CHAPTER TWELVE
Cole
I screwed up. Not only am I sitting in this damned jail cell, but I am here with Dys and Holmes, the last two fucks I want to share a jail cell with. Jacine didn’t pick up on the one call I was allowed. Who the hell am I supposed to call now? I don’t have a business manager, and I burned the last set of friends I had with a stupid card game.
Dys leaned back against the concrete eyeing me like I’m some jungle cat that could pounce on him at any moment. Holmes appeared to be meditating or some shit. Yeah. In a jail cell. He always was a little weird.
And did I blame Dys for giving me the stink-eye? No. I screwed up the first best thing in my life with an asshole move. Now I shot down the second best thing in my life with my impulsiveness. When was I going to learn?
Boss lady is more than hot. She’s the one I’ve been looking for all this time and I didn’t even know it. Who’d have thought? I thought it was just a kiss. Wrong. As the old song goes, “I fooled around and fell in love.” Yeah, that’s right—love. The big L. The thing that shall not be named when bedding groupies.
But Jacine was no groupie. She was fire and class, and power shaped in the body of a goddess. But the damndest thing is that Dys and Holmes zeroed in on her too. While I don’t like it one bit, I can’t blame them.
But what the hell are we going to do?
“Guys,” I said. “We need to talk.”
Dys snorted. Holmes gazed at me with an eerie calm that sent creepy shivers through me.
“I freely admit I’ve been an ass.”
Holmes nodded. “Acknowledgment is the first step in wisdom.”
Dys stared at me like he didn’t believe it.
“I shouldn’t have been such a jerk about the music. I’ll have Marshall draw of papers giving back your rights to your share, Dys.”
“Keep the music. It doesn’t matter.”
“But I thought—“
“Shit, Kane. You don’t get it. I don’t care about the music. I can make more of that. And I don’t care about the money—ditto.”
“Ditto,” said Holmes sagely.
“It’s because you treated me like shit that I’ve held a grudge. And I shouldn’t have done that either because that helped to get us into this mess. No man, what hurt was that I lost my friend, friends,” he said as he nodded his head at Holmes “And I’m too old to go making a bunch of new ones. But the point is I didn’t want to either, and that’s made me a hard man to live with.”
“Same here,” I said. “I can’t keep a band worth shit.”
“That’s true for me too,” said Holmes. “I don’t even speak to my band mates. I just sign the checks.”
“And no one,” I said, “played as good together as we do.”
“We jammed,” said Dys.
“Rocked and rolled,” agreed Holmes.
“So I’m offering my sincerest apologies for every rotten thing I did. I was wrong.”
“There’s something you don’t hear every day,” shot Dys.
“Fuck you, Dys,” said Holmes. “The man is trying to say he’s sorry. Can’t you take that one thing with a little grace.”
“Sorry,” mumbled Dys.
“But there’s one thing,” I said. “I need you to lay off Jacine.”
Dys's eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
“Because I’m in love with her.”
“What?” said Dys derisively. “You think love is when the hooker doesn’t charge you extra for the blow-job.”
“It’s the real deal, I swear.”
Dys scoffed. “You barely know her.”
“You know it when you see it. I did that day we met in the office.”
“Well, I’ve had a thing for her for four years, so don’t even say that doesn’t trump your feelings of looooovvve.”
“You’re both off your rock star rockers,” said Holmes. “Neither one of you can connect with her soul like I do. Besides, we have a bigger problem. We’re in jail. Or haven’t you noticed?”
“I noticed,” I said dryly.
“So we’ll bond out,” said Dys.
Ever the optimist, Dys is.
“And then what,” continued Holmes. “Did you not pay attention the last time. We were given bond on the condition we didn’t pull this shit again.”
“Now you tell us,” said Dys.
“And, we might get a judge that decides that it is “teach the celebrities a lesson” week. Seven years, guys. That’s what we could get.”
“You think? Because I haven’t seen you thinking very clearly at all.” said Dys.
“Ha,” I said.
“And you neither. Really. Thinking Jacine would want you?”
“Hey,” said Dys. “For the first time in four years, we are speaking like human beings. Let’s not blow it now.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Besides it doesn’t do a bit of good fighting about it. It’s up to her who she wants.”
“Really, Kane? When did you get so enlightened?”
“I don’t know. I’m sitting in a jail cell with two of the biggest dicks in the world who happen to be my best friends, and I wonder? What did I do to deserve all this? I mean, Christ, I must be doing something wrong. Maybe it’s time to change what I’m doing.”
Holmes snorted.
“You’re absolutely right,” he said.
“Geez, two of you in agreement,” said Dys. “I guess I’m outvoted.”
“Look,” I said. “Whatever happens we need to stick together.”
“Yeah,” said Holmes. “Friends.”
“Brothers-in-arms,” I said. But it didn’t escape me that we didn’t agree about boss lady, and that’s a problem.
Because I’m not letting a woman that hot out of my sight.
The door to cell block buzzed open and an officer came to the door.
“Your lawyer is here,” he announced.