Lost Avalon: A Finding Nolan Novel

by Thomas, K. S.

  “How do you know Mel?” She wasn’t exactly friendly either. Of course it probably would have helped if I had been equipped with a big dick.

  “I know she was hanging out with Blaise Nolan last night. Pretty sure he’s with her right now and I need to find him.”

  Perry gave me a dirty look. “Why? Maybe you should mind your own damn business. What, you his girlfriend or something, because I got bad news for you sweetie, he’s been a very bad boy.” She seemed to really enjoy taunting me, except it wasn’t working.

  “I’m not his fucking girlfriend you dumb bitch, I’m his manager. And if he isn’t on his goddamn tour bus in the next sixty minutes, it’s taking off without him. He won’t be too happy when he finds out I came here to get him and you told me to get lost.” I spun on my heel and went to storm off.

  “Wait." She took several steps after me. “I can’t leave yet or I’d take you there myself, but let me get you the address.”

  Two minutes later I was back in the cab handing Bertie, my driver – we were starting to bond at this point – the cocktail napkin Perry had used to write her address on. Thankfully, her apartment building was just a few roads down and so it wasn’t long before I was hammering on another front door.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Scary Red.

  “I’m here for Blaise. Where is he?”

  “What are you, his wife?” She was blocking the door with her arm.

  “Worse. I’m his manager. Now get out of my way.” I pummeled my way straight through her and into the apartment. It stunk of cigarettes and weed and the air freshener they were using to try and cover it up was only making matters worse.

  The place was nearly pitch black and out of habit I stared at the ground in search of stage markers to guide me, only this was no fucking stage, was it?!

  “Blaise?” There was no answer.

  “I really think you should leave,” Melanie was coming after me down the narrow hall I desperately hoped would lead to a bedroom.

  “I really think you should stay the fuck out of this,” I shot back when I finally caught a glimpse of some light. It wasn’t more than a red glow, but it was enough for me to make out a figure lying on the bed.

  I ran straight for him. “Blaise!”

  There was no response. I bent down to shake him. “Blaise, answer me.” Still nothing. I turned back to find Melanie. “What did he take?”

  She just shrugged.

  “Tell me!” I shouted, panic quickly rising within me as I searched for some sort of a real light switch so I could see what I was doing.

  Melanie didn’t answer, but she had the decency to flip on the light as she walked out of the room and left me to deal with Blaise by myself.

  Only the lights didn’t make me feel better like I’d thought they would. Instead, I felt myself coming undone at the sight of him. Not only was Blaise unconscious and naked, but he’d been cuffed to the headboard and was covered in small puncture wounds, several of which had been bleeding.

  “Blaise, you son of a bitch. Wake up!” I pounded onto his chest, and his eye lids briefly rolled up before they fell back into place. I took a deep breath and tried to hold my hand steady on his ribcage. When I felt it rise and fall consistently for several seconds, I told myself that things weren’t as bad as they looked. I had to fight all of my instincts to keep from calling 911. I knew it would be the last thing Blaise would want.

  But I needed help. While Bertie and I had gotten close during our brief trip together, he wasn’t the man for the job either. As fast as I could, I searched through things I tried not to look too closely at until I finally located Blaise’s pants and with them, his phone.

  “Blaise?” Royce had answered right away.

  “No, it’s me. But I found him. Only, I can’t get him out of here alone. Please come and help me.” I was in tears before I finished.

  “Absolutely. Just tell me where you are and I’ll be there.”

  I gave him the address and hung up, praying he would get there before anything else happened.

  ***

  …

  Chapter 5

  Royce had told Darrel, who also did the bulk of the driving, to go on without us. Derek and Angel had both been asleep by then, so there had been no need to explain anything to them. By the time he had showed up I’d at least managed to get Melanie to take off the fucking hand cuffs so I could get some clothes back on Blaise. Amazingly enough, his pants were a whole lot easier to get on than his shirt.

