Sweet Ache

Chapter 19

HAWKIN

I scrub my hand over my jaw as I contemplate how to answer the question one of the students has asked me, and I realize I can still smell the scent of Quin’s pussy on my fingers. Fuck me.

Talk about a way to lighten the somber memory of today’s anniversary.

And ease the anxiety over the judge sitting in the very top row of the auditorium, watching my every move to make sure that I’m fulfilling my obligation.

I force myself to concentrate on not screwing up, not on how little Miss Q just screwed me senseless in the alcove over to my right, but fuck if it’s not hard to do. Especially with her scent now seared in my psyche.

So I glance over to where she sits, head down, working on whatever she works on while I lecture, and I lose my train of thought. Well of course you did, dipshit. All you can think about is diving back beneath that skirt as soon as class is over. And God how I love her affinity for sexy-ass skirts.

I must be silent for too long because she glances up and meets my eyes before averting them quickly. But I catch the little smile that plays on her lips as she returns to pretending like she doesn’t care. Fuck if it’s not sexy and calls on me to have her again.

Yes, please. The sound of her voice saying that replays in my head as I refocus despite not being able to stop my own secretive smile at knowing what only she knows happened before class. I begin to give an answer, explain just how recreational drug use in Hollywood is the equivalent to putting a fat kid in a candy store and telling him to choose just one item, when a motion at the top of the steps catches my eye.

Why the hell is he here? And of course if I didn’t have Quin’s pussy numbing my mind the reason would be front and center.

Hunter slides into a seat in an aisle a third of the way down the banked rows. He has a baseball cap low over his eyes so one wouldn’t immediately make the connection that he was here, but I know my brother, recognize his clothes and his presence. Besides, I notice him only because everyone else is so busy looking at me.

Including the judge. How much more of a clusterfuck can this be?

As Hunter looks up and meets my gaze, the intense look on his face tells me why he’s here. My brother who uses everything else to help him forget—sex, booze, drugs, pushing my buttons—is here because today of all days, the anniversary of Dad’s suicide, he’s going to abuse the one thing he can without risking jail time. Me. Deep down I know somehow, some way, Hunter is here to try to hurt me for the fate he screwed himself out of but blames me for instead.

Jealousy is a mean, nasty bitch.

He flashes me a smarmy smirk, and I know I’m right. Fucking stellar. Is he here to try to rub my face in how he succeeded in making me bend when I shouldn’t have, take the blame for him, fulfill my promise to complete the seminar, to save his ass? My gut is uneasy with the possibilities and so I look away without giving him any reaction and continue on with my explanation to the class.

I don’t need this shit but I pull my head back from thoughts about Hunter because if I blow this lecture with the judge here then I’m the one fucking up, the one not fulfilling my promise to Dad to protect him.

The one who is weak.

And I know it’s fucked-up logic, deep down in my core I know it is, but it doesn’t make it any less powerful when history has already decided your fate today.

I trudge through the rest of the lecture, think I do pretty well considering the pressure coming at me from what feels like every angle, and roll my shoulders at the line of students waiting to speak to me after class. I’m not in the mood to be on in front of everyone, particularly not when I have the three people I don’t want interacting all within fingertip range: the one person deciding my fate, the one person I want in every sense of the word, and the one person I don’t want to deal with watching my every movement beneath his ball cap. My eyes keep flickering between them and the students in front of me.

Axe can tell I’m irritated and cuts the line off the same time that Quin starts packing up her bag. I make the rounds, catch sight of the judge as he pulls out his cell phone, and then look over to Hunt to find his grin wide, and eyes settling on Quinlan. When he looks back toward me, he gives me a subtle thumbs-up that causes dread to pour through me.

Vince is right, isn’t he? My brother will go after anything I want except for my music because the band protects me like a shield that he knows he’ll never break through. The one thing he hates the most—my success—he can’t touch, so he goes after anything else he can in my life.

And by the way he keeps eyeing Quinlan I know just how he plans to go about hurting me.

So what do I do now? Cause a scene where I can’t control what my brother will say and have the judge overhear something that might be damaging and fuck up all of this time I’ve put into trying to pay my penance? Lead him right to Quin like a dog to a bone? Neither is an acceptable option.

