emotionally exhausted.”
Adam rolled out of bed and into Gabe’s fist. If Adam had had solid footing, the blow to the shoulder might have snapped his collarbone, but it merely knocked him back onto the bed. He wasn’t sure why he was being attacked. He hadn’t done a goddamned thing wrong.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Adam yelled and jumped to his feet, both hands fisted.
“Did you drug her so you could screw her?” Gabe said, his voice low and those bright green eyes of his narrowed to slits.
“What?” Adam glanced at the half-naked, unconscious woman on the bed and finally realized what it must look like to a couple of nosy jerks. “I didn’t screw her.”
“Then why is she naked?” Melanie screamed at him before turning her attention back to her friend. “Nikki? Nikki, open your eyes.”
“She isn’t naked,” Adam pointed out. “Just topless.”
“Melanie?” Nikki said in a slurred voice.
“Yes, it’s me. What did you take?”
“She took Xanax,” Adam said. “She said it helped her relax. And sleep.”
“How many did she take?” Melanie asked.
“I don’t know. I’m not her keeper.”
“You sure you didn’t take advantage of her?” Gabe asked.
“I was just drawing her.” He flung a hand out toward the sketch pad propped against the lamp on the night stand. “And we were both tired, so we fell asleep.”
“And how many Xanax did you take?” Gabe asked, a look of disappointment on his lean face.
“Not that it’s any of your fucking business, but I didn’t take any.”
Gabe scratched his eyebrow, drawing attention to the pair of dark bruises around his eyes. Bruises Adam knew he’d earned the night before when he’d provoked the guy who’d hurt Nikki. Gabe’s need to defend and protect the woman was a bit odd, but Melanie was the one truly freaking out. She had Nikki sitting on the edge of the bed, her naked torso swaddled in the covers.
“Did he do anything to you?” Melanie asked as she stroked the hair from Nikki’s ashen face. “If he did, I will fucking kill him, I swear.”
Nikki’s lower lip trembled, and her eyes filled with tears. She ducked her head to avoid Melanie’s imploring gaze.
If she lied and told Melanie that Adam had molested her just to gain sympathy and attention from the woman she was so obsessed with, he was going to lose it. He was barely holding it together as it was. He didn’t need more drama in his life.
“You can tell me,” Melanie said gently, wrapping an arm around Nikki’s shoulders and tugging her against her side.
“Fuck this shit,” Adam said. “I didn’t do anything to her.”
He grabbed his sketch pad from the nightstand and headed for the open door.
Gabe stepped between him and freedom, crossing his arms over his chest. “You aren’t leaving until Nikki gives us her side of the story.”
“Did you see what he drew?” Nikki said. Her voice was still slurred, but there was an emotional lilt to it as well.
Gabe took the sketch pad out of his hand and examined the drawing. “Kind of gory, but remarkable, as usual.” He angled the drawing toward Melanie.
“She’s naked,” Melanie pointed out, her nostrils flaring.
“N-not that,” Nikki said and touched the side of her head. “The butterfly. He drew a butterfly in my hair.”
Adam and Gabe exchanged startled looks when Nikki burst into body-racking sobs. While Melanie attempted to comfort her, the two guys rushed out of the room and closed the door to offer them privacy. Or avoid a scene. Whatever.
“That woman needs professional help,” Gabe said.
“Then why are you dating her?”
Gabe’s jaw dropped, but then he chuckled when he realized Adam was teasing him. “I meant Nikki. Give me that,” he said, jerking the sketch pad out of Adam’s hands. “Are these lyrics?”
Adam nodded. “The first I’ve written since we’ve been on tour.”
“Fuck yes,” Gabe said as he read the words. “Jacob was really starting to worry about you.”
“I was starting to worry about me,” Adam admitted.
“And this!” Gabe said, tapping the sketch of Nikki that filled in the rest of the enormous page. “This needs to be the album cover.”
