URGENT (Book 2 of the Soundcrush Series)

Chapter 85: Rock Stars Got Dem Bones

Just a short chapter to transition to our last little drama in this book.  Without further ado, everybody's favorite rock star and what he's feeling...poor Trace is struggling with several demons right now, as he always does when he's back home in Atlanta. I think Unsteady by X Ambassadors is probably the theme song of Trace's childhood...

Trace

"Remind me again why you are here?" I toss over to Leed, who is shotgun in the rental Lambo. It's the exact same one I rented to impress Kat before I stole her away to New Orleans, the trip that was the start of the grown-up us...all the love and all the disaster. She smiled to see the green speed machine waiting for us when we touched down in Atlanta.

Leed was not as enthused, because it's a two-seater. Not that he minds having Kat in his lap. He just doesn't like me growling at him about it.

"You are responsible for the life you save," Leed croaks with a wink, bouncing Kat up and down on his lap as she curls her one good hand against the headliner in an effort to prevent crashing against it repeatedly.

She laughs at him. "You are so fucking dramatic, Lawson. You did not save my life."

He rubs his throat. "That's what you think. Trace's whole physical being probably would have combusted before he allowed himself to make violent contact with your pretty little face, but Little Brother? He was blind with fury. And he packs a fucking wallop." He takes another swallow of the water bottle full of herbal tea and winces.

"Do us all a favor and shut-up, okay?" I mutter. I mean it for a lot of reasons. Because Leed really does need to rest his voice—I'm actually kind of worried about his cords. And because I'm so fucking over Leed's newly adopted nickname for Street—which is Leed's goofball-guru way of reminding me that I can't simply ignore Street's fucking existence for the rest of our lives because we do in fact share blood and apparently, an alarmingly similar respect and admiration for our father.

But mostly I want Leed to shut up because any mention of the fight causes Kat to start crying again.

I slow down while I look at Kat, even though I'm already going embarrassingly slow considering the car—but there's no way I can push this Lambo with Kat on Leed's lap and not wearing a seatbelt. I shoot her two quick glances and yep...just as I suspected...she's looking out the window and blinking back tears.

She started crying the second she saw me at the hospital. I was frantic for a second, thinking her tears were about her physical pain. My frantic turned to mild moroseness when I realized her tears were a different kind of pain...regret over the tats and guilt over my injuries. She sobbed incoherent "sorries" and "my faults" for fifteen minutes, while I took her in my arms and told her over and over that the fight wasn't her fault. That the fight was on me. That I lost control. That I wasn't angry with her about the tats. That I understood.

Goddamn, I'm trying to feel all those things I said.

"Hey," I say, reaching for her thigh, since I can't hold her bandaged left hand. She doesn't look at me. "Hey," I repeat more forcefully, catching her eye. "Kitty, it's okay. I told you, it's okay. Please don't. It's all good. It's nothing." I wave to indicate all recent events.

Actually, I'm lying through my teeth. Not much of it's good at all, and none of it's nothing.

My face hurts like a motherfucker. The heat and ache seeping into my cheek bone and jaw makes me worried I'm getting an infection from the split across my cheekbone that needs stitches, despite Kade's disinfection. That's definitely not good.

But Street and I? We could be all good, if we were nothing at all, as far as I'm concerned. Except Matt is determined to make us brothers, and I'm learning my father is not a man who gives up easily.