Chapter 1

Tommy

It had been morethan a year since Carter had killed himself.

My best friend, the bass player of my band, the closest I’d ever come to having a brother since my biological brother and I weren’t close.

Now Carter was nothing but a memory.

Sometimes it seemed like just yesterday that I’d last seen him; other times, it felt like he’d been gone forever.

And both of those scenarios sucked ass because I missed him no matter what.

We’d been partners in music and mischief, in life and in love, our personal and professional lives so intertwined it was hard to tell where one left off and the other began. I’d eventually figured out that he had a hard-on for me, but we didn’t talk about it since he knew and respected the fact that I was straight. It had never affected our friendship.

Except for that one night.

I took a deep pull from the bottle of Corona in my hand, wondering if the past would ever let go of its hold on me. Since the day Harley had served me with those divorce papers, my life had been a never-ending spiral of self-loathing, confusion, and regret. So much damn regret.

I’d lost the woman I loved and then my brother.

Losing him had been inevitable.

Losing her was something else altogether.

It hadn’t made sense back then and only made slightly more sense now.

Now I knew they’d betrayed me.

It had been over a year since I’d found out that Carter and Harley had a kid together, and it still hurt as much today as it had the day I’d found out. At least now I knew why she’d left.

I downed the rest of my beer and tossed the bottle into the recycling bin.

The plan for today had been to get shitfaced, but I’d nursed that one beer for a couple of hours. Now I was restless and desperately needed to get out of here. The four walls of my condo felt suffocating, and I knew if I didn’t do something to distract myself, I would do something stupid instead.

Like call her.

I grabbed my keys and jumped on my bike, the Harley-Davidson motorcycle I’d jokingly named Harley after she bought it for me as a wedding gift. It was a constant reminder of her, and it fueled the ever-present pain and regret.

Jesus, I was a philosophical mess tonight.

As I pulled onto the dark, mostly empty roads of Mulholland Drive, the tightness in my chest started to let up, and I picked up speed. Harley—the ex-wife, not the bike—had been insistent we both take lessons to become as safe as possible when operating any motorcycle, so I was a good driver. Nursing one beer over the course of several hours wouldn’t impair me in any way, either, and somehow, I found myself heading toward the cemetery.

Fans often camped out at Carter’s grave during the day, to the point where police were called in to manage the occasionally overwhelming crowds. It was after two in the morning, though, so I figured they’d all gone home by now. He was dead, after all, and the cemetery had closed hours ago. Not that it being closed would stop me. I’d been there so many times in the last year, in between rehearsing, recording, and touring, I knew the place inside out.

The wind felt cool against my overheated skin and I momentarily closed my eyes, letting my body become one with the rumbling engine between my legs. A self-driving bike would be heaven, but technology wasn’t there yet, and I forced my eyes back open. The cemetery was ahead on the right, and I parked my bike on the side of the road, just outside the entrance.

I left my helmet on the handlebars and slowly headed toward the gate. I shimmied under it and took off down the main road at a brisk clip. Carter’s grave site was all the way in the back of the cemetery, about half a mile away from the entrance if you stuck to the road, so it was a bit of a trek to get there. It was nice, though. There was a huge oak tree that provided shade during the day. Sitting outside under a tree with a book and his bass had been one of his favorite things, so his final resting place was painfully appropriate.

As I rounded the bend, I slowed my pace, focused on my surroundings. It was late, but I wasn’t stupid. I was here alone, and I couldn’t be the only person who knew you could sneak under the gate after hours. In addition, as a member of the platinum-selling rock band Onyx Knight, I was easily recognizable. Anyone there to see Carter’s grave site would instantly know who I was.

Luckily, the place seemed deserted, and I stopped walking a few feet away from where Carter was buried. It was dark and eerily quiet, as if I was the only person left alive in the whole world.

I knew how ridiculous that sounded, but in the moment, it was accurate.

This sucked so much.

Despite the success of my band and all the money in the world, I was lonely. I still had my bandmates, of course, and I loved them, but it wasn’t the same. My bond with Kingston, Z, and Kellan wasn’t like the one I’d had with Carter. Devyn, who’d replaced Carter in the band, was still relatively new, so it was too soon to compare my friendship with her to the bond I had with the others. And nothing was comparable to what I’d had with Harley.

She was my heart, my soul, my other half.

But she didn’t love me anymore.

She’d loved Carter.

And the fucker had abandoned us both.

I was miserable that he was gone and pissed off at him at the same time.

And that pissed me off even more.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I demanded, sinking down on the ground and glaring in the direction of the tombstone. “You can’t just die to get away from your problems, you asshole.”

“He can’t answer,” an equally indignant voice responded. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”

I looked around, frowning.

Why did the voice sound so familiar?

“I was here first,” the female voice continued. “So go away and leave me the hell alone.”

Oh, yeah.

Indignation and spunk.

Now I knew why it was so familiar.

Dammit.

Why did she have to be here?

“It’s public property, Harley,” I muttered.

“Actually, it’s not.” She continued to speak, even though I couldn’t see her. “It’s private property and we’re both trespassing. But since I was here first, you need to leave.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere. And would you stop skulking around in the shadows?”

“How am I skulking?” She sounded irritated. “I was here first.”

For the first time, I realized her voice was coming from above me.

I gazed in that direction, shaking my head as I spotted her on the lowest branch of the tree behind me. Her legs dangled and she was holding a bottle of wine in one hand. She held it in my direction in a mock salute.

“How are you going to get home?” I asked, since I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I didn’t see your car.”

“I didn’t think that far ahead,” she admitted, “but I’ll figure it out.”

“It’s dangerous to be out here alone at night.”

She laughed, but it sounded wry and humorless. “You stopped being responsible for my safety a long time ago. Not that you ever cared about my safety, as long as I was the perfect rock star wife.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I demanded, putting my hands on my hips as I continued to stare up at her.

She guzzled from the bottle of wine and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “You weren’t exactly husband of the year.”

“I’m not the one who cheated!”

Before I realized what she was doing, she’d hurled the bottle in my direction, throwing it with such force she lost her balance.

“Harley!” Instinctively, I reached for her as she came toppling out of the tree in my direction.