Next In Line: A Cake Series Novel

by J. Bengtsson

  Stunned by her honesty, I whispered, “Thank you, Michelle. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

  She smiled and then nudged me. “Quinn wants to see you.”

  My head shot up. “Really?”

  “Really. And guess what the first word out of his mouth was?”

  “If you say Debbie, I’m going to cry.”

  “Who?”

  “No. Nothing. Just an inside joke between Quinn and me,” I said, allowing excitement to creep in until realization hit. “Wait—isn’t the ICU for immediate family only?”

  “That’s right. Scott and I let the staff know you’re his fiancée. They’re expecting you.”

  I jumped to my feet, feeling reinvigorated.

  “Jess.” Michelle grabbed my wrist, her eyes misting over. “Quinn doesn’t know yet. So if he asks about the shooting, be cautious.”

  I paused, flickers of panic gripping me. “He doesn’t know?” I whispered.

  She shook her head.

  “When will you tell him?”

  “I don’t know. We just don’t want anything to stress him.”

  “What if he asks me? Michelle, I can’t lie to him.”

  She considered my dilemma, no doubt comparing it to her own. “If you can sidestep the question, that’s preferred, but I trust you to do what you feel is right. I suspect you know him better than any of us nowadays, so maybe the truth needs to come from you… when you think he’s ready.”

  I considered Michelle’s words as I stood outside the unit, waiting for the go-ahead to see Quinn.

  Maybe the truth needs to come from you.

  The truth?

  My stomach churned.

  The truth was that nine people perished in the shooting before security guards wrestled the man down. Fifteen more were wounded, and scores were injured trying to escape.

  The truth was the gunman worked for the arena. He’d had a grudge and a death wish and a desire to take as many with him as he could.

  The truth was Wylder had been the target of the night, not Sketch Monsters, and it wasn’t anything Wylder had done wrong either. They’d been marked for death simply because they were the headliners on the very night the gunman had decided to die.

  The truth was the perpetrator only opened fire upon Sketch Monsters because he’d been spotted with a suspicious bag and security was moving in.

  And the truth—the big horrible, terrible truth that Michelle did not want Quinn to know, but that I’d now been tasked to tell—was that not every member of Sketch Monsters had survived.

  Quinn slowly opened his eyes, focusing on me.

  “Hey, babe,” I said, stroking the back of his hand.

  He didn’t speak, just blinked.

  I leaned in to place a light kiss to his cheek. “I love you so much. I was so scared.”

  “Who are you?”

  I took a step back, shocked speechless. He didn’t know who I was? How could that be? His mom said he’d wanted to see me, that the first word out of his mouth had been Jess.

  “You don’t remember?” I asked.

  He blinked, no recollection in his gaze.

  “I’m Jess. I’m your girlfriend.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am. We live together. I have a son. His name is Noah.”

  “You’re not my girlfriend,” he replied, his voice stronger and more determined now.

  I stood my ground. “Yes, Quinn, I am.”

  “No, Jess, you’re not. You’re my fiancée.” A grin broke across his lips.

  I grabbed hold of the guardrail, my mouth agape.

  Oh. My. God.

  “You dick monster!” I said, the smile now racing across my own face as I smacked him—literally smacked the arm of a man who’d just been shot. “I cannot believe you just did that to me.”

  “I was just trying to lighten the mood.”

  “Well, you managed to do the impossible, because I’m smiling despite wanting to throttle you.”

  “Come here.”

  I bent down, kissing him for real this time, tears swirling in my eyes. “When you passed out… I thought…”

  “I know what you thought, but you don’t have to worry about me, Jess. Doctor said I was a stud.”

  “You are,” I agreed, struggling to control my emotions.

  “Hey. I’m going to be okay.”

  No, he wasn’t. Not when he heard the truth.

  “How’s Noah?”

  “He’s okay. Really worried about you. He’s being cared for by Casey’s nanny. And Miles and Noah are best buds now, so that helps.”

  As I talked, I could see Quinn fading away in thought. “What happened, Jess? I know it’s bad. My dad is a horrible liar.”

  My pulse quickened. I knew what he was asking, and I was in no position to deny him the truth. He needed to know.

  “Is this my fault?” he asked.

  “Your fault? Why would it be your fault?”

  “Did they target me because I’m a McKallister?”

  “No. It had nothing to do with you.”

  I related to him the story as I knew it: that the plan had been in motion well before Sketch Monsters had been asked to fill in for the other band.

  “So, what are they keeping from me? Is it Tucker? Is he dead?”

  “No, he’s going to be okay. Quinn…”

  “Then what? I can see it in your eyes. Just tell me, Jess.”

  Tears broke free, spilling down my cheeks. I wiped them away, but not fast enough to catch the ones that followed.

  “Brandon.” I sobbed out his name.

  “What about Brandon?”

  “He’s gone.”

  33

  Quinn: Built-In Tragedy

  I had to watch Brandon’s funeral on livestream—not by choice but because continued blood loss from the site of the bullet wound meant the surgeons had to go back in and ligate the leaking veins. All that meant to me was that I couldn’t be there to see my buddy—my bandmate, my brother—be laid to rest. There had been no closure, and without it, I couldn’t seem to move on.

