“Hey,” I said, entering the room quietly. I didn’t want to startle him again.
“Hey.” His eyes didn’t leave the TV as I sat down on the other end of the couch and pulled my legs underneath me. “Sorry about that earlier,” he said, this time glancing at me then back to the TV.
“Totally fine,” I told him. “When you live in other people’s houses, you tend to be a silent witness to things they’d rather you not see.” Also the reason I tended to walk through the house on air to not disturb anyone else.
“Do you like living in other people’s houses?” he asked.
I swallowed hard, not really wanting to talk about me. I wasn’t a subject I was comfortable with. But he’d asked. “It’s all I know,” I told him honestly without elaborating, of course. Then I added, “At least your dad pays really, really well.”
“I bet,” he said, then he took a long drink. “What’d you mean, ‘it’s all you know’?”
Damn him. I didn’t want to hide who I was. Not just from him, but from anyone. Yet I’d hoped he wouldn’t ask for details. My life would’ve made some people uncomfortable. “I spent some time in foster homes that never really felt like mine.”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “So does this seem like poor, little rich boy being a whiny bitch?”
I giggle. “No. Everyone has complications with family.” I swallowed again. “I mean, those with family.” Booker shifted his weight uncomfortably, making me stifle a laugh. So I added, “I’m just kidding. Didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
His gaze fell heavily on me like he needed to measure my reaction, then finally admitted, “OK. You did. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone joke about not having a family.”
“I had one,” I assure him. “And for a while it was great. Then it wasn’t, so I was better off.” I wet my lips as I prepared to change the subject. “Do you like what you do?”
“I love playing. Why?”
I shrugged. “Well, with what your dad said… about it not being a real job. You’re doing what you love and being paid for it? That’s a fucking gift. Your dad’s wrong.”
This time Booker set his beautiful brown eyes on me and that gaze slid across my skin like a physical touch. “I know,” he assured me.
“Do you?”
“Yes. But it’s still good to hear someone else say it.”
Silence fell over us, though it was comfortable. Not at all similar to what happened in the kitchen earlier. That had been tense. This was more like we were just old friends enjoying a chat.
“How long have you been here?” he asked me.
“A month,” I told him. “Marina’s doing well. She pushes herself though which can be good. But can also be bad when she doesn’t allow herself the rest she actually needs.”
He nodded slowly as I told him about his mom. “Will she recover fully?” he asked.
Biting my lips together, I took a breath. It was always hard to talk to families about the realism. “She could,” I finally said. “It’s likely she’ll never be one hundred percent. May still have some weakness for the rest of her life. Things like that. But she’s able to talk with only slight slurring already and she’s gaining strength every day. I’m not her doctor but I think any residual effects on her will be minimal.” Booker couldn’t know this but when I first started this job, I’d asked Marina what she was comfortable with me sharing when it came to her husband and son. She’d said she wanted them to know everything. That they didn’t keep those kinds of secrets.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to tell him anything.
“Good,” he said. “That’s good.” We were quiet for another minute, which I hoped meant we were off that heavy topic. “How long have you been a nurse?” he asked. “Or are you a nurse? An aide?”
I scoffed at him. “I’m an actual nurse, buddy. I went to nursing school.”
“Sorry.” He grinned widely and held up his hands.
“I pushed myself and graduated high school at sixteen. Then came nursing school and have been a nurse for four years.”
He didn’t say anything back and just blinked at me. To which I rolled my eyes. I knew that look. It was the same far off stare people who were trying to figure out my age got. They liked to say I didn’t look old enough to even be a nurse let alone for four years. Usually people assumed I was a nursing student or newly graduated.
“I’m twenty-two,” I told him. “I see you trying to do the mental math.”
He snorted in return. “Did I mention that I dropped out of school at sixteen?” he asked, as if that explained him taking too long to figure out how old I was. I didn’t think he actually hadn’t come up with the answer. “And even when I was there, math wasn’t my favorite.”
“No. But I knew you dropped out. I read Thunder Gods as much as the next person.” I stifled a laugh at the same time gauging his reaction this time, feeling out whether he minded me admitting that I knew things about him.
“Oh, god,” he said with a groan, which made me laugh again. It was the first time I’d acknowledged his stardom and joked about it. “I was kind of hoping you’d never heard music in your life.”
“Sorry, dude.” I patted him on the shoulder. His very hard shoulder. “So, listen. I’m going to head to bed. Your mom’s day starts pretty early with some PT and while I thought we’d skip it tomorrow, I already know that she’s not going to let that slide.” I stood, then added, “Good night, Booker.”
“Night.”
When I got into my room and shut the door firmly behind me, I smiled and mouthed, “Oh my god,” silently to no one.
Chapter Five
Booker
When I woke the next morning, I momentarily forgot where exactly I was. That wasn’t totally unusual. Kind of a hazard of having a job that had me sleeping in a different place every night. The difference was, normally, I always knew I was on the bus. It only took about fifteen seconds for me to remember I was in my own bed at home. Though the bunk on the bus felt more like my own than this did. It was just a visit, I reminded myself and I probably should’ve planned to get my own actual place at some point. I’d had an apartment for a while but was never there, so I’d let it go and stayed at a hotel when not on tour.