Adam’s face went uncharacteristically hot. “What? No, I don’t think—”
“Dude, it’s brilliant.”
Adam gnawed on his lip and scrunched his brows together as he appraised the drawing. It definitely wasn’t good enough to be an album cover. But it wasn’t terrible.
Gabe pulled his phone out of his pocket and started thumbing in a text. “Jacob needs to hear these lyrics,” he said. “They’ll blow his mind.”
“They’re not finished,” Adam said.
“You have no idea how freaked out he’s been about your dry spell, do you?” Gabe said, still typing away on his phone. “And then when you asked Dawn for advice backstage, you had us all freaked out. The rest of us could try to write lyrics, but we all know they’d never be as creative as what you come up with in volume. Jacob even asked me if he thought we could get our hands on some of the stuff we tossed aside from the last three albums that you claimed wasn’t good enough.”
“It isn’t good enough,” Adam said. But he did have the notebooks in a box in his closet if they got desperate enough to use them. Not that he had to worry about his writer’s block anymore. He was so bone-deep miserable over Madison leaving that he’d have his new sketch pad full of ideas within the next twenty-four hours.
He pulled his phone from his pocket in case he’d somehow missed a call or text from her while he’d been asleep.
Nothing.
Was she just being stubborn, or was she really over him that quickly?
Maybe he should swallow his pride and call her right then.
But he wouldn’t. Not yet. He didn’t want to seem desperate, even though he felt that way. In two days, he wouldn’t hold back, but he needed to give her the time she claimed she required.
While they waited for Jacob to make his way to the bus, Adam took his sketch pad from Gabe and sat at the table. He had another idea eating at him already.
Last Goodbye, he wrote.
How could I have known it would be our last goodbye?
The hundreds before never counted for much
A word, a glance, a simple touch
He took you
Before I could let you go
Ashes to ashes
How could I know
That you would say our last goodbye?
Dust to dust
You were gone in the blink of an eye
Now I’m alone
Never to see you
Never to touch you
Never to hear you
Again
How could I have known it would be our last goodbye?
The hundreds before now mean so much.
Any word, every glance, each touch
You gave me
I won’t ever let you go
Ashes to ashes
Because now I know
A way to never say goodbye
Dust to dust
I’ll be gone in the blink of an eye
Just to see you
Just to know you
Just to love you
Again
Adam caught movement in his peripheral vision and lifted his head, his eyes taking a moment to focus on Jacob’s grinning face across the table from him.
“It’s back?” Jacob asked, nodding eagerly.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” Adam said. But at what cost? Did an artist really have to suffer for his work? Or did Adam just have to suffer for his?
“Any guitar music yet? I’m ready to harmonize,” Jacob said, reaching for the sketch pad.
“And I’m ready to bang out a new tempo,” Gabe said.
“And I’m ready to bang,” Owen said with a wide grin. “Where’s Caitlyn when I
need her?”
Adam shook his head, but was grinning a mile wide on the inside at their enthusiasm. He’d forgotten how much fun it was to create. “No guitar pieces yet. I just started on lyrics.”
Jacob flipped the page to the previous verses and dropped the sketch pad. “What in the hell did you do to Nikki?”
“Isn’t that awesome?” Gabe said. “That’s the sketch I was talking about. It would make a fantastic album cover.”
“It’s sick,” Jacob said. “How could you draw a living person all torn apart like that?”
“She is all torn apart like that,” Adam said, pulling the sketch pad toward himself. “You’re just too blind to see it.”
Adam flipped to a new page and wrote Torn Apart
They don’t see what I see when I look at you
A perfect outer shell that hides so many secrets
Scars so deep and
“What do you mean she’s all torn apart like that?” Jacob yelled, startling Adam into looking up from his work.
Gabe rested a placating hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “He doesn’t mean literally. She’s fine. Well, not any worse than she was the last time you saw her.”
“Don’t freak me out like that,” Jacob said. “I don’t need the nightmares. My life is enough of one already.”
