Talk. I want to hear what happened from your mouth before I bust you wide open for touching her.”
“I kissed her.”
“You more than kissed her. You tasted her. I saw you, Bry. That was no chaste lip touch. Don’t bullshit me.”
“Yeah, okay. Fucking hell.” His gaze on me, he raked a hand through his hair. “I have feelings for her, man. You know I do. But she’s with you, and so I have no play. I tried to explain that to her, but she was upset. I don’t like seeing her upset.”
Neither the fuck did I. But I didn’t know fuck-all about comforting her, because when the fuck had anyone ever comforted me?
“A kiss, a taste. It went too far. But only to that point.” He lifted his chin and beckoned me. “Bring it. I deserve it. I fucked up.”
I was a mean motherfucker and he deserved it, so I gave it. Choices had consequences. Cause and effect, a Southside specialty.
Bryan felt me when I finished. But I wasn’t nearly through.
Lace
“What the hell was that, Lace?” Dizzy asked, shaking his head at me.
“I love him,” I said simply. To me, that explained it all. Besides Bryan, my brother was the only other person I could share that truth with before I had to bury it.
Bryan had kissed me, and yes, it had been as amazing as I’d imagined. But he hadn’t returned the words, and he’d walked away afterward. It obviously hadn’t been a transcendent experience for him.
“But he doesn’t love me,” I said quickly to clarify. “He’s honorable. He’s loyal to War, even though I practically threw myself at him.” I rubbed the center of my chest where the hurt continued to burn.
“Okay, if you say so.” Dizzy gave me a quizzical look. “Do you want a drink?”
I started to say no. Growing up with a mother like ours, I’d never seen the allure in drinking. But I nodded, taking a big sip from the tumbler he slid my way. It tasted nasty, but I needed the liquid courage. I’d put Bryan in that situation, thinking there was something between us worth risking the current storm raining shit on all of us.
I took several sips as Dizzy reached over the bar, grabbed an empty tumbler, and filled it with the same amber liquid. The hurt-burn inside my chest had just started to give way to the medicinal flames of the alcohol when Dizzy spoke again.
“You sticking with War?”
I nodded.
“You love him too?” he asked softly.
“Yeah, Diz. I just . . . it’s different. They’re different.”
For War, affection and anger were linked. I didn’t know if it were even possible for him to extract one without losing the other.
For Bryan, there was anger too, but also tenderness. If the right woman came along—obviously, not me—he would do everything in his power, not just to have her but to shower her with his affection and keep her safe.
Dizzy put his hand over mine. “Then you trust War to do right by you?”
“He has for the past year.” I slid my hand away and took another sip of courage. “It’s me that screwed up tonight, not him.”
“Not asking whether or not you trust him not to step out on you.” Dizzy frowned, his eyebrow piercing catching and reflecting the light from the pendant hanging over the bar. “Do you trust him when it comes to the band? We both know how he is, and I remember him cutting you out of it without much cause once before. Now with this, that doesn’t seem like a good precedent.”
“You think he might try to manipulate my affection? Dangle my place in the band in exchange for doing what he wants me to do. Is that it?”
Dizzy nodded somberly, and War reappeared as if conjured.
“C’mon.” He stomped right to me. His expression and his eyes dark, he grabbed my arm. “Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Dizzy said. “What’s going on?”
“I’m taking my woman out. You got a problem with me, Lowell?”
My brother’s words and the warning in them rang in my ears. It wasn’t only my position in Tempest that could be lost because of my choices.
“It’s okay, Diz,” I said. “I know what I’m doing.” But suddenly, I wasn’t so sure. The man who held me seemed more an agent of wrath than a solicitous boyfriend.
“I hope so, Lace.” The crease between my brother’s brows deepened.
“No show tonight,” War said, his dark tone matching his expression. “Bry’s in no condition to play, and I have some things