Resonance, page 26
I ended the call and stared at my phone for a minute, then tossed it on the bed beside me and ground the heels of my hands against my eyes.
“Is it gonna be all right?” Ryder squeezed around my knees in the aisle to drop down on the bunk across from me.
“Yeah, think so. Shop got broken into. Owen fucking… I don’t even know what he was doing there so goddamn late and without the alarm…” That was just anger talking, though. I knew damn well it wasn’t Owen’s fault. I let my hands fall to my lap.
“Are you still good to do the show tonight? Because—”
“Yeah, I’m fucking good to do the show,” I snapped, then sucked in a breath and muttered, “Sorry.”
“It’s all right, you’re upset. I get it.” He leaned forward on his knees, voice husky with concern and sincerity. “I’m willing to help you however I can.”
I glanced up, meeting Ryder’s eyes. They weren’t the same eyes I’d recalled over the years. They were older, time-worn, foreign, the lines around them unfamiliar, and not shaped by laughter we shared, or common worry. The landmarks on his body were evidence of a life that moved on without me, and studying him at that moment did a funny thing to me, because instantly Owen’s eyes drifted to the front of my mind. The lively, liquid green of them, the sparkle that danced behind. With effort, I barricaded my mind against visions of what had gone down at the shop, and how, because it twisted and twisted and twisted inside me, and the thought of those eyes dim or dulled or wide with fear? It fucking wrecked me.
I played the show that night on autopilot and called Ru afterward, who told me Owen was sleeping. I’d talked to him briefly earlier in the afternoon, and he’d sounded tired then, too, forced cheer apparent in his voice.
Afterward, he sent me a photo using Ru’s phone with the message, Proof of life. See? Still as devastatingly handsome as ever.
He’d taken it at a three-quarter angle and used a photo filter from some app to give himself a unicorn horn. His mouth was open wide, and there was what I guess was supposed to be rainbow vomit coming out. But just over the bridge of his nose on the side of his face he had turned away were mottled smears of purple bruising. And his eyes had looked dull and exhausted.
That picture joined the ones Ru had sent me of the shop. Display cases upended and broken. Records everywhere. Papers strewn. The glass in the posters I’d framed smashed, like the Merry Pranksters themselves had torn through. I studied each with a forced sense of detachment, but it was Owen’s picture I couldn’t get off my mind. I wanted to be with him so badly, the bone-deep ache of it was almost unbearable.
That night, I lay in a hotel bed that smelled like nothing. Not home, not familiar, not comfortable. Just emptiness. Just transience. And as I lay there, I thought about shit I hadn’t thought about much for going on fifteen years—love, sacrifice, loyalty, and faith—while my heart hammered wild and restless in my chest.
AURAL ADDICTION, EPISODE #24 TRANSCRIPT:
Dan: What’re the odds that you could quit fidgeting for five minutes?
Owen: Slim to none. That’s like asking a dog not to bark. Dandelion seeds not to scatter in a breeze. Ru not to bitch about having to cover “Freebird” every time he plays downtown.
Dan: Very poetic.
Owen: That’s why I write. What’re the odds you could go five minutes without scowling at an inanimate object like it exists solely to offend you?
Dan: I don’t do that. Do I?
Owen: You did it three seconds ago when you leaned closer to the mic. That’s why you’re always having trouble with it, I bet. You need to nurture it more, be gentle, and reap the rewards of tenderness.
Dan: Are we still talking about the mic?
CHAPTER 30
When I was twelve, I’d been in a convenience store as it got robbed. It was in a shitty, run-down part of Westhaven, where I lived at the time, but they still carried Jolt Cola, so every now and then when I had enough change, I’d trek the two miles from my aunt’s to get one.
There’d been another lady nearby studying the shelves behind me while I opened the beverage case and pulled out the soda. I’d been in my own world, I guess, because I’d closed the door and was starting back down the aisle toward the register when the lady yanked me back and put her fingers against her lips when I yelped in surprise.
