by Lyrica Creed
“You don’t look good,” I repeated, hating the suspicions beginning to cloud my brain.
“Something I ate.” Again only the barest use of syllables in his reply.
“We didn’t eat.” That was it! He hadn’t eaten all day that I knew of. I’d fixed myself some of the breakfast casserole, but he hadn’t. And neither of us had ordered takeout as we normally did for the evening meal. “Want a couple of pizza pockets? I’ll nuke them and be right back.”
I pivoted around, and that’s when my gaze took in the open bathroom. The vanity lighting practically spotlighted the ugliness of the paraphernalia cluttering the beautiful granite, or marble, or whatever the smooth surface might be. The same shit had been in that same place roughly a week ago when he lay across from it, dying in the shower!
“You motherfucker!” Whirling on him, I balled a fist to restrain the urge to slap his fucked-up face. “What are you fucking doing to yourself?”
A baleful stare was his only reaction to my outburst.
“You’re putting that junk in your body again. My God, Gage. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking…” Now he did manage a smile. “I’m thinking you’re sweet to care.” His lashes blinked and he looked like a chagrined child being screamed to by an adult. “It’s okay. I promise.”
“It’s not!” I paced just short of the edge of his bed, gnawing at my fingers and taking in his lethargy. “It’s not.” Tears welled in my eyes. “I can’t be here if you mess up again. I can’t watch this.”
I stormed toward the room’s exit into the hall and slowed when he called after me.
“Don’t. Whatever you’re doing, don’t. Please, Scar.”
Earlier this evening it had been nothing to resist Colt calling after me. But Gage’s husky sweet voice pricked—like a needle—at my barriers. When I stilled completely, he implored again.
“ C’mere. C’mere and be with me. Be against me. Like this morning. So sweet…”
Something tickled my cheek, and I raised a hand, finding my face wet. I faced him, unsure of what I was going to say. I only knew I had to get out. Get away. And I had to tell him again without screaming it. But after wiping another tear, I simply turned back to the door and raced down the hallway to my room.
“Ah, fuck, Scar… Fuck!”
Chapter 24
“Hey! Guess what! It’s a weird story, but I found Ivy!”
“That’s great!”
“Where?”
“How? Tell me, Scar!”
“This is amazing. Tell me everything. I want to know the weird story.”
“Scar? Scar. Scar!”
Her name hissed through his parched lips on a sad breath. Why wouldn’t she answer?
His eyes opened to his dim bedroom, and he eyed the square of light falling on the floor from the bathroom. A hopeful look to his nightstand for a bottle of water was disappointing, and he tried to swallow, to wet his parched throat. Tunneling his hand from beneath his coverings, he reached for the little box that was almost always at his fingertips after… after he fucked up. Because that’s how he was beginning to feel about it, despite not staying in rehab long enough to be conditioned to think that way.
Touching the brass pipe to his lips, he flicked a disposable lighter and when he was done, let the lighter drop to the floor. He inhaled and held it, hoping for some quick relief.
Rousing awake again, he swung his feet out of bed and skimmed through the senders of the fifteen messages. Without reading anything beyond the names, he stood, stripping as he dragged his feet to the bathroom. After a warm shower, he wrapped a towel around his waist and stood at the mirror shaving. He brushed his teeth. Combed his hair back.
Addressing the contents of the vanity top, he tore the stamped paper into a few bits and flushed it, disposed of other waste into a sharps container, and stood for a moment eyeing everything else. He scooped it all into the black zip bag and after dressing, carried the pouch downstairs to the kitchen where he rooted around until he found a trash bag. Once it was knotted inside, and safely disposed of in the outside bin for the private trash collection service, he stood for a moment enjoying the sun before returning inside.
Something felt off, and he couldn’t fathom the source. The kitchen was sparkling. He’d set his cup beneath the coffee brewer when realization dawned. The housekeeper’s poppy seed mini muffins had been a favorite of Scarlett’s, since her first taste the week she had arrived. And this morning, the muffins sat on the countertop untouched.
