His eyes widened in surprise, but he nodded his head. “I’ll do that, sir. Thank you.”
“No need to thank me,” I said gruffly. The exchange left me feeling like shit as I headed to the double doors of the ICU. Had I really been that bad earlier that he felt he had to say thank you for my apology?
The thought made my head hurt. Too much had happened over the last twenty-four hours, even for me. The interview, the feelings I was forced to admit to myself I was developing for Alicia, waking up to the news that my brother was in the hospital. For a guy who was usually pretty happy-go-lucky, a bunch of deep, serious stuff like that made me feel all tapped out.
And the worst was still to come, I realized as I stepped into the ICU. It was a large room with hospital beds lining all the walls. Rows of machines were mounted above each bed, and those beds that were occupied had all kinds of medical paraphernalia standing next to them.
Another nurses’ station was right in front of me with a whiteboard on the wall behind it. I spotted Caleb’s name and bed number while I walked, blinking when I noticed his was the bed I was just coming up on.
I didn’t even recognize him at first. He seemed so small lying there, machines beeping and tubes hooked up to him. Dread flooded my veins, and my feet felt heavy. Caleb’s eyes were closed, but he was breathing rhythmically. His skin was pale and drawn. It seemed impossible that he looked so small and frail when he’d been his usual self just yesterday.
His hands were lying on top of the starched white blankets tucked around him, and I grabbed one as soon as I came close enough. I couldn’t remember the last time I held my brother’s hand, but I couldn’t bear not to do it now. Pain lanced through me as I felt how cold his hands were.
How did I let this happen?
Caleb’s eyes fluttered open at my touch, and he wet his lips before croaking out. “Where the fuck am I?”
“Hospital,” I told him in a voice low enough that we wouldn’t bother the other patients. There was no one in the beds closest to him, but there was an older man lying across from him.
Caleb rolled his eyes and then winced. “I figured that out, asshole. They told me I got alcohol poisoning. We still in New York?”
“Unfortunately.” I couldn’t help wondering if this would’ve happened if we’d never come here. But this wasn’t the time to be wondering about hypothetical scenarios. It had happened, and we were here. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I got hit by a sumo wrestler or four.”
I snorted. “Only if they were driving trucks. Not sure the wrestlers alone would’ve had this effect. You’ve looked better.”
Caleb grimaced. “I’ll take your word for it.”
His eyelids seemed heavy, and they drooped for a second before he looked at me again. I couldn’t stand seeing him look so … vulnerable. It was fucking unnatural.
And it’s my fault.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me to be last night.” I nearly choked on the emotion rising in my throat. Fuck, this was hard, but I needed to get it out. “I should’ve been there.”
“Why?” Caleb frowned, looking like he was struggling to keep his focus. He blinked up at me. “What were you going to do differently to what everyone else did?”
“I would’ve stopped you.” I ground my teeth together. I thought of the other guys in the band as brothers to us, but what kind of brother let another drink himself into a hospital?
You. A voice whispered in the recesses of my mind. I pushed it away, but guilt had already settled heavily on my shoulders. I could’ve gone out with them last night, but I’d selfishly chosen to spend time with Alicia instead.
As if he could read my mind, Caleb scoffed. “Please. If none of the others could stop me, what makes you think you could? Besides, you had better things to do than count my shots.”
“There’s nothing better to do than to make sure you’re okay.” Especially since he hadn’t been okay without me there. And even if it would’ve meant missing out on one of the best nights I remembered having in a very, very long time.
“Quit the pity party, Jay. This isn’t your fault.”
I stuck out my chin in defiance, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah? Whose fault is it, then?”
“Mine,” Caleb said firmly. “There’s no one else to blame. It’s no one’s fault but mine. The details are hazy, but I remember Dom and Nick each taking bottles away from me at different times and Matt telling a bartender to cut me off.”
So they had tried to help. Relief seeped into my pores. It didn’t surprise me to hear they’d tried to help. We’d been sticking together and looking out for each other for a long time. The question was, why didn’t Caleb listen to anyone?
He usually did. We all did. We were stubborn, pigheaded assholes most of the time, but when push came to shove? We knew we had to trust each other to know when it was time to pull our heads out of our asses. It was why I’d been so pissed at Nick when he told me what happened and at the others since.
I couldn’t understand why they hadn’t done anything to stop Caleb, but now he was telling me that they had. My cheeks felt cold as the blood drained from them. “Why didn’t you stop when they told you to?”
Caleb sighed and let his eyes flutter closed as he paused. When he opened them again, there was a defeat in them that scared me. “We’ve been consumed by this lifestyle, Jared. All of us. We live like we’re fucking invincible and we have the whole world at our fingertips. It’s a recipe for disaster. It was a matter of time before something like this happened. I’m lucky it’s not worse.”
He blanched, and I didn’t even want to know what thoughts ran through his mind to cause it. Without thinking about it, I tightened my hand around his.
Caleb’s eyes darted to where my hand was still resting over his, and his frown deepened, but he surprised me by giving my fingers a squeeze of his own before turning on his side and resting his head on his hand. “We’re not invincible.”
