Skeletons of Us (Unquiet Mind Book 2)

by Anne Malcom

  I grinned at him. It wasn’t a grin, not really. It was stretching my facial muscles to trick the outside world into thinking I was happy or amused and not bleeding from the inside out.

  “Of course we are, Zane. The lease is already signed.”

  His face hardened. “Don’t care,” he clipped. “No way in hell my girl is living in that”—he nodded to the building—“in this neighborhood. We’ll find something else. Something safer.”

  Before I could say anything, Mom stepped forward, putting her hand in Zane’s.

  “And yes, your version of something safer is most likely something like the White House in Washington, D.C.? Or perhaps some kind of fortress with a moat and armed sentries? This is where the kid’s living and I’m sure the boys will make sure she’s safe,” she said, her eyes on Sam, Wyatt, and Noah who had bags on their shoulders and were watching the exchange uneasily.

  We’d all fallen in love with the loft the moment the realtor had showed it to us. Sam had insisted on the neighborhood because “that’s where Nine Inch Nails had lived” and we needed to “suck up some of the leftover creativity.” It was also the only place we could get this much space for so cheap. We had the entire top floor. The boys had known Zane for years, knew how protective he was over my mom and me and they knew what a badass he was. It wasn’t just the fact he was in a motorcycle club, or the fact he was six foot of pure muscle and covered in tattoos. It was just him. You didn’t mess with him. So if he decided I wasn’t going to live here, I knew the boys weren’t likely to win the argument that would ensue.

  Luckily, my mom and I would. Zane may have been a big hardass to the outside world, one who barely spoke or smiled, but with me and Mom, he was a big softie. He smiled, even laughed on rare occasion.

  Hence Mom being able to convince him by reaching up to whisper something in his ear.

  His jaw went hard, then his eyes softened and lit up as he stared at Mom. He bent down to place a light kiss on her mouth, a large hand going to caress her small baby bump. It stayed there when he turned to the boys.

  “Anything happens to her, I hold the three of you responsible,” he barked.

  The boys nodded rapidly.

  “Already signed myself up to get a shotgun. Got nothin’ to worry about,” Sam told him confidently.

  I restrained a snort at this.

  Zane’s face was blank then he looked to Noah. “Part of protectin’ her means that clown does not go anywhere near a firearm.”

  I couldn’t contain my laughter at Sam’s crestfallen face and Wyatt’s grin.

  Noah nodded. “You got my word,” he promised.

  But Zane was no longer looking at Noah. His gaze had moved to me the moment I let out the small, genuine giggle. I wasn’t sure, but it might have been the first one since—no, I wasn’t allowed to think of that. Not now. Not in the light, not when I was standing and the memory could bring me to my knees. Not when there were people, my people near, not when my world surrounded me and I couldn’t disguise my agony that came with those memories.

  Zane stepped forward. “Go and check out the space, will you, baby?” he asked Mom.

  She gave him a long look; then her eyes, dulling with sadness touched on me. “Sure, big man.”

  “You don’t lift a fuckin’ thing,” he added.

  Mom snorted. “As if that would happen, with or without bun.” She rubbed her belly. “Come on, boys, let’s go and see where the pink sofa will go.”

  Sam’s eyebrows rose to his hairline. “Pink?” he repeated in horror, Mom’s teasing having its intended effect.

  Zane and I watched them walk across the parking lot, Mom throwing back her head in laughter and the boys smiling with her. We watched them until they disappeared into the building.

  “Been waitin’ for that,” Zane said roughly.

  I moved my gaze from the empty spot to Zane’s eyes. They were soft at the corner in that half smile that was reserved for Mom and me.

  “For Mom to make Sam’s head explode with the notion of anything pink entering his sacred space?” I teased.

  Zane stepped forward, his face hard. He squeezed my hand while his other hand went up to brush my cheek lightly. “For my girl to smile, to laugh again and actually mean it. Actually feel it.”

  A blade went through my soul at his words, at the meaning behind them.

