by Quinn, Cari
“Your underwear,” I said simply.
The salesclerk fled.
Lindsey ran her fingertips up and down the side of her neck. “Not to mention someone likes to leave reminders on my skin. I probably should buy a few more of these scarves.” She looked at the deserted sales counter and let out an actual giggle. Not a sound I heard from her often. “Although I’d probably have to check myself out.”
I slipped my arm through hers and tugged her to the door. “We’ll find out when you sit down next if I left any other reminders on your flesh.”
“Oh, I feel it now. I’m walking. Barely.” She reached around to pinch my ass before pushing me out the door into the crowded street.
We walked for what felt like forever, Lindsey pulling me into random stores that caught her eye. In one, she draped herself dramatically on a floral patterned sofa, tossing her booted legs over the arm. I had to take a photo—and save it as my lockscreen. Then I held it out of her reach when she demanded to see it.
Not in this lifetime. I’d keep my moments of sentimentality to myself, thank you.
We drank cocoa and ate falafel we purchased from a street vendor. Strolled around Rockefeller Center and talked about how soon the Christmas tree would be up in all its tourist-drawing glory.
One way or another, we found ourselves riding up to the 86th floor of the Empire State building to check out the city from the viewing deck. I kissed her with sunlight bouncing off the skyscraper windows while stars glimmered in her eyes.
Once we were back on street level, we went by one more shop. This one had denim knee-high boots in the window with chunky belt buckles around the tops. I didn’t quite get the appeal, until Lindsey strutted out wearing them with her just-fucked-in sundress.
Yeah, now my eyes had stars in them, and there was no helping it.
“You’re a sight.”
She put her hand on her hip, glancing around nervously as a gaggle of teenage females wandered through the store. We’d been marvelously lucky all day long, not getting noticed even when Lindsey had tucked away her sunglasses. Of course, with her sunny hair hidden, she wasn’t quite as noticeable.
To people who weren’t me anyway.
I still wore my sunglasses, afternoon sun fading or not. I was used to living in permanent night. Or I had been before the last couple days, and the times I’d spent with her before that.
“Does that mean you think I should put them back?”
“No, it means I’m picturing you with them over my shoulders.”
She glanced around again, a smile teasing the corners of her mouth. “So, I guess I’m buying them.”
“Seems wise.”
We left with a large bag containing the boots and a leather belt she’d insisted on buying for me. The buckle was a microphone, and she’d made all manner of filthy suggestions in my ear while stroking the leather.
I probably would’ve bought three of them without a blink if she’d only asked.
Hand in hand, we wandered through the city streets. We could’ve been any touristy couple, doing usual couples’ things.
For once, that label didn’t rankle. It felt like possibilities.
Promise.
She announced she’d crossed fifteen thousand steps today and her arches were weeping, but she didn’t hesitate when I asked her if she wanted to go somewhere special with me once we’d ridden the train back to my side of town.
The clock was ticking. She’d checked in with George and he’d be picking her up all too soon to take her to the airport.
Almost time for her to fly away from me once again.
“More walking?” she asked.
“Unfortunately, yes.” In the darkness, I slanted her a look. “I’d carry you.”
I didn’t expect her to smile. “Would you?”
When I bent to lift her, she laughed and nudged me back. “I’m okay. Handily, I sneaked these into my bag at that last shop.” She pulled out some soft-sided things that marvelously unfolded into ballet slippers. Then she braced a hand on my shoulder to kick off the boots and swap them for the shoes.
“Oh, there is a God. Sweet mercy.” She swayed against me, turning that hundred-watt smile on me again when my arms encircled her waist. I started to pull back, but she snuggled in and turned her face against my shirt. “What’s your rush?”
“Are you smelling me?” I asked when she did just that.
“Yeah. Storing up. Got a problem with that?”
“No.” I touched her cheek and nearly said so many stupid, important things. The kind I’d never said to another and wouldn’t burden her with.
Except one truth she needed to know. My biggest burden of all.
“Let’s walk.”
She nodded and I slipped my arm around her shoulders, drawing her in close as we strolled up the sidewalk. We followed the maze of streets in my little hidden gem of a neighborhood until we came upon a pretty little park with an ornate sign.
“Royal Park.”
“Fitting for a duchess.”
She wrinkled her nose at my corny joke and we wandered inside, moving past wrought iron benches and water features that made her stop and smile. “Such a quaint spot. Does anyone even know this is here?”
Juggling bags, I drew her to a bench near a fountain where people tossed pennies to make wishes. Right now, I didn’t dare spare the coins.
“Someone did.” I tapped an etching someone had carved into the bottom of the bench. She turned on the torch on her phone and shined it on the spot, frowning up at me.
“‘I died for love.’ Hopefully, that was just a euphemism.”
“No. A man ended his life near here. Whether it was the same man, I don’t know. But I can surmise.”
“Always a sunny one you are, Alexander.”
The usage of my full first name took me aback, but maybe that had been the point. Already she knew how to drag me out of my gloom.
Instead of telling her how futile the attempt was, I extended my arm to her. She moved into the circle of it, settling against my chest as if she’d been meant to fit in that exact spot.
