Page 89 of Dirty Rock

“Now, tell me if you’ve ever written a song about another woman before.”

“No.” Fuck, I could barely speak.

“See. Iamspecial.”

When she kissed me, I tried to give back to her what she had given to me, but even I could feel that it was half-hearted.

She dropped back down into the crook of my arm again, and it wasn’t long before Jules drifted to sleep, letting her sweet breaths wash over my tattooed chest without a care in the world.

I tried to stay with her, but after an hour of my heart racing out of control, I knew only a smoke would calm it down. A rage I’d never experienced before brewed in my body. I had no real clue what a panic attack felt like, or what anxiety really was, but I’d take a guess that it was similar to this feeling of being unable to breathe and the room kind of… spinning. My chest was heavier than ever before, the weight of her words crushing me until I wanted to fall to my knees and scream.

I’d never fallen for a woman before, and now that I had, the woman I needed to love me back wasn’t interested. I wasn’t good enough for her. I probably never had been, no matter what name I carried, what band I was in, or what things I’d achieved in my life.

Don’t get it twisted, Rhett.

Removing her wasn’t difficult when she was sleeping so soundly, and once I’d rolled her onto her side—a little mewl of contentment falling from her lips—I walked into the living area of the hotel suite, and I picked up my smokes. The curtains were open, and I was as naked as the day I was born. Thankfully, we were high up, but I didn’t give a shit who got a picture of me sitting in there in the early hours of the morning with only the end of a lit cigarette lighting up my world.

The moon became my only friend as I sat there chain-smoking, trying to make sense of my thoughts, but not even the moon could give me answers to questions I was too afraid to ask myself.

Eventually, I grabbed my phone from the coffee table, and I hit up the only other person I could guarantee would be awake at this ungodly hour.

Me: I wrote a song.

Presley: A song?

Me: Yeah. You know. One of those things I sing to an audience.

Presley: I know what a fucking song is, but you sent me a message saying ‘I wrote a song’ like it was this big thing and you’d never written one before.

Me: I haven’t. Not like this.

Presley: And your muse?

Me: No one important.

I tossed the phone on the sofa and threw myself back against the cushion. Presley responded a couple of times, the buzzing of my iPhone telling me so, but I didn’t look to see what he’d said.

The noise in my own head was enough.

Instead, I just smoked as much as I could smoke, and I drank as much as I could find in the mini bar, before I passed out on the sofa, naked and alone.

Just like the Rhett of old would have done.

That guy never got it twisted.

Chapter Thirty-One

Iwoke with a start, only able to lift my head an inch from the sofa before it slammed back down again.

Julia was knelt beside me, her eyes soft as she ran a finger down my cheek.

My head was pounding, and I squinted against the bright daylight in the room before I threw an arm over my face.

“Should I be offended?” she asked quietly.

I peeked out from under my arm, cracking one eye open. She looked far too pretty, even in this new blurry, aching day I’d woken up in.

“You decided to have a party without me. Where’s the fun in that?”

---