Gone Guy (Sand & Fog Series Book 5)

by Susan Ward

  “If I had someone who gave a crap about me, you sure as fuck could bet I wouldn’t be living on the streets, camping in parks, and going to meetings for the free grub. What are you doing here, EJ? Look at you. Bucks-up camping gear. Best of the best cell phone. Texts and phone calls 24/7. Something tells me, brother, you’ve got something worth going home to.”

  I shrug and continue to walk. “I guess that would depend on the reason I’m living on the streets.”

  Hank’s brows hitch up. “Such as?”

  “Doing everything I have to do before I head home.”

  “And panhandling from tourists and sleeping outdoors in the dirt is something you have to do before you go home? You’re the craziest motherfucker I’ve ever met, EJ.”

  My mom’s wake-up text still bugging me, I stop. Chrissie’s right. I really need to talk to my twin brother. “Hey, why don’t you go on without me and I’ll catch up with you at the meeting? There’s something I need to take care of.”

  “I can wait.”

  “Nah, it may take a while. Go on without me. Get us some coffee and muffins or whatever they have before they run out.”

  Hank shrugs. “I’ll get us chairs close to that hot chick with the sex addiction that gets you stiff.”

  A smile breaks through on my face, something that rarely ever happens these days. “You do that, brother. And don’t forget the coffee.”

  Watching him lumber off, I wait until he’s out of view to take off my pack, grab my cell, and find a bench to sit on out of earshot from the early-bird park goers.

  Swiping it unlocked, I go into my stream of texts then open my mom’s again. After jotting down a quick reply—Will do. I’m fine. Love you.—my gaze scans all the endless chat strings with my family.

  Twelve months and Ethan hasn’t contacted me. No news goes unknown in my family. He must be aware I’m out of rehab and able to communicate with him again.

  I’m not sure what his silence is about, but it’s the longest I’ve ever gone without talking to my twin brother, and not talking to him makes it feel like I have an organ or limb missing.

  We’re identical twins, though complete personality opposites, and yet that connection is there between us I’m sure all twins have.

  Why hasn’t Ethan texted me? It seems strange that he hasn’t and even stranger that my mom prodded me to reach out to him.

  Little bro—well, younger by two minutes—has always had his junk together. By the sound of how he’s done the last year, his life has gotten even better without me.

  According to my middle sister, Krystal, he’s married to the blogger who used to work for us when our band, Black Dawn, was at the top of the charts and touring. They have a son. My brows crinkle. Noah. I think that’s what Krystal said his name is.

  It was my dad who told me Ethan quit the band and launched a solo career shortly after I went into rehab. Even played me a few tracks of my bro’s music, and it’s Manzone epic like the stuff Dad recorded.

  Yep, Ethan’s star is going to soar even higher doing it alone instead of with me. I don’t have any doubt about that.

  There’s an uncomfortable tightness in my chest when I think of my brother. It’s not a spiteful thing because I’m glad he’s doing so well. More of an I miss him feeling mixed with a bit of nervousness about reaching out to him.

  It has been a year…

  Tapping into my contacts, I search for little bro, take in a deep breath, then change course and do the limp-dick move of texting him instead of calling.

  Me: Hey, bro. Long time no talk. Hit me up at this number if you want to connect. Or you can come to Seattle and find me here. Miss ya.

  I copy and paste the address of the bar I park myself in front of eight hours a day to play music to make enough money not to starve.

  Pausing, I stare down at the chat box. I’m not sure why I’m giving him my location details. I haven’t to my sisters and I’m not sure I’m ready to see any of them.

  Oh, fuck it.

  I hit send on my text, shut off my phone, and immediately grab my gear and head to the church for a meeting.

  Keep coming back. It works.

  Don’t know if that’s true yet. I’m not completely sold on all the rehab bullshit. But it’s something to do to keep my mind occupied as I wait for an answer from Ethan.

  It won’t surprise me if my brother doesn’t text back.

