by Tracy Wolff
“You told me you were going to stay away from her.”
“I thought I was. I’d planned to.”
“Shit.” Jared looked like he’d been run over by the tour bus. “So you really are fucking around with Jamison?”
Ryder’s back went up immediately. “Don’t talk about her like that. Jamison doesn’t fuck around.”
“I was talking about you.” But some of the angry shock had faded. “So it is serious?”
He didn’t have a fucking clue what to say to that, knew that he’d be damned whatever came out of his mouth. But he couldn’t just stand there with his thumb up his ass all night either. He needed to tell Jared something and the best he could come up with was, “Jamison’s special.”
Jared didn’t look impressed. “I’m well aware of that. It’s why I warned you to stay the hell away from her.”
“I tried! Sleeping with my best friend’s little sister wasn’t exactly on my agenda, you know.”
Jared winced. “I could have gone my whole fucking life without hearing those words come out of your mouth.”
“Seems fair, considering I could have gone my whole life without saying them.”
Jared didn’t respond right away and silence stretched, taut and dangerous, between them. “Why her?” Jared finally asked. “You could have picked anyone. Why’d you go after Jamison?”
“First of all, I didn’t go after her. I kind of got broadsided by this whole thing. And secondly, why not Jamison? She’s smart, funny, beautiful, caring. Plus she listens, you know? She understands things that other people don’t.”
With Jamison, what he liked best was holding her after they had sex. Not that the sex wasn’t good—it was amazing, incredible, absolutely mind-blowing. But at the same time he really enjoyed talking to her. She had a wicked sense of humor that only came out after a couple of orgasms and he loved seeing it. Just like he loved being the only one who did see that side of her.
“Holy shit. You’re in love with her.”
Panic assailed him. “I didn’t say that.”
“You don’t have to. You think I don’t recognize the stupid look on your face? It’s the same one I get when I talk about Vicki.”
“How would you know?”
“Wyatt took a picture once. He takes great delight in tormenting me with it. Telling me how whipped I am.”
Ryder snorted. “You are whipped.”
“I am. And it’s a good feeling, my friend.” He turned serious again. “You and Jamison—”
“Are new. We’re really new, so if you want to take a shot at me, I’ll give you one free one. But after that I’m fighting back.”
“Dude, I’m not going to hit you.”
Ryder relaxed a little. “Thanks, I—”
“Then again…” Jared’s fist plowed into his jaw without any warning, sent Ryder flying back into the wall.
“Shit!” he yelled, clutching his injured jaw. “What the fuck? I have to sing in a couple hours.”
“Yeah. I figure that should make it nice and painful.”
“I thought you said you weren’t going to hit me.”
“I wasn’t. Then I remembered you slept with my baby sister. You should be grateful a sore jaw is all you’ve got.” He was grinning when he said the last.
Ryder glared at him, but didn’t argue. Jared had a point.
But then Jared’s smile faded, was replaced by a seriousness that was rare for his friend. “Don’t hurt her. I know you’ve got some really bad shit in your past, but Jamison’s isn’t all sunshine and roses. You know that.”
“Just like you have to know that the absolute last thing I want to do is hurt Jamison.”
“That’s not a promise.”
Ryder shook his head. How could it be when he knew how very likely it was that he would screw things up? It was the one guarantee in his life, the one thing he was exceptionally good at.
Jared wasn’t his best friend for nothing. He could see from the look on his guitarist’s face that the other man knew exactly what he was thinking. “Shit, Ryder.” He sighed. “Then be prepared for a lot worse than a punch in the jaw if you do hurt her.”
“That sounds fair.”
“You think?” Jared asked with a roll of his eyes.
Ignoring his friend’s sarcasm, Ryder stopped him as he went to open the dressing room door. “Don’t tell anyone about Jamison and me, okay? I’m not ready for it to go public.”
For some reason that made Jared smile all over again. “Tell who what? I know nothing.”
