"You called yourself stupid," Linx pointed out. "We don’t know what’s up in the land of Mach, so we have to wait until you’re ready to tell us. Then we’ll decide if your intellectual capacities are still intact." He grinned. "Or not."
"Darla’s in my head," he said. And now he knew the sound she made when she came and the sounds she made when she woke up and the little words she whispered while she slept. There was no coming back from that. It branded her as his, and that wasn’t fair at all.
"She deserves someone who can be all in," Mach said, resigned to the fact that no matter how badly he wanted to be, he wasn’t that guy.
"Why isn’t that you?" Tanner asked.
"Shit doesn’t last for me," Mach said. "You know that. You’ve seen it."
"Uh…" Tanner glanced around the room locking eyes with the other guys. "Maybe that was how it used to be for you, but looks to me like your luck changed around the time Linx got pissed at these guys and then we got a shot at playing with ’em."
"And what happens when the band is done?" Mach asked, hating that he voiced the things in his head that he didn’t want to hear.
"Yeah, you’re bein’ stupid." Linx crossed his arms.
"First of all, what the hell?" Bax asked. "Dimefront didn’t bring you on as a pity fuck. We don’t do that. We brought you on because you’re good and you fit, and we like you, and Mach, man, you are family. If we can’t make music, then we’ll open a fuckin’ bakery or something and bake fuckin’ cookies together. So wipe the rest of that shit out of your brain. If Dimefront the band dissolved tomorrow, you’d still be our family."
Mach didn’t buy it. If Dimefront dissolved, the ties that bound them would, too. That’s how it worked.
Mach once had a shot at a family. Nice people, with brothers and everything—the works. He stayed there for a solid six months. Then the dad’s job got moved, and they hadn’t even started the adoption process. He was still in foster care, and they couldn’t take him to another state, so they had to move on and he got bounced to another house.
"What do you think happens to a kid like that when he gets a shot at everything and then loses it?" Tanner asked everyone, glancing around the room to make some kind of point. "They quit reaching for it."
"Not wanting something new is easier than having it and losing it," Mach said. "That’s why I’m not it for Darla. I’m not willing to take the risk again. She deserves somebody who is."
"I get it better than anyone," Tanner said, leaning forward so his lanky forearms draped over his knees. "Where we come from? It’s hard to believe the good shit is actually meant for us. But, man, you’ve eaten the shit and now it’s time to enjoy that you don’t have to anymore."
"Listen to the kid," Bax said. "He’s smarter than he looks."
This was great that Tanner thought so, but Mach still didn’t buy it.
"Have you and Darla made it official?" Tanner asked in that earnest way of his that made everybody love him. "Put a label on this thing between you?"
What was official anyway? They were together all the time, and they clearly enjoyed each other. But were they official?
"No idea if we are," Mach said, tapping his foot and then forcing it to stop by putting his hand on his knee.
"That’s the first thing to clarify," Tanner chimed in. "See where she’s at."
"Let’s assume we are?" Mach said when nobody said anything else. "We’re all labeled up."
"Mach," Tanner said carefully.
"You deserve her and you’re falling for her," Knox said. "It’s okay. She’s a good one. Just don’t let it freak you out."
"How do you know that? That she’s a good one?" Mach asked, because he knew that—he’d spent countless hours with her already. But they hadn’t.
"Courtney thinks she’s great,” Bax said. "And she requires that I listen to her."
Knox lifted a shoulder. "Anyone who has your undies tied up like this is a good thing for you."
"My undies are not—"
"Hans had her checked out," Linx interrupted. "We know she’s legit because, you know, before the big date, he made sure she wasn’t a serial killer or anything. Turns out she’s actually pretty awesome. Patients and docs love her, solid friends, and a family as average as it gets. So yeah, she’s good to go."
That was great. Really. Except—
"Even if I wanted to, I don’t even know how to fall in love," Mach admitted. He didn’t. He knew family because of what Dimefront, Tanner, and Dan gave him. But he also understood that it was all contingent on other things.
