Fractured Beat (Meltdown Book 1)

by RB Hilliard

  “Uh, okay, let me talk to Dr. Whitfield. I’ll have to call you back.” I could tell by her tone she was hedging. I also knew I wouldn’t be hearing from her again.

  Up to this point I’d had my suspicions, but after the phone call with nutty Nancy I had zero doubt. Grant Hardy was no more an addict than I was a rock star.

  Chapter Thirteen

  No Sugar Tonight

  Grant

  Mallory welching on our bet was irritating but I wasn’t that worried about it. She’d eventually pay up. Until then I looked forward to making her squirm. I glanced around the bus and my eyes landed on Nash. We’d been tiptoeing around each other ever since I’d returned from rehab last week. At first I was okay with it. Actually, no I wasn’t. What happened to me was utter and complete bullshit. Anger and bitterness were monkeys on my back that I couldn’t seem to shake. I wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I’d carved out a pretty damn good life for myself and the thought that someone wanted to destroy that was so wrong it wasn’t even funny. So what if I smoked weed every now and again? Who fucking cares if I drink a fifth of bourbon after I pour everything I have onto the stage night after night? I’d paid my dues. I’d spent years playing every backwoods dive bar in Texas. I’d slept on friends sofas and ate tasteless Ramen for weeks on end just to make ends meet. I was about as far away from an addict as it gets. Hell, Nash, Luke and I all three watched Dale slip down that rabbit’s hole. We busted our asses trying to save him over and over again. I’d experienced the devastation up close and personal. After that fiasco there’s no way in hell I would ever go back there. I swore the exact same words as Luke and Nash and I meant every last one. Nash should have fucking believed me.

  “Nash!” I called out. Nash looked up from his plate of eggs and I could tell by his expression he knew what was coming. Chaz and Luke were busy playing Xbox, which meant we wouldn’t have an audience. Nash brushed by me as he headed down the stairs and out the bus door.

  “Everything okay?” Charlie our bus driver asked over his paper.

  “Yep,” I answered as I followed Nash out the door. The second my feet landed on the pavement I got a fist to the face.

  “What the fuck?” I shouted.

  “Why in the hell didn’t you make me listen?” Nash shouted. “Why did you let me believe that those pills were yours?”

  Motherfucker that hurt. I wiggled my jaw back and forth to make sure it wasn’t broken. When I was pretty sure it was okay, I answered. “You wouldn’t listen. None of you would. I told you the pills weren’t mine. I pleaded with you to listen to me. Hell, I even told you to look into my medical records.”

  Nash ran his hand over his face. “I was so angry. All I kept seeing was my mom fighting with every breath to live and you pissing your life away, just like Dale did.”

  “I don’t want to die and, for the last time, I didn’t take the fucking Oxy. I made the same promise you and Luke made the night we let Dale go, and I haven’t broken it yet.”

  “I believe you,” he rasped.

  “What made you change your mind? Not that you should have ever questioned me in the first place,” I asked him.

  “Mom did.” I gave him a strange look and he further explained, “The whole thing was killing me. I couldn’t sleep and was barely eating. I took Mom to her chemo session and she could tell something was bothering me. She pushed and I finally told her everything that had happened. You should have heard her. She called me all kinds of names and told me to get my head out of my ass and talk to you, but by then it was too late. I’d already screwed up. Every time you so much as glanced my way I could see the damage I’d caused by not having your back when you needed me.” Believe it or not I understood what he was saying. It didn’t make it right or even moderately forgivable but at least now I could see where he was coming from.

  “What happened with Dale left a permanent scar on us all. We may be great or even better than we were when he was alive, but we will never be the same. That doesn’t excuse what you did, though. The one person I counted on to have my back was you. We’ve been through hell and back together and it turns out you don’t know me at all.”

  “Fuck, man, I’m sorry. I got caught up in my own shit and couldn’t shake it. That’s no excuse but it’s all I’ve got.”

