Westside Series Box Set

by Monica Alexander

  “Do you want to call her now?” I asked him. “I’ll go flush that stuff in your pocket if you want me to. That way you can have some privacy.”

  Normally I would have gotten a sarcastic comment from him, but I had a feeling he was too tired for that. Instead he wordlessly handed me the baggie and turned on his cell phone. As he started to dial Kelsey’s number, I left the room, giving him some time and space.

  I felt relief as I flushed the remainder of the cocaine. I’d have to make sure we cleaned up the broken glass from the mirror and the debris from the broken vase before we left too. Phillip’s dad didn’t need to catch wind of this particular incident.

  Then I called Van to fill him in on how Phillip was doing. He said wanted to come up, but I told him that probably wasn’t a good idea. I told him Phillip and I would be back at the hotel later, and maybe it would be best for him and the guys to head back now. I honestly didn’t know where Phillip’s head was with regards to the band and his friends, and I didn’t want to tell Van that he hadn’t even mentioned them. It would kill him. Thankfully Van didn’t press too hard and was agreeable to going back to the hotel.

  When I hung up with him, I figured I’d look for something to clean up the glass. I was in the kitchen searching for a broom and a dust pan when Phillip walked out of the study.

  I looked up from under the sink. “Does your dad have a dustpan?”

  He shook his head. “Probably not.”

  I sat back on my haunches. “Okay, so maybe I can use a few pieces of paper to clean up that glass. That could work.”

  “Just leave it for the maid,” Phillip said. “She comes once a week whether my father’s here or not. It’s a standing order.”

  “No, we can’t just leave it.”

  “We can. It’s fine. I have to go anyway.”

  “Where are you going?”

  He swallowed. “To, um, to Leah’s. I told Kelsey I’d come over, and we’re going to talk to Gavin.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay doing that?” I asked him.

  He seemed surprisingly calm given everything that had transpired since I’d walked into the condo. But that was Phillip. When he wanted to, he could turn off his emotions. It didn’t make me feel great, since he probably needed to face what he was feeling, but I knew him well enough to know not to push him further. I’d already done enough of that for one night.

  “I’m not okay with it, but I have to do it,” Phillip said somberly.

  I nodded. “I think Kelsey will appreciate having you there.”

  He nodded in agreement. “I know. And it’s what Leah would want.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  He shook his head. “No, I think I need to go alone.”

  “You’re not going to disappear again, are you?” I asked as I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “I don’t plan to. Greg’s going with me. He said the media’s been really bad, and he wants to make sure they don’t follow us. He’s downstairs in a car.”

  “I think that’s good. I don’t want you to be alone.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

  I wasn’t sure how to decipher that, so I just let it go as I rose to standing, figuring I’d deal with it later. Even if he was irritated with the fact that I wouldn’t leave him alone, I didn’t care. I was doing it for him, and he was going to have to live with it.

  “I guess I’m ready when you are then,” I told him. “Would you be able to drop me off at the hotel on your way to see Kelsey? I sort of need a ride.”

  “Of course.”

  As we started to leave the condo, everything in me wanted to take Phillip’s hand, but it felt like something had shifted between us, so I held back. If anything, the emotional conversation we’d had combined with the fact that I’d told him I loved him should have brought us closer together, but it was like it had the opposite effect. He stood next to me on the elevator, but for some reason he felt off-limits. I told myself it was the moment, it was the day, it was everything that had happened, but on a deeper level, I knew it was more.

  Maybe it was because of Leah, or maybe it was because I’d put more stock into what was between Phillip and me than what was really there. I loved him, but he clearly didn’t feel the same way, and maybe that was my fault. Maybe I should have realized all along that Phillip was never going to give me more than what he had. Maybe he really wasn’t wired that way.

