Darke casts a grim look in the direction of his friend’s groin. Me, I prefer not to think about whether it’s a stain or a shadow across the region of his fly.
“What happened?”
He chews over his reply, which leaves indents in his lower lip where he digs in with his teeth. “Just help me get him upstairs.”
“Upstairs? Seriously?” The only place this guy looks like he needs to be heading towards is a hospital. I tiptoe around the noxious puddles and check his pulse in his throat. For all that he appears to be utterly fucked, it’s going strong. Nevertheless, I swipe a thumb across the screen of my phone and jab in the number for the emergency services.
“No.” Darke leans over and taps the end call button before the connection has properly been made. “The last thing I need right now is a crew of paramedics carting him off. I need to get him straight to face Graham Callahan.”
“You what?” Did he really just say that?
“He’s our bass player.” He throws me a pained look from under his eyebrows.
“Your friend? Yet you’re putting your ambitions over his health? Seriously?” Who does that? Well too many people, I suppose. The world his full of selfish wankers. I just hadn’t pegged Darke as one of them. Obviously, I mistakenly assumed our musical compatibility equated to general like-mindedness.
He shakes his head, disturbing the dark hair that rests upon his collar. “That’s not it.”
“Then prove it. Let me make the call.”
“Who ya gonna call?” the patient blurts, nearly bowling me over I’m so shocked to hear him speak. I thought for definite he was comatose. Apparently, he’s still with it enough for his inner geek to function.
Both Darke and I stare at him, anticipating a follow up yell of “Ghostbusters,” but he just flashes us a toothy grin and then slides back inside himself, his eyes becoming vacant, before his lids droop over them. Perhaps the hospital wouldn’t thank us for depositing him there. They’re none too fond of having drunks clogging their waiting room, and I’m beginning to think that’s all this is—too much booze and zero self-restraint. On the other hand, it’d be irresponsible not to get him help when he so obviously needs it.
“Please. If you could just assist with getting him to bed,” Darke begs.
“You want me to help you get him to bed,” I parrot him, because the information does not compute. “Are you delusional? He’s a mess. He’s not playing anything for Graham Callahan. He’s not playing anything for anyone. Darke, we need to call an ambulance.” This boy needs to have his stomach pumped.
“My name’s Nate, and please—” He covers the screen of my phone with his hand so that his long fingers end up folded over mine. “—let’s at least make this a vaguely fair fight.”
“Seriously, you think I’m trying to ship him off to hospital because with him out of the picture Bitch Slap is guaranteed the top prize in this competition?” The damned competition hadn’t entered my thoughts until he mentioned it. “Look at him, Darke. I mean it, genuinely look at him.” I physically help him to turn his head in the appropriate direction. “Have you ever seen anyone look this shit before?”
“Maybe,” he sighs in a way that tells me he definitely has, and more often than he cares to admit. “I realise things look bad, but you don’t know him. Knox has issues.”
No kidding.
“Issues a trip to Doctorsville is only going to exacerbate.”
Knox—is that his name? “Knox…Knox,” I gently shake his shoulder. My prodding barely raises a groan. “Do you know what he’s drunk…taken?”
“You’re making too much out of this. Listen to me. We’re not sending him anywhere without his consent.” Darke snatches my phone out of my hands and stows it in his back pocket ensuring I can’t dial for assistance next time he’s distracted. “I know you mean well, but you don’t know shit about the situation. Being prodded and poked and shuttled around for hours, then sent home with a wad of leaflets about where to go for help isn’t what he needs.”
“And I suppose you know exactly what it is that’s gonna fix him.”
Darke shakes his head. “Wish it was as easy as sending him for a long stint in rehab, but he has memory issues that predate the damage he’s done to himself through overindulgence. I’m telling you straight though, sticking him in an unfamiliar environment will just confuse the hell out of him.” Darke slides his long fingers through the front of his hair, then turns those sharp eyes on me. “I realise your conscience might be telling you something different, but the best place for him is bed, so are you going to help me, or not?”
