by Tara Leigh
And then I plastered an efficient smile on my face and turned to Adam. “Of course. Everything’s fine.”
Chapter Nine
Landon
When I swam back into consciousness again, the room was quiet, save for a relentless tap, tap, tapping. My eyelids weren’t quite as heavy as they’d been earlier, and I looked up to find Travis pacing the floor, his dress shoes slapping the tiles with relentless precision.
I wanted to tell him to knock it off, to just leave me alone and let me sleep, escape my throbbing head and aching body. But as if he was attuned to the slightest change in my condition, Travis stopped his pacing. “Finally, you’re awake.”
I closed my eyes again, hoping he would get the hint.
He didn’t. “Landon, I know you can hear me. We need to talk.”
I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to sleep.
It wasn’t Travis that kept me from doing just that. The doctor came back with his white coat and clipboard and shitty diagnosis. “As a result of your fall, it appears that you’ve herniated a cervical disk in your spine, and the swelling of the C8 nerve root is causing weakness with your handgrip. If we took you off the heavy doses of narcotics, you would feel numbness, tingling, and pain radiating down your arm.”
My tongue felt thick and heavy in my mouth, weighed down by fear. “It’s just temporary, right?”
The doctor paused to flip through the pages attached to his clipboard, a pause that seemed to last forever. I heard the scrape of his nails on paper, the bleating of voices outside the door, the rush of blood in my ears. Finally, he released them all at once to look at me. They made a ruffling noise as they fanned through the air, returning to a neat stack. “I don’t see anything in your MRI that would lead me to believe this is a permanent situation.”
I expelled a huge sigh of relief, then nearly choked on it when he amended his comment. “But the human body is a mysterious instrument. I can’t make any guarantees on the length of time your recovery will take, nor your degree of utilization once the spine has healed.”
I blinked, several times. “When will you know? I’m a goddamn drummer. My hands are pretty fucking important to me.”
“Landon—” Travis stepped forward, trying to ratchet down my spiraling anxiety. As if that were possible.
The doctor held up a hand, his expression unfazed. “It’s all right. Mr. Cox’s fear is completely understandable. Right now, the most important thing is to reduce the swelling. To that end, I have you on a cocktail of intravenous anti-inflammatory medications. I’m going to recommend that you stay here for the next few days, at least. For right now, the less you move your spine, the better.”
“Meds and staying still. What else?”
“Rest. And in a few days, once the swelling has subsided, physical therapy. There is a center not far from here. I’ll get you the name—”
“Restorative Health Center,” I said. I knew the place well, although I’d never been there as a patient myself.
The doctor nodded anyway. “Yes. They are the best on the West Coast, if not the entire country. You will be in expert hands.”
I didn’t give a fuck whose hands I would be in, as long as I got back full use of my own.
I was still absorbing the news when the door opened again. This time, I figured I was hallucinating. Because it sure looked like Piper Hastings was in my hospital room.
“You’re finally here.” Travis’s tone was impatient.
Piper let the door close behind her, but didn’t come any farther. She looked flushed…and worried. Worried about me.
Travis rubbed his hands together, looking back and forth between the two of us. “I called Piper because she had the good sense to get you out of my house last night before you got into trouble and there’s no one I trust more to contain the fallout from a high-profile fuck-up. If Piper can handle the shitstorm Shane weathered last year, I suppose she can handle you, too.”
Piper inched forward, wearing a sexy as fuck pink outfit that showed off her long legs to perfection.
My dick pulsed to life and it was a relief to know that not every part of me was broken. I attempted a wink, although I couldn’t actually feel my face so I didn’t know if it worked. Either way, she pulled up short and turned her attention back to Travis.
I tried to listen, but Piper’s legs were too much of a distraction, and it took me a few minutes to tune in. “…insurance negotiations are at a critical point. If necessary, we’ll spin this as just a minor backyard accident. No big deal, just taking all possible precautions.”
Piper had pulled a small notebook out of her purse and began taking notes as Travis resumed his pacing. “I can’t have anyone finding out that Landon is in a hospital, or the details of his injury.”
She stopped him. “What injury?”
“The doctors will know more tomorrow.” I caught the look he gave her, one that shut down further questions. “In the meantime, Landon will stay here, because if the press gets a photo of him with so much a Band-Aid on his knee, I won’t be able to get Nothing but Trouble insured for their next tour.”
Travis wasn’t talking about health insurance, he was talking about the multimillion–dollar policy required by venues to reserve concert dates.
As if he felt the rancor rising from my skin, he turned to glare at me. “After last year, companies aren’t exactly breaking down our door to cover the band. No insurance policy, no tour. No tour, no happy fans buying your music. No happy fans…well, everything goes away. Awards, magazine covers, hit songs, and most of all, money.”
All hail the mighty fucking dollar. Of course Travis would put things in perspective. But as much as I didn’t give a shit about money—I needed a shit ton of it for someone else. Someone for whom I’d sacrifice everything. Someone for whom I had sacrificed everything.
Even knowing it would never be enough.
