Always You

by Roxie Noir

  I can’t help but picture it again: moonlight, waves, everything silver and black. Trent calmly telling me not to try breathing underwater, and then when we finally went back to shore, the crisscrossed scars on his huge, muscled back. It was before I knew. I remember thinking they weren’t real, but they are.

  “I was thinking of the time we were in St. Louis and one of the girls from Candyboots dared you to go in the Mississippi River, so you tore off all your clothes and went in right then and there just to prove you’d do it.”

  Fuck, I’d totally forgotten about that. It was not a good decision. That part of the Mississippi isn’t for swimming.

  “You still have to close your eyes,” I say.

  Trent dutifully closes his eyes, still smirking. My heart’s going about two hundred beats a minute and there’s a tiny voice in the back of my head saying so Trent wants to see you topless, isn’t that interesting? I ignore it.

  I pull my shirt over my head, leaving my arms in the sleeves so my back is exposed but my boobs are covered. I’m still pretty fucking naked, though, and it makes the squirming in my stomach start all over again.

  “Okay,” I say, my face hot and my eyes closed, arms clamped tightly over my boobs.

  He doesn’t say anything, but he steps in close behind me, his fingers on my side. You wouldn’t think a guy who looks like Trent or who’s got Trent’s life story would be as gentle as he is, but I barely feel it as he releases the Ace bandage from around my back.

  “Hold your arms out,” he says. I hesitate for a split second, because my boobs, but just do it.

  He circles his arms around me, handing the bandage to himself as he unwraps it from my body, and his chest brushes lightly against my back.

  “Sorry,” he murmurs.

  “It’s fine,” I say, eyes squeezed shut, because here’s another good reason that I should have just gone back to the hospital: having some nurse change my bandage wouldn’t go directly into my spank bank, or whatever the fuck chicks are supposed to call it.

  But I’m practically naked with my very hot best friend who’s being very sweet right now, and in this moment, it doesn’t matter that I fucking know better. It barely matters that he’s about to witness me at my grossest, because rational thought has left the building.

  Fuck, I want Trent to touch me. Grab my tits, kiss my neck, bite my earlobe, but he just keeps unwinding the bandage from around my body, brushing his thick arms against my torso, tattoos dancing and flexing in the low light.

  And he’s being a total fucking gentleman about it, because he always is. To me, anyway. God knows I’ve seen Trent do some ungentlemanly shit. For fuck’s sake, right now he’s got a split lip and won’t tell me why.

  Trent places the wrap bandage on the table next to him, and I hug my arms to my chest again. He brushes my hair away from my neck, his fingertips tickling me, then picks lightly at the tape holding the second bandage around the burn.

  “This might hurt when I take it off,” he says, his voice soft and low and quiet. I focus on an easy chair, patterned with a black bear and a couple of frolicking cubs.

  “It’s fine,” I say.

  He’s right. It does hurt, and my eyes water, but I don’t say anything as he gets it off crumples it up, and tosses it into the trash. The air is cool against my back, slightly damp from being covered and probably from gross burn blister leakage.

  We don’t say anything while he does the rest. I just stand there, head down to keep my hair off my back, half-naked. As much as I wish he weren’t looking at blisters on my back, something about Trent’s hands on me feels right, like he already knows his way around my body.

  Quit it, I tell myself.

  Once all the antiseptics and ointments and whatnot are on, he tapes a new bandage on, his fingers pressing carefully along the skin of my shoulder, the back of my neck, the side of my hip, and I shiver lightly at every single touch. Finally, I hold the ace bandage while he wraps it around me again, still without saying anything.

  I pull my shirt back on, shake my hair out, and turn.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  Trent just smiles as he pulls his gloves off.

  Chapter Eleven

  Trent

  I’m on the couch in my suite, feet up, slouched halfway down and staring at some TV show about mountain men who hunt deer with their bare hands or some shit. I’m not thinking about Darcy taking her shirt off earlier. I’m not thinking about her skin under my fingertips, about smelling her hair with my arms around her, or about how seeing her half-naked got me instantly hard as a rock, burn blisters or no burn blisters.

