Rage (11 page)

and been between them, his eyes level with her waist. It was hard not to think about how she’d respond to that. He also could have grabbed her by the ankle and yanked her in. It was equally appealing.

An awkward silence fell between them, and Phillip waited.

She’d approached him, so the ball was in her court.

She cleared her throat. “So how’ve you been, Phillip?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“W…Well…you know, how are things…with the band?”

She looked down at her lap.

He pushed back from the side of the pool. “You didn’t

come over here to ask me about Fury. What do you want, Steph-

anie?” He refused to make idle chit-chat when he couldn’t get

the image of Clive Richards pawing her out of his mind. Stepha-

nie heaved an exasperated sigh.

“You know, I thought we could do the mature thing. Try to

smooth things over privately so we aren’t remembered as the two

assholes that ruined the wedding.”

He laughed heartily and shook his head. Steph looked as if

he’d slapped her.

“Smooth things over? There’s nothing to smooth over, love.

It’s ancient history. I think we should just try to avoid each other this week.”

Steph paused and drew in a long breath. He anticipated an

argument, anger, or some other emotional outburst. Instead, she

simply nodded and climbed to her feet.

“You’re absolutely right, Phillip. It’s old news.”

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He watched her gorgeous backside as she bent to pick up

her shoes, and he wanted to call out to her to come back. Some-

how, he suppressed the urge and let her leave.

It seemed like only yesterday when she’d shut him down in

a similar fashion and he’d been too devastated to see straight.

When he stumbled out of her hospital room, he’d hopped in his

Aston Martin nearly plowing down several paparazzi as he sped

to the market. He’d bought a bottle of Tullamore Dew and a car-

ton of cigarettes and drove back to the cottage. He’d sat by the brook for hours, drinking from the bottle and chain smoking. His thoughts were a hazy blur of a future without her.

He stumbled inside, knowing from experience that he was

close to passing out. He steadied himself on the doorframe of the master bedroom, and his eyes fell on the silk nightgown he’d

peeled off of Stephanie the night before. It lay on the hard wood floor as a taunting reminder that he’d never again hold her.

Tears sprung to his eyes, and anger clouded his vision. He

be damned if he’d shed one more fucking tear over her. She

couldn’t even be bothered to have a discussion about marrying

him. He’d been dismissed like an unwelcome servant. His last

memories of that night were cradling bloody fists and passing

out on the couch so that he didn’t have to lie on the sheets that smelled like her peppermint shampoo.

Daylight had seared through his closed eyelids, ripping him

from his restless slumber. He had sat up, and the room spun.

When normal vision had finally returned, he’d realized just how

much damage he’d done the night before. Overturned furniture,

broken dishes, red-tinged holes in the white washed walls all

brought back flashes of the previous evening. He’d looked down

at his own hands and saw they were bloody and swollen.

“Bloody hell.” He’d murmured, when he discovered that he

couldn’t close his right hand. He’d completely lost control and

what was worse, he felt his feral rage threatening to surface

again. He couldn’t be around people in his current state of mind.

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If he stayed, his sisters would come looking for him. Worse, Ad-

am or Cedric might show up. He knew he needed to get far away

from Stephanie, and he wasn’t ready to face the rest of Fury.

Phillip tossed his guitar case and luggage into the boot of

his car and slid in behind the wheel. As he pulled away from the cottage, his phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and studied Stephanie’s name flashing on the screen. A cold numbness overtook him. He braked on the bridge and tossed his phone into the

brook.

He drove to the coast and parked his car in his storage gar-

age. His uncle’s place on Inishmore was the one private refuge

he was still had. Uncle Cal was the black sheep of the family, set apart by his crusty military exterior that didn’t mesh with the rest of them. It had been months since he’d been out to the isle, but the moment he stepped onto the rocky beach, he felt the weight

of the world slip from his shoulders. As he made his way up the

bank toward the tiny seaside pub, a mahogany Irish setter trotted up to him.

“Hey there, Fi.” He greeted her, rubbing her behind the

ears. He glanced up at the porch of the pub and saw his Uncle

Callahan leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded

across his barrel chest.

“Hiya, Boyo. Those golden locks of yours are lookin’ a wee

bit girly.”

Phillip didn’t smile. “Got a razor?”

An hour later, he sat at the bar rubbing his newly shorn head

and nursing a pint of Guinness.

Callahan shook his bald head as he made sweeping circular

motions on the bar with a cloth. “Well, you won’t have to worry

about being recognized. You look like a cancer patient.”

“Good. I need a change of pace.” Phillip rubbed his finger

across the shiny wood of the bar, refusing to look his uncle in the eye.

“So what brings you out here to No Man’s Land?”

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He took a long pull off his stout and smacked his lips as the

burnt barley flavor engaged his taste buds in a familiar dance. “I just needed somewhere to slow down.”

He stuck out his lower lip in a mock pout. “Ahhhh. The

rock star life got you down?”

Phillip said nothing and continued to pick at the label on a

nearby bottle of booze.

“What happened to your hands?” Callahan’s complexion

was rosy from drinking and his attention unflinching. “How

about that bruise on your jaw? Cat got your tongue, Nancy

Boy?”

Again, he had no response. Phillip cast his steely eyes up at

Callahan once, then back to his beer.

The corner of his uncle’s mouth lifted. “This is about a

woman, isn’t it?”

Phillip polished off his pint in one swig. Before the bottom

of the glass hit the bar, there was a fresh one in front of him.

Phillip spent the following three weeks in a booth at the pub

overlooking the sea poisoning his liver and writing songs. When

he wasn’t feeling creative, he took aimless walks on the craggy

beach with his guitar and Fiona the dog. He sat on the cliffs and played or just smoked. Once in a while he went out fishing with

Callahan on his boat.

