It was one of the things his family never seemed to understand. Just being made noise. On some subdermal level, he heard them under his skin, itching away and scratching his nerves. It wasn’t as bad with Miki and Damie. Neither one of them felt the need to poke at him until he bled out of his mind—until now.
“Quinn, you know Rafe.” Damie cut Quinn’s wheedling short. “Tell me one good reason why I should let a fucking drug addict into my band.”
“Oh, up here it’s your band, but when you’re screaming at Sionn it’s our band?” Miki scoffed. “Make up your damned mind.”
“You wanna make those calls, Sinjun?” D turned, his chin up. They were nearly the same height, but Damien’s British was out, a strong slap to the face of Miki’s streetwise sneer.
“You want a band so badly, just like the last time. Whatever you want, I’ll be right there fucking beside you, but don’t push me in front of you when Sionn pisses you off.”
Miki didn’t seem that impressed. Not from what Quinn could see. Especially when he stepped into Damie’s space until they stood toe to toe.
“I’m good with you steering the whole band thing, but this whole Rafe mess—”
“Do you think it’s easy with this? Andrade’s a decent player. Good even. Collins loved the fuck out of him, and look what happened to him… to them?” Damie’s voice dropped soft, pleading with his best friend. “I can’t have that happen to you. I can’t risk you. Not again. Not like I did before.”
“Fucker,” Miki grumbled, grabbing at Damie to pull him into a hug. “So we don’t audition Rafe.”
Quinn threw his gaze up to the sky, wishing he could keep his mouth shut and let the two men deal with the ripple of Andrade hitting them as hard as it hit Quinn every time he saw Rafe. But for the remains of Sinner’s Gin, Rafe loomed above them as a specter of death and destruction, not the man Quinn’d seen grow from an angry, confused boy.
“He tries, you know,” Quinn said softly as he extracted himself from under the blanket, then stood up. It was better to speak softly. It drew the ear to follow the sound, forced the listener to pay attention. If he was going to trespass where angels feared to tread, Quinn knew he had to go in carefully. When both men turned to look at him, he continued, “Rafe, I mean. He tries to be better. Well, still is trying. It can’t be easy to live down to everyone’s expectations, even when they believe the worst of you.”
“Q, Rafe’s been with you guys since you were little kids, but shit happens—people change.” Damie pulled himself loose of Miki’s hug, but Quinn noticed Damie slid his best friend behind him, an unconscious protection he probably didn’t even realize he was doing. “He seems like a nice guy. I just can’t risk it. Not the band. Not Miki.”
It made Quinn smile, then hurt because he couldn’t remember ever having someone not named Morgan love him enough to stand between him and danger. There was a part of him crying at the emptiness inside of him, and once again, Quinn reminded himself of the cracks in his sidewalk no one wanted to fall into. He had friends—people he knew like Graham and… sadly, his brothers and cousin—but none as fiercely loyal as Damie was with Miki. And his brothers didn’t count. They were more smothering than protective.
Now there seemed to also be a Rafe when he didn’t remember putting one there. Rafe stood in front of him—had before. Had since then. It was definitely time for Quinn to do some standing as well.
“Rafe gave a guy some shit that killed him,” Damien said softly. “And he doesn’t remember a damned thing about it. That’s not the guy I want with me up on stage, and it sure as hell isn’t the one I want in a tour bus with me and the guys. If he even shows up. If we do this band—when we do this band—it’s got to be all in. Everyone needs to be solid.”
“It’s been years since that, Damien,” Quinn reminded them both. “A lot’s happened to all of you. You came back from the dead, and Miki fell in love. You did too. You worked hard to get here—to the coast—because you knew someone was here waiting for you, worrying for you. Rafe had a different struggle, a harder journey. You went looking for Miki. He had to go looking for himself.”
“Dude, you have no idea what shit he’s done. You knew him here. Not out there. Not on the road. And sure as shit not in his band,” Sionn’s lover pointed out.
“Everything you know is what was fed to you… sold to you,” Quinn remarked. “You don’t really know him. Not then when he was dying inside and not now when he’s trying to live.”
“He’s a good bassist. Or was,” Miki interrupted Damien before he could speak. Waving off his friend’s withering look, Miki sneered right back. “Look, sure I liked him, and yeah, he wrote a lot of Rising Black’s bass lines. Either we give him a chance or we don’t. But shit, Damien, we’ve heard or talked to about twenty-five guys already.”