We crouched in the aisle together face-to-face. In the convex mirror at the back the store, I could see the guy at the register, the gun he aimed at the attendant. And I remember thinking that meant he could see us, too, if he cared to look.
The lady clasped her hands over the tops of my knees as we crouched. I wrapped mine around her wrists, and we stared at each other. I had weird thoughts, disjointed thoughts, like I wondered what she’d been looking for on that aisle, because the display behind her had an assortment of odds and ends from single-serve pain tablets to overpriced cartons of motor oil. I wondered where the tiny sickle scar on the bridge of her nose had come from. I wondered if she usually came to this store and where she was on her way to. Those thoughts got tangled up in panic and helplessness.
She kept her hands on my knees the entire time, thumbs moving over my skin in slow, calming circles. Every time I tried to steal a peek at the mirror, she’d gently redirect my chin with a shake of her head. Finally, she cut a look up at that mirror, exhaled a soft sigh, and I knew it was okay.
It took me a minute to assemble the jumble of sound into letters, then words as she spoke soothingly. “Usually they’re just in and out. Don’t want to harm anyone else, just want the cash.” Her eyes creased with worry and weariness. Her dark hair was curled close to her skull, and her quavery smile was infinitely kind and made me feel shaky inside. I wondered later how many times she’d been involved in a robbery to be so matter-of-fact about it.
She helped me up, steadying me as my foot slipped. I looked down at the wetness on the floor and realized I’d made the puddle. She patted my back and hugged me close and told me it was okay. And that was when I started to cry.
I didn’t piss myself at Grim’s that night. I was scared, but I was also furious. At whoever was inside the shop. At myself.
I listened to the racket of them rifling through the aisles, the cash register as it crashed on the ground, more glass shattering and bursts of laughter like machine gun fire, quickly cut off by a deeper, masculine voice. Only once did the doorknob jiggle. It was followed by a muffled curse.
“Got a phone,” came from a distance, and my heart sank.
I kept telling myself they’d be on their way once they got what they wanted. The hate inside me spilled outward, radiating through the air, and then it twisted around and tried to swallow me, too. Stupid. So fucking stupid of me.
The doorknob on the Hoard jiggled again.
My breath hitched in my chest. Locked. It’s locked. They can’t get in. I touched the keys in my pocket and wished they were a phone.
Pale lamplight spilled through the tiny, barred casement window behind me, fracturing the darkness in weak spurts. I closed my eyes and began to count.
“Fuck it, let’s go.”
After ten minutes, the shop was quiet. I waited another couple to make sure.
A list formed in my mind, shuffling itself around in importance. Call 1: police. Call 2: Ru. I debated whether Call 3 should be Dan or if Ru should take care of that, as I quietly unlocked the door and turned the handle. There was no steeling myself for the chaos I expected to find. I didn’t even try. I’d heard enough to know better. Dan should fire me, definitely. Everything he’d been working for, everything he’d come out of retirement for in the first place, was ruined.
White light exploded behind my eyes, confusingly brilliant. The pain came a second later, all consuming and so intense that I registered it from a distance at first, my mind flashing a warning before it concentrated into a point on my forehead and slammed outward with such intensity that my stomach lurched with nausea as I stumbled backward.
I landed on my back, breath smacked brutally from my lungs on impact. My fingers moved in desperate automation, scrabbling for purchase against the cool linoleum.
I couldn’t see anything.
I finally grasped something solid and pulled. There was a soft whisper of sound before fire cracked across my ribs, the tiny reserve of air I’d manage to hang on to forced out.
I gasped and then I gasped again. And again. Color bloomed on my eyelids and faded into blobs of brown.
“Jesus fucking Christ, did you kill him?”
“Fuck! Shut up. Right there, grab it, ten seconds. Let’s go.”
There was something familiar about the voice, but recognition danced away from me, eclipsed by darkness that felt warm and steady. I wrapped it around me and let it cocoon me from the outside world. No voices, no sounds of destruction.
No me.
