Incite

by Heather Leigh

  I collapse into a fancy and very uncomfortable chair, pinching the bridge of my nose in frustration. The fear that’s been gripping me on and off since last night comes back full force, sinking into my gut like a brick. She wouldn’t have chosen the copper over me, right? But the fact that she won’t answer my calls or texts has me doubting everything that happened the other day.

  Ten minutes, two hours, I’m not sure how long I sit in that stupid bloody chair. Eventually, I’m unable to sit any longer. I get up and cross the room to where I left my phone. I pick it up and type out yet another text to Ellie.

 

  I stare at the phone, willing it to do something, anything, but it just sits there, silently mocking my anxiety. I place it back down on the coffee table and strip down to my undershirt and jeans and head towards the bedroom to shower off the airplane grime.

  The ping of my phone sends adrenaline racing through my veins. I’m frozen in place for a moment, unsure if I want to check it. What if she’s telling me to fuck off?

  Don’t be a pussy Adam. Fucking man up and go look at it.

  Shit! I drag my hands down my face and slowly approach the phone as if it’s that stupid self-destructing message from Mission Impossible and it’s about to go up in smoke. Jesus, Reynolds. Stop being such a nancy. The dread is there though, for some reason, I have a very, very bad feeling about Ellie and me, like a darkness has settled in and tainted the perfect day we spent together. I’m undeserving of her and I know it, so I’m expecting the worst.

  I pick up the phone and open the text. It’s from Ellie. I hold my breath as I read.

 

  I inhale sharply, as if she stabbed me directly in the heart. No. She wouldn’t have chosen him. Not after what we shared, what we’ve been through. She didn’t even have his ring. She came to see me to mend our relationship, I know it.

  Freaking out, I type a response with trembling fingers, begging for an explanation.

 

  The text immediately bounces back. Blocked. I ring her number and get the same response, my number has been blocked by her phone. I feel dizzy and the phone slips from my fingers, landing with a clatter on the fancy hardwood floors of the suite. My chest is constricting. I’m gasping for breath. I have to clutch at it with my hand because the pain is so great.

  It’s over. Really, truly over. That’s all the happiness that I’ll ever be allowed, six months in school and one incredible day that I’ll never forget. I try to hold back the moisture that builds behind my eyes, but a few traitorous tears sneak out.

  Still struggling to breathe, I stagger over to the bar and pour another, much larger, glass of whiskey and down the entire drink, the painful burn in my throat preferable to the sharp attack on my destroyed heart.

  Down the bar the in-house phone calls to me, begging me to pick it up and ring the front desk. Weak, destroyed, hurting, I snatch it up and dial. The woman answers in German, and I hear the name Brigitte. I ask if she speaks English, already knowing that she does. “Yes, what can I do for you Mr. Reynolds?” she purrs.

  “When do you get off of work?” I ask bluntly, pouring myself another low ball of whiskey.

  “I’m leaving in ten minutes.”

  Good, I need a distraction. I have to purge Ellie from my system, for good this time. “Do you have any plans?” I ask in a suggestive tone.

  “Hmmm, I do now,” she says.

  “I’ll see you in ten,” I tell her and hang up the phone. I sip the glass of whiskey, a little bit slower than before. I know if I drink too much too fast then I’ll just embarrass myself in front of the gorgeous Brigitte, and that just won’t do. Not when I need to fuck Ellie out of my head. I’ll drink after.

  Grabbing my things, I dig out my beat up leather toilet bag and take it to the bathroom. I have to splash water on my face to calm down. My heart is still racing so fast it feels as if it might explode.

  No! I can’t think about her. She’s made her decision. We’ve both fucked this up too much to fix it. I grip the edges of the sink and stare in the mirror. I look like absolute shite. My eyes are dull and have dark circles beginning to form under them. I need a shave badly, even though I’ve been sporting the rough stubble that women seem to love on me. My skin is pale, which, being an Englishman isn’t that abnormal, but it’s almost sickly looking.

