by Bec Linder
“You should be more worried than any of us, Luis,” Dave said. “You’re so annoying that nobody else is going to hire you.”
Leah walked away, shaking her head. It wasn’t her job to wrangle the roadies. She just wanted to—well. She wanted to see O’Connor. And she wanted to know what was going to happen; whether she would be going back to L.A. soon. Whether their idyll was over.
O’Connor knocked on the door of her hotel room half an hour later. He was tense, frowning. She let him into the room and he sat on her bed, distracted, fiddling with the lowest button on his shirt.
“So?” Leah said.
“It was a suicide attempt,” O’Connor said. “He took too many sleeping pills. It didn’t work, obviously.”
“Jesus,” Leah said. She had suspected, of course—but O’Connor had just said it was an “emergency,” which could also have meant food poisoning, or a broken bone. Hearing O’Connor say it like that, flat and abrupt, rattled her. It was too much like Corey. And she wasn’t over that, still. The wound would heal, but there would always be a scar.
“We’re going to cancel some tour dates,” O’Connor said. “Definitely tomorrow. Maybe a few after that. They want him in the hospital for at least a few days. The doctor said Andrew shouldn’t tour for a while after that, but we’ll see. We don’t want to cancel the whole tour.”
“It’s just a few more weeks,” Leah said tentatively. “Maybe—”
“It’s not an option,” O’Connor said, and sighed. “Rushani called our manager, and he talked to the label.”
“They’re assholes,” Leah said, genuinely angry. “If they don’t care that he’s in the hospital—”
“They don’t care about anything but money,” O’Connor said. He seemed weary. Defeated. “But we’ll see what happens. God, what a fucking day.”
Leah crossed the room to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. He set his hands on her hips and leaned his head against her sternum, his face buried between her breasts. They stayed like that for a while, breathing together. Leah felt a mess of emotions, regret and worry and sorrow, and a sort of painful tenderness for O’Connor. She knew what he was going through, more or less.
He made a noise and slid his hands lower, from her hips to her ass, and he groped her through her cut-offs. “Leah,” he said.
She swallowed. Even under these pretty dire circumstances, her body responded to the touch of his hands. “Yeah?”
He didn’t answer in words. He unzipped her shorts and tugged them down her thighs, until they pooled on the floor at her feet, puddling on top of her flip-flops.
She looked down at the top of his head, considering. Sex wouldn’t be what she needed, in this situation, but maybe it was exactly what he needed. Okay. Game on.
She stepped out of her shorts and kicked her flip-flops away. She stood there in her T-shirt and underpants, feeling the air conditioning raise goosebumps on her bare legs. She was glad she had worn nice underwear today, little lacy shorts cut high in the back, in anticipation of the lazy afternoon that wouldn’t happen now. O’Connor ran his hands down her thighs and back up. He was still leaning against her. She wondered if he could feel her heart pounding through her shirt.
His hands roamed across her hips and ass. He traced the lacy line of her panties across her bottom, tucked his fingers in the leg hole, pulled a little. There wasn’t much stretch in the fabric. “These need to go,” he said.
He sat there on the bed and waited, looking up at her expectantly. Leah, feeling her face heat for no apparent reason—he had seen her naked before—bent down tugged off her underwear.
The air conditioning blew a cold breeze between her legs, all the more noticeable against her overheated flesh. O’Connor made a pleased noise and gathered her close again, his face buried against her, his hands curled around the backs of her thighs. She could feel the pressure and warmth of each one of his fingers, close to where she wanted them but still much too far away.
But he didn’t make her wait long. He left one hand curled around her leg and slid the other between her thighs, exploring with a gentle touch, probing at her slick heat. She drew in a deep breath. Her skin felt too tight. She wanted to unzip it like he had unzipped her shorts. Step out of herself.
He fingered her slowly and deliberately. At first he traced his thumb around her entrance, and then he plunged two fingers inside and thrust them in and out in a casual mimicry of fucking. She rested her hands on his shoulders. She was trembling slightly. She gazed down at the top of his head, wondering what he was thinking, until the sensations became too overwhelming for her to keep her eyes open.