If Jessie was here she’d tell me to walk away, to leave Paradise Kiss to wallow in their own stench and not worry about them, but I’m a sucker for overgrown boys in need of saving. Some girls get sappy over cute fluffy animals, in my case it’s bad boys in distress. One pleading glance, and it’s like a screw comes loose inside my head and sense flies out of the window.
“I’ll help,” I say, pausing before adding a caveat. “But only in getting him as far as your room. You can put him to bed and play night nurse yourself since you’re not prepared to call in the experts.” I’ll do this because Knox clearly needs someone to look out for him, and while I’m far from convinced that Darke’s strategy is the correct one, I concede he at least believes he’s doing the right thing.
“Let’s get him up, before someone happens along.”
Getting him upright is like manipulating a ten ton scarecrow, by which I mean he’s all dangly limbed and at risk of his stuffing coming out. Darke literally heaves him into an upright position, then we take an arm each and hook them around our shoulders so that Knox is between us. The smell of him makes me want to hurl. I’d hold my nose, but I don’t have a hand free to do so. With one, I’m clinging onto Knox’s wrist, and the other is fastened around his leather belt helping to combat the effects of gravity. I have no idea how we get him up the stairs, because while one of Knox’s feet occasionally goes in front of the other, it’d be a gross distortion of the facts to describe it as ambulation.
“You’re either brave or stupid,” I tell Darke when we finally reach the correct landing. We both have to pause for breath, though we maintain our grip on Knox. I swear, if he ends up on the floor now, as he has several times during the climb, I’m going to propose dragging him by either his ankles or collar. “What I’m saying is that there’s nothing to stop me blabbing all this to Graham Callahan in the morning. You know yourself he’s not going to be enthused at the idea of taking on a band with a—” I pause to look Knox over, because it’s hard to come up with an appropriate description for him. “—a slacker for a bassist.”
“Lickers are fast,” Darke protests, obviously having misheard me. “He’s more like an indolent slug. As for why, I guess I was banking on your innate goodness. I know Jessie’s a cow, but that doesn’t mean all of Bitch Slap are tarred with the same brush.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
He puckers his lips and blows me a kiss. “Any time.”
Darke reaches for the door handle and pulls it open. He stops it swinging back on itself by shoving his foot in the way, then letting me shuffle through sideways because the gap isn’t wide enough for the three of us to walk abreast. The corridor only just accommodates us.
“You weren’t my first choice,” he explains. “More like the last resort. I wasn’t getting up those stairs on my own, not without one or both of us sustaining a serious injury.”
I take that to mean he couldn’t locate the two other members of his band. One assumes he’d call them ahead of me, unless he’s hiding Knox’s drug problem from them, or they have problems of their own.
“What’s he taken, anyway?” I ask. I don’t know why it’s relevant, but…I guess I’m nosy.
“This is a few pints topped off with some weed.”
“Bullshit.” I nearly drop Knox in the process of calling Darke a liar.
“I’m serious.” His pale green eyes
flash with indignation. “I’ve known Knox to drop the odd tab, but never to dabble in the really hard stuff. I’m guessing whatever he smoked was cut with something else.” The sincerity with which he says this, convinces me that Darke at least, believes his own words. Maybe it’s the truth and maybe it’s wishful thinking on his behalf, because if I had to guess, I’d say Knox has been chasing dragons.
“Like what?” I raise my brows and wait for him to present a plausible explanation.
“Pesticides, strychnine, possibly opium.”
OK, they all sound pretty grim and hazardous.
“But let’s face it—” He brings us to a pause outside room 423. “—it could be anything. I’ve heard if you’re not used to it, opium can make you puke.” The new stains on my bathrobe and Darke’s lack of an upper body covering are testament to how much spewing has taken place.
I’m left supporting most of the vomit merchant’s weight, as Darke works magic with the key card, and gets the door open. With a lot of sweat and pulling, we manage to navigate Knox over the threshold and into the bathroom.
