Crashed Out (Made in Jersey, #1)(16)

“My sister didn’t want me to stay,” Sarge began. “She had a rough breakup with the father of my niece. Doesn’t want her daughter to get attached to me since I’ll only leave again.”

“Right.” James sat back in his chair, thumb tapping on his thigh. “Where are you staying?”

Sarge stared hard at the cinder-block wall when he answered. “With Jasmine.”

His manager was silent for a tick. “The Jasmine? Jasmine Taveras?”

Hearing her name felt like rolling around in burning cinders. “I liked you better as guy who doesn’t give a shit.”

James started to say something else, but the metal door on the opposite side of the room swung open to reveal Lita. Barely reaching the escorting officer’s shoulder, she had both hands shoved into her ripped jeans, a red-and-black-checkered beanie pulled just above huge, apprehensive green eyes, which were firmly trained on James. “Um.” She shifted in her boots. “I’m with the band?”

In an effort to keep from pissing off James, since the poor f*cker had stopped breathing beside him, Sarge didn’t voice the other half of the band’s inside joke. Lita’s innocent, kid-sister appearance had gotten her stopped at security more than once at Old News shows. She looked incapable of lifting a pair of drumsticks, let alone whaling on a kit like a legend. Once, before a show in Amsterdam, she’d told the venue’s head of security she was “with the band,” to which he’d replied in a deadpan tone, “The Spice Girls broke up fifteen years ago.”

Now, even though Lita wasn’t looking at Sarge, he knew she expected the rejoinder, but how the situation was handled needed to be James’s call this time. Too often, Sarge had played good cop, and clearly, it hadn’t done a damn thing to keep Lita from diving back into self-destructive waters.

Thinking of his fingers thrusting into Jasmine’s addictive heat that morning, Sarge wondered if he’d jumped headfirst into self-destruction himself.

Finally, Lita turned her attention to him, arms crossing over her middle. “You were supposed to come alone, Sergeant.”

Sarge shrugged, but sighed when he couldn’t pull off being callous when it came to Lita, even though she’d used the nickname she knew he couldn’t stand. “You were supposed to stay out of trouble.”

“Maybe this is just a surprise band reunion and you’re both on hidden camera.” She elbowed the stone-faced guard to her right. “Smile.”

“Lita,” James started in a warning tone, but when the drummer’s gaze turned hopeful, Sarge could all but feel the shift in his manager’s demeanor. “I…uh. Brought you some aspirin.”

Lita’s expression turned dumbfounded as James approached, producing a bottle of water and aspirin out of his deep coat pockets. When Lita only watched him with suspicion, he lifted her hand, placed the tiny white pills inside, and closed her fist around the medicine. “What are you doing?”

The sound of James clearing his throat bounced off the walls, making it sound louder. “I assume since you drank your weight in whiskey and attempted to scale the Chrysler Building last night, you likely have a headache.”

Trying not to be obvious, Sarge patted the air in the universal sign of take it down a notch, man. James showed no sign of acknowledgment, but he handed Lita the water bottle. The drummer stared down at it like a foreign object. “Wait. What’s going on here? You’re supposed to be listing every way I fail at life by now.”

James’s wince was almost imperceptible. “Yes, well. I’m not going to do that.” He took a deep breath and laid a hand on Lita’s shoulder, touching her for the first time that Sarge had ever witnessed. “I’m just…I’m glad you weren’t hurt.”

And this is why you never give unsolicited advice, Sarge thought, as Lita tensed, moisture gathering in her widened eyes. James frowned down at the drummer, as baffled by her reaction as Sarge. Maybe four years wasn’t enough time to get to know someone, because he certainly didn’t expect Lita to haul back and throw the water bottle across the room, where it exploded against the cinder block. No sooner were her hands free than she shoved an unmovable James, backing toward the exit like a terrified cat.

“Look, thanks for bailing me out, but this is where we part ways.” Lita split a look between them. “It wasn’t a good day to try something new.”

James stepped forward, hands fisted at his sides. “Lita—”

“No.” She shook her head, warding him off with a hand. “I’m out of here. Stop following me. Stop checking up on me. I don’t need you.”

When the manager only fell into silence, Sarge made a last-ditch effort to calm the drummer by giving her a reassuring smile. “Hey. I hear the Spice Girls broke up fifteen years ago.”

“Too little, too late,” Lita called as the metal door slammed behind her.

The look James gave Sarge was pure murder as the manager stormed past and went after Lita, leaving Sarge alone in the waiting room with the escorting officer.

“Hey, man. Can I get a picture with you?”

On the upside, his hard-on was only a sweet memory. But something told him it would be back in full effect as soon as he breached the Lincoln Tunnel exit into New Jersey.



Jasmine sat on the factory roof, her sandwich forgotten on the cinder-block ledge beside her. From her vantage point, she could see Manhattan. And if she closed her eyes really tight and blocked out the mechanical hum from the factory beneath, she could feel the whir of yellow cabs soaring down Broadway. See the white steam curling out of crisscrossed grates midavenue. Hear the new wave of young city dwellers laughing, breathing hot air into their hands as they convened over paper coffee cups.