Fighting Ever After (Ever After #3) (20 page)

He folded
his arms across his chest and gave me a look that said
bullshit.
“I
don’t believe you.”

“It is what
it is. I like her. She’s fun, she’s gorgeous and yeah, something about her just
pulls at me, but it was never more than me just wanting to make her come
screaming my name.” His jaw clenched and his eyes pulled into frown. “I have
actually come to care about her though, which is why, now that I know just how
messed up her past is, and the kind of shit she’s already been dealt, I won’t
do that to her. I thought maybe we could have some fun, keep it casual and all
that, but I get now that it would never work, and she deserves a hell of a lot
more than that.”

He sighed,
“Somewhere in all that fucked up logic, I can see that you’re actually trying
to do the right thing, but I still think you’re a damned idiot. If she looked
at me the way she looks at you, even after everything you’ve pulled, I’d do
everything I could to have her, to be good enough for her.”

“Yeah, well,
that’s the difference between us I guess. Deep down you
want
the same thing she does, to settle down, get married, make babies and live
happily ever after.”

“And you can
honestly say that you don’t?”

“No. I
don’t.” I left him standing there and walked back outside, just in time to hear
the rest of the guys making plans to go out. Spade was trying to convince the
girls, but not having any luck. They were insisting that we go without them and
they would stay and watch girly movies instead. Then Spade looked up at me.
“You in?”

Thirty
minutes later we were climbing out of the cars in the parking lot of one of the
bigger bars in the area. Just from the number of cars and people loitering
outside, it was obvious that even for a weeknight, it was a busy place.
Townies and tourists all mixing, drinking and enjoying the loud
music being piped in through the sound system.
The dance floor was
packed and most of the booths and tables were full as well.

We found an
opening at the bar and waved down the bartender. I decided to stay away from
the Jack tonight; I had no desire to end up shit faced again. Even so, the
night didn’t end well. I wasn’t even drunk, but still managed to find trouble,
or well, trouble found me.

A couple
hours in and I’d only had a few beers, so I was barely feeling the buzz. We
were at a table near the dance floor, watching Spade and Chris with the dance
partners they’d snagged. Bas was nursing his sixth or seventh beer and looking
all
mopey
, probably thinking about Lissa because he
hadn’t resolved anything with her. Ace and I had gotten past the
shit
from earlier and were talking about one of the new
songs I’d written. I’d jotted parts of it down on a napkin and finally showed
it to him and he was offering his input. We were working it out, making little
change-ups here and there.

I lifted my
head to raise the bottle to my lips and that’s when I noticed a familiar face
walking in the bar. I hadn’t been
drunk
enough the
other night not to recognize Douchebag Eric. He wasn’t alone either. He had
about six guys with him, probably the same ones he’d been shooting pool with
the other night. “Shit,” I muttered, causing Ace to look up and follow my line
of sight.

“What is
it?” Bas and Danny and Jake were also paying attention now.

“We might
have trouble,” I informed them.

“You know
those guys?” Ace asked.

“I might
have acquainted my fist with one of their faces the other night.”

“You got
into a fight?” Bas asked. “Should I ask why, or did he just look at you funny?”

“He wasn’t
thrilled about the idea of me going home with his girl,” I admitted.

“You fucked
his girl?”

“Well she’s
not really his girl, but I don’t think that mattered to him.” It was at that
moment that Eric the douchebag spotted me from across the bar.
“Nope, definitely not.”

“Oh shit.”

“Fuck.”

“Damn it.”

The string
of curses sounded around the table as Eric and his whole boy band posse of
douchebags started shoving their way through the bar toward our table. Ace
whistled at Spade who was just a few feet away and they did their whole super
secret Marine, silent communication thing and Spade quickly grabbed Chris and
dragged him away from the girls.

As Eric got
closer, I noticed that he was sporting two black eyes and his nose was slightly
more crooked than it had been before it ran into my fist.