  I’ve done a lot of shit to the people I love.

  I’m working the steps.

  But working them doesn’t always mean they turn out as I hope they will. I’m only three people deep in the make-amends list and those weren’t everything I’d hoped for.

  My wife, Tara, was first. That didn’t go well. She hung up on me after five minutes, then she finalized the divorce and now I’m a free agent.

  Hugh, my best friend and the bassist from my band, was second. Hugh wouldn’t hear me out. “No fucking way am I ever listening to anything you say again” were his exact words before hanging up his cell.

  My wife and best friend got me warmed up for number three on my amends list: my dad.

  As I asked him to, Alan jetted up to rustic boot camp rehab from hell on the day I got my ninety-day chip and release. It hurt like hell that my mother wasn’t with him, and seeing my dad didn’t go how I fucking expected.

  The entire visit wasn’t longer than three minutes.

  Alan stared at me.

  Hugged me.

  Then said: “I love you, son. That’s why I’m not staying. When a man is in the abyss, that’s when he finds his character. I want you to find the man I see. The man I know you are. Your character is more remarkable than you believe it is, and I’d only get in the way of you realizing this. I love you. You’re my son. I’ll always be your father. But you’ve got to get the life you deserve on your own.”

  And my dad walked out of the fucking room, leaving me with my jaw dropped and my thoughts screaming what the fuck is this?

  That’s when I stopped working that step of recovery and headed to Seattle, and I’ve been here nine months. And today I pulled out the list and texted Ethan.

  Starting a new amends is enough to get me to sit through another meeting.

  When I reach the church, I spy Hank with an empty seat and note that the meeting has started with all the same cast of attendees. But that’s okay, this is a fun group. Well, as fun as a group of recovering addicts congregated in a single spot can be. We’re in a nice area of the city so it’s mostly rich suburbanites on the cheap metal folding chairs.

  As I listen, I fight not to let my expression turn into a grimace, but the sharing circle is a forced fucking march. Hearing them whine about their cushy lives. Not because I resent them but because it makes me think oh fuck, is that me? Is this how I sound to other people? Complaining about my difficult world when others have real fucking problems.

  Nothing like living on the streets to get your grievance list in perspective.

  The gorgeous blond with the luscious body and the fuck-me legs—who won’t give me, EJ Homeless Man, the time of day—is yap, yap, yapping about how hard it is to grow up with money. The pressure. The pain. Oh, baby, you don’t know what money is.

  She’s fucking hot, but an airhead. When she finishes she smiles at me as if hoping for some kind of reaction, and I glance the other way because my camping buddy starts talking into the silence.

  Hank always keeps it real and to the point, but I’ve heard every story he tells already more than once. Still, he’s down to earth and I like him so I listen.

  For a tech genius, he did some fucked-up shit back in the day, unfortunately with a weakness for cocaine, and now he’s living on the streets like me.

  It’s funny how quickly your life goes boom when you fuck over your employer by giving a competitor company secrets.

  The minutes pass, but they keep me from checking my phone for Ethan, finding nothing, and the disappointment that could trigger
me wanting to use again.

  “Do you want to share today, EJ?”

  Shit, they’re all looking at me.

  I shrug. “Not today.”

  And the meeting leader moves on. That’s the beauty of a meeting. No one makes you do shit here. I never have to share or sound like those wankers, not unless I decide to. Unlike family who’s going to ask questions and expect answers from me.

  The housewife with the sex addiction clears her throat, and I perk up. She loves to go on about the crazy stuff she’s done, and I’m not getting any sex these days so why not have some mental pleasure from her regrets?

  “I remembered something I hadn’t remembered before,” she says in her sexy kitten voice that sure as shit drove the FedEx man crazy on his daily deliveries at her house. “I think it’s my earliest memory…”

  She’s going on and on about a dog she had as a kid. There’s not even an unhappy twist. It’s all about how cute it was and how much she loved dressing the dog in her clothes.

  Time to tune out.

