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“Cuz you fuckin’ clocked me, shithead! And you were hurting Ryan!”
Derek looked past Riley and sneered, “Ryan needs to learn how to handle his own shit and not have to get a chick to save him.”
“Excuse me?” I snapped.
Derek looked at me quizzically. “What?”
“That’s a chauvinist asshole thing to say.”
He rolled his eyes. “Give me a fuckin’ break.”
“I’ll give you a fuckin’ break,” Riley yelled.
She grabbed a drumstick she’d left lying on a nearby end table and brought it down
hard
across the edge, snapping it in two and sending one end flying across the room. Then she turned back to Derek with the jagged remains still clutched in her hand. The point looked sharp as a knife.
“You
ever
go after Ryan again, I swear to GOD I will skull-fuck you with this. But I won’t do it til
after
you hit him. That enough of a fuckin’ break for you?”
The entire room went silent. Nobody moved. None of the roadies liked messing with an unarmed Riley; Riley with a deadly weapon was decidedly on the ‘no thanks, I don’t get paid enough for this shit’ list.
Derek – clearly freaked out, and newly respectful of badass girl power – stared at the jagged stick.
“Ryan,” he said quietly, “I am apparently never, ever hitting you again.”
“Good,” Riley said, and threw the drumstick on the floor. At which point there was a collective exhale.
“But we still have a few things to settle,” Derek said as he looked at me.
“We’re going to need the room for a minute, Miles,” Ryan said.
I felt like I was about to throw up.
Miles gave one short, mirthless bark of a laugh. “Ha – you two are funny.”
“I give you my word, I won’t touch him,” Ryan said.
“Like you could,” Derek sneered.
Ryan stared him down, as did Riley.
Derek caved immediately. “Alright, alright, sorry.” He turned to Miles. “I promise I won’t do anything, either. But we need to talk to Kaitlyn – alone.”
I was hoping Miles was going to snort derisively again and refuse – but he looked back and forth between the two of them for a long moment, then nodded.
“Right, then – everybody
out.
” He pointed at Derek, then looked at me and Ryan. “This shite had better be handled when I walk back in, or else.”
He waved the roadies out. Killian quickly followed.
Riley stood her ground.
“I said everybody,” Miles snapped.
“Fuck that,” Riley growled.
“Riley,” Ryan said quietly.
She turned around to look at him.
He nodded. “It’s okay.”
She hesitated for a moment… then picked up the jagged piece of drumstick she’d dropped and walked past Derek, picking her teeth with it.
“I hear you, loud and clear,” Derek griped as she passed by.
Miles was the last one out of the room. He pointed at the three of us. “By the time I walk back in this room. Or
else.
”
And then he shut the door, leaving only me, Derek, and Ryan.
115
I stood there staring helplessly at the two men in my life.
They looked back at me, waiting expectantly.
I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I started with the most elementary thing I could think of.
“Did she bite off your ear?” I asked Derek.
“No,” he said, and unconsciously reached up to it, though he stopped short. “She just bit into the earlobe pretty good, is all. It’ll be fine.”
“Shouldn’t you go to the hospital and have it looked at?”
“I think we have something more important to talk about,” Ryan said.
“Yeah,” Derek agreed.
I felt like I was about to hyperventilate.
“We need to know,” Ryan said. “Now.”
“Know what?” I asked, though I knew exactly ‘what.’
“You need to choose,” Derek said.
I looked fearfully over at him.
“This has to end tonight. One way or the other,” Ryan said.
“So,” Derek said. “Who’s it going to be?”
I looked between them, unable to speak.
This was it, the moment that everything came down to.
But I couldn’t decide.
