The Rocker That Needs Me(68)

“Who the hell is this?” Jesse demanded.

Muscle Head glanced at the guy on the couch. “He’s with me.”

Shane came from down the hall, and I wondered if he had been in Lana’s room. “It’s cool, Jess. Lana is safe.”

“Random guys come in and out of this place regularly?” Jesse asked, his brow furrowed and his eyes stormy. He sounded like a protective father.

“Not as often as you would think.” Linc tried to put him at ease.

“Linc would never let anyone hurt us.” Harper appeared behind Shane, her hand touching his back before stepping around him. “There’s isn’t anything to worry about.”

“I don’t like it,” Jesse grumbled but didn’t comment further. How could he without sounding like a hypocrite after all the years we had put Emmie in the line of one night stands? Some of those girls were dangerous in their own right, but Emmie had been able to take care of them.

“Linc, I think I’m going to go, man…” Shirtless said, eyeing us all with apprehension now.

That caught me off guard. Muscle Head was Linc? I couldn’t picture him as gay. He was too…Not! “No way! You are not the roommate. She said you were gay…”

“Dude, I am.” He pointed at the shirtless guy still sitting on the couch. “See? That’s the guy you saw me hanging out with last night. Remember? We talked for like twenty minutes last night, man. Me, you, Dallas, and Axton? Ring any bells there, man?”

“Of course he doesn’t remember.” Lana’s voice had my head snapping around. She looked pale, sick. My heart constricted. I did this to her! “If he was inhaling Jack Daniels like I suspect he was, then he would be lucky to remember his own name today.”

“Angel…” I took a step toward her.

“Don’t.” Her voice was cold. “Don’t ever use that word again.”

Layla moved closer to her sister. She said something but I could only focus on Lana. Her shirt was three times too big on her, her yoga pants something that I had seen a thousand times. Her hair was a mess even pulled back into a ponytail. There was sweat on her upper lip and across her forehead, and I wondered if she was feeling ill.

“I wish I could take last night back,” I told her, taking a few more steps closer. Maybe if I could just hold her everything would be okay. Her glare stopped me. “I know I let you down, Angel…”

“I said don’t.”

The words came out as a whisper, but they felt like they were shouted inside my head. She didn’t want me to call her Angel. It was understandable after everything I had put her through during the last twenty-four hours. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt any less. “Nothing happened.”

“And you know this because you remember? You know that nothing happened?”

“No, I don’t remember anything from last night, Angel. But…”

“But nothing! If you don’t remember, then how can you be so sure that nothing happened?”

“Because your sister beat it out of Gabriella,” Jesse’s assured her.

“I… What? She did what?”

Jesse had a look of pride on his face and a half-grin tilting his lips. “Yeah, I know. It was so hot. Between her and Em, I think the bitch is bald in a few places.”

“She admitted that nothing happened and you believed her?” I thought there might have been hope in her voice.

Jesse shrugged. “She may have only been saying that to get Layla off of her. Not that it worked. I had to pull her off. Em, what was your take? Do you think she was lying?”

“I doubt that anything happened. Drake hadn’t had a drink in months. That much liquor in his system...he was probably useless below the waist.”

I wasn’t in the least embarrassed to have Emmie talk about the probability of my dick working or not. If anything, I was relieved that she thought that. Maybe it would help convince Lana…

Lana’s eyes closed and I thought she was relieved, that everything was going to be alright now… Her next words made my head spin. “It wouldn’t be the first time that he was that drunk and was able to function,” she whispered.

“What are you saying, Lana?” Layla asked. “You...?”

Lana’s gaze locked with mine. “You can’t remember anything, but until you do, I won’t ever believe that you didn’t have sex with her.”

I swallowed hard, knowing that she was telling me that unless I did remember, we were over. “I’ll never remember, Lana.”

“Yeah, I know. Just like you will never remember our night together.”