He twisted his fingers inside her, curling them, searching for the spot that made her moan. When he found it, she felt his pleased chuckle as a few puffs of air against her sternum. He stayed there, pulsing his fingertips rhythmically, and began circling his thumb around her clit in inexorable circles.
“O’Connor,” she groaned, and beat her fists lightly against his shoulders.
He didn’t take pity on her, as she knew he wouldn’t. He moved at his own pace, too slow for her to get off, until suddenly it wasn’t: the long minutes of stimulation, the frustration of his free hand stroking the back of her thigh, combined into an overwhelming pleasure. She gasped, feeling her nipples tighten, feeling her orgasm approach like an oncoming train. She rocked her hips against him, closer, closer, and he twisted his hand and she plunged over the edge into delirium, shaking like a leaf, her knees going liquid beneath her.
“Whoa, careful,” O’Connor said, and caught her around the waist to keep her from collapsing.
Leah thought of several snappy replies, but by the time she had caught her breath, she decided that none of them were really necessary. She stroked her hands through O’Connor’s hair and tugged on the strands until he tipped his head back and met her eye. “Hey,” she said, and bent down to kiss him.
His hands had been urgent, but his mouth was slow and sweet, tender. And when he toppled her onto the bed and moved above her, the tangle of limbs that ensued could only be described as making love. O’Connor kissed her the whole time, her face and her mouth, and gazed down at her with eyes so clear and focused that she had to look away. She couldn’t bear the intensity of his gaze. She locked her ankles below his hips and moved with him, matching each of his thrusts.
When he came inside of her, he breathed her name like a prayer.
They cleaned up in silence. O’Connor seemed distant, withdrawn—maybe rattled by what had just passed between them in bed. Leah was a little rattled. It was scary to feel that much, to share that much with another person. And in light of what was happening with Andrew, she wondered how much of it really had to do with her, versus some need of O’Connor’s to feel a human connection.
She wouldn’t worry about it now. She dressed, and crossed the room to sit beside him on the bed and lean against his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her. He was looking at his phone.
“Any recent developments?” Leah asked.
He shook his head. “Not really.” He sighed, and put his phone in his pocket. “I need to go talk some things over with James.”
It was a clear dismissal. She nodded and said, “Sure. I might go to the hospital.”
“I’ll see you later, then,” he said.
Leah left his room, not sure what she felt, or how she should feel. God. Emotions were complicated. People were complicated. Life itself, the very act of living, was so incredibly fucking complicated.
* * *
She texted Rushani: I’m coming to the hospital, can I bring anything?
Rushani responded right away. Yes please!!! Andrew needs clothes, toiletries, and his notebook. One of the boys can pack for him. And then, a few moments later, He doesn’t want any visitors, but he says he’d like to see you.
Leah tried to decide if she should feel flattered. Mostly she just felt sad. He wanted to talk to her because of Corey, she knew. He wanted to know what it would have been like if he
had succeeded.
She went downstairs and found James and explained what she needed. They went up to Andrew’s hotel room, still in disarray from the EMTs, and Leah sat on the bed while James stuffed things in Andrew’s backpack: boxers, deodorant, a toothbrush. “I can’t find his fucking notebook,” James said, and they tore the room apart and finally unearthed it at the very foot of the bed, buried beneath the covers.
It was open, the cover folded back on its spiral binding. The writing on the page caught Leah’s eye, and she read the first words without meaning to: Dear whomever.
“Oh my God,” Leah said, her skin crawling.
James, who had already gone back to picking through Andrew’s suitcase, looked up sharply at the tone in her voice and said, “What is it?”
“He left a note,” Leah said.
They read it in silence, James looking over Leah’s shoulder. It was very short, a few lines only, written in Andrew’s elegant cursive script. I finished the album. Tell O’Connor to write the music. Tell Rushani I love her. I’m sorry I was such an asshole for so long. None of you deserved it, or this. Forgive me.
