Guarded

by L. A. Witt

  There should’ve been more pills. I could’ve sworn there’d been more when I’d given them to him last night.

  My heart clenched. Jordan, please don’t tell me…

  After I’d finished in the bathroom, I returned to the bedroom. He was sitting on the edge of the rumpled bed, checking something on his phone.

  “I, uh, noticed you’re getting a little low on your migraine meds.”

  He tensed just slightly, and his eyes flicked up. “Am I?”

  “Yeah. Do you want me to refill it while I’m out tomorrow?”

  “Sure.” He offered a thin smile. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.” I paused, debating whether I should press the issue now. No, at least let him wake up and get some food in him. “Come on. Let’s go get something to eat.”

  “Wait.” He set the phone on the nightstand and grinned up at me. “As long as we’re in here…”

  Again? Jesus. He hadn’t been this insatiable since we’d started sleeping together.

  Jordan tugged at my belt. “Join me?”

  “What? I thought you weren’t feeling well.”

  His smile seemed a little more genuine now, and definitely playful around the edges. “Maybe this’ll make me feel better. You always make me feel better.”

  And you always sound a lot more sincere than that.

  But after everything he’d been through in the last week or so, I wasn’t about to deny him if I could help him feel even a little bit better.

  So I let him pull me down onto the bed.

  * * *

  I must’ve dozed off, and when I came around, it was dark outside. As I sat up, I looked around, but Jordan wasn’t in the room. With a pang of guilt, I realized I was relieved.

  I rubbed a slight ache out of my hip. It had taken two orgasms apiece before he’d finally been satisfied, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this exhausted after sex. It wasn’t top drop. It wasn’t that pleasant lethargy that came from a long, enthusiastic fuck.

  I felt completely drained, and not in a good way.

  Running a hand through my hair, I sighed. I didn’t expect things to be perfect with Jordan right now. Far from it. But there was something else going on. This wasn’t just a need to escape his grief for a little while. I was starting to think it was an escape from everything. Including me.

  Jordan didn’t need any more stress, but we needed to talk.

  First things first, I grabbed a quick shower to wake myself up. As I dried off, I glanced at the medicine cabinet. The door. The medicine cabinet again.

  Invasion of privacy? Concern for safety? Invasion of privacy? Concern for safety?

  Concern finally won. I opened the cabinet and pulled out the bottle of pills. One more was missing since I’d looked earlier.

  An all too familiar knot of dread coiled in the pit of my stomach. The journey down this particular rabbit hole started with one drink, one pill, one toke. Migraine meds could become painkillers. Painkillers became stronger painkillers. I’d lost Eric this way. I’d failed to save Daniel. I couldn’t even cope with the thought of listening to Jordan promise this would be his last stint in rehab.

  Or finding him facedown on the floor. I shuddered.

  I put the pill bottle back in the cabinet. With my heart pounding, I got dressed and went looking for Jordan. The house was completely quiet, completely empty. My car was still outside. So was Daniel’s.

  My gut lurched at the sight of the Ferrari. Jordan hadn’t even been able to move the thing into the garage—he couldn’t bring himself to go through Daniel’s room in search of his keys. It was sitting in the exact same place it had been the day Daniel died, and I couldn’t imagine the sight of it did good things to Jordan’s state of mind.

  The faint strum of a guitar turned my head, and I realized he was out on the deck.

  When I opened the sliding glass door, he stiffened.

  “Hey,” I said. “How you doing?”

  “All right.” He set the guitar aside, leaning it against a chair, and picked up a glass off the table. “I didn’t want to wake you up.”

  “Thanks.” As I stepped closer, the faintest pungent scent met my nostrils, and I eyed the glass in his hand. “Have you been drinking?”

  Jordan arched an eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”

  I blinked. “Well, no. But, didn’t you take your migraine meds a—”

  “I’m fine.”

  “It says right on the label not to mix those with—”

  “I know what the fucking label says.” He got up and brushed past me.

