Raw Rhythm

by Cari Quinn

  But not near the end. Not then. Was she? It was all so fuzzy in her head.

  “Lo and Ethan and Tristan are fine,” Nicky said, adjusting her sheet. Pulling it up, then shoving it down and doing it again. Yanking at invisible wrinkles until she stilled his hands with her own on top of his. He lifted his head, his gaze unfocused. “You should sleep.”

  “Nicky,” she pleaded, and he cursed a blue streak under his breath, bowing his head as if he couldn’t keep it up anymore. She reached up to brush his hair back, her fingers trembling. “Just tell me. I won’t fall apart. I promise.”

  But he didn’t say it. Lila did, her voice strung so tight that it was amazing the words didn’t vibrate.

  “Randy didn’t make it.”

  Elle stared at her, certain she wasn’t hearing things correctly. Randy? Jules’s Randy? That wasn’t possible. He was the most safety-conscious guy on the crew, the most militant about making sure everything was up to code.

  She glanced to Nicky for confirmation, and he gave a short nod, not meeting her eyes. Looking somewhere over her head she couldn’t see.

  “Oh God.” Elle pressed her fist to her mouth, but it wasn’t enough to stifle the sob bursting from her chest. “Jules is…she’s going to have a baby. At least I think so. She was so happy. How can this be happening?”

  Lila drew her into her arms and she cried into her chest, all too aware of the bone-deep ache in her playing arm every time she tugged too hard. But that pain was welcome. At least she could still feel it. Anything was better than the odd numbness she’d awakened with.

  She had no right to complain ever again. Not when she’d lived and Randy—sweet, caring, far too-good-for-this-world Randy—hadn’t.

  “It’s not fair,” she whispered into Lila’s throat. “It’s so not fair.”

  Lila stroked her hair, letting her cry it out. And Nicky leaned against her from the other side, rubbing her back.

  Her family.

  Finally, she drew back and sucked in a breath that burned. “Thank you for being here. Both of you.”

  “We wouldn’t be anywhere else.” Nicky came around the bed to stand beside Lila. Without a word, he took her hand and rubbed his thumb over the center of her palm in circles, over and over. Silent support that Elle envied with every fiber of her body.

  And she had no right to think about that either. So she had no one to love who loved her back—not family, but someone special. So what? She had her brother and his wife and the cutest nieces in the history of the world. She had her band. She had so much more than she’d ever had before.

  “Why me?” The question popped out before she could stop it. “He had so much more to lose. Two people to love who loved him so much, a baby on the way. Why would he be gone and I’m still here?”

  “Don’t you dare fucking say that.” Nicky gripped her chin and hauled her face up while Lila tugged futilely at his arm. “You aren’t fucking going anywhere, you got it? Do you want to know how I realized you’d been hurt? It wasn’t a goddamned phone call, I’ll tell you that.”

  Elle shut her eyes. “Twin thing.”

  “Yeah, freaking twin thing. I was cutting tomatoes. The girls were hanging off me, and all of a sudden it was as if I was being ripped apart. I thought it was Li at first.” He gave his wife a weighted look as if she were somehow to blame, before returning his gaze to Elle. “After a minute or two of trying to breathe, I figured out it was you. I was in agony because I knew you were.”

  “I don’t remember. I was playing, then I wasn’t. There was a scream. A few of them. Lights flashing, pandemonium on stage and in the audience. People running.” She closed her eyes, struggling to bring it back despite the sickness churning in her belly. “Someone pulled on me. Hard. Then there was pain, just a split second of it before everything went black.” Her eyes opened again. “It was Mal who pulled on me.”

  Lila nodded. “It was Mal,” she confirmed quietly. Still holding Nick’s hand, she stepped back and gestured toward the opposite side of the small private room at the literal wall of flowers and balloons and stuffed animals. “Look at what everyone has sent you.”

  Elle gasped, her eyes filling again for a whole new reason. God, would she ever stop crying? “That’s so sweet. Did Mal…” She trailed off, frowning. What the hell was her fixation on the guy all of a sudden? She waved her hand before Lila could respond, rasping out a little laugh she so didn’t feel. “Never mind. A guy saves your life and I guess all of a sudden you expect him to send you flowers.” She swallowed. “Should I send him flowers? Not that he’d be into them, but how do you thank someone for something like that?”

