“I’m honored that you chose me to confide in.” Sadness fills me on his behalf. The girl he loved had meant a lot to him and I sense there isn’t a happy ending. Lowering my lashes, I squirm. “Do you still have contact with her?”
He’s so silent, so still, I think I’ve offended him. After a long moment, he says, “It’s hard to communicate with the dead.”
Sloane
Georgie’s shocked gasp resounds in the room, but I offer no more. I’ve already told her too much. Steffie is a memory better left buried. Or scattered in Galveston Bay, along with her ashes.
“I’m so sorry,” she says quietly.
Her sympathy is real, earnest in her face. It doesn’t escape me that Georgie is the same age I was the year my world fell apart. Is that why I’ve latched onto her? Yes, I want to help her and yes, from the moment I saw her, high as a fucking kite, I wanted to fuck her. My need to know that she’s safe and healthy is deeper than mere attraction. It’s an attempt to recapture the innocence I lost.
She stands up, gauging the length of her IV line, before creeping towards me and laying her fingers on my arm. Her touch is soft, almost shy. She inches closer and hugs me, burying her hands in my hair and stroking.
Her pulse is pounding and I attempt to resist my reaction to her. My guitar is a barrier between us, so I take a chance and return her embrace. Our mutual hold isn’t tight, but it’s significant. She offers me understanding and comfort. I offer her warmth and care. We need no words because our touch says it all.
“Why did you visit me today?”
Unable to resist, I remove the guitar and lean it against the side of the chair. I pull her closer and she rests her head on my shoulder. I give her as much of the truth as I’m capable of—as much as I’m willing to admit or am fully aware of.
“My number one fan needed company. I had time to hang out with her, so here I am.”
Her lips move against my shoulder and I detect her smile. “Your intention wasn’t to give me an inquisition about Thursday?”
“Not really.”
She’d been on my mind since I walked away from her mother last night. When I reached the studio, it relieved me to find Maitland there, giving his drum kit a work out. For an hour, we blended our sounds, but my resentment crept back in and I lost my enthusiasm, so I called Kiln and returned to the hotel. Not that I’d gotten much sleep. Georgie had been on my mind and I figured she’d have no one to visit her. The moment I saw her, though, I remembered the taste of her pussy and the feel of her mouth on me. Jealousy had reared its ugly, green head. I’d had to be certain that she sucked my dick because of who I was and not for any other reason.
The door suddenly opens and Georgie stumbles away at the same time that I release her as if she’s turned into hot coals. An older nurse circles to Georgie’s other side. A flush sweeps Georgie’s skin, but I keep my focus steady and cool as I stand, so the nurse can get near the monitors. In silence, she checks Georgie’s blood pressure, grabs a pen and small pad from her pocket, and writes the vitals down before adjusting the IV bag. “Back in bed, miss,” she says sternly, holding out Georgie’s oxygen line. The teddy bears on her scrubs bely her brusque manner.
“My granddaughter is a huge fan of yours,” the nurse says casually, not looking at me while she focuses on getting Georgie resituated.
I nod, unable to detect her mood or her suspicion. There’s no crime in hugging Georgie, but my hard cock and Georgie’s protruding nipples give us away.
She holds out her notepad. “Would you sign this for her?”
“Of course.” She places the paper and pen in my outstretched hand. “Name?”
“Ursula,” she says, beaming at me.
Always rise, I scribble my usual message, before signing my name. Although she has no hope of seeing what I’ve written, Georgie’s nosiness has her craning her neck in a valiant attempt. I laugh under my breath and send a very happy nurse on her way.
When I look at Georgie, she quickly glances away and I laugh aloud. “Always rise,” I tell her.
“What?”
“My autograph. That’s what I write before I sign my name.”
She doesn’t pretend that she wasn’t curious. “I like that.”
“Would you like my autograph?”
She rolls her eyes. “What a stupid fucking question. Of course.”
Her foul language dissolves my good humor. Irritation surges in me and I glare at her. “You’re undisciplined.”
“Not really.” She struggles to resist probing deeper but she loses. “Why do you think that?”
