The next day, I’d gotten his ass into rehab. He’d immediately bounced right out, and that wasthat.
I’d try to help him, get him back into rehab, but not until he came crawling back asking me for helpagain.
Which hewould.
I was pretty damn sure aboutthat.
Until then, nothing I coulddo.
But it was a shake-up, a wake-up call for all of us. At least, it should’vebeen.
Jessa was still away, modeling, had never come home. Always had some new gig, some contract to fulfill, some reason she couldn’t come home to seeus.
It bothered Jesse, a fuck of a lot. He still worried abouther.
But life rolled the fuckon.
Dirty went pretty much straight into writing mode on their second album, which they’d already decided would be calledDead Crazy, which was pretty much how we all felt at the end of thetour.
I was pretty caught up in trying to balance the high-octane level of life with the band—who were now so famous I went pretty much every-fucking-where with Jesse—and my club responsibilities. By the end of the tour, we had a solid security crew established for the band, and I was managing it. I could’ve stepped away from the Kings,financially.
But Ididn’t.
I neverwould.
I assured Piper of that, in a long and ridiculously fucking heartfelt conversation over a bottle of bourbon, a few weeks after I got back from thetour.
Then, one night, I saw Roni at aparty.
The party was at Brody’s place, where so many of our band parties were. The guest lists at those things were pretty tight by then, and I always knew who was coming and going. There were always surprises; wouldn’t be much of a party withoutthem.
Howshegot in without me noticing, though, I’d neverknow.
But there she was, standing in the kitchen, talking toJesse.
My guard was down. I was so caught off-guard, when she saw me and kinda smiled like she couldn’t help herself, I actually hugged her. We started talking, and within a few minutes of talking to her, of standing so close to her I could smell her familiar, sexy smell and feel the warmth off her body… my dick wasup.
I wasn’t drunk, and she wasn’t flirting with me, but she was smiling at me, a genuine, wistful sort of smile. And I knew she wasn’t with Ben anymore; I’d seen him at the clubhouse and that was prettyclear.
By the time she excused herself to get another drink, I was getting all kinds of wrongideas.
Not ten minutes later, I saw her flirting with some dude, some promoter Brody had invited. He had his hand on her waist and she was smiling athim.
And my hard-on officiallydied.
I spent the rest of the night with my arm around some other girl, getting mildly sauced and pretty much avoidingher.
Late in the night, I saw her doing shots with Zane, of all people. I should’ve known right then what wascoming.
But I told myself I was overit.
I wasn’t fucking overit.
I wasn’t overher.
It was definitely easier to put Roni Webber out of my mind when life was busy as fuck and I was traveling with the band and the women were a penny adozen.
But when she was right in my face… this girl… she drew me like a damnmagnet.
