Page 167 of Play Dirty (Brooklyn Dawn 1)

“Was he okay with that?”

“How could he be? I ripped his life away from him, Lindsey. What I chose to do was one thing. He didn’t choose—”

“He chose to party with you that night. He chose to be your best friend. He chose to let you drive.” She relaxed her hold on my face and brushed my hair off my forehead, much as my da had when I was a boy. “We all make choices. Then we live with them.”

I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. How could she not loathe me? I’d just told her what a truly vile man I was, and she was still here. Wound around me as if she had no intention of going anywhere.

Even as the clock ticked, faster and faster.

“He still has his life. As you have yours. You get the same twenty-four hours a day as we all do. And you chose to become sober and add your own light to the world. Every song you’ve worked on is a bit of peace you helped give someone who needed it. Or if not peace, maybe

understanding. Or hope. Or possibility.” She tipped her forehead against mine and I would’ve sworn a drop of wetness touched my cheek. Her tears or mine, I didn’t know. “Like recognizes like. You called me a light. I see yours. I always saw it. Being surrounded by darkness only made it brighter.”

I should’ve pushed her away. That would’ve shown that I had changed. I wasn’t the same selfish prick who drowned in pleasure to stave off the morning.

To avoid that light she claimed burned within us both.

“Tell me to let you go.” My arms locked around her like a vise. “That you want space. Want something I can’t give you.”

She shook her head. “I want this. I want us.” Her mouth touched mine and the sweetness she offered was my undoing.

My salvation.

A man had died for love here. And I was fucking living for it.

Thirty-Two

I stared at the grainy feed on the corner of my desk. Nash’s secret lair. His slut was fawning over that bitchy cat while Nash fed the dog.

So domestic.

She had a carry-on bag over her shoulder. All packed up and ready to go back to Richmond.

Time for her show.

Better yet, almost time for mine.

I picked up the schematics for Brooklyn Dawn’s stage. Thanks to a friend on their crew, I had the sequence of their next couple of concerts right down to timing—unless they made changes or added any last minute audibles.

But I could adjust. And if I needed to confirm anything, my good buddy on the crew would be happy to kick back and talk shop with a couple of beers.

Friends could be so very helpful.

They could also almost kill you then move on with their rotten miserable lives even after you saved theirs.

An act I regretted every single goddamn day.

I opened the top drawer of my desk and withdrew the bottle. I emptied the pills into my palm and threw them back, washing them down with the Jack I’d been drinking since dinner. I’d need more, of both the script and the alcohol.

Soon. It was nearly time to move.

Narrowing my eyes on the screen as Nash embraced his whore, I leaned back in my chair.

“Say goodbye, lovebirds.”

Thirty-Three

Straightening my shoulders, I walked down the hall to the reserved hotel conference room where we would be having the band meeting with Lila. I was a little early, which was a miracle considering how late I’d been for my flight. But it had helped that Alex hadn’t encouraged me to have any quickies before we parted.

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