by Aimee Salter
“And you showed it to him.”
Tommy’s face goes dark. “Not right away,” he says in a voice so deep and rich with a threat that I stare at him. “First I listened to it a lot of times. Because he was so messed up last year when you broke up—when he broke up with you. I thought it might be about another guy. And I didn’t want to do that to him.”
He’s got his knees up, his arms resting on them. He clasps and unclasps his right hand. Which is when I notice the red, swollen knuckles, one of them split open with a smear of dried blood.
“You hit him?”
“Fucker deserved it.”
My heart clenches. “Tommy!”
Tommy’s face doesn’t move. Suddenly I catch a glimpse of the rocker bad-boy the entertainment stories are forever talking about. Before, they’d baffled me. The Tommy I knew was about as much of a bad boy as he was a menopausal goose. But the Tommy I knew wouldn’t bail on me without warning either. So I’d convinced myself maybe I just didn’t know him anymore.
“He lied to me, Kel. We don’t do that.”
“But to hit him—”
“Do not defend that bastard. Not when he hurt you, then made me hurt you and…shit.” Tommy pushes to his feet, pacing in front of me. “I didn’t want to hit him. I went to his house because I needed to know. I figured I’d be able to tell by how he looked when he watched it.” The muscles at the back of his jaw flex.
“And?” How did he look when he saw me? Does he miss me? Is he sad? Does he care?
“He’s lucky I didn’t kick his ass then and there.”
I look pointedly at his knuckles.
Tommy grimaces. “I gave him a chance to explain. It was obvious he knew he was the asshole. But he admits lying to me then tries to say I can’t see you.” He stops in the middle of my kitchen. Black t-shirt, studded belt, ripped jeans. Rocker hair, and piercings in both brows and one lip. My ripped, hardass, dearest friend since the fourth grade looks at me with the same fear as the bullied twelve-year-old. “It happened, Kel. I lost it.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “I wanted to kill him.”
“Tommy.” I want to reach for him, but he’s impenetrable.
“I’m serious.”
I take a deep breath. Tommy usually looks placid, laid-back. And it’s not an act. But he’s got anger issues from way back. The bullying. Losing his dad. His mom and her problems. He doesn’t lose control often, but when he does, it’s dangerous to be within arm’s reach.
“Is Crash okay?”
Tommy snorts. “His head’s harder than mine.”
Uncertain what that means, I get to my feet, steadying myself against the counter. Tommy waits for me to speak. I think we both know what I need to say. I take a new breath and say, “It’s not your fault Crash lied. But if you’d answered one phone call, Tommy. Texted back one time.” The tears I’ve been fighting blur my vision. “I can’t just forget that. You have no idea what this year’s been like.”
He scratches the back of his neck, shakes his long hair back. “Fair enough.”
In looking anywhere but at him, I catch sight of the ancient clock in the kitchen. It’s almost five!
I can feel the blood drain out of my face. “You have to get out of here. Dan’ll be home in a few minutes and I need to cook.”
Tommy scowls. “He still has you playing the maid, then?”
I glare at him until he puts up a hand, acknowledging that he does not get to run commentary on my life. His Adam’s apple bobs again, but he doesn’t move, even when I look towards the door. “I’ll go in a sec. I just . . . can I call you? Can we keep in touch? We’re leaving on tour again in December, but until then I want to make it up to you, Kel.”
I scowl, fight the blur that threatens. “We can text, I guess. See what happens.”
Tommy’s shoulders slump, but his face relaxes. “Okay, that’s a start. And Crash?”
My protest gets lost in the adrenaline rush flooding my system at the sound of the garage door.
“You have to leave! Now!”
Reluctantly, Tommy goes. He knows what Dan’s like. Or at least, he knows how bad Dan was a year ago. He has no idea that it’s gotten worse. But he’s giving me concerned looks over his shoulder as I shove him towards the back door that’s right off the kitchen, praying Dan will take the time to shake out his car mats like he often does before coming in. Because I can’t risk him seeing Tommy run past the back windows. “Hurry!”
