Page 33 of Sweet Ache (Driven 6)
“Yep. I spied,” he confesses with a smirk. “Gotta know where I stand so I know when I’ll be needed to step in. Dude, being a third wheel never sounded so fucking appealing. I still think she’s going to grab you by the balls and add a little twist when telling you to fuck off after how you handled her tonight, but I’ll gladly take the extra ring around my tattooed heart because she’s hot.”
“That she is.” I blow out a breath and angle my head back against the cushion, thinking how I’m not too thrilled with the terms of this bet anymore. I’m not a possessive guy but fuck if I want Vinny in on this one. Then again, I’m not getting a tattoo of a heart like a pussy either.
Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. Shit, I’d much rather just be between her thighs.
But Vince might just be right. I might have screwed the pooch here in how I left things tonight. Talk about a hard row to hoe, kiss her like I want to fuck her and then shove her out the door without so much as a hug. Stellar, Play. Frickin’ stellar.
The sad fact is I’m being protective of her as if I’m looking for something more than some fun between the sheets with a girl who readily admits that she enjoys sex. But I’m not. I don’t have time for that in my life right now, and definitely don’t want to invite the crazy in that comes with the steady woman territory. Jealousy over groupies, inability to handle lonely nights while I’m on the road, and the constant underlying feeling that they’re with me for the wrong reasons. I have enough crazy already to last a lifetime.
Besides, something more means love. Love means weak. Weak means I’ve failed.
No, I most definitely am in this for the challenge, wanting to prove I can bed her as well as get a kick out of fucking with Vince.
Now I have to figure out how to do that since I just proved to her she was right in assuming I was the player she kept telling me I was. But I’m not worried. She hated me at first sight and came around, so it can’t be that much harder to get her into bed.
Now, if I only had her phone number.
“I see you figuring your angles on how to fix this over there Hawky-boy … but it’s going to take a whole lot more than you think. A woman scorned is a whole different animal than a groupie….”
I laugh. “Yeah, they leave bite marks.”
“Hey, a little pain never hurt anybody,” he muses with a slow nod of his head and a tip of his bottle back up.
My phone breaks through our comfortable laughter. Vince looks down at my phone sitting on the soundboard next to him. “Westbrook,” he says, holding the phone out to me.
Fuck. Dread rifles through me. They never call for good news. “Hello?”
“Mr. Play, please.”
“Is my mom okay?” I ask like I don’t know what’s coming next.
“She’s quite agitated. I’ve called your brother but he isn’t answering. We can either give her something to calm her down or—”
“I’m on my way.” I blow out a breath and give Vince a look he knows all to well.
I grab my keys on the run, the familiar burden of responsibility a son should never have weighing heavy on my shoulders. I just wonder how much longer I’ll be able to carry the brunt of it before my back breaks.
&n
bsp; Weak is not an option.
Chapter 9
HAWKIN
The beige walls are supposed to be warm and comforting to the residents but in my mind they do nothing but reinforce my mother’s institutionalization here. The dreary color serves as a steady reminder that she’s so far beyond my ability to help that I have to pay other people to do the job that I no longer can.
I can take the number one spot on every chart in the world with the songs I sing, the lyrics I write, the beats I create, but none of it really matters because I can’t take care of my mother. When will the rest of the world realize that I’m a phony? That I’ve sold out as a son, failed to take care of her as I’d promised Dad, and that I’ve left her with strangers to deal with her so that I don’t have to?
Riding shotgun beside my guilt is the relief. Even that thought causes more guilt to spiral within me as the soles of my shoes squeak down the monochromatic hallways. Because without the daily interaction I was so used to, there’s no opportunity for her to unleash her disdain of me, her spite, her disappointment. Yes, I know it’s her disease talking most of the time but that knowledge does nothing to abate the searing ache of the loss of my mother.
Of the mother who once loved me.
And of the only woman I’ve loved. I’ve spent a lifetime building walls to keep everyone at arm’s length and yet with a single phone call, a single word from her, she can bring me to my knees in all senses of the word.
She can make me weak.
I shake off the morose thoughts, force myself to push away the memories from earlier that are still clouding the edges of my mind.
