Forever Red

by Carina Adams

  “Hey,” I muttered softly as I stepped up to him, pulling a packet of Tylenol from my pocket before sinking down next to him. “Take these.”

  Noah lifted his head off the back of the couch, visibly wincing as he opened his eyes. He took the pills I placed in his hand and gulped them back. “Thanks, bro.” Then he dropped his head back on the cushion, rubbing his hands back and forth on his thighs. “I think I’m dying.”

  I laughed. “Yeah. You’ll feel like that for a while, kid. The water’ll help.” Then I noticed him start to turn green again. “If you can keep it down.”

  Noah groaned, but he didn’t get sick. After a few minutes, his breathing turned slow and steady. I stayed with him while he slept, watching my friends. This group of eight men, nine if you included my brother, were more family than anything. They’d been through it all with me as we’d grown up together. They’d seen me at my best, stood beside me at my worst, and I never had to worry that they would abandon me.

  Unlike a certain redheaded vixen that I couldn’t get out of my thoughts. I sighed, dropping my head back next to Noah’s. I felt like a giant ass. Lia had always held that power over me; when I’d done something wrong when we were teenagers, I had guilt for days. I hated seeing her upset, but fucking hated myself when she was upset because of me. Fuck me. That girl – woman now – was not supposed to affect me still.

  “Pissed at the world or one specific person?”

  “The fuckin’ world.” I opened my eyes and grinned at Finn Woods as he sat on the coffee table in front of me, handing me a bottle of beer. “As usual.”

  “I hear that.” He nodded, looking back at the rest of the guys. “It must have been a surprise, her showin’ up after all these years.”

  I watched him closely, trying to see if there was more he was trying to say. Fuck knows the boys each had their own opinion of Red, simply because of the ghosts they knew haunted me. Some, like Finn, had been with me from the beginning and knew how much I’d tortured myself over her. To others, like Boone, the name Red was synonymous with Bigfoot or the Huggin’ Molly that roamed the backwoods of Alabama – a mythical creature who most women were afraid of but didn’t really exist.

  Finn’s face was clear of animosity and held only concern and curiosity. He was worried about me, and most likely was wondering how Red’s re-appearance would affect not just me, but the band as a whole. I didn’t have answers for him.

  Before I could respond, Nikki joined us. Finn yanked my sister down onto his lap and his hands automatically went to her very round stomach in the protective way they always did. I was sure I’d never get used to seeing the two of them together because they were just so goddamn different, but those differences didn’t seem to bother them.

  “How’s my nephew?” I asked, leaning forward to inspect my big sister. One of the best managers in this industry, one hell of a sharp business woman, and still as stubborn as they come, Nikki had decided to work right up until the newest member of my family made his appearance. I hated her choice.

  Each day she looked more exhausted than the one before. Her constant laughter had disappeared months before, and in its place was a bitchy and snappy attitude that no one escaped. The glow she’d had when she first found out she was expecting had dulled, replaced by deep black bags under her eyes. We all knew that she was over-the-moon excited for this baby, we all were, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

  “Your niece”—she lifted a single eyebrow in my direction—“or nephew”—she glanced at her husband sheepishly over her shoulder—“is kicking the shit out of his momma and won’t let her sleep.”

  I frowned, not liking the sounds of that at all. “Come on, Nik. Why don’t you take the next few days off? Fly home, drive out to the farm, and rest until we meet up with you next week?”

  She only pursed her lips in agitation. “I can’t do my damn job from the farm, Nathaniel!”

  I shot a look at Finn, just as surprised by her snapping at me as he seemed to be. “You actually can, Nik. We don’t live in the dark ages; we do have Wi-Fi there.”

  “If I’m gone, who is gonna keep you from fucking everything up?”

  I tensed. “‘Scuse me?”

