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I’m content with Derek’s skills after rehearsing each number once.
We need to save our energy for tonight’s concert.
“Thanks, man,” I say, shaking his hand. “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
“Not a problem. Sorry about your guy. So he’s an addict, huh?” Derek shakes his head. “I’ve never met an addict who didn’t relapse.”
Something bites the back of my neck, but I breathe through it. Best not to piss off the guy who’s saving our ass. “Dragon’s not like that. He’s been sober for years.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ve been in this business a long time. It’s best to stay away from addicts. They always let you down.”
Oh. My. God.
Does he not realize that Dragon is a friend of mine? He picked the wrong person to say this?—
Rory slides between us, holding out her hand to Derek. “We can’t thank you enough for stepping in.”
Derek skates his gaze over Rory in a way that makes my skin crawl. Good thing she’s got that massive pink ring on her left hand.
“Anything for you, pretty lady.” Derek smiles at Rory.
“Yeah, you have our gratitude.” I yank Rory away from Derek and out of earshot. “I officially hate him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Jess. He’s saving our ass.”
“He said some shitty things about Dragon. About addicts in general. And I didn’t like the way he was looking at you.”
“You’re just being a big brother,” she says. “He was perfectly respectful, and he couldn’t say enough about you and me singing together.”
“I didn’t hear any of that.”
“Maybe he just said it to me.”
“Yeah. I’ll bet he did.”
“Knock all this off, Jess. Christ.”
She’s right. I’ll put up with Derek and his snide comments about Dragon. I’ll even put up with him looking like he’d like to have Rory for lunch.
I don’t have a choice.
Besides, we have other things to figure out.
“I know you and Brock took care of the contractual issues,” I say to her. “How much is it going to cost us? To have Derek play?”
“That’s the beauty of it, Jess,” she says. “Jett and Heather feel so badly about what happened to Dragon that they’re covering the performance hours for Derek for the remainder of the UK portion of the tour.”
I shake my head. “That’s not right, Rory.”
“You’re so much like Mom and Dad.” She squeezes my shoulder. “Sometimes it’s okay to take a gift when it’s offered. We worked hard for this, Jesse. And we don’t deserve to have our lives screwed over because Dragon couldn’t stay away from two groupies.”
She’s right, of course.
“And this isn’t your fault,” she continues, reading my mind. “We all thought Dragon had a hold on his addiction.”
I narrow my gaze. “He did, Ror. He had to have been drugged.”
“We won’t know that for sure until he wakes up…which should be happening any time now.”
