A Song For Us (Fallen Tuesday Book Two) (A Brothers of Rock Novel) (17 page)

“That’s comforting,” Gray said. “I
wish you could come with me.”

Carina kissed his chin. “I know.”

Hand in hand, Gray led Carina off
the private jet and to a waiting car. They were together in the backseat, in
silence, for the entire ride to Carina’s apartment. The sight of the building
made her stomach sick. She forced a smile though and kissed Gray deeply before
exiting the car.

“I’ll call you soon,” Gray said.

“Take your time,” Carina said. “You
have a lot to deal with right now.”

“I meant everything I said,” Gray
said. “Everything.”

Carina smiled. “Me too.”

Carina refused to watch the car
drive away. She heard it though as she walked to the building. Going inside was
like stepping back into a bad dream. When she entered her apartment, she shut
the door and went through the same old process of locking all the locks and
looking around with her heart racing. She didn’t feel like this in Mack’s house.

Dropping her bag, Carina took out
her phone and called Angie.

“There’s the stranger,” Angie said.

“Can you come over?”

“Come over? Are you back?”

“Yeah,” Carina said.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Good… because…” Angie took a deep
breath. It was shaky.

“Angie, are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “But
I need to come over.”

Angie hung up the phone, leaving Carina
worried as hell. The worry took her mind off Gray… sort of.

After checking the apartment, Carina
settled in her bedroom, in front of her keyboard. She turned it on and opened
her notebook that rested on top of the keyboard. How many songs were in here?
How many were good enough? Each page contained another story that Carina wanted
to share with the world. As she read the lyrics, her confidence grew. She
played parts of the songs, watching her fingers work. Her heart pounded because
she could remember the notes. It made it all seem so real.

So very real.

The knock at her door ended the
music session.

Carina went to the door and checked
before opening it. She knew it was only Angie, but that small echo of fear
would exist as long as she lived there.

Angie threw her arms around Carina.
“I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Carina said. “I
wish you were there.”

“How was it?”

Carina shut the door and locked it
again. She led the way to the bedroom. The music couldn’t get out of her
system.

“It was like a dream,” Carina said.
“The band. The studio.”

“No way.”

“I recorded a song with them.”

“What?” Angie asked. “You recorded
a song with Fallen Tuesday?”

“Actually, I recorded one of my
songs and they want it.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Swear on it. Gray heard me playing
the song and he made me record it in the studio.”

“They’re going to buy a song from
you?”

“I don’t know how that works,” Carina
said. “But they loved it. They want the song.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard in
a long time,” Angie said. She hugged Carina again. “I’m so proud of you, girl.
You’re so talented. You could go on tour with them and sing.”

“Hold on,” Carina said. “I’m not
interested in that. They can have the song. That’s where I draw the line.”

“Okay, so tell me about Gray.”
Angie sat on the edge of Carina’s bed. Carina sat at her keyboard, her back
toward it. “What was he like?”

“In the studio or in bed?”

Angie gasped. “You whore.”

Carina smiled. “Well…”

“You look happy right now, Carina.
I like that.”

“I can’t believe everything that’s
happened. I’m still in shock.”

“Then why are you back?”

Carina told Angie what she knew
about Peter’s drug addiction, the overdose, and the coma. She told Angie how
Gray’s mother was ready to pull the plug and his brother literally just woke
up.

“Wow,” Angie said. “So if that
didn’t happen… you wouldn’t have come back?”

“I don’t know,” Carina said.
“There’s so much to think about. I feel stuck in my own emotions.”

“What emotions?”

“I really care about Gray,” Carina
said. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this about someone before.”

Angie slid to the end of the bed
and smiled. “You fell in love with a rockstar. Look at you.”

“Yeah, I kind of did,” Carina
grinned.

“Well, I wish I could keep this
conversation on a happy note, but I can’t.”

“Why? What’s wrong? You seemed
upset on the phone.”

Just like that, tears came to
Angie’s eyes. She blinked fast, trying to resist them.

“The band broke up,” Angie said as
she sucked in a shaky breath.

“What? No. Why?”

Angie shook her head. “So stupid.
There has been so much tension lately.”

“Because of your drummer?”

“I messed up. I thought I was just
having fun, but I screwed things up bad. To keep a long story short, everyone
found out about everything. There was a fight and the band just imploded. It
turns out they were already talking about breaking up the band, but,
apparently, having a female lead singer is a bad thing.”