“Ky, can you
just try to keep your damn mouth shut, so we can avoid getting arrested
tonight?” Ace looked at me pointedly, and then turned to face Eric and his
group as they approached.

“You guys
need something?” He asked them. Eric’s eyes flitted around the table before
coming to rest on mine. I don’t know what he was
thinking,
he had to realize starting shit wouldn’t lead anywhere good for them. It wasn’t
like they outnumbered us.

“Yeah, me
and him need to talk,” he said, not taking his eyes off of me.

“Listen
man,” Ace tried to reason with him, “whatever problem you’ve got, you need to
just let it go and walk away. We’ll head out and you can get back to your night
without there being any trouble.”

He should
have listened to Ace, should have taken that advice and kept on walking. But he
didn’t. Instead he started running his mouth, calling me a pussy and making
threats. Can you break someone’s nose if it’s already broken? If so, I’m pretty
sure I did. He tried to cheap shot me when Ace was pulling me toward the door,
but I saw that shit coming from a mile away, and dodged just in time for his
knuckles to glance off my cheek, barely even grazing me. Of course that’s when
all hell broke loose, because at that point I wasn’t backing down.

“Holy fuck!”
Spade hollered when it was over and we were
making a run for our cars before the cops showed up, because no doubt the
bartender or someone had called them. In reality it hadn’t been much of a
fight. We’d dropped all of them on their
asses
in
about two minutes. It was pathetic really, but now my hand was fucking sore and
we needed to get the hell out of there.
“Fucking Ky!
Never a dull fucking moment.
Can we seriously not take you
anywhere? What was that all about anyway?
Not that it wasn’t
a little bit fun.”
Chris, Danny and Jake had split in
Vi’s
car, and the four of us had jumped into Ace’s.

“It was
about him not being able to keep his damn dick in his pants because he’s a dumb
fucking asshole,” Bas spit out, looking pissed as hell sitting next to me.

“What the
hell is your problem?” I asked him. “It’s not like I picked the fight, and the
other night he was harassing the girl when she tried to leave with me. He put
his hands on her and wouldn’t fucking listen when I told him to remove them. I
popped him once or twice. That’s it, and it’s not like this is the first time
you guys have backed me up. I don’t remember you getting this upset then.”

“Well, it’s
getting old
Ky.
”

“It’s
getting old, or you’re still pissed at me because of Jax?”

“Screw you
Ky.
You don’t even deserve to say her name. I can’t believe
I ever thought you could get your head out of your ass long enough to see what was
right in front of you.” He hit the back of the headrest in front of him.

“I didn’t
fucking sleep with her,” I shouted.

“I know you
didn’t. I’d have killed you if you had,” he spit back at me.

“I’m not
talking about Jax. I’m talking about the girl from the other night. Her name
was Andy, and I didn’t fuck her.” I’m not sure why I was telling them. I could
have just let them think I had, but Bas just made me feel so shitty, like I
owed something to Jax, like me fucking another girl was a betrayal against her.
It wasn’t. I could fuck whoever I wanted, except for her, but I didn’t owe her
anything because we weren’t anything, Yet, for some reason I also couldn’t
stand to let Bas think I had done it.

“Wait, I’m
confused,” Spade chimed in. “You didn’t fuck the girl, but we still got into a
fight with a guy over one. That makes no fucking sense, man.”

“Look, I met
her at this pub, not actually too far from here. I was looking to get fucked up
and just forget about everything, everyone,” I met Bas’ eyes and could tell
that he knew exactly who and what I’d wanted to forget. “I couldn’t stand being
in my own head, so
yeah,
I let this girl lead me out
the door. That guy tried to stop us, it got ugly, and I still went home with
her, but when we were there, I didn’t. I couldn’t do it.” I shouldn’t have said
that last part.

“Wait, you
couldn’t?” Bas was looking at me skeptically.

“No.
You happy?
I couldn’t do it. So we actually just talked and
I crashed on her couch. That was it.”

