Sweet Ache

I smile awkwardly at him, feeling completely out of place after the transition from making out to being witness to the familial argument. Do I go? Do I stay? Rocket motions for me to follow him into the now empty kitchen where we both take seats at the island.

We talk for a few minutes about random stuff. How the band rents a house when they’re writing an album because it allows the four of them to work all hours, pushes them to be more creative when they can’t leave, and helps build their overall bond. He’s telling me a story about Gizmo and an accidental drum mishap when Hawkin interrupts us.

“Quin?” Rocket falls silent as I look over to Hawkin, stress etched in the lines of his tanned face. The look calls on the mothering instinct I didn’t think I possessed to soothe it all away. He nods his head over his shoulder, and I thank Rocket while I stand to follow Hawkin.

He doesn’t say anything to me, just leads so that I’ll follow him out to the front porch, where I assume he’s wanting some privacy away from the rest of the guys, although I’m unsure why he’s choosing out here to have it.

We stand there for a moment before he runs a hand through his hair and blows out an exasperated breath. “Look, I’m sorry about all of that, that you had to see internal band bullshit,” he says, confusing me since as far as I know Hunter isn’t part of the band.

“It’s okay. It happens.” I twist my lips, hands linking to prevent myself from reaching out and running a hand down his arm.

“Nah, it’s bullshit and I’m sorry,” he says again, meeting my eyes. Something flickers through them and I can’t quite catch what they say. “I’ve got some stuff to do though, so uh, thanks for the ride.”

I guess it was indifference since I’m getting a thanks for the ride and nothing else. I stare at him for a moment, although he’s not meeting my gaze, and try to figure out why I basically just got downgraded from girl he wants to have hot sex with to one only good enough to be his chauffeur. And it’s not that I expect the hot sex right now, that mood is done and gone, but I don’t expect to be brushed off without another thought either.

I have to be wrong here. I still feel the heat of his hands on my body and the taste of his kiss on my lips but right now he’s as closed off from me as my brother would be.

“Hawke?” I prevent myself from saying anything more and sounding like a needy female … but at the same time I’m confused, trying not to be hurt but failing miserably.

He licks his lips, and averts his eyes before stepping back so that his physical distance emphasizes the emotional distance he’s just established between us. “See you at the next lecture.”

“Did I miss something here?” I can’t help it, have to ask.

He shakes his head. “Nope. Just got work to do. That’s all.”

Our eyes meet, asking questions our mouths won’t answer. The silence stretches until the brush-off I thought I was mistaken about is more than obvious. “Mm-kay,” I say as I walk down the first few steps, trying to hold fast to my dignity. And I must be so used to watching movies where the guy calls after the girl when she walks away because I purposefully walk slowly to my car.

But he never calls after me.

Never says my name to let me know what he’s thinking or that he feels sorry for the whiplash of emotions. I climb in my car without another word from him and head out of the Hollywood Hills, rejection bitter on my tongue and confusion forefront in my mind. The afternoon was a strong affirmation why I shouldn’t believe in happily-ever-afters because let’s face it, the girl rarely gets the guy in the end.

Chapter 8

HAWKIN

The Jack and Coke quenches my thirst but not my anger.

Or the sexual frustration.

Quinlan. The thought of her has my hands banging Giz’s sticks harder and harder on the mid-toms. I suck at playing the drums but there is something about them and the unsteady rhythm I attempt to create that helps me when I’m stressed. Plus the physicality of it drives me to think only of the notes—nothing else—and fuck if I don’t need to not think right now.

No Hunter and his bullshit disappearing act with my car doing who the fuck knows what.

No Benji and the lectures on my voice mail that I need to come clean and turn my brother in. No now that I’ve pleaded, I can’t change my mind or else I’ll perjure myself, and we’ll both end up in jail.

No Vince telling me on one side that I need to keep this Quinlan shit under lock and key so that Hunter doesn’t try to screw up this part of my life, and out of the other side of his mouth teasing me to let him fuck this up so that I can lose and get that first heart-shaped tattoo of idiocy like the rest of the guys.

No lecture where I stumble through stories to try to make it meaningful and memorable somehow for the students flocking in just because I’m Hawkin Play, the lead singer of Bent, rather than because I actually have something good to say. And oddly, it’s quite rewarding, regardless of why they are there, to have someone actually listening to my words. Crazy how shit happens.

And lastly when I’m pounding the fuck out of the drums, there’s no Quinlan tempting me with that hot body, smart mouth, and unaffected nonchalance. I take that back. She was most definitely affected. No doubt I could have seen just how affected if I’d gotten her upstairs.

Talk about a two for one: sex that I have no doubt would have been stellar and cinching the win with Vince and our bet in record time. Well, the first part of the bet anyway. His proof can wait.

Shit, I see Sledge’s tattoo parlor in our near future for him. So why in the hell did I not so subtly kick her out like I did?