Piper
Eventually, a nurse shooed us out of Landon’s room and Travis offered to drive me home. The man had a sports car for every day of the week, and today it was a bright yellow Maserati. Shifting into gear, he wasted no time getting down to business, which was the real reason he’d offered me a ride. A place to talk without the possibility of being overheard. “Once Landon’s discharged, I need you to stay with him.”
My head swiveled so fast I gave myself whiplash. “Stay with him?” I rubbed at the throbbing tendons at the side of my throat. The idea was ridiculous. This wasn’t the first time we’d dealt with a celebrity-gone-wild situation, and as far as I knew, babysitting services weren’t a typical item on the Travis Taggert & Associates menu.
“You saw him at my place. He was a mess. And to attempt a drunken back dive into his pool today—it wasn’t even noon, for fuck’s sake.”
Noon? I left Landon just two hours before and he was fine. Well, maybe not fine, but definitely sober. Had I made him so angry he needed to bust out the liquor at ten a.m.?
Travis was still talking. “Thank god his housekeeper was there to call 911. I don’t know what’s going on with Landon right now, but I don’t trust him on his own. I want you with him at all times until I figure out what else he needs.” I remained speechless, struggling to absorb the information coming my way. What Travis was saying made sense, but moving in with Landon, even temporarily…Not a good idea.
The awkwardness of this morning was still fresh in my mind.
And so was the imprint he’d left on my skin.
I didn’t regret what we’d done. Not exactly.
I just wasn’t sure I could bear to repeat it.
The chemistry, the closeness, the multiple climaxes. Last night had been incredible. But once Landon’s mood had changed, the air between us turning heavy, it had felt illicit, even tawdry. Like a beautiful painting with a tear in the canvas.
In the moment, that’s exactly what last night had been—beautiful.
And now the memory of it was ruined.
I slammed my hand against the car door, looking for a
button that would lower my window. I needed air. I needed—
“Why can’t his housekeeper watch over him?” I wheezed. Air, damn it. Did Maseratis not have working ventilation systems?
Finally, I found it, angling my head through the window like a golden retriever. I sucked in lungful after lungful of Los Angeles’s finest, until the buzzing in my brain eased.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Travis asked, when I finally settled back into my seat and closed the window.
“Sorry, just a little car sickness. All better now.” I’d driven with him many times, and never had I experienced the slightest queasiness. Travis didn’t have a chance to push the issue though.
Snatching his chirping phone from the console, he pressed it to his ear. I knew for a fact Travis had paid thousands in fines for using a handheld while driving, but he didn’t care.
I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, although it didn’t last long. Travis ended the call with a guttural “Fuck!” Dropping the phone to his lap, he wrapped his hands so tightly around the wheel his knuckles turned bright white.
I shifted in my seat, waiting for more bad news.
“The police were called to a disturbance at Landon’s house. They had to shut down a massive party—two to three hundred people on site. Graffiti on the walls, furniture destroyed, god knows what in the pool.”
“What?” Landon hadn’t mentioned a party this morning. Was that why he’d been so anxious to—
“The police questioned most of them. Apparently, Landon sent a group text, inviting half his contact list to his house for a pool party. Which was then shared god-only-knows how many times. When the lot arrived, the gate was wide open—probably from the ambulance—and no one was home.”
“Ana…”
“The housekeeper and her husband followed the ambulance to the hospital, and must have forgotten to close the gate. Instead of going back to Landon’s after they were assured he wasn’t going to die, they went to see their kids. Meanwhile, the party raged on.”
I glanced out my window, realizing we weren’t headed in the direction of my apartment anymore. I didn’t need to ask where we were going. Landon’s house.
“I hope things aren’t as bad as they say, because I can’t risk filing a claim for him until I lock down the damn insurance policy for the band.” Travis’s expression rarely veered far from neutral, but when he was stressed, he swept a hand over his shaved head. Right now, he was polishing it like a cue ball. “The biggest problem is that Landon is having issues with his grip.”
“His grip?”
“His hand grip. Seeing as the guy makes a living by beating the crap out of his drums, he needs to be able to hold the fucking sticks.”
Suddenly the damage to Landon’s house didn’t seem all that important. “He can’t play?”
“In his current state, no.” Travis rubbed his head faster, holding the wheel with one hand. “Hopefully it’s just temporary, but I can’t have him worrying about anything besides getting better. He’ll stay at Cedars until the doctors can’t do anything else for him, or until he goes stir crazy, whichever comes first. In the meantime, you are going to track down any photos and videos before they make it online. I don’t care what we have to pay—just buy them before TMZ or Radar Online does.”
I pulled my notebook back out of my bag. “Got it. I’ll follow up with our LAPD contacts, too, see if I can keep this off the police blotter.”
“Reassign any other projects you’re working on. I want you full time on Landon Cox.”
Fuck. Me.
Chapter Ten
Landon
Why the fuck can’t I go back to my own house?” I glared at Piper as she propelled me into her apartment, trying to figure out what she was hiding. Because she was hiding something.
But when she met my eyes, hers were swirling with more than just annoyance. I took a step, then another. Enough for her to close and lock the door, then turn back around with one arched brow as if to say, Take that.
