to rake through my hair. “I can’t believe this.”
“You didn’t know your brother was coming to town?”
“No,” I said, tears starting to resurface. “He’d tried to call, but I didn’t want to hear about the band, or anything to do with…” I flapped my hand to where Everett was stalking toward us, a lit cigarette dangling between his fingers. “I didn’t know it was to tell me he was coming here.”
Aiden cursed. “Want me to go?” I looked back at him, and what he saw on my face had his dropping. “Yeah, okay.” He laughed low, shaking his head. “Call if you need me, Stevie.”
My feet tripped forward. “Aiden, wait.”
He turned, walking backward with his hands tucked into his jean pockets. “That all depends on what you decide to do tonight.”
I closed my eyes, inhaling deep and getting hit in the lungs with the acrid scent of tobacco. Turning around, I was met with the bloodshot eyes of Everett Taylor.
He inhaled his cigarette so hard, almost half of it disappeared before he let up and slowly exhaled out the side of his mouth. A pile of ash was flicked to the ground, his eyes narrowing to slits. “That punk, is he really your boyfriend?”
“No, but he’s my friend.”
Again, he inhaled his cigarette, just staring at me. A stare so penetrating and cold, I struggled not to flinch as my stomach twisted and all the knots I’d undone in his absence retied and tightened.
He had a new scar on his cheek, right on the sharp crest of the bone, and his stubble was a day or two away from becoming a beard.
“You’re not even going to talk?” I finally said. “You show up here, all of you, and you act like an asshole to my friend, and then you just stare at me like I’ve done something wrong?”
Smoke billowed past his lips as he released a caustic laugh. “You have. He’s not your fucking friend.”
“Oh, I have, have I?” Outrage spiked my tone. “Tell me then, Everett, just how many friends have you had while you’ve been on the road?” I stepped closer, hissing at him. “Since you fucked my brains out and left me in yet another broken heap almost a year ago?”
His teeth flashed, his voice deceptively calm. “I don’t look at any of them the way he looked at you.” Leaning down into my face, he seethed, “In fact, I don’t need to look at them at all.”
Those words had me swaying back. “Fuck you.”
He chuckled, the sound void of humor, and then he grabbed for me, looping his arm around my waist. “Fucking right you will be.”
“Rett?” Hendrix called. “Hey, Steve. The fuck are you guys doing?”
Disgusted, I pushed Everett away, then raced down the street and across the road, dodging couples and a man on a bike as I found the alleyway that cut through to our apartment.
I should’ve known he’d follow. I almost had the door closed before his boot wedged itself inside, and I screamed, moving back as tears began to tumble down my face. “Fuck, just leave me alone.”
“Never,” he said, shutting and locking the door behind him.
Adela didn’t appear to be home, or she would’ve made her presence known by now with the commotion we’d caused.
“Never?” I asked. “It’s all you ever do, come and fucking go as you please.” My finger shook, pointing at the door. “Not anymore. Get out.”
He just stood there, leaning back against the door with his arms crossed over his chest, the stupid orange apple on his black fitted shirt.
“Did you hear me?”
“Oh, I heard you. But you see,” he said, straightening and taking his time to prowl down the hall, his fingers trailing over the potted plants on the entry table, “your words don’t align with what your eyes are saying.”
My heart drooped and my spine curved, my entire body liquefying with every step he took until he was standing before me. Rough fingers grasped my chin, and his thumb ghosted over it so tenderly. “You split me in two, Clover.” His head lowered, his hands reaching for my waist as his nose slid beneath my chin, tilting it back to inhale my neck. “You never said goodbye.”
“I’m tired of goodbyes, Ever.”
“I need all your goodbyes and every hello. Don’t fucking deprive me of you.”
“Like you don’t deprive me?” I grabbed his head, lifting it. “You do it every time you leave.”
His forehead dropped to mine, and the scent of rum washed over my lips. “Don’t leave.” I couldn’t believe I’d whispered words I never thought I’d say again, especially now that I thought I didn’t need him.
Perhaps I’d always need him. He was a drug, and I’d constantly relapse whenever he was made available to me.
“I don’t want to,” he whispered, then his lips were on mine. His arms lowered, picking me up and carrying me through the doorway into the kitchen.
His taste was the same, and I worried how much he was drinking now. If he’d resorted to drinking rum as well as whiskey.
We bumped into the counter and he cursed, muttering an apology as he set me on it. Removing my jacket, I could hardly breathe when his teeth sank into my lip. His hands pulled at my tank, tugging it and my bra down over my breasts.
“Fuck.” He tore his mouth away, lowering to my chest as he unzipped his jeans.
I gripped his face, needing those lips back on mine, then I reached for his waistband, shoving his jeans and briefs down.
He helped, and then pulled me right to the edge, testing my entrance with his thumb before licking the digit and pushing my panties aside. “I still have your other pair,” he said, his breath rattling as he pushed at my opening.
“Wha–oh, shit.” He rammed inside, and my head rolled.