  He didn’t wait for me to say anything, which was good because I couldn’t. “Ever since I claimed your mom, shit, before then, since I laid my eyes on both of you, I’ve worried about you. Your safety, your happiness. You and your mom, you’re always on my mind. Don’t expect that worry will ever go away, even when you smile and laugh like you used to. When you’re happy.” He paused. “But that worry’s been eating me up inside knowing my girl’s hurting, that she’s bleeding and there’s not a thing I can do but watch and wait for her to heal herself. For her beautiful soul to chase out the dark,” he murmured. “That smile. That laugh, the real one, not the ones you’ve been painting on your face for your mother’s sake, that’s what I’ve been waiting for, Lex. Doesn’t take the worry away, but makes me feel a fuck of a lot better leavin’ you here. Lettin’ you paint the universe with your beauty. A father will always worry about his girl. I know that. That weight on my chest is gonna be a bit lighter knowin’ that you’re laughin’ again.” His eyes never left mine.

  I blinked rapidly, tears forming in my eyes. They could not fall. They would not fall. I hadn’t cried. Not since that terrible night when I’d sobbed into my mom’s arms, exhausting myself with tears. I never would again. I couldn’t. Because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to stop. I’d drown in the depth of my sorrow. So it was through sheer force of will and self-preservation that I blinked away an ocean of tears.

  Zane was content in the silence to let me gather myself. He’d lived most of his life in that silence. Well, the four years of his life that he’d trudged through the barren wasteland of his own grief. Now silence was the furthest thing away from what he lived in. Mom and I didn’t do silence. Our life was loud. You’d think someone who seemed to feel most comfortable in quiet wouldn’t fit in our unquiet life. You’d be wrong. Zane fit in like that’s where he’d always belonged.

  With us.

  Even though he didn’t live in silence anymore, he knew when I needed it. Sensed that my unquiet mind craved those moments of stillness that it had been deprived of ever since… then. Since my heart shattered into a thousand pieces. I hadn’t had a snippet of quiet since then. How could I when my soul screamed with the agony of it all? How could I when the only person who gave me that quiet strode out of my life, trampling me with his motorcycle boots as he left? Right here outside my new apartment, outside my new life, I got a snatch of what I’d taken for granted with him. The quiet. I was at the precipice of two different worlds, two different lives. I was really leaving it all behind. Literally. There was one person I could never leave behind, regardless of the fact that’s exactly what he did to me. He’d always lurk at the back of my mind as he had since the moment I’d laid eyes on him. But now his presence was pain, constant and unyielding. A pain I was learning to live with, but a pain that was changing me.

  I looked up at Zane, finding my smile amidst the pain. “I’m happy,” I lied. “I’m happy that my mom’s got you. That you’ve got her. That I’m going to have a little brother or sister to spoil rotten. That I’ve got you. A father. A real one,” I whispered. “Love you, Zane, to the moon.”

  Zane’s eyes glistened, like there were unshed tears lingering behind that strong façade. Then it was gone, making me think it might have been a trick of the light. I didn’t get time to inspect his face for more signs of emotion and vulnerability on the strong man I considered not my adopted father but my only father, for his huge arms circled me and I was pulled into his chest. I inhaled the scent of leather and smoke, the familiarity giving my soul a fresh lance of pain before I relaxed into it. Zane kissed my head.

&n
bsp; “Love you, girl, to the moon,” his said against my hair.

  Before the moment could become any more heartbreaking, before I had to address the most words Zane had said in a cohesive sentence for a long while, I was saved by the bell. Or saved by the Sam.

  “Lexie!” His voice carried over the parking lot. “You have to come in here right now. We’re having room drama. Wyatt’s claimed the room that I specifically said was mine from the start. You have to fix it. Otherwise, we’re looking for a new bassist because I’ll bludgeon our current one with my drumsticks.”

  I pulled out of Zane’s embrace and shook my head at him the way an exasperated parent might at her squabbling children.

  Zane didn’t return the look with any humor, not even with his version of a grin, the crinkling at the corners of his eyes. He eyed me for a long moment, concern tangible in his gaze before he let me go.