“O?” Ru’s voice was close. Too close. I nearly jumped from my skin when I rolled over on his couch to find him crouched beside it, face inches from mine.
He read my startled expression and winced. “Sorry.”
“How about a warning tap or something next time?” I mumbled. My tongue felt like it had chunks of cotton stuck to it.
“I did. You were out cold.”
I pulled the blanket higher over my chest. Sunlight crept in from underneath the blinds behind Ru, but I had no idea what time it was.
I frowned. “Stop. You’re practically transmitting your worry all over me.” It was so thick in his expression I could’ve dragged a finger through and spread it around, and it had a gravitational pull that made him look ten years older. I didn’t like that he looked that way because of me. “What time is it?”
“One.”
I bolted upright. “I have a shift.” And then I remembered even as Ru laid his hand on my shoulder and eased me back down.
“Shop’s closed for the next week at least, remember? And Ivy’s gonna meet me there in a little bit to start cleaning up.”
“I’ll go, too.”
“No you won’t, you stubborn mule. You’ll rest like you’re supposed to. The only reason I woke you up was to tell you I was leaving so you wouldn’t wonder where everyone was. Quinn’s meeting with a gallery owner, but he’ll be back in a while. Also…” He worried his lower lip, and his hesitation made me want to shrink into the cushions. “There’s this lady Quinn has seen in the past, and he says she’s really helpful.”
I rolled my eyes, because I knew where this was going. “I don’t need to see anyone. I’m not suffering from PTSD. I got knocked in the head by a damn door.”
Ru studied me for a moment, then pulled the card out anyway, setting it on the table. “She said she can squeeze you in this week. I thought you and I could go get you a new phone tomorrow. You could make the appointment yourself. I mean, I’m not trying to guilt you into it.” He backtracked. “Yeah, actually I am. Because it will make me feel better. I want to make sure you’re okay, and I don’t know how to do that.”
I blinked at him. “You could just ask me.”
“You’ll tell me you’re fine, but you’d say that no matter what. You’re always fine because you’re just pouring sunshine outward like a fucking fountain.”
“And you think I’m covering up a black hole or something?”
“Maybe. You know, if you’re into mixing metaphors.” A tiny smile teased the corners of Ru’s lips, and I knew he was trying to coax some confession out of me.
“I’m not. I’m just me. And my head hurts.”
“Okay.” Disappointment made the word oblong and thick in his mouth.
When I didn’t say anything else—because there wasn’t anything else to say—Ru gave me a smile that was probably supposed to be encouraging but just looked sad.
He squeezed my shoulder before rising and heading toward the door. “I left my laptop open. Message me on Slack if you need anything. Quinn will be back soon,” he repeated.
Like I was some invalid.
The apartment was too silent after he left. And so still. Even the air seemed thick as glue. At least at Dan’s, there’d been Jez roaming, and the hum of the fridge and the pops and creaks of the floorboards expanding in the sun.
I kicked restlessly at the covers, stared high up into the ceiling, and felt useless against the blackness that had made a home in my chest. I missed Dan. Desperately. Insisting that he stay on the tour—and trying to be convincing about it—had used up every ounce of energy I’d had left.
CHAPTER 31
I rolled over in bed and for a second, I was disoriented, clueless as to where I was. Too many nights spent in beds that weren’t my own.
Dan’s house. It locked into place as I eased upright, the dull throb at my temples teasing a soft groan from me. Jezebel snaked between my arms and rubbed her cheek against my chest until I stroked her back. It’d been two days since the break-in, and I’d insisted on returning to Dan’s yesterday afternoon, desperate for a break from Ru and Quinn’s constant hovering, well-meaning as it was. Even Dan’s frequent check-ins were getting to me.
I was being an ungrateful, ornery little shit. I knew that, but I couldn’t muster up the energy to fight it. I just wanted to be left alone. The doctor had said I might feel off-kilter for a few weeks, but I wasn’t sure if the black feeling was part of that. It was like a shell around me that I couldn’t break through.
“I know,” I grumbled to Jez. “Breakfast.”
