Little Bird

by Honey Palomino

  And then, you have to put up with the fans.

  They’re goddamned psychopaths!

  Who obsesses over complete strangers like this? I stopped at the edge of the stage and looked back at them, still standing there like a bunch of sheep, thinking I was going to do a third fucking encore or something. I flashed them the smile and lifted my hand in a wave, which sent them even more into a tizzy.

  I turned around and headed back to the green room, my smile falling as soon as I was out of sight. I peeled off the sweaty leather vest that I hated wearing, followed by the skin tight leather pants. I grabbed a cold beer and jumped in the shower, without bothering to lock the door.

  Rocco stood watch outside without me even having to tell him.

  He was a good soldier, in that way. He knew what I needed from him, and he simply did it, without any push back whatsoever. Of course, I paid him a small fortune for his loyalty, but he’d proven to be worth it. He’d saved my ass in more ways than one, time after time. I’d come to depend on him and he’d never disappointed me.

  Of course, I’d have liked it if he’d been able to find Little Bird, but you can’t win them all. I had to give her credit, that girl. She’d continued to hide very well. She’d done a good job of disappearing. Even the private investigator I’d hired had come up empty. I was still waiting to hear back from him on the picture of Gigi. I guess there could easily be another dog that looked like her named Gigi. Probably lots, actually, so I hadn’t pressed him too much on it just yet.

  Hell, I had all the time in the world anyway.

  Dove couldn’t hide forever. I’d find her eventually.

  I finished my beer in the shower, feeling refreshed now that I’d washed away the sweat with the cold water. Now that my show was over, I could relax for a bit. Tomorrow was an off day, so I’d have a day to hang out in Chicago, which meant getting wasted in my hotel room alone, without the constant prying eyes of those crazy ass fans who would be camped out outside my hotel.

  Didn’t people have better things to do?

  I shook my head as I opened a fresh bottle of whiskey. I started to pour it into a glass, but stopped myself and took a big chug from the bottle. I was planning on drinking the entire bottle anyway, so why bother?

  My glucose meter vibrated, reminding me to take a scan from the sensor attached to my arm. This disease was a fucking bitch. If it weren’t for my mom, I wouldn’t have had to deal with this shit. I hated her for it. Grumbling, I scanned the sensor just to get it to stop reminding me and then threw the reader on the table.

  I didn’t give a fuck anymore. I was going to do what I wanted anyway.

  And right now, what I wanted was a lot more booze.

  For the next few hours, that’s exactly what I focused on. I got dressed again and Rocco and I escaped to the hotel where I locked myself in my room. I spent the evening on the terrace of the Presidential Suite of the Waldorf Astoria overlooking the Chicago skyline. I ordered everything on the menu from room service and drank most of the booze from the bar — except the gin, because gin tastes like shit.

  I wallowed in self-pity and pathetic and shameless self-indulgence. I scrolled through my direct messages, trying to spot any authentic sightings of Dove anyone may have sent me. But they were never her, just women who may have looked similar.

  I hated being alone.

  I needed Dove back, because at least when she was around, I didn’t have to think about how pathetic my life really was. I didn’t have to look in the mirror and see some fake asshole staring back at me. When Dove was here, I was loved and wanted — by a real person, not a million strangers.

  I kept drinking until the first rays of sunlight starting peeking over the horizon, until the booze got the best of me and I finally slipped off into a deep sleep in my chair.

  “Boss! Boss!” Rocco was shaking me and I was having a hard time opening my eyes. “Fuck,” I heard him mutter. In the distance, the relentless beeping of my glucose meter seemed much louder in my pounding head. Finally, my eyes fluttered open and Rocco’s big face was blocking out the sun.

  “Boss, you scared the fuck outta me!” he said, his voice a deep growl.

  “Sorry, man,” I mumbled, running a hand through my hair. “Where are we?”

  “At the hotel,” he said, as I tried to sit up.

  Drums. Loud, thumping drums sounded in my head.

  “What’s that pounding?”

  “Probably your head, Boss. How much did you drink last night?”

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “Boss, I just said, we’re at the hotel,” he said. “Did you hit your head or something?”

  “No, I mean what city are we in?” I traveled so much, I often woke up not knowing what city I’d spent the night in, this was nothing new. What was new was this pain in my side and the nausea I was feeling.

  “Chicago, Boss,” he replied.

  “Right,” I nodded, vaguely remembering last night’s show and coming back here. The rest was a complete blur, but by the looks of the bottles and dishes littering the terrace, I’d had quite a party by myself. “I need water.”

  “You should check your glucose, Boss,” Rocco said, handing me the still beeping meter. “When’s the last time you checked?”

  “Rocco, I didn’t even know what city I was in, you think I know that?” I barked.

  “Right,” he nodded. I grabbed the meter and swiped it across the sensor in my arm, then threw it down again, ignoring it and relishing in the sudden quiet. The only thing left was the pounding in my head and that would subside when I had a little water and food.

  And maybe some more booze.

  I stood up on shaky legs and headed toward the kitchen for a glass of water.

  I took five steps and collapsed on the marble floor.

