by Susan Ward
“Ethan! Stop. Not another word. God damn it, don’t put my son in handcuffs.”
“I have to, sir,” says a crisp authoritative voice. “He assaulted someone. I have to arrest him.”
Arrest Ethan?
No, no, no!
I want to get up.
Why can’t I see anything?
Why can’t I move?
Someone’s doing something to my arm.
Doors slam.
Sirens.
The pain in my body is unbearable.
A needle in my arm.
I feel lighter, like I’m floating.
“Is he going to be all right?”
My insides tense even though my body can’t. Who the fuck let Tara near me? Get her away. I try to talk. Nothing.
SOMETHING IS MOVED over my face. “Yes, torn retina. Push back my surgery schedule six hours.”
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
Someone’s sitting beside the bed, crying.
Please don’t let it be Tara.
In this dark torture chamber of pain, I can’t take it. It’s her fault I’m here.
Someone clutches my hand. “I’m sorry, Eric.”
Ethan.
I let myself be taken by the darkness again.
MY LEFT EYE OPENS. There’s something covering my other eye. The bright light in the room is painful and I squint.
Slowly my vision comes into focus. I’m on a hospital bed, positioned on my side so I can’t roll, attached to something. There are bandages on my arms. I try—I can move my legs. I struggle against what’s holding me, and searing pain shoots across my back.
My heart stops.
Why am I harnessed so I can’t move? I stare out the window. It’s daytime. How long have I been here?
My gaze darts around the side of the room I can see.
I’m alone.
Where’s my family?
Frantically, I pull the breathing mask off my face. “Hello? Is anyone there?” My voice is mostly breath, but someone moves immediately on the other side of the bed.
Footsteps come closer, then I find Ethan staring down at me. “Oh, thank God you’re awake.”
Awake? “What happened?”
His face contorts with pain. “You don’t remember?”
I shake my head.
He’s crying now. “We were arguing. I punched you. You went through the glass divider at The Cockyard. A piece went into your right eye, but the doctor said it’s going to heal fine. You had a whole bunch of glass in your back. Lots of bandages and stitches. This is all my fault. Can you ever forgive me, Eric?”
It takes a moment, but then I remember everything. Tara. Our fight. Seeing the misery on my brother’s face is more than I can take. He looks half out of his mind with misery. “Stop it, E. I deserved it. This isn’t your fault.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t make me feel lousier than I already do. It is my fault.” His face scrunches up as he wipes the tears dripping from his nose. “Let me get a doctor, and Mom and Dad.”
I reach for him. “No, E. I need to explain to you first.”
Blue eyes lock with blue. “It doesn’t matter. Not now. Whatever happened between you and Tara, I don’t care. You’re my brother. I love you. I couldn’t survive if something happened to you.”
No matter my relief at hearing that, his words settle like bricks in my gut. I can’t let this go. Tara will come between again if I don’t get it out between us finally.
“Let me get the doctor, OK?” Ethan steps back from the bed.
“No, E. Sit. Listen. I have to tell you everything before the family comes in here. I may not get another chance.”
He shakes his head, his jaw clenched, and he sinks his fingers in his hair. “Listen to what?” he asks with a quiet voice that would’ve made me jump if I could move. “Tara told the family last night that you two got married in Vegas a week ago.”
Oh fuck.
“It’s not what you think, E.”
His mouth tightens more. “I don’t ever want to talk about this. Not ever. It doesn’t matter what you think you have to tell me. Not now. All that matters is we’re brothers and you’re going to be OK.”
But it does!
“Please, Ethan, hear me out before you go get Mom and Dad. I need to know that you know the truth about Tara and me. But it stays between us. You don’t tell anyone, ever. You’ve gotta promise that, E.”
He looks undecided, but then he sinks down on the chair beside the bed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and staring at the floor.
Looking at my brother, it’s harder to get the words out than I ever expected it to be. “She showed up at my house the month before you got home from MIT for the summer. She was drunk and dressed all sexy, and coming on to me. One minute I’m trying to get her out of my front door, then the next she’s got me doing lines with her and taking shots. And I’m thinking my brother deserves so much better than her, and I wanted you to snap out of whatever hold she has over you. I was fucking high or wouldn’t have done it. That’s no excuse. It’s on me, Ethan. But I fucked her. We were together one night. That’s it. And I made sure I was never alone with her again. But when we got back from the summer leg of the tour she showed up at my door again. Told me she was pregnant. Claimed she wasn’t sure which one of us was the father and pointed out there wasn’t a way for us to ever know. And since it didn’t matter to her who married her, she’d marry me if I asked first.”
Ethan’s face snaps up, eyes blazing. “Pregnant?”
It’s almost impossible to hold his gaze. “Yeah. She said if I didn’t step up, you would, and that there’d never be a way to prove that the baby wasn’t yours, so she’d lie if I said anything.”
Ethan sinks back against his chair. He looks numb with disbelief. “I can’t believe what you’re telling me.”
