Page 53 of Rock Strong

For her.

“You’re right. She’d only destroy Point Break property. Are you going to sue her for that?” He laughed under his breath, headed toward the window, and pulled apart the curtains.

“Don’t be an idiot. I deserved it. She had every right to do what she did. I’ll buy Corbin a new bass.”

“A Gibson ES-Les Paul semi-hollow, gold top. Actually.” Tucker whirled around, banging out a rhythm on the wall, the coffee table, then the couch as he made his way back to where I was.

Pfft…drummers. “Yes, I know which one, Tuck. Now go away, please.”

“Fine, whatever.” Tucker paused at the door. “Just wanted to say I was sorry for anything I did. I know you were really starting to like Abby. I guess I just didn’t want to believe it.” He sighed, then added, “Oh, I also wanted to let you know that Helen is on her way.”

“On her way where?” I started tossing the cushion in the air repeatedly. “I thought she left for LA.”

“She was staying with Giselle a few days, but she came back last night.” Three sharp knocks on the door told me Helen was closer than we’d both thought. “Speak of the devil.” He opened the door, and we both stared at my friend of ten years, standing there looking way more innocent than she ought to.

“Hey.” She lifted her hand by way of greeting. I’d never hit a girl in my life and never would, but I did want to take my foot and kick her back into the hallway and close the door behind her.

Tucker slipped out of the room like a thief in the night, leaving me with Lucifer herself.

“Why would you do that, Helen?”

“Do what, Liam?”

“Don’t ‘do what?’ me. You know exactly what I’m talking about!” I was shouting. I’d shouted at Tuck before, shouted at my brothers, shouted at Robbie during intense moments of disagreement, but I’d never shouted at Helen before.

She dropped her purse on the foyer table and took slow steps toward me.

“Don’t put your purse down, because you won’t be staying long,” I snarled.

Her footsteps stopped as she stared at me wide-eyed. “Well, that’s mature.”

“Mature? You want to talk about mature?” I was up, off the couch, stalking up to her. She backed away slowly. “How about you going to Giselle’s to have a pity party about how I’m seeing Abby, rallying the troops, then telling Giselle lies about how I want her, need her, so she’ll come to the show and fuck up my life, Helen? Huh? Explain to me how fucking mature that is!” The pointing in her face wasn’t helping. I lowered my finger and turned in a huge huff. “That was unnecessary. If you were mad about something, if there was something you wanted to say to me, you could have just told me instead of going behind my back!”

“Me going behind your back? If you wanted a loving relationship, Liam, I have been by your side this whole time, waiting for you. Hoping you’d realize I deserve your love first before anybody else. Isn’t that how it should be?”

“What?!” I said incredulously. “Wow, I didn’t know there was a line of people waiting for me to fall in love with them, Helen, and I sure as shit didn’t know you were at the front of the that line. I never even considered it.”

“Well, now you know.” Her brown eyes bore holes into me, but I didn’t think I deserved this treatment from her. I was sorry if I hurt her, but I’d had no idea. I wasn’t a goddamned mind reader. I’d never done well with passive-aggressive behavior. “Good-bye, Liam.” She slammed the door, and my mind reeled with a million different thoughts.

Whatever. It didn’t matter anymore. Abby was gone.

And, apparently, so was Helen.

Chapter 17

Abby

Home again at my mom’s Windsor Terrace apartment in Brooklyn with a bowl of chicken noodle soup in my lap and our kitty, JoJo, curled up on the pillow next to me, I watched reruns of I Love Lucy, occasionally breaking the tiniest of smiles. Not because I was feeling better, but because Lucille Ball was the only actress who could make me crack a smile when I was little, when everyone used to say, “Smile, Abby. Turn that frown upside down. Why the long face, Abby?

“It’s my only face,” I’d reply.

Of course, I was doing everything possible not to think about the VIP room fiasco of almost a week ago now. It hadn’t been so much the fact that a half-naked sex goddess was sitting on top of Liam, or the fact that she was pushing her tongue down his throat, it was the fact that he seemed like he could be enjoying it. After we had made love just the day before. The night before. Why? Why couldn’t he have just told me he was going to do that, like he promised? Why couldn’t he have been up-front and told me, I’m sorry, but I’m still going to see Giselle tonight. It would’ve hurt, but it would’ve been the truth. I wouldn’t have been blindsided by seeing her tits in his face so shortly after he told me that he was falling for me.

In any case, it didn’t matter. I gathered my stuff up that very night and boarded a plane for JFK. On the flight, I had the untimely misfortune of sitting next to a Point Break fan. I found this out because she asked what I did for a living, and I told her I was a musician. She got excited, telling me how she’d just come from the Vancouver Point Break concert, how incredible it had been, and how sexy her idol Liam Collier had been onstage. I nearly barfed in her lap.

Being in the front row (she’d been in the front row for five of their shows, she said), she was almost certain that he had looked at her this time. In excruciating detail, she described how he had crouched right in front of her and reached out to her or someone near her, but she was almost sure it was her. She had reached out, too, their fingers almost touching, as he crooned to her. All I wanted was to curl up and sleep against the window, letting the memory of that evening burn away like jet-engine fuel, but the older teen prattled on and on about who was cuter—Liam Collier or Tucker Benning, because while Tucker was “pretty boy” cuter (whatever that meant), she’d heard he was a bit of a prick.

I nearly told her how horrible they both were, not to believe the hype, that Liam was really just a two-timing womanizer who crawled into the panties of any woman who let him, and how she should run far, far away if she ever encountered him in person.

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