  But at least he was okay. I was grateful for that, and as we got to the waiting car, and Greg got out to embrace Phillip, I told myself I was okay with that. It was enough.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Phillip

  I took a deep breath as the car pulled up outside the church in South Florida, glad to see that the press had stayed away. I wasn’t ready to deal with them yet, and I had a feeling Katherine had paid a pretty penny for them to not come to Leah’s funeral.

  Leah’s funeral. I still couldn’t believe it. A week had passed, and no matter how often I thought about it, I couldn’t comprehend that she was gone. All I knew for sure was that it felt like there was a hole in my chest, right next to my heart, and no amount of distractions or time or even therapy was going to make it go away.

  The feeling wasn’t foreign, because I still felt the void my mother had left behind, but it wasn’t the same. Losing a parent at a young age had been terrifying and confusing, but losing your best friend, as an adult, when you knew how death worked and how hard it would be not to have that person in your life, was so much worse.

  Leah had been there, in my mind and only a phone call away for almost fifteen years of my life. I couldn’t remember a time without her, and a part of me didn’t know how to exist without her in my corner. How I’d even survived the past week was a miracle, because there were definitely points when I felt like my chest was going to cave in and crush my heart.

  I wondered if it would ever get easier, and even though I logically knew it would, it was hard to imagine. Now I had to listen to a minister speak about Leah, I had to hear her parents and her friends talk about what an amazing person she was, and I had to see Gavin’s face as he watched his mother laid to rest too early in her life.

  I knew that was going to be the hardest part, mostly because I’d lived it. I’d buried my own mother, and I still remembered with distinct clarity what it was like to see her casket lowered into the ground, knowing she would never come back, that she’d never hold my hand or cheer me on or kiss me goodnight again. It was the worst feeling I could remember until now, and I knew Gavin would carry around the same pain for the rest of his life.

  But I’d be there for him. I’d hold his hand and make sure he knew it was okay to cry, and I’d comfort him as best I could. I wasn’t sure I was all that well suited for the job, but what Sabrina had said to me a week earlier had stuck, and I knew that Gavin really didn’t have anyone else. He had Kelsey, and he had me. His grandparents loved him, but they weren’t really involved in his life, and they’d never been all that great with kids. They lived abroad, and as it was, he hardly knew them. And considering his deadbeat father had never been in the picture, he didn’t have any other family.

  I felt awful for the kid, and I knew it was only going to get worse for him. Kelsey was going to end up with custody of him, and considering her life was in New York, he was going to have to move. I hadn’t talked to her about it, but I knew she wouldn’t settle for anything else. She’d get a nanny, she’d make sure he went to the best schools, and she’d love him just like Leah had. It wouldn’t be the same. He’d be okay in the long run, but it was going to take a while.

  Telling Gavin that his mom was gone had been the closest thing I could imagine to being tortured. He’d been inconsolable, which was just plain hard to see, but I also wasn’t great in those situations. I was the fun ‘uncle’. I was his buddy. I wasn’t a parental figure, and I didn’t really know what to say to him. So I just sat there feeling numb while Kelsey explained what had happened. Gavin fell apart, just like
I had when I’d heard the same news, and the expression on his face had been brutal. He’d literally crumbled as he looked over at me for validation that what Kelsey was telling him was true, and when I’d nodded, he lost it. Kelsey immediately pulled him into her arms, and he refused to let go of her for the rest of the night.

  After he cried himself to sleep and Kelsey put him to bed, she came out to talk to me. I’d just been sitting on the couch, not sure what I was supposed to do, feeling disconnected from what was happening around me. I’d wanted to run so many times throughout the night, because I knew crawling into a corner and letting reality slip away would to be better than anything I was feeling. But I knew I couldn’t do that. I’d made a promise to Kelsey, and I had to keep it.

  When she sat down next to me, she looked as exhausted as I felt, and considering I hadn’t slept hardly at all the night before, I knew I probably looked like hell. She’d put her head in her hands and started to cry, so I’d held her, just like Sabrina had done for me, hoping it would help. It hadn’t done much for me, because it didn’t change the fact that Leah was gone, but it had given me a little bit of comfort to know that I really wasn’t alone. I wanted Kelsey to know that too.

