Page 26 of Wicked Angel
“We’re supposed to be brothers,” he pressed.
“We were never brothers,Johnny.”
The truth of that pressed down on us, prickling with honesty. The kind of honesty we’d always skirted around with each other.
Well, no point in that now.
“It’s probably best if we both walk away from this conversation now,” I added flatly. “You really want out of the band? Don’t let me to stop you. You want our relationship dead? Consider it buried.”
“Believe me, it’s buried.”
“Don’t make yourself too comfortable in Noah’s house,” I told him, opening my car door. “And don’t think you can poison him against me.”
“I don’t need to poison anything. Your actions speak for themselves. Anyone wants to stand by you, stay onboard that crazy train, good luck to them.”
“Maybe we’ll see each other one day, on the charts. Breakneck versus whatever you put together.”
“You think you’re taking Breakneck?” He laughed under his breath. “The band isn’t yours, Johnny.”
“We’ll see.” I got into the car, and Lamar got back in on his side. “Good luck with your songwriting. I know a few lyricists who can help if you get stuck.” I shut the door, but JC just kept going through the open window.
“Fuck you, man. Why don’t you go play ‘Long Train Runnin’’ a few hundred times and get blackout drunk, then wake up next to someone else’s woman?” The Hellcat roared to life and he shouted over it. “That’s the pattern, isn’t it?”
“I’ll tell Noah and Miles you said hi,” I replied.
“No need to tell Miles anything on my account,” I heard him say as I started backing out. “But I will tell him you said goodbye…”
His voice faded out as I backed into the street, then floored it out of there.
I headed straight downtown, to a bar, where I asked Lex and Dane to meet us for a drink.
One drink turned into many.
I didn’t even tell my friends what was going on with my band. Lamar didn’t say anything. He was friendly with my friends, but the man was a vault. For all they knew I just wanted to get pissed. It was Friday night, after all.
Sometime in the night, I learned that my pussy of a bassist had walked out in solidarity with JC. Half my band was gone. I’d talked to Miles again, but that conversation went nowhere. Apparently he, too, had a laundry list of grudges against me that he’d been saving up for a day such as this. And apparently there was nothing I could say to stop my bandmates from leaving.
I really didn’t know what to do about it.
Always thought one day I’d be walking away, leaving them.
Maybe that was why I’d always had one foot out the door. JC was fucking right about that. Abandonment was not an option; I was supposed to leave them, not the other way around.
But even though I couldn’t stop them from leaving, I could salvage what I had left. I spoke to Noah again, and he reassured me that he wasn’t leaving the band—what was left of it.
And all that was left of Breakneck by the end of the night, other than Noah Vaughan, was me.
* * *
By one a.m., Dane had gone home to his wife. Lex stayed a bit longer. His wife, Talia, had joined us, but the two of them had finally gone home.
I was drunk, but not blackout drunk.
And I didn’t take anyone else’s woman home with me.
When Lamar drove me home in my car, we turned into the front gate to find Angeline Delacroix in my driveway.
I surveyed the scene as Lamar rolled us to a stop.