  “You say thanks and that’s enough.”

  She rolled her eyes at her brother though he didn’t see it. “I owe him my life.”

  “You don’t owe him anything.” Nicky shook his head. “He did the decent thing, and it was good of him and we’re beyond grateful. But you say thank you and that’s plenty. He’d do it for anybody. Or he should.”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t do it for anyone. He did it for me. And no matter how I feel about the guy, I can’t just pretend he didn’t give me everything.”

  “He didn’t do it for thanks. In fact, he’d prefer if no one even knew.” Lila crossed the room to fuss with her flowers, picking up a bouquet of orchids and carting them over to set them on the table beside the bed next to a pitcher of water. “Aren’t these pretty? These are from Lo and West.”

  “They’re beautiful. It’s so nice of everyone to do…this.”

  Lila went through the rest of the gifts and bouquets, detailing who had sent which. They were all so lovely.

  Elle shifted in bed and winced at the arc of pain up her side and into her arm as she pressed her cheek into the pillows. She was so tired.

  “We’ll get the nurse, make sure she doesn’t need to up your meds or whatever, then you can get some more rest,” Nicky said, and she nodded, already drifting.

  “Jules,” she said after a minute, fighting sleep. “She didn’t send anything. She shouldn’t have. She’s got so much to face now. God, she must hate me.”

  “Why would she hate you?” Lila demanded, still on the other side of the room, straightening and arranging. Almost as if she couldn’t be still for a moment.

  “Because he’s gone and I—”

  “Don’t,” Nicky snapped, and she fell silent.

  She didn’t want to cause him or Lila any more pain. They were there because of her. She’d made them so worried. Now she was creating more stress for them.

  At least she’d managed not to ask yet what had happened. How an accident had occurred in the first place when Randy and the rest of the crew were so good at what they did. It just didn’t make any sense.

  Randy. Christ.

  It still didn’t seem real. Maybe it never would.

  “I need to…talk to her,” she said softly, swallowing the lump in her throat.

  To say I’m sorry she lost someone she loved. That I’m sorry he’s gone and I’m still here.

  So fucking sorry.

  “Later. You’ll have plenty of time for that.” Nicky pressed a button beside the bed to summon the nurse. “Your first priority is to get better, not concern yourself with anything else.”

  “When I wake up again, I’ll call her if she’s not here. If she hasn’t gone home yet. I need to be with her.”

  Elle shut her eyes, but not before she glimpsed the look that crossed her brother’s face. She didn’t need to know what he was thinking, because his expression said volumes.

  Whether or not she needed to get home, Jules wasn’t going to want to see her.

  Chapter Three

  “I don’t like this.”

  “I think she knows that, Nicholas. You’ve only told her fifteen times.”

  “This place makes walk-ups seem spacious.” Nicky propped his hands on his hips and looked around the small spare bedroom where Elle would be staying with her friend Teagan for a while.

  Maybe f
orever, but probably just two weeks.

  Normally, Teagan rented it out—or Teagan and her boyfriend did, but the boyfriend was recently gone and Teagan was at loose ends and in need of some quick rent. And Elle needed a place to stay that wasn’t in California. She couldn’t go back. Not yet.

  Not when everything was so different, and she didn’t know what to say. Or how to be. How was she supposed to just blithely live her life while her close friend’s husband was dead?

  When it could have been her.

  Should have been her, if not for—

  Elle snapped her suitcase closed one-handed and pushed it under the full bed that would be hers for the duration. The room wasn’t large, with the bed, a small upright dresser, a nightstand, and a rocking chair in the corner. An equally cramped en suite bathroom held the barest necessities and a shower she might be able to shave in if she wrapped her leg around her neck.

  Luckily, she didn’t have a ton of stuff. She wasn’t a hoarder while on tour. Lila had retrieved her belongings from the bus before it had returned to California, and then she’d offered to spend the next two weeks with Elle in the city. As if she didn’t have two beautiful babies waiting for her at home. And her job. A very demanding one at that. Warning Sign was on the ropes after the show in Queens, and whether or not Elle was back home, Lila had plenty of work to do. Just dealing with the press would be bad enough.