  “l’m glad you’re here,” she’d said, sounding defeated.

  I nodded. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

  I’d let her down. I knew it, and nothing I could do would make up for the fact that I’d left her alone in that hospital to face the news that had made my world turn upside down. I hadn't even thought of what it had done to her, and now that I knew, I was pissed that I hadn’t been there for her.

  “You’re here now. You were here for Gavin. That’s all that matters,” Kelsey had said after her tears had subsided, shaking her head where it rested on my shoulder. Then she sighed. “I need you, Phillip. There’s so much to do. I don’t even know where to start. I have to call her lawyer. I have to plan the funeral. I have to call Gavin’s school and Leah’s boss, and I have to figure out what to do with her financial accounts and the house, and I’m probably missing ten other things I have to do. There’s just so much. I don’t even want to think about it all.”

  “I know,” I’d said, not because I really did know. I just wasn’t sure what else to say.

  Already I could feel the smoothie I’d drank on the way to Leah’s house churning in my stomach. I hadn’t been hungry and hadn’t felt like eating, but Sabrina was worried that I hadn’t eaten anything all day. She’d told Greg to make sure I got something in my stomach. So he’d made the driver stop and had run in to get me a drink. Now I was regretting it. Just thinking about Leah’s funeral made my stomach turn.

  “I don’t even know if she wants to be buried or cremated,” Kelsey said then. “We never talked about it. Is that weird? I should know that. She was my sister. She–”

  “Stop!” I said quickly as I shoved her off my lap.

  I ran to the bathroom and reached the toilet just in time to get sick. Everything in my stomach came up until there was nothing left, and I sagged forward, my hand on the back of the toilet as I took a few deep breaths.

  “Are you okay?” Kelsey asked me from the doorway.

  I didn’t look at her as I shook my head. My stomach ache was starting to subside, but in no way was I okay.

  Then the tears came again, and I sank down to the floor next to the toilet, feeling like I didn’t even have the strength to stand. My head pressed against the wall as my shoulders shook and hot tears spilled from my eyes, the pain engulfing me. I registered Kelsey coming to sit next to me, her head resting against my shoulder and her arms around me, her tears soaking my shirt, but little else was on my mind outside of the searing ache I felt at the idea that Leah was gone.

  “I hate this,” I told her, because we hadn’t really talked since I’d run from her and the doctors at the hospital earlier that morning. “I hate it.”

  “Me too. I miss her so much already.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t even put into words how much I missed Leah, and it had only been a day. I knew it was only going to get worse.

  I looked over at Kelsey’s tear-streaked cheeks. “I don’t know if I can do this,” I told her, feeling like a dick for being honest, but dealing with this was harder than I’d ever imagined it could be.

  “Me either. But we don’t have a choice.”

  I was aware that she’d lumped me into that statement. And it made sense. It should be us. It had always been us, but the truth was, I didn’t want any part of anything she’d been talking about. I just wanted to leave it all behind – the pain, the confusion, the anger. Nothing about the past twenty-four hours made sense, and I couldn’t imagine it ever making sense. What did make sense to me was doing whatever I could to forget it was even happening.

  “Why don’t we just take off?” I asked Kelsey in a hopeful attempt that she’d agree, even though I knew it was never going to happen. “We could go somewhere and forget about everything for a while.”

  It sounded so appealing, but I knew going somewhere else wasn’t going to make either of us forget that Leah was gone. I just suddenly wanted to be anywhere but Leah’s house, surrounded by her things, where the memories of her were so thick it was like she was standing in the room with us.

  “I wish it were that easy,” Kelsey said softly. “But Gavin’s going to wake up tomorrow, and he’s going to need someone to take care of him. He’s going to have questions, and he’s going to be sad, and he’s going to be confused. I have to be there for him. I have to take care of him. And I have to take care of the arrangements. I have to–”

  “Don’t say it,” I said, shaking my head as I felt my stomach start to roil again. “Don’t talk about – that. I can’t think about any of it. It’s too much.”