My mind whirls as I try to wrap my head around the smartest thing to do. Of course it would be to tell Quinlan what his modus operandi is but I can’t do that right now, not with the judge sitting up there listening to every word and smart enough to conclude that I’m lying about the drug charge. On the flip side, if I show Hunter that I really am into Quin for more than the quick fuck I explained our little hallway groping at the house to be, he’ll be all over her to hurt me.

To get me back for kicking him out of the band and then signing the record deal without him.

And his immediate reaction? Instead of getting the help I set up for him so that he could earn his way back into the band’s good graces, he took the one woman besides our mother that I’ve ever allowed myself to feel anything beyond mutual companionship for and tried to ruin me by hurting her.

Because fucking our band manager’s sister, my then girlfriend, and getting her pregnant and dropping her once the damage was done … Yeah, those were fucking stellar moves. Telling her to get an abortion or else he’d go public about one of her little fetishes was even better. Losing our manager over it was just the icing on the cake.

Whatever I have that he wants, he takes on his own terms. At any cost is his motto.

I glance up at the next person in line the same time I see Quinlan stand and pull her bag onto her shoulder. The judge is still staring at his phone, still within earshot, and Hunter leans forward in his chair to watch the action unfold between her and me, completely oblivious to our third-party observer. My head is a mess, striving for a course of action that will cause minimal consequences for me, plus avoid any heartache for Quin. I just hope that somehow she will get the hint, see my twin up in the audience, and figure out between his actions last time and his presence this time what I’m doing.

It’s a long fucking stretch of an assumption but it’s all I’ve got.

“Hey, Hawke,” the sorority girl Quinlan called Delta Sig says as she sways her body from side to side, chest forward so that I can see just how perfectly her letters bend across her more-than-handful-size tits. I stare at her, a moment of regret causing me to pause when I see Quin walking toward us, eyebrows furrowed in curiosity how I’m going to handle perky sorority girl now that I’m having smoking-hot sex with her in the school alcoves.

And shit, I’ve done nothing more than kiss sorority girl, and since the exchange was less than memorable her name escapes me momentarily. Hunt is now on the move, slowly walking down the stairs, his eyes tracking Quinlan as she walks my way, her short skirt showcasing her killer legs, and fuck me because I know my brother’s enjoying the sight of them right now.

I look back at Delta Sig and smile softly although I know it doesn’t reach my eyes. She’s so caught up in the idea of me she won’t notice the difference anyway. “Hey, how’s it going?”

“Good. Good,” she says, twisting her hands in front of her and all I can think about is the damn candy sitting on the table behind me that Quinlan brought me. Fuck, how am I going to do this? “I brought you some Skittles since I saw you like sweet things.”

Just like you, right? This isn’t my first rodeo, so of course my mind fills in the blanks for her. She reaches out a bag to me. “Thanks,” I say as I take it and toss it on the table behind me.

Delta Sig bites her bottom lip in a calculated move that I’ve seen more times than I care to count. God, the girl just tries too damn hard. When you wear a sign screaming I want you to fuck me so I can brag about it … Yeah, it’s not very appealing to me. “I was wondering if you wanted to go out for a beer at Sully’s Pub.” She takes a step closer, bottom lip back between her teeth again. “And then we could head back to my place if you want.”

And there she goes and gives me an opening and an out that I can’t refuse. My head is screaming no, telling me to find another way to get Hunt to fuck off and leave me so I can drag Quin right back to that console and work some of my emotional duress out while fucking her tight, hot pussy until I feel better. But I know I have to play this game or else she’ll be the consequence.

The judge clears his throat and I glance up to see his attention focused back on me. Shit.

I can feel Hunt’s stare as he stands on the bottom step at Quin’s back. I can see Quin staring at me in my periphery, and Delta Sig is begging me with her big blue eyes that are smoked up a bit too much for a school day. She definitely had her plan of action today and I know I’m an asshole for using it to get me out of this situation and then turn her down without giving her the other kind of action she’s hoping for.

Fuck, here we go, Play.

“Sounds like a plan.” The look of elation on her face is ridiculous. I hate to see what her panties look like. Shit, from my experience with desperate women, she’s probably not wearing any. “Meet me outside in ten minutes, yeah?”

