Hard Rock Roots Box Set (121 page)

“Are you okay?” I ask her. I know how they can be. Judgments are their specialty. No matter how good you feel, how confident, if they don't like you, my family will find a way to bring you down. Sydney gives me a half-smile and leads the way into the kitchen. I follow after her and pause near the fridge.

“Dax,” Arnold says slowly, like he's trying the word out on his tongue. He named me. After all, he was the only one around to do it. But I don't think he really likes it. Arnold spends the majority of our brief conversations calling me
son.
I try not to let that go to my head; he calls all my cousins that, too. “Where's your mother?”

“In the van,” I say, my voice echoing around the high ceilings. My dad cringes and grits his teeth. “I'm sorry, but that was the only way for me to get her here.” I examine the extra lines in his face, his sun-reddened skin, the gray hair around his temples. He looks a hell of a lot older now than the last time I saw him. And that was only, what, months ago at the most? I wonder if anything's been happening around here, or if his disdainful view on life is just starting to catch up to him. “Do you want us to unload her?” I ask, adding more weirdness to the already awkward situation. My cousin, Tom, stands up and tucks his hands in his pockets, giving me that look, the one that says I'm just not getting it.

“The funeral home will be here in about a half an hour to pick her up. We're having another funeral service, nothing fancy. It's just going to be a quick blessing and some dinner at Grandma's place.”

Wow.

I can't think of a single fucking thing on this earth that sounds worse than that. My cousin, Tom, and I, we live in different worlds, man. I stick needles into my skin, just so I can carry around a pretty picture on my arm. I smoke dust. I play drums. I fall into insta-lust with beautiful blondes who shouldn't legally be able to wear shoes that high. I wipe my hand down my face. There's no way in hell I'm going, but this is going to be awkward.

“I don't know … that I can make it.”

“Make it?” my dad asks, his voice rough with irritation. His mustache twitches. “What do you mean make it? You're standing right here, aren't you? You're not too busy to dig up your mother's body, but now you're too much of a hot shot to attend her blessing?”

“I didn't dig her up,” I snap at him. I can't handle him thinking that. I might be weird, but I'm not fucked in the head. I'm a normal fucking person, probably more 'normal' than he is. I have friggin' feelings, and I don't shove all my misery down my throat. I used to, because that's what he taught me to do. But not anymore. I feel the urge to explode creeping through my veins again. “And she's just as dead now as she was twenty-three years ago.” A couple of my cousins rise to their feet to join Tom. I have a bad feeling I'm about to get an ass kicking. But this has to be said or I'm going to have a breakdown. “I'm sorry this happened, but I have other things to do here.”

“Don't you dare visit that girl,” my dad growls, giving me the chills down my spine.
No. Don't talk about it. Leave it alone.
I glance over at Sydney. “Nobody wants you visiting her. You think the family likes to see their daughter's murderer waltzing around town?”

“I didn't kill her,” I grind out through my teeth. I didn't. I almost did, but it was an accident. My secret might not be as big as Naomi's or Hayden's, but it still hurts, and it burns a little inside of me everyday. So I'm going to confront it before anybody else gets the chance to shove it in my face. And that includes my father. “And what happened was a mistake.”

“Did he tell you about Tara?” my father asks Sydney, running his hand down his chin and setting his coffee cup on the counter. There's a second mug there, with lipstick around the rim. It's the same shade as Sydney's. How long was she was in here before I woke up? It can't have been all that long. The trip was less than two hours, and the sun is still shining with the cheery brightness of morning. What did she talk about with him? And why would she even bother to try?

“I don't care about Tara,” Sydney says, matter-of-factly. “I'm sorry, but I don't. I don't need you to tell me Dax's past. I don't care what he did when he was twelve or thirteen or even twenty-one. All that really matters is who he is today.” She shrugs like her words don't matter, but they do. They matter to me. My chest gets so tight it's hard to breathe. “When I walked in here, you asked me who I was, and I told you. But you never asked your son that same question. Don't you think you owe him the courtesy?”

“Get out of my house,” Arnold says, narrowing his gaze on us both. My cousins move forward, like a fucking herd of wild dogs. They
want
to beat the shit out of me. Why? I have no fucking clue. Maybe they're dissatisfied with their own lives? Or maybe they're as crazy as Stephen friggin' Hammergren. Whatever the reason, for the first time in my life, I actually feel fucking sorry for them. “Both of you. Out. Get out. Boys, go get Hannah for me. Put her on the porch for now. She always did like it best out there.”