I shuffled into Dan’s kitchen and started the coffeepot, poured out some kibble for Jez, then added in an extra serving of the wet stuff she liked as penance for the craziness of the past few days.
With Ru still refusing to let me help at the shop, I had little to do but wander around and remind myself I’d ruined Dan’s life.
Getting down on myself served no purpose, I knew that. Innately I knew it. But the part I hadn’t figured out yet was the place where knowing and feeling met. Because I was good at knowing stuff, but I still fucking felt everything, regardless. I swear humans were the only creatures given higher consciousness only to self-sabotage with it.
I carried my coffee into the guest room and set it on the nightstand as I remade the bed. Jezebel prowled around my feet as I smoothed over the pillowcases.
“You smell like cat food,” I told her, wrinkling my nose. She twined through my legs and rubbed her head against me, unconcerned. “It’s not an attractive scent, but I’ll forgive you since I probably don’t smell much better.”
I hadn’t bothered to shower since the hospital, and I debated whether I was up to doing it after I looked through job listings online. If not, I’d put it on the goal list for tomorrow. Where it would occupy position #1 as I literally had nothing else on the list and nowhere else to be.
At a quarter to nine, someone hammered on the door. I waited to see if they meant it or if a turn of a key would follow, Aiden returning unexpectedly. A tiny part of me hoped he would. Whatever else he might be, I suspected he knew something about shit luck, and he definitely knew about fucking up.
When it came again, I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and took my time making my way into the living room, then peered out the window.
A tangle of emotion ruptured inside me. My eyes filled even as I snarled under my breath and tried to blink the sheen away. Stubborn fucking man.
I opened the door. “Is there a reason you’re knocking on your own door?” God, I think I probably hated myself the most right then.
“Is there a reason you’re at my house when you should be at Ru’s?”
The expression on Dan’s face mirrored my own, I imagined, and I folded my arms over my chest like a brat, immediately self-conscious and defensive. “I asked first.”
“I called and texted. You didn’t answer. I didn’t want to scare you by just walking in.”
“To your own house.”
“That you’re in.” Dan cocked his head, eyeing me down the barrel of his straight, strong nose, something in his expression like buckshot salting my gut, spilling me open.
I looked away because I had to, and Dan swept in, prying my hand from its hold on the door and kicking it shut behind him.
Wordlessly, he took me by the shoulders and guided me in front of the picture window in the living room. He cupped my jaw, tilting my head side to side, thumbs sweeping over my cheeks, hitting the mottled bruise above my right eyebrow and making me wince even though he was gentle. His warm brown eyes searched me over like my skin was translucent and he was seeing straight through to everything beneath me: the muscle and sinew and bone, the thoughts that made me tick.
I drew a ragged breath, happiness and relief at seeing him storming through me with unexpected intensity. And then the black pitch that had taken up residence inside me dragged me under again.
He and Ryder were supposed to play a show tonight. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
“Goddamn you’re a petulant thing,” he murmured.
“Two sides of the same coin.” And yeah, it sounded bratty, too. I didn’t want him to stop touching me, though. “I’m really angry at you right now.”
“I know. I’m angry at you, too, but not for the reasons you think.” He spoke gruffly, but his gaze was so tender, I couldn’t bear it.
And then Dan wrapped his arms around me, and I let him. Not just let him—some tiny support beam within me that’d been keeping me upright the past couple of days collapsed at the solidness and steadiness of him, the hereness of him. I sagged against his body and choked back a sob.
He said nothing, just held me in front of that window, the bright morning light streaming in and hitting one side of my face with a detached warmth that was different from the living heat of his body and his strong arms around me.
“Shit hasn’t been going so great here,” I told him shakily, and I guess he was able to read the deeper story behind those words well enough, because I felt his chin nodding into the crown of my head.
“I know, baby.” Dan kissed the top of my head and took hold of my shoulders, leaning back and looking me over. I knew how I looked. Gaunt and unwashed and gross. I’d be embarrassed if I could muster up the wherewithal to care. “Have you eaten anything this morning?”
