Savage Rhythm (30 page)

Declan shook out his hand and walked back to his rental. As he opened the door, Robbie was getting to his feet, realizing he’d just been humiliated by his idol in front of all of his friends.

“Take a fucking picture!” he screamed. “You’re all witnesses! Fuck you, Donovan, that’s going to be the most expensive punch you’ve ever thrown!”

“Worth it,” Declan said.

chapter
31

It was Adra who finally got Molly off her ass, in the end.

Molly tried to get all her old repression skills back, but it seemed like all the things that Declan had taught her had stuck
too
well. The irony: it burned. She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t just carry on as though nothing was wrong, couldn’t lie to herself and pretend she wasn’t broken. Only this time, she
had
to; she had Lydia to take care of.

And it was Lydia who brought it all crashing down. Molly actually thought she might be able to soldier on reasonably well until she took a dumb reality TV break with Lydia, just trying to relax while waiting for their new furniture to be delivered, secretly thinking about what she’d get for her sister’s belated eighteenth birthday present, when she realized Lydia was furiously texting.

Molly’s first thought:
the father
.

Lydia still wouldn’t tell her who the damn father was. To the point where Molly had another panic attack, thinking her sister might have been raped or molested or something, and Lydia had to swear up and down it wasn’t anything like that. She just didn’t want the boy involved. That’s what she’d called him—a boy.

Molly knew it had to do with what Lydia had seen four years ago. Molly hadn’t been the only one traumatized by the whole thing, and she wasn’t going to win that argument right away.

But this? Furious texting? How could this not be a good sign?

“That the father?” Molly asked. Trying to be casual.

Lydia shot her a look. “Smooth, big sister. No, it’s not the father. It’s Declan.”

Lydia misinterpreted Molly’s expression for—what? Jealousy? Confusion? Molly would probably never know. She would remember, forever, though, what Lydia said next.

“Don’t worry, you bagged a good one, Mol. He’s just been texting me to make sure everything’s ok with the apartment, the baby, all that stuff,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Like big brother stuff, you know? We had a talk the other morning while you were still asleep. We get each other.”

At which point Molly proceeded to lose her shit.

Just complete bawling. Crying. Cursing. Like she was possessed or something, just letting it all out in front of her poor, confused little sister.

Molly was still kicking herself for that.

But finding out that Declan was checking up on Lydia had set everything off all over again. How could he be there for Lydia like he was for Bethany and say he couldn’t do it for Molly? Molly wasn’t even asking anything of him, she wasn’t pregnant, she wasn’t in a psychiatric hospital! She just fucking
loved
him.

She was consumed with red-hot jealousy.

She was consumed with regret.

Why hadn’t she told him she loved him? Why hadn’t she been able to do that one thing? Would it have made a difference if she’d been able to say, “Well, too late, buddy, I do need you? Guess I’m already screwed, might as well stay together!”

She didn’t understand it at all. If he really wanted her, if he really loved her, wouldn’t he be there? She should have told him. She should have found a way, instead of just standing there in stupid, slack-jawed shock.

And then, right on cue, she’d remember that it had been Declan who had taught her not to blame herself. And then it would be back to the crying.

Round in round, in the same circles, digging a worn, raw groove in her shattered heart, never getting anywhere, and always coming back to the same reality: he was gone. Declan had dumped her. Did it matter if she understood why?

He was gone.

And she was helpless. Until Adra finally sat her down.

“Yeah, so, why haven’t you been eating, Molly?” Adra said.

“I haven’t?”

Molly hadn’t really noticed. She just hadn’t been hungry.

“No,” Adra said.

“Oh. Well, that’s pretty dumb. I’ll start doing that,” she said.

Adra cocked her head to the side and gave Molly a look normally reserved for crazy people. She said, “You know, Lydia is seriously worried about you.”

And
that
got Molly’s attention. That was unacceptable, no matter what the circumstances.

“Shit,” Molly whispered.

