“Sure,” Zoe answered. Her eyes were wide, and her face showed wonder as she looked around.
Tanner nodded, but she was looking around the room, too. He didn’t even want to know what she was thinking.
He left them by the front door and walked up to the bar that was a few feet from where they had been standing. No way in hell he’d leave them alone in a fucking zoo like this, but he could see them and knew they needed a moment to take it all in. A few girls were squealing right beside him, rambling on about the concerts they had gone to see the band perform, but he was focused on Tanner.
The tank top she wore was white, and it had this delicate little lace trim around the collar. Her breasts were huge, and looking at them, thinking about sliding his dick between the huge mounds, was one fucked up thing to do. Shit, she had just come back into his life after a long time of being apart. He knew everything there was to know about her, but what he knew about her was from when she had been eighteen years old and younger.
She was in her twenties now, the same as he was, but he felt like he didn’t know her anymore. All they had were past memories, ones that had faded over time. How could people really know each other without having spoken for five years? Jacks still considered her one of his best friends, but whether that was the truth still was really not known. Honestly, if only admitting to himself right now, he had always thought of her as so much more, especially after he took her virginity.
God, now was not the time to be thinking about this shit, but having her so close, seeing her after so long, it was hard not to let the past bombard him the way it was. He had been reliving that night he had been with her over and over again in his head since it happened. He wasn’t ashamed—although he probably should be—that he had beaten off to that night like it was a broken reel in his head.
But he knew they had shared something special that night, and knew in his heart that she had felt the same way, too. He had finally been with the girl he had been in love with nearly his whole fucking life, but then shit had hit the fan once it was all said and done. It had been one big fucking slap to his face when she had grown distant and then just up and left like what they had done hadn’t meant anything to her.
He tried to wrap his head around what he had done to make their nearly lifelong friendship grow cold and uncomfortable all because they had had sex. Yeah, they had been drinking, but he sure as hell had known what the fuck he had been doing. He had thought about it a lot—a fucking lot—and the only conclusion that made sense was that she regretted it. She sure as shit acted into it when they were doing it, but once it was said and done she totally acted like he had just been some guy she fucked and it didn’t mean anything.
A lot of shit had gone through his head in the years after that, and he had used that heartache, emptiness, and rage that had grown after his pussy whipped feelings had been discarded to write the music that had helped the band get to the top.
He continued to stare at her, watched as a smile formed across her face when she waved at Beats from across the room, and knew that it was his own feelings and emotions over the past and their relationship that had caused his anger. Tanner was not the type of person to do anything intentional for the sake of hurting someone.
He hadn’t told her how much he had cared for her, that even though they had that one night of drunken sex that it had meant so fucking much to him, so he couldn’t be pissed at her for leaving like she had. Clearly she had been scared. How could she not be when she had just given her virginity to a boy she had known her whole life, and one that she considered her best friend?
“Sir? Do you need anything else?”
Jacks looked over at the bartender. The younger guy was wearing that black and white tuxedo bullshit that his company probably made him put on for shit like this. He should have just come in a faded t-shirt and a pair of holey jeans. At least then he would have fit in to a party like this. “Yeah, give me a double of Crown.” Jacks needed that little surge of alcohol to get through tonight, because as it was he felt off-balance, and he hadn’t felt like that since he had been a teenager.
The bartender nodded once and set him up in a matter of seconds.
He slid the shot glass toward him and Jacks tossed it back. The burn of the alcohol moving down his throat felt good, really damn good. “Another one.” Now Jacks was the one to slide the shot glass to the guy, and once he had it refilled he tossed that one back, too. He took the three bottles of beer back to the girls, handed them each one, and started drinking his own as he looked around the suite.
“This is an insane party, Jacks.” Zoe had to yell over the music to be heard.
Jacks smiled down at her and nodded. It wasn’t the craziest party that Twisted Feather had ever attended, at least not yet. There was no doubt that a few jokers in this place were packing coke, and although he didn’t touch the stuff, and the rest of the band didn’t—not anymore at least—it was still an unavoidable part of this lifestyle.
“You guys care if I go hang out with Beats?” Zoe asked, and even though the music was loud and bumping, Jacks could hear a longing note in her voice. Before either of them could answer she was heading over to Twisted Feather’s drummer. He sat in one of the white leather couches, and although there were a handful of women hanging around him, he told them to leave with a wave of his hand when Zoe stepped up to him.
“She still carries a torch for him.” Jacks didn’t phrase it like a question, but he felt Tanner’s gaze on him. He looked over at her, and although she wasn’t showing any emotion on her face, he knew she was surprised he had said anything.
“I didn’t think any of the guys knew.”
He shook his head. “They don’t, or at least they had never told me anything.” He shrugged. “They were always too interested in getting their dicks wet, partying, or the music to see what was right in front of them.” He stared into her blue eyes, and wondered if she caught the note in his voice. He wasn’t just talking about the shit the guys did, or what they missed. He was also talking about her, and how he had noticed her for a long time.
She was silent for a second and then glanced at where Zoe and Beats were sitting. “And you weren’t?”
“What?” He had a feeling he knew what she was referring to, but he played it off cool and calm, and let her be the one that brought it out in the open.
She turned and fully faced him. “Getting your dick wet, partying, and the music.” Tanner did a pretty good job of keeping her voice neutral, but he heard the slight tremble in it.
He shrugged, not sure how to answer, because although it seemed like an easy enough question it really wasn’t. How the guys acted had been no secret back when they had been hanging out, but Jacks had never flaunted it like Matty, Beats, or Five did, and it was because he had carried this torch for a girl who, up until he had been with her sexually, hadn’t acted like she wanted more with him. But Jacks was just as much to blame for the distance that had kept them apart. Well, look at how that had fucking gone.
“Yeah, you were so into that shit.” She was laughing at him.
He chuckled, but it was a bit strained. “I mean, I was a punk ass teenage guy, but I never brought those high school skanks to watch us play, and certainly never brought them home with me after gigs.”