Tommy is hurrying. But he’s also talking. “Kel, are you okay?”
“Yes! Just get out!”
“Is he hitting you, Kelly?”
“No! But he gets really mad. Please—”
The sound of a door stops me dead, halfway across the kitchen.
“Kelly Annette Berkstram, who the hell is here with you?”
It’s too late. Even if Tommy goes now, Dan’ll hear the door and he’ll just go after him.
I do a quick mental calculation about whether it’s better to let them clash outside, where the fences will shield them from the street, but the neighbors might see so Dan will be more careful, or for me to try to calm him down in here with no audience.
I’m watching the wide opening between the kitchen and living room where Dan will appear when I hear the kitchen door creaking behind me. “You might as well stay, Tommy. He’ll catch you anyway.”
“You learn the guitar withou’ me?” slurs a deep voice that isn’t Tommy or Dan.
A voice I know like I know my own.
Everything slows down.
Dan’s footsteps and curses pound down the hallway, ever closer, as I whirl. Halfway around I see Tommy, mouth open, one hand rising in warning.
Leaning on the handle of our back door is Crash, eyes bloodshot, one side of his face swollen in startling shades of purple.
“There’s two of them?” Dan bellows, rounding the corner behind me.
I gasp. “It’s not what you—”
Dan roars. Tommy’s face darkens. I mentally beg him not to hit Dan as Crash stumbles forward, sprawls on the floor, and vomits on Dan’s shoes.
Chapter Five
Three months ago
Kelly
Staring, frozen, at the mess Crash heaved all over his shoes, Dan goes so red he’s almost purple.
“Kelly, have you been drinking?” His words echo off the kitchen walls.
“No!”
“Kelly, stay back.” Crash is on all fours, coughing and retching.
Crash is here.
Dan steps firmly back and away from him, quivering with rage. “I knew it,” he seethes. “I told your mother your sweet-little-girl thing was all an act.”
“No! It’s not what you think—”
He glares and I take a step back.
Crash coughs. “Kel?” he says weakly, and my heart aches. I’ve envisioned this moment every day for a year. It was never supposed to be like this.
“When you didn’t answer your phone I was worried about you,” Dan says, too quietly.
The bottom falls out of my lungs. “Please, I’m not lying—”
Dan steps toward me.
“You touch her once and I will end you.” Tommy takes a step forward, then stops, as still as I am.
“I will not raise a whore in my house!” Dan roars.
Rage burns in my chest right alongside humiliation because the guys are seeing this. “I am not that!”
Very calmly, Tommy inserts himself between me and Dan so I’m staring at his back instead of Dan’s purple face.
“Get your pussy haircut out of my way,” Dan growls.
I can’t see his face, but I know Tommy smiles. I’m about to beg him to go when, from the floor, Crash launches himself at Dan’s waist.
Eyes wide with shock, Dan falls heavily, landing flat on his back with an almighty thud that shakes the floor.
Crash heaves again. Thankfully, nothing comes up—since it would have landed right in Dan’s lap.
Dan’s screaming. “My back! My back! I’m calli
ng the police!”
And that’s the last straw.
“No, you’re not!” The words are too small.
“This is assault! In my own home!”
Tommy shakes his head. “Fuck, Crash. I had it under control, man.”
Crash, laying on Dan’s legs, says nothing. He looks very much like he needs a doctor.
Is this really happening?
I yell over everyone. “Nobody’s calling anybody!”
Everything goes silent for a beat. Then Dan, voice deep, asks slowly, “What did you say?”
Right foot. Left foot. Reach down. Roll Crash off Dan’s legs. Speak through teeth, gritted so they won’t chatter.
“N-nothing happened, Dan. This is Tommy and Crash, my old friends. They’re in a band now.”
Dan rolls onto all fours. “You boys better start running before I get up—”
Tommy tenses, but I force my fingers to close on his arm and push him back. “Don’t, please. He’s all words.”