Whipping his phone out of his pocket, he checked the time, and his frown deepened when his phone screen read almost two p.m. Scarlette rarely slept past the a.m. hours.
“Hey! Guess what! It’s a weird story, but I found Ivy!”
The memory buzzing his brain was faint.
Leaving the freshly dripped coffee without so much as a taste, he thumbed once more through the texts. None were from Scarlette. The pool was empty. Unaware that he was following her same routine as last night, he hastened first to the garage and then upstairs when all of the cars were accounted for.
In the middle of the guest room, which he had begun to consider her room, he locked his knees to keep them from buckling. A dresser top empty of scattered cosmetics and hair accessories. The closet was closed. He said a prayer as he opened it and then promptly cursed in frustration when no clothing swung from the hangers and no shoes lined the shoe racks.
Unable to look at the empty room any longer, he paced into the hall as he texted.
Hey. Where are you?
sent 3:32 PM
Rascal was bouncing his way up the stairs as he was going down, likely reminding him it had been days since he had checked the automatic dog feed and water station. It was one of the jobs the housekeeper routinely completed, but occasionally he had found it empty. Returning to the kitchen, he found that wasn’t the case this time. His pet had plenty of food and water. Handing one of the muffins to the hyperactive animal, he checked his settings, making sure the sound notifications for text was on.
Did you say you found Ivy?
sent 3:32 PM
He popped his coffee into the microwave and scrolled through his other texts while he waited. A couple from Ben.
One from his father confirming he’d heard the news and would be back in town in a few days. The ‘love you, son’ made his eyes ache. Most of the time, his father was a hard-ass when it came to anything Gage had done to cause bad publicity. The exception had been his divorce a couple of years back. His father had been incredibly supportive.
And Colt, the fucking jerk. What did he want after being such a douche the night before? He clicked the text.
Colt
Look, I’m not supposed tell you this, but your sister is here.
11:22 AM
He choked on his first sip of coffee and then promptly gulped several more. Kill. Kill that bastard dead. And then kill him again. Another gulp of coffee and another text smashed into his phone.
WTF is going on?
sent 3:47 PM
Crazy shit went through his head. Had Scarlette and Colt been carrying on some affair behind his back, and she was now moving in with him? The argument he’d witnessed the previous night lurked in his memories. The phone vibrated his hand and let out a bleep.
Colt
Oh good. You’re alive.
3:50 PM
Fuck Colt Powers and his cryptic shit. His coffee splattered thumb tapped the phone screen in annoyance.
The fuck fucker
sent 3:51 PM
Just answer
sent 3:51 PM
He’d typed the two so close together, but for the send button, they could have been one furious text. And then he waited. Too agonizingly long before the response came.
Colt
You’re using again.
3:55 PM
His neck wouldn’t support his head, and it fell back until he was glaring at the can lighting in the beams of the high ceiling. He almost smashed
the phone, but he took a deep breath and typed.
Doesn’t explain why she’s there?
sent 3:57 PM
Colt
You’re an idiot.
3:58 PM
Now he did toss the phone outside the kitchen and felt some satisfaction when it sank into the pool.
Because it was true. He was an idiot.
Chapter 25
The pool at Colt’s house dropped down the mountainside in two levels. The top terrace pool waterfalled into the next level’s pool. About an hour ago, Colt had texted me to join him. He currently sat at the top of the waterfall, tapping his thumbs to the screen of his phone and verbally interrogating me about everything.
His questions began with Ivy, now that I had finally told him what had brought me to L.A. Next he touched on my true identity—my Scarlette Conterra persona, which up until now, he’d been relatively quiet about.
I fidgeted in the deck chair not far from him. I was still dressed in the same clothing from the night before since my rolling duffel piece was still in the back of Colt’s Bugatti. I wasn’t sure if my inner resentment toward being probed about this part of myself showed, or if Colt fell back on a different tack, but after the normal questions most people asked—like ‘did I remember my father,’ and ‘did I like my father’s music’―he moved on to another subject.
