“Tell me again.” Her legs hooked around me, her heels digging into the small of my back as she pulled me closer. “Tell me there was no one else.”
“It’s only been you.” The damp heat of her body touched my tip. My legs hit the cabinets. “What is it with you and kitchens?” I yanked her to the edge on a kiss and groaned at the instant relief I found inside her. Like a shot of morphine or a finger of whiskey, she was something my mind and body craved.
I wanted to take her by the ankles, spread her legs, and drive into her without relent. Turn her over and pull her hair while biting her neck. I could have fucked her on every surface in that kitchen and left dishes broken across the tile, and it wouldn’t have been enough. So instead, I kissed her in a way that said, “I love you.”
Each thrust was slow and steady. I knew that’s what would make her toes curl and her breaths come in short pants. It always had.
“Is that good?” I watched us connect, and she gave a breathless nod.
The slower I went, the deeper her nails sliced into my back. She gripped the edge of the counter, her chest rising on ragged swells while her teeth sank into her bottom lip. When her legs began to tremble and her cheeks slowly flushed pink, when she swore under her breath and begged me to stop, I let go, tumbling over the edge of a love-induced high right along with my girl.
Her head dropped to my shoulder, her arms tightened around my neck, and I swam in the post-orgasmic buzz still inside her.
“You’re the only high I need, Georgia.”
The next morning, I woke to a note on the nightstand. You looked too comfortable to wake. I’ll be back by three. Seven days. Then seven more. . .
I rolled back over, clutching her pillow underneath my head, and believing I could do this.
By noon, I’d been sober for closing in on forty-eight hours, and that itch had turned into a massive, oozing whelp. The text alert from my phone pulled me from my thoughts.
Becca: When you get back from whatever drug-induced, sideshow carnival you’re on, we need to set some clear boundaries. You have become a massive liability.
That got a selfie of me flipping her the bird. Me: My contract’s up in less than a year. And I won’t be resigning.
Becca: There wasn’t going to be an offer.
I swiped a hand over my jaw. I could tell Becca and Ricky to screw off all day long; I didn’t care if they broke my contract. But Midnite Kills wasn’t just about me; it was about all of us. What was going to happen to Nash and Leo? Sure, they could hire another singer. Plenty of bands had done that. Journey. Stone Temple Pilots. Van Halen. Sometimes bands survived. Guns n’ Roses turned into Velvet Revolver—but remakes never did as well as the original.
A list of mistakes a mile long cycled through my head until they formed a churning whirlpool I couldn’t escape. My thoughts were bullies with loaded shotguns, and the drugs had served as the Kevlar vest that deflected the bullets.
Unreliable friend. Horrible role model. Click. The hammer cocked.
Overall worthless piece of shit. Aim.
People hate you. Georgia just feels sorry for you. Boom. That bullet tore right through me.
And this would be the time when I usually caved.
I laced my fingers behind my head and fought the urge to scream. Pacing by the steps, I debated on jogging to the church for another prayer cushion, maybe dashing across the street and ransacking the garbage for the three grams I’d tossed the day before.
Before I knew it, the sun was on my face, and I was halfway down the block. I made it to the corner then pushed the heels of my hands against my eyes. “Fuck!”
I stormed back to Georgia’s townhome, slamming the door.
Forty-eight hours felt like forty-eight years. It was bullshit that coming clean put my body at constant war with itself, and that was why it wasn’t easy.
My fingers wouldn’t stop shaking. I needed something, anything constructive to do with my hands that didn’t involve cutting up lines or wouldn’t make me think about cutting up lines.
A composition notebook sat on the tiny desk by the stairs. Falling to the chair, I grabbed a pencil and flipped to a spare page. The lead pressed to the paper. The frantic strokes of my hand sketched out a misshapen head balanced on a wobbly neck and tiny body. Huge circles for bulging, bloodshot eyes. Swollen pupils. Small slits for the nose, and the mouth full of rotting teeth grasping the word addict like a piece of delectable fruit. To finish it off, I drew an arm too long for the guy’s body, and an exaggerated, caricature-like hand giving a thumbs up. Underneath the drawing, a barely legible title: My Body Needs It.
That was what it felt like.
It wasn’t a craving or some lust-filled desire.
I had chills and shakes, a drug-induced flu because hour by hour, I was stripping my immune system bare of a high that had become as basic of a need as my lung’s demand for oxygen. Sweat beaded above my lip while I stared at the picture. My mind was rotting. I ripped the drawing from the spine of the notepad and shredded it until it was nothing more than confetti.
I buried my head in my hands and counted my breaths. One. Two. Three. . . By seventy-two, the fire in my chest had quelled. The molten lava had hardened into obsidian and sank to the pit of my stomach where it sat.
I’d asked for seven days, and when those were up, I’d ask for seven more, but eventually, I knew I would screw up.
That’s what people do. They screw up.
And the next time I did, I’d lose everything.
18
Georgia
The Peacock’s door had been propped open when I dropped by on my way home from class. Fergus sat at the bar, tossing nuts to Albert, his pet peacock. “Get it, you knob. It’s food.”
