“Did you call the cops?”

She shook her head. “I threatened to taze his ass and he took off. I’m sure he was just a crazy meth head or something, but you need to be aware of your surroundings if you’re going running alone.”

I nodded, but in reality I was thinking I had to be aware of my surroundings for a lot more reasons than that. I was walking to the front door, contemplating what could possibly have someone threatening my new life, my new home, when Cora called my name. I should have known by the glee in her tone that I was going to regret turning back around. She was standing on the couch with both her hands in the air, waving all ten fingers back and forth, and chanting, “You’re a ten!” over and over again. If I’d had something lighter than my water bottle on hand I would have thrown it at her. Instead I rolled my eyes and bounded out the door.

She was right. I was totally a ten and that sucked, because I just couldn’t get it in line with how after last night I was supposed to juggle just being friends with a whole lot more and not eventually cross the line into wanting more. I couldn’t deal with that. Jet made old Ayden want to get in on all of the good-time action and that was just dangerous to my peace of mind and carefully constructed façade.

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

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.