“You
couldn’t get it up?” Spade asked incredulously. “Was she not hot, or were you
just too drunk?
Man, that
happened to me one time. I
was so fucking trashed, and this girl –”

“That’s not
what he means numbnuts,” Bas cut him off before looking back at me. “You really
couldn’t do it?” He asked again quietly.

“No.”

“Huh,” was
all he said.

“Don’t make
more out of it than there is,” I warned and he just stared back.

“Only if you don’t make less out of it.”

After another
night of banishing myself to the couch and lying awake wishing for things to be
different, I pulled myself up. It was going to be a long day. We needed to get
all of our equipment down to the festival and set up and run through a couple
of checks. We also had to set up our merchandise table with the t-shirts and
cd’s
we brought to hopefully sell.

Ace came
downstairs as I was making a pot of coffee. “You stay downstairs last night?”
he asked.

“You saw me
go to sleep on the couch when we got back,” I reminded him.

“Yeah I
know. I asked if you stayed there.” He took the coffee pot from my hands and
poured himself a cup. “So, did you?”

“What do you
think? We already did this and I told you I’m staying away from her.”

“Yeah, but
that was before I knew your feelings for her were cock blocking you. That’s a
pretty big deal for you. I thought maybe that hit you took to the face last
night might have knocked some sense into you. Crawling into her bed and begging
her for a chance would be the smartest thing you could do, even if Bas beat the
shit out of you for it.”

“Or the stupidest.”
I reached up into the cupboard and pulled out a
bottle of Irish whiskey, pouring just a little in my coffee.

“A little
early for that don’t you think?” he commented.

“I have a feeling
I’m going to need it today.”

It only got
worse as the day went on. My mood grew fouler and fouler, and as it did, the
amount of alcohol I ingested also increased. We spent most of the morning
rehearsing before it was time to load up. Princess never came down. I knew she
was avoiding me, hiding out with
Vi
, and it was just
fine. In fact it was good, exactly what I wanted. Still I was on edge, knowing
she was up there and that I had to figure out how to accept that this was just
how it was going to be from now on.

Another
drink was how I chose to deal, and by the time we reached the festival, I was
bordering on drunk, but the energy and excitement that always preceded a big
show had taken over and I was feeling more like myself. This is what I lived
for. This high was better than any feeling. My music was all I needed.

Once our
equipment was set up and we made sure we wouldn’t have any technical
difficulties with any of the amps or
mics
, we had
some time to kill. We were set to go on at eight, and checking my phone, I saw
that it was just after five. The fields and streets around were filling with
people decked out in their patriotic red, white and blue, playing carnival
games, getting their faces painted, enjoying fried food and cotton candy.

I couldn’t
help but scan the crowd every so often, looking for that head of colorful hair,
but I didn’t see her. I knew they were here
somewhere,
Bas had texted Chris when they arrived not that long ago. They were probably
off playing games, laughing and having a good time, exactly as they should be.
I wondered if Princess had a favorite game, probably the dart balloon pop. She
seemed the type that would enjoy throwing sharp objects, especially if she
could throw them at me. No doubt she would sample every sweet she could get her
hands on as well. That girl had a major sweet
tooth,
spun sugar was probably her best friend.

Damn, I was
pathetic. What did any of it matter? I split from the guys and pulled out the
flask I had in my pocket, taking a swig and then wandering around for a while
until I got hungry. I stood in line at one of the food carts, waiting for a hot
dog and a beer, when I heard a couple of girls behind me in line, not so
discreetly whispering about me. I turned to appraise them, a grin snaking
across my face at what I saw. They were both hot and rocking teeny shorts,
tight tees and big flirtatious grins. I winked before turning back to pay for
my order. Once I got my food and moved over to the condiments, I heard someone
clear their throat behind me.

I looked to
see both of them standing there expectantly. “You’re with the band, right?” The
blonde one asked.

“We saw you
guys setting up earlier,” the other one with bronze skin and darker hair
clarified.