Ryder snorted. “Let’s keep it that way.”
…
As the dressing room door closed behind Ryder and her brother, Jamison let out a low, shaky breath and tried to pretend she hadn’t walked up in time to hear the very last part of their conversation. After all, it was none of her business if Ryder wanted to keep their “arrangement” a secret.
And what were they now, anyway? An item? A couple? Fuck friends? Or were they not even that? If Ryder didn’t want anyone to know they were sleeping together, there had to be a good reason. And if it wasn’t worry over Jared finding out, the only other explanation she could come up with was he was afraid the press would get ahold of her. Nothing like a few rabid paparazzi to break a relationship wide open.
But he had to know she was used to the paps. She was around Jared enough when the group wasn’t touring that she’d dealt with her fair share of them—and pretty well, if she did say so herself. So if he wasn’t worried about protecting her from the invasive questions and photos, why all the secrecy? Why the need to keep their relationship away from public consumption?
In her head, there was only one answer and it was the one she wanted least to believe. Not after the hours they’d spent in bed together that morning and certainly not after the way Ryder had made love to her in the bathroom. For the first time in her adult life, she’d felt like she really was beautiful. That her man saw her in a way she’d never been able to see herself.
Only now she was finding out that man didn’t want anyone else to know he was with her. She’d been around the block enough to know that most men were pretty territorial when it came to the women they were with, so if Ryder wasn’t being like that, it was because he really didn’t think of her as his. He didn’t want her, not the way she wanted him.
It was stupid to be upset by that now—she was the one who’d set the rules, after all. But how could she have known that her feelings for Ryder would deepen, would become so overwhelming, so quickly? She’d wanted him forever, had grabbed on to him with both hands when she got the chance. And to hell with the consequences.
Getting angry at Ryder, being hurt, wasn’t fair. Not when all he’d done was abide by the rules she had set. But knowing that in her head and understanding it in her heart were two different things, especially when each day she fell deeper and deeper in love with him. How could she not when he was
so kind and considerate and sweet to her when they were alone? Of course it had been easy to be blinded by the affection, and the sex. Was still easy, because even as she died inside at this new knowledge that he didn’t love her, not like she loved him,, she also knew that she wasn’t going to do anything drastic. It wasn’t like she had any intention of putting a stop to their relationship. Not when she so desperately wanted to hold, and be held by him.
Shoving the pain down deep inside of herself, she crossed the hall to Shaken Dirty’s dressing room. She’d come to find out if they wanted her to cook this afternoon or if they were just planning on eating the buffet that was currently being laid out in the green room.
Determined not to let what the hurt she felt affect the way she did her job—or anything else—Jamison shoved the dressing room door wide open. And walked straight into hell.
Chapter Eighteen
“Call 911!” Ryder yelled at Jared. “I don’t think he’s breathing.”
“Are you sure?” Jared was already dialing his cell phone as he raced across the room to where
Wyatt was passed out on the couch.
“No, I’m not sure! But it doesn’t look like it.” He laid his head on Wyatt’s chest, listened for the beating of his heart and the telltale movement of his torso that foretold breathing. But there was nothing there. Goddammit.
Not again. Wyatt was not doing this shit to him again.
But he was, and this time he wasn’t just unresponsive. He was dead.
No. Goddammit, no. Ryder wouldn’t accept that. He didn’t have a fucking clue how long his drummer had been like this, but he was not going to lose one of his best friends on the dirty floor of a dressing room in Houston. It wasn’t going to fucking happen.
Grabbing Wyatt by the shirt, Ryder pulled him onto the floor. Covered Wyatt’s mouth with his own and delivered two rescue breaths. As he did he was reviewing his very rusty knowledge of CPR in his head. “Ask them how to do CPR,” he said to Jared, who was frantically explaining the situation to a 911 operator. “I can’t remember how many compressions I’m supposed to do in a row.”