  “Don’t play dumb, shithead. First, you change security protocols, the ones we all agreed on so that Mike could have a night off, and then you grab her and maul her. Then, like the true fucktard you are, you sing her happy birthday after telling everyone that the woman who broke your heart was here. And then, for the final brilliant act, you let her leave without so much as an ‘I’m a fucking prick. Forgive me?’ It may have been a fan-driven show, but there was media here, you moron.”

  Finn wouldn’t meet my eyes, but I could tell he was as uncomfortable as he always was when Nik and I had a disagreement. He was torn between the two of us – his boss or his manager, his friend or his wife. Just like always, he’d give me a chance to say my piece, but if he felt I was getting too angry or if she was getting too upset, he’d step in and shut it down. He wasn’t a huge guy, close to my height without the bulk, but there is nothing more powerful than a man who feels like he’s protecting his woman.

  I took a deep breath, trying to gain control. I didn’t want to have this fight with her tonight, not when she was already worn out because of the baby, and I was already stressed about Red. “I did fuck up, Nik. But it’s taken care of.”

  She shook her head, trying to interrupt, but I kept talking.

  “There’s no need to worry about the press. Not over this shit. I didn’t say anything tonight that wasn’t general knowledge.”

  Blue eyes sent ice darts at me and she gave me a look that I’d seen a thousand times when I’d done something stupid, reminding me once again exactly how much she looked like our mom. “It isn’t taken care of. Lia and her friends didn’t accept the tickets.”

  The bottle was almost to my lips when I realized what she’d said. “What?”

  “The tickets you were giving to Lia to make up for whatever it was you did? She said to tell you, and I quote, ‘Thanks, but no.’ Did you really think that’s all it was gonna take? That someone like Lia would swoon when you threw tickets at her?”

  I narrowed my eyes at the pair in front of me. “How do you know what she said? I asked Molly to give them to her, not you.”

  Nik laughed at that. “You’re fucking clueless.” Then, shaking her head as if I was the biggest dumbass on the planet, she continued. “Molly didn’t feel comfortable talking to them so I went instead.”

  “Lia’s not comin’ tomorrow night?”

  Nik shook her head once. “Nope.”

  I gripped the bottle in my hand tightly, trying not to throw it. What the fuck. I needed to see her again. We needed to talk and I needed to have my say. She was not going to disappear again, leaving me to wonder where in the hell she was and how in the hell she was doing. Not going to fucking happen.

  “What limo company took her home?”

  Nik jerked back abruptly, her head clocking Finn on the chin. “What?” Her voice was cold.

  “What company did we hire to take her home?” I asked again, slowly this time. She shook her head as if she didn’t know. But we both knew she did. “Cut the shit. You know everything about every part of this show. Which fucking charter company was it?”

  “Nate.” She started in her motherly tone. “Even if I tell you which one, they’re not going to tell you where she lives.” The fuck they wouldn’t. I only glared at her more. She finally rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “Fine. Whatever.” She waved her hand at me as if I was an unimportant idiot and told me the name of the company.

  I grabbed my phone, hitting the button that called my personal assistant.

  April’s groggy voice answered on the second ring. “If I have to come bail your ass outta jail again, you’re the one tellin’ Nikki ‘cause she’s gonna kick your ass.”

  I chuckled. “Nothing that bad, I promise.” I quickly explained what I needed a
nd without any questions, she promised she’d call me back as soon as she had an answer. Not five minutes later, my phone rang. “Please tell me you got something.”

  “I have two different names and two different addresses. Both were a group of four women that were in limos from that company. Dispatch didn’t know what they looked like, but I do have the first names of all eight women.”

  “Give them to me.” The first four were no one I knew. Then came Cora, Courtney, Nina, and CeCe. “That one!” I snapped harshly. “That’s them.”

  “Nate?” My friend sounded worried. “Everything okay?”

  “It is now,” I assured her. “Can you send me that address? Thank you, April!” I hung up and smirked at my sister. “Never underestimate the power that is Nate Kelly.”

  Nikki threw her hands in the air and rolled her eyes. “Oh, I don’t underestimate you at all, little brother. But my money’s on the redhead.”