“Don't you fucking ignore me,” I snap at him, letting the rage leak out. Hey, at least I found the appropriate target for my anger. The man who started it all. My mother might've birthed my body, but my father birthed this discomfort I have inside of me. I'm so sick of it. I just want it gone. “Look at me for a fucking second and admit to yourself that I'm your son and that it's not my fault. It's not. It's not anybody's fault that Hannah died. Say it because I can't believe it unless I hear the words come from your mouth.”

“I said
out
,” Arnold snarls at me, the stoic expression on his face breaking for a split second into pure rage. “Out. Out. Get the fuck out and don't come back. I did the best I could for you, boy. I tried because I loved your mother so much it still hurts me inside. I wanted to love you, but I just can't. And I can't keep pretending.”

I take a step back, threading my fingers through Sydney's without even realizing that I'm doing it. I feel a revelation coming. I don't like revelations. All they do is flip your world around. Like it isn't hard enough to navigate where you're going?

“We can go now. You don't have to hear this if you don't want to. It won't matter, not in the long run.” I look down at Sydney and then back over at Arnold, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don't have to hear this; I need to.

“Pretending about what?” I ask. Sydney knows the truth already. I thought I was perceptive, but I'm not, not really. Sydney's practically fucking psychic.

“Dax,” Arnold says with an expression as cold as ice. “I'm not your biological father. I don't know who he is, and I don't care to. I just want you gone, boy. Just go and don't come back here again.”

Chapter 12
Sydney Charell

“Did you steal those drums?” Dax asks me, face goofy, mouth twisted to the side in toxic glee. He rests his head on his arm, lying across the bar with his dark hair splayed out against the gleaming countertop. Like I said, I'm not a fan of using alcohol or drugs to get by, but Dax deserves a drink after that shit. So here we are. In a strip club.

I smile.

“I was going to wait for you to wake up, but I got bored. I told you,” I say, leaning forward and brushing his hair from his forehead. I've had – count it – one drink. An AMF. If you're not familiar, that's an
Adios Motherfucker,
strong but not deadly. I use it as an excuse to play with Dax's hair, letting each touch of my fingers against his flesh consume me. Between my legs, the ache is becoming unbearable. I reach a hand down and grip the edge of the chair, leaning my crotch against my arm, just for a little touch. The throbbing pulse turns into a painful keening.
Down, girl, down.
“I do things sometimes. And I don't know why I do them. I got up, went inside and asked for a cup of coffee. As soon as I saw Arnold though, I knew.”

“But the drums?” Dax asks, music on the mind. He fondles the pair of sticks on the counter. He's shit faced as fuck, but at least he's smiling. It's not everyday that you find out your sadistic father really does hate you. In the movies, Arnold and Dax would've had a teary reunion, uniting the family in love or some bullshit. But this is the real world and these are real people with real problems.
Fuck.

“I'm getting there,” I whisper, leaning down and pressing my lips to his temple. His skin tastes like sweat and lilac, like maybe he uses floral soap or something. I like it. Dax is so male without being chauvinistic. “Don't you want to hear the whole story?”

“I want to play my drums for you,” he whispers, his voice barely audible over the staccato rhythms of the techno music blasting from the speakers near the stage. “I want to fall in love. Naomi doesn't want me, so … ” He trails off. I take a sip of my drink, savoring the electric feel of the alcohol in my veins. Just enough to take the edge off, not enough to blur my memories or make me do something I might regret. I cut him off before he can say anything else.

“You have a much prettier face than Arnold. He has a square nose and a dimpled chin.” I purse my lips. “And yes I did steal the drums. I wrapped each bag in a sheet and lowered it out the window.” Dax snorts and curls his fingers around the sticks. At least when he saw me coming around the back of the house carrying pieces of his first drum kit, he almost smiled. Now that he's had a few drinks in him, he's grinning from ear to ear. The bundle of padded bags in the van have more than just drum pieces inside of them though. I snatched a few photos and some other random bits of memorabilia I found scattered throughout his room. They're stuffed inside of the pockets, as much as I could fit. It was a weird thing to do, I get that. But the five minute conversation I had in the kitchen with that man gave me a heads up. He already knew what he wanted to say to Dax before we even got there. He didn't say so in as many words to me, but that's what I picked up from our conversation. So I asked to see Dax's room, and then I stole shit. “I was afraid if something went down, you might walk out of there without a piece of your mother.”