“Thirty.” Suddenly Jamison was there, falling to her knees beside him. “Right here,” she said, putting her hands in the center of his chest and beginning rapid compressions.
“Okay, breathe for him,” she said. He did, twice, then she started compressions again.
“The ambulance is about seven minutes out,” Jared said.
“Stay on the line with the dispatcher,” Jamison told him, a little breathless as she continued the compressions. “But call security, see if they have a defibrillator they can get in here. If we get a pulse, we can use it. Plus, there should be EMS on scene for the concert tonight—see if they’ve arrived yet. And give security a heads up about the ambulance. They should have someone waiting to bring the paramedics back here.
“Breathe,” she told Ryder and he did, a little awed at how competent she was. How fast she’d taken over when fear had been a raging nightmare inside of him.
She started CPR again. “Jared, there’s water running in the bathroom. Someone’s taking a shower. Go in and find out what time they went in there. We should try to have an estimate for the paramedics for how long Wyatt’s been down.”
“Right.” Jared sprang into action, all but flying across the large room. Then a bunch of things happened at once.
She got a pulse.
Wyatt’s body started to shake, then to convulse. The dressing room door burst open and two security guards ran in, followed by three paramedics with a gurney.
And Jared fell over, landing on his ass just outside the bathroom door. He was sheet white.
“Let us take over now, ma’am.” The paramedics eased in beside Jamison, helped her roll Wyatt onto his side so he wouldn’t hurt himself. Then one began firing off questions as the other started an IV.
Ryder answered the first couple of questions, torn between terror that Wyatt would die, rage that he’d done this to himself—and all of them—again, and concern for Jared, who hadn’t moved from his spot on the carpet. He looked almost as bad as Wyatt did.
Jamison crossed to him just as Victoria stumbled out of the bathroom, a small towel wrapped around her dripping body.
Seconds later, Micah followed her out.
He was also wet and wearing only a towel, and for a second Ryder felt like his head was going to explode. Had he somehow fallen through a wormhole into an alternate reality where everything was fucked up beyond all recognition?
Because this couldn’t be happening. Wyatt couldn’t have overdosed again, couldn’t have been lying there—dead—in front of him while Micah was in the bathroom screwing Jared’s fiancée. It couldn’t be real because not even rock and roll was this fucked up.
Except apparently it was. Because even the paramedics, while working on Wyatt, were watching the scene play out with the kind of bug-eyed fascination people had only for celebrities and disasters of epic proportion. How nice that Shaken Dirty could provide both tonight.
“Jared, I’m sorry,” Victoria sobbed, throwing herself onto the ground beside him. He just stared at her numbly as she tried to climb onto his lap.
And into the middle of all of that walked Quinn, carrying three pizza boxes and whistling the melody for one of the new songs he and Ryder were working on. He’d barely made it two steps before he froze, the pizza boxes sliding onto the ground with a sickening squish.
It was the last straw. Ryder sprang up and headed straight for Jared, who hadn’t said a word even as Victoria and Micah piled ridiculous justification on top of ridiculous justification. He wasn’t sure either one of them had even noticed the paramedics across the room where they continued to work on Wyatt.
Ryder grabbed Victoria, pulled her kicking and screaming off of Jared and carried her back inside the bathroom. “Put some clothes on before you come back out here,” he barked at her.
After closing the bathroom door on her mid-rant, he turned to Micah and shoved him roughly toward the door. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“I’m not going any—”
“Now!” he roared, grabbing the bass player by the back of his neckand marching him straight out the door—and into the crowd of backstage crew from the various bands who had just begun to gather outside of their dressing room. With one glance, he spotted a dozen cell phones, but Ryder couldn’t bring himself to care. Not when Wyatt was dying and the rest of the band was ripping itself apart at the seams.
He slammed the door in their faces and turned to Quinn. “Go after him. Find out if he knows what Wyatt took and how long ago he took it.”
