“Yes, I remember that. But this is different.”
“How’s that?”
“That was only a car. Today he thinks you crashed his reputation.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Cole
Iscrewed up. Not only do I sit in this damned jail cell, but I am here with Dys and Holmes, the last two fucks I wanted to share a jail cell with. Jacine didn’t pick up on the one call they gave me. Who the hell do I call now? I don’t have a business manager, and I burned the last set of friends I had with a stupid card game.
Dys leaned back against the concrete eyeing me like I’m some jungle cat that could pounce on him at any moment. Holmes appeared to be meditating or some shit. Yeah. In a jail cell. He always was a little weird.
And did I blame Dys for giving me the stink-eye? No. I screwed up the first best thing in my life with an asshole move. Now I shot down the second best thing in my life with my impulsiveness. When would I learn?
Boss lady was more than hot. She’s the one I’ve been looking for all this time and I didn’t even know it. Who’d have thunk? I thought it was just a kiss. Wrong. As the old song goes, “I fooled around and fell in love.” Yeah, that’s right—love. The big L. The thing that shall not be named when bedding groupies.
But Jacine was no groupie. She was fire, class, and power shaped in the body of a goddess. But the damndest thing was that Dys and Holmes zeroed in on her too. While I don’t like it one bit, I can’t blame them.
But what the hell would we do?
“Guys,” I said. “We need to talk.”
Dys snorted. Holmes gazed at me with an eerie calm that sent creepy shivers through me.
“I freely admit I’ve been an ass.”
Holmes nodded. “Acknowledgment is the first step in wisdom.”
Dys stared at me like he didn’t believe it.
“I shouldn’t have been such a jerk about the music. I’ll have Marshall draw of papers giving back your rights to your share, Dys.”
“Keep the music. It doesn’t matter.”
“But I thought—“
“Shit, Kane. You don’t get it. I don’t care about that. I can make more music. I have reams of songs that I don’t have time to produce. And I don’t care about the money—ditto.”
“Ditto,” said Holmes sagely.
“It’s because you treated me like shit that I’ve held a grudge. And I shouldn’t have done that either because that helped to get us into this mess. No man, what hurt was that I lost my friend, friends,” he said as he nodded his head at Holmes. And I’m too old to go making a bunch of new ones. But the point is I didn’t want to either, and that’s made me a hard man to live with.”
“Same here,” I said. “I can’t keep a band worth shit.”
“That’s true for me too,” said Holmes. “I don’t even speak to my bandmates. I just sign the checks.”
“And no one,” I said, “played as good together as we did.”
“We jammed,” said Dys.
“Rocked and rolled,” agreed Holmes.
“So I’m offering my sincerest apologies for every rotten thing I did. I was wrong.”
“There’s something you don’t hear every day,” shot Dys.
“Fuck you, Dys,” said Holmes. “The man is trying to say he’s sorry. Can’t you take that one thing with a little grace.”