“Yeah.
You guys sticking around for the show?” I asked, taking a
bite of my hot dog and moving away from the food tent.

“Yeah,
definitely,” Blondie replied, wrapping her lips around the straw sticking out
of her soda and sucking. The move was obviously intentional, and appreciated.

“I’m Sarah
and this is Jenny,” the other one introduced them.

“Ky,” I
said. “Want to take a walk?” I asked and we spent the next half an hour
wandering around, getting to know each other, or I guess I should say they
talked incessantly about themselves while I downed my beer like it was oxygen,
just to be able to feign interest when really I was bored to death. Until
something one of them said, I couldn’t remember whether it was Sarah or Jenny,
caught my attention.

“We’ve been
best friends forever, and we share everything.” There was so much implication
behind that
everything
. I lowered the bottle from my lips and looked at
her with raised eyebrows.

“Everything?”

“Mmhmm,” she
said, the corner of her mouth curling up in a twisted smirk.

I was about
to say something equally twisted, when I caught a flash of turquoise. She was
flailing over Bas’ shoulder, beating him with some kind of giant stuffed animal
while he carried her in the direction of the stage.

I looked at
Sarah and Jenny, “Why don’t you guys come with me, I can introduce you to the
rest of the band and you guys can grab good seats right in front of the stage.
There was just over an hour until show time now, but I had other reasons for
wanting to get back there.

When we got
closer, I could see that Bas still had Jax over his shoulder while Ace, Danny
and Spade watched in amusement as she struggled. Even I couldn’t stop the
slight grin that tugged at my mouth. She was so small, but so feisty. When Bas
walked over to the stage, Spade made some comment and then followed it with a
smack to Princess’ sweet ass. She squealed and almost fell to the ground.

When she
finally managed to get free and on her feet, I knew it wouldn’t be long until
she spotted me. I threw an arm around each of the girls at my side and put just
a bit more stagger into my steps, playing up the
drunk
act, even though I wasn’t quite at that level. I’d kept it at a steady buzz all
day.

The three of
us made our way closer, still unnoticed. Jax hopped up on the stage, Ace coming
to sit next to her. I don’t know how he could do it, just be her friend like it
was no big deal. If I had been able to do that, I wouldn’t be standing
here,
about to do something I really didn’t want to.

Ha
.

This was the
first time in my life, making out with two hot chicks fell under something I
didn’t want to do, but I did it anyway. I leaned down, whispering in their
ears, inciting loud, obnoxious giggles from them both. It was enough to draw
eyes to us, and I saw the moment that shock and then hurt registered on
Jax’s
face when she took our threesome in. She quickly
covered it up, and for a second I almost stopped this whole charade, but then I
grabbed Sarah, at least I was pretty sure it was Sarah, and crashed my lips to
hers, sliding my hand down to her ass. She sighed and I pulled away, grabbing
Blondie and bringing her in for a repeat performance. I released her with a
smack on her ass and then I was close enough to jump up onto the stage. I
finished my beer, tossing the bottle to the side and grabbed my guitar from its
stand. Danny was moving some of the chords around, the rest of them were just
watching me.

 “How
long has he been at it?” I heard Bas ask.

“I think he
started at breakfast.” Even I picked up on Ace’s exasperation.

“I don’t
know how many he’s had since we got here, but he’s been like this all day.”
Spade didn’t even bother lowering his voice. They weren’t worried about me
hearing them, probably even wanted me to.

“Will he be
able to play drunk?” Jax asked disgustedly.

“Yeah, he’ll
be able to play just fine. I just hope no assholes even look at him wrong
tonight because he’s definitely in the mood to rip someone apart. The last
thing we need is another fight.”

“Another fight?”
Nobody said anything, but she pressed them for
more. “What is it? Just tell me.”

They all
dropped their voices, and I tried to ignore it, not sure if I wanted to know
what or how much they were telling her. The last beer I’d practically chugged
was starting to get to me and every word she spoke, every look she shot my way
was too damn much.