  I bark out a sarcastic laugh that I’m supposed to be some sexy, desirable, celebrity when really, I’m just another fucked up loser from a fucked up home.

  I snatch up my toothbrush and quickly brush my teeth. Then I dig through the satchel and grab several condoms, placing them on the nightstand. No use in hiding them, Brigitte has no illusions as to why she’s coming up here. She doesn’t seem like the clingy type either, so I can get rid of her afterwards without a hassle.

  A knock on the door of the suite comes right as expected. I put on my best ‘Adam Reynolds is the happy, easy going bloke’ face and answer it.

  “Hello gorgeous,” I tell her, stepping aside to let her in and closing the door behind her.

  Now it’s time to drink and fuck Ellie out of my head, for good. She hasn’t left me any other choice.

  chapter 30

  Ellie

  “I have to go. No. Not now. She’s waking up. Ellie? Love? Can you hear me?”

  James’ deep voice floats through the darkness that envelopes me like a thick shroud. I attempt to open my eyes, but find that they’re stuck together, almost as if they’ve been glued shut.

  “Let me help you dear.”

  Mum? My mum is here? I feel a soft touch, then a cool cloth gently wipes both of my eyes, removing whatever gunk was preventing them from opening.

  “There you go. Can you open your eyes Ellie, dear?” I can tell from her tone that my mum’s upset but trying to hold it together. She sounded like that a lot after Dad died.

  “Yes, get the doctor. She’s waking up,” James says from my other side. Why is James here? Where’s Adam?

  Where the hell am I?

  I try again to open my eyes, but the sliver of light that gets in is so bright, and brings an explosion of pain so severe, that I wince and squeeze them back shut immediately.

  A pathetic moan escapes my throat and I clutch at my head with my hand. It feels as if an anvil is sitting on top of my skull, pressing it flat. My hand feels as if it weighs a ton, so it takes a while for it to follow my commands. Slowly, I raise it to touch the side of my head just behind my ear. Where I expect to find hair I instead find something soft and gauzy.

  “Wh-what? What’s going on?

  “Ellie, don’t stress yourself love,” James chides gently. He takes my hand away from my head and clasps it in his.

  Again, I open my eyes, this time pushing through the agony and the wave of nausea that the brightness brings.

  “The lights, please.” I can barely scratch out the words, my throat is so dry.

  “Of course, love,” my mum says. She flicks a switch, taking the room from glaringly painful to dim and almost tolerable.

  Blinking rapidly, I take a moment to examine my unfocused surroundings. If I look too long, things start to spin and the nausea becomes unbearable, so I only take brief peeks through my heavy eyelids.

  James is on my left, holding my hand in his, his face full of worry. My mum is on my right, her trembling hands fluttering uselessly at her sides, unsure what to do with them.

  The rest of the room looks suspiciously like the ones we have at University Hospital where I work. A pleasant voice that I vaguely recognize drifts from the doorway and a figure comes over to the side of my bed. James drops my hand and steps back so the newcomer can take his place.

  “Doctor Grant?” I rasp, stunned. My mind is all screwed up. This can’t be the same Dr. Grant that I work with every day on the neurology ward.

  “Ellie, go
od to see you awake. You gave everyone a bit of a scare for a while.”

  “But, but...” I clutch at my throbbing head, so confused at my current situation. I can’t seem to grasp what is happening. “I don’t understand.” I admit to him, the pain in my skull now intensifying to the point where I’m beginning to get anxious. The loud beeping of the pulse oximeter that I now feel attached to my right index finger gets faster and faster as I start to panic.

  Nausea overwhelms me and I lean forward to get sick, which quadruples the already intolerable pain in my skull. My mum shoves a bin in front of my face and waits patiently until it passes.

  “I guess I’ll increase your anti-emetics,” Dr. Grant says lightly as he scrawls something on a page in what I know must be my chart.

  “My head…it’s so painful.” I moan feebly at the agonizing throbbing.

