“Yeah, doesn’t mean I’m not gonna kick his arse for scaring the shit outta us like this. I can’t believe he didn’t tell us.”
“Maybe he was afraid we’d shun him.”
“Maybe. It kills me that he was going through this shit alone while we’re off getting our fucking rocks off. Even Zed and my sister are fucking.” He shudders. “Ash has been all alone.”
“Stupid, stubborn fuck. What Deb said makes sense though. He must have known longer than a few months. I wondered why he was turning down pussy left right and centre. I guess I just didn’t care enough to ask. I was too wrapped up in your wifey.”
Speak of the devil ... Ali comes out of the hospital as if she’s looking for us ... or maybe just Coop. She’s sobbing so hard she can barely breathe. Coop and I are on our feet in seconds. “Baby, what’s wrong.”
“Ash ...” she chokes on the words. “Ash is dead.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Not fucking funny, Red.”
My blood turns to ice in my veins. I stagger back against the wall.
“He had AIDS-related lymphoma. The doctors said he was due to start treatment last week, but he never showed. He’s dead,” she whispers.
I stalk back through the hospital doors. I don’t believe it. This is bullshit. He had AIDS not fucking cancer. They don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. We need another hospital, a second opinion. The doc is talking to Deb and Zed. Deb is leaning into my bandmate, her face buried in his broad chest. I march through the doors and right up to the idiot doctor, grabbing him by the coat, and shaking him so hard his teeth rattle. “You save him, you fucking bring him back. You hear me you piece of shit, you bring him back.”
The doc’s eyes are wide with fear. “He’s gone. I can’t bring him back. We tried ... we did everything we—”
I swing my arm back and punch him in the face. Blood flies out of his busted nose and I step back. Coop pins my arms behind me, but I shake him off and head for the door. Once out on the street, I walk without any direction. I slam my fist into the hood of a parked car. It stings like a bitch, but I shake it off as the alarm rings out into the night. I walk for an hour before I find a liquor store, and then I buy the biggest bottle of Johnny Walker they have and become real acquainted with it while I lay down on a park bench somewhere. The swings creak as they move with the wind. It’s eerie, and as I conjure up ghosts, reality wraps around me like a shroud, pushing out the cold, and allowing only numbness in.
Ash is dead.
There’s a fire in my belly, fuelled by rage, and alcohol, and it’s enough to keep me from freezing on this crappy park bench. I take sip after sip after sip. I drink myself into oblivion, because it hurts far less than the icy wind blasting my face, or the fact that my best friend was alive and talking to me, less than four hours ago, and now he’s dead.
Gone.
Forever.
I didn’t even know he was sick—not this sick. He had a cold. A common cold, he didn’t have cancer. They’re wrong. He wouldn’t just not show up for treatment like that. I should have been here. Instead, I’ve been buried inside Brie, and now I understand why she said she hated me, why she can never forgive me. Because I can never forgive me either.
Ash had spent months hiding this shit from us. We’d all been too busy, too caught up in pussy to see that our brother needed us. We’d all dropped the ball, but me especially. He was my fucking best friend, and I abandoned him when he needed me the most. I failed him, and I will never ever forgive myself for it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE EX FACTOR
LEVI
I’m not ready for this. No matter how I prepare, I’ll never be fucking ready for this. My best friend is dead, and I’m sat here in my apartment, showered, but naked, staring at the suit I’m supposed to wear to his viewing. Because everyone wants to see Ash—the once fit and very much alive rock star—pasty-faced and staring up at them from the inside of a casket. Four days after his death and I still don’t really believe it. I still can’t function, I can’t breathe, and whisky and coke are the only things keeping me afloat.
If I could be bothered, I’d go out and find some pussy—hell, maybe I’d even get lucky and contract AIDS too. There’s a strange sort of poetic justice in that, going out like Ash did, finally getting my comeuppance after a lifetime of using women. But I’m too drunk to even muster a semi, and what the hell would be the point? I’d only be blinded by desire imagining it was Brie’s pussy I was burying myself in, and heartbroken all over again when I opened my eyes and saw it wasn’t her.
