AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Because you are my business and I know how close you two are. I don’t want to see you ghosted and unfriended if something goes wrong and he takes off. I don’t want you sitting around worried. I don’t want you reaching out only to hit silence time and time again.”
“It’s already been made perfectly clear that if he goes, the band is done. None of us have the energy to start over a third time, which is exactly why I’ve been so wary of him dating Riley.”
“I’m not talking about the band; I’m talking about you and what he means to you.”
The shit part was it was something Zakk had thought about. The few times he’d tried to broach the subject with Dez, the big man just swept it under the rug and worked the mood back around to whatever it was they were watching or creating. Now, he found himself wondering why.
“Know who else loved to lay on the rooftops with Dez and stargaze? Skyler. He shared Dez’s love of fast things too, like amusement park rides and motorcycles.”
“What are you going to tell me next, that they were dating? Dez wouldn’t do that. Even with Riley he was too worried about throwing off the dynamic or causing a rift in the band.”
“I know. That’s what Sky told me. Said he asked and Dez turned him down flat. My point to you is that there was enough between them for Sky to ask and from all I’ve been told, a closeness that didn’t change afterwards either. They had an unspoken agreement that they didn’t talk about it, but the familiarity, the casual touches, the laughing together and spending huge chunks of their free time with one another, that didn’t go away until Dez left.”
“You mean until they asked him to go.”
“Tell me what you’d do if Damien was in a wreck and was going to be out long term. Do you fill his spot, so there is a band left for him to come back to, or do you hang it up and let him feel the burden of being the one to end it for everyone?”
Okay, when put that way, it was a shitty, unenviable position he never wanted to be in.
“It wasn’t like they hired Dez without telling him the circumstances he’d be walking into,” Tripp said. “Now, I don’t know if he got it in his head that being amazing would get them to reconsider bringing Reed back but, if that was the case, he was dead wrong for it. Those guys never threw him away, they didn’t kick him out of their band, they asked him to take a step back so they could see if Reed was ready to reclaim his spot. Dez took it upon himself to head off down the road and never speak to them again.”
“Wait…what?”
He scrambled to sit up so fast he tipped the flotation device and sent himself rolling into the water. When he came up, Tripp was several feet away, watching him intently, and he wasn’t the only one. Riley had snagged the wall, stopping his floating mattress, and from the look on Dez’s face, he’d heard every word. Well. Okay. Guess they were doing this now.
“Is that true?” Zakk asked Dez directly.
Dez was drumming his fingers on his leg, something Zakk knew was a tell. The other being that Dez wouldn’t look at him or any of the others gathered around them.
“Wasn’t gonna wait around for them to officially show me the door,” Dez muttered. “They said step back, so I stepped. Made no sense to stay on the road with them and not play.”
“That’s like saying it makes no sense to sit on the bench when it isn’t your time to be in the game,” Tavis said.
“You played hockey, so I know you know howthatworks,” Zakk said.
“Was two years ago,” Dez said. “Why can’t you all stop bringing it up?”
Tripp smacked his hand on the water’s surface, the echoing slap far softer than it would have been if he’d had something harder to hit. “Maybe because for whatever reason those guys are still reaching out to you and you’re still slamming the door in their faces.”
“You’d think they’d get the hint.”
There was no heat to his words though. In fact, they were spoken in the wistful tone that usually accompanied some piece of his past he had some regrets over.
“Uh-huh,” Zakk replied. “Do you remember what Riley said to you after we offered you the spot in Tattered Angel?”
Dez’s response was to nod, even as Winter knelt by the edge of the river beside them. He wasn’t dressed for the pool, which probably meant he’d been off on some adventure, but of all of them, he didn’t look shocked at the story that was beginning to unfold. A story Zakk thought he’d heard back to front over a year ago.
“You really were going to turn us down, weren’t you?” Riley asked. He’d moved from the floating mattress to the edge of the pool as well, leaving Dez seated on it alone.
“I told you in the dish room that I wasn’t interested.”
“Then you showed up and fuckin’ played.”
“Only so I wouldn’t get kicked out of my uncle’s place!”
“And why was he looking to put you out?” Zakk asked.
Winter snorted and gave Dez a light nudge. “For being an absolutely miserable prick because he was stuck washing dishes when he wanted to be performing.”
