Page 3 of Closer

“Yeah, me neither,” I lie, checking my phone again.

Ash climbs to his feet and heads to the door. “I know it probably doesn’t feel like it, but you did good.”

“Remind me of this conversation when I have to watch Ryan suck face with my woman.”

“I hate to break it to you, but she wasn’t really your woman in the first place,” he says, echoing my earlier thoughts.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Get some sleep, man, and put away the fucking vodka. You’re gonna be messy as fuck tomorrow, and I have some lyrics I want to go over with you.”

“Thanks, Dad, but I think I’d rather just stay fucked up and never return to sobriety again.”

“Suit yourself, but if you puke, you clean it up.”

Ash closes the door behind him, and I glance at the bottle. He’s right. I’m going to be fucked in the morning, but I’d rather numb the pain right now than be forced to feel it.

We don’t have much in the way of paps in Sydney. Sure, they find us all the time, and several hounded Ali when she first returned home—I know because I subscribed to Google Alerts—but aside from a handful of pictures at the airport, I doubt anyone will follow Ryan. No one would expect him to be in Sydney when we’re in the middle of a world tour.

And thank fuck there won’t be any evidence of their reunion splashed across the papers tomorrow. I might have told him to go to her, but that doesn’t mean I want it thrown in my face. I’d rather shove Zed’s sticks in my fucking eyes.

Still, as much as I hate her, I miss that feisty ginger. I pull up Google on my phone and search “Taint threesome”. Sure enough, pictures of the three of us in various stages of undress fill my screen. Some of the shots show us fully clothed, and then there are images of Ali drugged to the eyeballs and sprawled naked on our tour bus.Leif’s doing. I’d never wanted to murder someone so much in my goddam life. He’d been lucky his big brother Zed stopped me from beating his motherfucking head in.

I scroll through the images, one after the other, and then my chest tightens as my gaze lands on the paparazzi’s pictures of Ali, Cooper, and me exiting the hospital the day after she was drugged. Desperate to feel anything other than this aching in my chest—or maybe it’s because I need more of it, because I don’t know how to function now without my best buddy misery—I continue scrolling and come across a candid snap of her and me at a roadhouse just outside Atlanta. The night everything turned to shit.

I’d wanted to take Ali to my bunk that night, just the two of us. I wanted to fuck her, hold her, and whisper all the sweet and dirty things I’d wanted to do since I first laid eyes on her, and I wanted all that without another man being present in the room. I’d wanted her to myself. Just once. I should have seen her hesitance for what it was. She didn’t want me the way she wanted Coop. I was just ... I don’t know what the hell I was, and that hurt, but not as much as losing her altogether.

I swipe my thumb over the side of her face and pull the picture up on my screen. She’s laughing, my arm is slung around her waist and she’s wearing a long-sleeve V-neck shirt that makes her boobs look huge. My lips are pressed to her neck. I remember sneaking that kiss, and how I thought Coop was going to try and beat my head in from two tables away. We’d climbed back on the bus, I’d invited her to my bunk, and all hell broke loose. Ali had of course gone to soothe Coop’s temper tantrum, and I’d waited for her to come to me, but she hadn’t. So like a fucking creeper, I’d snuck in when he was asleep and gone down on her. I’d told her I was fighting just as hard as he was. In the end it had been our demise.

I zoom in on her face, scroll down to her tits. My cock lengthens in my jeans. I don’t know why I haven’t got whisky dick yet—I’ve been through a six-pack of beer and a half bottle of vodka. I free my man meat and start stroking the shaft. Then I set the bottle down, spit on my palm and use two hands ... because I’m fucking huge. I look at her picture and I pull my dick for so long it begins to burn, but it’s clear I’m not getting off tonight. I can’t. For the first time in my life I feel something, and it fucking sucks.

I hate this.

I hate her.

I hate him.

But mostly, I hate myself because if I’d never touched her in the first place, if I hadn’t taken her to that party at Josh Holme’s place, and I hadn’t kept coming back like a kicked dog just begging for more, I wouldn’t be in this fucking situation. I wouldn’t have given her my heart only to have it ripped to shreds, and I wouldn’t be crying into a fucking bottle of vodka with a dick that no longer works.

Fucker. Fuck her. Fuck him, and fuck doing the right goddam thing. I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life telling him to go to her. For once in my miserable existence, I decided selflessness was next to godliness, and it was going to bite me in the arse. I could feel it.

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