I’m on the couch in my suite, feet up, slouched halfway down and staring at some TV show about mountain men who hunt deer with their bare hands or some shit. I’m not thinking about Darcy taking her shirt off earlier. I’m not thinking about her skin under my fingertips, about smelling her hair with my arms around her, or about how seeing her half-naked got me instantly hard as a rock, burn blisters or no burn blisters.

Nope. I’m just watching this television show, featuring a man whose snot has frozen into his mustache.

My phone rings. It’s Nigel.

“Hey Nigel,” I answer.

“Hello there Trent, it’s Nigel,” he says. It doesn’t matter how I answer my phone, he still identifies himself to me every single time he calls.

“Right,” I say. “Listen, so I went through that list of tour venues you asked me to look at, and—”

“I’m so sorry to interrupt, but that’s actually not why I’m calling,” he says.

Nigel sounds... weird. Nervous. Upset. And yes, the poor man usually sounds that way, but that’s just his voice. This sounds for real.

“Is everything okay?” I ask, sitting forward and putting my feet on the floor. “I mean, you know, relatively?”

“Would you mind coming around to my suite in about fifteen minutes?” he asks, a strangely polite edge to his voice.

“What’s going on?”

“Just come, please.”

“Nigel, is something wrong?”

“See you there!” he says, and the call ends, his faux-cheery British tones still ringing in my ears.

I don’t bother waiting the fifteen minutes.

* * *

When Nigel lets me into his suite, Eddie and Gavin are already there, and as I’m exchanging a what the fuck is going on look with the latter, Darcy knocks on the door and Nigel lets her in.

No one says anything, but she lifts her eyebrows at me.

I shrug.

Nigel sighs far more dramatically than you’d think a British man could, and then holds out one hand to his suite’s dining table.

“Please sit,” he says.

We obey, because we’re way too confused to do anything else.

“Nigel, mate, is something wrong?” Gavin asks, leaning on his elbows across the table. “Whatever it is, we’ll help.”

Nigel just folds his hands, then looks pointedly at Eddie. Eddie’s looking down at his hands.

For a long, long moment, no one says anything, and then Eddie takes a deep breath.

“I’m quitting the band,” he says.

Dead fucking silence.

It’s so unexpected that I’m just fucking baffled for a moment.

“What?” Gavin says, clearly having the same reaction I am.

“You can’t,” Darcy says, her voice already rising.

Still looking at his hands, Eddie nods.

“I think it’s best for everyone if we—”

“Are you fucking serious?” Darcy says, her voice cutting through the room.

Eddie looks at her, eyes wide, and clears his throat.

“I’ve thought this decision through very carefully, and I think that my creative—”

“No you fucking didn’t,” she says. “You’ve never thought a thing through carefully in your entire goddamn life.”

“We’re two shows into a tour,” Gavin adds in, still sounding more baffled than angry.

“You’ve got three weeks off now, I’m sure you’ll find someone to fill in—”

“We don’t want someone to fill in!” Darcy shouts. “We want someone to be in our goddamned band!”

“Eddie,” Gavin says, jabbing one finger into the table, his voice nearly shaking with the strain of sounding reasonable. “Reconsider. You can’t just leave now, we’ve got a massive tour all planned out and we really do need a drummer to complete it.”

“You are fucking us over,” Darcy says. “Did you think that through very carefully too? Or did you just think ‘fuck these guys’ and that was as far as you got?”

“Look, I’m sorry, but you’ve totally got time to—”

I stand up so fast my chair topples over, and everyone stops, turns, looks at me.

I walk away from the table and stalk ten feet away, seeing black because I think I could strangle Eddie right now.

That fucking asshole. Just when we get everything back on track, just when it seems like things might be going okay for once, he fucking up and quits the band.

In the middle of a goddamn tour, and then he acts like he’s a fucking saint because we’ve got three weeks to find a replacement. Three fucking weeks.

It took us three months to find Eddie when we had to kick Liam out. Apparently, we should have taken longer.

What a shithead. Three weeks. Three goddamn weeks.

“No, I said you’re a fucking inconsiderate prick, and you are,” Darcy shouts. “Who the fuck joins a band, starts a tour, and then decides to fuck that band over?”

“The point wasn’t to fuck you over—”

“Please, tell us the point then,” Gavin says. “I sure fucking hope it’s a good one.”

