Within minutes, I had the alarm disabled and the car started. War took shotgun, crazy ass grins on both our faces now. I steered the BMW out of eastside and took the entrance ramp onto the 405. We rolled down the windows. It was fucking awesome.

I didn’t have much of a plan. I just remembered a field trip we’d taken several years ago so I exited on SE 8th Street with a vague idea of heading to Kelsey Creek Park and hanging out. We never made it there. We had the music up loud. I wasn’t paying near enough attention to the road. I was fifteen and I found out real quick that a car was a lot more difficult to negotiate than a dirt bike. Long story short, our fucking good time came to an abrupt end when we rammed into the train trestle at a good thirty-five mile an hour clip.

Face stinging, my nose wrinkled from the unpleasant chemical odor that came from the deployed airbag I was buried in. I disentangled myself from the sticky material that didn’t seem to want to let me go and glanced to the side. War’s face was bright red like someone had bitch slapped him. I’m sure I looked exactly the same.

“I’m ok,” War assured me, his wide rounded brown eyes meeting mine. “Just kinda woozy and sore.”

That’s exactly how I felt. Without saying anymore, we released our seatbelts and unlatched our doors. As I got out, I noticed there weren’t even any skid marks on the road because I hadn’t reacted in time to apply the brakes. I looked at War over the roof of the car. “We’d better get out of here, dude.”

“And fast,” he added unnecessarily, looking more than a little freaked. We hit the ground running flat out, adrenaline high and breathing hard. But we weren’t fast enough. A couple of cops in a squad car passed by us, did a double take, and u-turned.

Shit.

“Let me take care of this Bry,” War hissed under his breath.

“What are you going to do?” I questioned low, my eyes having gone wide and my heart pounding hard as the cops pulled up beside us.

War gave me a serious as shit look. “I think it’s been established that I take care of my friends, right?”

My chin dipped in acknowledgment. It certainly had. He’d pulled my ass out of the fire plenty of times. Most recently taking the blame when I’d spray painted some choice obscenities on the bathroom wall at school.

I had a lot of anger issues since my old man had come back.

“You know that’s just me, but further and more important is that my mom won’t give a shit if I get in trouble, hell she probably won’t even notice, but yours will. You’ve got a good thing going with your mom.”

I nodded.

“We both know that if she found out you did something like this, it would wreck all that. So I’ll repeat. Let me handle this.”

As we stood there together side by side out on the rain slickened pavement and watched the cops approach, my fritzed out thoughts were all over the place. But above the static, what hit me big was what War hadn’t said, yet I understood, especially after the deal with his father today…

I was the only real family Warren Jinkins had.

1

The Present

I woke with my head pounding out a heavy bass throb. I glanced at my watch. Four fucking a.m. I’d only been asleep for a couple of hours. The bottle of tequila had obviously been a big mistake. My mouth tasted like sand. I needed a bottled water and at least two extra strength Tylenol.

I climbed out of my bunk, cursing when my toes came into contact with the freezing floor of the tour bus. The force of the winter storm wind rocked the forty-five foot long structure side to side and howled beneath the undercarriage. I pulled on yesterday’s jeans and grabbed a pack of cigarettes and my lighter before pushing the button to open the pocket door to the front lounge. A woman sat at the banquette with her back to me, but I’d recognize her anywhere.

Lace.

I froze solid. I wondered when she had come on board. It must have been last night while I’d been preoccupied with the twins. Mind quickly running back over the evening’s events, I realized that War had been conspicuously absent from the meet and greet. He must’ve been with her. The familiar jealous burn seared the inside of my chest like battery acid.

Her head turned slightly, eyes the color of expensive whiskey meeting mine. Her face was as captivatingly beautiful as I remembered, framed by honey blond hair that was much longer than it’d been the last time I’d seen her. She was thinner, too. Too thin. Her cheek bones more prominent, her complexion pale, even her wide lips seemed drained of their usual apricot color.

“Bryan.”

That breathy voice of hers shot right to my groin. Even hung over and recently satiated my dick came right to attention. Clamoring after what it could never have. What I could never have.

The woman War loved.

