Chapter Thirteen
She’d done the one thing she’d sworn she was never going to do. She’d lied to her best friends.
Pixie ran a hand through her hair and let it swing by her shoulders. Through thick and thin, Cujo and Trent had stood by her, yet she’d been unable to tell them the truth. A mixture of guilt, fear, and disappointment had eroded her appetite and turned her into a shell.
She’d most definitely lied to Trent and Cujo when they’d found her crying, ironically, in the rear doorway to Second Circle.
At first, she’d justified the partial truths she’d told them, that he was her stepdad who had shown up and demanded money to keep her drug addiction secret.
But it had turned into outright lies when Cujo asked if she had paid him anything.
Unable to admit to her humiliation, she couldn’t tell him the truth.
The confrontation several days before had made one thing resolutely clear. Arnie was never going to give up. She was his meal ticket. He lacked any kind of moral compass, and would expect her to beg, borrow, and steal whatever she needed to give him what he wanted.
No. If he came back again, she was going to tell him to do his worst. Hell, she was considering going to the police anyway. He’d already cost her Dred. The worst that could happen was that she couldn’t convince a jury it had been self-defense.
“You know how much I love you, right?” Cujo stepped into the office. He’d been hovering around her like an overprotective parent for days.
Pixie nodded.
“Well,” he said, closing the office door, “it’s killing me right now to see you hurting like this. But you know what pains me most? That you aren’t being honest with me. You in trouble, Pix?”
Pixie closed her notebook quickly. She wanted to continue the lie, to be capable of looking Cujo in the eye and telling him she was fine. The words wavered on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t. And omitting the truth was just as bad.
Tears pricked her eyes and she shook her head, unable to speak over the lump in her throat.
“Oh, Pix.” Cujo walked over to kneel on the floor next to the chair she was sitting on. “Come here.” He tugged her into his arms.
She dropped her head to his shoulder and wept. Cujo stroked her back as she cried. The guilt she’d been carrying for killing Brewster, the pain that she’d carried from all those years of abuse, and the ache she felt from Dred’s absence flooded out.
A box of tissues appeared on the table, and she grabbed one. Doing her best to clean up her face, which she was certain was an unholy mess of tears and streaked mascara, she tried to breathe.
Cujo got off his knees and pulled up a chair to sit next to her. He gripped her hands and they had familial warmth. Unable to look him in the eye yet, she studied the colorful sugar skull on the back of his hand.
“Do you remember my promise to you?” he asked. “That day you went to treatment the first time?”
“You said, ‘I’ll replace every single shit-head adult that let you down.’”
“I did. And I meant every word. I don’t care what you did.
I don’t care what you took. In the last six years, you’ve become the little sister I never had.
You’ve stayed clean. You’ve worked hard.
You’ve been there for us as much as we have for you.
Whatever’s going on, I want you to know you can talk to me. ”
Pixie looked up at him. “I lied. I did give Arnie money.”
Cujo didn’t flinch; his clear blue eyes were focused. “So he was blackmailing you?”
Pixie nodded.
“We need to go to the police with this, Pix. You know you can’t let him get away with it.”
“I know,” she nodded sadly. “But if we go to the police and tell them why he was blackmailing me, I think they’ll arrest me too.”
“It was that bad?” Wrinkles of concern graced Cujo’s brow as he squeezed her hand reassuringly.
“Arnie . . . he used to . . . I was . . . I did something . . . to get away.” Even now, she couldn’t say the words, didn’t want admit what he’d done to her.
Humiliation overwhelmed her, memories of him standing clothed behind her, telling her all the reasons she was dull and uninteresting, all the while pressing up against her, confusing her.
Breathing was becoming difficult, but she refused to succumb to the panic attacks that used to debilitate her when she lived in the trailer.
“Breathe, Pix. He’s not here now. There’s only you and me.” Cujo rubbed her hands between his.
He waited patiently for her to regain her composure.
“There is nothing we can’t figure out, Pix. Do you think he’ll physically hurt you?”
“I think it’s all about the money. He wants as much as he can get. He’ll be back in a week or two. But he used to . . . Cujo, I can’t even tell you what he used to do.” Her eyes filled with tears again, and she reached for another tissue.
“Okay. First, we’ll change the schedule. For the foreseeable future, you aren’t going to open or close the studio alone.”