  “If it’s all you’ve got then it’ll just have to do,” I shrugged.

  “I messed up and I’m sorry, Grant. I really am.” I heard what he was saying and I could tell he meant it, but right at this moment it was a day late and a dollar short. We stared at each other for the longest time. His shoulders slumped and he finally looked away. I felt bad, but I wasn’t ready to let him off the hook so easily. He kicked the gravel back and forth and finally said, “Please let me make it up to you. Tell me what I can do and I’ll do it.”

  “Can you find out who drugged me?” I knew good and well he couldn’t. Apparently no one could.

  “I can try.” When he saw I wasn’t buying it, he said, “Seriously, I will do whatever it takes to help you figure this out. Do you think Blane had anything to do with it?” Nash was the only other person besides Hank who knew I’d been considering shopping for another label before the shit hit the fan.

  “Who the hell knows anymore?” I shrugged. I glanced at the time and realized we had fifteen minutes until we were supposed to leave for the venue. “Look, we don’t have time to get into it right now but there’s a lot of shit going down besides who tried to kill me.”

  “Bad shit?” he asked.

  “I’ll let you be the judge.”

  He nodded, and then asked, “What was rehab like?”

  I thought about what to say and decided we’d had enough serious talk for the moment. “Rehab was quiet, pointless and stupid. My therapist had really soft lips, though.” When our laughter died down, I asked the question that had been on my mind a lot over the past few months. “Do you ever get sick of it?”

  “Of what?”

  “The merry-go-round. A different woman every night. The lack of something….more.”

  Nash shook his head slowly back and forth, as if I’d just asked him the stupidest question in the world and, who knows, maybe I had. “You know me, I love pussy and I love variety. I can’t imagine sticking my dick in the same hole for the rest of my days. Why? Are you going soft on me?”

  I shrugged. Maybe I was. Changing the subject completely, I said, “I was thinking about shaking things up tonight.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, what’d you have in mind?”

  “How about Never the Same?”

  When Nash was a senior in high school he had a serious girlfriend named Rachel. They had plans to attend the same college together. A month before graduation she was killed in a car accident. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just happened. Nash and I didn’t hang out much until the second semester of our freshman year in college, so I never knew the Nash who was madly in love with his high school sweetheart. I never saw the Nash who was destroyed by her death so much so that he didn’t get out of bed for weeks after. The Nash Bostwick I knew fucked everything that moved and rarely went back for seconds. The Nash I knew would rather cut off his left nut than get serious about a girl. During our senior year we got wasted on the anniversary of Rachel’s death. In a nostalgic moment Nash told me the story and what an impact losing her had on him. What happened to Rachel, combined with Dale’s death and Nash’s mom’s cancer, led us to collaborate on a song we called Never the Same. It was about loving and losing and about how sometimes you just have to let go. We’d never played it live. I was ready to change that.

  “You serious?” Nash asked.

  “You game?”

  “Fuck yes!” he shouted. I hadn’t forgiven him, but at least it was a start.

  An hour later we were sitting on stage working our way through the song. I could feel Mallory’s eyes drilling holes through me. I’d given her the silent treatment when we arrived and I could tell it was driving her crazy. She should have stay
ed and faced the music instead of running away. Nash and I played the song once through and agreed it was good but could be better. I happened to glance over at Mallory and our eyes met for a brief second before she turned away. I was pretty sure her tears meant that she liked the song. Before we ran through it again, I searched for her but she was no longer there and I had to admit, I was disappointed.