He slammed in and out, again and again, one hand around my leg that’d been looped behind him, and the other behind my head as he bent over and hammered into me, sucking at my throat.
It’d been so long, and I felt just how long as the discomfort slowly fled and pleasure began to flood my bloodstream. “I-I think I’m coming…”
Everett chuckled, the sound dark. “You think? Clover, when I’m fucking you, you know damn well you’re coming.” Then he lifted me and spun us around until my back met the cool exterior of the fridge, magnets digging into my ass while I kept my legs wrapped tight around him.
I mumbled incoherent pleas to his tongue as it slid over mine. Our teeth clacked, his hips jerking up so fast and hard, I was on the edge and shaking for what felt like minutes. “So fucking beautiful. So fucking mine. Say it.” He reached between us to flick me into a million shattering pieces. “Say it while you come because of me.”
“Yours,” I rasped, and he held my face as he jerked and stilled, his forehead hard on mine and his breath choppy as it drifted inside my mouth.
We remained like that, eyes locked, our thundering hearts taking their
time to slow and calm. His finger drifted over my cheek, and his cock softened inside me. “You’ve wrecked me, Clover.”
I swallowed, my throat dry.
A loud bang echoed on the door, followed by, “Open up, scumbag. I know you’re in there!”
Hendrix.
“Fuck,” Everett groaned out, his hands clenching tight.
My heart started racing again in fear.
Then Adela’s voice sounded, “I’m sorry! He called me and told me to meet him. I didn’t know.”
Muffled curses, and then Adela shouted, “No, you shut up.”
“Open the door, Adela.”
“You open the door.”
Silence, then, “Fine.”
A boom echoed through the apartment.
“Is he trying to kick the door in?” I choked out.
“Don’t fucking kick my door, or I’ll kick you, motherfucker.”
“You wouldn’t dare, tiny one.”
A yelp and a groan had my eyes widening, and I patted Everett’s shoulders.
His eyes opened, and I frowned. “Were you falling asleep?”
“Maybe,” he whispered, groggy. “That Hendrix?”
My eyes stung as realization dawned. I’d just let him ruin me all over again, and worst of all, he probably wouldn’t even remember most of it. I pushed, and he fell out of me, his semen dripping down my thighs as he stepped back, wobbling until he caught himself on the counter.
“Are there any days when you don’t drink anymore, Everett?”
“Ever,” he mumbled. “You usually call me Ever.”
I shook my head as he leaned over the counter, head hung low and his pants still undone.
Heading to the bathroom, I locked myself inside to clean up.
Keys jangled, Adela shouted a warning, and then the door opened with a bang as it no doubt hit the wall thanks to Hendrix. “Where are you, sister fucker?”
Shit.
Shaking out my wet hands, I tore open the bathroom door and rushed into the kitchen in time to see Everett doing up his fly, and Hendrix shoving him back into the countertop. “How long have you been fucking around with her?”
“I’ve never fucked around with her,” he slurred out. “She’s my clover.”
“Jesus Christ,” Hendrix said, visibly shaking as I stood behind him. “You’re too drunk to even punch.”
“Don’t,” I said.
Hendrix turned, his face mottled and his fists clenching at his sides. “Do you enjoy fooling around with my asshole best friend, Steve? Because he’s just that, an asshole. Everyone knows it, and that makes you a fucking idiot for letting him touch you.”
“Hendrix,” Adela warned, voice and eyes sharp, and moved beside me. “You’ll watch your mouth, or I’ll watch it for you.”
He laughed, dry and drained, and didn’t even spare her a glance as he swiped a hand over his chin, his stare hard and pressing into mine. “You haven’t seen what he does on the road. He’s either drunk or he’s fucking his way through the hordes of women who show up at our gigs.” He stepped even closer, biting out, “Sometimes two or three at once.”
A strangled shout was all the warning we had to step back as Everett grabbed my brother by the shirt and flung him through our kitchen, then hurled himself over top of him.
Adela screamed. “Oh, God!”
The rest of the band arrived then, but it was too late. Everett had landed two punches to Hendrix’s jaw before he was flipped, and Hendrix landed blows to Everett’s mouth and cheekbone.
“Leave you guys alone for two minutes and then we’re racing through some kitschy looking town like a bunch of fucking psychopaths,” Graham muttered as he and Dale pulled Hendrix off Everett and tossed him to the floor.
“What the hell is going on?” Dale asked, shoving Hendrix back when he tried to make a move for Everett, who remained on the floor, groaning.
I ran to the freezer to grab some ice and wrapped it in a dish towel, then crouched down beside him to press it to his cheek.
“He was fucking my sister. That’s what’s going on.”
Everett groaned again, pushing my hand away.
“You’re shitting me,” Graham said, turning to me. “Little sis?”
Ignoring them, I tried again to hold the ice over Everett’s cheek. He allowed it this time, squinting up at me.
I brushed some hair off his face, and Hendrix scoffed. “Unbelievable. Look at this shit. She worships him, and he’s out there acting like she doesn’t exist night after night.”
