Deciding I was already done with today, despite the fact that it was still morning, I excused myself and hurried back to the bedroom. My soul was screaming that I needed to get off this bus as soon as possible, while my heart reminded me that when we reached New York, it’d be the last time I got to see Rhett.
And Jace.
Maybe this time the goodbye would actually destroy me.
sixteen
RHETT
The tight, closed-off expression on Billie’s face as she retreated into our bedroom made my chest ache. But it was quickly eased by the mental reminder she was inourbedroom. Hers and mine. Together. Not even Jace had argued when I claimed the only double bed on the bus, and I wasn’t stupid enough to think he was suddenly okay with me and Billie being…intimate. He’d simply recognized the fact that I could actually sleep when I was with her.
That, in and of itself, gave me hope. Whether it was a conscious thought or not, Jace placed my health and wellbeing at a higher priority than his eight-year-stale heartbreak over Billie Bellerose.
We had two smaller shows to play on the road before we reached New York. That meant I had two nights and three days to convince her she needed to stay. Only two nights and three days tosomehowrepair the burneddown bridge between my best friend and his first love. Except… part of me didn’t want to mend that bridge too well. I may have only known her for a relatively short period of time, but I’d be damned if I let Jace steal her away.
“Cut it out,” he snarled at me. “If you’re going to be all fucking heart eyes over that bitch, I’ll change my mind and kick her back to the staff bus.”
I swiveled my head toward him and raised one cool brow. For some reason, I was more than ready to throw down this morning. “For one thing, Jace, you’re not in charge around here. Lead singer doesnotmake you ourleader.” He recoiled with a stricken look on his face, but I was far from done. “For another, you need to cut the insults when it comes to Billie. Pretend all you like, bro, but you loved her once. You loved her so much you literally named our band after her. So you’re not fooling anyone by calling herbitchandwhore. All you’re doing is proving how painfully not over her you are, and frankly? After eight years, that’s just sad.”
Flo gasped, but I kept my eyes locked on Jace. His eyes hardened, his jaw tensing as he digested my words.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he replied in a hoarse voice.
I laughed coldly in response. “You’re right. I don’t. All I know is whatyou’vetold me, what you’ve told all of us, and now I’m seriously starting to question how biased that version of events really was.”
He swallowed hard, seeming to lose a fraction of his cold fury as his eyes darted to the closed bedroom door. Then he gritted his teeth and refocused on me. “Like I fucking said. You havenoidea. She fooledmeonce before too. Then she left me for my best friend and never looked back. Don’t be stupid, Rhett. She’ll do it to you too.”
There was something off about his tone, though. Something that hinted there was awholelot more to the story, and I narrowed my eyes.
“You’ve clearly told the story often enough that you believe it all to be true,” I said calmly, “but seriously ask yourself this, Jace. If Billie really ran off into the sunset with your best friend, why is she so fucking terrified of him finding her now? Why does she say she hasn’t seen him inalmostas long as she hasn’t seen you, huh?”
His brow dipped in a scowl and his jaw tightened, but he said nothing back.
I sighed, then reached out and flicked him in the forehead. “Wake up, Jace. She’s just a girl, and you’re an asshole who can’t pull his head out of his ass long enough to see she needshelp.”
That flick enraged him—or maybe it was my observation—and he rose out of his seat with fists clenched.
“That’s enough,” Grayson snapped, closing the journal he’d been writing in and shooting us both a hard look. “Sit down, Jace. You’re not fighting him.”
Tom cleared his throat, nodding like a fucking bobblehead. “Yeah, exactly. We can’t show up with bruised faces, or rumors will start. Especially after that incident last night.” He gave Grayson a long look, but Gray just ignored him as he pulled a pair of drumsticks from his jacket.
“Jace, I heard you working on something new this morning,” Flo offered as a change of subject, pasting a smile on her face that urged us all to kiss and make up. Or at least retreat to our corners and save the violence for another time. “Can we hear it?”
Jace was still glaring daggers at me, though, and I couldn’t seem to quell the fury burning inside me. He was right, Ididn’thave the whole story, but Billie was the only person who could tell me the rest, and she’d been pretty clear that she wasn’t going to share. She didn’t seem to have any desire to change Jace’s song, no matter how off-tune it suddenly rang.
But those scars on her body told a whole different story. I hadn’t said anything this morning when I’d noticed a few ropey burns on her sides, but they told me there was darkness in her past. Just like in mine.
I loved Jace like family, but he was way, way off the mark about her. Finding that evidence of pain literally burned into her flesh had confirmed that for me, even if she wouldn’t say what had happened out loud.
“No,” Jace replied to Flo after a long, tense silence. “It’s not done.”
A scathing insult sat on the tip of my tongue, desperate to be unleashed. I kept it to myself, but shit… maybe his muse would sing if he found out I’d tasted Billie’s sweet cunt this morning. After all,everythinghe wrote was about her, whether he admitted it or not. The fact that he was suddenly writing again—when he hadn’t written anything new for almost a year—couldn’t be a coincidence.
Grayson’s drumsticks tapped out an unfamiliar tune on the tabletop, his head tipped back and his eyes closed like he was listening to something in his head. Flo and I exchanged a confused look, then she reached out and poked Gray in the ribs.
“Hey, grumpy-guts. What was that?”
He opened his eyes, giving a shrug. “Just something stuck in my head.”