  After going over the rest of the set list we broke for a quick dinner. By then it was close to show time. Nash and I ran through the song one more time in our dressing room. I expected to see Mallory on our ritual walk to the stage but she wasn’t there. Now I was more than disappointed, I was slightly ticked off. Where the fuck was she? The night couldn’t have gone better. The song went off without a hitch and the crowd loved it. We were on fire. It was like everything we’d been forcing for the past few months suddenly came effortlessly, and I knew it was due to my earlier talk with Nash. After the show we hung out with the VIP ticket holders in our dressing room. Thanks to Kirkland, the Melties were no longer allowed to party with us on the label’s dime or time. We could go clubbing or bar hopping if we wanted but I, for one, was sick and tired of getting mauled everywhere I went. What was once fun suddenly seemed like such a big ass hassle. I left the guys making plans to go out on the town and went in search of Mallory. It was time for her to pay up.

  Mallory was nowhere to be found. On my way back to the dressing room I ran into Hank.

  “I was just looking for you. Marcel and Sean went out on the town with Luke and Nash and Sampson took Chaz back to the hotel. It looks like you’re stuck with me for the night,” he announced.

  “Have you seen Mallory?”

  “Sean took her back right after the show.” I let out a growl of disappointment and he smiled. “She still avoiding you?”

  “Yeah, no thanks to you.”

  He shook his head and let out a bark of laughter. “I told her you were going to be angry.”

  “Grant!” someone called out and I turned to see a swarm of females heading our way.

  “Shit, get me out of here.”

  “Let’s go,” Hank said, and we took off for the back door where the car was waiting.

  On the way back to the hotel Hank told me what he’d discovered about Mallory. “She works for Dr. CiCilia Woods out of Dallas. It turns out Dr. Woods successfully treated Blane’s cousin a few years back. According to Marcy, the rehab facility refused to let you go until they had proof that you would be receiving further counseling. Kirkland told Blane he had one day to find an in-house specialist for you or he was going to kick him off of the tour all together. Blane called Dr. Woods but she was already committed. She did, however, have a new therapist available whom she highly recommended.”

  “Mallory?” I asked.

  “Mallory,” he confirmed.

  “How new?”

  “She finished her training seven months ago. One month after receiving her certification she began treating her first patient.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “I kid you not.”

  “Let me get this straight. The rehab squeezed Kirkland, Kirkland squeezed Blane and Blane hired a half-assed counselor, all so he wouldn’t get kicked off the tour?”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  “You do realize that this whole thing is seventy different shades of fucked up, right?” Hank shot me a look. “What?”

  “You can always pull the plug,” he suggested.

  “And miss out on messing with Mallory? Hell no. I have an addiction that needs tending to and just the counselor to treat it.” I winked at him and he threw his head back in laughter.

  “Grant, my man, I think you are seventy-one shades of fucked up.”

  “Hey, you’re the one sleeping with the boss’s secretary,” I teased.

  “I’m just taking one for the team,” he laughed.

  “It’s a true sacrifice. Now, take me back to the hotel. I’m suddenly very tired.”

  “I bet you are,” he muttered through a smile.

  Once we were back at the hotel and I had Mallory’s suite number, we said good night and made plans to go for a morning run before heading to Charlotte. As I lurked outside Mallory’s suite I thought about what Hank had told me. Mallory wasn’t supposed to be here right now. Her counterpart was. I didn’t really know what to think of this. Was it fate? Did I believe in fate? I wasn’t sure. I was definitely interested, though, and the more I was around Mallory Scott, the more interested I became. I knocked on her door and took a half step back. A minute or so passed and I knocked again. I never considered her not being there. If she wasn’t in her suite then where was she? The elevator dinged and I whipped my baseball cap out of my back pocket and shoved it on my head. The last thing I wanted was for someone to recognize me. Female laughter caught my attention and I froze in my tracks. I’d recognize that laughter anywhere.

  Mallory.

  I watched her step out of the elevator. Behind her was Chaz. What the fuck? The second she noticed me standing outside her door, her smile faltered. She came to a stop in the middle of the hallway and asked, “Grant, is that you?”

  When Chaz stepped up beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders I saw fucking red. Had she not given him a dirty look and shrugged off his arm I would have punched him in the face.

