KNOW YOUR ENEMY

LEVI

A week after Brie left, Margaux dashes into the living room. The curtains are drawn, the TV is on, playing some French shit that I can’t understand so I make up words for them. Far as I’ve surmised, all the women on this show are lying cunts who love men and leave them broken-hearted. Yeah, I know that’s different from the usual “he’s sleeping with the twin sister I never knew I had” plot line used in soap operas, but let’s just go with it.

“Monsieur, monsieur.”

“What?”

“Telephone for you.”

I glare at my housekeeper. No one has my phone number here. I don’t even have it, because I didn’t know we still had a landline. I take the phone from her outstretched hand and answer it. “Bonjour, motherfucker.”

“Well hello to you too,” my bandmate Ash says, and I heave a sigh. I’m not sure if it’s in relief or disappointment.

“How did you get this number?” I push Dog’s head out of my crotch. For some reason the little asshole thinks my Johnson makes a nice pillow.

“I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you so ... you got any hookers there? Your maid says you’ve been walking around butt-naked for months.”

“Nope, there’s just me and Dog. He’s naked too.”

“I hope to Christ Dog is a fucking mutt, because I just pulled up on your doorstep and I’m cool with it if that’s your thing, but I’m not ready to see your junk all up in some other guy’s arse. I’m still trying to void the mental image of you and Coop sticking it to Red in that lift.”

“Thanks for the reminder, arsehole,” I bark, but I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything but pure, unadulterated numbness thanks to the empty bottle of whisky on the floor beside me.

“Nice place you got here.” Ash walks into my living room. He hangs up the phone and tosses a cushion at me. I cover my junk. Dog runs over to him, tail wagging as he sniffs the newcomer.

Such a shit guard dog.

“Bite his fucking arm off, Dog. Attack.” Dog huffs, and sits back on his haunches, his head tilted and his tongue lolling to the side as Ash pats his head. “Fucking traitor.”

“Hey, I’m not the enemy, or did you forget?”

“Everyone who isn’t booze is the fucking enemy right now.”

“It’s two months, man. You’re really still this fucked up?”

“Yep, only now I’m fucked up over a different piece of pussy.”

“Jesus Christ, Quinn.” He flops down on the couch beside me.

“So, what’s your excuse?”

Ash frowns. “My excuse for what?”

“For looking like shit.”

He just grins. “I’m fine. A little jetlagged, but I’m good.”

“Don’t bullshit me. You’ve been saying you were fine since before Red ever came along.”

“That’s because my arse is fine.” He grins and shakes the arse in question. “All the girls say so.”

I laugh. “What the fuck are you doing here, man?”

“Just came to see if my best friend is still in the land of the living. There something wrong with that?”

“Well, you found me. I’m not dead yet.” I light my pipe and pull back several puffs. “How did you find me?”

“I’m the next of kin on your paperwork, you dick. When the bank noticed you’re dropping a few mil on this house and wiring several hundred thousand dollars to a French woman, they get a little suspicious. Seems they couldn’t find you to get in touch with because your phone no longer works.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, arsehole, shit.” He clears his throat. “When did you get a dog?”

“I don’t know.” I pause and look at the mutt in question. It’s strange that he wound up in my car during my drunken voyage through the south of France, and yet I didn’t make a single pitstop. “I think I may have stolen him.”

“Okay ... should I be worried?”

“I’m not fucking my dog, dumbarse. I was fucking the hot French cellist from Coop’s wedding.”

“What? How did you get from their wedding to fucking the hot cellist?”

“It’s a long story, involving a shit tonne of wine, a wheel of Brie, and a business card.”

“Oh Jesus, she’s the woman you wired money to? Is she a hooker on the side?”

I whack him upside the head. It’s a little clumsy given that I’ve been in a state of perma-drunk since Brie left. “No dickhead, she’s not a hooker. I paid her to play for me.”

“And you had sex with her? Sorry, dude, I’m not really seeing the difference here.”

