Accept the Unexpected
Tripp knew he should have been prepared for the sight of Dez opening Zakk’s front door, but the moment it happened was so rattling that it sent all his carefully composed words spinning right out of his head. While he was still trying to regain his composure, Dez had the nerve to press a finger to his lips, and rather than move the fuck out of Tripp’s way, stepped out in the hallway with him, looking like he’d just crash-landed off the balcony of a Mardi Gras bash.
There was a streak of…something, on the side of his neck, his jeans were being held up by his free hand, unzipped and unbuttoned, and his hair looked like he’d had an unfortunate battle with a light socket and lost.
“Must have been some party,” Tripp growled. “I guess that’s why Zakk hasn’t been answering his phone all god damned night.
“Naa,” Dez drawled, the fucker having the nerve to smirk at him. “He didn’t answer ‘cause you said shit you shouldn’t have, and he shoved the phone under a pillow and abandoned it there to die.”
“Look, not that I need to explain it to you, but I was pissed and frustrated beyond belief, and I took it out on him when he did nothing to deserve it.”
“You’re damn right he didn’t,” Dez shot back. “If you’re on a personal mission to alienate everyone in your life, I’d say you’re off to a good start. Dick. That’s from Winter, incidentally.”
“You’ve talked to him?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but yeah, and he’s fine, in case you give a damn.”
“Who the fuck do you think….” Tripp growled.
“Someone who actuallydoesgive a damn!” Dez snarled back. “Maybe because I know what it’s like to have someone destroy my love for music, and let me tell you something, it’s a hard fucking thing to come back from. I’m still trying to fit the pieces back together. Some days I look at my guitar, and all I want is to pitch it out a seven-story window and never play another note!”
Okay, now that…he’d heard Dez play, many times over the years. The guy was a beast, a god damned legend in the making. He and Winter had gone head-to-head for best guitarist three times in their careers and as far as Tripp was concerned, it would have been more if Dez had ever stuck with a band for more than a year. To hear him say that about playing and have him ascribe it to his brother….
His first thought was that he needed to track Winter down and fix it, his second, was to wonder who the fuck Dez thought he was, to be lecturing him on shit after what Tripp had read while he’d been stuck at the Bismarck Airport.
“Maybe you should work your own shit out, before you stick your nose in someone else’s,” Tripp snapped as he jerked his phone out of his pocket and flipped through it, finding the article he was after and turning it so Dez could see.
Tripp knew what the headline said, the speculation about the woman draped all over Riley in the photos that accompanied it, including one where she was sitting in his lap, his arms around her as she looked to be kissing his neck.
Tripp waited for Dez to lose his shit with a sick sense of anticipation he wasn’t exactly proud of. He expected embarrassment, sputtered attempts at an explanation, not….snickering?
What the actual fuck?
When those snickers gave way to laughter and Dez using the wall to hold himself up, Tripp was certain he’d just fallen headlong into the Twilight Zone.
“What the fuck is so god damned funny this early in the day?” Riley grumbled as he stuck his head out in the hallway, took one look at Tripp and rolled his eyes. “Oh, you.”
Tapping Dez on the shoulder only got him to turn his laughter and the phone Riley’s way.
“What are you trying to do, laugh him off the doorstep?” Riley asked, taking the phone when Dez nearly dropped it and his pants.
“He thinks….you two…are seein’…each….other…” Dez choked out in between wheezes.
Riley’s giggles when he saw the photos were as unexpected as Dez’s reaction, only now he was hollering over his shoulder to Zakk, who sounded sleepy, drunk and grumpy as he came shambling to the doorway, looking every bit as rumpled as Dez and Riley did.
“Why ya gotta be so fuckin’ loud, bru?”
And there was the pretty little bun on the shitburger sandwich his day had turned into. Drunken fuck’ Zakk, who crashed into Riley and the door before spotting Tripp standing there and giving him a little wave.
“Can I talk to you?” Tripp pleaded, desperately hoping there was some shred of comprehension left in Zakk’s booze-soaked brain, or he’d have come all this way for nothing.
“You gotta see this!” Riley declared at the same time, thrusting the phone in front of Zakk’s face and blocking his view of the desperate, pleading look Tripp was shooting him. “He thinks I’m cheating on Dez…. with your sister!”
There was no reason for Riley to say that last word so loud, no reason for the three of them to go absolutely batshit crazy with the laughter either, but there they were, slapping their knees, grabbing on to one another, Dez’s pants around his ankles now as they howled like manic coyotes at his expense.
Fury and humiliation surged through him as he snatched the phone from Zakk’s hand. “You can all go to hell!”
Whirling around, he stalked to the elevator, kicking himself the whole way for ruining things with Zakk and wishing he could kick them for not letting him fix it. Punching the button several times in the unrealistic hope that it could make the doors open faster, Tripp never expected any of them to stop him, let alone the person doing it to be Dez, who caught him by the arm and looked ready to throw down if Tripp decided to take a swing at him.