  Fuck, my earliest memory is way more fucked up than putting a sundress on a poodle.

  It’s from when I was six. Whenever I tell it, people always wonder, dude, how can you remember shit from back then? But it’s mostly people who don’t know my dad who say stuff like that. Anyone who knows Alan Manzone doesn’t question either the memory or my recollection of it.

  It’s amazing that I do remember it, or rather that it’s the one that stands out in my mind from my childhood. A whole lot of junk happened to me by the time I was six.

  My first dad, a chill guy named Jesse Harris, died and my entire world flipped over. We moved to a place where everything was different and no longer home. My twin, Ethan, was a mess. He’s sensitive that way so I pretended it was no big deal because I’ve always taken care of Ethan. But my world had been rocked just as much as his and, though I never showed it, I was afraid just like him.

  Then Mom had another kid—more change. And a year later I had another dad—big change—only this time he was my real dad. Or that’s what they told me Alan was. At the time, I didn’t understand it, how some guy who just flew in and out of our lives was my birth father and now part of our family.

  Then I was torn away from home without my mother for the first time, put on plane with a man who was supposed to now be my dad, and hauled around to new place after new place.

  I didn’t want a new dad if all this constant change was what it meant.

  I didn’t want him—not because I didn’t like Alan. I didn’t know him, he was larger than life, so much so that Ethan was afraid of him, and he took me from Mom.

  The summer before I entered second grade was an endless series of planes, unfamiliar cities, and him.

  And that’s when it happened. The memory that always rises first in my head, in good times and bad. And, yes, it involves him. Everything about me involves Alan Manzone, from being on this planet to who am I now. No wonder it’s a memory of him I find inescapable.

  We were in Mumbai—and, no, I didn’t know it was Mumbai then. I learned it later when I was older—the first stop on my dad’s farewell world tour with his iconic rock band, Blackpoll.

  Long days of travel, of commotion, people, and sound continued into long nights in hotel suites of commotion, people, and sound. Eric and I tried our best to avoid everything, but it was hard to sleep in noisy hotel rooms and curiosity won out over caution and defiance.

  Up to that point we were committed to not willingly be his sons, even though we could tell that’s what he wanted. We’d had a father. We loved him. No matter what the grown-ups said, we would not, ever, accept Alan as our dad. And that’s how we decided together to attack this change in our lives.

  But sounds filled our bedroom, sounds unlike the sounds of home, and with them came our father’s laughter. We both wanted to find out what was happening in the main part of our suite.

  Ethan was too afraid of getting into trouble to climb out of his bed. So I snuck out of our bedroom without him.

  I followed the noise. It led me to the terrace doors and I stared through the glass at my dad.

  He was sitting on a lounger, surrounded by people, beneath a pitch-black sky brilliant with stars. His face looked different when he smiled and laughed, unlike any other time I’d seen Alan. Less mean, more like Grandpa Jack. Happy.

  I tucked myself into the curtains not to be seen and watched the man Mom said was my father. When he smiled, he looked like my sister Kaley and I loved her, but I remained unsure what I thought of him.

  Then in an abrupt change that startled and frightened me, his low raspy voice that even when quiet carried punch, jeered, “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  A hush fell over the party and everyone froze to look at him as he argued with a man I didn’t know anything about except that he traveled with us from place to place and told people what to do.

  I wasn’t sure what their words meant. He was angry about my father changing the schedule, and rattling off a list of things Alan was supposed to do.

  My dad shook his head and his black eyes began to simmer. “I fucking own me. No one tells me what to do.”

  That time my father’s voice made me jump, but I’ve never forgotten how it made him the center of that moment with every set of eyes on him, even my own, and I wondered if everyone else was feeling what I was feeling as I stared at him.

  Then he spotted me watching from barely inside the suite and his intense black gaze locked on mine. The severe lines of his face melted into something that kept me from running back to my bedroom as he rose from his chair and crossed the patio.