  “I’m not surprised. You’ve got a hairline skull fracture and had a small subdural hematoma, Ellie. You’ve been under sedation for the last four days, while we waited for the swelling to go down and the blood to be reabsorbed.” Dr. Grant’s dark eyes crinkle in the corners as he gives me a sympathetic smile.

  “Four days?” I’m flat out stunned at the revelation that I’ve been out that long.

  “Yes, you needed to heal properly. I’m going to do a quick exam and then you can speak to your family, alright? You’ll have a repeat CT scan tomorrow to see if you’re well enough to go home.”

  I nod soundlessly and let the doctor do his thing, answer his questions directly and to the point, and say nothing else when he leaves the room.

  “Mum, can I speak with James in private, please?” I turn to look at my mum, flinching when the movement of my head causes a sharp pain to stab deep in my ear.

  “Of course dear.” Mum pats my leg gently before making her way around the bed until she’s out in the hall. My poor Mum. She’s aged so much these last few years. Cancer, then dad, now me being attacked for a second time. I’m surprised she doesn’t have a full head of grey hair already.

  James pulls up a chair and sits, reaching over to take my hand. I recoil back, not wanting comfort from him when what I need is an explanation. Even in my confused state, I notice the slight grimace on his face when I refuse his hand.

  “What happened? I know… I know Callum was in my flat. What else?” I swallow loudly, remembering that my mouth is still parched. When I lick my dry lips James grabs a large cup with a straw in it and holds it so I can take a drink. The cool water soothes my throat.

  “Better?”

  “Yes, much. Thank you. “ I close my eyes for a moment to stop the room from rocking. “Please James, tell me what happened.” I ignore the incessant throbbing in my skull, turning my head to face him directly, watching his deep brown eyes as they flick down uncomfortably then back up to meet my gaze.

  “I hadn’t heard from you all day. You didn’t pick up your phone and didn’t return my texts.” He sounds irritated, angry even.

  “I was at work James. You know they don’t allow my phone around the equipment at the hospital,” I tell him for the hundredth time. I would be angrier at his petulance, but I’m too tired to care.

  James scowls, pulling his handsome face into a twisted scowl. “I didn’t like the way we left things. After the concert…” he hesitates, probably not wanting to dredge up the Adam argument again. “So I came by your flat, to see you. But you didn’t answer when I knocked and I could hear a man’s voice inside.” His eyes dart away again, as if he feels guilty about something, but what?

  “So, I used my key.” He stretches his arm out hesitantly to take my hand again. I pull mine out of reach and he drops his back into his lap with a frustrated sigh. “I found him on top of you, slamming your head into the floor,” James closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, as if in physical pain at the memory. “I tore that bastard off of you and damn near beat him to death.” His dark eyes open and fix directly on mine. “The only thing that stopped me was the thought of you having seizures and bleeding to death across the room while I extracted my pound of flesh.”

  My jaw drops open at his admission. He looks at me and merely shrugs. As if admitting you were going to kill someone with your bare hands is no big deal.

  “I don’t feel bad about hurting him, El. I would do it again a thousand times if I had to.”

  “I know,” I whisper. I can’t be angry about the violence, he saved my life. Again. I just don’t like to think of him like that. Controlling? Yes. Violent? No.

  “You can’t be alone when they discharge you, Ellie. You’ve got a bad head injury and I don’t want you going back to that flat either.” His eyes narrow. “Even though that Murray bastard is going to be in jail for a long time, I can’t even think about one of his perverted friends finding you to finish you off for him.”

  I shudder at the thought and curl up into a ball on the stark hospital bed. James reaches over again to take my hand. This time, I allow it. Callum would be exactly the type of man to send someone to finish what he couldn’t. Especially since this time, Callum was paid to attack me. Danny could very well pay someone else to get the photos he wanted to use against Adam.

  “You need to move in with me,” James says sternly, surprising me with not just his words but his forceful tone.

  “What?” My increasing heart rate is pinging embarrassingly from the machine as I think about what he said. I can’t move in with James, can I? I don’t love him. What about Adam? I’m leaving James, aren’t I?

