Page 83 of Sweet Surrender

“There were fights. Plenty of fights. But you can’t give back something you don’t have, and he can’t ask for the things that aren’t officially his.”

I nod, letting the crash of the waves fill the silence, and hope that’s where it ends for her. For him. Unless he decides to come after her for the rest. Shit.

Fuck you, Paul.

“Back to the cookies. Paul is . . . the past and—”

“Fuck him.”

She snorts. “Exactly. Fuck him. I like creating things. Making people happy with something as simple as a cookie. To eat. To save. To commemorate.” She chuckles. “Now I just sound stupid. Enough about me.” She shifts so that she’s cross-legged and facing me. “How’d BENT start?”

I smirk. “A bet.”

She blinks. “A bet?”

“Yeah. Rocket and I were drunk off our asses one night in some shitty garage—we were teenagers trying to act way cooler than we were. He swore I couldn’t learn to play drums in six months.”

“Six months?”

“Yeah. The bet was that I had to learn and play them in a contest the local club was holding. I told him if I did, then he had to break up with his girlfriend because I liked her.” The memory and his cockiness have me smiling.

“By the smirk on your face you won the bet.”

I nod. “I did. I won the girl. Apparently, she liked drummers better anyway, so it was only a matter of time before she broke up with him, but . . . that helped things along.” I chuckle. “God, he was so pissed at me. We got in a fistfight over me winning the bet. And as fate would have it, the guy who broke us up was Hawkin.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. You’re telling me. He and his friend Vincent were starting a band, mostly to get women, and then . . . somehow we were decent.”

“More than decent.”

“Not at first. My God.” The endless rehearsals. The fights over each others’ girls. The fights over the songs to play. “We had a rough go for a while. I think all of us questioned if we’d even work. But then we became friends. And that led us to caring more. To becoming better. Then better became good. Played a few gigs. Got lucky to be in the right place at the right time.”

She shakes her head, grinning. “You make it sound so simple.”

“It was way easier than dealing with life at home.” The words come out before I can think them through. Before I can stop them.

And now I’m left with my ass hanging in the wind and facing a conversation I really don’t want to have.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Hendrix

If discomfort was a visual, it would be Jase Gizmodo in the here and now. Lips pulled tight, eyes averting, and hands crumpling up all the wrappers and putting them into the bag.

Anything to avoid me asking why he just said what he said. It was way easier than dealing with life at home.

“Your parents divorced or together?” I ask, taking a shot in the dark.

“Divorced. Dad not around. Just like you. Sucks but . . . my mom and me, we did our best.”

“Not Nathaniel?”

He winces. “He lived with our dad.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Why Paul? What was it about him that pulled you to him?”