I was sick of him judging me.
“For fuck’s sake, let me take him before one of you gets hurt,” Steel growled, stalking out barefoot in cutoff sweatpants to scoop him up. “What room is he in?”
“Fucked if I know; he pointed down here, so that’s where we staggered,” I snapped.
“There’s a seven in it,” Kit muttered.
“That’ll have to do,” Steel said.
Fortunately, there was only one room with a seven, and his guard had his spare key card, so we didn’t have to dig around in his pockets looking for the one he carried. He was drunkenly singing Damaged Saint’sCurses From the Edge, so off-key it was obvious why he’d taken up drumming, when Steel laid him on his bed.
"Dude, you’ve got three heads.”
“And you need to learn how to not tie your laces so tight,” Igrumbled as I struggled to untie one of the knots. If he’d been wearing sneakers, I could have just pulled them off, but no, he’d worn motorcycle boots tonight, and it looked like he’d double-knotted the damned things.
“Please tell me you didn’t challenge him to go shot for shot tonight,” Steel growled as he struggled with the other.
“I wasn’t even drinking,” I replied, finally making progress.
A bit of tugging and some grunting on Kit’s part, and I finally got his boot and sock off him. It took two of us to wrestle his t-shirt and jeans off him when he started shoving at them, his hands getting in the way so many times we wound up trapping his hands in the t-shirt so we could finish getting his jeans off him. It took effort to roll him beneath the blankets in his boxers, Kit singing and wiggling around the entire time.
“Wouldn’t have drunk so much if I’d known I was going to be undressed by two hot guys tonight.”
“You wouldn’t need to be undressed if you hadn’t drunk so much,” Steel grunted as he lifted Kit so I could pull the blankets back more.
Of course, he rolled over on top of them rather than wiggling under when Steel laid him down, so we were forced to go through the whole lift and pull process again before finally getting him tucked in. I crossed the room to the fridge, glad to find a bottle of water among the juice and energy drinks he kept stocked there. He was going to need it in the morning, along with the packet of Tylenol I fished from my pocket and left for him. I moved one of the trash cans to the side of the bed too, in case he needed it, left the bathroom light on so he wouldn’t break his neck tripping over something if he needed to stagger there, and left him to pass out in peace. It was late, but I could still get in some time with my guitar tonight, after I showered off the lingering scents clinging to me from that pub.
Bland food, blander conversation. The only thing that saved me was that I’d taken my acoustic in. Playing for them meant not having to talk to anyone, and it kept a chunk of the people in the room occupied right up until I’d noticed Kit about to hop ontothe bar and dance along.
I was halfway to my room when Steel’s voice reverberated through my skull. “Is this your new idea of fun?”
Whirling around, I stared up into a face that looked like a storm cloud. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You know he’s already got eyes on him and people talking shit on social media,” Steel said. “The last thing they need is more fodder for their reels.”
“Which is why I got him the hell out of there as soon as I noticed that he’d had too much to drink,” I snapped. “I wasn’t even near him until then, so don’t you go trying to blame his drunken state on me. I didn’t have a single drop the entire night, not even a shot, because I wasn’t in the mood to be there in the first place and knew that if I started drinking everyone would find out just how pissed off I was. Now if you’ll excuse the fuck out of me, I’ve got a date with my guitar.”
He called my name after I stalked off, but there was no way I was standing there and listening to anything more he had to say. How fucking dare he? Even when I did the right fucking thing, that man looked at me like I was an eternal screw-up. Fucking Judgy McJudgyface. I was sick of that sour expression, sick of that piercing stare, and sick to death of spending lonely nights missing him.
So much for not seeking me out. I don’t care if we’d woken him when we crashed into his door; he could have just poked his head out and left us the fuck alone, but no, he had to stick his nose in when Sully and Vale were already right there making sure we didn’t break our necks tripping over one another.
Tired and pissed, with the side of my head still throbbing from where I collided with the door frame, I kicked off my shoes the moment I’d bolted the door behind me and immediately headed for the shower stall. It was only when rose-tinged water swirled around my feet that I realized I was bleeding.
Well, shit.
That was unfortunate. It wasn’t a lot though. Nothing to worry about. So, I washed my hair, careful of the lump on theside of my head, scrubbed my skin until I was certain that I’d washed the pub stench off me, dried off, and started rubbing the water from my hair only to notice red streaks growing on the white surface. In the mirror, what I thought was a small cut turned out to be a gash that had swollen around the edges. I’d roughhoused enough in my younger years to tell it needed stitches, but that would necessitate a trip to the hospital and facing Draven to explain what the hell happened.
Okay, this wasn’t a problem. It would stop and scab over; I just had to leave it alone and not rub the towel over that spot. Fortunately, the hotel bathroom was equipped with a hair dryer, which I usually hated, but it would have to do tonight because wrapping my hair in a towel and hoping it dried by the time I went to bed would just leave me with snarls that would hurt like hell to brush out in the morning.
And probably lead to more bleeding and questions I wasn’t in the mood for. So, blow-drying it was. I’d just use product in the morning to tone down the frizz. Finishing up meant I was finally free to pull my baby from his case and settle down with him on the couch to work on the song that had been running through my head all day, even when I’d been up onstage. I’d nearly debuted bits of it at the pub, only I wanted my whole band there when I played it the first time, and it wasn’t quite ready yet.
I wanted those final guitar chords to be a haunting reminder of the pain and longing that were woven through the song. Something that made it feel like the notes were bleeding the way my heart did every time I thought about the way Steel looked at me.
Like I was something vile. Dirt beneath his feet. A troublemaker who got a kick out of fucking up people’s lives. Trying to explain to him that I couldn’t create anything in a vacuum had earned me a lecture on needing to change my thinking about the guards. Like I’d ever be able to see them as more than personal security, no matter how inconspicuously they attempted to dress. They didn’t carry themselves like any friends I’d ever had, so trying to pretend they were wasn’t going to happen.
I’d never been good at make-believe.
The words in my songs all came from the moments I’d experienced. Every exhilarating high and soul-crushing low had happened to me, including the story that I was currently wringing from the strings. The worst part was that it was my fault for opening myself up to feel something for someone instead of sticking with the hookup culture I’d always excelled at.