Bad Things (Tristan & Danika #1) (49 page)

I looked around, saw my brother, Kenny, and Cory, but no Danika, or Frankie.

“Where is she?” I asked Jared, digging in my heels when a cop tried to prod me forward.
 
I’d move when I was good and ready.
 

“She left.
 
Frankie took her home.”

“Was she okay?” I asked, shrugging off the cop’s hand on my shoulder.
 
“Give me a fucking minute,” I told the officer, turning to give him a hard look.
 

He swallowed hard, but set his jaw.
 
If I pushed him much more, he’d Taser me to prove a point.
 

I turned back Jared.

Jared shook his head.
 
“She was really upset, but she didn’t get hurt or anything.
 
You didn’t touch anyone but that guy in the gurney.”
 

I nodded, finally letting them lead me away.
 
I knew I’d only made things worse by losing it, but even this second, when I thought of that guy touching her, putting his hands and his mouth on her, I wanted to pound his face all over again.
 
And the fact that he was an ex, that he’d had sex with her at some point, that he’d been
inside
of her.
 
Mine
.
 
Well, that made me want to
kill
him.

I was lost in my own thoughts to the point that I barely noted what was going on.
 
I summoned up a smirk for my mug shot, but even through the booking, I wouldn’t answer a single question that they asked me.
 
I thought that if I talked about, even mentioned that piece of shit that had been touching her, I’d lose my mind again.
 

I was focused on one thing.
 
“Don’t I get a phone call?” I asked the officer that had been nonstop questioning me, growing increasingly frustrated when I just gazed off into space.
 

“You a fighter?
 
You pro?” he countered.
 

I ignored that completely, even though I knew they were trying to trump up the chargers.
 
“Phone call,” I said stubbornly.
 
I needed to call her as soon as possible, and start with the apologies.
 
I was already fucked.
 
Giving her more time to stew about it would only make things worse.
 

“Fine.
 
You can make a phone call.
 
Just answer some questions for me first.”
 

I zoned out again, only hearing that he wasn’t giving me the only thing I was interested in.
 

Nothing really got me out of my own head until I was being led into a room, and sitting at a table, was James Cavendish.
 

He raised his brows at me, waving a hand at the seat across from him.
 

I sat, eyeing him up suspiciously.
 
We’d met several times now, but I still wasn’t sure what to think about the pretty boy billionaire.
 
My first inclination was not to like him, but he made that harder almost every time we talked.
 

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
 

He gave me an enigmatic smile.
 
“Frankie called me.
 
You had my dearest friend upset, which I take strong exception to.”
 

“She’s my friend too,” I said defensively, “and I didn’t mean to upset her.”

“Yes.
 
I see that.
 
You went Hulk smash, and the rest is history, but let me get to the point here.”

“Please do,” I said tersely.
 

“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but I’ve backed your band financially.”

I sure hadn’t been aware of that.

“I’m not even directly involved in that industry, but I’m not a man who sees a good investment and just watches it walk away.
 
I’ve been working on a record deal for you, a solid one, but another incident like this, and you will tank all of your chances.
 
This can’t happen again.”

I didn’t mean for it to happen this time, I thought.
 
“Got it,” I said.
 
I wouldn’t blow it for the guys if there was a chance I could help it.
   

“Unfortunately, I’m not convinced.
 
You see, I saw the other guy.
 
I’ve posted your bail, and I’m paying all of his medical bills.
 
But what you did to him…the injuries he sustained, those are not the actions of a man in his right mind.
 
I hear they had to pull you off, or you would have kept going, but the damage was already very substantial, as it is.
 
I’m not pleased.”

“Join the club,” I growled, because I was as disgusted with myself as anyone.
 

“I’m going to need some insurance from you that your behavior will change.
 
My lawyers can get your sentence down to probation, they’ve assured me, but you will be attending anger management.
 
You doing coke?”
 

I glared at him.
 
“Excuse me?”
 

“Were you on something tonight?”
 

That was the sad part.
 
I’d done coke before, and it hadn’t made me act half as crazy as my jealousy had.
 
I knew he was onto something, with the anger management.
 
“Nada.
 
Fine, I’ll do anger management.”
 

“I’ll be happy to put you up in a rehab facility for substance abuse, if that is an issue, as well.”

“It’s not,” I bit out, done with the conversation.
 

 
“Okay, then.
 
I’ve posted your bail, as well, so you are free to go right after we discuss one more thing.”
 

I glanced around, as though it was a prank.
 
I knew for a fact that you couldn’t do that to a guy, and then just walk out of jail that night.
 
“Are you shitting me?”

“Not at all.
 
I’ll add it to your tab.
 
I just wanted to talk to you about your magic tricks.
 
Danika has told me about your sleight of hand.
 
I’m asking unofficially, you understand, because I have my old act under contract for two more years.
 
But when his contract is up, he’s out.
 
He just doesn’t have his heart in it anymore.
 
Sometime between now and then, I’d like to see some of your tricks.
 
We are looking for something different, so keep that in mind as you prepare.”

I nodded, totally stunned that, after all the time I’d spent at that, having nothing happen, now something huge was happening, and it was all because of Danika.

“Okay, that is all,” he said, rising from his chair.
 