  “What the fuck happened?” Royce was staring at Blaise and then around the room which looked like a bomb had exploded in it. Melanie was a fucking slob. The only thing more frightening than the half empty takeout containers that were peeking out from underneath a scenery of hills consisting of dirty clothes, was the assortment of whips and such she had on display hanging along the wall beside the bed.

  “I don’t know and I don’t really want to. I just want to get him the fuck out of here.” I reached under Blaise’s left arm and waited for Royce to grab the right. Except he didn’t. Instead he spun around and took off down the hall.

  “Hey, what the hell was that for?” Melanie was screeching.

  “Just in case you took any pictures of your own, now you know I have some, too.”

  Royce came back into the room, his phone still in hand, snapping picture as he went. When he still wasn’t satisfied, he pulled a frame containing Melanie and Perry’s smiling faces from a random pile of trash at his feet and held it up in front of her whip collection.

  Melanie walked in just as he was taking his last shot. “You can’t do that. This is my stuff. It’s private!”

  “Exactly. You make sure you remember that.” He shoved his phone into his pocket and finally came to give me a hand.

  Together we managed to get Blaise upright and, by some miracle, he even seemed to be coming to enough to drag his feet over the carpet in what was his attempt at walking.

  Ten minutes later and we had somehow been able to get him into the backseat of the truck Royce had shown up in.

  “Where did you score this?” I closed the door on the backseat, ensuring none of Blaise’s limbs would be able to fall out again.

  “One of the maintenance guys at the arena. Told him I’d give him a thousand dollars if he let me borrow it.”

  “Cab might have been cheaper.” Speaking of, Bertie was still around here somewhere. “I take that back. I’ve probably racked up at least that by now. Hold on, let me go pay Bertie and get my stuff.”

  “Who’s Bertie?” Royce called after me.

  “My cabbie, who do you think?”

  I opened the door and climbed into the front seat. Bertie had fallen asleep and I about scared the shit out of him when I came whirling in without warning.

  “Sorry. I just wanted to pay you and say thank you for everything you did for me tonight. Seriously, you have no idea how much you helped me.”

  Bertie smiled warmly. “Sweetheart it was my pleasure. Is your friend going to be okay?”

  “Yeah, he’s going to be fine. At least until morning. Then I’m going to kill him,” I said dryly.

  “Don’t be too hard on him now,” Bertie chuckled.

  I cleaned out my wallet and gave him every last dollar in cash I had on me. It was a great deal more than the meter had racked up, but he deserved every penny of it.

  Then, with my bag and pillow case in hand, I made my way back over to Royce and his loaner.

  “I’m ready. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

  He just nodded and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  A few minutes later and we were back on the main roads and much like my earlier outing, we were once again aimless while Blaise was muttering nonsense to himself in the backseat. At first we ignored him. Then, his muttering turned to sobs.

  “Please don’t go. Please,” he begged quietly. “I know I’m bad. I know it. I can be better. I promise I’ll be better. But please, just don’t go.”

  The sound of
his voice gave me the chills. He didn’t sound like a grown man, he sounded like a frightened little boy. And I knew why.

  “You two have a fight?” Royce was looking to me for confirmation. It was a natural conclusion.

  “He’s not talking to me,” I said quietly, staring straight ahead.

  At last Blaise’s words faded and he went silent, only whimpering softly every so often.

  Royce looked uncomfortable as he tried to keep his focus on the road and pretended not to hear. “Where do you want to go? Bus is already out of town by now. Plus, I’m just guessing, but you probably don’t want anyone else to see him like this.”

  I shook my head, but didn’t reply.

  “How long has this been going on, Ava? Is this the sort of shit he does whenever he goes off alone?” I could hear the anger rising in his tone. He had every right to be pissed. Blaise risked the band’s reputation every time he got blitzed out of his skull and wound up doing something stupid. Thank God, the only one who’d ever had to suffer the repercussions of his actions had been him. Well, and me.