I hear the quick inhale of breath to my right from Quin and when I flick my eyes her way the glare I deserve is slicing into me.

“Sure. Ten. Yes,” Delta Sig says as she walks back to her seat but my focus is already on Quin.

I can see Hunter over her shoulder, and I nod to him, hoping she realizes there is someone else watching our exchange. But I see the hurt flicker through her eyes, recognize the shock evident after what I just said, and know she’s not paying attention to who else is in the room because that fire of hers is aimed directly at me.

I choke over the words I need to say but know I need to spit them out because I already see Hunt checking out Delta Sig as she walks away, confirming my hunch that he just wants to stir shit up for me right now.

I look at Quinlan, she’s so goddamn beautiful, especially now when all I see is anger and all I want to do is leave with her, take her to her place, lay her down, and show her the shit I feel that’s on continual spin cycle in my gut. Those feelings that are churning within me way too quick and way too fast. There are emotions stirring that I don’t want, can’t have. Hell yes, I pursued her, loved the fucking challenge she presented, and I loved the idea of Vinny boy getting another ring around his damn pink heart, but never expected this notion that just slammed into me like a Mack truck.

That this is more than just a bet. That this is more than just about sex.

I expected a fun fling but never expected to consider losing a stupid goddamn bet because one, no way in hell am I letting Vince touch her and two, no way am I letting Hunter either.

How did this get so fucking complicated? How did the pressure of Hunter being here and the notion I’m going to hurt her make all of this fester up and slap me in the face?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Way too much all at once.

I panic momentarily, force myself to see that wanting something more than sex doesn’t necessarily mean love. It just means that I care for her and know I’m about to hurt her and hate myself for that look I know I’m going to put in her eyes. But I also know the kind of hurt I’ll inflict will be ten times easier than what I fear Hunter would do just to get back at me.

“Ten minutes?” Quin’s voice breaks through the riot in my head, pulling me back into the moment.

“Yeah.” I break eye contact and start to walk toward the table where my keys and phone sit on the table, anything to not see her lips shock apart and eyes widen. Anything to act normal and get the judge to lose interest and walk away. “Can you make sure that you get this all set up for the next class for me?”

“Excuse me?” Disbelief laces her voice.

“The PA. Next class. Got it?” The less I say the better.

“Did I miss something here?” She’s closer to me now, and I turn to face her. I can be a callous asshole without a second thought like the best of them but hell if I’m not going to hate myself later for this.

“Nope. Not a thing. Just gotta wrap things up here so I can meet up with a friend.”

“A friend? Hmpf. You must have a lot of friends—kind of like flavors of the month.” The contempt is dripping from her voice, and I see her clasp her hands to prevent them from trembling with emotion.

Shit, I know she said she was a woman okay with casual sex, but I also know that casual sex takes off the next morning once they feel it’s polite to leave. I stayed the whole fucking day until night fell. She’s got to know—like I just realized—that there is more than just sex between us. She has to. I just hope she remembers that right now as I utter my next words.

“That’s about right. It’s all good though, at least I have thirty-one to choose from at any different time. They come and go so quick, right? Makes them easy to sample and move on,” I tell her, delivering the final blow in what I hope will get her the hell out of this room and away from Hunter.

My phone alerts a text but I don’t even flinch because she stares at me a beat without speaking, jaw clenched, eyes blinking as she processes what I just told her.

“Well, this flavor just expired,” she says, starting to walk toward me and for a moment I’m unsure what her intentions are but she veers to the right of me and toward the stairs there. I track her movement as she walks up the steps with determination, holding the apology back on my lips, and if the notion hadn’t slapped me in the face moments ago that I care for her, it definitely would have hit home right now.

I realize that Quinlan never turned around to see my brother behind her. She doesn’t have a clue why I just did what I did.

She walks right past the judge at the same time he stands, nodding a polite greeting to her but eyes still focused on me. What I’d give to tear off after her right now, clear the hurt I just put from her eyes, but at what cost since the two people who can ruin my fate are sitting here in the same fucking room? I wince at the sound of the doors slamming shut with force at the top of the theater and pull in a deep breath as I prepare to face my brother and whatever shitstorm he’s hedging toward.