  She started down the hall toward me. When she got closer she asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “What does it look like? We’re hanging out,” Chaz stated, stepping up beside her.

  Mallory shot him another dirty look and then quickly explained, “I was hungry and ran into Chaz on the way back up from the restaurant.” I stared Chaz down and he smiled. I wondered what the hell his game was. She looked between the two of us and frowned. “Would you like to come in?”

  “Sure,” Chaz said. I was too pissed off to speak so I just cut my losses and started walking back toward the elevator.

  “Grant?” Mallory called after me, but I kept on going. No way in hell was I competing with my own fucking band mate for a woman’s attention. Never gonna happen. I stepped into the elevator and watched her as the doors shut. The second I hit my suite I aimed for the mini bar. Three hours later I was feeling no pain. I was, however, horny. Horny and pissed off. I thought about calling Chelle and quickly dismissed the idea. I’d already blown her off once tonight to search for Mallory. Plus, I didn’t want her. I wanted Mallory. Mallory who was downstairs doing who the hell knows what with Chaz right now. I should go and get her.

  Suddenly the suite door banged open and in walked Nash and Luke. Following closely behind them was none other than Chelle and her posse. The moment she spotted me her eyes lit up.

  “I was hoping to find you here. You blew me off, you naughty boy,” she purred.

  I glared at Luke and Nash. What the hell were they thinking? They knew better than to bring girls back to the hotel, especially these girls. As Chelle straddled my lap and ran her long nails through my hair, all I could think about was Mallory and Chaz. Was she letting him touch her? I should be touching her. God, I wish I was touching her. Instead, I was sitting with a gorgeous woman on my lap and wanted nothing to do with her. How fucked up was that? Chelle did that purr thing with her lips again, the one that normally drove me wild, and I felt…nothing, nada, not a damn thing. My dick only had eyes for one woman and she was completely and totally un-fucking-available. With a growl of disgust, I gently lifted Chelle off of my lap and deposited her on the sofa next to me. Then I stood and staggered toward my bedroom.

  “Graaaaaaaant!” she called out after me. “I said I was sorry!”

  I responded with a one finger salute before closing my door and locking it behind me. Then I face planted onto my bed and passed the hell out.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Enter The Girlfriend

  Mallory

  Well, that went well, I thought, as I watched Grant escape into the elevator. I turned to i
nsert my key in the door and noticed Chaz staring down the hall after Grant with an odd look on his face.

  “Everything okay with you two?” I asked.

  The look was instantly replaced with a very charming smile. “Sure, why wouldn’t it be?”

  Chaz Jones wasn’t a bad looking guy per se, but if placed side by side with Grant Hardy, Nash Bostwick and Lucas Brose, he was definitely the ugly duckling of the group. His hair reminded me of a young Billy Idol in his White Wedding days, except it was dark brown instead of bleached white. His skin was pale. I’m talking glow in the dark pale. Until tonight Chaz reminded me of a cute little puppy, always wanting to please and falling over his feet not to disappoint. Tonight he seemed…different, almost confrontational and not at all like the Chaz from the past few days.

  “Would you like a bottle of water? Sorry, that’s all I have to offer,” I told him, as we entered my suite.

  “Don’t you have any beer? Oh, that’s right, you don’t drink. By the way, you never told us why you don’t drink.” Being that he had his usual puppy dog smile on his face, I wasn’t sure if he was teasing or not. I sensed he was trying to put me on the spot but wasn’t sure why. Wanting to get rid of him but not wanting to be rude about it, I decided to nix the water altogether. As I watched him get comfortable on the sofa, I reflected on his behavior with Grant. I felt definite tension between the two of them and wondered if I’d missed something.

  Plastering a smile on my face, I sat in the chair next to him. “How about we start with a less personal question,” I suggested. His eyes hardened, but he played his irritation off behind a big smile that didn’t remotely ring true. However, he was smart enough to take my hint and back off.