Say it Louder by Heidi Joy Tretheway Page B

spraying everywhere.
    “Calm down, for fuck’s sake!” Gavin’s got one hand on Chief’s chest and one hand on mine, forcing us apart, and Chief’s face purples with anger. A vein bulges at the side of his forehead, his lip bleeds freely, and I can tell he’s ready to hit me the fuck back into next week.
    “This is over. You hear me? Over.” Gavin’s chest heaves as his head whips between the two of us. “Chief, you’re going to agree that we’ve parted ways to go in another creative direction. That’s your story and you’re sticking to it, or else we might need to share our real reasons for looking elsewhere with your other clients.”
    “There’s no need for threats. We’re all adults here.” Chief spits blood on the once pristine conference room carpet, now littered with shards from shattered water glasses. “I know how to quit when I’m ahead. But I’m not sure Kristina does. You’d better be a lot more careful cutting ties with her.”
    Gavin growls and gives me a push toward the door. “I say, let her do her worst. And just like Dave fought for me when I was running scared, it’ll take a lot more than that lying bitch to take Dave down.”
    “Don’t bet your ass on it,” Chief says.
    Gavin grabs the door handle as we exit. “I’m betting the band on it.”  

    ***

    “That went well,” Gavin says, his voice light and a grin creeping as we take a crowded elevator back to the street level. It’s the lunch rush and I’m glad to be out of that sterile conference room air and spilled onto a hot August sidewalk.  
    I flex my fingers. My knuckles are already swelling.
    “You’re going to catch shit from Tyler for that,” Gavin warns.
    I nod. “Pretty much guarantees I’ll be off beat.” I’ve ruined my fist for practice, but making the break from Chief is satisfying.
    “You know you’ve got to go home and talk to Kristina, right?” Gavin gives me a hard look. “You can’t camp out at Tyler’s forever. And you promised Jayce that you’d cut her out of your life completely. Can’t do that if she’s still living at your house. Even if you’re not.”
    We need to go back to Tyler’s place to regroup with the guys, but I can’t show my face to Jayce until I’ve ended things with Kristina.
    Maybe the cop car was a coincidence. Surely if the cops were looking for me, they would have shown up at Tyler’s place?
    “No time like the present.” I hail a cab to Brooklyn.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

    She’s curled up on the couch she bought, with the tablet she bought, and her eyes flick up as I step inside.
    “I told you to get the fuck out.”
    “And go where, exactly?” Her tone is regal, mocking me.
    “Crawl back under a slimy rock?”
    She rolls her eyes. “Fuck that. You know things haven’t been good with us for a long time. I was lonely. And bored. Chief was a good listener.”
    I slam the door, the sound reverberating off our walls. Check that, my walls. My house. “Don’t even pretend that makes it OK.”
    She huffs out a breath like I’m taxing her patience and lays the tablet beside her. “Look, maybe we’re not in love, maybe we haven’t been in a long time. But we make a good team. I’ve contributed just as much to making Tattoo Thief a success as you have. Organizing appearances, making nice for media. You need me.”
    “I don’t need shit.”
    She stands and walks around the couch, her hands perched on her hips. “No, you do need me. While Gavin was messing with a junkie and Jayce was fucking anything with tits, you needed me to keep things going. Behind the scenes.”
    I grind my teeth, trying to understand her angle. “We had a manager for that. He failed us. You failed us. You can’t call this anything less than a betrayal, Kristina.”
    Her eyes soften and she steps toward me, bringing her thin frame close to my chest. And my body betrays me, knowing hers too perfectly. She wraps her arms around my waist, pulling me toward her. “We can get past this.