  Chapter 46

  DANE

  The Chief of Surgery cornered me as soon as I walked into the hospital for my shift.

  “Hey, Chief,” I greeted her. Sandra Addison was one of the most respected surgeons in the world and I had great respect for her. I was honored to work alongside her.

  “Doctor Fazio, how was your day off?”

  “It was great,” I said.

  “You look happy and relaxed,” she commented. “More so than usual.”

  “Do I?” I questioned, with a raised brow.

  “You do,” she said. “You working out? Doing something different with your hair?”

  “Not so much,” I said. I knew what she was seeing, because I’d seen it too. It was a lightness in my eyes that wasn’t there before I’d met Samantha. I wasn’t about to go into my love life with the Chief, though.

  “How are you doing?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.

  “Well, I was great until the biggest rockstar in the world decided to grace us with his presence. Now I’ve got a gaggle of press and a shitload of crying fangirls to wrangle, as well,” she replied. “Not to mention the guy is a pain in the ass to deal with.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Nate Nash,” she said. “He came in this morning, but he’s a raging lunatic, not to mention pissed drunk. He smells like a distillery.”

  “Oh, no,” I replied. “Nathan’s here?”

  “You know him?”

  “Yeah, I used to treat his mom.”

  “That asshole has a mother?”

  “Not anymore,” I said.

  “Well, then you can have him,” she said. “I was going to call you anyway. His diabetes is raging out of control but he won’t let anyone touch him. That must be why he was asking for you.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I’ll take care of him. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Good,” she said. “Think you can do something about them?” She pointed to a throng of people outside the front doors. I’d come in the back way and hadn’t seen them, but I could see why she was worried. There had to be at least two hundred fans gathered out there.

  “You’re on your own with that one,”
I said, throwing her an apologetic glance. “And good luck.”

  “You’re the one that’s going to need good luck. Did I mention the guy was an absolute prick to the nurses so far?”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said, as I walked away.

  After making my way to the ER, all I had to do was follow the sound of Nate’s shouts to find him tucked away in a back room. Most likely, he’d been placed there for privacy but I was glad he was slightly sequestered so he wasn’t upsetting any other patients.

  “I told you, you’re not fucking touching me with that thing,” he shouted, as I walked into the room. I glanced at the poor nurse who gave me a look that shouted ‘help’. She held a syringe in her hand and Nathan was firmly refusing whatever it was.

  “Doctor, I was just giving him —.”

  “I don’t need a fucking sedative!” Nathan shouted from behind her.

  “I’ve got this,” I said. “You can go.”

  She hurried out after flashing me a grateful smile.

  “Hello, Nathan,” I said.

  “Thank god it’s you, Dr. Faz!” he replied, his voice suddenly calmer. “I told all those assholes I wanted to wait for you but they kept trying to do shit to me.”

  I nodded and grabbed his chart from the end of his bed and flipped through it. They’d been able to do an initial blood work up and it appeared his blood glucose level was off the charts. I closed the chart and looked him over. He looked terrible. Dark circles surrounded his eyes and his skin was puffy and flushed, his eyes glossy and red.

  I sat down beside him on the bed and smiled at him.

  “What’s going on with you, Nathan?” I asked. “Why aren’t you taking better care of yourself?”

  He sat silent for a moment, sulking, before he finally answered. “I don’t know. I’ve just been going through some shit.”

  I nodded in understanding, letting him continue.

  “It’s fucking hard, Doc! This life, fucking living it, every goddamned day.” He pushed a hand through his hair in exasperation.

  “I was real sorry to hear about your Mom, Nathan,” I said.

  “Thanks,” he muttered. “She really liked you.”

  “I liked her, too,” I said. “I know she loved you a lot, too.”

  “Maybe, but I was just a fucking meal ticket to her in the end,” he said.

  “Is that really how you feel?”

  “Absolutely,” he replied. “I’d go on tour and she’d call every day asking me to send her more money. It was never enough. Sometimes, I think she only had a kid so that she could have a source of income. The woman never worked a day in her life, did you know that?”

  “She worked to get you a lot of auditions, didn’t she? She took you to singing lessons and acting lessons?”

  “That was just an investment in her future,” he said. “At least, that’s how it made me feel.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Well, I’m not sorry she’s gone, I’ll tell you that, Doc.”

  I nodded, not sure how to respond. The guy obviously needed someone to talk to and apparently had a lot of unresolved issues to deal with. But I’m not a therapist.

  “So, your glucose levels are pretty terrible, Nathan.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “Are you not taking care of yourself because of Nora dying?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t care about that.”

  “Then what’s going on?”

  “Fuck, Doc,” he said, shaking his head. “I met this chick, right? Beautiful girl. Not a model or anything. A fucking nurse, actually, if you can believe that. But I fell for her, swooped her up and gave her the fucking world, right? And then she just left me.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  “That’s the fucking thing!” he cried. “I don’t fucking know. I can’t apologize. I can’t bring her back. I can’t even fucking find her.”