What was the fucking point in any of it? I may as well just sit here and drink myself to death. At least then I know I’d be happy with my bedfellows in the morning. I wouldn’t have to throw Jack, Jim, or Johnnie out when the sun rose, because they’d be gone, all used up.
There’s a knock on my door and I get up to open it. I stagger a bit before leaning on the wall and moving at a snail’s pace towards it. I throw it open, not caring that I’m naked, or who might be on the other side. Maybe I should have though, because strangely enough, my two exes stand in my doorway.
“Jesus, did I just step onto the set of Revenge?”
“You’re drunk,” Ali says, looking down her nose at me, which is impressive for someone so vertically challenged.
“And you’re married. Me being drunk never stopped us before, but hey, I’m up for it if you two are.”
“Cut the shit, Levi,” Ali says.
“At least I’d go out with a bang.” Both women just glare at me. “Where the fuck is Zed when you need him? He’d have gotten that joke.”
“We might have too, if it had actually been funny,” Ali says.
“Not that it isn’t nice to see the two women I fucked and who fucked me up in a room together, but what do you want?”
“I heard about your friend,” Brie says. It’s the first time she’s said anything since I pulled back the door, and the sound of her voice—that fucking hot French accent—guts me to the core. “I am so, so sorry.”
“Yeah, well sorry doesn’t bring him back, but you already know that, don’t you?”
Brie sighs and Ali just shakes her head and says, “You need to sober up and get ready.”
“Fuck sober.”
“Then at least have the decency to sit your arse down and think about the fact that Brie just travelled thousands of miles to see you, and you haven’t even acknowledged her.”
“I’m sorry, did I forget to roll out the fucking welcome mat for you, princess?”
Brie’s shoulders sag, and I both love and hate that it’s so easy to hurt her with careless words. “Levi—”
“What exactly are you doing here, Brie?” I swig from the bottle in my hand and frown when I find it empty. “Did you burn through your two-hundred-thousand-dollar pay cheque already? You need to come running all the way to Australia to ask Daddy for more money? Get on your knees, little girl, and we’ll work something out.”
“You arrogant arse!” She closes her eyes against her tears, but she won’t let them trail down her cheeks. She’s far too proud for that. I feel like shit. I want to touch her, pull her into my arms, fuck her, but I can’t. I glance at Ali, who’s busy looking around my apartment. It occurs to me that with everything this woman and I shared, she’s never seen the inside of my home. “I came here because I made a mistake ... I love you, Levi.”
I scoff and throw my arms wide with a bitter smile. “Then where the hell you been, Brie?”
“I came as soon as Ali called me. I’m sorry about your friend. I’m sorry I pushed you away. My mother was heartbroken after my father’s death, and I couldn’t leave her.”
“But not you, right?” I walk over to the coffee table and snag a half-finished bottle of Johnnie Walker XR. Then I plant my naked arse on the couch and glare up at her. “You weren’t heartbroken.”
“Mon Dieu!” And that does it, my Angry French Girl is back with a vengeance. “Would you just listen for once?
I love you, idiot! I’m here because of you. Because I couldn’t live without you.”
“Jesus fuck!” I laugh and tilt my head up to the ceiling, praying for answers, or a fucking bullet. “Why do I let you women do this shit to me?”
“And that’s my cue to leave,” Ali says. I turn my head to look at her. I forgot she was even here. “Brie, call me if you need me.”
Angry French Girl nods. “Merci.”
“You.” Ali points at me. “Sober the hell up. The viewing starts in two hours.” She leaves my apartment, slamming the door behind her.
I glance at Brie, her silken hair falling over her shoulders, and sadness in her eyes. “I like her. I didn’t think I would because she fucked you and broke your heart, but I actually like her.”
“Then why don’t you go and join her and Coop?” I pull the lid off the scotch whisky and drink. “You can have your own little ménage à trois.”
“Maybe we could,” she agrees, stepping closer. “But there is just one problem.”
“Really, what’s that?”
“He isn’t you.” Brie climbs into my lap. My cock twitches. Her features soften, and she peppers my face with kisses. “I missed you so much.”
