by L. A. Witt
The medic eyed me, giving me a quick down-up that made me feel even more conspicuous than before. I was about to tell Jordan to go ahead, that I’d catch up as quickly as I could, but another medic said, “We need to go now. Get in, but stay out of the way.”
I climbed into the ambulance behind Jordan, and we both did our level best to stay out of the medics’ way. I was pressed up against the door, cramped in between Jordan and the back of the vehicle. When the engine roared to life and we started moving, sirens screaming overhead, my knees clipped the stretcher. I tried to fold them out of the way, but there was no room, so I sucked it up.
Beside me, Jordan gripped Daniel’s limp hand in both of his, pressing his lips to unresponsive fingers. I could hear the paramedics speaking in sharp, clipped tones, but I didn’t let myself listen closely enough to understand it. I’d heard it all before, and I was scared of how bad this déjà vu might get. How similar it might—
“He’s seizing again!”
A split second later, Daniel’s body arched. Jordan swore, and judging by the veins and muscles sticking out from Daniel’s forearm, his fingers had clenched painfully around Jordan’s, but Jordan didn’t try to free his hand.
After what seemed like forever, though it was probably only a minute or so, the seizure passed. Daniel was once again limp and silent, and damn it, even another convulsion would’ve been better than that. Watching him like this, it was like I could see the life slipping right out of him.
I swallowed the nausea and squeezed Jordan’s knee, reminding him I was there, that he wasn’t alone. One hand released Daniel’s and felt around blindly, and when it found mine, gripped tightly. His palm was sweaty and hot—the sweat may or may not have been his own, but the heat was undoubtedly from Daniel. And, God, I’d felt that before. That secondhand body heat that could’ve ignited dry kindling.
Holding onto Jordan, praying to anyone who might listen, I couldn’t shake the sick feeling that gradually wrapped its claws around my stomach.
I’d been here before. This was way too close to home. Too familiar. Too much deep truth that I was absolutely certain would destroy Jordan.
Daniel was an addict. He knew exactly how much his drugs cost, and he knew his tolerance. He knew exactly how much he needed to get high. How much was overkill, a waste of expensive blow.
“What are you saying?” I heard myself asking a grim-faced doctor in a past life.
And as the paramedics worked frantically to stabilize Daniel, and Daniel lay there without making a sound, and Jordan sat beside me trying to will his friend back to life, the doctor’s voice echoed along the length of my spine:
“I’m saying I rarely see an active addict overdose by accident.”
Chapter Nine
Jordan
The paramedics hustled Daniel out of the ambulance and into the ER, but when Jase and I tried to follow, a wall-sized security guard blocked us. “You can’t go in there.”
“Please, I need... he needs…” Fuck, my throat was closing up. Eyes going blurry. Jase’s hand under my arm was the only thing holding me up. “I have to see him.”
Why was he looking me up and down like that? “Talk to the charge nurse inside.”
We ran to the entrance, nearly plowing into the line of people stretched from the check-in counter to the sliding glass doors. “Hey,” I called to the woman behind the counter, “I need you to let me in the ER right now.”
She was looking at me weird too. “If you’ll wait in line with everyone else, sir—”
“He’s dying! I don’t have time to wait in a fucking line!”
Jase tried to pull me away, but I wasn’t going anywhere. Not even when the crowd started pointing and whispering. Shit, they’d recognized me—
“What the hell’s going on?” It was Martin, pushing through the crush of bodies with a pair of his own security guys. He stopped dead, cursing under his breath when he saw me. “Jesus, Jordan, put something on!”
He shoved his jacket at me, and—shit, no wonder everyone was staring. Jordan Kane, standing bare-chested in the middle of an ER waiting room—
And now everyone was pulling out their phones.
“Let’s find someplace a little more private,” Martin said, hustling Jase and I down the corridor. Jase helped me on with Martin’s jacket, but even his arm around my shoulders didn’t stop me from shivering.