“But Cujo, it’s my job. I have to—”
“No. You don’t. Second, we’re going to find a lawyer. A good one for you to talk to alone. You can tell him or her what you’ve done, and they can help you figure out the best way to manage it.”
“I have some money saved.”
“It doesn’t matter, because I’m here for you. And Trent is too. And so are Lia, and Eric, Harper, and Drea. And even though his head is so far up his own fucking ass right now that he’s giving himself a colonoscopy, Dred will be too. You need the best lawyer there is.”
Pixie couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped. Cujo had always had a way with words.
“But you have to promise me something, Pix. You see Arnie coming, you run as fast as you possibly can. Don’t speak to him. Get security on your building to kick him out. You call me or Trent.”
The tightness in her chest started to ease. “Thank you,” she said, squeezing his hand.
“I hope one day you’ll trust me enough to tell me what you went through, but I understand you aren’t ready now.”
“You know, Cujo, I’m an only child, but since I met you, not once have I felt like one.”
Cujo nodded, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and left the room.
She still had her brother, but what she wished for was Dred.
* * *
DRED ZANDER—DERELICT DAD
When he found out who had sold that story to the scumbag journalist who’d made no effort to fact-check it with him, he was going to sue them for every penny they had.
He’d already instructed his lawyers to force the magazine to issue a retraction.
Petal wanted for nothing except a sober mom and a stay-at-home dad, neither of which he was certain he could provide.
Everything else he’d taken care of. Nothing was too much when it came to making sure Petal had everything she needed.
And now the world knew about her. She wasn’t his dirty little secret as the publication implied.
He wasn’t ready to share her with the world.
She was too precious to be preyed on by a bunch of vulture paparazzi trying to get their first photograph.
At first he’d blamed Amanda, had even rushed around to her condo to confront her, but her denial had surprisingly made sense.
Why would she bite the hand that was currently feeding her?
In fact, they’d talked at length, about how to get along for Petal’s sake.
Amanda had shared her sobriety chip celebrating thirty days clean.
The limo pulled up in front of the red carpet. Dred didn’t want to get out. Elliott was out of the limo first, swiftly followed by Lennon. Nikan slapped him on the shoulder and stepped out.
“You going to be okay tonight, Dred?” Jordan asked.
If there was one thing he was pretty sure he wasn’t, it was okay.
It had been six days since he’d seen Pixie, and during that time, he’d picked up his phone a thousand times.
To text or send her a picture of Petal. Or in the small hours of the morning, to ask her to explain.
Because in the dark, when light from traffic skittered across the ceiling, or the gentle May breeze fluttered the curtains, he could almost find himself in a place of not caring that she’d been an addict.
In the dark, he could remember how she felt in his arms, how her eyes shifted between the color of whiskey and cognac, and how she understood him.
“Yeah, I got it covered,” Dred said, making a move to get out of the limo. Jordan placed a hand on his arm, stopping his progress. Dred looked down at it. “What the fuck dude, we need to go.”
“You need to go see her, man. It’s wrong that you didn’t let her explain. I love you, brother, but you are behaving like a fucking ass.”
“Do we have to go through this now, Jordan? Like it couldn’t wait the six painful hours until this shit is over?”
“You’re thinking about it anyway, so might as well. You deserve to be happy, man. And so does she. Trent wouldn’t be this pissed at you if there wasn’t more to the story than you let her tell you.”
Jordan stepped out of the limo, and Dred followed.
Standing amidst the flashing lights and the gauntlet of media outlets, he wished she were by his side.
He hated this, the whole self-congratulatory evening with fifty thousand of his closest friends.
He’d tried to talk Sam into cancelling their appearance, but they were nominated for Best Metal Performance and were favorites to win.
So he walked the line like he was supposed to, while his mind was firmly on the two other females in his life. Pixie and Petal.
His brothers were on the offensive. Questions about Petal were aimed at him thick and fast, but collectively they ignored them and talked about the band, the album, or the tour.
When the questions became antagonistic, Dred reached for his anchor, his hand coming up empty.
Remorse filled him that in a fit of temper he’d thrown away one of the very few personal effects that meant anything to him.
He’d find a photograph of him wearing it and have a jeweler custom-make him a new one.