Almost never did I stay at home anymore.
My phone buzzed, so I grabbed it off the nightstand. I’d missed calls and texts from… well, everyone, it seemed. Lawson, our manager, as well as Dixon, Cross, and Booker. They must’ve gotten desperate because I’d even missed a call from Indie. She never really called me. But all the texts asked the same thing. Where was I? Why’d I leave without saying anything?
Well, we’d had a day off and I didn’t know I needed permission. But that was a shitty thought. These people were my friends and were probably worried. Instead of responding individually, I formed a group text and told them I had some things to take care of. That I should’ve let them know I was leaving for the days off but that I’d be back for the next show. Then I dropped the phone on the bed. Anything else could wait.
First, I hopped into the bathroom to brush my teeth and get dressed before heading to the kitchen. In the past I might’ve just walked out there in my boxers, but now there was someone else staying at the house, so clothes were mandatory.
“Morning, sweetheart.” Mom’s voice got to me before I even saw her.
“Morning.” I kissed the top of her head and noted the breathing machine beside her, then crossed over to the refrigerator. She hadn’t had a machine before so I thought it safe to assume it was because of the pneumonia. “How’s your day going?”
“Pretty good. Paige wouldn’t let me do all of my therapy, but I snuck some in when she wasn’t looking.”
“I see everything, Marina,” Paige said from somewhere. I glanced around to find her as she added, “I let you sneak that in.” Paige sat at the table with a glass of orange juice and a laptop in front of her
. Her hair was up in that bun again, though this time she wore a… jumper, I thought Indie had called it, and sandals. No idea why I didn’t see her in the first place.
“Does she ever get a day off?” I asked Mom. The corners of Paige’s mouth turned up but she didn’t look away from her computer.
“Of course she does. I don’t need twenty-four-hour care. She helps me with physical therapy in between when the therapist comes out and makes sure I get my meds. Some self-care. Things I can’t do myself. Or have a hard time doing myself. But she gets the weekends off because your dad doesn’t work the ranch on the weekend. He lets Louis take care it and they don’t do breeding then.” Mom took a drink of her coffee. The fact that Dad allowed his right-hand man, Louis, take control at all kind of took me by surprise. Though Mom told me Dad had taken more time away since she got sick. “But she lives here, Booker. And I like having her around.”
Any information was too much first thing in the morning before I had caffeine. I’d only been joking, and it wasn’t the weekend yet. Paige would’ve been working either way.
Paige suddenly closed her laptop, then stood. “I’m going to the store, Marina. Anything you’d like me to pick up?”
“You know you can just add what you need to the list. Hadley will pick it up for you.”
Nice to hear that Hadley the housekeeper was still around. She’d worked for my parents for years. Came in three times a week to do the cleaning and grocery shopping.
“Now, Marina.” Paige crossed her arms just under her tits. I had to avert my eyes to avoid looking like a creeper. But Paige didn’t seem to have noticed. “You know that I like to get my own things.”
“I know,” Mom said with a sigh. “But no. I don’t need anything.”
Paige gave Mom a nod then slid the computer off the table into her hands and headed for the hallway.
“Hey, can I go with you?” I asked Paige before she got out of the room.
She turned slowly with questioning eyes. “Go with me?”
“To the store.”
“Oh.” She shook her head, but it honestly looked like she was doing it more to herself. “Right. Yeah, of course. How long do you need?”
“Twenty minutes?”
Paige gave me a thumbs-up as she made her way down the hallway. Chuckling, I grabbed a couple of protein bars, then headed back to my room to return a phone call before we left. I could’ve called any of the guys but since Indie had been the one to call me when the guys only sent texts, I’d return that. Plus, she’d ask less questions and give me less shit about whatever I told her.
Indie had grown up with a famous father. Which meant she didn’t usually pry into people’s lives because she knew better than anyone else how precious privacy could be.
“Hey, where are you?” Indie answered on the second ring.
“Home.”
“Home?” she asked. “Like Michigan?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what’re you doing there? Dixon said you went outside to answer the phone and you never came back.”
I hadn’t told them about my mom’s stroke when I’d joined the tour. I supposed I’d have to now. “My mom had a stroke.”
She gasped. “Is she OK? What can we do?”
“No, Indie.” I sat down on the corner of my bed and pushed my feet into my shoes. “She had a stroke two months ago. But my dad called last night to let me know that she’d been back to the hospital and has pneumonia. I guess it’s a known complication of a stroke. Makes it easier to get sick. I don’t know.” I took a breath. “But she wanted to see me, so I came home. Everyone was so scattered I figured I’d just text when I had a chance but it seemed like I never had a chance. Then I got here and it kind of slipped my mind.”
“Aww. You’re a good son.”
I wasn’t so sure about that.
“You are but you probably should let someone know when you’re going to disappear,” she said with a slightly chastising tone.