Martin shot us a sharp look, but I ignored it. People were trying to peek around the corner, but I ignored them too. I didn’t give a fuck who saw us. I just needed to see Daniel.
One of Martin’s security guys disappeared, then came back a few minutes later with a hospital security guard. He escorted us to a fluorescent-drenched conference room that looked out on the parking lot, already jam-packed with people and TV news vans.
“I’ll go find out what’s happening,” Martin said. He pointed as Jase. “You—make him stay put.”
The door clicking shut sounded like a fucking gunshot.
I dropped into a chair. Buried my face in my hands. My headache—which had never really left this time, just receded to a dull throb—starting pulsing again. “Um, pills?” I asked softly, glancing up at Jase.
There was a carafe of water on the table. Jase poured me a glass and handed me one precious white droplet of pain relief. I swallowed both, letting my eyes drift shut.
Jase’s hands settled on my shoulders. “Shall I go looking for some coffee?”
“Yeah, that’d be good.”
I wasn’t sure how long he was gone. I wasn’t wearing my watch, and the clock on the wall just looked... wrong. The hands weren’t moving. Felt like time itself was grinding to a halt. Coming apart. Melting, like in that weird-ass Salvador Dali painting.
This wasn’t how it would end. Daniel wasn’t going to die. He couldn’t. I had too much left to say to him, to apologize for, to beg forgiveness—
The door opened, and in came Jase, carrying two large paper cups. “Thanks,” I said, taking the one he offered me. “Did you see Martin?”
He shook his head and pulled out the chair next to mine. “He probably went out to talk to the local news.”
“Oh. Right.”
I sipped my coffee—not too awful for cafeteria swill—and started idly tapping my fingers on the table. Took a minute before I recognized the first few notes of Daniel’s guitar solo from the full-band version of “Forth Into Light.” We hadn’t played that live in, what? Two, three years?
“You wrote it for him, didn’t you?” Jase said.
“Pretty obvious, huh?”
“That everything in your life that means anything revolves around Daniel? Yeah, I’d say so.”
Hard not to miss the note of envy in his voice. “We’ve been through hell together. If it wasn’t for Daniel, I’d probably be dead.” Cryptic much? Jase wasn’t pushing me for details—and wouldn’t, if I knew him at all—but damn it, I wanted to tell him. “Or dealing drugs, if I wasn’t too busy pumping ‘em into my own arm.”
He reached for my hand—the one still tap-tapping on the table—but he didn’t say a word. His reassurance came through loud and clear.
“We, um, grew up together, literally. Daniel’s folks were... messed up. They took off when he was eleven or twelve. He knocked around foster care for a while before he came to live with us.” I closed my eyes and tried to summon up the memories. They still hurt, but God, was it a relief to finally let someone else in. “He’s the one who taught me to play guitar. We started writing songs and playing at every local dive that’d have us, and dreaming of getting out of our cracker-ass town. We got on a bus for LA the day after we graduated high school.”
“And the rest is history?”
“Don’t I wish.” I finished my coffee. Crushed the still-warm cup in my hand. “I went kinda crazy the first few months. I mean, LA was fuckin’ Wonderland compared to the shitty little town Daniel and I grew up in. I got drunk or high every night. Slept with a different warm body every night—guys, girls, it
didn’t matter. Then my folks got killed in a car wreck over Christmas and I... lost it.” I swallowed. “I mean, Daniel took it hard too, but I really went down the fucking rabbit hole. I got high and stayed that way. Got arrested. Got so damn strung out I wasn’t sure I’d make it. Daniel’s the one who pulled me back.”
Jase leaned forward, forehead creasing. “What turned the tables?”
I knew he’d ask. And he deserved an honest answer, no matter how much I wished now that I’d never brought all this up. “We love each other. We always have,” I whispered. “I figured, if there’s anyone I had a shot at being happy with, it’s him. So we tried, and…” My voice cracked. “It fucking wrecked everything.”
Two seconds away from another breakdown, and all it took was Jase’s arm around me to head it off. I crumpled against him, sighing as his lips brushed my forehead. “It can’t be all your fault,” he said. “I’ve been around you and him long enough to see that.”