  But Lila hadn’t suggested Nick stay too. She knew damn well Elle would never stay with her brother for two weeks. She loved him dearly, but Nicky’s fussing wasn’t her idea of fun. And he would fuss. A lot.

  Just as he was doing right now.

  “It’s plenty of space for me. Used to living on a stinky bus, remember?”

  The bus wasn’t that small, though it got smaller when they kept adding band members—especially giant ones like Luc—and assorted significant others. Pockets of it could get stinky at times, due to the proliferation of males, but even that wasn’t much of a problem. Her guys were fairly tidy and clean overall. Living on the bus was almost like being in a dorm room on wheels. Friends with you all the time. Lots of laughter and no worries about ever being alone—

  “Hey there. You okay?” Lila rubbed her good arm and Elle glanced at her, suddenly aware her cheeks were wet. Again.

  For fuck’s sake, she couldn’t turn off the waterworks lately. It was all she ever did. Cry, and think, and sleep. Then wake up to do it all again.

  That was part of why she’d opted to stay in New York a bit longer. If she was like this without being around her bandmates day in and day out, how would she be in their presence? The last thing any of them needed was for her to be sobbing her eyes out day and night. And she couldn’t seem to stop.

  Besides, she’d gotten a referral for a physical therapist from her doctor. She could start treatment for her arm in New York, then continue it at home. It was sensible.

  “I’m fine.” She smiled for Lila’s benefit. “Just going to miss you guys.”

  “You’re sure you don’t want to come back with us? You could stay at the house for as long as you wanted. You know the girls would love to spend lots of time with Aunt Belly.”

  Elle had to laugh. “Charlie is never going to drop that one, is she?”

  “Probably not. She’s kind of a pain in the butt, like someone else we know.”

  That someone else wasn’t paying them any mind, because he was inspecting the bedroom door as if he expected it to have a double-bolt lock. Elle sighed. “Teagan’s been a friend of mine since high school. I don’t need a huge lock to keep her out, Nicky. I’m safe here.”

  “What if she has unsavory types over?”

  “She works all the time and she’s fresh out of a relationship. Pretty sure she doesn’t want to have any male types over, unsavory or otherwise.” Shaking her head, she walked over to him and pushed him lightly on the back. One-armed, of course, because her arm was in a sling and still bandaged. A dislocated shoulder and nerve and tendon damage from the falling beam—along with various other contusions and a concussion—meant a bit more healing time before PT could start, but she wasn’t going to wait long.

  She needed to be able to play. Pain or not, numbness or not. She had to find a way to work through her injury or she might as well not have made it.

  You haven’t made it yet. You’re just in phase one.

  Nicky turned around and gripped her good hand, drawing her in for a gentle hug. “I don’t like this, not because I don’t think you can take care of yourself. I know you can. I don’t like it because I want to take care of you.” He exhaled against her hair. “We lost a lot of time over the years. Had way too much distance between us.”

  She didn’t reply. That distance was thanks to her drug and alcohol issues. She’d started in high school and Nick had never had a use for any of that crap. He’d smoked pot now and then, maybe drank a little, but that was the extent of it other than cigarettes. He’d discreetly tucked a crumpled pack of them into his back pocket today before carting her two guitar cases upstairs to her temporary digs. He’d quit a million times, and he’d been smoke-free for a year or more now. But he always went back when he was stressed.

  Your fault for that too.

  She sniffled and patted his chest before easing back. No more tears. Not today. “I appreciate it, but you have two little girls who need you. I’m just going to sit around with Teagan and talk trash about men and eat junk food. Just a little time-out.” It was cowardly, and she still wasn’t sure how she’d tell the band she wasn’t coming back yet.

  If any of them truly cared. Maybe deep down they all hated her for being alive when Randy was dead.

  She knew she was lucky. Blessed. But it was hard to feel that way when all she could think about was the man who was no longer with them. It didn’t seem possible. Randy’s dazzling grin was imprinted on her brain as if it had been burned into it. She couldn’t begin to imagine what Jules and Tristan were going through.