I nudged off her cap and let her hair free, rubbing a strand of its golden fire between my fingers. I nearly asked her what she knew about what happened. What she’d heard.
That wasn’t the way. It would be easier, but it was entirely the wrong road.
“A little over ten years ago, I was a practicing addict.”
A jolt went through her body, but she didn’t pull away. Just lifted her face to mine and waited.
“It probably started when I injured my hand working on my da’s boat. It wasn’t a horrible injury, but it lingered. I’d always liked going out with the boys for a pint. After that, I mixed a few pints with painkillers. As time went on, there were more pints. More pills. I started experimenting. If one toke was good, three was better. In time, the methods I used to escape grew more plentiful. I stopped waiting for Friday nights to get loaded. I stopped waiting for night, period.”
“Alex.” She took my hand. “I don’t need this yet. Or at all, if you don’t want to tell it. I know I said you had to tell me, but if you aren’t ready, it’s not necessary.”
“I’m not. But not because I don’t want to tell you. I don’t want it to be reality. But it is. I can’t erase that night.”
Audibly, she swallowed. And she brushed her thumb over the back of my hand, gentle encouragement to continue.
“I was in a band, lead singer, and had some measure of fame. It was growing in tandem with my using. The more the business drew out of me, the more I took and drank. I didn’t think I had a problem. I was the epitome of a functional addict. I worked a day job before the band took off. Then when it did, Kyle and I quit and—”
“You were in the band together.”
“Yes. He played some guitar. Not as seriously as I did, but he enjoyed the perks.”
“Women. Money. And the drugs too?”
I jerked a shoulder. “Only recreationally. He never we
nt to an extreme. That was my department. I did everything that way. I didn’t know the meaning of balance.”
“Not really a quality of most artists I know. We live outside the lines. That’s where the magic is.”
“Too true.” I wound a strand of her hair around my knuckles. “It’s also the path to destruction.”
“We all make mistakes.”
“I nearly killed him. I nearly killed myself. Of the two, one was a far larger crime. At least I’d made the choice.”
“So did he. He got in the car with you.”
“You do know some of it.” I tipped my head against hers, and she pressed her hand to my chest. Steadying the beat of my heart even as she trapped it under her palm.
“Some. But I want you to tell me. If you want to.”
“I’ll never want to, duchess.”
“I’m right here. Not going anywhere.”
Oh, but you are.
But I didn’t say it, because it wasn’t fair to try to capture the sun. It would only burn out while still trying to shine.
“You’d think a night that would change your life forever would seem different. It didn’t. Sometimes Kyle and I partied with others, sometimes alone. That night, it was just us. My da had told me earlier in the week that I was spiraling down, that I needed to get myself under control. My response had been to party with a new crowd who used even harder drugs. Who handed them out like candy.”
In the distance, a horn honked and sirens blared. Here in our small, quiet park, we might as well have been in another city.
Safe from all that wanted to intrude. Life especially.
Reality, that fucking moody bitch.
“I didn’t use what I’d been given that night. I tucked it away. I rarely went for nose candy. That wasn’t my particular choice. But I drank. The night with Kyle, I drank even more than usual. We were going from pub to pub, sitting in with bands where we could, taking advantage of open mic nights. Because in my world, music and excess went together. I didn’t know how to play when I wasn’t wasted. Thought stupidly I sounded better after getting loaded. Better still when I’d added something extra.”
Lindsey grasped a handful of my shirt. When that wasn’t enough, she went underneath it for skin. Touching me gently. Soft little flicks of her fingers meant both to soothe and to steady me.
“That shirt you put on—the one I flipped out over? I wore it that night. We took that picture before we went out. You probably figured that out by now, huh?”
“Yes.” Her voice was low but held no inflection. No pity, no judgment, no disgust. Neither did her radiant eyes. Even in the darkness, I felt as if I would’ve known if she wore those emotions on her face. But somehow she didn’t.
“You saw how much different—how Kyle was then versus how he is now.”
“Yes. But chicks dig scars.” Even as she said it, she stroked the left side of my chest. I knew she was trying to make me smile, but her touch was like a blowtorch to my libido.
I stilled her hand, squeezing her fingers. “We nearly died, the both of us. He knew I’d been drinking. He figured he knew how much. I have—had—a crazy high tolerance. But he asked me more than once if I was okay. I said yes. I thought I was. He just didn’t realize I’d had more than he realized—and I’d also snorted my first line in the pub bathroom.”
She rubbed my hand and said nothing.
“It was raining on top of it all. Pouring. I can still smell it.” I lifted my head to take in the swirling sky, filled with impatient clouds that rolled across the dark expanse. “I always loved the rain. Until that night.”
And then the night I crashed into the ditch. The night that had been so very fucked up and I still didn’t understand why.
Kyle with me one more time. My savior again. Staring down at me so dispassionately. Offering to drive me home and stay with me.
Then the next morning, he’d left with barely a word. In the weeks since, we’d barely spoken.
