thirty-two
RHETT
In the days after that night with Billie and our big family bang, as we lovingly referred to it, the dynamics did change between all of us. Not in the way I’d expected though. The jealousy and petty bickering were never going to end between the four of us, since there was only one Billie and none of us were particularly good with long-term sharing, but there was a new comfort in our group dynamics.
It was as if we’d all decided at that point that we were really doing this, it wasfor fucking surehappening, and now we just had to figure out how to ensure that we could continue to live like this for another seventy or so years.
With Billie as our center, I had no doubt that we could make this work. We’d been through hell together and come out the other side. We could do this, no worries.
“Are you heading to the hospital today?” Jace asked when I strolled into the kitchen that morning. “Today is the day, right?”
I nodded, reaching for coffee because I needed it fucking badly. Last night had been my worst sleep in a long time, and I’d been grateful to have Billie with me. She’d let me lose myself in her body all night, and I’d left her exhausted in our bed this morning so I could try and sort my mental space before we left for Townsend.
“You don’t have to do this, bro; you know that, right?” Jace was leaned back against the bench, hair mussed up like he’d just rolled out of bed too. I might have kept them all up last night with my Billie distraction. She wasn’t exactly quiet.
Fuck, I loved that girl.
“I don’t know how I’m going to react when I see them,” I said, taking a huge gulp of coffee. The soothing caffeine started to work a few seconds later, and I managed to relax a touch. “It’s been so fucking long and so much of my trauma is wrapped up in that fucking town and my grandfather. The doc told me to expect triggering moments but that I should be able to pull myself out of them much faster than I would have been able to before.”
Jace’s expression remained serious, and he didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “You’ve changed a lot. For the better. You’ve always been the best of us, Rhett, but with the most broken soul. Now you’re still the best of us and all those pieces are repairing.”
I’d bet my left nut some variation of that line would appear in one of our songs soon. Bastard talked poetically when he was in the middle of composing.
Grayson entered the room, sweaty with a towel over his shoulders. Of course, he’d already worked out; why the fuck wouldn’t he have. Asshole overachiever.
“We should go with you,” he said for the tenth time since we’d last discussed this. “Keep those fucking Townsend sycophants from interfering with you and Billie.”
It had been decided that just Billie and I would go, with a few of our usual security, of course.
“I don’t want you on any of their radars,” I said quickly, shaking my head. “I’m sure they’re aware of Bellerose, but they just think of you as loser musicians. I don’t want to change their perception of that.”
Not to mention that this felt like a journey I had to take on my own. I’d been hiding from my demons in Bellerose for too long, and it was time to stand on my own. The final part of my healing journey.
“Call us if you need us,” Grayson grumbled, before he poured his own coffee. “That’s a fucking order.”
“Yes, sir,” I chirped back and was rewarded with a glower.
“I’d watch yourself,” Angelo said, strolling into the room, the only one of us fully dressed because he was clearly a psychopath who probably slept in a three-piece suit. “Grayson is a little cranky that you kept us up all night with Bella’s screams. He was slamming that boxing bag pretty hard this morning.”
Slept in a suitandmanaged to work out before 6:00 A.M too. Another sign of being a psychopath. We were fucking rock stars; we weren’t supposed to crawl out of bed until midday.
“No better distraction than our Billie,” I said with a shrug. “You all better get used to hearing her scream from my room.”
“Going to hear you scream in a minute,” Grayson threatened before he took another sip of coffee, as if to calm himself.
The disgruntled look on his face had me laughing, and for the first time today, some of my uneasiness faded as I relished this moment of brothers bonding—a part of the new, deeper bond between us all that had me as fucking sappy as Jace and his emo love songs.
When I finished my coffee, I left to get ready and to wake our sleeping beauty. “Thorn, we have to leave in about fifteen minutes,” I whispered, pressing my lips to hers. She opened her eyes and smiled so sweetly at me.
“Okay, Zepp, I’ll jump in the shower.”
We showered separately because there was no fucking way we’d make it out of this house before lunchtime otherwise, and then it was time to leave.
“Call me when it’s done,” Grayson said sternly. After kissing Billie firmly, he deposited her in the passenger seat of his bulletproof car. “Security will be in the car behind you guys.”
“You got it, bro,” I said, deciding not to be a smartass for once.
“Here are all the documents you need,” Angelo said, leaning over Billie to hand me a thick folder. “I think this is more than enough to get the IRS investigation started.” When he pulled away, he kissed Billie long and hard, then leaned back out of the car.
