Page 51 of Anthem of Love and Loathing

“Maybe you should ask her why she’s back,” Bronx says.

“It doesn’t matter.” I lift the glass and drain it. “Don’t you get that. She could crawl back on her knees and beg me to forgive her... it’s not going to happen.”

She didn’t only steal my money. The band’s money. She didn’t just make Carmine consider having us blacklisted from the industry right along with her, which forced me to have to fall in line with every demand Sonatina made. She took my best friend away. Broke my heart. Shattered me.

For the first time in my adult life, I let a woman get close enough to hurt me and she did. Brutally. She walked out on me the same way my dad walked out on my mom. On my brothers. On me.

She solidified what I already knew. Letting people in comes at too high a cost. It’s a mistake I won’t make again. I rub at my chest while I put my glass back in front of Bronx. “Pour me another one.”

The three of them share a pressed lip look as Bronx provides me with another drink. They have more to say, and I want to hear none of it. They might be ready to give Kelsey the benefit of the doubt, but I’m not.

Scooping up my glass, I turn on the gaming console and kick Kodiak’s feet off the bench so I can take a seat.

Kodiak gets up. He stretches his arms above his head and yawns. “I’m going to get some sleep.”

I sit forward while I log into my game, eyeing him striding the length of bunk alley. He knocks on the locked door. I can’t make out what he says, nor do I care. I pretend I’m not paying attention at all while I mindlessly mash buttons on the controller. I told him she was off-fucking-limits to the three of them.

Apparently he’s choosing to ignore that.

The door stays closed.

Eventually he gets the hint. He collects his shit from his bunk and disappears into the bathroom. Golden heads to his bunk a few minutes later.

Bronx grabs the other controller and drops down next to me.

I switch to multiplayer.

“Can I ask you something?” he asks after a while of playing in companionable silence.

I answer with a grunt.

“Did you sleep with Sonatina?”

“Yeah.” It hadn’t been my finest moment. I’d been drunk and pissed off and she’d been there. It meant less than nothing. She might as well have been another groupie. “It happened once. It was not an experience worth repeating.”

My mind kicks up those same images that usually hit me when I’m fucking. The ones that nauseate me and make my cock instantly soften. My chest tightens and I slide a finger inside the collar of my shirt, tugging it away from my throat.

Bronx is quiet.

It’s an uncomfortable silence, mostly because I’m stuck in my own head.

“How does Kelsey know you slept with Sonatina?” He’s terse.

How does Kelsey know... I turn off the console. “It doesn’t fucking matter.”

“Yeah, sure,” he stands and heads to his bunk.

I wait for a while. I told Kelsey I was going to get payback for her acts of vandalism. But it’s more than that. All this shit she’s dredging to the surface…all this shit I don’t want to think about... it’s because of her. I need her to understand how powerless she is.

Finishing my drink, I grab a knife and wander down bunk alley.

Kelsey is betting on me being unable to unlock the door. Or that I won’t. She’s expecting me to sleep in a bunk.

The handle doesn’t put up a fight when I use the knife like a flat headed screwdriver to pull it apart, rendering the lock useless a few seconds later.

Slipping inside, I close the door and wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The shape in the middle of the bed doesn’t stir.

I turn the desk lamp on and grab an empty notebook to wedge the door shut with.