“Yeah,” I admitted. What I didn’t tell her was that I wasn’t used to having anyone I needed to let know my plans. Every band I’d been in hadn’t been mine. I was always filling in with someone else so no one got attached. But I’d been with Courting Chaos for long enough that wasn’t the case anymore. I’d have to adapt.
“Aw, crap,” she said quietly. “Cross wants me hand over the phone. Fight or flight, Booker?”
I chuckled. I couldn’t avoid them forever. “Fight.”
“Everything all right?” Cross asked in my ear without Indie having the chance to say good-bye.
“It will be.”
“We have almost the week off, but are you going to be back in time?”
That I didn’t know how to answer. Assuming my continued to get better, I’d be back before I needed to be. Mom and Dad acted as if everything was normal most of the time but whenever I watched Mom’s face closely, I knew she kept some things to herself. Probably all normal things, but I’d make sure before I went back on tour. Plus, I made the mistake of looking on the internet for information about her stroke. The internet always came up with the worst possible outcome to everything.
“I don’t see why not.” Silence hung between us. “Look, if you have to move on to the next guy, I get it. But I really should be back for the next show.”
“We’re not moving on to anything. Just keep us up to date. If you need more time, you need more time but we would want to know, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I hung up, then finished putting my shoes on. Paige was waiting.
Chapter Six
Paige
No big deal. Just another day going to the grocery store with Booker Coyote, current bass player for Courting Chaos. Most people wouldn’t believe my life right now even if I had people to tell. Barrett sure kept telling me how magical my life turned out. Though that was an inside joke between us given that neither of our lives had been anything close to magical.
He climbed into the passenger side of my car and slid the seat all the way back to accommodate his very long legs, at least compared to mine. Then we headed down the long driveway. I glanced over at him a couple of times, trying to figure out a way to break the awkward silence when I decided to just act like he was anybody else. Because he was. Here he was Marina’s son not a world-famous rock star.
“So I’d been thinking about going into the city to the bigger store. I probably should’ve mentioned that before we left,” I told him. “We can just go to the small one in town if you prefer.”
“The city is perfect. Half an hour each way? I’m definitely in.”
At first, I didn’t want to pry, but the guy seemed like he had a lot on his mind and I began to wonder if he had anyone to talk to. In a couple of days, he’d leave Stone Creek and we’d likely never see each other again, given that Marina wasn’t going to need a nurse forever. I’d probably be gone before he ever made it back. The radio played softly in the background and there was no time like the present.
“So, what’s weighing so heavily on your mind?” I asked him. Then I quickly added, “Of course, you don’t have to talk to me, but sometimes talking to a stranger is easier than talking to a friend.”
“Well, my mom.”
I nodded. “Obvious answer.”
He snorted in return. “But it’s also the biggest.”
“She’ll be all right, Booker. She’s getting great care.”
“If you do say so yourself?” he countered.
Smiling over at him, I said, “That’s not what I meant.”
He chuckled deep in his chest. “I know. What was with the breathing machine this morning?”
I maneuvered onto the highway before answering. Though I hadn’t realized he didn’t know about that. “It’s treating the pneumonia. Since I caught it early, she probably didn’t need it, but they’re being cautious.”
“How’d you catch it? The pneumonia.”
“Every morning I do a full vital check. Everything is logged and the other mornin
g, she just didn’t sound right, so I listened again that evening and determined she needed to see a doctor. Overly cautious, like I said, but since she had that seizure—”
He cut me off. “What the fuck? Seizure?”
“They didn’t tell you about it.” That wasn’t a question. “It was febrile. She’d originally gotten a cold, which came with a fever. But seizures aren’t unusual after a stroke. It probably won’t happen again. It could but febrile seizures aren’t dangerous. We will make sure she gets medication at the first sign of a fever. Now what else you got going on in that head?”
“Just band stuff.”
“Band stuff?”
The song on the radio changed again and instead of explaining what he meant, Booker turned the radio up. It wasn’t Courting Chaos but another band whose name I couldn’t remember. I knew the song because they played it all the time but not whose it was. I sang the words quietly… well, I thought it was quietly. But out of the corner of my eye, I could see Booker watching me with a tiny grin.
“That Restless,” he said after turning the volume back down. “The name of the band.”
“Oh right. I knew that but didn’t know it. Ya know?” I asked then smiled and shook my head.
“I do. But I played with them for like four months recording that album.”
“Seriously?”
He nodded.
“That’s so cool.” I glanced from him back to the road a couple of times letting the silence hang between us. Then finally got back on topic. “So band stuff?”
He sighed again. “I’m not officially a member of Courting Chaos yet. I’m still filling in so they could ditch me at any moment for someone else. I fit. I don’t know what they’re waiting for. This is the first band I’ve wanted to be a permanent part of.”
“The rest were just jobs?”
“Pretty much.”
“It’s job security you’re worried about?”
Booker chuckled deeply as I took our exit and turned toward the store. “You could say that. It’s more the waiting. I’ve gotten a decent reputation so I could pick up another gig for a while, but I’d rather not have to.”
Booker (Courting Chaos Book 3) Page 3