  “It’s never been this bad, okay? Normally it’s just booze. Maybe a few pills. But he’s never been so fucked up he couldn’t walk and talk anymore.” I could feel the sting of tears in the corners of my eyes. “He can’t help it Royce.” At that point my voice was barely even a whisper.

  “That’s not good enough, Ava.” His face was stone cold as he kept his gaze sternly on the road ahead, refusing to show me any softness or compassion. Of course he was mad at me. I hadn’t just been lying to everyone. I’d been part of the problem, enabling Blaise, covering, doing everything I could to make it easy for him to turn around and go out and do the same thing night after night. Royce would have to hate me. I hated me.

  “You don’t understand.” I shook my head trying to send back the words I knew I was about to say. “There are things. Things in Blaise’s past. Things I can’t tell you. But they were bad, Royce. Really fucking bad, and he’s just never been able to deal with any of it.” I sat up straight and turned around to check on Blaise. He was still out cold.

  “We all have bad shit in our past, Ava. It’s not an excuse.”

  “I know it’s not.” I slunk back down into my seat. “Now that you know, what are you going to do?”

  “Nothing.”

  I tried not to show my relief. There had been a reason I’d chosen to call Royce over the others. As a gay man and a famous bass player whose fan base consisted mostly of horny women between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five, Royce knew a little something about keeping up appearances. And I knew it was that particular part of him that was sympathetic to Blaise’s situation, even if he didn’t approve of it. It still wasn’t anyone else’s business to tell his secrets.

  “We need to get him into a shower and then to bed. Think we can get a room for tonight at that hotel we were just at?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Actually, we had the suite for one more night but I let it go because I wanted to get on the road. With any luck it’ll still be empty.”

  Royce handed me his phone and I made the call. Just as predicted they hadn’t rented the penthouse out to anyone new and we were able to get it back for our last night. To make matters even more convenient, we’d have access to the room via the elevator that ran straight down into the parking garage so we wouldn’t have to risk running into an unwanted audience.

  Once we got Blaise up to the room, Royce called downstairs to make arrangements to have the car returned to its owner. Then, we tackled the task of getting Blaise back to his feet and under some running water.

  Not surprisingly, Royce was a little less comfortable with the concept of seeing Blaise naked than I was, so he helped me to the bathroom and then opted to wait outside until further notice.

  Even though Blaise was still out of it, at least he was slowly but surely getting to the point where he could stand on his own two feet again.

  I felt like I was on repeat for the hundredth time as I walked Blaise toward the bed, wrapped in nothing but his towel. Royce just stood back and watched as I laid him down and kissed his forehead, same as I always did.

  I could feel Royce’s eyes boring into me and I knew a million different images of me were flashing through his mind and suddenly falling into place for him. All the times he’d seen me coming out of Blaise’s room when I really had no business in there. When I’d been wearing his clothes, or just different clothes than I’d worn the night before. The times I’d been exhausted even though I’d gone to bed earlier than everyone else and all the times I simply looked like shit because Blaise was draining every last ounce of energy out of me. No doubt it was all making sense to him now.

  “He doesn’t even know,” Royce whispered.

  “Know what?”

  “How lucky he is.” He shook his head sadly and walked from the room, quietly closing the door behind him as he went.

  Left alone with Blaise in the dark, I took several steps back and just stood there staring at him. I hated him. Hated him for scaring me. Hated him for putting me through this. Mostly, I hated him for hating himself so much. And for that, I hated his mother.

  I have no idea how long I stood there, silent tears streaming down my face and a heart aching so badly I wanted to scream from the pain. But I didn’t. I never did. Because Blaise was already making enough noise with the nonstop, self-destructive episodes he made me watch night after night.

  “Avalon.” His voice was thin and hoarse, like he hadn’t had anything to drink in days. I poured him a glass of water from one of the bottles on the bar and carefully tilted the rim of it against his lips. He lifted his head and took several sips before falling back into the pillow.

  “I’m sorry,” he croaked with his eyes closed.