  Nope. I’m just watching this television show, featuring a man whose snot has frozen into his mustache.

  My phone rings. It’s Nigel.

  “Hey Nigel,” I answer.

  “Hello there Trent, it’s Nigel,” he says. It doesn’t matter how I answer my phone, he still identifies himself to me every single time he calls.

  “Right,” I say. “Listen, so I went through that list of tour venues you asked me to look at, and—”

  “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but that’s actually not why I’m calling,” he says.

  Nigel sounds... weird. Nervous. Upset. And yes, the poor man usually sounds that way, but that’s just his voice. This sounds for real.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask, sitting forward and putting my feet on the floor. “I mean, you know, relatively?”

  “Would you mind coming around to my suite in about fifteen minutes?” he asks, a strangely polite edge to his voice.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just come, please.”

  “Nigel, is something wrong?”

  “See you there!” he says, and the call ends, his faux-cheery British tones still ringing in my ears.

  I don’t bother waiting the fifteen minutes.

  When Nigel lets me into his suite, Eddie and Gavin are already there, and as I’m exchanging a what the fuck is going on look with the latter, Darcy knocks on the door and Nigel lets her in.

  No one says anything, but she lifts her eyebrows at me.

  I shrug.

  Nigel sighs far more dramatically than you’d think a British man could, and then holds out one hand to his suite’s dining table.

  “Please sit,” he says.

  We obey, because we’re way too confused to do anything else.

  “Nigel, mate, is something wrong?” Gavin asks, leaning on his elbows across the table. “Whatever it is, we’ll help.”

  Nigel just folds his hands, then looks pointedly at Eddie. Eddie’s looking down at his hands.

  For a long, long moment, no one says anything, and then Eddie takes a deep breath.

  “I’m quitting the band,” he says.

  Dead fucking silence.

  It’s so unexpected that I’m just fucking baffled for a moment.

  “What?” Gavin says, clearly having the same reaction I am.

  “You can’t,” Darcy says, her voice already rising.

  Still looking at his hands, Eddie nods.

  “I think it’s best for everyone if we—”

  “Are you fucking serious?” Darcy says, her voice cutting through the room.

  Eddie looks at her, eyes wide, and clears his throat.

  “I’ve thought this decision through very carefully, and I think that my creative—”

  “No you fucking didn’t,” she says. “You’ve never thought a thing through carefully in your entire goddamn life.”

  “We’re two shows into a tour,” Gavin adds in, still sounding more baffled than angry.

  “You’ve got three weeks off now, I’m sure you’ll find someone to fill in—”

  “We don’t want someone to fill in!” Darcy shouts. “We want someone to be in our goddamned band!”

  “Eddie,” Gavin says, jabbing one finger into the table, his voice nearly shaking with the strain of sounding reasonable. “Reconsider. You can’t just leave now, we’ve got a massive tour all planned out
and we really do need a drummer to complete it.”

  “You are fucking us over,” Darcy says. “Did you think that through very carefully too? Or did you just think ‘fuck these guys’ and that was as far as you got?”

  “Look, I’m sorry, but you’ve totally got time to—”

  I stand up so fast my chair topples over, and everyone stops, turns, looks at me.

  I walk away from the table and stalk ten feet away, seeing black because I think I could strangle Eddie right now.

  That fucking asshole. Just when we get everything back on track, just when it seems like things might be going okay for once, he fucking up and quits the band.

  In the middle of a goddamn tour, and then he acts like he’s a fucking saint because we’ve got three weeks to find a replacement. Three fucking weeks.

  It took us three months to find Eddie when we had to kick Liam out. Apparently, we should have taken longer.

  What a shithead. Three weeks. Three goddamn weeks.

  “No, I said you’re a fucking inconsiderate prick, and you are,” Darcy shouts. “Who the fuck joins a band, starts a tour, and then decides to fuck that band over?”