“Is it gonna be all right?” Ryder squeezed around my knees in the aisle to drop down on the bunk across from me.
“Yeah, think so. Shop got broken into. Owen fucking… I don’t even know what he was doing there so goddamn late and without the alarm…” That was just anger talking, though. I knew damn well it wasn’t Owen’s fault. I let my hands fall to my lap.
“Are you still good to do the show tonight? Because—”
“Yeah, I’m fucking good to do the show,” I snapped, then sucked in a breath and muttered, “Sorry.”
“It’s all right, you’re upset. I get it.” He leaned forward on his knees, voice husky with concern and sincerity. “I’m willing to help you however I can.”
I glanced up, meeting Ryder’s eyes. They weren’t the same eyes I’d recalled over the years. They were older, time-worn, foreign, the lines around them unfamiliar, and not shaped by laughter we shared, or common worry. The landmarks on his body were evidence of a life that moved on without me, and studying him at that moment did a funny thing to me, because instantly Owen’s eyes drifted to the front of my mind. The lively, liquid green of them, the sparkle that danced behind. With effort, I barricaded my mind against visions of what had gone down at the shop, and how, because it twisted and twisted and twisted inside me, and the thought of those eyes dim or dulled or wide with fear? It fucking wrecked me.
I played the show that night on autopilot and called Ru afterward, who told me Owen was sleeping. I’d talked to him briefly earlier in the afternoon, and he’d sounded tired then, too, forced cheer apparent in his voice.
Afterward, he sent me a photo using Ru’s phone with the message, Proof of life. See? Still as devastatingly handsome as ever.
He’d taken it at a three-quarter angle and used a photo filter from some app to give himself a unicorn horn. His mouth was open wide, and there was what I guess was supposed to be rainbow vomit coming out. But just over the bridge of his nose on the side of his face he had turned away were mottled smears of purple bruising. And his eyes had looked dull and exhausted.
That picture joined the ones Ru had sent me of the shop. Display cases upended and broken. Records everywhere. Papers strewn. The glass in the posters I’d framed smashed, like the Merry Pranksters themselves had torn through. I studied each with a forced sense of detachment, but it was Owen’s picture I couldn’t get off my mind. I wanted to be with him so badly, the bone-deep ache of it was almost unbearable.
That night, I lay in a hotel bed that smelled like nothing. Not home, not familiar, not comfortable. Just emptiness. Just transience. And as I lay there, I thought about shit I hadn’t thought about much for going on fifteen years—love, sacrifice, loyalty, and faith—while my heart hammered wild and restless in my chest.
AURAL ADDICTION, EPISODE #24 TRANSCRIPT:
Dan: What’re the odds that you could quit fidgeting for five minutes?
Owen: Slim to none. That’s like asking a dog not to bark. Dandelion seeds not to scatter in a breeze. Ru not to bitch about having to cover “Freebird” every time he plays downtown.
Dan: Very poetic.
Owen: That’s why I write. What’re the odds you could go five minutes without scowling at an inanimate object like it exists solely to offend you?
Dan: I don’t do that. Do I?
Owen: You did it three seconds ago when you leaned closer to the mic. That’s why you’re always having trouble with it, I bet. You need to nurture it more, be gentle, and reap the rewards of tenderness.
Dan: Are we still talking about the mic?
CHAPTER 30
When I was twelve, I’d been in a convenience store as it got robbed. It was in a shitty, run-down part of Westhaven, where I lived at the time, but they still carried Jolt Cola, so every now and then when I had enough change, I’d trek the two miles from my aunt’s to get one.
There’d been another lady nearby studying the shelves behind me while I opened the beverage case and pulled out the soda. I’d been in my own world, I guess, because I’d closed the door and was starting back down the aisle toward the register when the lady yanked me back and put her fingers against her lips when I yelped in surprise.
We crouched in the aisle together face-to-face. In the convex mirror at the back the store, I could see the guy at the register, the gun he aimed at the attendant. And I remember thinking that meant he could see us, too, if he cared to look.