  “Just go back to sleep, Blaise. We can talk in the morning.”

  “You’ll stay?” His hand came out into the room, searching for me blindly.

  I reached out and held it in mine. “Yes, I’ll stay.”

  It was all he needed to hear to fall back asleep until morning.

  ***

  I had no idea how I had wound up there or when she had come back to me, but there I was, lying in bed with Ava beside me. It was as close to home as I would ever get. Without her, I was homeless. Lost. And she knew that better than anyone. It was the only reason she took pity on my pathetic ass time after time even though it was clear as fucking glass that I didn’t deserve it.

  And I would tell her so. Or rather, I would plan to tell her. And then, I would sober up, decide that I could handle my own shit and I didn’t need her. And, instead of thanking her, instead of telling her how she was the only thing that made any fucking sense to me, I would be an asshole. I don’t know why… Maybe I do…Maybe I wanted her to prove that her love was, and would always be, unconditional. Maybe I wanted to prove that it wasn’t.

  Chapter 6

  I woke up the next morning, and for the first time ever, I didn’t rush to sneak out of the room before anyone else was up to catch me. There was no one to hide from. Royce already knew.

  For a moment I just laid there next to Blaise, enjoying the sun warming the leg I had slipped out from under the covers. Then, he began to move and I realized his waking up would lead to talking, and I wasn’t really in the mood for that yet.

  In keeping with my newfound mission to move about like I goddamned pleased, I threw back the blankets and jumped out of bed, making sure I properly bounced the mattress as I did so. Then I pulled one of the hotel robes from its hanger with a jerk, making the metal clink loudly as it fell back into its fellow closet mates.

  “Shit, Ava. Could you keep it down?” Blaise was burying his head under his pillow trying to dull the noise and with it, the pounding headache he was likely experiencing.

  “Nope,” I called back as I swung the door open, walked out and then slammed it shut behind me.

  It felt good. And, I strutted my way happily into the kitchen.

  When I turned the corner to
make a beeline for the coffee maker, Royce was already there, smirking at me.

  “Making sure Blaise is suffering through his hangover?”

  “Uh-huh.” I opened the cupboard and reached for a mug. Now that Blaise’s undoing had been averted, I had more thoughts available to linger on what had made me run out in the first place. The betrayal. Royce had been a part of that.

  “You going to make arrangements for us to fly out and meet up with the others?”

  I shook my head and casually poured myself a coffee.

  “Then what’s the plan? Are you cancelling the rest of the tour?” Royce’s voice jumped up a few octaves. He wasn’t angry exactly, but definitely getting heated.

  “I’m not doing anything, Royce. I quit last night. I’m not your manager anymore.” I walked back out of the kitchen cradling my warm mug in my hands.

  “What the fuck are you talking about? You can’t quit.” He looked confused…and surprisingly, hurt.

  “Fuck yeah, I can. Same as you assholes can take a meeting with Mitch Braxton.”

  Royce’s face fell. “Who told you?”

  I glared at him. “Lee.” Then I turned my back on him and walked out onto the terrace. I couldn’t stand to see the look in his eyes anymore. Guilt. Embarrassment. Self-loathing. I had felt plenty of those myself lately. I wasn’t going to let myself sympathize with anyone else when no one ever bothered to show me the same courtesy.

  It wasn’t long before I heard Royce’s slippers move across the ground behind me.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said quietly.

  “Yeah, I bet,” I snorted. “Blaise tried that bullshit, too.”

  “No really, Ava. We had no idea what we were walking into. The label set up the whole thing. It was their idea, not ours. I swear. The moment we found out what we were there for, we all stood up and walked out.”

  My head spun back at him in shock. “What?”

  “It’s the truth. And that’s not all. Blaise was fucking pissed. He raised hell with the label. Threatened to walk on the record if they ever interfered like that again. Then he made us swear never to tell you.” Royce exhaled loudly, staring out at the city’s skyline. “It wasn’t the right way to do it, but he was trying to protect you. We all were.”