  “The point wasn’t to fuck you over—”

  “Please, tell us the point then,” Gavin says. “I sure fucking hope it’s a good one.”

  “I’m going on tour with my side project. Stingraze.”

  I just turn and stare.

  He’s fucking going on tour with his side project. Leaving behind Dirtshine and arena shows and a platinum album for his fucking side project.

  “Are you serious?” Darcy’s voice is so vicious it’s almost a snarl.

  Silence.

  “You fucking cock,” Gavin mutters.

  I feel fucking ugly right now, like I might throw shit, or like the shit I throw might be Eddie, because there’s the rational, normal reaction to anger and then there’s the reaction I’ve got sometimes, which is anything but.

  “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Eddie finally says.

  “No, I’m not fucking kidding you, why would I be fucking kidding about how bloody pissed I am that you’re leaving after two tour dates?” Gavin says, his voice rising.

  “You punched me!” Eddie shouts.

  “But you didn’t fucking leave then, did you? You were happy to keep on sucking at the Dirtshine teat for another whole year!”

  A chair scrapes back, then another.

  “Guys,” Darcy says.

  “I should have left then!” Eddie shouts.

  “Fucking right!”

  “The three of you are total psychopaths,” Eddie goes on, starting to really get worked up. “You fucking punched me, Trent fucking got medieval on that poor bastard the other night with the fireworks, you’re a dismissive bitch who can barely be bothered to give me the time of day—”

  FUCK no.

  In half a second I’m back, both palms flat on the table, leaning toward Eddie.

  “It’s fuck you o’clock!” Darcy shouts. “How’s that?”

  “What did you just say?” I ask Eddie, my voice deadly calm, cutting through the racket.

  “You fucking drugged my girlfriend!” Gavin shouts.

  “Call Darcy a bitch again,” I say.

  Now the black is pounding through my veins with every heartbeat. Eddie can say whatever he wants about me, but Darcy?

  No. Fuck no.

  “Fucking ass-clown shithead cocktool dickface idiot mouthbreathing drummer,” Darcy says. “Fuck you.”

  “You gonna get upset about her calling me that?” Eddie says, almost hysterical, talking to me and pointing at Darcy. “Or do you not want to fuck me, so it doesn’t matter?”

  “You don’t know shit,” I growl, and start for him around the table.

  Eddie’s eyes go wide, but Darcy grabs my arm, her strong fingers digging in, her eyes flashing.

  “Don’t,” she says. “It’s fine.”

  Gavin glares at Eddie, then the two of us, and turns to leave. The door slams behind him.

  “Just fucking go,” Darcy says through her teeth. “Don’t make this worse.”

  I swallow. I know she’s right, but what he said just keeps ringing through my ears, pounding through my veins as she pulls at my arm.

  “Seriously,” she says, and her voice is still brittle and angry but now there’s a softer, pleading note in it and that’s what finally makes the black fade a little. I clear my throat.

  “Liam was miles better than you,” I tell Eddie. “Even blitzed out of his mind.”

  It feels like all the air sucks out of the room. I turn and walk for the door.

  “Buy some fucking pants!” Darcy says, following me. “Shorts are for children.”

  I head through the door, into the hallway, Darcy right behind me. Poor Nigel is still sitting at the table in the same room as Eddie, though I have a feeling he knew how that was going to go.

  Darcy turns and storms down the hallway. I don’t follow her. There’s a window at the other end and I walk to that, shoving my hands in my pockets, and stare out at the forest, still shaking with rage.

  Dismissive bitch, I think, and it feels like poison trickling through my veins.

  Fuck him. Fuck Eddie and his easy insults.

  Fuck him because he was supposed to be our friend, because he was supposed to be our bandmate, only to say that to her. The same thing that assholes everywhere keep saying about her, the same shit lowbrow music critics and neckbearded jackoffs who live in their moms’ basements say about her.

  I could tear Eddie’s goddamn head off right now.

  I don’t do anything. I’m shaking with anger but all I do is lean my forehead against the cool glass of the window. It would be so fucking satisfying, but I can do better. I didn’t the other night, but I can right now.