“I never should’ve asked him to—” Oh fuck. Was I really going to say it? “I blacked out when he choked me. Practically had to peel him off the ceiling once I came to. He was fucking hysterical. He thought he’d killed me.” Shivering, I glanced at the clock. Forty-five minutes since they’d taken Daniel in. Where the hell was Martin? “I fucked him up. I fucked us up.” I wiped my eyes. “He’s the closest thing to family I’ve got left. I can’t lose him.”
* * *
Martin opened the door a few minutes later. “Daniel’s awake,” he said. “You can see him now.”
I grasped Jase’s hand as hospital security escorted us down a mercifully deserted corridor to the ER’s staff entrance. Nurses and orderlies darted every which way, the smell of disinfectant prickling in my nostrils. A nurse led us to a curtained-off cubicle and said, “Try to keep it to a couple of minutes. He’s still pretty out of it.”
Martin nodded and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Go on in. I need to talk to the administrator about posting security for him.”
What the fuck was he talking about? Not that I particularly cared, with Daniel on the other side of that curtain. Jase squeezed my hand and flashed me a tight grin. “I’ll be right here if you need me.”
Right here if you need me. He should’ve had that tattooed on his forehead. If not for him, I wouldn’t be standing upright. Or pulling back the curtain…
Daniel opened his eyes as I walked in. “Hey,” he croaked.
“Hey.” God, he looked half-dead, pale and pasty under his stubble. He had an IV in his right hand, but his other hand felt cold, his skin dry and papery. I warmed it between both of mine while trying to ignore how every beep, beep, beep of the heart monitor sent a fresh jolt of pain through my head. “How you doing?”
He shrugged. “I’ll live, I guess. Sorry about the festival.”
“That’s okay. We can, um, postpone our next couple shows, give you time to recover before we head off to Europe—”
“I think it’s gonna take more than that this time.”
Oh.
Oh. “We talking about rehab?”
He reached for the bottle of water on his tray, but his free hand was shaking so badly I had to hold it for him while he drank. “Thanks.” He sighed. “You’re not gonna let me back in the band unless I go, right?”
My heart skidded to a halt. “You want back in?”
He didn’t answer, just shifted on his pillows and shrugged again.
“Look, all I want is for you to be happy,” I said, “and if leaving the band is what it takes—”
“I don’t wanna leave.”
Relief bloomed in my chest. Tasted almost as good as that first breath of air after I came to. “Okay, it’s settled. We’ll postpone the rest of the tour.” Which Martin wouldn’t like at all, not that I gave a fuck. “We’re gonna get you well this time.”
The curtain fluttered, and the nurse poked her head in, giving me a “Hurry up” smile.
Daniel’s hand tensed around mine. “You’re going?”
“Just for now. I’ll be back.” Which didn’t calm him any. In fact, he clamped down so hard, my fingers were screaming almost as bad as my head. “What’s the matter?”
“Jordy, I…”
Jordy. He was the only one who’d ever called me that, besides my folks. I wrapped my arms around him as best I could with that plastic bed railing in my way. His breath puffed over my cheek, scratchy and rapid. He’s okay, he’s okay. He’s gonna be fine. “What is it?”
“Nothing. I’m just glad you’re here.”
I held him tight, kissing his cheek before I let him go. “Get some rest. I’ll see you in a bit.”
Martin was waiting outside with Jase. He trained his flat gray eyes on me. “How’s he doing?”
Pretty good for someone who almost died. “He wants to go to rehab.”
“Well, I guess that’s better than dragging him kicking and screaming.” He got out his phone. “I’ll have my assistant book him a spot.”
He moved off, and the nurse motioned me over to the desk. “I just need to verify a couple of things. It says here you’re Mr. Barrett’s medical proxy?”
I nodded. “Do I need to sign him out?”
Her gaze shifted nervously from me to Jase. “He’s not leaving today. In fact…” She flipped some pages on the chart in her hand. “The doctor’s put him on suicide watch for the next seventy-two hours.”