“You curse like a sailor. You drink. You’re at adult parties. You have no direction.”
“That’s better than straying from a course already set,” she snaps, looking pointedly at me. “What are you doing here? Why do you care? Why me? Because I sucked your dick? My cock sucks are that fucking awesome that a world-famous rock star is blowing off recording sessions on my behalf?”
Her ungratefulness adds to my lingering outrage at her filthy words. “Why you?” I repeat. “Why not you?”
“Because you’re going to shower me with attention and still fucking walk away when your time here is over. Where will that leave me? Still alone.”
She’s right. Sighing, I drop back into my seat and rub my hands over my face in frustration. “You’re so fucking young, Georgiana. You have your entire life ahead of you. The night we met you were so fucking strung out, I doubt you remembered your goddamn name.” In the heat of this honesty, I can think of no other example, although I’m certain if I’d demanded she identify herself, she would have. “Why you? Because you’re me all over again and I want you to have what I’ve never had.” Not since Steffie’s death. “Support.”
“Thank you,” she says quietly, but her joy is gone. I’ve made her sound like a charity case.
Her downcast eyes and her air of capitulation hurts my dick. I want her like this in my bed. Maybe, I’ll fly her to Europe during Thanksgiving. There, she’s legal to fuck.
The idea is brilliant and it cheers me until I realize I might not get her out of my system even if I have her. I feel a connection to her, a mysterious bond that’s becoming harder and harder to ignore.
Still fighting it, her, I change the subject. “The music is shit.”
She frowns at me.
“By the time we exploded onto the scene, I was an addict. My drug use started a few months after my sixteenth birthday—“ A few weeks after Steffie’s death— “It became apparent a few years ago when I began to be too fucking high to perform at our concerts. I missed press junkets—or was strung out at them. I fucked up an entire tour, Georgiana. I carried illegal weapons because of the fucked up places I found myself. My accounts were frozen, but I needed my fixes.” I scrub my hands over my face again, hoping I’m getting through to her. Some of this is public news. Other parts have been taken care of by Jaeger, manager and spin doctor. “Fifteen months ago? When I destroyed the equipment in the studio? When I shot at Kiln?” Her eyes widen. “That didn’t get through to me. I overdosed that night. Kiln and Maitland found me. After I recovered, I agreed to go into rehab. I resent the fuck out of all of them for pushing my back to the wall with threats. Suddenly, music that was everything to me is an albatross. Until I’m onstage. Then, it’s everything. I understand their position, but I feel cornered. They don’t trust me—I betrayed them time and again and, yet, I founded the band.” I turn away from the grief in her eyes. She idolizes me and I’ve just shown myself to be nothing but a man. “Do you want that for yourself? Do you want to find your calling in life and feel the fire for it smother away until it almost chokes you?”
She shakes her head.
I grip her chin between my thumb and forefinger. “I shouldn’t have come. You’re right. I want to save you but I want to fuck you, too.”
“I’ll remember everything you’ve shared with me. You have an unfair advantage over my heart. The night we met, it already loved you. It’s onl
y gotten stronger with the time I’ve spent with you. But that doesn’t matter. No one will believe I carry real feelings. True love is only possible if you’re eighteen and over. It would’ve broken my heart if you’d died, but you didn’t. You endured. You’re a survivor, Sloane. I know you’re hurt and angry. Get over it. We all have choices, right? You chose to agree to their terms and do this tour, record the album. Walk away if you feel put upon.” She glances away from me and sunlight bounces off her glistening eyes. “For what it’s worth, I believe in you. I always have and I always will. It’s time for you to start believing in yourself.”
She says nothing more. What else is there to say? We’ve exhausted words and emotions, so I kiss her forehead. But it isn’t enough, so I kiss her lips and she grabs my neck, clinging to me. She pulls away first and caresses my jaw.
“Go, Sloane,” she orders. “Make your music and forget about me.”
Sloane
Fingers of darkness spread in all directions of the layered sky. Orange atop purple atop gray and dark blue. Despite the heat, it’s a gorgeous Houston night and I’m tempted to get on the Harley once I get back to the hotel and take a ride to Galveston.
