Read Heart Broke (Hard Rock Roots Book 8) Online

Authors: C.M. Stunich

Tags: #Romance

Heart Broke (Hard Rock Roots Book 8) (4 page)

BOOK: Heart Broke (Hard Rock Roots Book 8)
5.12Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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“Duly noted,” Ronnie mumbles, smoking a cigarette as he glances up at me. “So what the fuck do we do? I was going to sneak his ass out in one of the vans while it was still dark out this morning, but unless we want to leave him here all day, that's not really an option.”

I stand there for several moments, tapping a bright orange fingernail against my lips.

And then I hear the squeak of Trey's wheelchair …

Bingo.

“Can somebody help me down these fucking stairs?” he shouts from the hallway, doing his best Turner impersonation. I glance up sharply at Ronnie and he catches my gaze.

“Oh, hell no,” he murmurs, but I'm already grinning.

“Hell no what?” Lola asks, glancing between the two of us.

“It's perfect, Ronnie. Unless you have a better idea?” He stares right back at me with his brown eyes and then sighs, pulling his cigarette from his lips with two fingers. I can see the resignation in his gaze, the fatigue pulling at the skin on his face. Ronnie is tired and he's done and he just wants this fucking over, like we all do.

“Trey, honey, come 'ere for a sec,” I call, stepping back and moving across the room towards the door. I unlock it and find my little brother glaring up at me from his chair, a suspicious expression crawling over his features.

“What the hell are you doing in Ronnie's room? You guys aren't, like, fucking or whatever, right?” I roll my eyes and send up a pray to whatever goddess will listen.
Please help my brother to be less of a frigging Turner clone. Not sure I can take much more of this.

“Just get your ass in here for a second, okay?” I take a step back and hold out my hand. Luckily, the dumb ass wheels himself in without further complaint and then sits there glaring at me. His brown hair's all mussed up and his skin is pale, but for the first time in weeks he looks like he's actually going to be okay, like he's going to stand up out of this chair and get his hands on a guitar again.

“What do you want, Sydney?” he grumbles, glancing around the room with a wary expression that I can hardly blame him for.

“Weeeell,” I drawl, leaning back and sliding my fingers into the back pockets of my jeans. Ronnie, Lola, and Jesse choose that moment to make an appearance, filling the doorway between the sitting room area and the bedroom proper. Trey looks at them for a moment and then flicks his eyes back to me.

“What the fuck is going on here?”

A smile pulls my lips apart, but I don't think it's very pretty.

“Trey, we need to borrow your wheelchair for a little while.”

Indecency hoodie. Check. A pair of Trey's Converse. Check. Some of those black fingerless gloves that Dax likes to wear. Dax … I shake my head to clear thoughts of Dax McCann and his sad little puppy dog face after he found out that his dad wasn't his dad. Oh god. And the way he collapsed after that anorexic bitch shot herself … Goddamn it.

I shake my hands out and take a deep breath. Not thinking about Dax right now. No way. Nuh uh.

I help Ronnie prop Cohen Rose's body into a more
lively
position and take a step back to look at him. He looks pretty fucking ratchet, but hey, so does my brother right now. I think he'll pass.

“This is bullshit,” Trey growls from his spot on Ronnie's bed. We just tossed his crippled ass onto the blankets and hauled Cohen up into the chair. I mean, to get out of here in plain sight, broad daylight, do you have a better idea? Anyway, now we can use the wheelchair lift on the back of the rented van to haul Cohen inside. And if a random fangirl happens to snap a shot of the scene? Everyone will just assume we're taking Trey out on the town, grabbin' him a hooker or some shit.

What happens after that is not my fucking problem … but I kind of feel like it should be.

“You sure you want to take care of … the actual disposal by yourself?” I ask, smoking a cigarette and sliding a pair of shades onto Cohen's stiff, cold face. “I mean, if this all goes south, I'm kind of the person with the least to lose.” I shrug my shoulders and step back, keeping my attention focused on the black sweatshirt and the white Indecency logo instead of on Ronnie's face. I'm not trying to be whiny or morbid here, just speakin' the truth. Ronnie has kids and the sweetest little second chance romance you ever did see. Me … I'm just a stripper with a crush.

“You always said I was the smartest of the bunch, right?” he asks, moving around the wheelchair and pulling me into a brotherly bear hug that warms my heart and makes me smile. Sometimes I want to scream when I look at this group of idiots that Trey dumped on my doorstep. Other times, it's kind of nice to have a bunch of dopey ass little brothers. “Let me take care of this, okay?”

“Stop fucking hugging on each other and tell me what the hell is going on!” Trey tosses a water bottle at us and ends up hitting Ronnie right in the back. We both ignore him as we pull apart and take deep breaths.

“Never disposed of a body before,” I mumble, sliding some lip gloss from my pocket and prettying up my mouth. Never hurts to have a beautiful mouth. Seriously. I switch back to my cigarette. “Don't forget to take back the sweater and the gloves and all that. Trey'll have a fit if you leave 'em in whatever dumpster you drop Cohen in.”

“I want a goddamn explanation. I'm tired of you people sneaking around and whispering and shit. I want to know what's going on. Why is there a dead guy in my fucking wheelchair?”