The lady clasped her hands over the tops of my knees as we crouched. I wrapped mine around her wrists, and we stared at each other. I had weird thoughts, disjointed thoughts, like I wondered what she’d been looking for on that aisle, because the display behind her had an assortment of odds and ends from single-serve pain tablets to overpriced cartons of motor oil. I wondered where the tiny sickle scar on the bridge of her nose had come from. I wondered if she usually came to this store and where she was on her way to. Those thoughts got tangled up in panic and helplessness.
She kept her hands on my knees the entire time, thumbs moving over my skin in slow, calming circles. Every time I tried to steal a peek at the mirror, she’d gently redirect my chin with a shake of her head. Finally, she cut a look up at that mirror, exhaled a soft sigh, and I knew it was okay.
It took me a minute to assemble the jumble of sound into letters, then words as she spoke soothingly. “Usually they’re just in and out. Don’t want to harm anyone else, just want the cash.” Her eyes creased with worry and weariness. Her dark hair was curled close to her skull, and her quavery smile was infinitely kind and made me feel shaky inside. I wondered later how many times she’d been involved in a robbery to be so matter-of-fact about it.
She helped me up, steadying me as my foot slipped. I looked down at the wetness on the floor and realized I’d made the puddle. She patted my back and hugged me close and told me it was okay. And that was when I started to cry.
I didn’t piss myself at Grim’s that night. I was scared, but I was also furious. At whoever was inside the shop. At myself.
I listened to the racket of them rifling through the aisles, the cash register as it crashed on the ground, more glass shattering and bursts of laughter like machine gun fire, quickly cut off by a deeper, masculine voice. Only once did the doorknob jiggle. It was followed by a muffled curse.
“Got a phone,” came from a distance, and my heart sank.
I kept telling myself they’d be on their way once they got what they wanted. The hate inside me spilled outward, radiating through the air, and then it twisted around and tried to swallow me, too. Stupid. So fucking stupid of me.
The doorknob on the Hoard jiggled again.
My breath hitched in my chest. Locked. It’s locked. They can’t get in. I touched the keys in my pocket and wished they were a phone.
Pale lamplight spilled through the tiny, barred casement window behind me, fracturing the darkness in weak spurts. I closed my eyes and began to count.
“Fuck it, let’s go.”
After ten minutes, the shop was quiet. I waited another couple to make sure.
A list formed in my mind, shuffling itself around in importance. Call 1: police. Call 2: Ru. I debated whether Call 3 should be Dan or if Ru should take care of that, as I quietly unlocked the door and turned the handle. There was no steeling myself for the chaos I expected to find. I didn’t even try. I’d heard enough to know better. Dan should fire me, definitely. Everything he’d been working for, everything he’d come out of retirement for in the first place, was ruined.
White light exploded behind my eyes, confusingly brilliant. The pain came a second later, all consuming and so intense that I registered it from a distance at first, my mind flashing a warning before it concentrated into a point on my forehead and slammed outward with such intensity that my stomach lurched with nausea as I stumbled backward.
I landed on my back, breath smacked brutally from my lungs on impact. My fingers moved in desperate automation, scrabbling for purchase against the cool linoleum.
I couldn’t see anything.
I finally grasped something solid and pulled. There was a soft whisper of sound before fire cracked across my ribs, the tiny reserve of air I’d manage to hang on to forced out.
I gasped and then I gasped again. And again. Color bloomed on my eyelids and faded into blobs of brown.
“Jesus fucking Christ, did you kill him?”
“Fuck! Shut up. Right there, grab it, ten seconds. Let’s go.”
There was something familiar about the voice, but recognition danced away from me, eclipsed by darkness that felt warm and steady. I wrapped it around me and let it cocoon me from the outside world. No voices, no sounds of destruction.
No me.
“O?” Ru’s voice was close. Too close. I nearly jumped from my skin when I rolled over on his couch to find him crouched beside it, face inches from mine.