Gage.
At this point, I wished he had stuck with the discomfiting questions about my lineage.
“How long was Gage’s dad married to your mom?”
“Um, about six years. Or seven.” I brushed at a water spot near the hem of my shorts.
“I bet he was a bratty brother.”
A few memories quick to surface made me smile. However, when I looked up, Colt’s gaze seemed extra attentive. He was still trying to figure out the current relationship between Gage and me!
“You’d think. But no. He was the best. My friends had brothers who did gross things―put bugs in our hair or even worse, saying perverted things. Gage never did that shit. What he did do was hang around when my friends were over. I hated that. They all crushed on him, and he ate it up. Then I wasn’t the center of the universe like I wanted to be.”
His laughter carried across the water, and he began reading his screen again. “So you never crushed on him? Only your friends did?”
Okay. That was direct.
Gage’s kiss the night my mother had left heated my memories.
“I always had a dozen crushes. From the second my boobs showed up, I noticed boys. But Gage was my brother.”
Liar. Gage was never your brother after that kiss.
Well technically, the little devil on my other shoulder defended, the night of the kiss he was no longer your stepbrother since your parents were separated…
Smooth! Another devil fought for territorial shoulder space. Smooth move to use the mention of your boobs as a distraction!
I couldn’t tell what Colt was looking at from behind his dark shades. However, I had that tingly feeling that often accompanied focused male assessment. A bit embarrassed that I’d actually vocalized the errant thought about my boobs, I crossed my arms over my chest.
Last night, when I had texted Colt about the shape Gage was in, he’d texted back, promising he would be right over. I had let him in and remained downstairs while he went up to check on Gage. After reporting to me that Gage was fine, with a steady pulse, just sleeping it off, we’d talked while sitting around the island in the kitchen. I had expressed how angry and frustrated I was with Gage—so much so, I no longer wanted to be under the same roof. One thing had led to another, and he had invited me to stay in the guesthouse at his place.
I knew a normal person’s next move in this situation would be to check into a hotel, or schedule my roundtrip home, now that it seemed Ivy was quite possibly fine. But the first thing I had done last night, after arriving at Cole’s, was to check my bank balance.
It was grim. I had enough for one night at a hotel and then some change.
“And now?”
“Huh?” I shook my anxious thoughts away and settled my own sunglasses more comfortably on the bridge of my nose.
“Your crushes. Got a boyfriend back home?”
“No.” I paused precisely long enough to deliver the punch line perfectly and made sure I smiled sweetly. “A girlfriend.”
“No! No. Really?”
I shrugged and hoped that would keep his eyes off me until I figured this mess out. I knew I should be gone by, at the latest, the following morning. And that was probably pushing a near stranger’s hospitality.
“My turn with the twenty questions.” I crossed my legs and tossed out the challenge.
“Ask me no questions. I tell no lies.”
“Well, I’d hate to make you lie. So I’ll just say, Caroline seems really nice.”
“She is. And a great mother.”
“It’s great you two are able to live close enough to both be there for Seth.”
“I was glad she was open to the idea of moving out here.”
“Did you know?” I bit back my words, finding it hard to query him as ruthlessly as he had me. But his answers had me intrigued. The fact that he so fondly endorsed his ‘baby momma.’ To hell with it. “I mean, I guess I was wondering when you knew about Seth. Like, if there were a lot of years you only saw him randomly because of working and tours.”
“I didn’t know. No. He had just begun school when I found out. She had put me on his birth certificate, so there was some signature the school needed from me, and that’s when she told me.” His wrist relaxed on his knee, and his phone hung idly in his hand. “Crazy, huh? But we worked it out.”
My phone buzzed my butt cheek, but I ignored it. At this moment, unless it was Ivy, I couldn’t think of anyone else I would want to talk to. “Your cat is eating a giant bug.” I’d been watching the silver tabby, playing in the built-in planters and stone walls that made the pool area almost look as if it had been stumbled onto during a hike.
