THIRTY-SEVEN
DILLON
“Dillon? Hey, excuse me?”
I turned around and glowered at the redhead tapping my shoulder. “What?” She retreated a couple of steps back and wrung her hands. “What did you want?”
“Dillon, be nice,” Buchanan scolded me, handing me another beer. Jamie was taking forever to get changed, but whatever. I could be patient. I did have my limits though, and if another five minutes went by, I’d storm backstage to find him.
“Oh, umm. Jamie asked if you could go backstage and help him? His feet are kill?—”
“When did he tell you to ask me?” I bit out. Was she for real? The show finished almost forty minutes ago.
“Errm.” She glanced at her watch and winced. “Like forty minutes ago?
“Fuck!”
“S-sorry, I got distracted.” I stepped right up in her personal space and bent down so we were eye level. “If he’s upset, or worse, hurt…” I poked her in the chest. “I’m holding you personally responsible.”
“He’ll be fine, he was soaking his feet when I left him.” I ignored her fumbled words, tapped B on the shoulder for him to follow me, and cut through the crowd toward the side entrance for the backstage area.
“Why are we doing this, Dillon? He wanted you.”
I glanced at him over my shoulder. “Call it trusting my gut. Something isn’t right.” I didn’t know how to explain it, but as the minutes ticked by, the tension in my body coiled tighter and tighter. After that slimy twerp earlier and now this… it felt like things were working against me and my little crow. Nothing on this goddamn green earth was going to keep him from me.
Jamie liked to think of me as a good guy. And to him—minus my fuck-ups the last few months—I was. But to everyone else, I was a deranged man child with a hair-trigger temper. The only people to ever cross me were Stevens and fucking Chad, and they were about to realize revenge was a dish best served cold. When I was through with them, they would no longer be on the team and most likely kicked out of Briar U altogether.
Cory was worth his weight in fucking gold. He found out about their sex game and how Stevens got so many conquests. The guy had been drugging girls left and right to get the highest points in a night. Fucking savages! Disgusting. I couldn’t believe I once thought Stevens was a decent guy. It turned out I was a shit judge of character, unlike my little crow. He surrounded himself with people who would go to war for him. They were drawn to him like moths to a flame.
The door looming in front of me snapped me out of my thoughts, and I pulled down the handle. It didn’t open. What the fuck? Irritation and a flash of fear coursed through me. “Fuck this door,” I ground out and slammed my shoulder into it. Buchanan laughed behind me, muttering “Fuck that bush. Fuck that bush.” Fucking child. It took our combined forces to open the door, and once we got through, it all made sense. Someone had barricaded it with storage shelves and prop shit.
“This ain’t good.”
“You can say that again, B.” I grunted as I kicked a pile of boxes out of the way.It was like a fucking rabbit warren around here, and was dark as night. “Fuck!” I yanked my hair as the door slammed shut behind us, and my skin crawled with frustration.
“I’ll get the… shit.”
“What?”
“The lights don’t work.” He pulled out his phone and switched on the flashlight. Thank fuck one of us was thinking straight. I pulled mine out and did the same.
“Which way?”
“Call him. If he’s here, you can follow his ringtone.” He paused. “Assuming you know it, that is.”
I punched him in the shoulder. “Of course, I fucking know it. It’s some Falling In Reverse song he’s obsessed with.” I tapped the speed dial, and his phone rang in my ear, but I couldn’t hear anything in the space around us. Buchanan muttered something, but I didn’t catch it as I was too focused on the fact my call went to voicemail.
“Levi said to go straight ahead. It’s the last door on the right.”
Levi? He must have texted him. I shook my head at myself. I needed to stop letting my emotions get in the way of rational thought.
“Come on,” I replied, picking up my pace. Buchanan followed, hot on my heels. My heart was hammering against my ribs, but I ignored it, trying to keep my mind clear and focused as I tried Jamie’s phone again.
“He also said there was no issue with the lights.”
Well, that was just fucking great. I knew something was off. “Fuck me! This damn door is locked too. Step back!” I braced against the wall opposite the door before charging it and kicking it in. It crashed into the drywall, the sound reverberating through the large room.
B flicked the light switch. “Still no lights.”