Jet: A Marked Men Novel Read online

  I hit the ground hard and tried to let the physical exertion do its thing to get my head to stop spinning. I was almost to the park and breathing hard already, when a nondescript sedan rolled up next to me on the road. I looked at it out of the corner of my eye and would have never even noticed it if I had had music playing. I slowed down and did a double-take when it came to a complete stop next to me on the road and the window rolled down. Normally, I would have kept running. In fact, if I had been smart, I would have kept running, but when the driver leaned out the window and that familiar devil-may-care grin lit his face, I had to step off the sidewalk into the street.

  I leaned against the hood of the car with one hand and met amber-colored eyes the same shade as mine. It was really the only trait we shared, since we had different dads. Asa had blond hair and was about the same height as me, but he was beautiful and he knew it. He also had to know that I was less than thrilled to see him here.

  “How did you find me?”

  He smiled up at me and I felt my heart squeeze. When he looked at you like that, it was nearly impossible to deny him anything, even though I knew from cold, hard experience that the only person Asa cared about was Asa. Loving my big brother was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life.

  “What kind of big brother would I be if I didn’t keep tabs on what my lil sis was up to?”

  “The kind you’ve always been. What are you doing here?” I couldn’t give him an inch or he would take the thousands of miles I had worked so hard to put between us.

  “I need to talk to you about something. I got some trouble brewing back home and I might need a little help.”

  There was always trouble with Asa and if he said it was brewing, the truth was that it had probably already boiled over and both of us were looking into the eye of a full-on shit storm. That was just his way. Stir up the mess and leave it for someone else, usually me, to figure out how to clean up. He never even stopped to ask how I managed to do it time and time again, just took for granted that I would, and always did, find a way.

  I shook my head and pushed off the car. “No.”

  He lifted a blond brow at me. “What do you mean, no?”

  I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, because I was suddenly freezing even though it wasn’t that cold out. “Just no. No, I won’t help you. No, I won’t give you money. No, you can’t stay with me. Whatever it is, the answer is just, hell no. I have a good thing going on here Asa. I’m kickass at school, I have awesome friends and a cool job. You aren’t going to show up and mess with any of it.”

  He just smiled at me in a way that used to make me shake my head and follow him into whatever crazy scheme he was in the middle of at the time. Now it made the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  “You forgot your fancy boyfriend in that list, sis.”

  I frowned because no one in their right mind would call Jet fancy, but I wasn’t going to give him any ammo to work with. “I have to go, Asa. Stop calling me and hanging up, and if you have friends lurking around tell them to back off. Those guys I hang out with aren’t afraid to get physical.”

  Something moved across the shimmery amber depths of his eyes. I knew the look well. I saw it enough in the mirror. It was fear.

  “I haven’t called you, Ayd, and I just got to town today. Alone.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him because he might be telling the truth, but there was just as much of a chance that he was running a game on me. “Seriously.”

  I had to steel the reserves up. I couldn’t get dragged back into whatever Asa was running from. I had spent way too much time doing things I’d struggled to forget, in order to keep him alive and out of jail, when I should have been having sleepovers and trying out for cheerleading.

  “I wish I could say it was nice to see you, Asa, but I don’t lie like that anymore. I hope you figure out whatever it is you’re running from, but it isn’t my job to fix it all for you anymore. Mom should have warned you of that before you tracked me down.”

  I turned to go back to the sidewalk and I could feel his eyes burning into my back as I walked away.

  “It looks like you’re still running, Ayd. Haven’t you figured out the horizon just gets farther and farther away, and the past stays exactly where you left it?”

  That was part of what made Asa so dangerous. He could read a stranger from a hundred miles away. But me, me he already knew inside and out, and he didn’t even have to try to guess my weaknesses and fears. I didn’t answer him, and started running as fast as I could toward the park. I didn’t delude myself into thinking that this would be the last run-in I had with Asa. If he was in trouble, he wasn’t going anywhere. I needed to make sure that whatever he had brought with him from Woodward didn’t have the chance to bleed drama and chaos all over everything wonderful I had built here in Denver.

  Chapter 8

  Jet

  I woke up alone, which wasn’t entirely surprising. What caught me a little off guard was the fact that it kind of pissed me off.

  Friends with benefits was all fine and dandy, but after the night before, it felt like there was something else at work that neither of us should be able to ignore. We just fit. We just worked. If two people were ever supposed to be having sex on a regular basis, it was us, and the fact that she had such an easy time walking out after, irked me to no end. I wasn’t arrogant enough to think I was the end all and be all of lovers, but like I had promised her, it was a good time and it bugged me she was gone so soon. I wasn’t sure if it was my ego or something else and I didn’t like it.

  I rolled out of bed and hopped in the shower. By the time I was out, my phone was blowing up where I had tossed it on the nightstand the night before. I pulled on a pair of bright red jeans and a black T-shirt and was shoving my feet into my boots and ignoring another call from my dad, when I saw that the first round of missed calls had come from Dario Hill, the lead singer of Artifice. I had worked with him a ton on the last album and they were the main reason we got signed on to tour with Metalfest last year. They were in the big time now and Dario found less and less time to just call and chitchat, so I started to freak out a little, wondering if the old man had circumvented me and tried to get in touch with them about the European tour without my help.

