Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
My brows pinch together and Sean laughs, which should change his whole face to something friendlier but instead makes him seem even more sinister. “Oh shit, really? You haven’t?”
Ben takes an audible inhale and slowly exhales. I get the sense he’s counting to ten, or maybe one hundred. “Sit down,” he tells Sean gruffly. To me, his voice gentles. “Hope, Sean and I have some things to discuss. I know we do, too, but is there any way you could give us a little bit?”
Ben flinches like it hurts him to ask me for a few minutes to talk to his friend who came riding in to save the day with only a phone call from a stranger. I smile softly and wrap my arms around Ben’s middle to calm him, but he doesn’t relax into me the way I expect. Every muscle is tense and rigid, like he’s actively putting up walls, closing himself off brick by brick. From Sean or from me? I’m not sure.
I didn’t realize until this moment how open Ben had become from the first day he rescued me. Then, he was short-spoken, his life story less than thirty seconds, but since, he’s let me in, sharing his heart with me as he’s stolen mine. But something’s happening in the small space he’s holding between us. I can feel him slipping away and I don’t know why, but I scrabble to hold on to him tighter by placing a tender kiss to his bare chest, right over his heart.
It’s an apology. It’s a plea. I just don’t understand for what.
“Of course. Sean, thank you for coming to help. I was a little freaked out before,” I tell him, using the manners Mom would expect me to have as I peek around Ben to get a better look at the interloper who’s changed everything with his sudden appearance. To the man in my arms, I add, “I’ll run over to Mom and Dad’s. After the way they left earlier, I’m sure they have questions.”
“Don’t we all, sweetheart?” Sean calls from the couch as he drops his booted feet onto the coffee table with a heavy thud, making himself at home.
Ben’s back goes ramrod straight, and his eyes roll back in his head as he takes another deep breath. One hundred—definitely counting well beyond ten, that’s for sure.
“Is it okay that I called him?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. We just need . . .” Ben shrugs and finally settles on, “. . .to talk.”
I still feel like I’ve done something wrong or overstepped somehow, and that doesn’t change when I walk back through the living room after pulling on clothes. Ben gives me a kiss, but his focus stays locked on Sean, so it’s nothing like the ones we shared only moments ago.
“Your phone’s on the counter,” I tell him after biting my lip a bit nervously. “Call me when you’re—when you want. Just call me, ’kay?”
Chapter 22
BEN
I should’ve seen this coming. I told her to call him if need be, so I should have been ready for this conversation, or any conversation with Sean.
But I’m not. I mostly want to smash his face in, so I clench my fists, considering the fallout if I let myself loose on him.
First, there’d be the physical consequences. I have a couple of inches on Sean and longer arms, but he outweighs me by a good sixty pounds. Some of that’s beer and shitty food, but it doesn’t always matter when it’s pinning you down. Plus, Sean’s psycho in a way I’m not. As evidenced by the mere fact that I’m weighing the pros and cons of fighting him, and he’s likely contemplating whether the trailer has a bathtub he can fill with hydrofluoric acid and my dead body, Breaking Bad–style.
Second, fighting Sean the way I want to would be the end of Midnight Destruction. We’ve fought before, both with venomous words and pounding fists, but it’s different now, and there would be no coming back from it. No music, no tours, no shows. I’d be okay with some of that—like no shows—but Sean wouldn’t be.
And ultimately, that’s why I drop myself into the chair opposite him.
Sean needs Midnight Destruction in a way that’s greater than my need. That’s why I fight my demons every night, put on the stupid mask and body-paint camouflage, and do the one thing that terrifies me the most: getting onstage and singing.
For him. Because the band keeps him steady.
Besides, there’s a small part of me—way down deep below the anger, hurt, and betrayal—that’s glad to see him. I might be furious as hell with him, but I still miss him.
It doesn’t make any sense, I know that, but that’s how families are sometimes. Or at least, my family, and Sean’s my brother, regardless of bloodlines.
“Good choice,” he says, arching his left brow like he knows exactly what I want to do to him.