Page 5 of Mic Drop (Passionate Beats #3)

“Stop.” Lissa and I were in love. We kissed at school, for everyone to see. She wasn’t leading me on. She couldn’t have been.

The way Jenna did.

I reprimand myself. Jenna didn’t lead me on, she only needed her mommy more than me. Which is better or worse?

Mom continues as if I didn’t say anything. “Yet, there was a baby, Bennett. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Mom. If Lissa got pregnant, it wasn’t mine.”

“Are you sure? Lissa seemed pretty confident on the show.”

“I’m positive.” Not going to admit to my mother I was a virgin until I joined UC, though. “No way on earth could I have been the baby’s father. If there even was a baby. ”

“Well, this is a good thing. Lord knows you weren’t ready to be a father back then.” She waits a beat. “Or now.”

On this score, I couldn’t agree more. “You’re right.”

“You’ll never be fit to raise another human being.”

Just like she wasn’t. I keep this factoid to myself. “I don’t want kids.”

“This is the first smart thing I’ve heard come out of your mouth.”

“On this we agree.” Needing to take this conversation in a different direction, I ask, “How’s Ramona?”

“She’s a gem. Today she took me to the farmers’ market and helped me buy an adorable pink tablecloth.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. Whenever she praises Ramona is a good day in my book. Not going to fight this fortunate turn of events. “Sounds nice. Where did you put it?”

“On the table behind the sofa, right when you walk in. I’ve rearranged the furniture since you were here.” She pauses. “I forget how it looked when you last stopped by, but I like it now.”

For today. Until another manic mood strikes her. “I bet it’s great.”

“It is. The pink reminds me of your sister, you know.”

Here we go again. Reminding myself of her doctor’s suggestion not to engage her about my twin’s death in utero again, I pivot. “What are you having for dinner? I’m going out for—” I break off. I have no idea where Luke booked us for dinner. “I think Mexican.”

“Have a margarita for me.”

Thinking I need to meet up with the band for the unidentified dinner, I nudge her toward a close. “Well, I should be going.”

“Of course you have to go. It’s what you do best.”

Geez, let it be. “Mom, I only meant our manager arranged for us to go out to dinner and I have to get in the limo.”

“ Oh, la la . Get in the limo. Aren’t you all fancy pants now? While your poor, old mother lives in a cheap place in the middle of nowhere New Jersey. Bet you’d like me to end up like your sister and father, so you don’t have to talk with me ever again.”

Just like that, she turns on a dime into the raving lunatic I know so well. But knowing how she acts and not rising to the bait are two different things. With how I left it between Jenna and me, my reserves for handling her bullshit have been depleted. I manage, “That’s not true.”

She cackles. “I forgot to add in your little band friend to the list. Darren, right? You leave a wake of death and destruction wherever you go, and I refuse to be another body you cast aside, do you hear me?”

“Loud and clear!” I whip my phone across the hall, watching as it breaks into pieces. At least I don’t have to talk with her anymore.

I’m still seething when Luke joins me in the hall. “What happened here?” His chin points to my broken phone.

Blood rushes through my veins. “Take your pick. My mother. Jenna. Tristan.”

The manager’s eyebrows rise with each name. He latches onto the last one. “What did Tris do to you?”

“Jenna.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“She leaned on him. He let her. They deserve each other.”

“At the risk of garnering even more anger from you, might I remind you that you sent her away?”

“Yeah. But she wasn’t supposed to fall right into his arms. Maybe the media has it right and she is a black widow, seeking to break up UC. She killed Darren, played with me, and has moved on to the new keyboardist. Makes perfect sense.”

Luke cracks his knuckles. “Are you going to tell me what part of that bullshit you actually believe?”

“What? Darren’s dead. I cast her out because she was moaning about missing her mother. She went right to Tristan. All true.”

Luke’s coffee eyes meet mine. He holds up his index finger. “You know Darren overdosed when Jenna wasn’t even in the same state.”

“Fine. But she was the last person to talk with him.”

He shrugs. “As for two and three”—he holds up two more fingers—“only you and she know what happened. Don’t think I believe for one second the crap you spewed out there.”

“Yeah.” I cross my arms across my chest. “Prove it.”

“I can’t. Not yet. Although I did have a long talk with Tris.”

My voice drops an octave. “Whatever the traitor said, I’m sure it was all lies.”

“I don’t know, B. He sounded pretty sincere to me. About how Jenna was crying so hard he had to hold her upright. How he helped her get a taxi. She was destroyed.” He pauses. “By you.”

My head shakes. “She did this to us. She kept crying about how much she missed her mother. I simply granted her wish.” After my conversation with my own mother, the thought sticks in my throat.

“It’s probably better she’s going home. She has a shit-ton of things to deal with, thanks to the graffiti at her clinics.”

“See? I did her a favor.”

“Likewise. UC has more than a dump truck filled with bullshit thanks to Lissa. She’s now been booked on CNN.”

“Fuck!” I spin on my heel, pulling back to beat the shit out of the wall. The cement wall.

Luke grabs my cocked arm. “Stop. We need you intact, not with a sling as well as your pulled muscle.”

“I need to break something,” I pant.

“Fine. Let’s go to the roadies’ bus. Rumor has it they have a punching bag.”

He drags my body toward the exit, where a bunch of our buses are parked. The next thing I know, I have boxing gloves on and I’m punching a bag so fast it almost comes off its hook. Twenty minutes in, and I collapse onto a questionable looking sofa.

“Drink this.”

Luke passes me a bottle of water, which I down like the broken man I am. The bag did nothing to get her out of my system.

“Feel better?”

“Not in the slightest.”