  “What are you doing out of bed?” he asked, his voice gentle and kind, and then he scooped me up in his powerful arms and kissed me on the cheek.

  He tucked me into bed and settled beside me.

  I stared up at him with what I’m sure was wide-eyed confusion. “What was that about? Why was that man yelling at you?”

  He brushed back the golden-blond hair from my forehead. “Never mind.” He switched off the light and went for the door, pausing to look back at me. “Never let anyone stand between you and what you want. I love you and your brother and sisters more than anything. You’re the most important people in my life. Being your dad is my most important job and I won’t let anyone interfere with that.”

  That caused me more confusion, since I didn’t have a clue why he was telling me that, but it didn’t matter, not with how he smiled at me before he shut the door. Like I was important. Like he really did love me. Like a dad smiles at his son.

  But, oh, how he looked on the terrace.

  I fucking own me.

  That night, for the first time, I felt like his son because I wanted to be just like him.

  “Keep coming back. It works,” the group shouts and pulls me from my thoughts to realize the meeting is over.

  I grab my gear from beside my chair, stop at the refreshment table, shove some cookies in my pocket, and fill two cups of coffee. Now that I’m broke, I’m not proud, and that’s breakfast these days. It’s a long walk to my next appointment.

  Before anyone can trap me in conversation, I leave the church. It’s good to have a schedule and “appointments” when you’re living abodeless. Slows down the unexpected popping up to knock you flat and makes survival on the street damn near no big thing.

  “You heading out to work now?” Hank asks, and I glance over my shoulder to find him there.

  “Yep. What about you?”

  He rubs his hands together to chase off the chill. “Probably go to the rec center to warm up. Meet you later at the park?”

  “Yeah, if you want to camp with me.” I frown. “Maybe you should try to get a room in a shelter tonight. You don’t have the proper gear to sleep outdoors here.”

  He shrugs. “Safer in the cold than in a shelter.”

  We part ways at the sidewalk, Hank going in his direction and me going mine. But sure
as shit he’ll be in that park waiting for me when I’m done with my day.

  The cold nips at my body, making me walk briskly to stay warm, and if I could change anything about Seattle it’d be the weather. The city is fantastic. Always a favorite of mine. But the fucking weather you learn to hate when you spend most of your time without shelter.

  Ninety minutes later, I’m at work. The sun’s out—thank God—but the concrete still has a chill when I settle back against the wall on the sidewalk. I take out my guitar, leave my case open, and start to play while I keep my eyes out for her.

  And, fuck, fine. Recovery is about honesty. I do enjoy the view of the world from the bottom because when I stare straight there’s an endless show of legs in every shape and form with an occasional great ass here and there.

  A different view than from the top of the world: center stage where I used to rule. There my view was beautiful faces, lust-heated eyes, and great tits.

  The view of the world isn’t worse from the bottom. It’s just different. A different kind of wonderful.

  I hear a handful of change drop in my guitar case and quickly smile to say thank you, and my gaze runs into those gorgeous brown eyes I wait for each day.

  She’s the reason I sit on this cold concrete in what I’m sure is the worst place for a street musician to make money in Seattle during daylight hours.

  But, fuck it, I don’t care.

  I’m not here to earn a living playing for tourists.

  I’m on this street because a long time ago I knew Willow and I wronged her.

  I’m on this street because of her.

  Chapter Two

  Eric

  Seven years earlier…

  THE SECOND WE’RE DONE with this, I’m going to kill Hugh with my bare hands. Even if my dad wasn’t the greatest rocker on the planet, my band is soon to become famous. Shit like this is beneath me.

  As for the last-century belief that musical talent is concentrated in Seattle; fuck no, that’s not true. Not that I can tell by the countless inept, low talent drummers I’ve had to suffer listening to today.

  Jesus Christ, twenty-seven musicians showed up at our open call and not one is up to my standard or even in the hemisphere of what I’m looking for. Coming to Seattle was a total waste of a day. I should never have let Hugh talk me into this, and I should have cut out hours ago.