Page 62 of I Do With You

“Of course. Sean, thank you for coming to help. I was a little freaked out before,” I tell him, using the manners Mom would expect me to have as I peek around Ben to get a better look at the interloper who’s changed everything with his sudden appearance. To the man in my arms, I add, “I’ll run over to Mom and Dad’s. After the way they left earlier, I’m sure they have questions.”

“Don’t we all, sweetheart?” Sean calls from the couch as he drops his booted feet onto the coffee table with a heavy thud, making himself at home.

Ben’s back goes ramrod straight, and his eyes roll back in his head as he takes another deep breath. One hundred—definitely counting well beyond ten, that’s for sure.

“Is it okay that I called him?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. We just need ...” Ben shrugs and finally settles on, “...to talk.”

I still feel like I’ve done something wrong or overstepped somehow, and that doesn’t change when I walk back through the living room after pulling on clothes. Ben gives me a kiss, but his focus stays locked on Sean, so it’s nothing like the ones we shared only moments ago.

“Your phone’s on the counter,” I tell him after biting my lip a bit nervously. “Call me when you’re—when you want. Just call me, ’kay?”

Chapter 22

BEN

I should’ve seen this coming. I told her to call him if need be, so I should have been ready for this conversation, or any conversation with Sean.

But I’m not. I mostly want to smash his face in, so I clench my fists, considering the fallout if I let myself loose on him.

First, there’d be the physical consequences. I have a couple of inches on Sean and longer arms, but he outweighs me by a good sixty pounds. Some of that’s beer and shitty food, but it doesn’t always matter when it’s pinning you down. Plus, Sean’s psycho in a way I’m not. As evidenced by the mere fact that I’m weighing the pros and cons of fighting him, and he’s likely contemplating whether the trailer has a bathtub he can fill with hydrofluoric acid and my dead body,Breaking Bad–style.

Second, fighting Sean the way I want to would be the end of Midnight Destruction. We’ve fought before, both with venomous words and pounding fists, but it’s different now, and there would be no coming back from it. No music, no tours, no shows. I’d be okay with some of that—like no shows—but Sean wouldn’t be.

And ultimately, that’s why I drop myself into the chair opposite him.

Sean needs Midnight Destruction in a way that’s greater than my need. That’s why I fight my demons every night, put on the stupid maskand body-paint camouflage, and do the one thing that terrifies me the most: getting onstage and singing.

For him. Because the band keeps him steady.

Besides, there’s a small part of me—way down deep below the anger, hurt, and betrayal—that’s glad to see him. I might be furious as hell with him, but I still miss him.

It doesn’t make any sense, I know that, but that’s how families are sometimes. Or at least, my family, and Sean’s my brother, regardless of bloodlines.

“Good choice,” he says, arching his left brow like he knows exactly what I want to do to him.

Years ago, he hadSeektattooed over his right eye andDestroyover his left, and he uses the words as a sort of Magic 8 Ball insight to his thoughts. When he told me to get the fuck out of town and get my shit straight, I’d waited for his left brow to rise, thinking he was telling me that we were done in a roundabout way. I should’ve known better. Sean doesn’t do subtle. He’s as direct as a missile, with zero regard to the blast radius. But when he’d lifted his right brow, telling me to “seek” something, it’d felt like approval, like permission to take the time I need to fix my brain.

“Might change my mind later, but it feels wrong to fight you when my dick’s still hard from Hope. I don’t love you like that, asshole.”

He squints at me, reading between the lines of what I said. “Don’t love you like that either, fucker.”

Yeah, I love him. He loves me. We’re fucked in the head, but we’re brothers.

Brothers who’ve had their every dream come true, only to find out that the gold bars are spray-painted bricks and the fame comes with contract addendums you didn’t read that control every breath you take.

“Hope, huh?” Sean guffaws. “You’re supposed to be out here getting your head straight, so of course you find the closest pussy and let yourself get sidetracked.”

“She’s not pussy. She’s—” I freeze, not sure if I should tell him the truth.

Sean leans forward, his boots hitting the floor and his elbows resting on his knees. Pinning me with a black look that has nothing to do with the contacts he wears onstage but rather his current mood, he demands, “She’swhat?”

I swallow hard and don’t back down, meeting his eyes with steel of my own. “Everything.”

Sean blinks, and at first, it feels like I won the staring contest, but then he laughs loud and hard. I didn’t win anything. He’s laughing at me. “Bullshit. She’s a distraction that’ll run its course, which I can understand. She’s hot as fuck. But you’re gonna have to sit with the AMM stuff and make your peace eventually.”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” I growl, ignoring the music stuff that put us at odds in the first place.

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