Fast Lane - Kristen Ashley Page 0,87

him, we’re not gonna make that mistake again.

We’re hopin’ he’s with Lyla, but Tommy reaches out to her and she asks that we maintain a distance but shares she hasn’t seen Preach.

This is bad.

Where is the fuckin’ guy?

And how’s he coping with all this shit, especially without Lyla, because you know, sister, it’s a goddamn feeding frenzy in the media.

People dissecting every one of our songs.

That detective who didn’t listen to Preacher is still alive, but retired, and he feels like absolute garbage he let that situation slip like he did, and Tommy has to hire security for him because he’s getting death threats from our fans.

Fuckin’ hell.

[Shakes head]

And through this, Preacher is a ghost.

I wanna think this is a tactic.

That he’s got it all planned.

That he thinks, if he’s not part of feeding that frenzy, it’ll die down and that’s why he’s keeping his head low.

[Pauses]

It isn’t.

But Lyla is with the band.

[Nods]

She’s Lyla.

We’d hit a squall and the boat was rockin’.

So yeah.

Fuck yeah.

She’s with the band.

During both trials, every day of each trial, every member of the Roadmasters sat in the gallery.

[Nods]

With Lyla.

[Nods]

However, McCade only attended the days when he was testifying.

[Drums armrest with his fingers and nods]

And he walks into the courtroom, gives his testimony, then out of it, all without looking at the band or Lyla.

[Blows out audible breath and nods]

Now, Shawn might tell you different, because I know he feels the weight of it, but this is on me.

I was not sixteen years old and gettin’ my friends together to jam in my garage.

I was a grown man.

Preacher’s name was in the title, but he made it clear from the very beginning, and with every move after, that we were partners.

In my mind and everyone else’s it was his band.

In Preacher’s mind, it was our band.

His and mine.

And what he said to me that day in his crib in LA, the last time I saw him before the trials, he was right.

Once.

He checks out once ’cause he’s dealin’ with his own shit, and it’s big fuckin’ shit.

Just once.

He doesn’t need to have to come to me and say, “Hey, brother, my world is about to blow up, can you look after the boys?”

[Hits chest with his fist]

I’m a grown-ass man.

Straight-up, I should have been at his side all along helping to look after the boys.

And I was not all that time.

And I was not when it mattered.

It isn’t my place to say, but in listening to these words, I must point out that it’s easy to see you did step up. You might not have handled things the way McCade would have, but you stepped up.

No, I did not handle things the way Preach would have.

Because he would not have lost control of the band.

When Trelane’s book releases, and Preacher is absent, Lyla has for the most part vanished as well, and regardless of the band’s attendance at the trials, once they’re done, Preacher does not resurface and Lyla is removed, therefore, the band faces an onslaught of breakup rumors.

Preacher was right.

I fell down on the job.

I know that.

I feel that.

That shit lives in me.

And I’m not gonna let it happen again.

Problem is, Preacher is MIA.

It’s coming clear Lyla is lost to us.

Those trials were ugly, sister. What we heard. What we saw. The media. Understanding on a visceral level what Preacher’s life was like. Hearing that shit come from his own goddamned mouth. Our brother, sitting on a witness stand, relating, in detail, the hell he lived through with those monsters. What he pulled himself out of to get where he got.

And for the rest of the guys, this is all news.

Tim’s dad was an alcoholic and his mom was checked out another way.

Dave’s parents spent their lives livin’ in a cloud of pot smoke.

They all know what happened to me with my friend knockin’ up my sister and losing Dad.

They think Preach’s shit is on the same level of all that.

No one, but me and Lyla are prepared for how sinister and evil this is.

I get word from Lyla that it’s irrevocably over between her and Preacher, I do not dig deep into that because she sounds like she is not lying, and I don’t mean in terms of being firm.

I mean she sounds like her world is ending.

So, it’s over, on all fronts.

It just is.

But it’s my band to look after while Preacher is gone.

And I’m not gonna fuckin’ call it.

Way he acted toward Preacher, the way Leeanne played him, Tim has decided