My hand fell away at the reminder, lips and heart pinching.
“Hendrix,” Dale said. “Tone it down.”
“Get fucked, Dale.”
“Little sis,” Graham said, still sounding perplexed. “But I always thought if any of us could win her heart, it’d be me.”
“Win her heart? What are you, a fucking poet?” Hendrix said, spitting blood onto his hand and frowning at it.
“I’m a rock star. Close enough.”
Hendrix rolled his neck, muttering a slew of curses.
Everett was still staring at me when I shifted the ice to his busted lip. “Not worthy,” he whispered, so quiet that no one else could hear.
My head shook, and Hendrix groaned, clearly watching us again. “Fuck this, I’m out. Some best friend you are, you giant fucking asshole.”
The door slammed, and Dale and Graham stood there a moment, unsure what to do.
Adela entered the room with a glass of water, and then the guys snapped into action and helped me lift Everett to sit as Adela handed me the water.
He took slow sips, wincing as it hit the cut on his lip. “At least that’s over with.”
Dale snorted. “Ha-ha. Not by a long shot, buddy.”
Everett swayed, about to lie back down when the guys swooped in. “Come on,” Graham said. “Back to the bus for you.”
I was about to offer that he could stay here, but judging by the look Dale sent me when I opened my mouth, I knew it’d be a terrible idea.
“They need to hash it out,” Adela said as we watched them head down the stairs outside. Everett was propped between Dale and Graham with his arms slung over their shoulders. “Having him hide away will only cause more tension. They’re a team. The quicker they have it out, the quicker they can hopefully move on.”
Though I wanted to, I wasn’t sure if I believed her.
Thoughts of Everett, how drunk he’d been, and how much he hadn’t seemed to care about any repercussions haunted me until I finally fell asleep.
Aiden’s crooked smile floating behind my lids had me waking early with an aching chest in the cocoon I’d made of my bedding.
He’d just told me about his mom and how she’d died, then minutes later, watched me race down the street toward another man. The same man who was holding me back from him.
When you want something bad enough, it was too easy to justify all the ways in which you’re right, and everything else is wrong.
A steady ache pressed behind my eyes, a fitting companion for the one growing inside my chest.
I could hear Adela moving around the house, getting ready for work at the small cinema in the middle of town.
Eventually, I dragged myself to the shower, then downed two cups of tea as I sat at the kitchen counter, trying to call my brother. His voicemail greeted me five times before I finally gave up and decided on a different tactic.
The sun was bright beneath clouds that tried to smother it, the town of Raslow coming alive as it did every Saturday morning. Families crowded the streets, heading to street vendors, cafés, and the fruit and flower markets.
In the gravel lot behind the bar sat the bus that’d carried my heart away from me and sent us both down different paths.
The paint was fading, and stone chips and small dents exposed glimpses of the original yellow. The big dent in the front still hadn’t been fixed, but I suppose they didn’t exactly have the funds to go around fixing materialistic things like that.
Dale was where he’d said he’d be, camped out outside the bus on a deck chair. Wearing Wayfarers, checkered Vans, and an unbuttoned black dress shirt, he sipped his coffee while plucking at the strings of the guitar in his lap.
“Decided to try again?” I asked, leaning against the bus.
“These shmucks can’t keep bagging all the good chicks,” he said, strumming a soft melody that sounded painfully familiar, right up until it bottomed out. “That fucking chord.”
“C minor nine.” My smile was grim as I remembered Hendrix trying to master it some years ago.
Dale’s hand slapped against the strings, and he sighed. “You’ve created quite the mess, Stevie Nicks.”
I tried to smirk but failed. “I know.” I toed some gravel with my chuck. “He here?”
Dale leaned the guitar against the side of the bus. “Who, your brother? Or the drunk?”
“It’s gotten that bad, huh?” I knew without having to ask, but I still had to.
“Yeah.” Dale exhaled. “He can rock that stage drunk, high, or sober. But as soon as he’s off?” He rose, stretching his arms above his head before bending to retrieve his coffee. “The shitshow begins.”
“All the women…” I trailed off, wishing I hadn’t said anything.
“Stevie.” Dale gave me a tired smile. “The only time he doesn’t have a drink in his hand is when he’s asleep.” He stopped, a short bark of laughter leaving. “No, even then he’ll sometimes nurse a bottle or flask.”
I looked up at the bus, worry mingling with anger. “He needs help.”
Dale’s voice lowered, his hand coming to rest on my shoulder. “He can stop. He just doesn’t want to.”
I didn’t know if I believed that. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. “I thought—”
“That he’d be better once he left the two assholes he called parents?”
I nodded.
“We all did. Especially him.” He stepped back and glanced up at the bus when movement sounded from inside.
“He took off,” Dale said. “Hendrix. Wasn’t here when we got back.”
Guilt thickened my voice. “Will you tell him I’m sorry? I don’t know if I’ll get to see him. He won’t answer my calls.”