Today’s brutal enough, can’t I just deal with it my own way without him making it worse?

“Well, that was awkward,” he says in that mocking tone of his. “You had her already and what, she wasn’t good?”

My fist clenches and it takes everything I have to turn my back to him and walk toward the side of the auditorium and turn the PA system off. Normally talking like this with Hunter or Vince or one of the guys would be okay—our sex lives are an open book—but I don’t want to hear him talk about Quinlan or about how good she was or wasn’t. He doesn’t deserve to know.

Hell, I don’t even deserve to know. She’s way too good for me.

“What’s up?” I call out to him, trying to act nonchalant and ignore his comment when I’d rather shove him up against the wall and tell him just what I think of him and his bullshit. I step into the small alcove, and I swear to God it still smells of the sex we had earlier. The pang of guilt stabs again but it’ll never be deep enough to inflict the pain I deserve after what I just said to her. I flip the switch and turn around as fast as I can. I don’t want him ruining what happened in here between Quin and me either.

When I emerge back into the theater, he looks at me expectantly. “So what gives? Blondie’s bad in bed so you moved on to sexy sorority girl? Because she’s definitely more my type.”

My patience is gone and my temper boils but he just said the words I needed to hear. I’ve caught his attention with Delta Sig.

“Yeah, something like that,” I defer, running a hand through my hair in exasperation. “I need to get going. She’s waiting. Do you need something?” And when I glance up to the seats now, I find that the judge has slipped out and it’s just him and me. A sigh of relief flickers through me despite the tightrope I’m walking with him.

“Oh, you’re going out with her right now?” he says, lifting his chin up the stairs, motioning his hands across his chest like the letters Delta Sig girl wears on display.

“Mm-hm.” I stuff my keys in my pocket as my phone alerts me of another text.

“I’m tagging along with you, man. Want to see how bad you blow it with this chick so I can swoop in and save the day.”

“Dream on, dude. Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?” He’s pushing buttons, and I’m in no fucking mood for his shit right now, especially today. Can’t he get that he’s not the only one who suffers from the memories this day evokes? I know I’m fooling myself thinking he does. “How’s your counseling appointments going? Huh, Hunter?” I meet his eyes, the need to see if he lies to me front and center.

“Next week is my first one.” His eyes dart to the left and then back to mine.

“You think I’m going to buy that bullshit lie?” I can hear the incredulity rising in my voice, the stress of the last fifteen minutes taking its toll. “You think I’m here paying a penance for something I didn’t fucking do to save your goddamn ass and you get to skip out on your end of the bargain?” I step toward him, fists clenched, teeth gritted, patience gone. “You fucked up last time, lost your chance at a whole helluva lot…. You gonna risk more now?”

“C’mon brother, you know I’m good for it.”

I just look at him as truths I push aside every day about my brother come crashing down around me. I continue to hold out hope but I don’t have to ignore the anger. “Don’t you dare c’mon brother me! I don’t care what you’re fucking good for because right now it seems like you’re not good for a fucking thing!” I yell, my finger jabbing him in the chest. “I took the fucking fall for you. Jeopardized my freedom, my career, my band for you, and you stand here like it’s no big fucking deal.”

“You and your precious career!” he sneers.

“You bet your ass my career, you prick. Who do you think funds your lifestyle? Your habit? Did you forget where your monthly payoff from the band comes from? I pay you from my cut you asshole merely because the guilt eats at me that you forced me to make a decision, keep you on and ruin the band’s collective career or force you out to get help and save myself….”

“You’re real good at saving yourself.” He fists his hands. “But you sure as shit suck when it comes to saving others now, don’t you.”

His words knock me back a staggering mental step. I stare at him eyes wide, disbelieving that he actually just went there. I grit my teeth and take a less than calming breath. “Not everybody wants to be saved, Hunt.” We stand in a silent standoff, our words doing much more damage than our fists ever could. “You included, right? You gonna save yourself? Get help for your habit? You can blame me all you want … but your jealousy is on you—”

“I’m not jealous!” he yells back, voice thundering around the room as I’m hit hard with his resentment. And it doesn’t fall on deaf ears that he didn’t refute my comment about his habit or anything else but his jealousy.