Ronnie and I continue to ignore Trey as we smoke our cigarettes and give the body another once-over. As stupid as this all seems, you gotta admit, my idea is pretty goddamn brilliant. If Cohen slumps or looks a little off, we can just pretend that Trey's having a bad day or something. It's perfect. Foolproof. Genius.

“This is fucking stupid,” I murmur. “We are so screwed. Come on, Ronnie, spill. What're you gonna do with the body?” I spin to face Ronnie, blonde hair fluttering around me, silver cigarette smoke trailing from my pretty mouth.

Ronnie reaches up and scratches at the back of his head, ruffling his dark hair and biting at his lower lip.

“You know, I haven't really gotten that far yet.” There's a pause and then his face brightens up and he snaps his fingers. “I've got it.” I raise my eyebrows.

“Okay?”

“Can you call Dax for me?” I feel my lips twitch while Trey continues to bitch in the background, his screams fading to muffled curses. Thank god. Not sure how much more of this I can take.

“Why do you need me to call Dax?” I ask, trying not to grit my teeth. Ronnie notices anyway and smiles wryly. “Because, you know, getting someone else involved in this shit doesn't sound like a very good idea.”

“I'm not saying you have to call him up and tell him there's a corpse in our van. Just … get him to meet us in the lobby or something, okay?”

“Us? It's an
us
now?” Ronnie shrugs his shoulders.
Of course it is. I should've known better.
I roll my eyes and stomp my feet out. Yeah, it's that sensation thing again. Just
thinking
about Dax gets icy chills running down my spine and tickling goose bumps up on my arms. “This sounds like a really stupid idea,” I tell Ronnie, straightening out my hot pink tank top and pointing a finger at him. “Really bad idea. Ridiculous.” Ronnie crosses his arms over his chest and blows smoke over Cohen's corpse-y little head.

“Just do it.”

“Fuck. Fine.”

I slide out my cell phone and dial up Dax McCann.

Back at the hotel with nobody and nothing, I decide that getting smashed is my best possible option, especially considering I can order room service and get exactly what I need. A god-awful number of pints in, I'm trashed on some overpriced lager that smells like the mothballs my grandma keeps in her closets, and I'm dialing up my dad.

“Not really my fucking dad,” I mumble as the phone rings and my conscious mind rails at me to hang the fuck up. With everything that's going on around me, why would I want to open up this can of worms, too? I mean, obviously this whole bullshit thing with America and Travis and whatever didn't start twenty-three odd years ago. This particular bit of shit, this is all mine.

“What the hell do you want?” Arnold McCann asks when he finally picks up the call. “Didn't I tell you I want nothing to do with you anymore, boy? Are you deaf or just dumb?”

“I want to know who my fucking father is,” I snap at him, rubbing my thumb between my brows and leaning over, my head swirling with booze and bullshit. “I want to know why I got stuck with some hateful asshole that turned my life into a living hell, and I want to know why the
fuck
you put so much malice and rage into an infant. An
infant.
I might wear black and play drums and tattoo ghosts on my arm, but you're the frigging monster.”

“You drunk, son?”

“I'm not your goddamn son. You were pretty fucking clear about that.”

There's a snort from Arnold's end of the line, and I can just imagine him shaking his head at me, disappointed as usual. Not that I give a fuck. Because I don't. I seriously fucking don't.

“Your
father,
” Arnold snaps, and I cringe. Fifteen hundred miles away from the man and I'm still terrified of him. “Was some drunken asshole your mother met at a bar. There for a night, gone in the morning, and all he left to remember him by was your ass. A constant reminder of your mother's unfaithfulness, a constant reminder that a lousy tumble in a bathroom got her killed. Is that what you wanted to hear? You like knowing that you were unwanted by everyone? Your mother wept the entire nine months she was pregnant with you. If she didn't think God was looking down on her, judging her for her sins, she'd have aborted you and walked away a better woman.”

Without thinking about what I'm doing, I stand up and chuck my phone at the wall. The screen cracks and it falls to the floor while I scream. Just fucking scream and then fall to my knees on the hotel carpet.

No manager. No music. No mother.

No friends. No family. No lover.

No nothing.


Fuuuuuck.
” I drag my hands down my face and breathe out nice and slow, my head swimming like the Northern Pacific. Fuck. Fuck. Jesus fuck.

As I'm sitting there shaking and sweating and letting my dad's words screw with my head like I always do, my cell rings. It's some eighties song that Sydney programmed into my contacts.

She's calling me.

I crawl over to my cracked phone and pick it up. Sydney doesn't want me. Nobody does. But I answer anyway.

“Hello?” I try my best to sound normal, but I'm pretty sure I'm slurring my words.

“Hey, babe,” Sydney says, acting all nonchalant and whatever. This morning, the way she looked at me, I was sure she didn't want anything to do with me. Not that I blame her. Fuck. I don't want anything to do with me either. “You busy right now?”

“I'm sitting drunk on the floor of my hotel room, and I'm pretty damn sure I'm about to vomit.”

“Perfect. We'll be right there. Let the hotel know we're on our way.”

Sydney's wearing lime green headphones around her neck and chewing her gum with a
crack-snap-pop.
I think I can hear
White Wedding
by Billy Idol playing on her iPod.

BOOK: Heart Broke (Hard Rock Roots Book 8)
5.12Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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