“Better hose him down before we put him to bed.”
He certainly needs it, but, “I only said I was coming this far.”
“No,” Darke complains, turning the sound into a low hollow moan, while his brows concertina. “You can’t bail now. We’re a team. Don’t desert me.” I swear if he wasn’t clinging onto Knox to stop him pitching head first into the toilet bowl he’d have clapped his hands together in prayer and maybe fallen on his knees to beg.
I make the stupid mistake of looking at him, naked chest, tattooed biceps, multiply-pierced ears and all. It’s the doe-eyes that break me, though.
Needy bad boys with a drop dead sexy pouts, tats and truly wicked green eyes—yep, I’m a sucker. My mum always said I was too nice.
“All right, but you’re the one who gets to undress him.” I’ve already got more intimately acquainted with Mr. Knox than I really care to be. I’ve no desire to further deepen my knowledge of his person. Of course, if we were talking about me stripping Darke and getting him in the tub, things would be very different. I reckon he could make bath-time interesting.
“We could just wash him with his clothes on.” Darke squeezes his lips into a half-hopeful, half-pleading moue.
“You can’t put him to bed wet, and denim is a bugger to remove when it’s sodden.”
“I don’t wanna,” he complains, but he’s just moaning because it’s a grim job, not because he’s actually going to bow out of doing it. When he looks at Knox, his expression softens. There’s genuine affection there, despite the godawful mess Knox is in, and the trouble he’s going to cause. “Fuck it, all right, how are we going to do this?”
“I’ll hold onto Colonel Spew, and you do the rest.”
I position myself behind Knox with the vanity unit at my back as something to brace myself against, then wrap my arms around his chest, so that he’s flopped inside the ring I’ve made. I’m not going to be able to hold him like this for long, because the man has zero muscle tone at the moment. He’s like a sleeping toddler. Only he’s twelve…thirteen stones of dead weight rather than two.
“Still don’t wanna.” Darke gingerly unbuckles Knox’s belt. I get the impression his overblown expression of distaste—tongue sticking out, and eyes narrowed as if he’s sucking lemons—is for my benefit. If it were just the two of them, it’d be total efficiency, and barely a wrinkled nose.
Darke drags Knox’s jeans down to his ankles and leaves them there. “I’ll take them off when we upend him.”
Good plan. If he tries to do it now, we’re all going to end up in a tangled heap, which is closer than I want to be to Knox, and more intimate than it’s sensible to get with Darke. The fact Knox might end up with concussion in the process, might have a bit of bearing too.
Removing Knox’s T-shirt takes several attempts as we pause whenever he makes chomping noises so that Darke can leap hastily out of range. Then he gingerly tiptoes back. He’s light on his feet, so I actually enjoy the process of watching him dance about.
We do eventually get Knox bared and into the bath. Surprisingly, he turns out to be something of a furry beast. You’d never think it to look at him clothed. Certainly, I never think of fair-haired men as being hairy, but his arms, legs and chest are all covered. Admittedly, the hairs are pale, so you almost don’t notice them at first. Ivy would love him if she wasn’t so besotted with Nightshift. She loves hairy men, especially if they have tufts of the stuff that surrounds their navels. Knox has that, and a thick growth of golden fur that extends down over his stomach to form a thicker, darker thatch around his cock.
I stare at his slumbering beast for a good thirty seconds before my sense of propriety kicks in, and I avert my gaze, before I get accused of ogling a more or less comatose man. It’s not as if I’ve a particular hankering to look at Knox’s junk, but when it’s so blatantly on display, it’s kind of hard not to notice.
“I suppose it’s too much to ask you to help me wash him?”
Apparently it isn’t, since I grab the shower head and angle it at our charge. “Tell you what, you scrub and I’ll rinse.”
-10-
Nathaniel Darke
If I wasn’t infatuated with Loveday Trevaskis already, I am now. The woman is worth twelve of every member of Paradise Kiss. In short, she’s a living saint. Here she is, helping me perform a pretty unsavoury task, and there’s no benefit to her. If anything, the opposite is true, because if we manage to clean Knox up and rouse him into consciousness, then the competition between our bands remains on. Currently, Bitch Slap are set to win on a bye.