“You’re not? Try again, asshole. You think I don’t hear the comments, see your bullshit, know you try to undermine anything that goes good for me? You think I’m that fucking naive to your game? Undermining deals, throwing a bag of blow my way the minute you see the sirens reflected in the windows of the house? You use my guilt against me, so back the fuck off me and own it!”

My mirror image just stares at me, chest heaving, eyes glaring, and animosity pulsing off him in waves and crashing into mine. “I’m not jealous of you and your bullshit career. Daddy’s favorite sure is fulfilling his potential while leaving me with the raw end of the deal, having to take care of Mom.”

“Take care of her? I believe I foot the bills.” I step into him, chests bumping against each other. “Besides, I didn’t realize getting high was taking care of her—because you’re still getting high, aren’t you? Drugs more important than promises, right?”

“Fuck you!”

“Right back atcha, brother! At least my conscience is clean.” I say the words but my father standing before me pressing the cold steel to his chin flashes through my mind. My conscience is anything but clean because I didn’t try to stop him. I shove the thoughts from my mind. Try to step up to the plate and be the heavy hand that Hunter needs to clean up his act.

“Can’t be too clean since Dad’s dead, right choirboy?”

We circle like caged dogs waiting for the chance to rip each other apart. We’re purposely trying to hurt each other, and it’s going to do nothing good for our relationship but fuck if it doesn’t feel good to let it all out right now. To hurt someone else for a change rather than sit back and take it.

“Clean is something you know nothing about,” I grate the words out. “What’s your drug of choice now? Coke? What’s next? Heroin, so you can really fuck up our lives?”

“People are going to hear you. Calm the fuck down—”

“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down when it’s my goddamn ass on the line! Let them hear me!” I yell at the top of my lungs. “You afraid for them to find out? Huh? Are you?” I goad him. “Then do what you fucking promised. Clean yourself up! I’m taking the fall for you this one time, Hunt, but no more. I’m done. You’re my own flesh and blood, man, but this is bullshit.”

“Figures. You get all high-and-mighty this year with your recording contracts and your whores … think you’ve proven yourself to the world and yet the only thing you’ve proven to me is that you’re a selfish bastard just like he was. Like father, like son.”

His words cross the short distance between us and slam into me like a battering ram. In that split second I don’t register that I know he’s just taking a potshot to shut me up from calling his bullshit on the carpet. I don’t process anything except my fist cocked back and the rage screaming through me to take the shot, do the one thing I want so badly but know will do nothing to ease the pain in my soul.

Make me be just like him.

“Can’t do it, can you?” He taunts me, wants me to hit him so that he has something else to hold over my head.

My arm trembles with the rage I feel inside. At him. At Dad. At Mom. At Quinlan for looking at me with those eyes that I don’t deserve looking at me. At fucking everything.

I see a flicker of regret glance through Hunter’s eyes. And that tiny show of our connected DNA pulls me back from the brink because I fear that I have so much rage pent up inside me, if I hit him I won’t be able to stop.

And you can’t undo harm you’ve done to your family. I know this because I’m living proof. I can’t undo what our dad did; I can only try to make it better.

Goddamn higher road. Taking it is bullshit when some days I’d rather drive off the edge.

My heart’s pounding with rage and my head doesn’t want to be filled with regret I can’t take back, so I lower my arm. I’ve gotta get out of here. Got to get some fresh air and have a few beers to calm the fuck down. And then call Quinlan to try to explain why I said what I said.

“We’re done here, Hunt.” I put my hands out in front of me to tell him I don’t want to do this anymore because I still sense his rage.

“I haven’t used since that night.” His voice is quiet, resigned, and laced with the only apology I think I’ll ever get from him.

I nod my head in acceptance of his confession, but know that with Hunter his regret is fleeting and it’s only a matter of time before he moves on to resent something else. Time and again he’s proven this truth so I take what I can get when I can get it.

“She’s waiting for me,” I say with a lift of my chin toward the exit, keeping pretenses up. “I’ve got to go.”

We’ve been arguing for so long, she might not still be there. I glance down at my phone to see how long it’s been.

Oh fuck. The texts read urgent from Westbrook. I turn to Hunter.

“It’s Mom.”