“We weren’t fucking ... at first. I offered her seventy-five large to stay the week and play her cello for me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t fucking know. Because I was drunk, and it sounded like a bang-up idea at the time? Because when she got here, I realized how fucking hot she was. Because once she stalked into my house with her bitchy attitude and her obvious disdain for me, I had to get all up in that pussy. Take your fucking pick, any one of those answers will do.”

“Christ. You sure can pick ’em.”

“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.”

“So, where the hell is she?”

“Gone,” I whisper, my throat constricting around the words. “I offered her two hundred thousand to stay for the month. Her dad was sick, they needed the money. I knew she’d stay for him.”

“Dude, that’s cold.”

“Yeah, guess the joke’s on me though, huh?”

“You really are fucked up over her, aren’t you?”

“Just like old times, right?” I shrug. “Wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t losing my heart to a bitch who doesn’t have one.”

“Well hey, at least you’re over Red. Does that mean you can come back and play nice with Coop now?”

I glare at the arsehole who’s supposed to be my best friend. “Do you want me to beat your head in?”

“Oh please, like you could take me.” He settles into the couch cushion beside me and yawns. “You are coming back though, right?”

Back. Back to the band, the music, and the groupies. Back to Cooper fucking Ryan’s smug-as-fuck face? I don’t know if I want to go back at all.

“Right?” Ash prompts.

“Right,” I agree, but I don’t mean it. I don’t know what I want.

You can’t give me what I want.

I push the thought of her from my mind, grab my Mac off the coffee table, and pull up the songs Brie and I had recorded. I hit play on the piece we were working on before she left. My vocals aren’t as great as Cooper Ryan’s but all the emotion is there, and her heart bleeds out from her strings accompanied by my piano. Ash’s face is contemplative as he listens. I see him forming the bassline in his head as he nods along with the music. The song ends because it was never finished. It’s written, but I’d distracted her before she could finish playing the piece, and then that fucking phone call came.

“You wrote this?” Ash says, grabbing the Mac from my lap and scrolling through the list. “You’ve got almost eight songs here, man.”

I nod, but don’t say a word. He clicks on another track and the violent strains of Brie’s bow sawing the strings fill the room. I see her in my mind, eye’s closed, head tilted, and her face pure torment as her fingers plucked furiously at the strings and her bow stuck with a recklessness I wouldn’t have thought her capable of. I’d never seen anything more fucking beautiful than the wild abandon with which she played.

Ash gives a startled laugh, my head comes screeching back to the present. A present without her in it. I can see the wheels turning in his head. “This is fucking brilliant. You want her to play with us.” It isn’t a question, but I answer anyway.

“Wanted.”

He frowns. “As in past tense?”

“What does it matter? She’s gone. She isn’t coming back, and those songs aren’t shit without her.”

“Bullshit. You’re good at this. Really fucking good, why haven’t you been writing for us the entire time?”

“And offend Coop’s delicate sensibilities?” I set my pipe down in the ashtray. “No thanks.”

“Jesus.” He shakes his head and pats my dog, who seems to have commandeered his lap. “You two used to like each other once upon a time.”

“Like is a strong word.” I grin, and he closes the Mac and hands it back to me.

“You have to bring this to practise next week.” His brow pinches. “You do remember practise, don’t you? Your two months are up, Quinn. We need you.”

I bury my head in my hands. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Can what?”

“I don’t know if I can come back.”

His throat bobs as he swallows, and for a beat his eyes are too dark, hollow. It’s like a stranger stares back at me. “To the band, or at all?”

“To my life.”

“You’re fucking kidding, right?” Ash gets up, unseating Dog in the process. He paces. Like a fucking idiot, Dog follows him, back and forth. The two of them make me dizzy. “You can’t just quit your life because shit gets hard. It’s always gonna be fucking hard. But you’re family, man. I don’t know how you and Coop work this out. I don’t know how you’re supposed to move on from Ali or this cellist chick, but you belong with us.”

Do I? I don’t know where the fuck I belong anymore. I know even less about who I am now than I did when I found this place. And I have no fucking clue where that leaves me.