“Who the hell said that?” Carina
asked.

“They did,” Angie said. “So it’s
done. I have no band. No shows. No money.”

Angie hung her head and Carina quickly
put her arms around her. As she hugged Angie, she looked over her shoulder at
the keyboard.

“Hey, do you have a guitar with
you?” Carina asked.

“Of course I do. In my trunk. Why?”

Carina wiped away Angie’s tears.
“Let’s write some music.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m serious. I’m sick of hiding,
Angie. I’m sick of this apartment. I’m sick of Liering too. I want to follow my
dream… and yours. Let’s do something crazy.”

Angie stood from the bed. “Wow,
what did Gray do to you?”

Carina smiled. She knew the answer
to that question. It was pretty simple what Gray did to her. He stole her
heart. He made her feel whole. He made her feel loved.

(17)

Gray got behind the wheel of yet
another rental car and it took quite a bit of self control not to drive to Carina’s
apartment. He wanted to scoop her right back up and just disappear. But he
figured he owed it at the very least to his mother and brother to help fix this
situation.

So Gray drove to his mother’s house
first. It just didn’t feel right to go straight to the hospital. He wanted his
mother to tell him in person that Peter was alive and awake and that he was
okay. Peter could be different. Waking up didn’t mean normal. The doctors had
warned of potential brain damage.

Knocking on the front door to his
mother’s house was like déjà vu. His mother looked ragged when she opened the
door. An unlit cigarette hung from her lips as she stared at him with bloodshot
eyes. Gray knew those eyes. They belonged to someone who drank too much the
night before and was now self-medicating with coffee.

“Christ, Mom,” Gray said.

His mother took the cigarette from
her mouth. “Don’t look at me like that. I’ve had to do all this alone.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. Can I come in?”

She opened the door and held it for
Gray. Gray took notice that nothing had changed since the last time he was
there. Literally nothing. The same empty cups were scattered around the living
room. The same dirt. The same smell. His mother didn’t take care of a thing,
including herself.

“Thought you would go to the
hospital,” his mother said as she walked to the kitchen. “Want some coffee?”

“I’m good, thanks,” Gray said. He
followed his mother. “I didn’t go yet. I wanted to see you first. Did you see
him?”

His mother topped off her coffee
and sat. She nodded. “I saw him.”

“Is he… is he all there?”

Gray stood, holding the back of the
chair opposite to his mother.

“He’s there,” she said. “All there.
Nothing wrong. He can wiggle all ten fingers and all ten toes. He knows his
name. He knows us. He knows what happened. He can’t tell you the capital of
Montana, but he never could answer that.”

When his mother smiled, Gray
smiled. Somewhere behind her tired eyes and wrinkled skin was a woman who was
once pretty. Someone who once had a full life ahead of her. But she chose this
path, just as Peter chose his. It reaffirmed to Gray how important music was in
his life.

“No brain damage at all?”

“None. Which is beyond me,
considering the drugs.”

The drugs.

Gray shook his head. “So he’s
perfectly fine then. Amazing.”

“Doctors told me he could be out of
the hospital by the end of the week.”

“To go where?” Gray asked. “Have
the police been involved in this?”

“They can’t do anything, Gary. He
didn’t have any drugs on him. Just in him.”

“Unbelievable. So where’s he going
to stay?”

“Not here. I’m not doing it again.”

“Sure,” Gray said and nodded.
“Sure.”

For a second, he wanted to be mad.
Wasn’t it a mother’s job to care for her children no matter what? However, his
mother had already done that. She tried to take care of Peter and he ended up
down the same road.

“Are you mad about that?” his
mother asked.

“No,” Gray said. “No, Mom. It’s not
your job. He has no choice. He needs to get into rehab and stay until he
figures himself out. I’ll make sure of it.”

“You can’t force someone into
rehab,” his mother said.

“I won’t force him,” Gray said.
“I’ll make sure he makes the right decision.”

Gray went to his mother and hugged
her. He held her longer than he maybe ever had in his life. She began to cry
and Gray soothed her.

“I’m so sorry you boys went through
what you did,” she said. “And that Peter chose the path he did… and you chose
yours.”

“It’s okay,” Gray said. “He’s
alive. Let’s just look at it that way. He’s alive.”