And after that it was pretty much impossible not to tell Adra all about it. Adra, who made her feel slightly less crazy just by confirming that the whole thing was nuts. By saying that yeah, she would have called bullshit, too. By being shocked.

And just in the process of actually telling someone about all of it from the beginning, Molly realized that her biggest problem was that she felt weak all over again. Powerless and out of control—and not in the good way. And she needed to take all that back.

Which was when she called Declan.

And a woman answered.

~ * ~ * ~

Bethany had seen the last show. Declan could tell by the look on her face.

“What is wrong with you, Dec?” she asked.

Declan shook his head. Where could he even begin? He hadn’t figured on how this would affect him. Hadn’t even thought about it honestly; he’d been thinking about Molly. So here he was, trying to make up the dates on a tour, barely fucking functional. He was like a zombie. He didn’t have a decent show in him anymore.

The crowd had noticed.

It was almost kind of amazing. Physical. He hadn’t understood that being away from her—that knowing he couldn’t be with her—would do something like this to him.

“Declan, are you listening to me?” Bethany said. “Brian, what the fuck?”

Declan wanted to laugh. Bethany, sitting here on the tour bus, looking at him like he was the one with problems. It was almost too perfect. And she looked fantastic. She looked
healthy
. He was happy for her, he really was—somewhere underneath all this shit.

She’d met up with them to show Declan how far she’d come, maybe to show him that she was ok, like he was her sponsor or something, which he guessed he sort of was. And she’d found him like this.

Brian and Gage looked worried, too.

“Dude, do you think we can do the tour like this?” Brian finally asked.

The elephant in the fucking room.

Losing Soren was one thing. Losing Soren and Declan was something else. Nobody was under any illusions—Soren and Declan were the heart of Savage Heart. Soren was gone and Declan wasn’t himself anymore.

Declan rubbed his hand across his head and tried to locate the giant hole in his heart. He couldn’t lie. “I don’t know, Brian.”

So Bethany had taken him to the back, her face full of a kind of confidence he couldn’t remember seeing there before, and demanded to know what had happened.

He told her.

It was easier than not telling her.

He’d dumped the love of his life because he couldn’t bear to fail her when she most needed him and then watch the consequences.

And Bethany looked him right in the eye and said, “That is some grade-A bullshit, Declan.”

“Christ,” he laughed tonelessly. “That’s exactly what she said.”

“Sounds smart. You were never a coward, Declan, so man up.”

“Hey,” he said, sitting up. “You think this is easy for me? This has fucking destroyed me. I’m doing it for her.”

“Which is the part I don’t buy,” Bethany said, crossing her legs and arms at once. “You know, I talked about you in group therapy. And they made me see something. You feeling guilty about me or Soren…or anyone else,” she added carefully, “is bull, because it means you think you could have done something. Like it was all under your control, like the decision wasn’t fully mine. It
was
my decision, Declan; I took those pills for my own reasons that had nothing to do with you. You can’t make decisions about what’s best for this girl, either.”

Declan froze. He stared at her.

Thought.

Then he got up, walked to the front of the bus, and said, “Stop the bus.”

“It’s the middle of nowhere,” the driver said.

“Stop the fucking bus.”

The doors swooshed open and Declan burst out into the cool night air, never happier to see absolutely nothing in the distance, and he started walking down the side of the road, into darkness.

Away from the noise.

He’d made the same damn mistake again. He couldn’t argue with Bethany because she was right. It would have been like arguing about the color red. His brain knew she was right, that he was an idiot, that his idiocy was almost insulting, but his heart?

Why the
fuck
was he afraid?

He wasn’t a coward. He’d never been a damn coward, and he wasn’t going to try it on for size now.

He’d been blaming himself, all this time. All these years. Carried it with him so long he’d forgotten it was a burden, and hugged it to himself like a fucking treasure. Like it meant something. Like it was a part of him.

But
she
was a part of him. Molly.