My mind is all over the place, but, somehow, always goes back to Georgie. It takes everything in me to not return to her hospital room tonight. Luckily, it’s after hours once I arrive at my suite after another practice session.
Only Kiln returns with me. Undoubtedly, to fucking torture me, since he’s so fucking skilled at it. He opens the door and precedes me in, leaving me to close it, since it doesn’t have the hinge to automatically do so. When I do and I turn, I stop dead in my tracks before scowling at the man on the sofa and heading to the bar.
“Do you want a drink, Dad?” I ask grudgingly.
He doesn’t answer until I reach the bar. “Gin and tonic.”
Kiln snorts. We both know gin and tonic was my mother’s favorite drink. When she died, Dad seemed to use it as a memorial to her.
Other than my mother, I can’t imagine Rand Mason idolizing anyone to such a degree. He’s white-haired and distinguished, and seems to breed money by snapping his fingers. Out of all his children, I resemble him the most.
Resentment wafts from Kiln. I bare my teeth at him, not bothering to offer him refreshments. I’d just as soon serve him piss.
Once I hand Dad his drink and he tastes it, I seat myself across from him.
“How was your date?” he asks with a smirk.
He’s referring to Cassandra, whom I refuse to discuss with him. Or anyone. She’s a mistake best forgotten. Gulping my vodka neat, I roll my eyes and counter, “How did you get involved with Abby’s shenanigans? An old fuck like you?”
Dad’s seventy if he’s a day. I stopped keeping track of his birthdays upon Steffie’s death. There’s an even greater age difference between him and Abby than there is between me and Jaeger.
He shrugs. “She met Parnell through me. A business meeting at the country club and she just happened to be there with her friends.”
Kiln drops into another seat, pulls out his cell phone, and begins to scroll through it. Lips in a tight line. Eyes downcast with the pretense of distraction.
“Kiln,” Dad says in an unyielding voice.
His jaw is so tightly clenched, I listen for a tooth to pop, but it doesn’t happen as he squeezes out, “Sir.”
Satisfied that he’s completely fucked off Kiln, Dad grins and drains his glass. He sits it on the table.
“I thought a bit of different entertainment would take the boredom away.”
He isn’t letting it drop. “She’s a complication I don’t need. She’s fucking married.”
“As if that’s ever stopped you, motherfucker,” Kiln snarls.
Not allowing me to respond, Dad digs inside his suit pocket and pulls out a piece of folded paper, tossing it to me. I pick it up and stare at a cheaply printed photo of me leaving the hospital where Georgie is admitted.
“It’s already all over the internet. I’ve checked so I know who you were visiting.”
My eyes snap to his face. Anger flushes his cheeks and he narrows his eyes.
“Do you know the damage you can do?”
“She’s my fan,” I bite out coldly. “Spin it however the fuck you want to.”
“How about I spin it as the man who murdered his sister. Slept with his brother’s wife. Od’d.”
The pounding of my heart is loud in my ears and I feel as if I want to throw up. If I’ve never hated my father—which I do on a daily basis—I would now.
Lost in his lies, he began to believe them years ago. Even if he hadn’t, it would ruin the story that I’d killed Steffie if he continued to embrace me as the love child my mother gave to him.
“I didn’t kill her,” I repeat for the millionth time.
“As they live, so, too shall they die,” Kiln says casually.
I shoot to my feet, incensed. “You’re the last fucking hypocrite who should quote the bible. Money grabbing motherfucker. Avenge Steffie. Report me. Retaliate for your fucking wife, Kiln.”
His eyes speak volumes. He hates me.
“I hate you. I pity you. I scorn you. I wish you would’ve died that day with my big sister.”
Steffie always belonged to him and Jaeger. I was never good enough, according to them, to have any part of her.
“Or, even, in her place,” he continues. “Everything I’ve ever loved has been tainted by you. Even you.”
The implication that he ever loved me hangs in the air.
