52. Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Two
Mac
Out of respect for Toby, I’ve managed to not drink away my heartache until I’m passed out in a slop of meat and bones.
Instead, I’ve eaten my weight in sugary confections and enough deep-fried carbs to stop my heart.
Maybe then it’ll stop aching .
But the one thing I refused to give up for the rest of the night is the joint I found stashed in my pocket. And the second one I found hidden under the couch cushion when Toby passed out.
Breathing smoke in deep, I hold then release it out into the freshness of the nighttime air. It’s gotta be closing in on morning at this point and after another long inhale, I finally start to feel the fuzz filling around the edges just as the grey sky begins to blend into the black horizon of night.
“Dude. Pass.”
Joint pinched between my thumb and middle finger, I offer it up to Dare.
I’m not sure when he ended up here, how long we’ve been here, in some empty parking lot but I’m glad to not be alone. It makes it easier to ignore the pressure currently crushing my sternum.
“Didn’t work out with the lady friends?”
Dare snorts on his exhale and coughs out the rest of the grey haze. “I fucked them both, bro. Duh.”
He holds the joint out in offer for me to take it back. I hesitate.
“Were they at least clean?”
“You saying you don’t want to put your mouth where mine has been? Too late for that, Thompson.”
Dare shrugs and takes another toke, holding it long enough that he’s nearly gasping when he pushes it back out.
“I definitely fucked that guy before you did. Besides.” I gesture in his general direction. “That was before this .”
Dare laughs, tokes, then offers it once again.
“I’m pretty sure you just said metalgod looks good on me.” His smirk is languid and smug. “I’ll take it.”
Rolling my eyes, I snatch the joint back from him before he can smoke it all. “I said that you got second rate dick from an amateur in high school and that’s what you’ve been bragging about all these years.”
“Uh-huh.” Dare’s arms cross over his thick chest. “So, he learned it all from you, then.”
I snort and nearly choke on the burn of smoke through my nose. “Those weren’t my best days.”
“You mean you’re not still there?”
I tag Dare’s shoulder with my knuckles and grin when he hisses. “It’s gonna kill you to never know, isn’t it?”
The stretch of Dare’s lips is too wide. “All you gotta do is ask.”
I fake a gag. “Over my dead body.”
“Hey, I’ll try anything once.”
I sputter out a laugh and pass back the joint. “You need more of this so the hallucinations make sense.”
“Dude, it’s just weed,” he says, but takes the offer and speaks through the smoke rolling from his mouth. “I’ve been meaning to ask where’s your bestie? I thought he followed you like a dog.”
The anvil sitting on my chest tilts and digs further in. “Doing … bodyguard shit.”
The raised brow Dare throws in my direction tells me he doesn’t buy my bullshit. And to be honest, I wish I bought it.
“People are still going nuts online about him not being around.”
It’s all so much bullshit .
I push out a sigh. “Mind ya bizness.”
“Bizness minded.” Dare holds his hands up in surrender. “All’s I’m saying is that it’s been cool to be real for once. Thought you’d want the favor.”
Perfect opening to redirect the spotlight.
“For once? You mean you still haven’t told your band that you like dick sometimes?”
Dare’s jaw snaps shut, his teeth making an audible clank. “Mind ya bizness.”
I mimic his earlier pose and let it go. “Fine. Suffocate.” Mostly .
“ Fine ,” he snaps. “Die alone.”
I throw my hands up in the form of what the fuck that Dare shrugs off.
“I knew I never liked you,” I mumble and snatch the near roach from his lips just as he’s relighting it.
Pulling in deep, I let the fuzz try to outweigh the jagged edges of my mind, though it does nothing to ease the turmoil coiling inside my chest.
Hurt and anger merge in my veins all over again, making it feel like thousands of bees are stinging their way through my blood instead of the soft peach noise I was going after.
He’s just processing. No way he meant a single thing in those messages.
The shudder that racks me has nothing to do with the early morning chill and every bit to do with the waves that roll over my stomach.
“ Fuuuck , you really are in love with him, aren’t you?”
Startled out of my spiraling of despair, I swing my gaze from the cement at my feet to Dare.
Who looks lost as shit.
“Nah, batballs,” I mutter too softly. Pretend, pretend, pretend. “That’s not for me.”
Some people get to have their love in the lifetime they find them in.
Those people aren’t me, like I wish they were.
God, I fucking wish I was one of them.
I swallow down the truth thickening in my throat and deflect. “You really are seeing someone, aren’t you?”
Dare wheels back like I slapped him.
Bingo .
If my heart didn’t feel like it might burst, I’d celebrate. Pump my fists up in the air and poke all of the fun at him.
But I do none of that because none of this feels … real .
“We’re both fucked, aren’t we?” Dare asks the cement with downcast eyes and a downturn to his lips.
I sputter out a macabre laugh and lean back into the tour bus’s fiberglass side. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
Dare mimics my pose and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Is it Jordan though, right?” My brows shoot up past my bandana. “How the hell does this work?”
If it’s possible, my brows jump higher.
Deflect it!
“Oh shit, Darius. I know it’s bad when you’re asking me for advice.”
Dare smacks his lips but doesn’t deny it as his gaze travels back out to the parking lot surrounding us.
But then his head falls back against the tour bus, and I can see the indecision warring across his pinched features.
Pretend. Pretend. Pretend.
“Are we really doing this?” I ask, tilting my head and begging my heart to not leap out at the first chance to say how it feels out loud. As if sharing the load with someone else might lighten it just the tiniest bit. That maybe, and I mean maybe , some of this will make more sense to someone else.
Because, fuck, I wish this was easier.
What feels like hours but is probably only seconds later, Dare’s head lulls in my direction and a single dip of his chin is all the answer I get before he opens his big mouth.
“You’re stupid for not admitting it to yourself.”
I scoff, though my heart thumps angrily inside my chest. “And you’re stupid for pretending to not like guys even though you’re clearly seeing one.”
“Burn.”
Shaking my head, I let my weight slide down the side of the tour bus to the cement parking lot. I’m pretty sure that if all my feelings weren’t trapped inside my sternum it’d be uncomfortable, but it seems to be all I can focus on. This ball inside me that festers and rolls and collects debris the longer I try to hold it back. Growing larger until I feel it buried just behind my tonsils.
“You’re right,” Dare murmurs as he slides down the side of the bus to join me. “I don’t know that it’s quite what you have with Jordan, but I’m seeing a guy, and I definitely did not fuck those chicks back at the penthouse.”
I shrug and ignore the ping of jealousy for what Dare thinks Jordan and I share. “You don’t have to justify shit to me. You do you.”
“It’s been rocky as fuck.” He sighs. “We never agreed to exclusive, and I never expected that he would be.”
My brow furrows some more. “But no one knows about you two.”
“Nah. Well, everyone suspects something’s up, but no one has asked outright.”
I nod, an understanding washing over me at his words.
“So, you’re dating your lead singer, and I’m … fucked.”
I’d laugh if it weren’t so fucking pathetic.
Dare chuckles, still not denying it, as I mumble, “Aren’t we a perfect bunch.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
I sigh out a heavy breath. “Well apparently I’m stupid, if I’m listening to you .”
“You should.” I wing a brow at him only to find his sincerity lining his stony features. “Listen to me, that is.”
I twirl a finger in the air, encouraging Dare to get to his point.
“Because in my situation, I’m the runaway. Just like you.”
Me?
No.
No.
No?