One night, Callahan’s old Navy buddy, Bones, came to vis-

it. He was a tattoo artist from Dublin. and he was overjoyed at

Phillip’s drunken suggestion that he ink him up. Phillip wanted

something Celtic over his heart. Bones nodded and drew up a

design. When he explained its meaning, Phillip swallowed hard

and nodded. Callahan said nothing, but poured him a shot.

About halfway through the tat, his uncle spoke. “Here,

Wanker. You won’t be able to take the pain without another drop

of the creature.”

Hours later, Phillip stumbled to the water’s edge, guitar in

hand. He looked down at his blackened and bloody chest.

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“Stephanie.” He slurred and attempted to launch into his

latest creation. He was too drunk to find the fingering for the

first chord. He stood and turned to head for a warm place to pass out, when he stumbled over his own feet and tumbled into the

water. Fiona, who had been napping on the porch, started bark-

ing, and moments later Callahan and Bones were dragging him

from the sea.

“Go put on some coffee for this young lady.” Callahan in-

structed Bones, who made himself scarce. As Phillip lay on his

side choking up salt water, Callahan grabbed him by his shirt

collar and pulled him to his feet. “Listen to me, you silly bastard.

You need to crawl to that lass on your hands and knees. Tomor-

row.”

“She doesn’t love me. I asked her to marry me, and she said

no!’

“Then ask her again, lad. It’s painfully obvious you’re in

love with her. Your entire life, you’ve never given a single

thought to anyone but your spoiled fucking self. Until now.”

“She’s killing me. I can’t see her.”

“Listen to me. You need to quit being an ignorant little git.

Anything worth having is worth bleeding for. I realize you’ve

been coddled your entire life, but I’m not afraid to be the one to tell you to grow the fuck up.”

“Screw you, Callahan.”

“You’re doing a pretty good job of screwing yourself when

you could be off screwing your lady. Maybe she didn’t want a

pampered little pussy for a husband who spends more time look-

ing in the mirror than looking at her.”

“Up yours, Cal! Steph’s my whole world. You have no

fucking idea.”

“Well, well, I guess even ‘the charmed one’ Phillip Kersey

can’t always get what he wants. Welcome to the human race,

Boyo.” Callahan released his grip, and Phillip went sprawling

back onto the rocky ground. “You know I love you, but I want

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you gone tomorrow morning. Pack your shit and go. If you can

manage to step down from your pedestal, go beg that girl to take you back. She must really be something.”

As his uncle headed for the pub, Phillip called after him.

“Help me up!”

Without a pause in his stride or a second glance, he whistled

for Fiona, who trotted after him. “Help yourself up.”

As hung-over as he was, he was gone on the first ferry be-

fore sunrise the following morning. As he drove toward Galaway

Airport, he thought long and hard about Callahan’s barbs. He

knew his uncle’s points were valid. His massive ego had allowed

him to assume Steph would say yes, though he’d never even told

her he loved her until the day he had proposed. In Galaway, he

purchased and activated a new cell phone and cringed when he

heard that his voice mailbox was full. Before his flight took off for London, he’d listened to every hang up and message he’d

missed. The concerned calls from Scot and his family members.

Angry calls from his manager, Bret, and the record label. Worst

of all were the messages from Steph. At first she sounded tired

and exasperated, then the messages progressed to teary pleading.

Then anger. After that she left nothing but hang ups.

As soon as his plane touched down in London, he was on

his way to Abbey Road Studios. He owed the band the apology

of a lifetime, and he knew right where to find them. His reap-

pearance was met with a mixture of anger and relief. He slapped

down the stack of songs in front of Bret and launched into a

well-practiced monologue about how he’d needed the solitude to

refocus.

“Well, you could have bloody called us.” David threw a

drum stick at his head. Phillip deftly dodged it and gaped at David.

“We need to get back to work before the studio rips up our

contract.” Bret remarked, putting out a cigarette. Phillip nodded.

“There’s just one more thing I have to do, then I’ll move a

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bloody cot into this studio and live here—I promise.” Nathan

rolled his eyes at Phillip’s oath of loyalty.

“We’ll believe it when we see it.” He lit up a smoke and

waved his cigarette in the air. “Alright, then. What’s so im-

portant that we can’t get right to it?”

“I have to talk to Stephanie first.” You could hear a pin drop

in the studio. No one looked at anyone else.

“Well, I just happen to know where you can find her.” Scot

chimed in as he plucked a few notes on his bass. “She and Chey-

enne are backstage at the Toxicity concert as we speak.”

Nathan gasped overly dramatically and played the first four

notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on his keyboard. Phillip’s

stomach hit the floor. It was like finding out his arch nemesis

had her in a tower with no doors. He thought about his uncle’s

words (anything worth having is worth bleeding for), and his

resolve didn’t falter. He hopped in the passenger side of Na-

than’s Ferrari, and they sped off toward the address Scot had

provided.

The loud splashing sound as someone dived into the pool

pulled Phillip back to present day. Cheyenne surfaced before

him, and the look she wore was homicidal.

“What the hell?” he asked, looking around to see if they had

an audience. Scot smiled and holding up two drinks, saluted him.

“I don’t know. You tell me ‘what the hell’.” She snapped.

With an eye roll, he started to swim away from her, but she

grabbed him tight by the wrist. “Did you say something to upset

Steph?”

Phillip bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. “I don’t

have to say anything to upset her. My very existence pisses her

off.”

“We’re here for Yara and David. Try to keep the drama to a

minimum.”

“Steph’s already informed me of my role and what my

place is here. I bow to her wishes.”

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She scoffed. “You are such an asshole. Steph always said