Now Crash is on his back on the floor, fingers clawed into his hair, face screwed up in a grimace, his skin a mix of inhuman colors.
I kneel next to him to see if his pupils are even, but he keeps pushing my hands away. “Uh, Tommy, was Crash drinking today?”
“Yeah. Why?”
He’s drunk in the middle of the day? Is this what he’s become?
“Who cares about that little shit? Call me an ambulance! I think he broke my back!”
Dan’s back isn’t broken. If it was, he wouldn’t be able to get up on all fours. Would he?
Crap.
“Tommy, call an ambulance.” I can’t believe I have my hand on Crash’s chest. His chest that’s broader than it was a year ago.
“Nooo.” Crash has his hands over his face. “Call Amber.”
“Amber?” Amber is their manager. She’s the one who got them the television appearance and movie soundtrack that made them bona fide rock stars. As far as I know, she doesn’t have an ounce of medical training. “Crash, we need to get you checked out—”
“Call. Amber.”
I look at Tommy, but he’s already on his phone, one hand in his hair. “Amber? Yeah, we have a”—he looks at Crash—“situation.” He winces. “No, we’re at a friend’s house over in Brentwood Glen . . . It’s the suburbs. You got a pen?” He rattles off my address.
He’s seriously calling his manager when Crash needs a doctor?
“Get an ambulance or a doctor or something here . . . No . . . I think Crash’s just really drunk. But our friend’s, um, dad got hurt . . . No. It was Crash . . . No, he tackled him. Look, just get the people here, okay? We can sort it out later.” The voice on the other end—Amber, presumably—gets higher and louder. Loud enough that I catch a curse. Tommy just rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I hear you. Just get them here.”
He ends the call, then looks at me sadly.
Dan’s eases himself back down on the floor, cursing. “Kelly, you call Holly and tell her we might need her, just in case.”
Holly is my aunt who has shared custody of me since Mom died. Everyone says I look just like her. If he’s telling me to bring her, he must really be hurt.
It hits me that if something happened to him—the worst thing, like Mom—I’d be free.
Ugly hope rises in me.
I shake my head. I do not wish Dan dead. “You’ll be fine, Dan, don’t worry.”
I startle as a warm hand closes on mine. Crash has flattened his palm over mine on his chest.
“S’ sorry, Kel. S’ sorry.”
I press my lips together to keep the words in—this isn’t the time—and tear my hand out from under his.
My skin feels like it’s burning.
In the best way.
When Amber strides into my kitchen as if the very room has offended her, she looks from Dan to Crash, to Tommy, then her face goes blank.
Behind her, two teams trot in like it’s a military mission—one pair rushing to Dan, three surrounding Crash. Tommy shifts to stand at my shoulder, watching the team with Crash. “Welcome to the machine.”
I look a question at him.
He shrugs. “Unless it’s life-threatening, we have a private team for this stuff. They’re under contract not to talk to the press.” He’s sheepish like I might not believe him.
I have no words. Medical people swarm my kitchen, Dan’s on his back bellowing like a stuck pig, and Crash—they’ve levered him into a sitting position—keeps shaking his head at whatever the medic says to him.
How is this my life?
Fifteen minutes later, Dan’s strapped to a backboard, which makes me nervous, but the medic says it’s just a precaution.
Tommy scowls at Crash, who’s on his feet, but wavering. One of his team has a hand around his upper arm like a manacle. Crash insists he isn’t drunk. He won’t look at me.
I can’t stop drinking in the sight of him. And hating myself for it.
Dan groans when the medics lift the backboard. I can’t tell if he’s genuinely scared, or just enjoying the attention. There’s a third medic who arrived with an IV and quickly had Dan sorted out with “something to help with the pain.”
They’ve taken vitals and asked him how many fingers they held up.
The one who seems to be leading—a guy with military-short brown hair and startlingly green eyes—talks into a walkie-talkie. “ETA twenty minutes. We’ll need an MRI on one, and toxicology on the other.”
