Rock Chick Reckoning (Rock Chick #6)(107)

I nodded my head against his shoulder.

After I did that, he told me.

I didn’t make him stop. I listened to the whole thing without making a noise except for my breathing going heavy.

When he was done, we both just sat on the floor, my head against his shoulder, his arm around my waist.

We sat there silent a long time, both of us lost in our own thoughts.

Final y, I said, “I’ve seen the scars.”

“Sorry?”

“From the bul ets, Mace getting shot. On his thigh and his shoulder. I didn’t think anything of them. He was an athlete, athletes have injuries. I just thought…” I stopped because there was nothing else to say.

Duke didn’t reply.

“He thinks he did the wrong thing, cal ing in the police,” I told Duke.

“Far’s I can tel , she was dead the minute they took her.

Only wrong thing done was her Dad makin’ it worse by not doin’ everything he could to make it easier for her while they had her. Her Dad knew what he was dealin’ with, Mace didn’t. He just wanted his sister back. Nothin’ wrong about that.”

I nodded my head in agreement and pul ed in more breath.

Then I whispered. “I’m not going to be able to take them away.”

“Take what away?”

“His demons,” I explained, feeling hopeless, lost, maybe a little scared and definitely like I was wrong about my luck changing. “They’re never going to go away.” Duke’s hand gave me a squeeze at my waist then he got up and left me on the floor. He closed the bathroom door behind him and I stared at it, wondering what to do.

I wanted to go to Mace, put my arms around him, absorb his pain like I was an emotional sponge. I wanted magical powers so I could erase his memories. I wanted to be able to time travel so I could warn him, protect Caitlin. I wanted to give her the life she was supposed to have, al ow her to move to New York and become a bal erina. I wanted Mace to be able to go to the theater, sit in the audience and watch his sister dance.

Most of al , I wanted to kick his Dad’s ass.

On that thought, the bathroom door opened and Duke came back, a toothbrush in its packaging in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. He put the coffee cup on the back of the toilet and held out a hand to me. He pul ed me up and rooted through the medicine cabinet, closed the mirrored door and handed me some toothpaste and the brush. I brushed my teeth, scoured my tongue and rinsed my mouth.

When I was done, Duke put down the toilet seat and guided me to it. I sat down, he handed me my coffee and I took a sip as he crouched in front of me and looked into my eyes.

Then he spoke, “Don’t know Caitlin Mason. But I ‘spect, she’s anything like her brother, you go back in time eight years, sit her down, tel her this was gonna happen, I know what she’d say to you.”

“What would she say?” I whispered.

“She’d say ‘be happy’.”

I knew what he was trying to do.

I also knew it wasn’t going to work.

It wasn’t that simple.

Nothing about this was simple.

I shook my head and the second wave of tears that hadn’t yet come stung my eyes.

Duke continued, “You’re right, Stel a. This is eatin’ him.

You say they were close and that’s proved true by the way he’s torn apart by this. But any sixteen year old bal erina who loves her brother wouldn’t want her spirit to haunt him.

She’d want him to let go of those demons and be happy.

Your job is to make him understand that’s what she’d want.”

“How do I do that?” I asked, feeling the wetness start to rol silently down my cheeks.

“By making him happy. You do that, it’l come. He’l let it go.”

I shook my head again.

This was not something you let go.

I could make Mace breakfasts of eggs benedict and Belgian waffles topped with strawberries and whipped cream and homemade blueberry pancakes smothered in warm maple syrup and apple coffeecake with a thick crust of brown sugar crumble (or whatever) every morning for the rest of his effing life and it would never make him happy enough to let this shit go.

Duke grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Trust me, girl. I know what I’m talkin’ about. I been watchin’ the way he is with you. Don’t know it al . Don’t know what happened to him after it went down. What I do know is he hasn’t let anyone in. Not until you. You work at makin’ him happy, he’l let it go.”

For some reason, that’s when I remembered what Mace said to me onstage after I sang “Black”.

I can’t be the star in your sky when you’re the only star left shining in mine.

I wondered what he meant by that.

The only star?

How could I be the only star?

Mace was a good guy. Understandably intense and maybe he had a short fuse but al the Hot Bunch respected him. More than respected him, they liked him. They weren’t col eagues, they were friends.

He had to have a life back then, before that happened to Caitlin.

He had to have people he cared about who cared about him.

He had to have other family.

Friends.

His Mom.

His Mom.

He never talked about his friends, his past, his Mom.

Ever.