He hated me, “the wild, undisciplined, little prick”, on sight, and regretted the day Dad walked back into their lives.
“You’ve always been a spoiled fucker with your head up your ass.”
Well aware of these feelings, I don’t flinch. He saw himself as the dragon to burn me to bits and pieces.
“Jaeger and I made a pact. We’d torment you and humiliate you every chance we got. Steffie didn’t agree.”
I know. She liked me. She loved hearing my music and felt honored having such a talented family member.
For whatever reason, my mother wanted the kids to “get to know one another”, hence the reason for Dad reemerging in their lives. “You thought it would be the beginning of my downfall when Dad showed up. You believed our father would decide to include his two, older sons in his life and his legacy.”
We’re speaking as if Dad isn’t here, as if this bullshit hasn’t been rehashed forever and a fucking day.
Our lives entwined and gripped us in a chokehold. To this day, Kiln blames me for Steffie’s death, but he wasn’t there. Still, he insists it wasn’t a fucking accident.
According to Dad, I killed her because she was the easiest target after Kiln’s and Jaeger’s years of torment to me.
When it happened, I was sixteen and I was afraid of going to jail, so I stayed silent, eventually losing myself in music, sex, and drugs.
“When I went to college and met Dietrech, my world turned over.”
Kiln hangs his head, but Dad is unaffected. As much as I hate Kiln, seeing his heartache, knowing where the words are leading, I feel like shit for the agony I inflicted on him. Even before he refused to believe me about the facts of Steffie’s death when I started proclaiming my innocence after Dad brokered the deal between me, Kiln and Jaeger, he tormented me. I wanted him to feel the same pain, so, in this I chose the easiest target. His wife.
Her unusual name matched her unusual eyes. Golden, like a cat’s. Like her generously-framed body and her short, curly hair. We seem to have that in common—attraction to girls with odd-colored eyes, although I didn’t know it then, too busy losing myself in music and pussy and dabbling in drugs. Dad was using his money and power to catapult four snotty little fuckheads—myself, Maitland, Adam, and Quint—to the pinnacle of success.
“Shut the fuck up,” I order, “or challenge Dad and go public with the story.”
Dad’s anger turns icy, threatening. This is no longer about my mishap i
n visiting Georgie. This has turned to the heart of our hatred.
“You won’t though,” I taunt. “You’re too chicken shit and too money hungry, power hungry, to ever fuck up your meal ticket.” Me.
His look cuts me down. “I fed you drugs and hoped you overdosed. I watched your destruction. Until I met my girl. My Dietrech. When I backed away from you, you went to rehab for the first of several times.”
The weight of Kiln’s words almost crushes me. I never stopped to consider my actions or the pain I’d cause. I was too lost in my own pain and grief to care about anyone else’s. Everyone had always been so wrapped up in their own agendas.
Kiln was my enemy. Period. He didn’t believe me. He’d always fucked me over. The three times I’d had sleepovers at his mother’s house, he knocked the fuck out of me and stole the money I’d brought with me.
He had an unjustified resentment of me. As a stupid dickhead, he couldn’t understand I had no fucking say so in our birth order or his parents’ breakup.
If there’s any fairness to this, it’s that he now has a reason to despise me.
Still, I’m so sick of this bullshit, so I stare at my dad, silently asking him to release us from this hellish contract. I’m famous enough, wealthy enough in my own right where I don’t need him.
The ghost of my sister haunts me. I’ve apologized to her for being unable to save her.
“The way you seduced my wife and made sure I caught you in bed. You recorded key moments where she confessed her love for you and swore she’d leave me.” He gives me a bitter look. “Had you killed me, I would’ve been better off. Dietrech had become my entire fucking life and you took her from me.”
It should’ve been a huge scandal. Kiln had sworn it would be. For once, Jaeger wasn’t on the fucking fence about me and sided with Kiln.
“You don’t fuck your brother’s wife, Sloane,” Dad had said back then. “That’s crossing the line.”
“What line would that be exactly?” I’d retorted.
Phoenix Rising Rock Band: The Series Page 9