 “Maybe
he should just grow up and learn to control his temper,” her voice rose enough
for me to hear. “Being drunk and pissed off isn’t a good excuse to get into a
fight.” Her own temper was flaring as her words flew, striking me and bringing
out my anger – at her, at myself, at the whole situation.

Bas
surprised me by putting a calming hand on her shoulder, trying to talk her
down. He was the last person I expected to defend me or my actions, but it
seemed like that’s what he was doing.

Whatever he
said didn’t work though, because she shoved his hand away. “I don’t care. It’s
not an excuse. He’s like a damn six year old acting out and throwing a
tantrum.”

I’d had
enough. “Hey,
you talking
about me?” Her head snapped
up and she rose to her feet, turning on me with a sneer. “You got something to
say?” I asked her mockingly.

“What is
your problem?” She was right in my face, her mouth pulled tight and her brow
narrowed on me.

“You want to
be a little more specific,
Princess?
There’s so many ways I could answer
that.” She had no fucking right to get on her high horse and judge me. The
blatant disgust on her face grated at me, so I gave it right back to her.
Looking her up and down. Fuck her. This was all her fault anyway. What the hell
did she want from me?

“Hey man,
don’t,” Spade said. Bas and Ace were at his side and the other guys had stopped
what they were doing to watch us intently. Bas put his hand on Jax’ shoulder,
but she just shrugged it off.

“No, go
ahead and answer. Tell me whatever it is you’re dying to get out,” she
demanded.

“Why? So you
can shut down and hide behind your boy there,” I gestured at Bas, her faithful
protector, her shield from the big bad world, “while you bottle everything up
inside and pretend you’re not a complete wreck? Sorry if that’s not how all of
us handle our shit.” I knew the jab hit home when she flinched and her eyes
dropped.

“Ky, what
the hell man?” Ace stepped forward, trying to put himself between the two of
us. “You’ve been a drunken asshole all day, and we haven’t said anything, but
you’re going too far,” he warned. That was the whole point of this though.
Wasn’t it?

“You listen
to her fucked up shit for five minutes and then tell me you don’t need a drink,
or six,” I retorted.

 “You
think you know me?” She practically yelled in my face. “You think you have some
deep insight into my life because I told you that stuff? You don’t know
anything. You don’t know what it’s like to still wake up drenched in sweat
trying to fight for your life after three years. You have no idea how it feels
to see a monster in the mirror, to have his eyes, to have any part of him. You
think I don’t get pissed off, that I don’t want to hurt them? Drowning in alcohol,
putting my fist in someone’s face, is that what’s going to make it all better?”
Her rage calmed then, and she took a couple steps forward, leaning in closely
and, in almost a whisper, spoke so that I was the only one who could hear her.

“Is that going
to help me forget? Will that take away my pain? Do the booze, fighting and
meaningless sex have the answers? Will they tell me why I didn’t deserve to be
loved, or cherished, or protected? Will they fix all my problems?” She pulled
back just an inch, her eyes hard on mine. “How’s it working for you?”

It wasn’t.
Isn’t that why I was doing this? I’d been so intent on hurting her, but I’d
left myself wide open and she saw right through me. “I’m not the only screwed
up one,” she tossed out, before turning and leaving me standing there, after
successfully knocking me down a peg. Without a backward glance, she walked
away. That’s what I’d wanted, no needed, her to do, but there was no
satisfaction in seeing it.

Gutted.
Empty.
Deflated.
Take your pick,
that’s how I felt in that moment.

Bas of
course chased after her, and the rest of them were on me in a second.

“Damn you.
You stupid, fucking idiot.”
Ace’s words weren’t yelled or
anger filled; they were just . . . disappointed.

“That was
too far, even for you.” Spade pointed at the girls, who I’d completely forgot
were still standing at the foot of the stage, watching on in confusion. “Get rid
of them, and get your shit together. I can hardly stand to be on the same stage
as you right now.” He stalked off to the other side of the stage.