“For fuck’s sake,” James said.
“That’s… wow,” Leah said. “That’s a lot to take in.”
“What a melodramatic piece of shit,” James said. “‘Tell Rushani I love her’? Tell her yourself, you fucking coward. Unbelievable.”
James’s anger was surprising to Leah. She thought the note was sweet, and horribly sad; but she didn’t know Andrew the way James did. “I didn’t know, uh. I didn’t realize anything was going on with the two of them.”
“There isn’t,” James said. “But I guess Andrew wants there to be, or else this was his attempt to manipulate Rushani from beyond the grave. I suspect the latter, to be honest.”
“Well,” Leah said. She thought that was a pretty uncharitable interpretation. “Should we show the others?”
“No,” James said. “I’m going to burn it.”
Leah laughed, assuming he was joking, but he stared at her, unsmiling, and she saw that he was actually completely serious.
She didn’t stick around for the note-burning. She took the backpack James had packed and caught a cab to the hospital. The psychiatric unit was a locked ward with a stern nurse manning the gates, an older white woman who reminded Leah of the lunch ladies at her elementary school, who had never liked her for some reason. The woman gave Leah a disapproving once-over and said, “Visiting hours aren’t until 6:00.”
“I’m here to see Andrew Holter,” Leah said. “Dr. Ofori gave special permission just for today. There should be a note.”
This was what Rushani had instructed her to say, but the nurse gave her a narrow-eyed stare for a few long moments before begrudgingly bending her head to flip through a three-ring binder. Seconds dragged past. The nurse made a few disgruntled noises. Finally she said, “I can’t imagine what Dr. Ofori is thinking, but I’ll buzz you in. Make sure you don’t get any of the patients worked up over nothing.”
Good Lord. It was like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. “I’ll be careful,” Leah said.
But when she was buzzed in, the ward wasn’t the grim dungeon she had imagined. It was brightly lit, with a few colorful and absurdly cheerful motivational posters hanging on the walls: “Every Day Better Than the One Before!” “Happiness Starts With a Smile!” Leah imagined Andrew’s reaction to those posters and suppressed a smile.
A nurse showed her to Andrew’s room. He was the opposite of the woman outside in every way: cheerful, talkative, reassuring. Leah liked to think of Andrew under this man’s care. “Stay as long as you’d like,” he said. “We ordinarily try to keep the patients on a regular schedule, but admittance days are so full of upheaval anyway that it doesn’t much matter. He’ll be glad to have the company. Here we are, this is his room. Andrew, you have a visitor. Take care, miss.”
“Thank you,” Leah told the man, smiling at him, and peeked around the jamb into the room.
Andrew had pulled a chair over to the window and was sitting there with his back facing the door. Leah saw trees through the window. Rushani was sitting on the bed, typing rapidly on her phone, but she looked up and gave Leah a quick smile. “Hi, Leah. Come on in. I need to finish this email. Andrew, Leah brought you your things.”
Andrew didn’t respond or turn around. Leah approached him tentatively, the way you might approach a sedated lion, not sure if it would spring to life unexpectedly and lash out at you. She sidled around his chair until she could see his face. He stared straight ahead, fixedly gazing out the window, but then she saw his eyes dart to the side, a quick sidelong glance at her. So. That game.
Leah could play. She sat on the broad windowsill, blocking Andrew’s view, and held out his backpack. “Your notebook’s in here.”
He looked up at her sharply, and she saw the thoughts pass across his face. He snatched the backpack from her and unzipped it, and rapidly rooted through it until he found his notebook. He pulled it out and flipped through, searching, and she saw the moment that he realized his note was gone. He looked at her again, his eyes holding a mute question.
Leah glanced at Rushani, who wasn’t paying any attention. “James got rid of it.”
Andrew nodded. “You aren’t going to, uh—”
“I won’t say anything,” Leah promised, even though she really, really wanted to. She thought Rushani deserved to know.
