He laughed, but it sounded fake. “I thought I’d bring Easy a little welcome-back gift. Is he around?”
“In the shower.”
Donnie extracted a small paper bag from his pocket. “Give him this, just tell him Big D says it’s on the house.” Then he looked at her and winked. “If you’re with Easy, you must be a party girl, right? I can hook you up with whatever you need.”
Flipping crap. Puzzle pieces started to fall into place. “You mean… you’re his, uh, supplier?” She kept her expression neutral, showing none of the revulsion she felt. Get the facts first. Let him incriminate himself.
“That’s right. I take care of people on this tour. Whatever you’re into, I can get it for you.”
Confirmed. This piece of walking excrement was the dealer hidden inside Smidge’s crew, the monster who’d kept on supplying drugs right under Angel’s… well, nose would be a bad pun, wouldn’t it? “I thought this tour was supposed to be clean now. How have they not fired you?”
Donnie smirked. “Oh, I’m safe enough. I joined the crew after Blade’s first rehab, see, and he’ll never rat me out to daddy Angel in case the craving gets too bad and he wants me to hook him up again. And there are plenty of crew who want one thing or another, keeping me in business. We just don’t, you know, tell the grownups. Now, can I fix you up with a little something? First one’s always free for a new client.”
“No drugs,” she told him. “And Eamonn doesn’t want your poison, either. You need to leave.”
“Oh, but he does,” Donnie said, inching closer to her with a cocky grin. “And what are you even here for, if you don’t fuck or get high?”
He was into her personal space now. Not okay. “You need to leave now.”
“Nah, I think I’m going to wait for Easy. Seems I can’t trust you to give him his candy.” He tucked the paper bag back into his jacket pocket with a nasty chuckle. “And now that I have both hands free, let’s see if maybe you do fuck after all.”
In a quiet but clear voice that any of her students would have recognized as meaning a line had been seriously crossed, she said, “You need to back the hell up and leave. Right now.”
He didn’t, of course.
And because he was right in front of her, reaching for her hips, it was the easiest thing in the world to shove her forearm across his throat and grip his shoulder for leverage as she rammed a knee between his legs. She’d caught his wrist with her free hand out of instinct, and as he crumpled, she flipped him over to land face down, pinning him with a knee in the small of his back and his arm twisted into a hammerlock. Adrenaline and satisfaction flowed through her.
“Ah… what’s going on?” Eamonn’s surprised voice broke into her awareness. She looked around to see him standing in the bathroom doorway, wearing nothing but a peach-colored towel wrapped around his hips.
She didn’t even try to keep the disgust out of her voice. “This… person showed up with a gift for you, and since I refused his offer of a little something for myself, he seemed to think my only other purpose could be sexual. I warned him to leave. Twice. He didn’t listen.”
“Well, shit. Donnie, really?”
Donnie mumbled something but his face was against the carpet, so the words were muffled.
“Get up,” Nell ordered, exerting a bit of pressure on the arm she still had in a hammerlock to let him know he didn’t have a choice.
“How was I to know? You’ve always shared your groupies,” Donnie grumbled, resentment plain on his face. Nell felt a surge of fury at that. Her hands tightened on his arm and it took significant willpower not to wrench it higher behind his back as retribution for the words, even though she wasn’t sure where to pinpoint her anger. She glanced at Eamonn and knew she was letting accusation and doubt show on her face, but she didn’t care.
For a brief moment, the bassist looked older than his years, his expression sad and tired as he said, “You’ve never understood. It was fun, sure, but I gave myself as a gift to them, not the other way around. And groupies aren’t candy bars to be shared — they’re people with free will — they can share their good times with anyone they want. Even you.”
Nell felt her expression softening. Put that way, it didn’t sound so gross, and the whole matter had to be complicated for him after growing up with a groupie mom. That would be something to sort through at another time, when they didn’t have scum for company. “Moving on,” she said, “Donnie apparently has something in his pocket for you. Do you want it?”
Unbelievably, Eamonn smiled at the question, standing there in nothing but a towel and his tattoos. “Honest answer, Nell? Of course I want it. But I’m going to say no anyway. I promised you I wouldn’t touch the stuff as long as we’re together, and I’m trying to do this integrity thing right.” And there was absolutely no reason the word integrity on his lips should give her a stab of happiness somewhere near her heart, but it did.
Donnie spat on the carpet. “You’re supposed to be fucking addicted, Ease.”
Eamonn shrugged. “Wrong again. I guess I’m not wired for addiction; I’ve always been able to walk away from stuff that screws other people up. I like getting high, sure, but I don’t need it.” He looked at Nell, talking to her, not Donnie. “That’s probably why I didn’t take Blade’s problem seriously until it was too late — I figured he could stop if he really wanted to, because I always could.”
“You heard him.” Nell hauled Donnie around to face the