“She does that. Less bugs to sting or bite you.”
We laughed. It was easy to forget I was irritated with him for expecting Gage to work alone on a song the entire band had due in a week, and for his nonchalant attitude about Gage’s legal troubles. Instead, I saw a guy who had twice now, in the short time I had been around, jumped into his car and driven over in the middle of the night to check on his friend. And the guy who had invited me to stay with him, no strings attached.
Holding his phone, he jumped from the waterfall platform and waded to the side of the pool where he hopped out.
Like the bratty brother he’d speculated Gage had once been, he shook over me like a dog and chortled when I screeched. Our eyes met, and I forgot to take my next breath. His blue irises glittered like gems, and when he was in the sun, flecks of brown decorated them. The long layers in his hair, gleaming and made darker by their dampness, fell along the strong planes of his face. His lips tipped into a panty-melting grin, acknowledging the moment between us.
Then, just as easily as I had forgotten, I was jarred back to reality by his next move. He was a musician. Disturbed. Dangerous. Unpredictable.
His hand went to one of his necklaces, a silver bullet hanging from a chain, and he lifted it over his head. To my astonishment, he twisted the bullet apart and offered it to me as he dropped into the chair adjacent to mine. I shouldn’t have been surprised. One of Gage’s necklaces was the size and shape of a dog tag, only thicker, and the top slid off and doubled as a straight edge.
When I didn’t immediately respond, he pressed. “Want a hit?”
I shook my head, and he tipped it to the top of his hand, right above his thumb and snorted.
“Damn, that’s good! Sure?” His head moved in an exhilarated shake.
Without bothering to answer, I twisted my head toward the magnificent view of the canyon side.
Colt continued, seemingly oblivious. “This straight edge scene you got going on—I respect that.”
/> “Great.”
A smattering of birds dotted the blue sky and dipped into the treetops.
I didn’t care what he thought, and he laughed, clearly unfazed by my brushoff. “Shit. I said that all wrong. I just meant, I get it. And I was trying to say it without bringing up—you know—Tyler.”
“Good. I hate when people talk about him.”
“Yeah.” Now he seemed slightly remorseful and twisted at one of the rings on his fingers. “But what’s fixing to happen? I mean… Is that one of the reasons you’re in L.A.? Your John Hancock needed on a bunch of legal shit?”
Now I looked back into his handsome face. This was one of those times when the personality difference between Colt and Gage was black to white. Colt was pushy. He had to get his way, no matter anything else. Gage, on the other hand, almost always prioritized my feelings and wants.
“No. I came to see Ivy, but I’m leaving before my birthday. I will have to fly in for the legal stuff because it has to be done in California. But I’ll just be in and out. And if it’s too crazy—the press—the lawyers are going to meet me in San Diego.”
At least that had been the plan. Until I had developed these mixed up feelings for Gage. Now, despite being furious with him, I wasn’t sure I could leave him to kill himself slowly as a junkie. Still, I hadn’t outright admitted that part. It was in the back recesses of my brain. Also, it still seemed insanely hard to believe Ivy was living it up with a hunky movie star and had not contacted me in some way. I didn’t want to leave without laying eyes on my friend, although if the chick was fine, I would probably punch her.
“Well. I was asking because I was hoping you were staying. And you’re welcome here as long as you want. Hotels can be hell. Especially when it comes to privacy.”
“Thanks.” I heard the hostility leave my tone. “Really.” Damn I could use a hit of that coke! Suddenly I was feeling the effects of a night of managing only a restless doze, and I stifled a yawn. “About Bradley Walker, did you ever figure out anyone with a connection to him?”
He stretched his legs out straight and reached for his necklace. “Yeah. I did. It’s Gage. Gage has a cabin on Arrowhead, and so does Walker. I wasn’t thinking of it at first, because Walker’s never been there when I’ve been there. But now I’m sure I remember Gage saying Walker bought the place right up the road from him when it went up for sale, and brought down this insanely sick boat.”