  “Harper,” she said after a moment, swallowing hard. “How is she?” She shook it off before either of them could answer. “I know she has to be a wreck, losing her little brother. I can’t even fathom what she’s going through.”

  Nicky pushed a hand through his already spiky hair and let out another long breath. “It’s a fucking mess. Especially because of why it—” He broke off and Lila cleared her throat.

  “Why it happened? The accident? What do you mean?” Elle’s stare ping-ponged between them, but they weren’t looking at her. “Do they think it wasn’t an accident? But that doesn’t make any sense. Who would do that? Everything was checked and rechecked.”

  “It’s early days,” Lila said. “Too early to know much, and it’s not for you to concern yourself with at any rate.” She smiled, her eyes far too troubled for Elle’s liking. “When we know more, something concrete, we’ll let you know. But rest assured that Donovan will leave no stone unturned. He’s bringing in the best security in the world for the tour, and the rest of the bands that Ripper manages.”

  Just the word tour made Elle’s skin ice over until goosebumps formed. “We’re off for a while, right? Weeks. Plenty of weeks.” She snatched up her phone and scrolled to the calendar app with her thumb. Today’s date was circled in red, as was the date of their next show. “Three weeks away,” she said dully. “How can it be so soon?”

  “I’m doing the show for you.”

  Her head jerked up at her brother’s voice. “What?”

  “I’m filling in for you until you’re better. So, you know, get better fast because you know how I hate sitting in with a bunch of assholes I barely know.” It was Nicky’s typical rude banter, but his eyebrows were pinched tight.

  She could guess why, and it wasn’t because he didn’t want to play with her bandmates, though she knew he truly did hate playing with people he wasn’t used to jamming with.

  “You think it’s going to be a while.” She gazed down at her arm, practically immobilized and hidden away from even her own
eyes. Damn thing itched and she hated the feeling of being bound, trapped in her own flesh.

  Useless.

  But you’re lucky. Remember you’re lucky. You don’t have a right to think about anything but how worse it could have been, if not for Mal.

  Mal, whom she’d discovered was still in New York too. He’d chosen to hole up there rather than in California, which was probably about as strange as her decision to stay. Not that his whereabouts had any bearing on her decision. She didn’t even know where he was. But she could find out—and it wouldn’t be through Lila or her brother.

  “No, I don’t. I think you’re going to do exactly what the docs say and get back to it in a hurry so I don’t have to be on two tours at once. Because that will fucking suck.”

  “There are other options,” Lila said, but he shook his head.

  “We made an agreement.”

  “What agreement?” Elle said sharply. “How could you make an agreement to fill in for me? You couldn’t know this was going to happen.” She gripped her phone tighter and held it to her suddenly speeding heart. “Or you made an agreement before. Long before. Maybe as a condition of me getting to join in the first place. Gotta make sure there’s a backup plan for the little addict.”

  Lila pressed her lips together. “That’s not exactly it.”

  “My ass it isn’t.” And worse, she couldn’t even blame Lila for needing that failsafe when the record company took her on. She was a potential liability, a known risk.

  Capable of falling off the wagon at any time.

  “It’s not about me trusting you, or even about Donovan trusting you. Donovan has to answer to people too.”

  Elle nodded. She got it, she really did. That didn’t mean it wasn’t one more hurt layered upon a dozen others. “How else have you two schemed behind my back to protect me?”

  Her brother’s jaw ticked and he moved to the guitar cases stacked on the floor. He picked one up and set it on the bed, popping it open. He skimmed his fingers along the frets of her beloved turquoise guitar, one of his old ones that he’d passed on to her when she was first getting back into playing and hadn’t had a dime to her name. “I used to say you’re all I have left.” He seemed to speak to the guitar, not her. “I’m lucky enough that’s not true anymore. I have Li. The girls. Li’s parents. I have fucking Simon back again, and who knew if that would ever happen. And Gray and Jazz and Deak. Fuck, I have a lot. More than I ever expected or probably deserve.” He turned his head, pinning her with his direct golden gaze. “But I only have one sister, and I’m not going to lose her.”