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16Hudson“Is that my guitar?”
A rough growl rose out of my throat like I was a pit bull about to attack.
Brody snarled right back. “So what, bitch?”
Usually I didn’t care when any of the guys borrowed my shit, but anger was clawing at my soul like a she-devil struggling to get out. A fight would help extinguish the rage growing inside me. It was a rage that had been growing since Kate left.
Since she left? Because that wasn’t true. We left her.
It was the shittiest thing we had ever done.
“Come get some,” I snarled at my band-mate.
Gunner was someplace in the giant penthouse hotel suite, but I couldn’t see him. His judgmental stare was practically tearing a hole in my skin. My fists balled up. I was going to give him a fat lip if he looked at me the wrong way.
Sweat ran down my back and chest, soaking into the waistband of my jeans and into the deepest recesses of my pelvis. The Madison Square Garden concert was incredible. It was barely thirty minutes ago, and yet the high was already gone.
I could still hear the girls’ screams ringing in my ear.
Hungry and wild, wanting more. My hands should have been rubbing with glee at the cash the reaction promised. And yet all I could think was, why can’t they leave us alone?
After all, the ladies paid to see us for two or three hours of music. Easy enough right? But without Kate, nothing’s been the same. We don’t get high off the women’s screams. We don’t care about the show, the venue, or anything really. All we care about is our sweet, lost girl.
Unfortunately, being back in New York City brought back unwanted memories.
Brody turned toward me, aggression and fury in every line of his face.
“Give me my shit!” I shouted at him, grabbing for my guitar.
“Come get it!” he taunted, like we were two year olds fighting over a toy.
“Shut the fuck up, you two!” Gunner snarled from behind us.
“Mind your own business, man!” Brody shouted.
“Fuck off!” I agreed.
Shit, this was bad. We were like wild animals about to tear each other apart. On edge and barely civil to each other, we’d been snarling and raging at each other since the incident six months ago when we ditched our best girl.
It was the biggest mistake ever, bar none.
On the one hand, everything looked fine on stage. We got up there, playing the music, forcing the beats out even if our souls weren’t in it. But offstage, Hard Fought was at each other’s throats constantly, fighting like a pack of dogs.
This was new to us. Before, we’d never been in love period. But now, we’d had the best thing in the world and lost it in one fell swoop.
Kate. Kitty-Kat.
It was all about her.
We missed the female, and that was the problem.
We couldn’t have her so we were ready to tear each other apart to feel something other than the pain that her absence caused.
All we had left was rage. As useless as the anger was, it helped us forget about our girl sometimes.
Yet the voice in my head spoke again. She isn’t your girl, it hissed. You gave that up because she deserves better. The beautiful brunette deserves more than some life as a dirty groupie trailing three men.
It was the right thing to do, hands down. She deserved a normal relationship and a shot at a good life. In fact, a catch like Kate probably already had a new boyfriend—a stable one who stayed in one place and worshipped the ground she walked on.
She never deserved to be have her virginity snatched by three horny guys who couldn’t give her anything but chaos.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that, whispered the voice in my head. Maybe it’ll stop you from wanting to run back to Brooklyn and begging her to come back.
I spun away from Brody. Looking at his face—a face that was so much like mine—was only pissing me off more and more every day.
“Keep the fucking guitar,” I snapped. “It doesn’t mean shit anyway.”
Because nothing meant anything, anymore—not without Kate here.
“Are you for real?” Brody came at me anyway. “After all this bullshit, you’re just gonna forget it?”
I spun to face him. “Yeah! And forget this shit too! I’m better off without it.”
He looked confused. “What shit? Without what?”
“This piece of shit boy band that we call a rock group. Fuck it and fuck you.”
For a second, he looked shocked. Not like I said something unthinkable but because I’d put into words what was already on his mind. The demise of Hard Fought. Disbanding because we were so fucking unhappy all the time.
Silence greeted my comment, but we’d finally brought up the elephant in the room. It was like letting some air out of an overstuffed tire. Finally. We could breathe, at least for a little bit.