“It’s the truth, E. I don’t like Tara. I never have, but I couldn’t see a way to protect you unless I married her. I made her get a DNA test. I’m not the only guy she’s been with while you’re at school. But it came back a match. If I didn’t marry her, she was going to pull the same shit on you. We have identical DNA. Only, you’d have believed her.”
“You didn’t have to protect me. I love her. I would have married her anyway. We don’t even know which one of us is the father.”
“It’s not yours, Ethan. You’ve never fucked up at anything in your life. The odds say me.” I can’t meet his eyes any longer. “That’s why I took the bullet for both of us. I had to. I couldn’t let you marry her. You love Tara. She’d have ruined your life. It’s better this way.”
“It’s not better for me,” Ethan hisses, harsh with emotion. “You didn’t even think about what I wanted. You just fixed things in the fucked-up way you fix everything. I’d have married her and been glad I did.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
After everything I said, he still wants her.
The only thing keeping him from her is me.
I’m never getting out of the trap she has me in. No way can I divorce her until my brother’s thinking clearly. I don’t care how long it takes. One month. A year. It won’t be safe to show her the door until Ethan’s out of his delusion over her. And no fucking way am I letting Tara ruin his life, not after what she did to me.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Eric
AFTER MY FAMILY LEAVES, I ring for a nurse. I listen to the squishy sounds of her rubber-soled shoes coming into the room and around the bed.
I look up at her. “How long do you think I’m going to be in the hospital?”
She opens my chart. “If all goes well, the doctor has you scheduled for release on Monday.”
Thank fuck. “My stuff. Do you know where it is?”
“It’s bagged up and in the closet. What do you need?”
“My cell phone, please.”
Squish. Squish. Squish.
Rustling plast
ic bag.
Then she sets my phone on the bed. “One to ten. How’s your pain level?”
“Ten.”
Just reaching to pick up my phone damn near makes me pass out. She shoots something into my IV.
“That should kick in soon, Eric.”
“Thank you.” I’ve got my finger poised above Willow’s number and I’m waiting for the nurse to leave.
Once the door shuts behind her, I go to my texts, but I’m starting to feel loopy.
Oh fuck. A half dozen missed calls from Willow and about—I scroll through them quickly—an equal number of texts. She’s got to be pissed. Struggling to focus enough to read the chat string, my heart grows heavier by the word. She’s worried. Genuinely worried because she hasn’t heard from me.
She’s the last girl I want to fuck up with, but I’m doing it effortlessly. I’m too foggy to call. It’s a struggle to hit the right letters, but I carefully tap out a note.
Me: Sorry I didn’t call you last night. Things with my brother got complicated. I’m good. But it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to be there Sunday. Not sure how soon I can get away. But the second I can, I’m Seattle bound. Call me when you get this. Because you are you.
I add an emoji when that’s not even something close to what I’d do, but it seems the right move. Something light, and the fucking things do look friendly.
My lids droop before there’s an answering ding.
THE NEXT MORNING, the guys barge into my hospital room carrying pizza and beer, waking me.
“What the fuck are you doing here so early?”
“Thought we should slip in before your fam gets here,” Hugh replies. “Gotta make sure our boy’s doing OK.”
“I regret to inform you I’m going to recover,” I jeer, and they all laugh as I check my cell.
No call or text back from Willow. I was in and out of sleep all night, and I thought about her every minute I was alert. I didn’t fall fully asleep until this morning after the doctor checked my back and gave the thumbs-up to the nurse to let me out of that freaking harness.
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, the going-to-recover part. You look like shit, dude,” Linc says, setting a slice beside me on the bed.
“No, he looks like someone threw him through a glass window,” Taz corrects, his voice upbeat even mouthing that grim shit.
“Fuck you. No cuts on my face. I’m still the good-looking one in the band.”
Both my boys give me the fucking asshole stare.
Hugh takes us all in with a single glance. “Who the fuck would have thought Ethan had that in him? Totally in shock every second.”
How amped they are wounds a little, but it’s them. The guys live and die for this kind of shit, a good Eric fuckup, but hearing my brother’s name makes me want to shut it down quickly.
“Don’t hold back, Eric. We want the full details,” Linc presses. “What possessed you to marry Tara? Did you really marry that bitch in Vegas or was she just crazy-stalker talking?”
Great. I forgot that part went public Friday. “It’s no big deal. Not explaining. It’s a temporary complication, nothing more.”
Hugh stares at me. What the fuck? “Nothing temporary about being married. Not to Tara. She’s like the plague. Can’t cure it. Can’t escape it.”
It’s nice that at least the guys can see the truth about her, even if Ethan doesn’t after everything I told him. “Well, it’s over. In the past. I want to forget it—I definitely want to forget her—get out of here and get back into the studio to finish our new release.”
Linc gives me a look, his pizza halfway to his mouth. “Over? Dude, this isn’t even close to being over. You should see the YouTube videos. It’s like an action flick. Our downloads on iTunes have been off the chart since Friday.”
Taz drops down on the bed next to me and holds his phone beneath my face. “The videos have fucking gone viral, man. It’s all out there. Your fight with Ethan. You going through the glass. Your dad in the parking lot, arguing with the cops not to arrest Ethan—”
“Still don’t know how your pop got the cops to uncuff Ethan and not take him to jail. It was epic,” Linc says over the top of Taz’s chatter. “Manzone family unplugged. Unreal.”