I ducked through the doorway. Albert cocked his head to the side before spreading his iridescent feathers into an impressive purple and turquoise fan.
Fergus turned in his chair, grinning wide when his gaze met mine. “Hello, love.” He checked his watch. “It’s early. . .”
“It is.”
A warm heat washed over my cheeks when I walked toward him.
I had always prided myself on my dependability, and I was about to ask Fergus for an undetermined amount of time off.
The first time Spencer had detoxed, he was in an expensive rehab “spa” in the Santa Monica Mountains. Therapists and sparkling water were at his disposal as were stress-reducing massages. The clincher—I had found out later—was there was also an orderly named Jimbo who doled out drugs to most of the celebs.
Spencer had never really detoxed in his life.
I’d spent the entire morning on my laptop, researching cocaine withdrawal while Spencer slept. It didn’t require medical assistance, although it was encouraged, and the overly optimistic part of me hoped that maybe my company could be enough. At least for seven days.
Seven days. What an arbitrary number to hang the rest of my life upon. But, God, I wanted to be with him more than I wanted my next breath. I may have spent a year finding myself. I may have concluded that a person doesn’t need love to survive. But there are many things in this life that we can lose without dying. Sight wasn’t vital to living, but my God, didn’t it make it more beautiful?
High or sober, together or apart, I’d never stop loving Spencer. It had to mean something when I wanted nothing more than to fall out of love with him but couldn’t.
Time does not heal all wounds. Or maybe. . . it does. Maybe this was time healing us.
Fergus’s wiry white brows pulled together. “You look troubled.” He tossed another peanut at Albert before dragging a stool out and patting its top.
I didn’t sit; instead, I dragged my fingers over the worn wood. “If I need some time off, would that be a problem? Maybe a week or so?”
Leaning back on his chair, he snuffled then held out his arms. “What do you think, Albert? You think we’re too busy to go without her for a while?” His gaze found mine. “Take whatever time you need. Henry and I can alway
s walk behind the bar to pour our own cider if Tom fails us.”
“Thanks, Fergus.”
He winked. “You’re a good egg, so I try to make you happy.”
I started toward the door.
“Enjoy your vacation, love.”
I nodded even though it wasn’t a vacation. I was going home.
My house was only a few doors down from the pub, but that walk gave me enough time for dread to mount in my chest. Fear set in.
The lock clicked, and the door swung open to Spencer asleep on the couch. Tiny bits of paper lay strewn across the floor and desk.
I dropped my keys onto the coffee table, then I sat on the arm of the sofa, sweeping hair from his face. I frowned at the sweat that drenched his forehead.
He shifted on the cushion, and his eyes blinked open. “Hey,” he said, his voice groggy.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” He dragged a hand down his face when he sat up. “I’m so tired. I don’t know why.”
“I think that’s normal.” I slid to the cushion beside him and scratched my fingers through his damp hair. “Go back to sleep if you want.”
“I don’t want to miss seeing you.”
“I’ll be here when you wake up?”
“Promise?”
I nodded.
He kissed my cheek before scooting down and laying his head in my lap. “But keep doing that.” Spencer grabbed my hand and placed it back in his hair. “That felt like old times.”
He slept through the night, and I slept on the couch with him.
The next day. Tom had dropped off my car with barely two words. At first, I thought that was what had Spencer on edge, but when we tried to watch a movie, he fidgeted. He got up and down. I could tell by the way his eyes glassed over and fixated on nothing, he was thinking about the high. The worst thing we could do was sit.
“Hey.” I touched his shoulder, and he jumped. “Why don’t we go do something?”
He wiped his palms over his jeans on a nod and stood.
He was already at the door by the time I’d grabbed my purse. He didn’t ask where we were going. He spent the fifteen-minute drive to Stonehenge with his eyes closed, jaw twitching, and leg shaking.
But I just knew when we pulled into the carpark of Stonehenge that he would snap out of it.
When Spencer had first signed with the label, we had made a bucket list of places we wanted to go; knowing we’d have the money made it a lot less depressing. And while I’d visited every city on that list by myself over the past year, I had avoided the sites that made us want to go.
I’d been to Paris but hadn’t set foot on the Eiffel Tower.
I went to Rome without a visit to the Vatican.
I may have walked the streets of Venice, but I forwent the gondola ride.
I lived twenty-minutes from Stonehenge, and I’d only seen it from the road.
Maybe I had been holding out hope that we could still experience all of those things together.
The bus unloaded, and we followed the herd of people toward the one-level building set in the middle of a sprawling field.
Spencer stopped at the edge of the sidewalk, his gaze aimed at the black sign. “Stonehenge?”
I beamed. “I haven’t visited this yet.”
“Why would you bother? It’s just a bunch of stupid rocks.”
I felt my expression relax. He headed toward the ticket counter while I told myself I shouldn’t have expected him to remember.
Spencer paid for the tickets and held open the door to the museum. We stepped into a dark, circular room. Images of the monument scrolled over the walls while mystical music played in the background. Spencer stopped for a moment to read a line on the display, then headed toward the exit.
Kids dashed in and out of tiny straw huts.
“What is this, Lord of the Rings?”