  I turned my back on him to help stop one of my best friends from murdering the other over a bedroom. I turned my back on the life I had before, on the past that held my heart. I turned my back on it all with a promise to myself I’d never open myself up to someone, to something that could come so close to destroying me.

  It was my family, my boys, and my music that would become my soul now.

  PRESENT

  “Thank fuck that’s over,” Sam declared, sinking back in his seat. “Seriously, if I heard one more person spouting lies about what a saint Drew was, I was about to go up there and set them all straight on what a complete and utter asshole the guy was.”

  We were back at mine and Noah’s place. We’d sadly left our loft behind almost three years ago, when our self-titled album went platinum, we got the cover of Rolling Stone, and fame seemed to explode into our lives, touching every corner of it. A rustic loft in West Hollywood wasn’t suitable with the fame wave we found ourselves to be riding. It wasn’t that we suddenly became unhappy with our home nor the colorful and gritty neighborhood we’d grown to love; we’d still be there now if we had any say in it. Our building had little-to-no security and anyone could waltz up to our front door. The first couple of times it had been kind of funny when female fans had done it, and Wyatt and Sam had been more than happy to entertain them. It wasn’t funny when one overly enthusiastic male fan had cornered me in the stairway. I didn’t think he actually would have hurt me, or maybe that was just my hopeful mind, but I didn’t get to find out, luckily, since Noah had been there to give the guy a black eye and a concussion and the police had been called.

  My mother and Zane were not called. I talked to Mom every day and facetimed her and my brand new little brother, Rocko whenever I could. But she had her hands full and I wasn’t keen on topping that little incident onto her pile, especially since I would have most likely been faced with Zane the moment Mom called him. He was overprotective, and he didn’t need to be worrying about me. They didn’t need any more blips on their finally cloudless horizon. That had already happened the day Rocko was born. The day Mom almost died from a complication giving birth to him. The day I saw the demons, new and ferocious ones, behind Zane’s eyes when I arrived at the hospital, when I thought I would be losing my mom and realized if that happened I’d lose my newly official father—the adoption papers had arrived months earlier. So I didn’t want anything such as that incident worrying them.

  Instead, we employed the best publicist in the business to keep the incident out of the tabloids and moved into a gated community in Calabasas. Noah and I decided to get a place together and Sam and Wyatt each got places less than twenty minutes away. We spent pretty much all of our time together, hence being so close. The only reason we hadn’t all lived together again was because Wyatt and Sam lived the rock star lifestyle with parties and girls. Noah and I enjoyed a slightly more low-key existence, as low-key as we could get anyway.

  In addition to this, we all bought a beach house in Malibu where we spent our precious little downtime. Being a famous rock band was busy. Understatement of the century. When we weren’t recording or rehearsing or writing, we were touring. When we weren’t touring, we were doing press. Not that I complained. Busy was good. Busy was great. Constant motion meant my mind was always full of thoughts. It’s when it was empty, when I was stationary, that the danger came. That the memories came. So I was never stationary.

  Apart from now. We hadn’t worked since the news of Drew’s death broke, not that we were overcome with grief. I had been shocked numb for a while, but I wasn’t beside myself with emotion. We hadn’t worked because the press went insane as soon as they got a hold of it. Paps were part of this life, an undesirable part, sure, but a necessary evil. They came with the territory, and they loved Unquiet Mind. Mostly because Sam and Wyatt were always doing something that sold papers.

  They loved Noah and me too for different reasons. It was because we rarely did anything that sold papers. It was because we were different that they became fascinated, followed us everywhere, waiting to uncover some dark or dirty secret. Luckily, the publicist we hired was the best at her job and our dark and dirty secrets were buried deep.

  No one knew about the Sons of Templar or my connection to them. Partly because I never went home to Amber, only to see Rocko the day he was born, before we started getting followed everywhere we went. Zane visited regularly, but we didn’t get snapped together when he did. And he didn’t wear his cut on the off chance that we did.

  My past, everything with my father, it was sealed tight. I was constantly worried it would come out, but that was a worry for another day. Now I had to think about how to navigate the coming weeks of a press circus. Well, maybe not right now. Right now I was giving myself the luxury of sitting in my living room with my boys, who were bickering the only way they could, like the brothers they were.

