Page 8 of Dirty Rock

Her eyes searched mine, the smile fading slightly. “I know you’re better than pretending meaningless sex is what really gets you off. I’ll prove it to you one day, too.”

“Sex is never meaningless.”

“Really? Then why do you think you’re always looking for a high you can’t seem to find? It’s because you’re desperate for something that means something. But keep lying to yourself. Let’s see how far you get with that.”

My face fell with hers, a slight hint of something that tasted like truth sliding down my throat. “Why… are… you… here?” I repeated.

Julia held her phone up between us. “That thing you talked to me about while you were high as shit last week…”

My jaw ticked with tension, and I flared my nostrils, feeling every ounce of the high I’d ever been on drifting away until there was nothing but a cold chill running down my spine.

“I found him, Rhett,” she said quietly.

“Don’t say it—”

“I found your biological father.”

“Fuck.”

Julia’s eyes filled with sadness. She was nothing but a woman who worked for the band. She was nothing but a thorn in our sides. A misery—a taskmaster. A perennial cockblocker. Yet she looked at me like she cared, and it felt somewhat warm inside to know there was someone out there who did.

“Is he still… around?” I dared myself to ask.

She swallowed quietly, responding only with a silence I’d come to understand spoke volumes when she looked at me that way.

“Shit,” I sighed. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“I’m so sorry, Rhett.”

I stared at her, a million years away from the buzz of the blow job I’d just received. A decade apart from the performance on stage in Miami. A century down the road from the warmth of the alcohol that had been weaving through my bloodstream.

“If it makes you feel any better, I understand how you’re feeling—I do. You have my sympathy, and I always have a shoulder for you to cry on—”

“Don’t need it,” I croaked. “I’m good.”

“I looked into it all over and over again to be certain.”

“I get it.”

“I had a friend who helped. And when the report came back…”

“Doesn’t matter.” I shook my head.

“I double, triple checked. I did everything I could to try and dig deeper to get a different answer for you. But it always came back the same.”

“Dead is dead,” I said quietly. “You can’t change it.”

“You don’t have to be brave now. It’s okay to be upset.”

“Nah. Nah, Jules. I said no worries. Dead is better. Dead is good. Dead is…”

“It’s shit.”

“It’s easier.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated.

“Stop saying that.” I straightened up, ran my hand over my stubbled jaw, and I took a step back. “Don’t be sorry. Not for me. Not ever.”

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