He crossed to Jamison, who was trying to coax her brother to his feet. He reached down, hauled Jared up. And barely resisted the urge to go after Micah and throttle him. Jared was the best guy in the band. The nicest, friendliest, least fucked up by a mile. And everyone in Shaken Dirty knew how much he adored Victoria.
“Take him back to the hotel,” Ryder told Jamison. “To your room. Stay with him and if Micah or Victoria are stupid enough to show their faces, don’t let them fucking near him.” He pulled some money out of his pocket, pressed it into her hand. “Have security call a cab for you.”
She nodded. “What about Wyatt?”
“I’ve got him.”
“I know.” She stood on tiptoes, started to kiss his cheek, but at the last second she backed away. He didn’t blame her. Jared was the band’s leader, the one who kept things running smoothly. Who figured out what needed to be done and then did it. But Ryder was the guy who checked in on everyone, who made sure that everyone in the band was doing all right. And he’d royally fucked that job up … again. He’d been so busy thinking about Jamison that he hadn’t seen just how bad Wyatt was getting—or how out of control Micah had become. He hadn’t had a clue and now this had happened.
He’d never felt like more of a failure.
“What about the concert?” Jared asked, his voice wobbly and unsure, as different from his normal breezy confidence as it could get and still come from the same vocal chords.
Ryder gestured at Wyatt, who was breathing on his own. But the paramedics were pumping him full of all kinds of shit as they prepared to transfer him to the nearest hospital. “I think it’s safe to say we aren’t going on tonight.”
“Yeah.” Jared ran a hand over his eyes, looking shattered and shell-shocked. “Call me as soon as you know what’s going on with him. I’ll come up to the hospital.”
“Of course.” Ryder didn’t have the heart to tell him the whole Micah/Victoria thing was probably going to break wide open in a matter of minutes, if it hadn’t already done so. Combined with Wyatt’s overdose, it was going to be big entertainment news. He’d get their manager, agent, and publicist on this mess as soon as possible, but Jared still might be better off hiding out for a couple of days rather than dealing with the paps in full attack mode.
Jamison hustled him toward the door just as Quinn burst through the crowd and back into the room. Ryder didn’t even have time to fill him in before Victoria came out of the bathroom, red-
eyed and whimpering.
He ignored her as he tried to get his fury under control. Focused instead on Wyatt. “Did Micah say what he took?”
Quinn shook his head, disgusted. “He was too busy trying to defend himself. Said Victoria took off her clothes and climbed in the shower with him uninvited.”
“That’s not true!” Victoria said on a gasp.
Ryder pinned her with a look that had made even the most rabid photographers take a few steps back. “Do you actually think anyone here gives a shit what you have to say? Get the hell out of here. And leave Jared alone or I’ll make sure that even the worst gossip rags in the business won’t touch your story.”
“I love him.”
“Yeah. I think we all got that.” He turned to Quinn. “Get her in a cab, will you?”
“With pleasure.”
Ryder didn’t bother to watch and see if she went willingly. Instead he crossed to the paramedics and said, “Our best guess is still heroin.”
One of them nodded. “Yeah. He’s got the classic OD signs.”
Ryder’s stomach sunk as he wondered what the hell this was. Was it really just an accidental overdose—which would be bad enough—or was it something darker, something worse?
He said as much to the paramedics, who nodded as if unsurprised. The big one told him, “We’ll know more once we’re at the hospital.”
“Do you think he’s going to be okay?”
“Right now his vitals are holding steady. That’s something. But they’ll have to run a bunch of tests before anyone can give you a definitive answer.”
“Yeah. Of course.” He didn’t like the sound of that, but there was nothing he could do except wait. Nothing any of them could do.
“We’re ready to move him. You’re welcome to ride with us in the ambulance.”
Like he’d be anywhere else. Wyatt was his friend, his responsibility. He’d already fucked up with him twice. He wasn’t going to do it a third time.