I cup her cheek with my free hand and look at her. I can’t believe she’s here. She’s all I’ve wanted for weeks, but these last few days especially. And she’s crying, sobbing as she smooths her fingers over my cheeks, and burrows her head into my palm. I let go of the bottle of booze, and suddenly the dam within me breaks. Everything I’ve been shoving down since she left me comes ripping, tearing, screeching to the surface, and a sob more animal than human tears from my throat. Jesus. I bet Ash would bust a nut laughing if he could see me right now. I’m naked and pussing out like a little bitch while the woman of my dreams straddles my lap.
“It hurts so much.”
“I know. Shh,” she soothes, clutching to me for dear life. Her fingers slide into the hair at the nape of my neck. I let her hold me close, and pet me, and I wrap my arms tightly around her body, afraid she’ll disappear.
Her lips give me soft, sweet kisses. That’s not what I want. This woman walked away from me, and here she is, straddling my hips, kissing me like it’s a fucking goodbye. It’s not a goodbye. I slide my hand into her hair at the back of her head and pull her down to me, pressing my lips hard against hers and thrusting my tongue in her mouth until she yields, until she opens and submits to me. There’s something wrong, though; she’s not kissing me back the way I want her to. In fact, she’s trying to get away. I pull back and glare at her.
“What the fuck?” I snap. “You come all this way just to be my friend, Brie?”
“No, of course not.” She shakes her head emphatically. “But I don’t think now is the best time to reconnect. You’re hurting.”
“Yeah, my cock’s aching too. Or can you not feel that?” I roll my hips beneath her, pushing my hard-on against her soft flesh.
“Levi, stop. It’s okay to feel grief. It’s okay to not make everything about sex.”
“Says the woman wearing that.” I glance down at her cleavage on display.
“I need to take a shower. I’ve had a long flight.” She crawls off me and stands beside the couch. Her gaze darts to my hard-on and then back up to my face.
Jesus Christ. I need a drink, a line of coke, or a hit of something stronger. “Fine, go take a fucking shower.”
Suddenly I want her gone, because I have a little baggie full of coke with my name on it. My snow-white friend won’t take away the pain completely, but it’ll take the edge off; it’ll make this day more bearable, so it’s a fucking start.
She sighs and holds a hand out to me. “Come on, you could use some sobering up.”
“In a minute,” I say, trying not to eye the stash of coke and the little metal straw I purchased for this very purpose for the fear that I may draw attention to it, and Brie might take it away.
She gives me a sad smile. “Okay, where is your bathroom.”
“Second door on the right.” As soon as she disappears, shutting the door behind her, I spring forward and grab the little silver tray with my coke on it. Only, the bag isn’t here.
“What the fuck?” I shout to the empty room. I sweep everything off the coffee table and get down on my hands and knees, rummaging through the debris. I pull out the couch cushions, one by one. I tear the fucking place apart, but my coke is nowhere to be seen. I spot Brie’s handbag on the floor and rifle through it. I glance at her suitcase, but there’s no way she could have stolen it and stashed it in there because my eyes were on her the whole fucking time. Red. That fucking bitch. She swiped my fucking coke while I was distracted with Brie.
Fuck!
I upend the coffee table and stare at the mess, panting. Then I find a pair of discarded jeans on the floor and a worn Henley and throw them on. Grabbing my keys and my wallet off the kitchen counter, I walk out and go in search of a high that won’t tease me with the promise of oblivion, but one that will actually give it to me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
TEA AND SYMPATHY
BRIELLE
I slide my thumb over my screen and check my notifications. Nothing. He’s been gone for hours, almost as long as I’ve been in the country, and it’s hard not to take that personally. It’s hard to believe the words that came out of his mouth were from the same man I fell in love with, but then, I guess he’s no longer that man. Grief changes you. Drugs and alcohol change you, and my Levi—the Levi from the south of France who was quick with wit and innuendo, who wielded his humour as if it were a sword to distract from the pain he was really feeling—that Levi is long gone. I don’t even know the man who stands in his place.