  I tried. I pretended. I convalesced with Jess and Noah by my side. Jess nursed my wound and kept my spirits up as best she could, despite struggling with her own frightening memories of the night as well as the continued fallout from the allegations Nick had made. Taken on their own, the rumors would have died off quickly enough, but the shooting thrust us all into the spotlight, where rumors and conspiracy theories thrived. And now my beautiful, resourceful girlfriend had a stain on her name that couldn’t easily be erased.

  I wanted to be her rock—I tried—but I couldn’t because everything was off.

  I didn’t feel right inside. I seldom slept. I barely ate. And I was pissed. God, so pissed. Pissed at the shooter for being fucked up in the head. Pissed at Tucker for getting us that gig. Pissed at myself for surviving when so many others had died. Why me? Why had I, the easiest shot of all at the front of the stage, not been riddled with bullet holes? None of it made sense, but maybe it wasn’t supposed to. Who lived. Who died. It was all just a random, heart-wrenching twist of fate.

  A few weeks after the shooting, while everyone slept, I sat up watching the video footage of that night. I knew I shouldn’t—and I’d never tell Jess—but the gory images called to me. Thanks to cell phone video, there was extensive film chronicling the minutes leading up to the shooting as well as those fateful seconds when everything went to shit. That meant I could watch myself get shot over and over until the end of eternity if I wanted to.

  But it wasn’t my fate I was tracking. It was Brandon’s. I had some perverse obsession with the way he’d died and was not entirely surprised to discover that seconds before I was hit—that moment I realized the beat had dropped—was the moment Brandon lost his life. He’d fallen back off his stool, his body shielded from view by the drum set he’d loved so much.

  Not that he would have been suffering. If the video footage proved anything, it was that Brandon
had died instantly—a fact that both soothed and horrified me. It had been one swift deadly shot. He wouldn’t have even known what hit him. One second he would have been in the prime of his life, and the next, gone. And that was what I couldn’t square off with in my mind. The fragility of life. The only thing that had separated my fate from Brandon’s was half an inch. Half a fucking inch!

  The margins were too close. Too dangerous to live life with any security. At any minute, everything could fall apart. I began obsessively worrying about those I loved. Jess. Noah. My family. Had it been one of them, I wouldn’t have wanted to survive. Nightmares flooded my sleep. Every night I was back on that stage, the guys and me joined up there by people I loved. People I would try my hardest to protect once the shots were fired and they all dropped around me. I’d be trying to save one while another was off to the side dying. I was growing more exhausted every night. The fear of losing them was so intense that I was losing myself in the process.

  This wasn’t me. It had never been me. I’d always been a fighter. A protector. I hated feeling this weak and vulnerable, and I knew I needed to pull myself together before it was too late and I lost it all. I needed help; I knew that. But asking for it, doing the work—that required a determined mindset I didn’t have.

  I sighed, flinging the sheets off me when it became apparent I would be getting no more sleep tonight. Walking toward the kitchen, I passed the hall closet and paused. I wanted to open the door, but did I dare? I stood there contemplating, even pressing my forehead to the wood. Should I? Fuck it! I opened the closet door, pulled the guitar case out, and set it down on the coffee table. And then I stared. And stared. I knew what lay inside: Lucia. Another casualty of the night. I’d only recently gotten her back from police evidence, and her smooth ivory body, accented in browns, had been entombed in its case in the closet ever since.

  I wanted to cradle her in my arms again, but I knew from the videos what I’d find—my girl splattered in blood with a bullet hole lodged in her heart. She’d taken a direct hit for me. I’d taken two shots to the heart that night: one, half an inch above; the other, straight-on. Lucia had been there for me, absorbing the bullet into her long, smooth neck. She’d saved my life.

  And I’d repaid her with neglect. Snapping open the guitar case, I removed my beloved Lucia, remembering the day Jake had given her to me. It was the first time in years he’d even really talked to me… seen me. I’d been in the music room when he’d arrived home from tour, and he’d just strolled in and thrust it at me.

  ‘Here,’ he’d said.

  I remembered gaping up at him, disbelieving. ‘For me?’

  ‘For you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because someday, you and me, we’re going to sing on the world stage together, and no one will ever forget our names.’

  Remembering those words was like a punch to the gut. Jake had touched my soul that day, but he’d also set me up to fail. My whole life I’d been chasing that dream.

  I ran my fingers along Lucia’s stained surface. The blood was still there. It could never be erased. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She could be resurfaced and the neck rebuilt, but would I do it? Or would I allow Lucia to remain like this forever, as a living reminder of all the damage done?

  Holding her in my arms awakened something in me. I longed to hear the music again. My music. But in order for her to sing again—for me to sing again—we both needed healing. And I knew the only person who could get me there was the one person I had no right to ask. I’d spent my life blaming him for a tragedy he’d had no part in making. I understood now. I understood the sheer magnitude of what Jake had survived, what hell he’d pulled himself out of to walk among the living. I understood because I was now living a similar nightmare.

  I picked up my phone and pressed his contact number.

  “Hello?”

