Page 50 of Anthem of Love and Loathing

Riot

As soon as we get on the bus she bolts for my private bedroom, slams the door and locks it.

I join the guys because she isn’t going anywhere and she isn’t going to find her things either since they aren’t in there.

Bronx is pouring Sambuca into glasses. Kodiak, hands full, brings the beer to the table. Golden is stretched out on one of the cushioned benches.

As usual Jasper has situated himself where he can keep an eye on everything but also stay out of our way. Good. He was supposed to be making sure my muse didn’t make a run for it. I should fire him for spoiling the bitch and giving her an inch of independence.

I won’t because he did follow her and alert me to her whereabouts. And because he was Rook’s partner for that disastrous wedding weekend, which means he has a hell of a lot more insight into my relationship and fallout with Kelsey than anyone aside from our head of security. And I can’t pull Rook into babysitting duties.

I take the glass of black liquor Bronx holds out to me.

“Everything okay?” Golden asks. When I left to find Kelsey, he’d had his hands full of tits and ass, but she mustn’t have made the bus cut.

“She’s the one that has been defacing all our posters.” I glare at the closed door at the far end of bunk alley. She can tear the room apart until she tires herself out.

Kodiak snorts. “The one drawing dicks on your face?”

“Yes,” I snarl.

“Figures,” Bronx says.

“Deserved,” Kodiak mutters to himself.

“Heard that, asshole.” I drain my glass and slap it back onto the table in front of Bronx.

“Well, now you know who hates you that much, you can move on, right?” Golden asks.

“No. She almost ruined the band. This. Our destiny.” I drop into the seat across from him. “She literally stole from all of us.” They were angry too at the start. Why are my bandmates ready to forgive and forget? It would be different if she’d stuck around and fought the allegations. Or at least explained why she was skimming money from the bands account. Why run away if she wasn’t guilty?

Golden rubs absently at the knuckles on his left hand. “I still struggle to find sense in that. Why try to ruin us if she was making bank stealing from us? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to keep her scheme going? Besides that—”

“She had good reasons to leave. She assaulted Sonatina. The record label accountants were onto her.” If she wasn’t planning on fucking us over completely why run away? Why not stay and try to make things right? The fact that she fled was telling.

“Are we certain it wasn’t a mistake?” Bronx asks. “Or that she didn’t have a really good reason for needing the money.”

“She only needed to ask.” That’s the kicker. I would have given her anything. Everything. But she chose to fuck me over in every way. “You saw the evidence, we all did.”

Bank statements that were much less than they were meant to be and she was the only one who had accessed it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars gone. Poof. Vanished.

“With my own eyes.” Bronx lifts his palms up and shrugs. “But I don’t know. We knew her, man. She wasn’t like that.”

Except she was. Our finances drastically improved after she left. All signs point to her. She was simultaneously screwing us over, stealing our money, and playing games with my heart. And we were all blind to it.

Not that the money lasted. That apartment she was living in... she was one step above homeless. For a second that fact sits like a stone at the back of my throat. Indigestible.

No, it’s what she deserved. If that’s why she came back... if she thinks she can take more...

“Why would she come back if it was all true?” Kodiak scratches his cheek with one finger. “She’d have to assume you know about it by now.”

“Yeah. That’s true.” Bronx peers steadily at me.

I focus on a torn bit of cuticle on my thumb. Making me uncomfortable will not make me look deeper. But perhaps I should. That way I can prove it to them and dispel the doubt they’re exhibiting. “She probably took the two of you being obsessed with getting in her pants as the perfect opportunity to screw us all over again.” Figuratively and literally.

“That’s harsh.” Golden sits back in his seat, leveling me with a hard stare.

I take the refilled glass Bronx pushes my way and stare into the black depths instead of tossing it back. I don’t care why she came back. I only care that I’m creating and writing again. Since she’s been with us, I’ve written songs our fans are excited about. It’s been purgative. And it’ll go some way to rectifying what she stole.