Page 130 of Cherry Beats

“Everything okay with him?”

“Not really.” Presley’s arm gave way, sprawling out above his head and forcing him to lie down and rest his head on his bicep. His eyes closed, and his mouth parted.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Same thing that’s wrong with all of us. We’re fucked. The highs go right alongside the lows.” Presley exhaled through his nose, his eyes fluttering open and looking up to find me. “It’s lonely when you’re going to bed every night on your own.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Rhett go to bed on his own.”

“Taking women you don’t care about back to bed is only satisfying for so long, Cherry. Eventually, they all become the same. They want the same thing—the fame, the money.” He released a low, weighted groan from the back of his throat. “They don’t give a shit about us. They give a shit about the name we carry.”

His eyes closed again. His shoulders sagging even further.

“You being here with me is pissing Rhett off,” Presley admitted quietly.

“Me being here seems to be pissing a lot of people off.”

“Jealousy is nasty. It makes them bitter.”

I thought back to all the times I’d been miserable, pining for Presley, and the happy couples I’d seen that made my stomach twist with envy. “I guess it does. Is Rhett going to be okay?”

“He’ll be fine.” Presley sighed, the weight of it making his body lose a bit more tension. “He’ll fuck someone who makes him forget he’s lonely or, knowing Rhett, he’ll try and settle down with a girl to prove a point to himself, get bored, and then move the fuck on once he realises it ain’t for him.”

I laughed quietly, my hand now working through his hair, needing to touch him. “Is that what you’re going to do? Get bored and move the fuck on once you realise it isn’t for you?”

His eyes fluttered open—his chin tilting up until he was staring at me. “Don’t ever think that again,” he whispered. “No matter what.”

“I was joking,” I assured him.

“I don’t care.”

I thought he was about to speak again when he let his head fall back to rest on his bicep, and he closed his eyes, a contented sigh falling from him.

He was too drunk to talk, so I stayed where I was, lulling him to sleep with even breaths and my soft touch.

“What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you in your life, Tess?” he asked suddenly, his voice a whisper.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, not wanting to admit that walking away from him ranked higher than it probably should. “Life is complicated.”

“Complicated, yeah.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened in your life?”

“Finding my father swinging from a rope at the top of the stairs,” he whispered, almost to himself, his quiet confession something I wasn’t sure I should have heard.

My hand froze in his hair, lips parting as I let the words he’d spoken sink in, unable to find a single thing to say in response while my heart broke into a million pieces, those pieces now his, ready to squeeze into the gaps of his broken heart and help it heal.

His eyelashes fluttered, and he stared at my stomach, not moving or flinching as his truth floated above us.

“Sometimes, I drink to make the image of him fade away.”

“Presley…”

“Sometimes I feel so angry at him.”

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