I glance at Crash who just happens to look at me at the same time and our eyes lock. His, ice-blue and rimmed in near-black, widen.
I jerk my attention back to Dan.
The medics—grimacing with the effort—lift Dan, backboard and all, onto a gurney, then strap him down. Amber’s on her phone snapping orders, but she stops when the third medic leans into her ear.
“Where are you taking him?” I look back and forth between Amber and the medic.
“It’s all right. I’ll take her,” Tommy says before they can answer.
Amber goes back to barking into her phone.
Like I’m not even there.
The shock of Tommy—and Crash—showing up, of Dan catching them here, of these people descending on my home, parts like a fog and the simmering anger I’ve struggled against for an entire year broils. My hands shake. There’s a chance if I don’t keep myself in check, I’ll just burn away in an explosion of hurt and rage.
“Someone please tell me what is going on!”
Everyone goes still with faces open in surprise. Except for Amber. “I have to go,” she says, then slides the phone into her perfect suit jacket. “We’re taking your father to a private hospital. Crash will get checked too. Tommy will bring you.”
I bite my lip. “We can’t afford—”
“It’s covered,” Amber snaps. “The bigger problem we have is avoiding the fans on the street. They know you’re here, Tommy. But I don’t think they saw Crash. What were you thinking, driving out here on your own? Merv would have handled it so we could be sure—”
“What fans?” I’m so far past shocked, I don’t even blanch at the angry heat that rises on Amber’s face when I interrupt her.
“Some kid posted a picture of Tommy on Twitter and now there’s a bunch of them on the sidewalk, and the press is on the way. We need to get them out of here now, without any more pictures. Backdoor only. Tommy, you have your car?” He nods once, and Amber’s lips go thin. “We aren’t done talking about this.”
“You can’t tell him—”
She whirls on me. “Do not try to tell me what I can and can’t do, Kelly. It’s my job to keep them safe—especially from their own stupidity. And Tommy coming here unprepared and without a team was stupid.”
Tommy bristles.
But I’ve just realized Dan is gone, and Crash is stumbling out the back door, a medic on either arm. He twists his head to look at me over his shoulder, slurring again. “Don’ listen to him, Kel! He dossen know!”
I can’t answer as he’s hustle
d out of my back door. I’ll probably never see him again. The thought brings both relief and utter panic.
“C’mon,” Tommy says, beckoning me towards the same door. “This part is pretty cool.”
He reaches for me, but I jerk away.
“I-I need to get my keys and stuff.”
“Two minutes!” Amber calls from outside, before closing the door behind her without so much as a goodbye.
Good riddance.
“Go get your stuff,” Tommy says. “I’ll wait.”
My legs feel shaky on the stairs, but I get up to my room and grab my school bag, dumping the contents on the bed so I can throw in a sweater, my wallet, the laptop, and my phone. Which shows several missed calls.
I scroll through the notifications screen. Dan called three times. But between his, there were two calls from Lacie, and another from a number I don’t know.
Lacie’s brother must have taken a photo before we noticed him.
If I were a swearer, I’d burn the walls down right now. I inch to the other side of the room until I can peer out the window to see the sidewalk and driveway out front.
Sure enough, there are four or five kids from my school—including Lacie’s little brother—out there and a couple cars parked on the curb with more bodies moving inside.
Just because Tommy stood at my front door?
My hands shake as I grab a couple books and a change of clothes, just in case, always careful to remain out of sight of the people outside. Downstairs with my bag over my shoulder, I’m grateful that we thought to close the blinds in the living room so I don’t have to pass in front of all those eyes on my way to the kitchen.
Tommy’s standing next to the door, phone in hand. But he puts it away when I walk in. I speak before he can.
“This whole afternoon is another explanation you owe me.”
He chuckles darkly and I have to fight not to grin back at him. Instead, I keep my eyes on my feet and duck once I’m on the grass at the back to stay below the level of our fence so the people on the street won’t see me.