“Look at the number of hits.” Taz’s wavy brown hair slaps his face as he shakes his head. “I’m pretty sure Walker put a little boost behind this. Gotta admit, it’s great fucking publicity.”
Walker—our manager.
Over a million hits on the link Taz is showing me, and climbing. My stomach churns. I wonder if a certain girl in Seattle has seen these and that’s why Willow hasn’t answered my texts.
Fuck.
“It’s all out there, bro,” Linc says sagely. “You’re not just playing a rock star anymore. I’m pretty sure this qualifies you for the real thing. Bar brawl. Battle scars. Playboy centerfold crazy, slutty wife. And on every important blog and tabloid in America today.”
The guys double over laughing, and I manage a smile while giving them all the finger. “Stop giving me shit, and hand me some more pizza.”
“Breakfast of champions, EJ,” Linc says, grabbing one of the boxes for me. “Better eat up fast. One of the nurses tried to take it from us while we were sneaking it in.”
“Yeah, had to hide the beer under my shirt,” Taz explains.
“When you getting out of here?” Hugh asks.
“Tomorrow. My eye’s going to be jacked up a couple weeks, but I can get back to finishing the new LP right away.”
“Finishing the new LP?” Linc studies my face and frowns. We stopped bouncing down tracks when Ethan formally quit the band three weeks ago with all that garbage about wanting to only focus on his education and Tara. “Where are things with Ethan? You guys cool again?”
Fuck, I need to get them to stop asking questions if I’m going to survive this conversation. “Yeah. We worked it out. Everything is solid between us.”
Hugh turns to me, looking surprised. “Worked it out? You mean he’s not going back to school? He’s rejoining the band?”
“Nah. Not that.” I rake back my hair. No way I could broach that subject after what went down and how my brother stared at me. “He goes back to school tomorrow. If you’ve got Caleb’s number you’ve got my blessing to give him a ring and fly him down to jam with us.”
The door closes behind my parents. The rest of the family didn’t visit with them, but thankfully, neither did Tara. Maybe she’s gotten the picture she’s unwelcome and that whatever she’s hoping for, I’m always going to be out of her reach.
She got me to marry her, but as for us being anything more, ever—not happening.
I check my phone.
Still nothing back from Willow.
My stomach churns.
The longer I don’t hear from her, the surer I get that she’s stumbled across one of the dozens of videos floating around the internet. I should have come clean with her earlier. If she’s seen one, I’ll be lucky if she ever talks to me again.
For the umpteenth time today, I hit call and wait.
She can’t ignore me forever.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Voice mail.
Again.
The nurse enters the room. “Time for your last dose of meds for the night. What’s your pain level been today?”
Heart? Ten. Body? “About a four.”
She smiles and holds out a small paper cup with two pills in it. “Four is good. You should get out of here tomorrow as scheduled.”
What a fucking relief. There’s too much to do to lie around in a hospital bed.
I down the tablets and chase them with the water she gives me. I wait until she’s gone again and hit callback for Willow.
There’s no help for it. Even doped up on pain meds I won’t sleep before I’ve talked to her. I need to hear her voice in the worst way. Now, more than ever, I need to know we’re OK.
Chapter Thirt
y-Five
Willow
MY CELL VIBRATES IN my pocket, but I ignore it and drop my tray on the bar. I focus on counting my tips as I wait for Jade to fill my new drinks order.
My sister grabs the ticket off my tray. “We’ve got a good crowd in here for a Sunday. Lots of locals turning out to welcome Dad home.”
I nod and force a smile while held-back tears claw at my throat. My cell’s gone still in my pocket. It’s agony not to pull it out and verify that it’s him again.
But it’s for the best not to look or answer. Friday he didn’t call when he promised. Today he’s not here. It’s how the end of my relationships always start. Talking to Eric is only going to make what he intends to do—break it off with me officially—harder.
My cell goes off again, and somehow she hears it. Lifting a brow, she looks up from filling glasses double-handed. “Why don’t you get it over with and answer it?”
“No need to.” I zip my tip pouch closed.
She shakes her head. “If he wants to end it like a gentleman you should let him. Personally, I didn’t think he had that in him.”
“Jade, please!”
“Clean endings are better,” Jade advises in her superior way.
“Maybe. But I said I didn’t want to talk about this.”
My cell stops. We both glance at my pocket.
“All right. Butting out. But have you ever considered maybe you’re partly responsible for your own unhappy endings?”
I droop with my elbows against the bar, my forehead in my fingertips. What is my sister trying to do? First she warns me off Eric; now she wants me to suck it up and let him dump me personally.
I only barely manage to respond. “No.”
Her voice softens. “I have to admit I was wrong about something. He did seem to really care about you, Willow.”
I lift my nose, eyes blazing. “You were wrong about everything. He’s a wonderful guy and he did care about me.”
Her mouth tightens, and she just barely nods. “Then why are you afraid to answer the phone?”