Still, all of the anger does not stop me from worrying whether he is lying face down in a ditch somewhere, or whether he is in the arms of another lover. Possibly more than one, if I know him at all.
I glance around the living room, at his friends, who are certainly more family than his own seems to be. I can tell they are all exhausted, and grief-stricken, too. Levi wasn’t the only one who lost a band member, though none of them are out drinking themselves to death.
“Why don’t you go home?” I say, finally standing and making myself of use. After I emerged from the shower this morning, I didn’t know what had happened. I called Ali and told her that he was missing. She confessed to having stolen his drugs so he wouldn’t be high at the viewing, but she didn’t think he would leave in search of another fix. Not when I was here. I guess neither of us know the true Levi. “I have Ali’s number and can text when he comes back?”
“We don’t mind,” Cooper says. His arm is wrapped around his wife’s shoulder. The two look tired but content in each other’s arms. “You guys go,” Cooper says to Zed. “Take my sister home.”
“Call me once you hear something?” Zed asks.
Cooper nods. “Yeah.”
Zed and Deb make to leave, and I see them to the door, though it feels ridiculous playing hostess in an apartment that I barely know. I am tired, jetlagged, and all I want to do is cry, or fly back to Paris, back to Monsieur Chat and forget I ever came here, but I can’t. I would never forgive myself, so I walk his friends to the door, and I apologise for his bad behaviour, and I wonder if this is what my life will be now, if I just sealed my fate with that airline ticket to be here and wait for him, and apologise on his behalf to the people who love him.
“You want a beer?” Coop says.
“Non, merci. I will make a tea.” I head to the kitchen and stop dead in my tracks because I remember who’s house I am in. “Oh, he probably does not even have tea.”
“Think you’re fresh out of luck there,” Cooper says. “Unless it’ll fuck you up, Levi is unlikely to have it.”
Ali rolls her eyes and joins us in the kitchen. “He has throat tea. I bought it for him last week.”
“Oh, thank God. I could kiss you, Ali.”
“I wouldn’t say no to seeing that,” Coop mutters.
Ali shoots him a grin. “I’m not sure I would either. Brie’s hot.”
“Just so you know, I’m not having sex with either of you. This band is far too incestual as it is.” I chuckle. The front door slams, and Levi stumbles into the room. I almost drop the boiling kettle in my hands.
“Well shit. Didn’t know I was missing the party,” Levi slurs. His eyes are bloodshot, his pupils so dilated I can barely see the ring of perfect hazel around them, and the look he gives all three of us is particularly nasty. “Where’s the fucking booze?”
“Where have you been?” I demand, my voice quavering as I set the kettle down and step away from the countertop.
“There she is, my Angry French Girl. I was beginning to think she’d gone away for good, which would suck, because you’re fucking hot when you’re angry.”
I narrow my eyes. “And you are a disappointing drunk.”
“Disappointing? That’s one I haven’t been called before.” He chuckles darkly as he staggers forward and wraps his arms around me, clumsily laying sloppy kisses on my neck. He reeks of alcohol, and his mouth when he kisses me is bitter and makes my own lips tingly and numb at the same time.
“Stop.” I push him away. He staggers back several steps. He can barely keep his eyes open. “You’re high.”
“What’s the matter, baby? You pissed I didn’t save you any? I got more. We can get fucked up, and fuck all night long. I can have that greedy little cunt of yours coming for me in seconds.”
“That’s enough,” Cooper says, wedging himself between us.
Levi glares and stumbles around him toward the kitchen. “I need a drink, anyway.”
Cooper steps in front of him. “Where the fuck were you today?”
“Why do you care, Coop?” he sneers, and he almost topples as he bends over to pull a bottle of whisky from the cupboard. “Oh, I forgot, you’ve gotta be in charge of everyone, right?”
“Don’t fucking start. I realise that you think the entire world revolves around you, because you’re an absolute child, but we were supposed to view Ash’s body today, and you thought it was a better idea just to go and get fucked up. Brie has been here all goddamn day, worried sick. She hasn’t even been in the country a full twenty-four hours and already you’re fucking shit up.”
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