“Doesn't matter,” Dax drones, struggling to sit up. One of the girls starts to meander our way, and I throw her a death glare. Rule one when you're working as a stripper, if a guy comes in with a lady, always make eye contact with her
before
you approach the man she's with. Failure to do so can result in cat fights, pepper spray, and all other sorts of drama we could all do without. The girls here either don't get that, or they're just hyper aware of the fact that Dax is the best looking man in this room. “I didn't know her; she'll never know me.” He pauses and his words slur a bit as he scrunches his face up and tries to figure out how to deal with the impossible. “And she was married to my dad, but pregnant with somebody else's baby. Why?” I put my elbow on the counter and rest my chin in my hand.

“There are a dozen reasons that come to mind, Dax,” I say. “The majority of which are not pleasant. I don't know that you'll ever really know. If the people involved refuse to tell you, there's not much else you can do.” He scrubs at his face with his hands and then sighs, a deep, overdramatic release of air that makes me smile. I watch as his gaze shifts over to the girls working the stage. Their bodies wrap around the poles, writhing and undulating in a dance that's older than time, mimicking the most basic movements of humanity, the very act of creation. “You want a lap dance or something?” I ask him, feeling a tightness in my belly. I don't want to see some skank grind all over him when I haven't even got the chance to try that yet. Fucking fucker. I knew the Little Drummer Boy was going to be trouble. Knew it. And all I've done so far is
kiss
him. But now I'm emotionally invested. It's hard to watch somebody get torn down to the studs without shedding a tear or two. My eyes watered, won't lie about that. But his didn't. He didn't say a fucking thing until I convinced the security guards to pull in here. So I might've told them a lie about needing to use the ladies' room,
pronto.
But now we're here and they can't do a damn thing about it. We're not their fucking prisoners. I told them they could stay and watch over us or they could leave.

They stayed.

I wave at one of our friends near the back door. He doesn't wave back.

“A lap dance?” Dax asks, turning back to me, blinking his gray eyes rapidly in response. I raise an eyebrow. He sounds awfully fucking eager. “I'd love one.” My mouth tightens, but I don't say anything, turning back to the room of girls and looking for the one with the ugliest tits. I can't help it, I'm shallow like that. Before I can grab anybody's attention, Dax's fingers are curling around my wrist and pulling me off the stool and onto his lap. He shifts his weight, so that he's holding me around the waist with one arm and under the knees with the other. His hand brushes against my nylons and makes me suck in a breath. The feeling of his fingers sliding along the fabric …
purr, purr. Please don't stop doing that.

“I didn't mean a lap dance from me,” I say, touching a hand to his black T-shirt.
Amatory Riot
swirls across the top in purple cursive. “I'm retired, remember?”

“I think I've had a lot to drink,” he slurs, but his eyes are absolutely wicked. There's an ice storm brewing in there, hail falling from the sky and desecrating the landscape of frozen gray. It looks like a peaceful way to die, and I could use a bit of peace. I tilt my head back and let myself get lost in them, enjoying the feeling of being held, of being weightless. I feel like I'm always in charge of everything, all the time. For a split second there, I let Dax take that role. His mouth falls to mine and even though he tastes like vodka, I let him kiss me. I'm not sure if it's the alcohol or the revelation about his family or what, but he's much more demanding with his tongue and teeth this time, forcing me to open up and let him in.

His hold relaxes a bit as he pulls away, leaving me gasping, swallowing hard and leaning forward for more as he settles me into his lap and reluctantly removes his hand from my legs.

“Do you want to meet Tara?” he asks suddenly, and I go very still. When I said I didn't care about Tara, I meant it. I won't judge Dax on something that happened a decade ago. But am I curious? Fuck yeah, of course I am. I play with the neckline on his shirt, sliding my nails underneath the fabric and getting a kick out of the way his skin twitches when I touch him. I think I've finally decided: we just have to fucking
fuck.
It's not an even an option really of
if.
I should've known from the first second I saw him that it was
when.
Turner's right anyway, I owe it to myself to see why I'm so attracted to him in the first place. Worst case scenario, this tension disappears from the air and I move on with my life without ever wondering. Wondering's the worst. It's dreaming about something you never intend to explore. I hate it.