  I pushed my mop of wet hair out of my face and twirled the ring that circled my thumb around and around while I called him back. I was prepared to leave a message, but Dario picked up on the second ring.

  “Dude, I’ve been trying to call you all morning.”

  I picked my guitar up off the floor where I had laid it down last night and ran my fingers over the stings.

  “Yeah, I had a late night so I was slow getting to it this morning.”

  He laughed. “Sounds fun.”

  I don’t know that fun was the right word, more like life-changing, but Dario was an old-school metal head and he wouldn’t understand the significance of any of that, so I didn’t bother to try to explain it. “You could say that. So what’s up? I thought you guys were getting ready to head to Europe on tour for the new album.”

  Going to Europe was a big deal. The global exposure was huge and it was just fun and exciting to play new venues and reach audiences that expected so much more. Metal overseas kicked the shit out of American metal any day of the week.

  “That’s actually why I’m calling.”

  I was mentally preparing myself for him to tell me that having my dad badger him crossed both our friendship and professional boundaries, and I missed a chord on the song I was absently strumming. I swore and set the guitar to the side.

  “The band that the record label had planned on going with us fell through. I dunno what happened. They’re out though and we need a replacement act stat. They tossed around a few names, but I’m not stoked on being on the road with any of them for three months. I dropped your name, on the off chance they would be down for it, and I thought the head of the label was going to shit his pants. Why didn’t you ever say anything about them
being after you to sign for, like, ever?”

  I sighed. “Because I don’t want to sign with anyone, let alone someone that big.”

  “Goddamn, Jet, you are one complicated, messed-up dude.”

  “Be grateful. That’s how I write you such badass songs.”

  He laughed again, but got serious again real quickly. “Come on tour with us. I shouldn’t ask, because Enmity is way better than we are, but it’ll be fun and the exposure can’t be matched. It’s only three months and you know you guys are perfect for it.”

  Three months was three months, and being that far away from my mom while my dad was in town to do his worst, made my skin crawl. Plus, I had to figure out what was going on with Ayden. If I left for three months, I felt like I would come back and she would be cuddled up to the first guy she could find who was rocking a tweed jacket with those leather patches on the elbows. I knew what she wanted, but what she actually needed was entirely different. If I was in Europe, I had no trouble seeing her talk herself into going back to boring and predictable.

  “I don’t know, man. One of the guys just had a kid and I have all kinds of jacked-up stuff going on here. That’s a pretty big commitment to make.”

  I heard him sigh. “Jet, you are by far the most talented musician I have ever met and I don’t just mean because you can rock a metal song, but all across the board. No one is better onstage than you, no one can write a song like you. I get that you’re happy being a big shot in the local scene, but come on now, is that really all this is ever going to be for you? When are you going to see the big picture? How can you realistically pass up the chance to tour Europe on the record label’s dime?”

  Logically, I knew what he was saying was true, but the part of me that lived and breathed in anger, in fear of what my dad could ultimately do to destroy my mom, just couldn’t relent right away.

  “Let me talk to the guys and get back to you.”

  Another sigh, and this one I could practically feel across the phone line. “You only have a couple of days, dude. We need to have the opening act hammered down before the end of the week and then we leave the first of March.”

  I didn’t feel like that was enough time to turn it around in my head, but I had to at least see what the other guys in the band thought about it, before abjectly refusing it. I was going to tell him “later” and hang up, but he stopped me with what I had dreaded hearing when I first saw that I had missed a call from him.

  “Hey, before I let you go, the label got a call from some guy saying he knew you and that he wanted to get hitched into the tour. Do you know anything about that? I told the guys I would ask about it before we agreed to anything, but honestly he sounded like kind of a nutjob.”

  Now it was my turn to sigh. I rubbed my thumb hard between my eyes and felt my back teeth click together. It was a struggle on a daily basis not to choke the old bastard out, and the older I got, the harder and harder it got to keep from pummeling him.

  “Tell him no. In fact, tell him hell no. If he calls again, tell him you’re going to have security put eyes out for him. He doesn’t need to be anywhere near your tour or near your band.”

  Which meant I was going to have to find some other way for him to spend his time, other than making my mom’s life miserable. Maybe the best thing to do would be to just send him off to Europe with Dario and hope that he didn’t come back. Disgustingly though, he was my problem, always had been, and I wasn’t about to pawn his sorry ass off on a friend.

  “All right, but seriously Jet, think long and hard about the tour. This is perfect for you and it couldn’t happen to a better guy or a better band. You deserve to get the recognition.”

  I grunted a good-bye and shoved the phone in my pocket. I made a quick trip to the bathroom to get my hair under control, ending with the black strands hanging shaggily over my forehead. I brushed my teeth and laced my belt through my pants. It looked like Ayden had already come and gone, because all her girly crap was put away and her normal collection of abandoned clothes was nowhere in sight. I went back to being irritated that she could just bolt on me after last night, and muttered obscenities under my breath all the way to the kitchen.