He read my startled expression and winced. “Sorry.”
“How about a warning tap or something next time?” I mumbled. My tongue felt like it had chunks of cotton stuck to it.
“I did. You were out cold.”
I pulled the blanket higher over my chest. Sunlight crept in from underneath the blinds behind Ru, but I had no idea what time it was.
I frowned. “Stop. You’re practically transmitting your worry all over me.” It was so thick in his expression I could’ve dragged a finger through and spread it around, and it had a gravitational pull that made him look ten years older. I didn’t like that he looked that way because of me. “What time is it?”
“One.”
I bolted upright. “I have a shift.” And then I remembered even as Ru laid his hand on my shoulder and eased me back down.
“Shop’s closed for the next week at least, remember? And Ivy’s gonna meet me there in a little bit to start cleaning up.”
“I’ll go, too.”
“No you won’t, you stubborn mule. You’ll rest like you’re supposed to. The only reason I woke you up was to tell you I was leaving so you wouldn’t wonder where everyone was. Quinn’s meeting with a gallery owner, but he’ll be back in a while. Also…” He worried his lower lip, and his hesitation made me want to shrink into the cushions. “There’s this lady Quinn has seen in the past, and he says she’s really helpful.”
I rolled my eyes, because I knew where this was going. “I don’t need to see anyone. I’m not suffering from PTSD. I got knocked in the head by a damn door.”
Ru studied me for a moment, then pulled the card out anyway, setting it on the table. “She said she can squeeze you in this week. I thought you and I could go get you a new phone tomorrow. You could make the appointment yourself. I mean, I’m not trying to guilt you into it.” He backtracked. “Yeah, actually I am. Because it will make me feel better. I want to make sure you’re okay, and I don’t know how to do that.”
I blinked at him. “You could just ask me.”
“You’ll tell me you’re fine, but you’d say that no matter what. You’re always fine because you’re just pouring sunshine outward like a fucking fountain.”
“And you think I’m covering up a black hole or something?”
“Maybe. You know, if you’re into mixing metaphors.” A tiny smile teased the corners of Ru’s lips, and I knew he was trying to coax some confession out of me.
“I’m not. I’m just me. And my head hurts.”
“Okay.” Disappointment made the word oblong and thick in his mouth.
When I didn’t say anything else—because there wasn’t anything else to say—Ru gave me a smile that was probably supposed to be encouraging but just looked sad.
He squeezed my shoulder before rising and heading toward the door. “I left my laptop open. Message me on Slack if you need anything. Quinn will be back soon,” he repeated.
Like I was some invalid.
The apartment was too silent after he left. And so still. Even the air seemed thick as glue. At least at Dan’s, there’d been Jez roaming, and the hum of the fridge and the pops and creaks of the floorboards expanding in the sun.
I kicked restlessly at the covers, stared high up into the ceiling, and felt useless against the blackness that had made a home in my chest. I missed Dan. Desperately. Insisting that he stay on the tour—and trying to be convincing about it—had used up every ounce of energy I’d had left.
CHAPTER 31
I rolled over in bed and for a second, I was disoriented, clueless as to where I was. Too many nights spent in beds that weren’t my own.
Dan’s house. It locked into place as I eased upright, the dull throb at my temples teasing a soft groan from me. Jezebel snaked between my arms and rubbed her cheek against my chest until I stroked her back. It’d been two days since the break-in, and I’d insisted on returning to Dan’s yesterday afternoon, desperate for a break from Ru and Quinn’s constant hovering, well-meaning as it was. Even Dan’s frequent check-ins were getting to me.
I was being an ungrateful, ornery little shit. I knew that, but I couldn’t muster up the energy to fight it. I just wanted to be left alone. The doctor had said I might feel off-kilter for a few weeks, but I wasn’t sure if the black feeling was part of that. It was like a shell around me that I couldn’t break through.
“I know,” I grumbled to Jez. “Breakfast.”