Adam flipped the page and wrote My Life, I don’t need the nightmares. My life is enough of one already.
“Are you turning my comments into lyrics?” Jacob asked.
“No one is safe,” Owen said and laughed.
Adam flipped the page and wrote No One Is Safe, dark things reside deep in my thoughts. My greatest concern is if I’ll get caught
Owen fisted a hand in Adam’s T-shirt.
“Hey, stop that,” Owen demanded.
Adam turned to another blank page.
Hey, stop that, he wrote, just to tease Owen.
Gabe chuckled. “I think we’ve created a monster.”
The monster I created ended up scrawled on the next page. That idea had a bit more merit.
“Pencil dick the love machine,” Owen said.
Adam glanced up at him, an eyebrow lifted in question.
Owen laughed and patted Adam’s shoulder a bit too forcefully. “Just seeing if you’re paying attention or just writing down everything we say.”
Pay Attention Adam wrote on another blank page.
I know a guy named Owen
A civilian who wears dog tags
And they call him pencil dick the love machine
“Pencil dick the loooove machine,” Jacob sang in his best impression of Barry White on a porn movie soundtrack. He even gyrated his hips for effect.
“That will be the first single off the new album for sure,” Gabe said.
Adam laughed when Owen launched himself on Gabe’s back and locked him in a choke hold.
“I wouldn’t mess with him,” Jacob said. “He’s used to getting his ass kicked by professional MMA fighters.”
“Semiprofessional . . . UFC . . . fighter,” Gabe said breathlessly, landing a fierce blow to Owen’s ribs with his elbow.
“Oh, my bad,” Owen said, wincing, but not releasing his hold. “I thought he got his ass kicked by the Pillsbury Doughboy.”
“You mean that was you?” Gabe taunted.
Owen squeezed harder. “Some of us have to work at perfection, chicken legs.”
Jacob laughed. “You two really need to work on your insults.”
“Gabe?” a soft voice said from the open bedroom door.
Adam’s smile faded when he saw the look on Melanie’s face. He knew that look. That was how he’d felt when Madison had closed the hotel door behind her as she’d left him.
Owen released his choke hold and slid down Gabe’s back.
“What’s wrong?” Gabe asked, moving to stand before her. He took her upper arms in his hands and stared down into her tear-streaked face.
“I have to leave,” she said.
“What? I thought you were going to go on the road with us.”
“She is?” Jacob said, but he was ignored.
“I want to, but Nikki, she . . .”
“Melanie, you can’t let her rule your life.”
“If I leave her alone, I’m afraid she’ll try to kill herself again.”
“Again?” Gabe questioned.
Nodding, Melanie tucked her hair behind her ears. Her hands were shaking so bad, Adam could see the movement from ten feet away.
“She’s in a fragile state right now.”
“Which is why she should be admitted,” Gabe said. “You aren’t a psychiatrist, Mel. She needs professional help.”
“Don’t you think I know that!” Melanie snapped.
Gabe jerked as if she’d slapped him.
“I’m sorry,” she said and caressed his cheek. “I didn’t mean to yell. And I’m not leaving forever, just until she’s stable. She needs me.”
“I need you too,” Gabe said.
Adam turned his attention to his sketch pad, drawing a lionfish on the corner of the page.
“So,” Owen said loudly, “how about them Cowboys? Think they have a shot at the Super Bowl this year?”
“How should I know?” Jacob said, apparently oblivious to the reason Owen was trying to change the subject. “The season hasn’t even started yet.”
“I’m not breaking up with you,” Melanie said clearly, as if she and Gabe did not have a small yet uncomfortable audience. “I just need to do this. Okay? Please don’t make it harder than it already is.”
“I feel like Nikki will always come first,” Gabe said.
“Lucky girl,” Owen chided.
“Shut. Up. Owen,” Gabe said, giving the quipster a glacial look over his shoulder.
Owen covered his lips with one finger and pressed them into his teeth.
Tease Me Page 21
