Page 75 of Pistol Whipped

“He’s what?!” all three of my bandmates blurt out.

“Oh, as if you care! As if any of you care!” I rip myself away from all of them until I’m leaning against the opposite wall. There’s enough space for any of the club staff to easily pass between us. With all our screaming, it’s a miracle no one’s come to see what’s going on. Probably thanks to the pulsing beats and the DJ's music. Still, I look both ways, checking to make sure we aren’t being overheard.

Of course it’s Dutch who has to take over. Be mister cool in the face of what is definitely a fucked-up situation. “Cohen, you are being a little bitch again.”

I grunt, because as much as I want to deny it, it’s true.

“So what now?” he asks. “What do we deal with first, Trey or Lou and the contract?”

“We do nothing,” I reply, “I am getting the fuck out of here.”

Dax jolts forward, falling to his knees, and sounds so unusually like his brother, all sensible and shit, that it pisses me off.

“But, Co, we need to sort this out. Lou, Trey, all of it.”

He points to Rain and Dutch. “We can sort it out together.”

Together. Yeah, fucking right. He’s still holding Rain’s hand. She’s still super-glued to Dutch. Those three are a team now. I’m alone and outnumbered.

“Fuck your togetherness. You want me to play happy family with my ex-girlfriend, the girl who’s been lying to all of us for weeks, and my friend who didn’t think twice about fucking her? Yeah, right.”

My voice is hoarse from screaming. My throat aches, and all I want is to disappear down these hallways into the dark of the club. Maybe I’ll find someone to lose myself in. Better that than being alone with the emptiness inside me.

Dax still tries to console me.

“No, Cohen. I want us to be a band. I want us to be…us,” he attests. And sure, he’s giving me the Dallas Kelly puppy dog eyes while he says it. The eyes that make me want to brush his hair back so I can see them more clearly. But he doesn’t mean it. He can’t. Not when he’s still standing so tightly against Rainy.

“What, us?!” I ask, because I’m so done pretending this could ever work. I was fucking kidding myself to think otherwise. “There’s them…” I point to the happy couple. “And then there’s me. It was always going to come down to this.”

My eyes narrow to the spot where Rainy’s shoulder brushes his.

“Pffft, then again, it’s pretty clear whose side you’re choosing. I’ll be upstairs if you change your mind.”

It’s emotional blackmail. And childish. I know, I hear it too. But I’m in the grips of an emotional roller coaster that I can’t get off. And the more I look at the three of them huddled together, the more alone I feel. So I walk away, spinning until they’re no longer in my line of sight and head for the elevator.

Murmurs of a conversation between the three of them reach me. More whispered secrets. More mumblings that I’m not a part of. I put my head down and keep my back turned as the elevator doors close behind me. Though it brings me back upstairs, to our VIP booth, to the party that is supposed to be a celebration in our honour, inside of me I sink deeper into the vacuum of nothing that lives inside my chest. Because that’s what I am without them.

Chapter 34

Hate Me

Dallas

The battle lines are drawn. It’s Cohen on one side. My brother and Rain on the other. What team am I on? Even I don’t know, because even though my arm is extended, reaching for Cohen, I’m still kneeling beside Rain. Like some kind of phantom, Cohen’s gone before I can do more than call his name, disappearing behind the elevator doors.

My heart doesn’t know what to do beyond thrumming frantically behind my ribcage. That organ only knows one beat, one rhythm, the one belonging to Cohen Brady. My broken soul searches for anything to anchor me, to steady the beat that’s approaching heart-attack levels of bad.

I look up, and there is Rainy. Our eyes meet, her purple melting into my blue as she pleads, “Dallas?”

Her right hand is clasped in my brother’s, and they look down at me like their hopes might be born or dashed by whatever I say next. It’s too much pressure. Meanwhile, I’m on my knees at Rain’s feet, so she shouldn’t need me to say a damn word to know I’m waiting for her release. Her left hand runs through my hair, and she grasps the roots just enough to pull my face up to see hers. There are a million uncertainties in her expression, but she leans down and whispers against my cheek, “Go after him?”

If she could read my mind, she wouldn’t even have to ask.

“He’s—” I try to articulate half of what I feel, but my fucked-up head can’t quite manage it. Something Rain seems to understand because her hand runs from my hairline, down my face and under my chin. Without meaning to, I lean into her touch.

“I trust you, Dallas.”

Those words are ones that no one else, not even my brother, has ever said to me. No one has ever trusted me with anything. Rightfully so. Why would you trust a drug addict? Why would you trust Dallas Kelly when his smarter, stronger, better brother is right there? Yet Rain does. She trusts me, and I let that be the thing that soothes my pounding pulse.