what matters is what he's doing now. WHO he's doing it with. And that was me. “Sorry if I ruined the mood.”
Plucking the condom from my fingers, he slid it into his pocket and zipped his pants. “You didn't.” His lips pressed on my forehead; it was the most tender kiss he'd given me. Stunned, I stayed on my knees, my mouth hanging open. Squinting, Drezden adjusted himself in his pants with a grunt. “If you stay down there like that, I'll be tempted to continue.”
Grinning wide, I sat on my calves. “What's stopping you?”
Scratching at his hair, the singer lifted his phone free. “Barbed Fire is finishing up their show, Brenda will kill me if you don't at least get into a clean outfit for our set.”
Like that, my heart shrank. Oh no. Oh no oh no.
Standing in a whirl, I scrambled to find my bra. I took even longer to get it back on, finally just yanking my shirt over my shoulders to ease the process. Drez stared appreciatively, but I was in too much of a panic to care.
Yanking at the trailer door, I breathed faster—harder. In my distress, it took me a second to remember I had to unlock it.
I missed Sean's show.
Drezden had done it. He'd made me forget, and I could only blame myself.
And blaming myself...
Well.
That was the easy part.
Cold evening air assaulted me. I barely felt it, legs pumping, carrying me back into Belly Up's. The backdoor had security floating around, but they took one look at me, who I was, and didn't slow me down.
It was sort of strange. Not so long ago, guards like that had thrown me to the ground outside the Headstones' bus. They'd stomped on my morale, all because they didn't know who I was.
Now they knew.
“Sean!” My shoes pounded backstage, my attention flying around as I tried to spot my brother among the crew tearing the set down. Through the walls, the screaming tsunami of the crowd was deafening. “Sean! Sean, where—Sean!”
I spotted him a few feet away. The only hint that he'd heard me shouting his name was a quick, dismissive glance over one shoulder. Then he walked away, following the rest of his band to the rear of the building.
I wasn't going to give up, though. The fear that was swelling in me threatened that if I didn't explain myself to Sean now...
There would never be another chance.
Panting, I chased him out a side door and back into the low-lit parking lot of Belly Up. “Wait, hey, just hold up!” My voice was ragged; I was glad it wasn't my job to sing tonight.
Sean didn't stop until I grabbed his shoulder. Finally, he spun around, the other Barbed Fire members slowing to see what was going on. “What the hell do you want, Lola?” he snapped.
Pulling up short, I held a hand to my burning chest. “I need to talk to you!”
“Yeah?” Shooting a glare at the sky, he avoided my pleading eyes. “Maybe I don't have the time, maybe you'll just need to talk to me later.”
“Don't pull that shit!” Through my guilt, a tumor of frustration was bloating. “Earlier was different, you know I had no time, but I was going to talk to you!”
“Just like how you were going to answer your phone one of the fucking times I called?”
“It was fucking dead!”
Wiping his nose, my brother shrugged to his ears. “For all I knew, so were you.”
Wind fled my lungs. What could I say to that? “It—I was fine.” But he didn't know that. “Sean, please—”
“Why don't you just go hang out with your fuck-buddy, Drezden?” Pointing, I followed his finger, spotting the singer where he was leaning nearby on the outside wall of the bar. “That's all you care about. Doesn't matter what I've done for you, you don't give a shit about any of it now that you're the 'famous' one.”
It was like he'd stabbed me between my ribs. I grabbed for him, but Sean easily stepped away. The cold indifference in his eyes reminded me terribly of our father. How he would look at me with contempt, the constant reminder of his wife's infidelity. “Sean... please... it isn't like that.”
“We both know why you missed my show just now.” Turning away, his scowling profile belonged to someone I didn't know. This bitter person wasn't my brother.
He couldn't be.
Did he change... or was it me? Staring after his vanishing form, I lifted a hand. It was all I could