  I closed my eyes and sighed. Then I followed him into the kitchen.

  What the…

  He was pouring himself another glass of—Jesus, man. Tequila?

  His eyes dared me to say anything.

  I rested my hands on the kitchen island, pretending I didn’t still feel the slight twinges in my elbows and shoulders, and definitely pretending my mind wasn’t superimposing Daniel and his notebook a few feet away. “Jordan, talk to me.”

  “About what?” He capped the tequila bottle and glared at me with more venom than he’d ever directed my way. “How much I need to drink so you can gut my bedroom too?”

  I stared at him. Even with the vague slur in his voice, I couldn’t convince myself this was Jose Cuervo talking. “I... I don’t understand.”

  Jordan threw back a huge swallow of tequila. He didn’t slam the glass down this time, but the quiet click of glass on granite raised the hairs on my neck. “Daniel hadn’t been buried for a fucking day and you were already trying to get me to convert his room.”

  “What? No.” I shook my head. “I wasn’t talking about Daniel’s room, Jordan.” I waved a hand toward the stairs. “I just meant the bottom floor. There’s—”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet,” he snarled.

  I paused, watching him silently for a moment. “Look, you had Millennium putting pressure on you when you didn’t need it. I just thought you—”

  “You thought it was a perfect opportunity to get the last of Daniel out of the house.” He swung a hand toward the front door. “You gonna have his car towed too?”

  “What I said had nothing to do with Daniel,” I snapped. “There’s plenty of space down there to build a recording studio without ever touching Daniel’s room. I just thought you’d be less stressed if—”

  “Oh, fucking save it.” He picked up the glass again. “You’ve wanted him out of the picture since day one, and now that he’s gone, you can’t wait to sweep away all the evidence.”

  I stared at him. “Are you fucking kidding me? You really think that?”

  Jordan’s eyes narrowed and he folded his arms across his chest. “Am I wrong?”

  I swallowed hard. “You’re wrong, and you know you are.”

  “Am I?”

  “You…” I threw up my hands and took a step back. “I’m not even going to argue about this. When you get your shit together, why don’t you give me a call?”

  As I started to walk away, he muttered, “I fucking thought so.”

  I spun around, not sure if I was ready to break down or blow up. “Are you even listening to yourself?”

  The ice in his expression didn’t melt at all.

  Whether I ultimately blew up or broke down, I was getting damn close to it. “Think about what you’re saying, Jordan. Stop lashing out at me and think for a minute about what happened the day Daniel died. Fucking think about why I couldn’t move my upper body for three goddamned days after that.” As I turned around again, I threw over my shoulder, “And then you decide if I really wanted him gone.”

  I didn’t wait for an answer.

  I snatched my keys off the counter and got the fuck out of there.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Jordan

  Any minute now, Jase would be back. I’d hear the crunch of his SUV’s tires outside, his key twisting in the lock, his footsteps on the stairs, and…

  I waited. For hours I waited, s
itting out on the deck with my—no, Daniel’s—guitar, working on that last verse Jase had finally unlocked for me. Sipping tequila until the sun dipped behind the hills.

  As soon as it disappeared, the temperature started to drop. Shivering, I went back inside. The lights were all off, the entire house still and quiet. So quiet, the floorboards creaking as I walked through the living room nearly jolted me out of my skin.

  I flicked on the overhead light in the bedroom, groaning and blinking in the sudden brightness. Jase’s stuff was still here—his clothes and his bag in the closet, his shaving kit in the bathroom. Which meant he wasn’t serious about storming out on me. He’d be back soon, full of apologies. Begging me to let him back in my life.

  Shit, but my head felt... fuzzy. Achy. Maybe a shower would help.

  I stood under the warm spray for a while, but didn’t feel much better once I climbed out. My brain was starting to pound again, pulsing and throbbing like it was getting ready to explode through my eye sockets. Two more of those little white pills, washed down with my last gulp of tequila ought to do it. If I wasn’t feeling better in an hour, I’d take another pill and go to bed.