  *****

  The venue we’d been at was close enough to the home I owned in Sharon that we’d all planned on crashing there for the weekend. Well, the majority of us. It was better than staying in another nameless hotel or squeezing onto one of the busses. And it gave us the ultimate privacy.

  The problem was that even though we’d driven to the show in a few of our own vehicles, our trucks and cars had been driven back by techies and extra security staff. The policy was that after a show was over, a trailer drove us wherever we were going. It started out as a way to make sure none of us were driving drunk, but Nik liked using it as a way to keep tabs on us and make sure we didn’t bring any unwanted guests back with us. Seriously, what girl would want to be alone with ten pigheaded and perverted men? Even sex with Nate Kelly wasn’t appealing enough to put up with that shit.

  Even though I had an address for Lia and I was aching to go see her, I had no vehicle. So I piled on the bus with my band, sat on the couch, and half-listened to their banter while mentally planning my trip back to Maine to get her. We were almost back to my place when Noah woke up.

  “Feelin’ better?” I asked as he staggered out into the main area.

  He nodded slightly. “I think so. But I still want to die.”

  I handed him my mug. “Finish this. I’ll make another pot.”

  He sniffed the cup and looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Since when did you start drinking coffee again?”

  “Since he needs to stay up,” Billy Brown, my kickass drummer, told him. “He’s a man on a mission.”

  Noah gulped the hot liquid I’d given him but then looked at me as if he was waiting for me to finish.

  “Fuck it,” I snapped. “I’m going to see Lia.”

  “At three in the morning?” My kid brother looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Aren’t you two past the booty call stage?”

  There were some crude comments from my bandmates followed by laughter. Even I had to chuckle at the horrified look on his face. “You dick. I want to apologize, so I’m taking her tickets to tonight’s show.”

  “It’s been, what, ten years and the man’s still whipped? I gotta meet this chick, man. She’s gotta be something to bring one-date-wonder Nate Kelly to his knees,” Rhett Prescott, our fiddler and resident man-whore, commented. I flipped him off as I turned back to the coffee pot.

  “He’s got a point, Nate. I think we’re all pretty fucking curious.” Molly set her iPad on the table in front of her, joining the conversation. “We have a big show tonight. You gotta be on your game, man, not exhausted from an eight-hour road trip that may or may not end the way you want it to.” She shrugged when I turned back to her. “This isn’t something you would ever do. So we’re all trying to figure out what’s goin’ on.”

  Not breaking eye contact with my best friend, I tried to explain. “It’s not what you think. I was a dick. I want to say I’m sorry to an old friend.” At Molly’s annoyed eye roll, I added defensively, “I didn’t know where she was before.”

  “Maybe not. But it seems a little out of character and a lot desperate. She already shot you down. So you gonna go grovel now?”

  I didn’t like her tone. Molly was always pushing me, forcing me to see the other side of the spectrum. It always irritated me, but this time it pissed me off. Lia was off limits. Even to her.

  “If you have to beg someone to be in your life, they aren’t worth it,” she added.

  Noah answered before I could. “She’s worth it.” Eyes that mirrored my own found mine. “Lia was fucking amazing. She’s the kinda woman I’d drop to my knees and beg for her attention, even if I knew she’d only give it to tell me to fuck off.” He smirked then. “I’m coming with you, brother. You’ll need someone to keep you awake on the way.”

  An hour later, he and I were in the Escalade, armed with coffees, headed north on I-95. I’d planned to take my truck; it was less flashy and we looked like normal people when we were in it. Noah had pointed out that if, by some miracle, Lia did agree to come back with us, she’d probably want to bring her friends. We needed the third-row and the extra room for all the girly shit they’d probably bring.

  My baby brother was a giant pain in the ass, don’t get me wrong, but over the years, he’d grown up and I’d gotten to the point where I enjoyed his company more than the company of half the other people in my life. There was no need to pretend with him, to be someone I wasn’t. Plus, he was a funny shit.