Gray left the house with a lump in
his throat. In the car, he found the phone number to the manager of the
apartment complex. He called and arranged for Peter to be out of his lease and
banned from the building. When the man on the phone tried to put up a
telephone-tough-guy fight, Gray mentioned the word
police
and the man
was suddenly his best friend again. Gray told the man what happened. He offered
to pay the remainder of the lease, plus two extra months to give Gray time to
get the place cleaned out. Gray then made damn sure the guy on the phone knew
that nobody but Gray himself was allowed into the apartment.

After hanging up with the manager,
Gray cursed to himself and then began to drive. It was time to see Peter.

The walk into the hospital was much
different. The elevator ride seemed extra slow. The walk from the elevator to
the room felt like miles. At the door, Gray froze when he heard his brother’s
voice. He was talking to a nurse, answering questions.

How long had it been since he’d
heard Peter’s voice?

Too many emotions caused Gray to
step back from the door. Then, the door opened a minute or so later and out
came a nurse. She looked shocked when she saw Gray.

“I’m here to see Peter. I’m his
brother. I’m…”

“Gray,” the woman whispered. “From
Fallen Tuesday.”

“Yes. That’s me. Can I go in?”

“Of course. He hasn’t stopped
asking for you since he woke up.”

That pissed Gray off even more.
Peter should be asking for forgiveness. For hope. For help.

Gray opened the door and saw his
brother’s feet first. Still under the blankets, but they were moving. He walked
into the room and when he saw Peter, he froze. Peter was sitting up. He had
full color to his face. His eyes were the same light brown color they always
were. He lifted his left hand and shrugged his shoulders.

“I guess I’m alive,” he whispered.

Gray made fists. “You guess you’re
alive. Do you even know what day it is?”

“Sure. The nurse told me.”

“You know how long you were… gone?”

“I know. I screwed up, Gray. I
screwed up big time.”

“You disappeared, Peter,” Gray
said. “You didn’t return my calls. I tried to check up on you.”

“From your giant tour?”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. Nothing. Just… how’s all
that going?”

Gray shook his head. “What do you
want me to say here, Peter? You want me to feel guilty that something in my
life worked out? I worked my ass off to get where I am. You spent all your time
getting high.”

“That’s right,” Peter said. “I was
just getting high. Nothing more, right? You know what it’s like to be addicted?
To have that aching feeling all the time. That scratching from the inside.
Waking up in a shivering sweat, clenching the covers on the bed, gritting your
teeth so hard you wish they would shatter so the pain would take away the urge.”

“Did you tell anyone about it?”
Gray asked. “Those feelings you were having?”

“Why bother?”

“So you’d rather hang around losers
and users like Josh,” Gray said.

“How the hell do you know Josh?”

“I’ve got the key to your
apartment, little brother. Josh can’t get in anymore. Neither can you. I’m
taking control of things here.”

“What the hell, Gray?”

“I’m going to ask you something
once,” Gray said. “You better not lie to me, Peter.”

“Why?” Peter asked.

“Do you owe anyone anything?”

“Do I owe anyone anything? What the
hell does that mean?”

“You know what that means, Peter.
You had your own apartment and no job. How the hell did you survive in that
place?”

Peter turned his head. “I had my
ways.”

“Your ways? Like what? Tell me
right now, my brother, were you dealing?”

“No.”

“Look me in the eyes and tell me.”

Peter looked at Gray. “No.”

“No what?”

“No, I wasn’t dealing,” Peter said.
“Not even close to it.”

“Does that mean you’re debt free?”

“I have a credit card,” Peter said
and smiled.

“Don’t be an asshole right now.”

“Christ, Gray, who the hell do you
think I am?”

“I don’t know,” Gray shouted. “I
thought my little brother was clean. I thought he had a goddamn future.” Gray
leaned down so they were almost touching nose to nose. “I thought my brother
was beyond being a junkie.”

Peter swallowed hard. Gray waited
for tears to come to his brother’s eyes. Instead, Peter just stared back.

“I can’t help it.”

“You can. You didn’t need an
apartment.”

“Go live with Mom,” Peter said.
“You want to talk about relapse. That environment…”

“So you hook up with a loser like
Josh?”

“I knew him from my job,” Peter
said. “He’s a bum. He was good for some cash if I asked. Most of the time he bought
stuff and didn’t charge me. He wanted someone to hang out with and I wanted to
get high. Plus, if he didn’t find me…”

Gray kicked the hospital bed. It
shut Peter up. “You think that’s how it is? That everyone is just going to bow
to you?”

“I never said that.”