  Wyatt and Noah glared at him in a synchronized motion that looked like they’d rehearsed it. I guessed they had; they did it whenever Sam said something inappropriate—every day in other words.

  “Bro,” Wyatt hissed through his teeth, not so subtly nodding his head toward me. “Ever heard of the saying ‘Don’t speak ill of the dead’?” he said, mirroring my earlier thoughts.

  Sam snorted. “So I’m supposed to pretend I liked the guy just because he snorted too much coke and ended up six feet under? Fuck that. I’m sorry he’s dead and all,” he said with a glance to me, “but that’s not going to stop me from speaking my mind.”

  “I think a bullet through the forehead will be the only thing that stops that mouth from spurting out bullshit on a daily basis,” Noah murmured.

  Sam glared at him but didn’t rise to the bait. He leaned forward, grasping the bottle of whisky on the coffee table and unscrewing it. He poured four shot glasses to the brim and then handed them around the group.

  “Now, the guy was a dick, but at least he introduced me to that actress who did yoga, what was her name?” he trailed off, scrunching up his nose.

  “Sam,” Wyatt snapped with impatience.

  Sam jerked out of his trance. “Right, yep, wrong time. I might look her up after this though,” he pondered. “So here’s to one of the worst actors in Hollywood and to the guy who, for better or for worse, was part of our lives. Sorry you’re dead, bro.” He lifted his glass to the ceiling. “To Drew.”

  “To Drew,” I murmured as Wyatt and Noah said it in unison and we all brought our glasses to our lips. I quickly swallowed the bitter liquid, screwing up my face as it burned all the way down to my stomach.

  I didn’t drink. Hugely strange for anyone in Hollywood, anyone my age, and certainly the lead singer of a rock band. But it wasn’t me. Sure, I’d have a glass of champagne at events, or some red or a beer when Noah and I were curled up on the sofa watching bad TV, but I didn’t drink. Not really. I’d done it once. Once I realized how numb it made me feel. How it made me forget. At the time I thought I’d discovered to cure to my broken heart, my broken soul—a strong martini. Then I learned it only made you forget for a time. The more you drank,
the more the feelings became something different, became harder to banish to that dark corner of my mind. Drinking for me didn’t mean escaping my demons; it meant facing them. Something I so didn’t want to do. That’s why I shook my head when Sam motioned to refill my glass.

  He shrugged. “More for me.”

  None of the boys blinked at my distaste for alcohol, nor did they pressure me to partake when we were at one of many industry parties or nightclubs. They accepted it. Accepted me.

  Wyatt sipped from his glass which Sam had refilled, eyeing me. “How are you really, Lex?” he asked softly. “Now we’re away from the cameras and the bullshit people.”

  I sighed, sinking back on the sofa. “I’m okay. That’s the thing. I’m okay. I’m sad he’s dead, sure, but I’m not about to curl into a ball of despair. Does that make me a horrible person?”

  Sam snorted, but his face was soft, kind. “Makes you human, babe. I wouldn’t like to live in a world where you were considered a horrible person.” He shivered. “What would that make me?” He did another shot.

  Noah reached over to squeeze my hand. “Babe, it’s no secret to us you didn’t like the guy. Thank fuck. We’d have to stage an intervention if we had an inkling you did.” He paused. “We got why you were with him, though. ‘Cause you didn’t like him. No danger there. You never have to pretend with us. Maybe out there.” He nodded to the floor-to-ceiling windows in our lounge treating us to the twinkling lights of Hollywood in the distance. “But not in here, not with us.”

  I squeezed his hand and my eyes glistened as I regarded my boys.

  “I love you guys, to the moon,” I whispered.

  Wyatt raised his glass. “Love you right back, baby girl.”

  Noah winked at me and squeezed my hand.

  Sam looked to the sky. “Jesus,” he groaned. “Is this going to turn into a circle jerk? Do I have to tell you all how my teacher spanked me in the second grade and now I’ll never look at a ruler the same again?”