I’d left the guitar outside, and my pride wouldn’t let me go back out there, so I just gave up and got ready for bed. And by that, I meant I just took off my borrowed sweatpants and crawled under the covers in my panties and flannel shirt. It wasn’t like I could brush my teeth or change into clean clothes. Maybe in the morning I’d wash some of our clothes in the river before we really started to stink .
Silence weighed down heavily as I lay there, and it wasn’t long before exhaustion set in and my lids drooped.
“Where’s Billie?” Rhett’s question woke me up from my half-asleep doze, and it took me a moment to realize he was talking to Jace outside. The trailer might as well be made of cardboard for how much sound insulation it offered.
“Inside,” Jace replied, his voice low and quiet.
There was a pause before Rhett spoke again, and I tried to convince myself not to listen. But it was hardnotto, so…
“Did something happen?”
Jace grunted. That was it. Just a grunt. What was he, a pig?Use your fucking words, Adams.
Rhett sighed, sounding frustrated. “I love you, Jace; you’re my best friend and brother. But fuckme,you’re an asshole.”
“No disagreement here,” Jace muttered back. “She brings out the worst in me.”
Rhett scoffed. “Don’t blame her. You’re a man. Man up and take responsibility for your own choices.”
Oh snap. I braced, waiting with bated breath to hear Jace start a fight that I’d be forced to break up. But to my shock, he didn’t. He just grunted again.
They fell silent, and I nearly drifted back to sleep before the sound of guitar music reached my ears. It was my song, the one I’d just been making up while they were off in the woods. But I’d bet my shorts it was Rhett playing, not Jace.
“I wouldn’t,” Jace said, confirming my guess. “She said we can’t have that song for Bellerose.”
Rhett scoffed, still playing my tune on the guitar. I could so vividly picture his long fingers plucking at the strings just like he played with my body… “Why’d she say that, hmm? You must have pissed her off. Besides, I like it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Jace muttered.
“Do you remember any of the lyrics she’d already put to it?” Rhett asked, continuing to play and adding his own creative spin on my original tune. “I couldn’t hear what they were.”
Jace groaned. “No. But…”
Rhett chuckled, pausing his playing. “Oh, here we go. You’ve already written lyrics in your head, huh? Well then, spit it out. I’ll start over.” He didn’t wait for Jace to argue, just started playing again.
There was a moment’s hesitation, within which I didn’t even breathe, then Jace started singing.
“Pain written in my soul, the blade too blunt to cut you free,
Even as I crave the agony. It feeds my being. My being.
This is the end of something real, of the moment we’re desperate to save.
Desperate to save.”
Fuck. Now I was crying. Unable to face hearing anything more, I pulled the blankets up and dragged a pillow over my head. I could still hear them, but now it was muffled and incomprehensible. Thank fuck for that.
I must have fallen asleep, because I woke again to Rhett climbing in beside me, his cold hands finding my waist and pulling me into his embrace. Then the mattress dipped on the other side, and I stiffened up like a board.
“I’m not sleeping on the couch,” Jace muttered quietly. “It’s too short, and this bed is more than big enough if you’re not a bitch about it.”
“Jesus, bro, can you not?” Rhett groaned, holding me tighter like he could somehow physically fend off the insult.
I was sleepy enough not to give a fuck about petty insults, though. “Just don’t fucking touch me,” I mumbled, snuggling into Rhett’s chest. “Or I’ll kill you.”
“Likewise,” he replied, getting comfortable.
Rhett sighed, then kissed my hair. “You two are insufferable. Sweet dreams, beautiful.”