  “You need to stay with me, El. We’re engaged, you can’t go to your flat and you need to be protected. It makes sense and you know it.” He squeezes my hand encouragingly, as if willing me to see things his way. James knows I’ve been hesitant to set a date or even discuss the wedding, he knows how angry I was after our row, this is his way of forcing me to move forward by way of circumstance. I glance down and am horrified to see that my ring is back in its place on my left hand.

  “I need… I think I need to be alone for a while.” My head is pounding, my nerves are shot, and I have no idea what happened to Adam after the attack. Tears prick at my tender eyes, burning as they well up.

  “I’ll go get a coffee with your mum.” James stands up, pressing a soft kiss to the back of my hand. “She thinks the plan makes sense too. My parents are coming by later to see you, El. Everyone has been so worried.”

  He told my mother that we were moving in together before I said yes? In my mind, we were broken up!

  I give him a tiny nod and close my eyes, pretending to be swept away by the painkillers. “Oh, I forgot,” I wearily tilt my head as James reaches the door, “can you hand me my cellphone?”

  He turns back to me and gives me a sad smile, his broad chest and shoulders deflating a bit at my request. “Sorry love, it was damaged in the assault. It was completely unusable so I got rid of it. I’ll get you a new one when you go home with me.” His eyes turn to hard flints of stone just before he spins and leaves the room. Once he’s gone, the machine loudly registers my speeding pulse.

  I have no way to reach Adam. No way to tell him what happened. He doesn’t know how to find me because I wouldn’t let him have my address. He’ll think I used him, lied to him, then forgot about him completely. That I abandoned him just like everyone else in his life.

  I close my eyes and try to hold back the tears, knowing that they’ll just make my head hurt worse than it already does, but I can’t stop them. Tears come and they come hard, in huge sobs wracking my broken body.

  Fate has once again decided to be cruel to us. To give us a small taste of happiness only to yank it out from under us, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.

  chapter 31

  Adam

  “Dude, you don’t even seem excited. This is the fucking Grammy’s we’re going to!” A harder than necessary punch to my arm follows Hawke’s near-hysteric delight.

  “Ow, don’t be a bastard,” I gripe back at him, rubbing my arm and scowling.

 
; “Jesus Adam, lighten the fuck up already.” Dax growls from across the back of the stretch limo. “Your game face is going to be ready for the red carpet tonight, right?”

  “It’s always fucking ready, isn’t it?” I snarl back. I recline on the plush seats, the smell of expensive leather surrounding me. I drag a hand down my face and sigh. “Sorry mate. I’m just beat, that’s all. It’s been a killer month.”

  Dax gives me his best ‘are you kidding me’ look. “We’ve been to all of the same events that you have Adam. Flown the same number of miles, performed on the same stages, given the same interviews… we know how fucking tiring it is. If you would just get an assistant to help you out.”

  Shame floods my face at my selfishness. It’s not their fault that I’m a moody prick. Well, it sort of is. I need a drink, which is on me, but I can’t have one and that’s on them. They’re the ones who staged the intervention and forced me into rehab for my drinking. They’re the ones who said they’d quit the band if I didn’t stop trying to drown myself in alcohol every day.

  I laughed and didn’t want to hear a word that they said. ‘I’m a grown man and I’ll do whatever the fuck I want’, is what I believe I said to them. It was when Dax told me that I reminded him of my dad that I sobered up right quick. He was right, I was turning into the biggest prick I’d ever met and never stopped long enough to see it happening.

  When Ellie cut off all contact with me after our hotel tryst a little over a year ago, I’d hit the bottle harder than I ever had before and never looked back. Six months later, my band mates were giving me an ultimatum.

  Now, after spending six weeks in rehab last year, the release of our best selling album to date, and numerous Grammy nominations for it, I’m just plain worn out. And without my go-to way to relax, a bottle of fine whiskey, I’m tense and overtired all the time. It’s getting better, but only marginally. I just have to figure out who I am, because without Ellie and without the booze, I have no fucking clue who Adam Reynolds is.