“Declan?” It was Brian. Following him in the dark. Another true friend. “You ok, Declan?”

Declan smiled, relieved just to know.

“I can’t live without her, Brian. I mean, look at me. Isn’t that crazy? I’ve known her how long?”

Brian shrugged. Smiled. “I’ve heard crazier things.”

“I can’t fucking live without her now. Maybe I needed to try to find out for sure, I don’t know. You think I’ve fucked up beyond all repair this time? I don’t know if I even deserve another shot to get it right,” he said.

“Man, I’m still trying to figure out how to sleep with a woman more than one night in a row. Beyond that women confuse me. I am not the man to ask.”

Declan studied the sky. Letting go of the guilt that kept him from Molly meant letting go of everything, because it
was
everything. And Molly wasn’t the only one he’d screwed up with.

“You think the band has a shot?” he asked.

“I fucking hope so,” Brian said.

“Yeah.”

“Call Soren, man.”

“I have,” Declan said. Brian looked surprised. “And I will again. I just need him to pick up. In the meantime, Bri, I’m sorry, but we have to cancel the tour. I’ll take the hit. There’s something I gotta do back in California.”

But Brian was smiling, and Declan, Declan felt lighter than he had in months, all the way back to the bus. Right up until Bethany told him his phone had rung and she’d seen the name and picked it up.

“I just wanted to tell her, you know, that you were being an idiot, that you were messed up over it,” Bethany said, wringing her hands. “I didn’t think she’d hang up. I was just trying to help.”

Declan sighed. It wasn’t like he could really get any further into the doghouse than he already was.

He had to do something big to fix all the shit he’d broken in the past six months. And he thought he knew what that should be.

chapter
32

For the next five days, Declan called every day, multiple times per day. Molly ignored him.

Molly was
pissed
.

Molly was not in the mood to be fair, or even rational. Not when the memory of Robbie replacing her with another woman, marching her around for everyone to see, kept running through her mind. Not when she knew, just
knew
, that it had been Bethany who answered the phone.

Well, she didn’t know, technically. She felt it. But would it be better or worse if it were just some random girl? Did it freaking matter? Was she just that replaceable?

The longer the phone calls went on and the longer Molly spent packing up everything she still cared about in that trailer, the more she realized that it wouldn’t be enough if he just said he was sorry. No. She would need to know why he had done everything he’d done in the past few days. She’d need to know that it wouldn’t happen again.

Then she’d remember that he wasn’t trying to get her back. If he were trying to get her back, he’d do more than call. He’d be there.

And then she’d have to fight off more tears, and
that
would make her angry all over again.

There were a few bright spots. One, being royally pissed off made cleaning a whole lot easier. The place would be freaking spotless for the people who moved in. Two, she had seen Robbie when driving back with a fresh batch of cleaning supplies, and the weasel had two fresh black eyes and giant bandage on his nose and had actually ducked when he saw her.

She didn’t know what that was about, exactly, but it was very satisfying to see.

And three?

When her father showed up, self-righteous and hateful and red in the face, just to announce that he was disowning Lydia, too, and that he blamed Molly for turning her sister in a disgraceful, ungrateful, disgusting excuse for a woman, Molly had simply said, “You’re no longer my father.”

And then she’d slammed the door in his face.

She’d stood there, her back flat against the door, her heart pounding in her chest, not quite able to believe she’d just done that. Molly listened to him sputter and shout outside, hurl insults at that closed door, and she felt strong, and capable, and invincible all over again.

And that got her thinking about Declan.

Again.

The worst part was knowing that she had him to thank for her broken heart, and yet still she
worried
about him. That was the worst, most humiliating feeling. That knowing he was messed up enough to do this, that he hurt that bad—hurt her, too.

Asshole
.

And when she was done crying—that time—she started thinking about how she still had a book to write. Because Declan had been right—he might have set Lydia up financially, but Molly had to be everything else. And that meant Molly had to keep going. She had to keep her commitments.