She recovers her aplomb quickly. “No need,” she shoots. “A charge of statutory rape will do the trick and put you behind bars instead of me.”
She has me over another barrel and she knows it, so I say nothing. As soon as she leaves, I’ll call Georgie. Wherever she’s at, I’ll go to her and spend the evening with her. She has to be okay and I know, after the last twenty minutes, she isn’t. I have no doubt, she’s going to call Crowell to get a fix.
“I’ll forget she was with you if you stay away from her,” Cassandra murmurs into the tense air.
Instead of telling her to go fuck herself, I give her a brusque nod. There’s nothing more to say or to do to her, so I get the fuck out of there and head to my bike, yanking my phone out of my pocket, so I can call Georgie.
“Stop,” Kiln orders.
“Go suck your dick.”
“I saw you in there, Sloane,” he grates out. “You were fucking on your game. You have four days left to record eight fucking songs and another concert to prepare for. You want to fucking complete your self-destruction? Go the fuck ahead and do it. But your band deserves what you gave of yourself earlier.” I think he’s done, but he adds one last bit. “As does your music.”
“She needs me.”
I can’t believe I say those three words to him of all people. As if he gives a fuck, if she needs me. Right now, I resist the notion I need her too when I know I do. His answer is a snort.
Maitland is suddenly next to Kiln. He’s grave and tense, his eyes bleak. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he looks at the blue sky. “Fuck, I can use some reefer.”
“That makes two of us,” I grumble. For me, reefer leads to harder drugs. I stare straight ahead. “What do you want?”
“You know what, Sloane.”
He whips hair behind his ear and I study the gauges in his lobes. He was stoned out of his fucking head when he had them done. But I’m the one who’s being pinned to the fire for my drug use.
“We did what we could last night. We can vouch for you as much as possible, even though I doubt your time with her in the bedroom was innocent.”
He pauses, hoping for a denial from the look on his face but waiting for a confession because he knows me. I offer neither.
“Let her mom settle down.” He takes my phone and points to Georgie’s number, just waiting for me to press send. “You’ll only make matters worse. Go back in there while she’s still here, so she can see for herself you didn’t go after Georgie.”
“Don’t you get it?” I snarl. “The asshole who texted her last night? She’s going to him. She’s going to get fucking high and suck his goddamn dick.”
The thought almost kills me. My jealousy is overwhelming my need to protect her.
“What she does isn’t your problem,” Kiln says. “Staying out of trouble, so you won’t get kicked out of the band, is.”
There’s the threat, the not-so-subtle reminder of the control he has. He wants to get back at me because of the other night. If I leave, he’s seizing this chance. Looking to Maitland, I wait for him to defend me, but he doesn’t. He clenches his jaw and looks the other way.
This is an epic failure to Georgie, but I see no other choice but to abandon my escape. “Get that bitch the fuck out of my sight as soon as possible,” I demand, referring to Cassandra.
We find her in a heated conversation with Jaeger.
“I told you,” he shouts. “He didn’t go after your fucking daughter, madam. Her pussy’s safe from Sloane.”
She glares at me. “If only mine had been.”
“It’s my fault you opened your cunt to me?” I bark, disgusted.
The gray in her eyes overtake the green and brown, filling with a dull misery. I smirk at her, vindicated on Georgie’s behalf. “The first time Parnell asked me to do it. The second time I did it because of our mutual attraction.” Her nostrils flare and her breath hitches. “The way I sucked your cock and you pounded into me. You took me at the concert because you think I’m beautiful. You wanted me, so why were you here with Georgiana?”
Maitland shoves a lit cigarette into my hands and I take a drag. I wish it was of the illegal variety. Unfortunately, it isn’t. I take another drag.
“You never told me how I looked in that outfit.” She presses a hand against her belly. She’s wearing an emerald green dress, cut mid-thigh, to show off her long, toned legs. “Am I still beautiful?”
I pull in the smoke and close my eyes, exhaling on a long breath. I ignore Kiln and Jaeger, as well as the producers whose names I’ve never learned. I didn’t agree with bringing them onboard, in the first place. Saving my displeasure over the recording sessions for another time, I refocus on Georgie’s mother. “You’re gorgeous, Cassandra.” It doesn’t matter who, in this room, hears my compliment. It’s an undeniable truth. “Any man with red blood in his veins recognizes that.” My cigarette is burned nearly to the butt. Still, I keep it between my fingers and make an arc of the men in the room. “Me. Them. Your husband.”