What? “No, no, that’s wrong. It was an accidental overdose—”
“That’s not what it says here,” she said in a quiet, even tone of voice. The kind you use when you’re trying to head off someone else’s outburst.
Martin came up on my left side, pocketing his phone. “Let’s talk,” he said, shooting a glance at Jase.
The guard took us back to the conference room. When did it get so fucking bright in here? I motioned for Jase to shut the drapes. One of Martin’s guys brought in a carafe of coffee. Martin poured himself some and leaned against the table.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“The medics found all kinds of drugs in the bathroom,” Martin said. “Way more than a guy Daniel’s size would ever need to OD. Coke, meth, speed. Heroin.” He sighed. “They’re looking at this incident as a cry for help.”
“That’s ridiculous. He’d never try to—”
“How do you know he hasn’t tried it before?” Jase said.
I swung around to face him. “What’re you saying?”
“I’d better give the press an update before rumors start flying,” Martin said, heading for the door. “Back in a few.”
Why did I get the feeling he didn’t want to get caught in the middle of this? “What’re you saying?” I repeated once the door snicked shut.
“He’s playing you,” Jase said flatly. “Either that, or it really was a suicide attempt.”
I swayed on my feet, hip bumping the table, hands gripping the edge. “He’d never do anything like that.”
“Yeah? And how many times has he OD’ed right after you’ve had a fight?”
My head was pounding almost too hard to think, but my brain clicked on regardless. Sydney two years ago. Atlanta and Rome last year. Now this. Anyone could call it a pattern, if they wanted to believe it.
And of course Jase did. He and Daniel had been at odds practically from day one. The past few weeks I’d let him monopolize all my down time. Whisper things in my ear...
Play me the same way he’d accused Daniel. Now Jase was trying to turn me against him.
No. Never.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Could you step out for a minute?”
“What?”
“I need some peace and quiet. Step out in the hall.”
“Jordan, what’s the—” Jase started to come toward me, then froze, our gazes locking. “It’s my job to protect you.”
“And I should’ve left it that way.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re my bodyguard. And from now on, that’s all you are.” I turned my back o
n him. “Go on, get out of here.”
Chapter Ten
Jase
As soon as I’d closed the door behind me, I exhaled hard and rubbed a hand over my face.
I shouldn’t have brought it up right then. Damn it, what was I thinking? Jordan was way too raw. Way too rattled. He couldn’t cope with anything less than knowing—not just believing, but knowing—Daniel was going to be all right.
The fact that I’d been down this road and knew it all too well was a moot point. Jordan couldn’t deal with that reality right now. What he needed was a shoulder. Help. Someone to lean on.
And there I go trying to save someone again when I know damn well I fucking can’t.
The door opened, and the air temperature plummeted as Jordan stepped out in the hallway.
Our eyes met for a second. His were icy, which I expected, but it still hit me in the gut. As did the terseness in his voice when he said, “Let’s go.”
“Wait.”
He faced me, impatience and fury etched all over his face.
I took a breath. “Jordan, I’m sorry.”
Through his teeth, he said, “Yeah, I’ll bet you are.”
He started to walk on, but I touched his arm. “Will you at least hear me out?”
The glare shifted to something softer, the rigidity in his features melting away as if he didn’t have it in him to even maintain his anger. He hadn’t forgiven me, and he wasn’t okay, but he didn’t fight me.
Sighing, he leaned against the wall and folded his arms loosely across his chest. “All right.”
I moistened my lips. “Look, I’ve been there, okay?”
His eyebrows rose.
I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling that familiar tension creeping in and turning the muscles to steel. “My ex, he… he was an addict. Heroin. Coke. Anything he could get his hands on, really. He was…” So much like Daniel, I can’t even put it into words. “I’m not talking out my ass when it comes to this stuff. I’ve been there.”
Jordan’s expression lost some of that exhausted softness, tightening just enough to suggest I should keep this short and sweet before my audience left.