“You were in a damn coma,” Gray
said. “I came here everyday and waited for something to happen. I rushed to
your side to help. I did all I could for Mom too.”

“You weren’t here when I woke up.”

“Sorry, Peter, I was doing my job.
I was with my band, recording. If you don’t like that, tough shit. That’s my
job and my life. Why don’t you focus on your life now?”

“And do what?”

“First off? How about you apologize
for what you did. You have no idea how much Mom is worried about you and how
much I’ve done for you. Once you’re done there, Peter, then it’s time to go
back to rehab until you’re clean for good. However long it takes.”

Peter swallowed. He puckered his
lips and shook his head. “I went down that road once.”

“Make it twice. You have nowhere
else to go. Mom isn’t taking you in. Your apartment is now mine.”

“So, what are you going to do? Hold
me hostage?”

“No,” Gray said. He took a step
back. “At this point, my brother, I’m going to let you do what you want. Go hit
the streets and score. Go find another place. Hit up your money source, Peter.”
Peter’s lip curled. “Am I getting to you now?”

“What do you want?”

“How did you survive?”

“I got by, okay?”

“How?”

“I had money.”

“Illegal?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“But it wasn’t drug related?”

“I swear on it,” Peter said. “I
don’t owe anyone money. Nobody’s going to gun me down when I leave here.”

“Maybe I will,” Gray said. He
approached the bed again. “You need to go to rehab, Peter. You need to figure
out how to control your demons.”

“Control them?”

“I don’t know if people can conquer
their demons. That doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human. We’re meant to be
vulnerable.”

“Is this you being nice to me now?”

“Nice to you? Do you realize I was
on the phone with Mom and she was trying to get me to let her pull the plug on
you? That’s where the doctors were. It was time to let you go, my brother.
Don’t you get it?”

Peter hung his head. “I wanted to
die. That’s why I did what I did.”

“You meant to overdose?”

“I think so. I just kept going…
little by little. It didn’t seem all that bad or obvious. But a little adds up,
doesn’t it?” Peter smirked. “The room began to spin and my heart pounded. I was
at a total breaking point. I thought a little water would help. So I went to
the bathroom. That’s where I kept my stuff. So I saw it. Then the stuff became
more important than the water.”

“Say it, Peter. Say the word
drugs.”

“I did.”

“No, you didn’t. You said
stuff
.
Is that how you convince yourself that you didn’t do anything wrong?”

“Maybe.”

“Say it then. Tell me what you do.”

Perhaps it wasn’t the time or the
place for Gray to break Peter down, but he really didn’t care. For all he had
gone through. The time spent watching Peter in the coma, the time spent in that
damn apartment looking for drugs, and the time spent watching his mother give
up on life altogether had been bottled up in Gray. Then add the fact that this
was taking time away from being with Carina…

“Tell me,” Gray growled.

“You know, this probably isn’t
healthy for me,” Peter said. “My body or my mind.”

“Does it look like I care?”

“Drugs,” Peter said. “Drugs. That’s
what I take and I can’t help myself when I do it. Why? I know you want to know
why, Gray. Christ, I can’t believe I call you Gray. That’s how famous you’ve
become. You were always Gary to me. Then I saw one of your concerts and knew
you would never be Gary again. You’d never be the kid in his room, playing
guitar, waiting for the pain to go away. Because your pain went away and mine
didn’t.”

“You don’t think I’m hurting?”

“You seem it. Millions of fans.
Millions of dollars. A hard life.”

“Is that what you want?” Gray said.
“You want a million dollars, Peter? What’s that going to do for you?”

“I’d probably spend it all on
drugs. Well, I’d be long dead before I’d spend it all.”

“And how do you think that makes me
feel?”

“Face it, Gray, I’m the family
failure. It’s my role and I fill it well.”

“No, you’re not a failure,” Gray
said. “You need help, and you need to tell me where it all comes from.”

“You know where it comes from. When
Dad was killed, it made it so easy to go through that door.”

“What door?”

“Temptation. I had an excuse. I had
a way in. The people around me who normally would have talked me out of it…
they were either grieving or they stayed out of my way so I could grieve. Using
became coping and coping became using. How stereotypical to fall into a cycle
like that, right? It all made sense to me when I was using. Going through rehab
last time, opening up made me uncomfortable. The second I got that job and saw the
way all those people with money, careers and success, they looked at me, I felt
like a failure. If I’m going to feel like a failure, then I should really feel
like one.”