  “Jake, I know it’s fucking late, but I need you.”

  I didn’t have to wait long. Jake and I were practically neighbors now. After the shooting, Jess, Noah, and I had moved into the guesthouse in the backyard of my parents’ house. We didn’t have much of a choice in the matter after the bullseye Nick had placed on Jess’s back and the notoriety I received from the shooting. It made staying in either Jess’s apartment or mine impossible. We needed a safe place to convalesce, and the guesthouse provided that.

  Having found a comfortable spot under the gazebo, away from prying ears, I watched Jake approach. He looked tired. But then it was one thirty in the morning.

  “Hey,” he said, taking the seat beside mine.

  “Sorry about this.”

  “Don’t be. Sleep is overrated.”

  “I’m not sure I agree. Haven’t been getting much of it lately, and it sucks.”

  “I haven’t gotten much of it in seventeen years. Trust me when I say you get used to it.”

  That surprised me. For whatever reason, I thought Jake had returned to a more manageable state of being, that the terrors of his past had subsided. I remembered the nights he roamed the halls. There had been something so off about him, so disconnected from reality. He used to scare the shit out of Grace and me. A living zombie. A ghost.

  Much like I was now, I noted.

  “I’m glad you called me,” he said.

  Okay. That was… surprising. Why did I always just assume I was a nuisance to him? “Are you?”

  “I saw you spiraling, and I wanted to reach out, but I know how I react to ‘help,’ and you and I are, sadly, very much alike. So I figured you’d come to me when you were ready.”

  “What made you think I’d come to you? We’re not exactly close.”

  “We’re closer than you think.”

  I didn’t understand what he meant by that, and Jake didn’t explain.

  “I mean, who better to talk you through this than trauma central himself, right?” Jake hiked a foot onto the table and leaned back. “Hit me, little brother.”

  “I’m just going to jump right in,” I replied. “How do I move past this, Jake? How do I get back on stage? How can I give Jess what she needs emotionally when I’m a mess? Most importantly, how can I get to where you are without it taking seventeen years?”

  “I’m not sure where you think I am. I hate to break this to you, Quinn, but I’m nowhere near healed. It took me seventeen years just to get here—at the fifty percent mark. If you think there’s an easy fix, you’re going to be very disappointed. The only way I’ve found to punch holes in the trauma is by talking about it, dispensing small bits at a time.”

  “Who do you talk to—Casey?”

  “God, no.”

  “Why do you say it like that?” I asked, wondering how much of what I was going through I could share with Jess.

  “The things I have to say… I don’t feel...” Jake stopped himself and looked away. “Look, for me, the damage just runs too deep. If it takes me another seventeen years, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to talk about the worst of it. But I’ve learned to function… even thrive… on that fifty percent. And you will too.”

  “Well, that isn’t very comforting.”

  Jake shrugged. “Sometimes there are no easy answers.”

  “But that’s what I want.”

  He chuckled. “That’s what you’ve always wanted, Quinn. An easy fix. There isn’t one. You have to know that by now.”

  It was one of those Jake aphorisms that, in the past, I’d internalize as derogatory and allow to simmer. But I was hearing him with fresh ears tonight. And he was right. I always took the path of least resistance, only forging new ones when I was backed into a corner. Well, I was backed into a huge fucking corner now, and if I didn’t do the work required, I was never getting out of it.

  “I do know. I just don’t like to hear it coming from you.”

  He smiled. I smiled back. An unspoken understanding passed between us. We really were so similar.

  “I feel weak.” I sighed. “Like I should just get over this and move on. I feel like I’m
letting Jess down. Letting Noah down. How can they count on me when I can’t even count on myself? And seriously, Jake, how am I supposed to support my little family if I can’t get back on stage?”

  “Why can’t you get back on stage?”

  “Uh, perhaps you haven’t been watching the news.”

  “I know what’s going on. You’ve got to stop being afraid of the stage. What’s the worst thing that can happen up there?”

  I gaped at him. “Um… getting fucking shot!”

  “Exactly. And now you can cross that off the list. Next?”

  “How about dying on stage? That sucks too.”

  “Not sure I agree with you on that. The dead don’t suffer like us lifers do. Do you have any idea how much easier it would’ve been for me to have just died in that basement seventeen years ago? All the suffering I’ve done since. The suicide attempts. The nightmares. The ghosts that took up residence inside my head. It’s mind-numbing. Do you think I did all that shit for me? No! I did it for Mom and Dad. I did it for Kyle. I did it for Casey. And then…” His voice broke. “And then I did it for my kids.”

  “What about you?” I asked. “Have you ever done it just for you?”

  There was a long sigh.

  “Not most days, no.”

  We sat for an extended period, both contemplating our own demons.

  “You’re not making me feel much better,” I said.

  “That’s not why I’m here. I’m not trying to make you feel better. I’m showing you that you can go on… if not for yourself, then for the people you love. You can do it and you can succeed because you’re strong. And then, one day, you’ll be outside watching your kid playing in the sandbox, and he’ll look up at you with love in his eyes and he’ll say, ‘Daddy, I love you.’ That, Quinn, that is when you’ll know you did it for yourself.”