Had I really called him from Matthias’s and asked to meet at a bar of all things? The therapist I’d talked to a couple of times when I was at my worst after the initial accident had told me I had PTSD. I’d scoffed. Blown it off.
But maybe I’d had an…episode or something after working with Matthias. What other explanation could there be?
And Kyle just happened to be involved. Coincidence. Or more?
You’ve never had any memory lapses before. Yet they start when Kyle is around?
I’d been running low from lack of sleep and who knows what else. The rain had thrown me right into flashbacks of that night. Maybe it had all combined into a shitstorm. Maybe I was lucky Kyle was there.
Both times.
“You crashed,” Lindsey said gently, drawing me back.
I rubbed my forehead. “Yes. It was bad. Beyond. You’ve seen me. Seen Kyle. You know.” I let out a short humorless laugh. “It was all so much worse for him. He blamed me. Of course he did. I was to blame. A grown man who’d nearly killed two people because he couldn’t control himself.”
“We all make mistakes—”
“That wasn’t a mistake. It was assisted suicide, except I nearly took him with me.”
She straddled me right there on the bench and gripped my chin. “Are you using or drinking now?”
“What? No. God, no.”
The memories of the night Kyle had found me in the ditch nearly spilled free. But I hadn’t had a drink. I fucking hadn’t.
But you wanted to. Somehow Kyle knew how close you were to breaking.
“How many years?” When I didn’t speak, she gripped my chin even harder, her nails digging in. “How many years, Nash?”
“Since I’ve touched a drop of anything? A pill, a line…anything.” I exhaled. There was no room between us. No escape. “Not since that night.”
“You stopped. Completely.”
“Yes.”
“This happened in Ireland?”
“Yes, my home. And I left it. Ran like a coward and—”
“Brought Kyle with you. Who had every reason to hate you and didn’t. If he didn’t hate you—doesn’t hate you—why do you hate yourself?”
There was so much I nearly said. So much I wanted to tell her. My fears. The things that kept me up at night. How sometimes Kyle’s eyes just didn’t seem right.
That if there was madness inside him now, I’d sewn the seed. And now it was harvest time.
“I didn’t bring him so much as he followed. I would’ve holed up and withered away probably, but I still had the production end of the business to keep me sane.” I laughed again hollowly. “Relatively speaking. I invested in a few things, met a few people, came up with a few ideas that took off. Developed a few tools to help other musicians. Suddenly, I wasn’t scrabbling for money anymore. What I’d had before had been wiped out by the medical bills. And Kyle—”
“Kyle still had nothing.”
“He was in the business still. I sent some work his way, helped him gain some connections. But no. Whatever fledgling success he’d had as an artist at home was gone.”
“Was he okay with that?”
“How could he be? I ripped his life away from him, Lindsey. What I chose to do was one thing. He didn’t choose—”
“He chose to party with you that night. He chose to be your best friend. He chose to let you drive.” She relaxed her hold on my face and brushed my hair off my forehead, much as my da had when I was a boy. “We all make choices. Then we live with them.”
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. How could she not loathe me? I’d just told her what a truly vile man I was, and she was still here. Wound around me as if she had no intention of going anywhere.
Even as the clock ticked, faster and faster.
“He still has his life. As you have yours. You get the same twenty-four hours a day as we all do. And you chose to become sober and add your own light to the world. Every song you’ve worked on is a bit of peace you helped give someone who needed it. Or if not peace, maybe
understanding. Or hope. Or possibility.” She tipped her forehead against mine and I would’ve sworn a drop of wetness touched my cheek. Her tears or mine, I didn’t know. “Like recognizes like. You called me a light. I see yours. I always saw it. Being surrounded by darkness only made it brighter.”
I should’ve pushed her away. That would’ve shown that I had changed. I wasn’t the same selfish prick who drowned in pleasure to stave off the morning.
To avoid that light she claimed burned within us both.
“Tell me to let you go.” My arms locked around her like a vise. “That you want space. Want something I can’t give you.”
She shook her head. “I want this. I want us.” Her mouth touched mine and the sweetness she offered was my undoing.
My salvation.
A man had died for love here. And I was fucking living for it.
Thirty-Two
I stared at the grainy feed on the corner of my desk. Nash’s secret lair. His slut was fawning over that bitchy cat while Nash fed the dog.
So domestic.
She had a carry-on bag over her shoulder. All packed up and ready to go back to Richmond.
Time for her show.
Better yet, almost time for mine.
I picked up the schematics for Brooklyn Dawn’s stage. Thanks to a friend on their crew, I had the sequence of their next couple of concerts right down to timing—unless they made changes or added any last minute audibles.
But I could adjust. And if I needed to confirm anything, my good buddy on the crew would be happy to kick back and talk shop with a couple of beers.
Friends could be so very helpful.
They could also almost kill you then move on with their rotten miserable lives even after you saved theirs.
An act I regretted every single goddamn day.
I opened the top drawer of my desk and withdrew the bottle. I emptied the pills into my palm and threw them back, washing them down with the Jack I’d been drinking since dinner. I’d need more, of both the script and the alcohol.
Soon. It was nearly time to move.