“It’s a replica of the houses the people who built Stonehenge lived in.”
“They don’t even know who built the place.” He pulled Aviators from the collar of his shirt and put them on. “So where are the rocks?”
I pointed to the side of the building where a loading zone for the shuttle was. He shrugged and started around the corner.
“If you don’t want to be here, we can go,” I said.
“I’m fine.”
We stopped at the back of a line, and he leaned against the building. I didn’t know how to handle his sudden aloofness. Him going from swoon-worthy to distant gave my heart whiplash. Spencer’s phone chimed. Then dinged again and again.
“Fucking dicks.” He groaned when he took it from his pocket. He jabbed a finger at the screen. “I swear to God. I hate people. Everyone needs to just leave me alone.”
A teenager came out of the building behind me, swinging her souvenir-shop bag and popping gum. She slowed when she passed. Her gaze honed in on Spencer before she sprinted off and grabbed another girl from the line. Their eyes went wide, ping-ponging between each other and Spencer. A few shakes of their heads. A nod. They linked arms and took timid steps in our direction.
Pretty soon, they were right beside me, breathing hard and clinging to each other. “Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Lucy!”
Spencer looked up. I couldn’t see his eyes through the sunglasses, but his face was completely expressionless.
“It’s him!” They lunged toward him.
His back hit the wall, and he held up his hands while they pleaded for pictures. “Fine. Just. . .” He wriggled free of their hold. “Just get outta my personal space. Christ.”
Their ecstatic smiles vanished. Spencer may have been arrogant at times, but he had never been outright rude to fans—even if they were groping him.
“Do you have a camera or something?” he asked, tone clipped while he smoothed out the wrinkles in his shirt.
He huffed and tapped his foot like he had somewhere to be while one of them dug through her backpack. The camera shook in her hold.
“I can take the picture.” I held out my hand.
The girls stood on either side of him, their arms around his waist. He stood with his hands by his side.
“Okay. Smile. . .” The shutter clicked a few times. Spencer never grinned. I cleared my throat. “One more. And smile.”
The flash went off.
“Alright. There you go.” He leaned back against the wall, his attention directed at his phone.
Disappointment was evident in the deep frowns on the girl’s faces. Smiling, I handed their camera back. There was nothing worse than meeting someone you admired and thinking they were an arrogant ass. I knew. It had happened to me plenty of times. I almost told them he wasn’t usually like that, but they had already fallen back in line.
Spencer must have felt me looking at him because he glanced up. “What?”
“Nothing.”
The phone went into his pocket, and he tossed up his hands with narrowed eyes. “What?”
My back bristled from his tone. “Don’t get pissy with me.”
“Don’t stare at me like I’ve killed a puppy.”
The couple in front of us glanced over their shoulders. I closed the space between Spencer and me. “Stop acting like a dick.”
“All I can think about is how my muscles ache and that I’ve got chills shooting up and down my spine.” He inched toward me. “You want me sober, here it fucking is, babe.”
I stared at my reflection in his sunglasses. My jaw tightened. Withdrawals were a double-edged sword. The mood swings were the worst, but they were a symptom of him coming clean, so I’d have to take them. For the next few days, maybe weeks, he’d be on a pendulum, and I’d be right there with him.
He wiped a hand over his mouth before his chin dropped to his chest. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. I shouldn’t have called you a dick.”
His foot tapped the pavement. “It’s not easy.”
“I know.” But I didn’t. I’d never been in his shoes.
A breeze blew across the field, catch
ing my hair. Strands stuck to my lips, and Spencer brushed them away.
“I don’t want to be like that with you.”
“I’d rather you be that way than high.”
A deep furrow formed between his brows.
“You weren’t you when you were high, Spencer.” I caressed his cheek. “I want the real you. The good. The bad. The ugly.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
A bus sputtered to the stop, spitting a black cloud of exhaust into the air. The doors unfolded with a creak of the hinges. Spencer and I followed the line of tourists up the steps and to the very back of the bus.
“Welcome to Stonehenge,” The announcer’s muffled voice was barely audible through the crackle of the old speakers. “Where you’ll walk in the footsteps of your Neolithic ancestors.”
The engine rumbled. The gears shifted, and the bus took off, bumping along the road.
“Stonehenge would have taken a huge effort by many people. . .” The driver’s educational information faded into the background.
Spencer’s forehead was to the glass, his gaze aimed at nothing. The hardest part about loving someone: No matter how close I was to Spencer; I never knew what went on inside his head. After all, in the end, we’re all incredibly alone with our minds.
Tourists chattered, then plastered themselves to the windows when the dark silhouette of the stones against the horizon came into view. Cameras flashed. The bus came to a grinding stop. Brakes hissed before the door popped open.
Passengers pushed and shoved to be the first out. And Spencer’s head was still against the glass.
I stood. “You want to get out or stay here?”
He rose to his feet and moved past me, along the aisle and down the steps. Gravel crunched beneath our feet as we followed the herd toward the pathway. Instead of focusing on the silence, I turned my attention to the thick clouds and their sagging, gray bottoms, wondering if it might rain.
“You never came here?” Spencer took my hand in his.
“No.”
Over You Page 13