She’s not stupid, so I can only put her actions down to kindness. I haven’t seen a whole lot of that in my life, so I’m a little mesmerised by it.
Once we have Knox stripped off, it doesn’t take much effort to clean him. A squirt of complimentary shower gel, a bit of shampoo and he looks presentable, if still sickly pale, but we’re all going to have shadowy, dark ringed eyes and a ghoulish pallor come six o’clock. I can’t believe it’s a time anyone sees out of choice.
I look at Knox while I swoosh the face-cloth over his skin, and struggle not to blame myself for his condition. I know what he’s like. I ought to have hand cuffed him to my side post-gig, but I let Joel distract me, and then it seemed more productive to keep on working than waste time locating him when he failed to show.
Knox gets disorientated. He’s probably trying to figure out which room and which floor to find me on. How many times did I think that? How many times have I excused his behaviour with similar thoughts? And yet, he never has any trouble procuring his fixes.
What I need to admit, what Paradise Kiss as a whole need to accept is that Knox is an addict. Joel’s already accepted it. That’s why he’s making a fuss. I’m not sure I’m ready to completely pull my own blinkers off. Doing so is going to make life way tougher. I’m not even sure if Paradise Kiss will survive. Actually, I’m not sure we’re going to survive the meeting with Graham Callahan. Bands have to consist of people who respect one another, and who pull their weight. Knox is more like a lodestone weighing us down. If he fluffs this for us, then resentment is going to be running at an all-time high.
Yet, I can’t bring myself to cut him loose.
It feels wrong to do so. Desperately, desperately wrong. He stood by me when I needed him.
“Ready to rinse him off?”
I nod, and Loveday turns the shower dial. A small pfft noise, precedes a fierce blast of water that hits Knox square in the chest.
“Whaaaaaarrr!” He screams siren-like, as he folds up into a sitting position, head butting me in the process.
“Oh God! I’m sorry.” She turns the flow against the tiles. “Wasn’t anticipating it coming out so fast or so cold. Is he all right? Are you all right?” She rubs my temple, and I lean into the caress. I didn’t realise I had quite such a headache brewing until her fingers landed there and started completing circles.
My eyelids slide closed, facial muscles relax. Shit what I wouldn’t give to have Knox magically disappear down the plug hole right about now. Then it’d be just me and her all alone, and me with my head at exactly the right height for her to sit on my face.
“Darke, is he OK?”
“What? Yeah, he’s fine. Leastways, no better or worse than before.” I mean, the bastard’s still breathing.
“I didn’t mean to startle him.”
“He’ll live.” I doubt a bit of cold water is going to traumatize him for life. I’m not even sure his upward jerk was anything more than a function of basic biology. Conscious thought was not a feature of that reaction.
Loveday turns her attention back to the temperature dial, and fiddles with it until the flow meets her satisfaction. Knox snores while she gently rinses him off. It makes me want to turn the shower dial to freezing again. He doesn’t deserve her care. Jealousy skewers me through the guts when I realise how her expression has softened as she looks at him. I don’t want her eyes and face appearing all doughy and sympathetic. He’s not a teddy bear. He’s a grown man who ought to be able to take care of himself. Although, umpteen of his ex-girlfriends will testify he’s far from that. Knox can’t half attract them, but their desire to cuddle his squishiness is fast eroded by his neediness. At heart, Knox is a lost little boy desperately in need of his mum.
In my experience, women date musicians because they fancy a walk on the wild side, not because they want to take care of you, which only makes me doubly riled over Loveday’s expression. I want her to be all molten and wide eyed because she’s anticipating the dirty fun we could be having, not because baby bear is sucking his thumb.
“What now?” Having rinsed away all the soap bubbles, Loveday sits back on her haunches.
Crazy Love Page 7