  I’ve seen what’ll happen if I don’t do better. I lived with it for eighteen years, and I’ve got no intention of making anyone else’s life that kind of hell.

  It takes a long time, but the blackness eventually recedes. The rage subsides. My hands stop itching to strangle someone, so I stand up straight, open my eyes, and take a deep breath.

  Then I go downstairs and head outside, because I desperately need to clear my head.

  Chapter Twelve

  Darcy

  I’m crying from sheer rage by the time I get back to my room. I fucking hate that I cry when I’m angry, but I do it every single time and it makes me crazy.

  Sad? A few tears.

  Furious? Full-blown snot-fest red-faced meltdown, complete with sobbing and hiccups. It’s the fucking worst.

  I’d throw myself dramatically on the bed, but my back’s too fucked up so I lean my elbows on the counter in my tiny suite kitchen and gulp air, trying to make myself calm down.

  But Eddie’s leaving. He’s leaving us for another band, right in the middle of our tour. And it’s not even a good band, it’s some crappy jam band that no one’s ever heard of.

  It has to be because he doesn’t like us. What other explanation is there?

  I thought we were okay, I think. I thought we’d fought and made up, like bands do.

  Like friends do.

  I fucking guess not, because he sure seems okay with leaving. And he sure as fuck seems okay with being a complete and total dick about leaving.

  He’s been with us for a year. No, it wasn’t the smoothest year, but there aren’t a lot of smooth years when you’re a professional rock musician.

  And he was part of us. We worked out songs together, we fucked around in the studio, we played music until it sounded right, we hung out trying new things until four in the morning and then we got breakfast burritos as the sun rose.

  Eddie wasn’t just some drummer. He was one of us. He wasn’t Liam, and we all knew that, but we fucking tried. We weren’t there yet but we wanted him to be one of us, part of our little made up family.

  And fuck, I thought it was working.

  Guess I thought wrong.

  A co
uple hours later, I wake up face down on the bed, pants, socks, and shoes all still on. My spine feels weird, probably from falling asleep in the worst position possible, so I take a deep breath and push myself up slowly until I’m sitting.

  The burn on my back protests, and my mouth tastes kind of like the comforter. Guess I’m still exhausted from the last couple of days, because I barely even remember getting on the bed before I passed out.

  I splash my splotchy, red, one-black-eye, puffy-from sleeping-weird face off in the bathroom, then head down to the lobby. I’ve got a dim memory that the lodge has a free happy hour every afternoon from five to seven, and that’s now.

  I’m not really supposed to drink, since alcohol isn’t great for healing wounds, but good advice can go fuck itself. Eddie’s leaving the band just when I thought everything was okay again, and I want a goddamn glass of wine.

  No one I know is in the lobby, which is just as well. Eddie’s probably not showing his face right now — good, because I don’t want to see his face — poor Nigel is probably dealing with Eddie’s shit, Gavin’s stone cold sober and has been for a year, and Trent barely drinks and is probably off in the woods wrestling a bear or howling at the sun or whatever’s going to make him feel better.

  The other people at the lodge are older, mostly dressed in casual-but-obviously-expensive cardigans and shit, all laugh very politely, and are almost 100% white. My ratty haircut, black eye, and torn jeans don’t exactly fit in.

  I grab a glass of red wine anyway. The bartender tells me what winery and vintage it is. I nod politely, like I give a shit, then start looking for the exit.

  There’s a printed sign on it, the font loopy and adorable: no alcohol outside, please.

  I push it open and walk out. It’s warmer than it was this morning, the late afternoon shadows stretching from the forest to the lodge, the scent of pine on a slight breeze wafting across the patio and the pool.

  It’s lovely. It’s idyllic. And Eddie fucking left Dirtshine, so all the lovely idyllic places in the world can go fuck themselves. I walk along the patio, past the pool, and around the side of the lodge where I this morning, I saw a fire escape with the bottom ladder extended. It goes past a few windows and to the roof, which is only two stories up.