Page 171 of Play Dirty (Brooklyn Dawn 1)

Even before she started to sing, I knew.

The song I’d heard on repeat in his house. How could he? Why?

I knew what was coming and I still couldn’t look away.

Couldn’t wrap my arms over my head like someone caught in a storm, trying to protect themselves from falling debris.

There was no safety for me now.

A touch sets off a memory

I crush it underfoot

Watch it die

Don’t want to be her anymore

Don’t want to feel that way again

Not again

Can’t return when you’ve never left

Arrow found its target

Opened a wound

Want what you can never have

Innocence tarnished, ripped to shreds

Oh, oh, never again

There was no mistaking it was the song Nash and I had written at Logan’s.

Together.

He’d told me how much he needed that song. To hear us together.

That wasn’t his to give away. Even if he’d decided afterward he wanted to take back what he’d carelessly offered up like party favors to Angel.

It didn’t fully make sense, but raw emotion crowded out all the logic in my brain.

Hey, sorry we argued, want this song Lindsey bled over? Because she’s a damn idiot who’s in love with me. Who fell for me from the very first night when I fucked her, then fucked her over.

Even as I reeled, some part of me tried to inject reason.

Maybe he gave her the songs before. Angel said he wanted them back. You’ve grown so much closer now. What he did before these last couple amazing days together doesn’t count.

But it did count. Nash was a musician too. He understood. There were slices of my soul in those words. Even if that wasn’t true for him, even if he hadn’t felt for me what I had for him from the first, it didn’t matter.

It was too late.

All too fucking late.

Angel kept singing, but I’d heard enough. I couldn’t decipher any more anyway. It was as if a veil of red had dropped down over my vision and my head had been stuffed with cotton. The Lindsey who was always business first, who always kept her emotions in check to make sure she did what was needed for her band, had left the building.

I didn’t think. Pure instinct had me rearing forward to grab Lila’s iPad off the table. The music had to stop. I couldn’t listen to it anymore. I had a second to see Lila’s eyes flare wide before I tossed the iPad at the wall, clenching my fists as it made a satisfying crunch. Then I walked over to it and stomped on the pieces with my four-inch heeled boots, grinding them into the carpet with a howl of victory and triumph and rage.

---