What was I saying again?
Fuzzy confusion crossed my eyes as I slid from the couch to the carpet, my head swimming too hard to hold me upright.
“Floor.” Someone else muttered nearby.
The couch dipped near where my head rested, and I cracked my eyes to squint up at Jace. “Huh?”
He nodded to my empty shot glasses. “One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.” He pointed at my position on the carpet. Funny fuck.
I didn’t have it in me to laugh, so I just grunted. Then yawned. When was the last time I’d slept?
“Come on, I’ll help you get to bed,” Jace told me, reading my mind. Or hell, maybe I’d said it out loud. Who knew these days?
Still, I batted his helpful hand away when he tried to pull me up off the carpet. “Fuck off,” I mumbled. “I don’t need your help.”
Jace knew me well enough that he didn’t argue, just sat back and watched as I rolled onto all fours like a drunken armadillo, then started crawling my ass out of the living room. I had enough experience being wasted not to try walking upright. Last time, I’d stumbled into a doorframe and given myself a black eye.
By the time I’d dragged myself into my tangled mess of sheets, I’d totally forgotten Jace was following me. I flinched when he dropped a bucket onto the hardwood floor beside my bed, then glared up at him.
“What?” he replied, scowling. “Can’t hurt to have it nearby for when you start to sober up.”
I scoffed, my eyes rolling back into my head. Fucking hell, when did we move onto a ship? That was the only logical explanation for why I was swaying so much. Right? Or maybe that was the tequila.
“Fuck off with your smug face, Jace,” I mumbled. Then snickered. “That rhymes. Smug face Jace. Gimme those.” I waved a hand at my bedside table where a pill bottle sat half empty.
Jace picked it up and read the label, nosy prick, then sighed. “Rhett… you’re a goddamn mess, bro. You need to clean up.”
My only response was to stick my hand out, asking silently for the pills again.
Jace glowered, but he uncapped the bottle and shook two little white pills out into my waiting palm. I didn’t bother with water, just dry swallowed them both and snuggled my face into a pillow. They’d work quickly now that I had so much liquor in my system. Would I wake up? Debatable. There was a reason you’re not supposed to mix booze and sleeping pills, but it was fucking preferable to the insomnia.
“I’ll be here when you wake up,” Jace said with a sad voice, probably thinking I had already passed out. “We can talk then.”
Not fucking likely. Jace was never here when I was even remotely sober. Too busy running from his own past come back to haunt him. Too preoccupied ignoring his own baggage and indulging in his addiction of choice: anonymous pussy.
I wished I could do the same… but the idea of fucking a groupie made me physically ill.
Or maybe that was just the tequila again.
Who knew? Who fucking cared?
“Get up, Silver,” someone said way too close to my ear.
I winced, covering my head with a pillow to dull the sound. “Screw off, dickhead,” I snarled, not giving a shit if they could hear me. It was Jace again. I think. Maybe Gray? Nah, too melodic for Gray, who sounded more like he sang in a thrash metal band. Jace, then. Dick.
Blankets were ripped off me far too abruptly, and my body flailed in reflex.
Jace’s unmistakable snicker made me quit thrashing.
“Fuck off,” I shouted, sitting up to reach for my blanket. It was too damn cold to be chilling in my boxers and nothing else. I was too goddamn hungover. Where was the bottle of tequila?
“Get up, Silver,” he repeated, screwing up his face. “And take a fucking shower; you stink.”
I caught the towel he tossed at me and lifted an arm to sniff my pit. Oh yeah, he wasn’t wrong. The fact that my own smell made my stomach roll and twist was the only reason I dragged my aching ass off to the bathroom. Jace’s bullying had fucking nothing to do with it.
“Why are you so goddamn bright this morning?” I drawled as I stripped and climbed into the shower. Jace’d followed me, and I didn’t care. We’d been best friends and bandmates long enough that he’d seen my dick a thousand times. We had no qualms about nudity anymore.
“I started writing a song last night,” he told me with a sly grin.
My brows shot up as I peered through the glass shower screen. “Seriously?”
He shrugged. “Seemed like it was time.”
I scoffed. “Gray got to you, huh? He turned up here yesterday, too.”
“Oh yeah? How’d you get him to leave?”
I screwed my eyes shut, trying to remember. “Pretty sure I threw a gin bottle at him and called him an ugly shrew.”
Jace spluttered a laugh. “What the fuck? An ugly shrew? Where do you come up with this shit?”
I chuckled, using a liberal amount of soap in my pits and groin. “Fuck if I know. I was trashed and he came in here all nagging like an annoying, big bird… and you know he gets all butthurt when people say he’s ugly.” Because it was blatantly untrue. Gray was a great looking guy, but he was big and broad, rocking scars and long hair… He wasn’t pretty like Jace. So he was often referred to as less attractive than the rest of Bellerose.
“I’m so confused,” Jace admitted, looking it. “How did you get to shrew from big bird? Wasn’t Big Bird a chicken?”
I rinsed my soap off and turned off the shower.
“Jace… brother. I love you, but fuck, you’re dumb sometimes. Big Bird was a huge-ass canary, and a shrew is, like, the lanky bird with the big beak who delivers babies.” I took the towel from his hand when he held it out to me and dried off.
Jace chuckled. “That’s a stork. A shrew is like a rat. Or a mole. Or… some small rodent kinda thing with poisonous saliva. Which is actually funnier, picturing how confused Gray would have been when you said that. Anyway, yeah, he reminded me that we owe the label an album, so I started writing something that I want you to hear.”
“Oh, just like that, huh?” The bitterness in my voice cut like acid. I tied the towel around my waist and swiped a hand over my peacock-blue mohawk—not that I’d bothered to gel it in weeks, and the sides were starting to grow out in my natural shade of dirty blond.
Stalking out of the bathroom, I headed for the kitchen. I was too fucking sober for Jace’s bullshit, and my hangover was pounding. It felt like Grayson was parked up in my frontal lobe, beating the crap out of my brain matter.
Glancing around, I couldn’t spot the tequila bottle I’d been working on last night. Or was it this morning? Whatever, it was nowhere to be seen. Maybe I’d finished it and Jace cleaned it up.
Or maybe… “Where the fuck is all the booze?” I demanded, whirling around when I found the kitchen dry.
Jace folded his arms, his expression set in a stubborn look. “I threw it out. It’s time you sobered up, Rhett. You’re wallowing in self-pity like you were in love with that bitch.”
My jaw dropped to the floor. “Excuse me?”
“You fucking heard me. You were hitting it for two weeks, and you’re acting like your wife of twelve years just left. Pull yourself together, bro; we have an album to write. If your dick is lonely, there’s plenty of other sluts out there who’d crawl over broken glass to get railed by the great Rhett Silver.”