  It was almost seven when we pulled into a small apartment complex just outside of Portland. There were three buildings, each with three floors. And, judging by the cars, a shit ton of people crammed into that space. It wasn’t where I would have pictured Lia living. She hated the trailer park because of its lack of privacy. But this place was far from a dump and was leagues better than where she’d grown up.

  We found an empty spot, grabbed the Box o’Jo and bag of bagels we’d just purchased from the Dunkin Donuts around the corner, and headed toward the C building. Her apartment was number C311, so we assumed it was on the top floor. The front door only opened with a fob so we headed to the side door.

  I stared at the buzzer, wondering if I should ring her apartment and ask them to let me in. Noah didn’t hesitate, though, pushing nineteen or twenty random call buttons, one right after the other. Not five seconds later the door buzzed and we heard the latch unlock. We took the stairs two at a time and were on the third floor before I could remember what we were doing or tell myself it was a bad idea.

  Noah stopped in front of a door with a welcome sign on it. He turned to me, grinning, and pointed. “We’re here.”

  I froze. What seemed like such a great idea an hour ago now seemed like the dumbest one I’d had. I turned to go when I heard him knock.

  I snapped my head back around, just to make sure I wasn’t hearing things. Noah was grinning like the goddamn Cheshire cat. Fuck him. The little bastard had knocked. Before I could stop him, he knocked again.

  “Coming! I’m coming!” yelled a very sleepy, very agitated voice. And before I could grab my brother and get the hell out of her line of fire, the door jerked open, revealing a very pissed off woman.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ~ Cecelia ~

  I had a hangover to rival all hangovers. It took me a few minutes to figure out that the pounding was actually someone knocking on the door and not the steady hammering of my heart echoing in my head. I was never going to drink again. This crap was fun when I was twenty-two, but it was a bitch at thirty.

  We hadn’t had that much to drink; had we? Those fucking grape Smirnoff Ice tasted just like grape soda to me, and I know I could easily knock back a six-pack by myself without feeling like I was drinking. But there was practically no alcohol in them, right? Another knock on the door had me grabbing my head and wincing in pain.

  Fuck them. Whoever was at that door – practically before sunup on my birthday weekend – was going to wish to Christ that they’d knocked on someone else’s door. Seriously. Fuck them.

  I sat up as slowly as I could, hand covering
my mouth as I realized, once again, the brutal truth of drinking in excess at my age. I was going to lose my fucking cookies. Ugh. I hated throwing up, and the fact that I’d done this shit to myself just pissed me off.

  I moved slightly, leaning my back against the couch. We’d had a full-blown sleepover; two air mattresses had been blown up, taking up our entire living room floor, and we’d pulled out every pillow and blanket we owned, sleeping two to a bed. We’d stayed awake half the night laughing, talking, and drinking. It’d been a fucking blast.

  The ladies were still passed out cold. When I heard the knock again, I barely contained the urge to grab the pillow closest to me and beat Cora with it until she answered the goddamn door. I ground my teeth, pushing against the couch to get my feet under me.

  I closed my eyes, fighting off the nausea and praying to the gods that I didn’t get sick. I slowly opened one eye, then the other. The first thing I saw was an empty vodka bottle on the bookshelf, taunting me. Fuck. That’s right. We’d hit the heavy stuff once we’d gotten home.

  Carefully putting one foot in front of the other, in a manner that would most definitely fail a field sobriety test, I walked to the door. Another sharp knock echoed around the apartment. “Coming,” I called hoarsely. “I’m coming.” Fucking ass-wipe mother-fucking dick who decided it would be a great day to bang on my door.

  I got to the door – just barely – and yanked it open as I sank against the frame, head pounding and stomach rolling angrily. I made eye contact with the man standing in my hallway and my stomach dropped even more. “Ben?”

  I closed my eyes, knowing I had to be imagining him. Maybe this was some sort of screwed up, alcohol induced nightmare. Because there was pretty much no one else on this earth I wanted to see less right now. When I opened them back up, he was still standing there.