Fade Into You (Shaken Dirty #3)(36)

He wasn’t going to touch that, not when a lump the size of a watermelon had already taken up residence in his throat. He’d always known he’d take a bullet for these guys, but to hear them say they’d do the same for him—when he wasn’t worth it, when he couldn’t be counted on, when he’d stood by and watched his own father die without lifting a finger to stop it, for Christ’s sake—f*cked with him on a whole new level.

Still, he wasn’t yet a big enough * to say any of that, so he shoved all his screwed up emotions down deep and concentrated on what he could talk about. On what should matter to his friends.

“You say that now, but your money’s safe. What happens if you really do have to pay? If you lose millions of dollars—”

“We already paid.” Jared cut him off mid-sentence.

“Shut up, man,” Ryder hissed, elbowing him in the gut.

For long seconds, shock held him hostage as his brain tried to comprehend what Jared was telling him. “What the f*ck does that mean? What did you pay? Who did you pay?”

“You think keeping you was easy when we were so insistent about dumping Micah?” Jared asked.

“Shut up,” Ryder said again, even more forcefully this time.

“It doesn’t matter,” Quinn added quickly.

“It does matter,” he and Jared said at the same time.

“I want to know exactly what he’s talking about,” Wyatt continued, as the room grew eerily silent.

“We ponied up a f*ckload of money to keep you after the breach of contract,” Jared told him. “To the label, to Micah. Shit, even to management.”

“Exactly how much is a f*ckload?” Wyatt demanded, as rage and heat and shame slammed into him like a runaway eighteen-wheeler.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ryder said again.

“How. The f*ck. Much?” When they continued to stare at him blankly, he swore—loud and vicious. “If someone doesn’t start talking right the f*ck now, I’m walking out that door and I am not coming back.”

As he waited for their answer, fury had his voice and hands shaking, had his head feeling like it was going to blow up.

Quinn must have figured out that he meant what he said, because the keyboardist was the one who eventually spoke. “Nine million, total.”

“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 f*cking 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 f*cked 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 f*ck 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 f*ck 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 f*ck-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.