  Even if it was only... what time was it? My vision was too fucked up to read the clock. Stomach grumbling, I ambled into the kitchen, grabbed a banana and ate it standing over the sink. Was it me, or was the silence growing thicker? Heavier. Like a blanket over my face, trying to smother me.

  I needed to get out of here for a while.

  I usually tossed my keys in the bowl on the table, but even after digging all the way to the bottom, I couldn’t find them. Oh, right—Jase had been driving my car a lot lately, so he probably still had them. I caught a glimpse of something red, black and shiny under that last apple, and there they were—the keys to Daniel’s Ferrari. I’d probably end up selling the damn thing—it was way too flashy for my tastes. No law saying I couldn’t take it out for one last spin, though.

  The keychain jingled in my hand as I headed downstairs. I hadn’t driven the Ferrari in a while, so it took a few minutes of lurching and screeching around the driveway to get me used to the brakes and steering. Then it was down the incline, through the gate and onto the freeway, pedal to the floor.

  God, it felt good, sailing down the road with the top down and the wind in my hair. Felt like freedom, getting out of that fucking house. I could barely breathe anymore inside those walls, my whole body tensing whenever I went up or down the stairs, trying like hell not to look toward Daniel’s room.

  Sell the place. Put it on the market and go live in a hotel until you find someplace new. Someplace not so full of memor—

  A horn blared behind me, then another. What the fuck?

  Where’d the white lines between the lanes go? Cars whipped past me on both sides, the Ferrari shuddering at the near-impact. Everything was strobing in and out of focus—

  Tires squealed, the wheel spinning out of my grip. The queasy smell of fried rubber hit me a split-second before a jersey barrier filled my windshield—

  Air bags exploded in my face, and that’s all I remembered.

  * * *

  “Jordan? Jordan?”

  I opened my eyes—well, tried to, until harsh fluorescent lights stabbed me straight through to my brain. “Wh-where…?”

  “You’re in the ER.” Jase’s voice. Thank fucking God. “You crashed Daniel’s car.”

  “I…” I flexed my fingers, my wrists, my toes. Moved my arms and legs. Didn’t feel like I’d broken anything—except my head, which ached like somebody’d tossed it in a fucking wood chipper. “Anybody else get hurt?”

  “Just you.” His hand skimmed over my face, sweet, scratchy calluses trailing down my cheek. “God, Jordan, I’m sorry. If I hadn’t taken off like that—”

  “S’okay. I’m okay.” I clutched his hand, cracked one eye open. Looked like he’d been through the mill—pale under his tan, tight, worried lines around his eyes and mouth. Hard to believe I’d been so pissed at him earlier, when all I cared about now was him being here. But—wait a minute... “Wh-who called you?”

  “Martin. He’s out front trying to talk the cops out of arresting you on a DUI.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut again. “Fuck.”

  “You’re lucky you’re not dead, mixing alcohol and painkillers like that. And driving? What the hell’s wrong with you? You know better than—” He leaned over the bed’s plastic railing to give me a kiss, soft yet possessive, right on the lips. “Don’t you ever do anything like that again.”

  The curtain fluttered, and Martin poked his head in. “How you feeling?”

  “Okay, except for my head.” I tried to sit up, but—nah, not happening. Jase’s hand on my shoulder made the effort worth it, though. “They gonna drag me off to jail?”

  “Not this time. I convinced them you’re not in the habit of pulling this kind of crap.” Which you’re not, right? his gaze telegraphed. Because I can’t handle another fucking Daniel. “The doctor says you’ve got a concussion. They’re gonna take you up for an MRI to rule out anything worse.”

  Great bedside manner you got there, Martin. Shit, now I was shaking. After all the times I’d visited Daniel in various ER’s, I fucking hated hospitals. “Do they really need to—”

  “Yes,” Jase said flatly. “They do. And I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

  God, I loved it when he went all Domly on me. I smiled, and for a second or two, I could’ve sworn my head stopped throbbing. “Yes, sir,” I whispered, reaching for his hand.