“We’re not,” I agreed and then tried to lighten the heavy, somber mood. “Well, you’re not. Me? I could be.”
He snorted, rolling his eyes again. “You’re not.”
A minute of silence passed between us as we each got lost in our own thoughts. Caleb looked like he was just starting to drift off when he opened his eyes and met mine. “You know how long they’re planning on keeping me here?”
No one had given me any indication of how long Caleb had to say, but it didn’t matter. “No idea, but I’m not leaving your side until we walk out of this hospital together.”
CHAPTER 43
ALICIA
“Have you heard anything from Jared?” Gerry walked into my office without knocking, striding across it without being invited in and sinking into the chair across from my desk without asking if I had time for an impromptu meeting. If that was even what this was.
Suppressing a sigh, I saved the document I was working on and threaded my fingers together on my desk, turning my attention to my boss. Or the man who fancied himself my boss. He wasn’t really, but since he owned the company that owned the building the offices were in, he lorded it over everyone and acted like the offices, well, like they belonged to him.
Unfortunately, that also meant he thought he didn’t need appointments and everyone always had time for him. We didn’t.
Like now, I was supposed to be crafting a response to an article about Destitute that was due to be released in an hour. Instead of doing that, I was settling in to talk to Gerry. If I wasn’t curious about whether he’d heard from the Larsen brothers, I would’ve carried on working to let him know I didn’t really have time.
Unlike so many others around here, I wasn’t afraid of Gerry. I spoke my mind around him, and I usually didn’t take his crap. Or his intrusions. Jared and Caleb, however, were constantly on my mind, and I was dying for an update.
“I haven’t,” I told him, mentally crossing my fingers and toes that he had.
Gerry’s lips almost disappear
ed he set them in a line so thin. “Fuck. No. I haven’t either. I was hoping you would have something.”
My heart sank. Shaking my head, I tried to push aside my disappointment. “I still haven’t been able to get ahold of him.”
Not to get an update on Caleb’s condition or anything else. Despite the strides I thought we’d made in our relationship in New York, I hadn’t heard a thing from Jared since I got back. The last I spoke to him was when I said goodbye at the hospital.
He’d understandably been so preoccupied with Caleb, having been told he was okay, but I’d heard nothing more by the time I had to leave for the flight. I’d gotten only one distracted kiss before he was gone.
And that had been that. I tried to call him, and I left him messages to call me back, but he hadn’t answered the phone or returned my calls. He didn’t text, send a smoke signal, or a carrier pigeon.
Zip. Zero. Nada.
For all I knew, the two of them had taken off to become cowboys or beach bums somewhere. Since I didn’t know where the front man and lead guitarist of the band I worked for were, it posed a professional dilemma of epic proportions. But that was nothing compared to how I was feeling about Jared shutting me out so completely after the night we’d had together in New York.
I’d been so sure something had changed between us that night, and then he pulled this radio silence routine. I just didn’t know what the hell to think anymore.
On one hand, I knew he was busy with Caleb, and frankly, I was worried about the younger Larsen brother as well, but on the other, how long did it really take to send one damn text?
Gerry looked perplexed, his eyes drifting to the ocean beyond the window behind me before focusing on mine again. “What are we going to do? It’s been two days since we flew back with the rest of the boys, and I don’t even know if our lead guitarist is still alive.”
“Gerry!” I admonished him, the first tendrils of fear wrapping their icy tentacles around my stomach. I refused to think that Jared had fallen off the face of the planet because something had happened to Caleb.
No. Caleb was fine, and Jared was just waiting until he was better before contacting us. Maybe the two of them were even kicking back in New York for a few days, taking a break after Caleb got discharged. I was hoping it was that. It had to be that.
“What?” Gerry shrugged, but his eyes were troubled. “What are we going to do, Alicia? This is a fuck up we can only cover up for so long. Forty percent of one of the hottest bands in the country at the moment is missing. We have no idea where they are or what they’re doing. They really could be lying in a ditch somewhere.”
“They’re not,” I said with conviction, but Gerry wasn’t convinced.
“You haven’t heard from him either, so how could you know?”
I couldn’t explain it. There was just something in my gut that said Jared was fine. I wasn’t delusional. I knew Jared and I weren’t connected or anything. We weren’t soul mates, but I just knew he was okay. Physically at least.
“I just know.”
Gerry shook his head. “I’ve never heard of anything like this. How could we not know what the hell is going on there?”
“I’ll make a call to the hotel later, at least that way we’ll know if they’re still in New York.”
“Okay. I ‘ve tried the hospital, but they’re refusing to give me any information whatsoever,” Gerry lamented. He rubbed his hands on his thighs and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Do you think we need to go to the press with this?”
Making a snap decision about the article I’d been constructing an answer to, I reached for my computer screen and turned it toward him. “Too late. Someone beat us to it.”
Gerry’s eyes widened. I knew what he was reading. It was a big headline, printed in bold letters that lead “Caleb Larsen: The thorn in Destitute’s side?” The article went on to detail that Caleb was hospitalized and included pictures of Jared in and around the hospital.