“Lace.” I took my time running my gaze over her. The black long sleeved Tempest t-shirt War had worn on stage last night hung down to mid-thigh on her. Knowing damn well what was underneath that shirt. Remembering the shape, the texture, and the taste of her, my hands started to shake so badly I had to shove them into the back pockets of my jeans so she wouldn’t notice.

Lace gave me a darting sidelong glance while bringing her long shapely legs closer together. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She looked nervous. I didn’t get it. So what if I was shirtless with my jeans half-buttoned. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen me this way before. I wasn’t gonna cover up for her.

She licked her lips. “Nipple ring’s new,” she observed quietly.

“Yeah, nice of you to notice.” I got my legs going and moved toward her, motioning to the banquette. “Scoot over.” Holding the hem in place over her ass and thighs, she slid toward the window making room for me. I flopped down on the padded two-person bench seat and stared at her profile. “You get in last night?”

“Yeah.” She shifted away from me, just a tad, but enough that I definitely noticed. She twisted her hands so tightly together that her fingertips turned red.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded to know, even though secretly I was glad to see her. My eyes drank her in head to bare toes in a greedy gulp, cataloguing every line and curve. It’d been too long since I’d seen her. “I thought you were with Martin now.” Lace had started up with him right after we’d signed our first record deal. War had been apoplectic. I’d just hidden how I felt like I’d been doing for as long as I could remember. My friendship with War left me with no other choice. “He’d kick your ass if he knew you were here. War’s, too.”

I’d been joking around, but when she turned her head, I sucked in a sharp breath wishing I hadn’t. The left side of her face was a collage of overlapping fading purple and yellow bruises. It was obvious she had been hit hard, multiple times.

I squeezed the side of the table with both hands wishing I could get ahold of Martin’s neck instead.

I was going to kill that mother fucker.

“Yeah, well, as you can see he already took care of that.” A spark of defiance brightened her eyes, giving me a glimpse of the vibrant woman I remembered. “I didn’t stick around to give him the chance to make both sides match.”

“What the hell happened?”

Her shoulders sagged, the momentary flash of sass disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. She was quiet for so long I didn’t think she planned to answer. “It’s not important. Not anymore. It’s over between us.” She had that stubborn tilt to her jaw that I recognized. I wasn’t going to get any more information out of her than she wanted to give.

“Does Martin know it’s over?”

“Oh yeah, I think his fists made that perfectly clear.”

“You mean to tell me that he broke it off with you?” I asked unable to disguise the disbelief in my tone. The guy was an idiot as well as an asshole. What man in his right mind would give up Lace if he had her?

Her eyes slid to her lap. After a brief pause, she nodded. Her sexy lips pressed together into a tight line. “I pawned the engagement ring he gave me for a bus ticket out here,” she confided.

Most women I knew would’ve teared up after all this, but not Lace. She never cried. Strike that. She never cried anymore. When we’d been kids she cried a helluva lot. But the last time had been that horrible night, the night we were supposed to go to the Metallica concert.

“I’m sorry.” I reached over and covered her delicate hand with my own.

“Don’t be,” she returned evenly, slowly sliding her hand out from under mine. “Martin was just another mistake in a long line of them.” She watched me through a gap in the curtain of her gold hair. “What about you, Bullet?” Her eyes took on a mischievous glint. “Or should I say?” She paused and added in an orgasmic sounding breathless moan. “Oh Bullet! Faster! Harder!’” The corner of her mouth lifted with amusement at my expense.

I winced. Shit. She’d heard me in the back bedroom with the twins. I didn’t usually go for multiples. It was too much work, but after getting the brush off from Avery, the beautiful lead guitarist of Brutal Strength, I’d felt as if I had something to prove.

“You know me, Lace.” I watched her face carefully. “I don’t do relationships.” I got up and moved to the refrigerator, pulling out a couple of bottled waters.

“Yeah, that’s not something I’m likely to forget.” Her voice sounded strained. I felt the undercurrent of meaning just beneath the surface of the words we were saying to each other. I swung back around, but her eyes didn’t give anything away. “I’m sorry. I was just messing with you,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hands that I didn’t buy. “What you do with your personal life is none of my business. No offense, ok?”