Page 49 of A Dark Melody

“Yes.” Dennis agrees. “She is good fun.”

“I need a cigarette before we do this.” Wes grabs a beer off the table. “We’ll be right back.”

“Nice meeting you.” I mention to Aaron and Nicolas before following Wes outside.

“Ben has the biggest crush on you.” Wes says with a small laugh once we are outside. “He is laying it on thick.”

“Are you jealous?” I ask with a laugh as he lights a cigarette. He holds the carton out to me, but I shake my head.

“Only if you like him.”

“I think he is cool, but I don’t like him like that.”

“You can fuck whomever you want, but please, no one in my band. I don’t know if I could take it.”

“I won’t.”

“Thank you.” He smiles gently. “Are you going to stick around and watch my sound check?”

“Yeah. I’m getting us a pick-me-up for later.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“More coke?” He asks, taking a drag off his cigarette. I nod. “You have a good dealer lined up?”

“Sue takes care of it.”

“Good.”

“Yeah. She gets the good stuff.”

“The last stuff she got was pretty good.” I nod. “Have you ever done acid?”

“No. Terrified of the stuff. I’ve just done the party drugs. Weed. Ecstasy, coke, and shrooms, one-time.”

“Makes sense. I’m not sure you could handle acid. You’d probably have a bad trip and jump off a roof or something.”

I laugh. “Probably.”

“I did meth by mistake once.” He shrugs. “Never doing that again. Come down was a bitch and a half. Percocet was interesting.”

“Oh yeah. I did that before when I had a broken rib. Mixed it with some coke and had a wild night.”

“You broke a rib?”

“Yeah.”

“How did you do that?”

“Well…” I bite my lip, pondering if I should tell him or not. “Technically, I didn’t do it. Manny fromNewfound Sanctumdid.”

“What?” He asks, and I see a flash of anger come over his face.

“He gave me a busted lip, too, and some bruises to match it.”

“I’m going to kill him. If I ever see him, he is a dead man.”

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