“Fuck. What are we doing about this?”
“I was in the process of drafting our official response when you came inside.”
He rose from my visitor’s chair with a heavy sigh. “Better get back to it. That’s potentially a very fucking damaging piece.”
“I’ll do my best.” And actually do my job, now that he was done telling me things I already knew.
Gerry saluted me and left my office, but almost as soon as I pulled by keyboard closer to finish drafting my reply, my door opened again. Sliding my eyes to my next unexpected visitor, my irritable snaps disappeared when I saw Nick hovering in the doorway.
“Okay if I come in?”
He wasn’t the type to be hesitant, so the fact he was waiting for me to answer spoke volumes. Nick Masters respected me. When had that happened?
“Come on in,” I told him, motioning to the chair Gerry had vacated.
Nick dragged a hand through his pitch-black hair, shoving his hand in his pocket after shutting my office door. “Thanks. I’m sorry to drop by unannounced.”
“As long as you don’t make a habit of it.” I kept my tone light, wondering what he was here for. It was the first time Nick was visiting my office, and I had a feeling it wasn’t a social call. “What can I do for you?”
His sharp blue eyes pierced mine, searching them. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see the man hadn’t been sleeping well. Strange. I wouldn’t have thought anything could rattle Nick, never mind keep him awake at night.
“Are they okay?” he asked, none of his usual bravado in his voice. It was raw, genuine concern shining through.
“You haven’t heard from them?” I was surprised. I thought the guys were all really close. Jared asked me to bring them home, and I had, but I never considered that he wasn’t keeping them in the loop either. In fact, after putting in a call to the hotel, I’d been planning on calling them all into the office to discuss the Larsen brothers anyway, sure I would be able to get information from them.
Nick blew out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I was hoping you might know something about if they were okay.”
“I wish I could help you.” I really did. “But I don’t have any news on his condition.”
Nodding slowly, Nick angled himself toward the door. He wasn’t planning on hanging around, apparently. “Let me know if you hear anything?”
“I will, Nick. You have my word.”
He reached for the doorknob when the question that had been burning in my mind since that morning slipped out of my mouth. “What happened that night?” I clarified. “At the club.”
Nick turned, his hand on the door. He didn’t turn the knob, though. Leaning with his shoulder against the door, his eyes narrowed for a second, but then his shoulders relaxed. “Nothing out of the ordinary. At least, not at first.”
“What do you mean?” I didn’t mean to make it sound like I was cross-examining him, but I had so many questions about that night. I also really did need some answers if I was going to draft as accurate a response to the article as I could.
Nick shoved his hands through his hair again, ghosts dancing in his eyes. Whatever happened, it was bothering him. Haunting him, actually. “We were at a club. Same scene we’ve been to a thousand times, a million.”
“So what went wrong this time?”
He shrugged, but it wasn’t an offhand, uncaring gesture. It looked more like he really didn’t know the answer. “Caleb kept trying to prove something. I don’t know, to himself maybe. Fuck knows why or what. We’re over that shit.”
“Or so you thought,” I prompted him. “But clearly Caleb had other ideas?”
Nodding, he said quietly, “Guess so. I should’ve stopped him. I tried, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“It’s not your fault, Nick.” I’d had the same conversation with Jared. These guys really were more than a band to each other. They were a family. A messed up at times, dysfunctional one, but no family was perfect.
Nick shook his head sadly and said his goodbyes. Af
ter he left, I stared at my computer screen, but the words I was searching for to write my reply didn’t come to me. Eventually, I gave up in my fight not to call Jared again and pressed the phone to my ear. It rang and rang. When a sound came at the other end of the line, my breath caught. He was finally—
No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t finally picking up and talking to me. His voice mail was.
“Dammit.” I cussed out my empty office as I listened Jared’s voice telling me to leave a message. I missed hearing that voice for real so much, it hurt my heart. Mood darkening fast, I dropped my phone to my desk without leaving a message. “Okay. Don’t talk to me, but please come home safe.”
CHAPTER 44
JARED
“What the—?” I bolted upright on the hospital couch I was sleeping on, swiping at whatever had woken me up by hitting me in the head.
Caleb grinned at me from the bed. “It was time to wake up.”
Relieved to see some color back in his cheeks, I sank back down on my couch and turned on my side to face him. “Why? Doc been here?”
“Not yet, but the nurse was, and she said we might be getting out of here today.” He was definitely livelier today, but I wasn’t getting my hopes up until we knew for sure.
It was still early, and the smell of breakfast foods wafting in from outside his room made my stomach grumble. For hospital food, the stuff they served here wasn’t terrible.
Caleb got moved out of the intensive care unit a couple of days before, and we’d been hanging around in his private room since. I tried not to move around the hospital too much since I’d gotten mobbed in the coffee shop downstairs on our second day here.
Much as I loved our fans and, generally, the attention they gave us, I just wasn’t in the mood. These last few days had given me a lot to think about. I hadn’t spoken to Caleb about it yet, but there were some things I’d been mulling over that I was going to have to discuss with him as soon as we got discharged.
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