I shuffled into Dan’s kitchen and started the coffeepot, poured out some kibble for Jez, then added in an extra serving of the wet stuff she liked as penance for the craziness of the past few days.
With Ru still refusing to let me help at the shop, I had little to do but wander around and remind myself I’d ruined Dan’s life.
Getting down on myself served no purpose, I knew that. Innately I knew it. But the part I hadn’t figured out yet was the place where knowing and feeling met. Because I was good at knowing stuff, but I still fucking felt everything, regardless. I swear humans were the only creatures given higher consciousness only to self-sabotage with it.
I carried my coffee into the guest room and set it on the nightstand as I remade the bed. Jezebel prowled around my feet as I smoothed over the pillowcases.
“You smell like cat food,” I told her, wrinkling my nose. She twined through my legs and rubbed her head against me, unconcerned. “It’s not an attractive scent, but I’ll forgive you since I probably don’t smell much better.”
I hadn’t bothered to shower since the hospital, and I debated whether I was up to doing it after I looked through job listings online. If not, I’d put it on the goal list for tomorrow. Where it would occupy position #1 as I literally had nothing else on the list and nowhere else to be.
At a quarter to nine, someone hammered on the door. I waited to see if they meant it or if a turn of a key would follow, Aiden returning unexpectedly. A tiny part of me hoped he would. Whatever else he might be, I suspected he knew something about shit luck, and he definitely knew about fucking up.
When it came again, I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and took my time making my way into the living room, then peered out the window.
A tangle of emotion ruptured inside me. My eyes filled even as I snarled under my breath and tried to blink the sheen away. Stubborn fucking man.
I opened the door. “Is there a reason you’re knocking on your own door?” God, I think I probably hated myself the most right then.
“Is there a reason you’re at my house when you should be at Ru’s?”
The expression on Dan’s face mirrored my own, I imagined, and I folded my arms over my chest like a brat, immediately self-conscious and defensive. “I asked first.”
“I called and texted. You didn’t answer. I didn’t want to scare you by just walking in.”
“To your own house.”
“That you’re in.” Dan cocked his head, eyeing me down the barrel of his straight, strong nose, something in his expression like buckshot salting my gut, spilling me open.
I looked away because I had to, and Dan swept in, prying my hand from its hold on the door and kicking it shut behind him.
Wordlessly, he took me by the shoulders and guided me in front of the picture window in the living room. He cupped my jaw, tilting my head side to side, thumbs sweeping over my cheeks, hitting the mottled bruise above my right eyebrow and making me wince even though he was gentle. His warm brown eyes searched me over like my skin was translucent and he was seeing straight through to everything beneath me: the muscle and sinew and bone, the thoughts that made me tick.
I drew a ragged breath, happiness and relief at seeing him storming through me with unexpected intensity. And then the black pitch that had taken up residence inside me dragged me under again.
He and Ryder were supposed to play a show tonight. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
“Goddamn you’re a petulant thing,” he murmured.
“Two sides of the same coin.” And yeah, it sounded bratty, too. I didn’t want him to stop touching me, though. “I’m really angry at you right now.”
“I know. I’m angry at you, too, but not for the reasons you think.” He spoke gruffly, but his gaze was so tender, I couldn’t bear it.
And then Dan wrapped his arms around me, and I let him. Not just let him—some tiny support beam within me that’d been keeping me upright the past couple of days collapsed at the solidness and steadiness of him, the hereness of him. I sagged against his body and choked back a sob.
He said nothing, just held me in front of that window, the bright morning light streaming in and hitting one side of my face with a detached warmth that was different from the living heat of his body and his strong arms around me.
“Shit hasn’t been going so great here,” I told him shakily, and I guess he was able to read the deeper story behind those words well enough, because I felt his chin nodding into the crown of my head.
“I know, baby.” Dan kissed the top of my head and took hold of my shoulders, leaning back and looking me over. I knew how I looked. Gaunt and unwashed and gross. I’d be embarrassed if I could muster up the wherewithal to care. “Have you eaten anything this morning?”