Like Piper’s flimsy excuse for a door, with its one lone bolt, could stop me from leaving. I moved back into her personal space, trying to fight the urge to touch her. Because if I touched her, I didn’t know if I could stop.
It was her voice, stern and clear, that stopped me. “Don’t blame me. This is all your fault.”
She was right, of course. Piper hadn’t been anywhere near me when I decided to do a drunken backflip off the side of the pool. “I didn’t say that. But you don’t need to play nursemaid—”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I need to do. Because someone,” she glowered at me, “decided to use me as an excuse for leaving together from my boss’s house. And now my boss has appointed me official nursemaid to one high-maintenance, self-centered, pain-in-the-ass rock star.”
My mouth twitched. God this woman was extraordinary. I wanted to spank her nearly as much as I wanted to sooth all that prickly aggravation right out of her body. One heated glance told me she wouldn’t be a fan of either right now. So I opted for a tease. “That’s rock legend to you. And, if I recall, it was your skill at dealing with shitstorms that sealed your fate.”
The noise she made sounded caught between a grunt and a snort, but she pushed off the door and walked away from me. “Carbon monoxide is nothing to mess with.”
According to Piper, the carbon monoxide alarm had gone off earlier today and my house was swarming with people trying to find and contain the gas leak. How long could it take to make the repair and then air out the house? I rubbed at the back of my neck, wincing slightly.
Piper softened, patting the couch. “Come sit down.”
I’d been stuck in the hospital for days, lying in bed like an invalid. Of course, if staying still would give me back the full use of my hands, I was perfectly willing to do it. Except that it hadn’t. My grip had improved slightly, but it was far from one hundred percent.
I’d had a third MRI, and a bunch of other tests with acronyms I couldn’t remember. Was poked and prodded by doctors who had flown in from all over the county just to examine me. And every single one of them said it was most likely a matter of time until I recovered fully.
Most likely.
In other words, there were no guarantees.
But they all agreed that it was safe for me to be discharged, and to begin physical therapy. My first appointment was tomorrow.
Despite nearly a week in bed, I was exhausted. I lowered myself stiffly onto Piper’s couch. “Think you could bring me—”
“Your pills?” She jumped up, looking relieved to have something to do. “Of course.”
Piper returned in a minute, holding out the prescription bottles I’d been discharged with and a glass of water.
“Thanks,” I took them with my left hand, unscrewed the top with my teeth, and shook out a pill from each. Not exactly graceful, but it got the job done.
“Are you supposed to take them at the same time?” I looked up to see Piper sitting at her desk, a pen in her hand and a notebook open in front of her.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m keeping track of your medications. I think one can only be taken every twelve hours, the other—”
“Don’t do that.” I put the pills on my tongue, chasing them with water.
“Do what?”
“Track my meds like I’m a ten-year-old who just got his tonsils out.” I recapped the bottles and set them on the end table. “I’m a grown-ass man, Piper. You want to play nursemaid, you can start with a sponge bath.”
Capping her pen, Piper closed the notebook and rose rigidly from the chair. I swore I saw the faintest trail of smoke coming from her ears as she picked up the remote control from the coffee table and dropped it in my lap. “I’m going to do some work in the next room. You can just relax in here and pretend I’m putting together an aromatherapy plan for you.”
I tossed the remote and blanket to the side. “If you’re not here to watch me, I might just get bored and leave.�
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“I guess that shouldn’t surprise me.”
Beneath the acidity of Piper’s tone was a wound I’d inflicted. I sighed. “I deserve that, but I’m not sitting in here watching TV while you’re off in the next room. If you need to get work done,” I stood, ignoring the knives slicing through my brain at the sudden movement, “I can go home and wait outside until my house is cleared.”
“You can’t.”
I threw up my arms. “Why the fuck not? If you don’t say anything to Travis, I won’t either. He’ll never be the wiser.”
She pursed her lips, irritation rolling off her flushed skin. “Work can wait. We’ll hang out together.”
I grinned and sat back down, rearranging the blanket across my lap and lifting an edge before looking pointedly at Piper. “Do you have HBO? I’m running behind on Game of Thrones.”
Piper
Travis owned real estate around the city for when he needed to stash his celebrity clients somewhere private to heal from surgery, hide from a stalker, or evade the media.
Unfortunately two of those homes had just been added to a fire evacuation zone, including the one I’d been planning to bring Landon to. While Travis secured a new place, I had agreed to bring Landon back to my apartment.
Not quite agreed, exactly. More like lost the argument. Because countering I’m not going to risk dragging Landon Cox, one of the most recognizable men in the world, in and out of a hotel lobby, with Well, I’d rather not risk dragging Landon Cox, the sexiest and most infuriating man I’d ever known, anywhere near my bedroom wasn’t a bright idea.
Which was why Landon and I were spending the afternoon on my couch, watching hours of sorcery and gore. I’d binge-watched television with Adam, too. Usually HGTV shows like House Hunters International or Property Brothers. But Adam never held my hand as we watched, or wedged his palm beneath my leg, his thumb sweeping casually over my thigh in an unconscious motion. A motion that had every cell in my body buzzing.