Rushani looked up, interested now. “Won’t say anything about what?”
“The pathetic state of Andrew’s boxer shorts,” Leah said. “Just full of holes. You’d think a rock star could afford better.”
Rushani looked back and forth between them, her antennae obviously up, but Leah gave her a bland smile, and eventually Rushani shrugged and went back to her phone.
Thank you, Andrew mouthed silently.
Leah nodded. He owed her now, and they both knew it: for lying to Rushani, for protecting him.
He said, “Does everyone know?”
“I told the roadies I could find at the hotel,” Leah said. “Some of them were out. But word’s spreading pretty fast, I think.”
He rubbed his face. “Fuck.”
He was embarrassed. Leah said, “They’re worried about you. Vince wants to come see you.”
He produced a smile that looked more like a grimace. “Vince is a good kid.”
“How long are they keeping you?” Leah asked.
He shrugged. “Fucking indefinitely. The doctor told Rushani he would release me into her custody, but she won’t do it.”
“I’m not your keeper,” Rushani said, without looking up from her phone. “I have a tour to run.”
Andrew extended a hand in Rushani’s direction, as if to say See what I have to put up with here.
“Andrew,” Leah said. She leaned forward, bracing her forearms on top of her thighs. “Why did you want to see me?”
He swallowed, and looked away. “I wanted to ask you… When your friend—when he, you know, when he killed himself—why did he do it?”
Of course. Andrew wanted to know if he had been justified in his actions; if he could look back on this incident as an inevitability, rather than a choice he made. Leah said, “I don’t know why. He didn’t tell us.” He hadn’t left a note. “But I think it was just that he’d been so unhappy for so long. He didn’t think it would ever end.”
Andrew rubbed his hands over his face. “Does it end?” He looked up at Leah, and the despair in his eyes shook her to her core. “I can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel.”
Her heart broke for him. He must have been suffering so much for so long. “I think so,” she said carefully. God, this was uncharted territory, and she was afraid of saying the wrong thing. “Lots of people go through this. And it’s true that some of them never get better, but many of them do. So I think if you listen to the doctors here, and work hard, and do what they tell you, then there’s no reason why you can’t feel happy again.”
“Okay
,” he said, looking thoughtful. “I hope you’re right.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Rushani came back to the hotel early that evening and gathered everyone in her hotel room. It was a tight fit, and O’Connor ended up standing in the corner by the closet, leaning against the frame with a hanger bumping against his shoulder. It didn’t matter. He already knew what she was going to say.
She gave them the bare facts: Andrew had taken too many sleeping pills; he was fine; he was in the hospital overnight for observation. “We’re canceling two tour dates. No Kansas City and no St. Louis. But we’re still planning to be in Chicago for Lollapalooza.”
“What are the chances that the whole tour ends up getting canceled?” Marina asked. She was a realist, which O’Connor admired. Rushani was dreaming if she thought the tour was still on. Well, Rushani was an optimist; it was an essential quality in a tour manager.
But Rushani grimaced now and said, “Maybe fifty-fifty. Andrew’s doctor doesn’t want him touring at all. But we’ll see.”
A low murmur passed through the gathered roadies, like a ripple across the surface of a pond. They knew what was up, even if Rushani didn’t yet, or was in denial. O’Connor had seen Andrew’s face as he lay in the bed in the emergency room. Even if they didn’t cancel the tour, there was no way Andrew would be able to go onstage and perform even a poor simulacrum of what the fans expected from him. Better to disappoint with absence than with mediocrity.
“When will we know for sure?” Leonard asked.
“We’ll make the call by Tuesday evening,” Rushani said.
That was news to O’Connor, but okay. He trusted Rushani. She wouldn’t do anything final without consulting Hakeem, who wouldn’t do anything without consulting O’Connor and James.
The meeting broke up, and the roadies drifted out of the room. James spoke with Rushani briefly, and then came over to where O’Connor was standing. He looked grim. “Business dinner?”