  “I see,” I nodded. “And so you’re upset about that and that’s why you’re — what — binge eating? Drinking? Both?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I haven’t been keeping track of shit. I don’t know. It’s hard to have this fucking disease and have to deal with it constantly.”

  “I know,” I said. “Your mother felt the same way.”

  “Yeah, I guess she did.” he said.

  “Have you thought about going to therapy?” I asked, gently.

  “Fuck that,” he said, shaking his head emphatically. “All I need to do is find Dove and I’ll be fine.”

  “She must have been some woman.”

  He shrugged. “She was alright.”

  “If she was just alright, why this big meltdown over her? Why not just find someone else to date?”

  “Because it’s not about her. I mean, she was fine. Pretty girl, great tits, nice ass. I’m upset because she fucking left me. I want her back so she can make up for the embarrassment she’s caused me.”

  “Oh,” I said, my skin crawling. What a gentleman he’s turned out to be, I thought to myself.

  “I mean, look, don’t get me wrong, Doc. She was great. Holy shit, she gave the best blowjobs. I mean, I’ve had better, but they were decent, you know? And she did everything I told her to, right up to the end, without complaint. Then, she just turned into a whining little bitch. She thought she was better than me. And she forced me to show her that she wasn’t. And then, she had the nerve to steal a bunch of fucking money from me and disappear without a goddamned trace.”

  I cringed, feeling sorry for the poor girl. No wonder she left if he was talking about her like this. I shuddered to think of what he meant when he said she forced him to show her that she wasn’t better than him. I concluded that I probably didn’t want to know. A twinge of anger rushed through me, but I did my best to remain professional and shove it down deep.

  “It doesn’t matter, though. I’ve got the whole fucking world looking for her. She can’t hide forever. Here, let me show you,” he pulled out his phone and pulled up his pictures.

  The woman staring back at me had long blonde waves hanging around her face, but my brain seemed to short-circuit. She looked very familiar, but something was off.

  “That’s Dove,” he said, scrolling on his phone, before stopping on a pair of naked breasts. “And those are Dove’s tits.”

  He laughed maniacally and despite how unprofessional it was for me to even look at this picture, I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

  It wasn’t the familiar breasts I was looking at, though.

  It was the tiny little pair of moles sitting on her collarbone that caught my eye.

  “You said her name is Dove?” I asked, slowly, trying to make sense of what I was looking at.

  “Yep.”

  I nodded, staring at the picture, those moles staring back at me.

  “Great tits, though, right?” he laughed. Slowly, I nodded again, tearing my eyes away, my mind reeling as he put his phone away.

  “So, if you’re so mad at her, what are you going to do when you find her?”

  “I have people to take care of things like that for me,” he winked.

  A pit of dread formed in my stomach at his words. What a prick, I thought.

  “Let’s talk about how we’re going to get your health back on track, Nathan,” I said. I was completely distracted, though. That woman looked like Samantha. Not long ago, I’d been kissing two moles on her shoulder that looked exactly like the ones on Nathan’s missing girlfriend.

  I had to be wrong.

  That was the only explanation.

  There was no way the idea forming in my mind could be real.

  Chapter 47

  DOVE

  The money sat in neat piles tucked into Nate’s safe.

  It took two weeks before my body healed after he’d beat me. Two more weeks of enduring his bullshit. Two more weeks of pain. Two weeks of bruises and black eyes and trying to hide from the world in his glass castle in Los Angeles.

  When he announced we wer
e going back to New York for a while, I was happy to get out of there. Staying with that asshole in that house, walking by the spot on the floor where he’d brutally beat me was wearing me down.

  His place in New York wasn’t much better and still full of bad memories, but it would give me just the chance I needed to get away from him.

  This pile of cash was the answer to all of my problems.

  Nate had given me the combination long ago, totally trusting that I’d only take out a little here and there as I needed it.

  But now, I needed it all.

  When Rocco told me how much it would cost for him to put all the things in place that needed to happen to get me a new identity, my eyes almost popped out of my head. But, over time, I knew what I had to do.

  This was the only way.

  This money, these little piles of paper that the world gave so much value to — could save me.

  A new life.

  A new me.

  A life away from Nate Nash and his incessant abuse.

  It was all right here at my fingertips. All I needed to do was place it in this Gucci duffel bag and hand it off to Rocco and it would be done.

  So simple.

  I took a deep breath, my fingers trembling as I picked up each pile and dropped it in the bag at my feet, ignoring the guilt washing over me.

  “This money is your money, too, Little Bird,” I heard Nate say in my head when he’d given me the combination. I’d never in a million years dreamed I’d be cleaning it out to start a whole new life to escape his abuse.

  But here I was. And I was choosing to take his statement at face value and told myself this wasn’t stealing, not at all. He said this was my money, too, so I could do whatever I wanted with it.

  What I wanted was to desperately escape from this hell-scape.

  Once it was empty, I took several stacks back out and stuffed them in my pockets before zipping up the Gucci bag and walking out of the bedroom with it. Nate was at band rehearsal, so I didn’t have to worry about him seeing me. Rocco was with him, but we’d arranged a secret spot in the front closet for me to place the bag for him to get later.