  * * *

  My tests came back okay—well, okay for someone who almost put his skull through a windshield—so they discharged me. Jase drove me back to the house, helped me upstairs and into bed. Soreness was settling into my muscles. I had scrapes up and down both arms from the air bags, and—my hand flew up to my throat, panic seizing me. “What happened to my collar?”

  “It’s in my pocket,” Jase said, emerging from the bathroom with a glass of water. “Here, take these.”

  He dropped a couple of Tylenol in my hand. “Um, I’d rather have the other pills.”

  “No.” He sank down on the edge of the bed and handed me the water. “Not with a concussion.”

  “But they’re prescription meds—”

  “They’re heavy-duty painkillers. In your condition, they could put you in a fucking coma.” He sighed, shoulders slumping, and in that moment I saw how exhausted he was, just like me. Hell, ten times worse than me, because he’d had me to take care of. “Just take the Tylenol, Jordan. Please.”

  I did, though something told me acetaminophen wouldn’t make much of a dent in this headache. I set the glass on the nightstand, then, “Could I have my collar back?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “But—”

  “Jordan, listen to me.” He cradled my face with both hands, his intense gaze fixed on mine. “Do you realize how close you came to dying tonight? If you’d hit that jersey barrier at a different angle, no air bag in the fucking world would’ve saved you.”

  “But I’m here. I’m okay.”

  “You got lucky. And I’m not about to tempt fate by doing anything that might restrict your airway tonight.” Another sigh. “Take it easy, okay? I’ll be right here if you need me.”

  As long as “right here” meant my bed, I was fine with it. I laid back, willing my head to stop pounding while I watched Jase shed his clothes and climb in next to me. Arm around my waist, my head tucked under his chin. Calm, content, except for the fucking headache. Just like any other night.

  So why couldn’t I stop thinking about those little white pills in the other room?

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Jase

  I shouldn’t have been surprised when I woke up alone. Jordan had been restless all night. Better than falling too deeply asleep after his concussion, I supposed—the doc had said it was okay for him to sleep, just not for excessively long stretches.

  I got up and got dressed, then went looking through
the gigantic house for him. He wasn’t in the kitchen or on the deck, and the game room and living room were empty and silent. Just in case, I made sure his car was still in the garage and my SUV was still in the driveway, which they were.

  Which meant there was only one place he could be, and it happened to be the last place in the universe I wanted to go.

  But I needed to make sure he was all right. Then I could grab a shower and some coffee and any other excuse I could find not to linger in That Place.

  Just walking down the stairs to the lower floor was enough to make the hair on my neck prickle. I’d suggested it for Jordan’s benefit, but I secretly hoped he didn’t convert this place into a recording studio, because I didn’t imagine there was enough drywall in the universe to plaster over everything that had happened down here. I had to pause outside the bedroom door, closing my eyes and swallowing hard as I told myself it wasn’t Daniel’s ghost strumming a shaky melody on the other side. It was just a room, a space contained inside four walls, not a crime scene or a haunted house.

  I was the last person to see Daniel alive, and I’d go to my own grave wondering if that last time had happened here or upstairs. If he’d already been gone when I’d come in here, or if there’d still been a few beats of life left in him.

  I shuddered. It didn’t matter, but tell that to my conscience.

  If I’d turned around two blocks sooner…

  I shoved those thoughts out of my mind and continued into the bedroom.

  I hadn’t even stepped across the threshold before I caught a whiff of booze, and my gaze went to the bottle—only an inch or so left at the bottom—sitting on the carpet beside Jordan. No glass in sight. Just the bottle.

  Jordan sat cross-legged, leaning against the foot of the bed and dangerously close to the place where Daniel had been lying when I’d come in here. He didn’t know that, though, and he didn’t need to know it now.