“Dollars?” he asked incredulously. “Nine. Million. Dollars?” He sat down at the table before he could fall down, as the number reverberated through his head. He buried his face in his hands. Tried to think. Tried to breathe. Nine million dollars. Nine. Million. Dollars. “Jesus Christ, are you insane?”
“It’s beginning to feel like it, what with the way you’re trying to throw your career away. And ours with it.” Jared sounded tough, but he was the first one to pull a chair up right next to Wyatt and sit down.
“We already told you. The money doesn’t matter,” Ryder repeated.
“Of course it fucking matters. What are you going to do when I screw up again? Where are you going to be?”
“Same place we’ve always been,” Quinn told him. “Hanging out together, making music, watching one another’s backs. We’ve been doing it since we were seventeen. I think it’s a little late to try to learn anything different now.”
“Yeah, especially since none of us wants things to be any different than they are.” Jared clapped him on the back.
For long seconds, Wyatt didn’t say anything. Not because he didn’t have things to say, but because he didn’t trust himself to be able to say them. For the first time in more years than he could remember, he was afraid that if he opened his mouth, his voice would crack. Afraid that if he unclenched his jaw, he’d end up blubbering like a baby.
He didn’t deserve this loyalty, didn’t deserve this generosity. Not with all the shit he’d pulled through the years. Not with all the mistakes he’d made and all the times he’d fucked them over. Nine million dollars. They’d paid nine million dollars just to keep him around. Him.
The guy who’d been a screwup since he was six years old.
The guy who’d destroyed his family one person at a time.
The guy who couldn’t keep his shit together long enough to make it through a concert, let alone an entire world tour.
And yet here they were. Jared, Ryder, Quinn. Backing him, even knowing it was a sure bet that he was going to fuck up again. Standing by him even though it had already cost them more than they should ever have to pay.
Even his mom had given up on him. Drank herself to death when he and the memories of what he’d done—what he’d failed to do—had gotten to be too much. Why the fuck were they still hanging around?
“I don’t get it,” he finally said, when he thought he had a chance of getting the words out without completely humiliating himself. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
For the first time since he’d walked into the kitchen, they glared at him like he really was a fuck-up. Jared clenched his fist like he was contemplating hitting him again, and Quinn looked like it was taking every ounce of self-control he had not to kick his ass.
“If you can’t figure that out,” Ryder said eventually, “then I don’t know what the hell we’re even doing here.”
He wanted to say what they wanted to hear, wanted to give them the answer they were all waiting for. But he couldn’t do that, because he didn’t get it. He didn’t understand why they would risk everything on him when he’d shown them over and over again that he wasn’t worth it. That he couldn’t be trusted.
Shoving back from the table, he stumbled to his feet, lurched toward the back door and the fresh air that was waiting for him right outside the glass. He felt like he was strangling, his emotions a knot in his chest that kept him from taking in enough oxygen.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he flung the door open and staggered outside. “I’ll pay you back. I’ll pay you all back, I swear. But I can’t do this. I just can’t do this.”
Knowing the guys would be right behind him, he took off for his car, and made it seconds before Ryder, Jared, and Quinn caught up to him. Sorry, he mouthed through the glass as he threw the car in reverse. And then he was speeding down the driveway, away from them, away from Shaken Dirty, away from yet another mess he’d made and didn’t have a clue how to clean up.
Chapter Thirteen
“What the hell was that all about, Caleb?”
“I don’t know. I swear I don’t. Dad ambushed me! When we talked strategy for the call, trying to get Wyatt to quit was never even part of the discussion. He totally came up with it on his own.”
“Are you sure about that?” Poppy asked as she slammed into her apartment. “Because you didn’t seem very shocked that he was out for Wyatt’s blood.”