  Cora was puttering around, already ready for work, and looked up at me with knowing eyes when I flopped into one of the chairs at the kitchen table.

  “Did Ayd already leave for the day?”

  She came toward me with a mug of coffee and a grin. “She did. She was up early and went running, then left for class. Everything okay with you two? She seemed a little abrupt when she got back from her run.”

  I let my head fall back on my neck so that I was staring up at the ceiling. “I have no idea.”

  She sat down across from me and I lowered my head so that we were staring at each other. There was something about those multicolored eyes that made a person just know that she saw more and understood more than she ever let on. Cora could read people better than almost anyone I had ever met, and if she had any insight into what was going on with Ayden, I was all ears.

  “I think Ayd has more going on under the surface than she lets on. I mean, I’ve lived with her for a while now and she never mentions home or her family, and she never talks about what her life before college was like. Even Shaw has only the basics. It’s like she didn’t exist before moving here for school. Sometimes it’s what people choose not to say that tells the more important story.”

  I just gawked at her, because I had no idea how she saw the whole picture so clearly like that. Sometimes it was easy to miss all she had going on because her punk-rock. fairy-princess, persona was so distracting.

  “Like you.” She pointed a neon-tipped finger at the end of my nose and flicked it. “You didn’t mention that you went to see your mom yesterday. Why is that?”

  I groaned and shoved both my hands through my hair getting gunk all over them. “Because I don’t like to talk about it. Nash has a big mouth.”

  “No, Nash is a good friend who knows how hard you are on yourself when it comes to taking responsibility for your parents’ shitty marriage. One day, you’re going to have to recognize that your mom is a grown-ass woman, responsible for all the choices she’s made and continues to make where your dad is concerned. You did your best to help her, to get her out of there, and she clearly doesn’t want to go. That can’t be your burden to bear for the rest of your life, Jet.”

  It was pretty much the same thing Nash had told me yesterday, but understanding that they were right, and being able to just put it down and walk away, were two different things entirely. So I told her the same thing I told Nash, “She’s my mom.”

  Only Cora wasn’t Nash, and she wasn’t the type to accept as gospel why I continued to torture myself over the matter. She put one of her tiny hands on mine and squeezed.

  “Right, she is, which means she should be there to take care of you, and be proud of all the amazing things you do. She should be giddy with excitement about how talented her son is and she should be your biggest fan. What she shouldn’t be doing is letting her unhealthy relationship with your dad keep you tied to this town and to her, when everybody, and Jet, I mean everybody knows you could be doing so much more on such a bigger scale.”

  I couldn’t argue with her because she was right. Everyone was right, but that didn’t change the fact that I was stone-cold terrified of what would happen to the woman if I just washed my hands of the situation, and let my dad finish dismantling her. I didn’t know if I could live with myself if I let that happen, and no amount of success or personal achievement was worth that risk. I wasn’t even going to mention the offer of the tour with Artifice, because that would just give her more fuel for the fire. If I was here in Denver to keep the old man occupied, there was less of a chance he could totally destroy her.

  “It is what it is, for now.”

  She lifted a pale eyebrow. “But it doesn’t have to be. Look at you and Ayd. Things can be one way for a long time and then have to change because there is no other choic
e.”

  I just shrugged. “Maybe.”

  She rolled her eyes at me and climbed to her feet. “I have to go or I’m going to be late. Stop acting like a typical brooding musician and make Ayd talk to you. By the way, she was totally a ten when I saw her this morning, so way to go, killer.”

  That startled a laugh out of me and shook some of the gloom from my current mood. “I told you one day I would have one.”

  She laughed and winked at me with her blue eye. “Well, the catch is that you’re totally a ten right now, too, and I don’t think you’ve ever been above a five. You’re good together, Jet, in any form that happens to be. Don’t let her convince you otherwise.”

  “Yeah. For some reason, I think that might be a lot harder than it sounds.”

  After Cora left for work, I screwed around for a couple of hours and tried to finish the song I was working on last night when Ayden had ambushed me. It was sad and had a melody to it that made something in the center of my chest hurt. It was missing something I couldn’t put my finger on. With my mind spinning about the tour and a certain Southern girl, I couldn’t get it right, so I tossed my guitar in the case and went down to the studio. I was supposed to finish up with Black Market Alphas later on tonight, but the mood I was currently in didn’t bode well for getting anything accomplished, especially if Ryan showed up flashing his idiotic bravado and unearned arrogance.

  I tweaked a couple of the tracks, messed around with some of my own, and sent a text to all the guys in my band that we needed to get together to talk. My dad called me three times and I sent all three directly to voice mail. I debated on calling Ayden and decided that the phone worked both ways. If she wanted to talk, she could get in touch with me. After all, I wasn’t the one who left her hanging alone in bed after a night of mind-melting sex.

  Before I knew it, the afternoon had blown by and Ryan and the rest of the band were rolling into the studio. It was a shame the lead singer was such a little punk, because the other guys were all cool and I really saw a lot of myself in Jorge. They were getting set up when my phone beeped at me with a text.