“I’ll send someone in to take your cuffs off and get you out of here.”

I smiled at him, a purely ornery smile, because, in a purely ornery mood, I’d stolen one of the cops handcuff keys.
 

I unlocked myself with a few swift, quiet motions.
 
This was the cheapest kind of trick, the kind where you weren’t even doing a trick, you were just performing the unexpected, but I was in a mood, and I didn’t really care that it was cheap.
 

I dropped my cuffs loudly on the table, and Cavendish gave me a very startled look, his eyes darting from the cuffs then back to me, again and again.
 

“How did you do that?” he asked, looking like he’d gotten a genuine kick out of it.
 
That was good, because if he got a kick out of me phoning it in, I had a good shot at impressing him with my more involved tricks.
   

I shrugged.
 
“Magic,” I told him.
 

He laughed.
 

I called Danika for five days, over and over, without a response.
 
I finally resorted to leaving message after message, at first angry, then pleading, then sappy, then angry again, and finally, flat out desperate.
 

I told her I loved her, which I probably shouldn’t have said for the first time in a message, but I was desperate.
 
I called her a coward, then cursed her, then begged her.
 

I tried to go to the house once, but she only sent Jerry out to tell me that they would call the police if I didn’t leave.
 

After that, I holed up in my apartment for days, and went into full on self-destruct mode.
 
I was drunk or high or both every waking moment, denying to myself that this could possibly be it for us.
 

What if she never talks to me again?
 
I tortured myself with that question.
 
I didn’t know what I’d do.
 
I was filled with regrets.
 
I hadn’t opened up to her as much as I should have, and she’d complained about it often.
 
I should have spilled my guts about everything, even if I did hate to talk about the crap she wanted me to tell her.

I found myself telling her everything about me in voicemails that she’d probably never even listen to.
 
I was that desperate.
 

“I’m not good at this sort of thing, but I’ll do my best.
 
If you’re hearing this, you know I’m trying here, and in return I’d just like to hear from you, to have a clue how you’re doing.”
 

I took a deep breath, trying to figure out where to start.
 
“Fuck.
 
Maybe I should be texting you this, or emailing, or something, but bear with me.
 
I’ve never liked relationships.
 
I’ve never thought that something like that could serve two people equally.
 
I saw that from the way my mom was with one worthless boyfriend after another.
 
She’d bend over backwards for them, and all they had to do was feed her bullshit lines and act halfway decent
some
of the time.
 
I guess that’s why I started to think they were kind of a scam.
 
This belief was reinforced for me, over and over, as I watched her let men walk all over her for the sake of the ‘relationship’.”

“Nat was just sort of the icing on the cynical cake.
 
We were just kids when we got together, and we made a lot of stupid mistakes.
 
Nothing I did ever made her happy, and she had all of this emotional blackmail crap she tried to pull on me daily.
 
Still, I stuck around, because I was young, and stupid, and I wanted so badly to be the opposite of my father, to be the guy that sticks around through thick and thin, that I was willing to put up with a lot, even being
miserable
, to prove that I was better than him, that I was nothing like him.”

The message timed out, and I called again, waiting for the beep, and then continued right where I’d left off.
 

“Nat guilted me into getting her a ring.
 
A ring I couldn’t afford.
 
She was relentless about it, said all of her happiness was tied up in it, and if I didn’t make her happy, well, that was my fault, since her happiness was
my
job.
 
She wore me down, and I busted my ass to get her a way too expensive ring.
 
She told me it embarrassed her, because the diamond was so small.
 
It was a three thousand dollar ring, so I had no idea what she meant, but that was how the relationship went.
 
There were more bad times than good, more work than fun, more misunderstandings than communications.
 
It exhausted me, and I was already fed up when I found out she was sleeping around.”
     

It timed out.
 
I didn’t pause before calling and starting right up again.
 

“Nat pulled all kinds of jealous tantrums on me, always accusing me of cheating, when I wasn’t.
 
I think that’s one of the reasons why it was so hard for me to stomach how she’d lied to me, again and again.
 
I broke it off, and swore off relationships altogether, because she had taught me that I just wasn’t good at them.”

“I see now how wrong that was, how much power I’d given her, even when I’d been over her for years.
 
I’m sorry for that.
 
I’m sorry that you and I had a rough start, and part of it was because of baggage that didn’t deserve the weight I’d given it.”

It timed out again.
 
I redialed again.
 

“I see now that I didn’t know a thing about love before I met you.
 
When it’s right, like it is with us, it doesn’t make your life harder, it makes your life
better
, even when it’s hard.
 
I’ve never been so happy as I’ve been with you, and I don’t begin to know how to get past that.
 
I can’t stomach the thought that you could get over me, when I know I won’t be getting over you.
 
I love your smile, your honesty, your loyalty.
 
I love your sarcastic sense of humor, and the way your eyes light up when you’re giving me shit.
 
I may just love that the most.
 
I don’t just love you, I
need
you, and I don’t begin to know how that’s
ever
going to stop.
 
I guess this is a warning, in a way.
 
If you think I’m letting you go easy, you’re in for a shock.
 
Buckle up, sweetheart, one way or another, I’m getting you back.”
 

That was the last message I left before the waiting began.