  “Phillip,” Kelsey said softly, because she knew I was burying my head in the sand again.

  Normally she’d be the one indulging me. She’d done it our whole lives, letting me live in a parallel reality where we didn’t talk about bad things. But I guess this was different. She didn’t have a choice but to face what had happened. And maybe I didn’t either. I just wasn’t sure I could talk about it – not yet.

  “I’m sorry, Kels, but I can’t do it. It’s too much.”

  She sighed. “I need you,” she said in a choked voice that broke my heart. “I can’t do this alone. Please, Phillip.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I told her, because as much as I wanted to run, I knew I couldn’t.

  This wasn’t just about me. Kelsey was hurting as much as I was. It would be selfish to run, and I’d never be able to live with myself if I did that. I already felt guilty enough for disappearing on her that morning. But it didn’t mean I wanted to talk about what had to be done. Maybe in the morning I’d feel less like vomiting when she brought up Leah, but tonight I just felt sick all over, like I had the flu.

  “Are you sure?” she questioned.

  I nodded. “I’m sure,” I said, looking up at her. “I want to run. I want to go to the airport and fly to some faraway location where I can hole up alone and just disappear for a few days, for a month, for a year.”

  “But you’re not going to?”

  I shook my head. “No. Sabrina was right. Even if I do that, everything’s still going to be here when I get back. I’ll still have to deal with it. I’ll just have to come to terms with it all over again.”

  Kelsey nodded. “I really need you, Phillip. I know we’re the last two people who should even be around a child for an extended period of time, but I’d rather have you here with me than have to be a surrogate mother to Gavin on my own. And God knows my parents won’t be any help in that department. They barely raised Leah and me. Thankfully we had good nannies.”

  “I’m here,” I told her. “I’m not sure how to really even take care of myself, but I’ll do whatever I can for Gavin. Damon put the tour on hold for the next week, so I’ll stay here with you guys.”

  I’d talked to Van on the way over to Leah’s house, and
I’d been glad to hear Damon had been more thoughtful toward the situation than I’d expected. He’d never been my biggest fan, and he hated doing things to disappoint our fans, but at least he’d had the courtesy to know that I needed some time.

  Van had said the guys were all going back to L.A. for the week, but he told me if I wanted to go somewhere else, he’d charter a plane. I’d told him I’d think about it, and up until the moment I’d told Kelsey I was staying, a part of me had been prepared to meet Van at the airport. Now, as Kelsey leaned on me, I knew that wasn’t an option.

  “Thank you,” she said, resting her head on my shoulder again.

  After that conversation, the week passed in a relative blur, and I wasn’t quite sure how I’d gotten through it. There were a lot of tears, a perpetual numb feeling, and so many painful moments that crept up out of nowhere. It was like there was a vice around my heart at all times. Sometimes it squeezed so hard it felt like I couldn’t breathe, and others times it was just a dull pressure I felt, reminding me that I was sad, that I’d lost someone I loved, and that the pain wasn’t going to go away any time soon.

  But as much as I’d been dreading Leah’s funeral, a part of me knew I would feel some sort of relief when it was over. I had to feel something. I knew moving forward in the state of suspension I’d felt like I’d been in wasn’t going to happen. I had to move on, whether I was ready to or not.

  Going back on tour would help. It was going to be hard to leave Kelsey alone, but she’d be okay. She was stronger than she led on, and she was definitely stronger than me. She’d handle everything with the grace she’d always displayed so easily, and I’d have the distraction I’d been looking for all week.

  Knowing I could get lost in the music, that I could play my role as a member of Westside, and that I could zone out in front of the crowd would be a blessing. Because for a few minutes each day, my mind wouldn’t be on Leah and how I missed her so goddamn much.