“I’m going on tour with my side project. Stingraze.”

I just turn and stare.

He’s fucking going on tour with his side project. Leaving behind Dirtshine and arena shows and a platinum album for his fucking side project.

“Are you serious?” Darcy’s voice is so vicious it’s almost a snarl.

Silence.

“You fucking cock,” Gavin mutters.

I feel fucking ugly right now, like I might throw shit, or like the shit I throw might be Eddie, because there’s the rational, normal reaction to anger and then there’s the reaction I’ve got sometimes, which is anything but.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Eddie finally says.

“No, I’m not fucking kidding you, why would I be fucking kidding about how bloody pissed I am that you’re leaving after two tour dates?” Gavin says, his voice rising.

“You punched me!” Eddie shouts.

“But you didn’t fucking leave then, did you? You were happy to keep on sucking at the Dirtshine teat for another whole year!”

A chair scrapes back, then another.

“Guys,” Darcy says.

“I should have left then!” Eddie shouts.

“Fucking right!”

“The three of you are total psychopaths,” Eddie goes on, starting to really get worked up. “You fucking punched me, Trent fucking got medieval on that poor bastard the other night with the fireworks, you’re a dismissive bitch who can barely be bothered to give me the time of day—”

FUCK no.

In half a second I’m back, both palms flat on the table, leaning toward Eddie.

“It’s fuck you o’clock!” Darcy shouts. “How’s that?”

“What did you just say?” I ask Eddie, my voice deadly calm, cutting through the racket.

“You fucking drugged my girlfriend!” Gavin shouts.

“Call Darcy a bitch again,” I say.

Now the black is pounding through my veins with every heartbeat. Eddie can say whatever he wants about me, but Darcy?

No. Fuck no.

“Fucking ass-clown shithead cocktool dickface idiot mouthbreathing drummer,” Darcy says. “Fuck you.”

“You gonna get upset about her calling me that?” Eddie says, almost hysterical, talking to me and pointing at Darcy. “Or do you not want to fuck me, so it doesn’t matter?”

“You don’t know shit,” I growl, and start for him around the table.

Eddie’s eyes go wide, but Darcy grabs my arm, her strong fingers digging in, her eyes flashing.

“Don’t,” she says. “It’s fine.”

Gavin glares at Eddie, then the two of us, and turns to leave. The door slams behind him.

“Just fucking go,” Darcy says through her teeth. “Don’t make this worse.”

I swallow. I know she’s right, but what he said just keeps ringing through my ears, pounding through my veins as she pulls at my arm.

“Seriously,” she says, and her voice is still brittle and angry but now there’s a softer, pleading note in it and that’s what finally makes the black fade a little. I clear my throat.

“Liam was miles better than you,” I tell Eddie. “Even blitzed out of his mind.”

It feels like all the air sucks out of the room. I turn and walk for the door.

“Buy some fucking pants!” Darcy says, following me. “Shorts are for children.”

I head through the door, into the hallway, Darcy right behind me. Poor Nigel is still sitting at the table in the same room as Eddie, though I have a feeling he knew how that was going to go.

Darcy turns and storms down the hallway. I don’t follow her. There’s a window at the other end and I walk to that, shoving my hands in my pockets, and stare out at the forest, still shaking with rage.

Dismissive bitch, I think, and it feels like poison trickling through my veins.

Fuck him. Fuck Eddie and his easy insults.

Fuck him because he was supposed to be our friend, because he was supposed to be our bandmate, only to say that to her. The same thing that assholes everywhere keep saying about her, the same shit lowbrow music critics and neckbearded jackoffs who live in their moms’ basements say about her.

I could tear Eddie’s goddamn head off right now.

I don’t do anything. I’m shaking with anger but all I do is lean my forehead against the cool glass of the window. It would be so fucking satisfying, but I can do better. I didn’t the other night, but I can right now.

I’ve seen what’ll happen if I don’t do better. I lived with it for eighteen years, and I’ve got no intention of making anyone else’s life that kind of hell.

It takes a long time, but the blackness eventually recedes. The rage subsides. My hands stop itching to strangle someone, so I stand up straight, open my eyes, and take a deep breath.

Then I go downstairs and head outside, because I desperately need to clear my head.