Drowning to Breathe (20 page)

Did it make me a prick that not so long ago I loved this shit, too, and now I wanted to throw everyone’s asses to the curb?

No question, I loved all the guys. They were my brothers. There for me through everything. I mean, with all the shit with Kallie going down, that bogus trial they had to sit in on—I couldn’t thank any of them enough.

They’d rallied.

Supported me when I needed them most.

Stepped up and acted like men when they preferred to stay firmly in the realm of juvenile delinquent. Not that I had the right to say much about that. God knew my ass was just as guilty, every chance I got dipping my toes in a murky vat of sin.

But I couldn’t escape the feeling I was outgrowing
this
.

Images of Shea and Kallie swirled through my mind.

Some things just meant more.

Looking for Ash, I worked my way through the groups mingling around the oversized living room overlooking the sprawling city below, a twinkle of lights as far as the eye could see. Beyond the wall of sliding glass doors was the pool, water making a slow transition from blue to purple to pink and back again. Overeager women hung around it with cocktail glasses dripping from their fingers, doing more of that schmoozing that ensured my gag reflex was indeed intact.

Ash was hanging out just inside where those doors sat, throwing back a shot. Katrina, a chick who’d made her rounds through the band one too many times, was tacked to his side like a three-day itch.

“Ash,” I said, not able to contain some of the irritation from bleeding through.

He paid no mind I was annoyed.

“Baz, dude, it’s about damned time you got here. Karl Fitzgerald has been waiting for you in your office for the last…like thirty minutes. He showed up stating he wants a…” Ash lifted both his hands in the air, shot glass still clasped in one hand as he air quoted, “‘word’ with you. Talk about a fuckin’ buzz kill. Here I am, entertaining all these beautiful ladies.”

He stretched his tattooed arms out wide, like if given the chance, he’d take every last one of them. Asshole probably would. No question, they’d all come running.

“Doorbell rang and here I’m thinking I’m going to open it to another gorgeous girl, and there stood that slimy bastard, asking for you. Almost shut the door in his face, but I wasn’t so sure how well that reception would be accepted. Figured it was time to play nice with the money-man. I’ll leave the getting us in hot water up to you.”

He shot me a wink, and I cut off my laughter. God, Ash was nothing but outrageous.

But he sure as shit got that much right.

Slimy bastard asking for a
word
.

That’s the way the Mylton Records CEO always staged himself, showing up in moments when we were least expecting him, ready to assert whatever control he wanted over us. Sometimes I wished they’d have just cut us free back when the assault charges were hanging over my head.

But thinking like that? That was no less than a betrayal to my crew. A disregard to the blood and sweat and fucking turmoil we’d trudged through to get here.

Disrespect to Mark.

I owed all of them my loyalty.

“Thanks, man,” I told him. “I’ll see what he wants.”

He gave me a salute. “Not a problem.”

I turned back into the crowd, Ash’s amused voice hitting me from behind. “Kiss some ass for me.”

“Not a chance,” I hollered back, shaking my head as I shouldered through the crowd, sending out a few hellos to people I knew and diligently avoiding those I didn’t, because I was in no mood to be making friends. Especially those of the female orientation.

Fuck, Shea was the best. A girl unlike any I’d ever met. Sure, she’d shown a couple flashes of jealousy, which was hotter than all hell the way she wanted me only for herself. But even sexier than that was the astonishing faith she placed in me, the way she sent me off to live the life I love.

Music.

She knew that’s where I was free. What I was created to do.

Even though leaving her and Kallie behind was the most excruciating thing I’d ever had to do.

Damn, I missed them.

Was pretty sure
these
withdrawals I was feeling were more brutal than any drug I’d ever had to kick. Every night I crawled into my bed alone and questioned that decision, wondering again just how much longer I could go on living this life when I was just as equally being called to live another.

I slipped down the hall and passed by the den currently playing host to depravity.

Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, baby.

I cringed, doing my best to ignore the spectacle, and entered through the very last door.

Karl Fitzgerald sat behind my desk with his shiny dress shoe propped up on it like he owned it.

He angled himself to stand when I entered, extending that greedy palm my way. “Well, Mr. Stone, I hear congratulations are in order.”

Reluctantly, I shook it. “I suppose they are.”

“You did well to get Martin Jennings out of your life.”

I curbed a sarcastic snort. Right. As if Jennings wouldn’t just keep coming back. Making Shea’s life hell any way he could. It was like I could smell it. Feel it coming in the distance. A tremor of malice rippling through uneven air.

Considering Fitzgerald was in my chair, I plopped into one of the plush chairs facing the desk and hooked an ankle over my knee, going for casual while I ignored the unease his presence sent sliding over me.

Obviously, this meeting wasn’t anywhere near over.

I rocked back.

Waiting.

Challenging him with my stare.

Because I could feel he had just a little more bullshit to throw my way. You’d think I’d had enough of it today.

“Is
Sunder
prepared for this tour and prepared to go into the studio as scheduled in four weeks?” The man minced no words.

“Yeah, of course,” I said with a casual lift of my shoulder.

“Good…good.” He nodded, straightened his tie before he sat forward. “You know we need you guys at your best.”

I lifted one hand like I was asking him to continue.

And your point is, asshole?

My expression pretty much felt like a dare.

“And are you sure
you’re
ready?” he prodded with a telling lift of his brow. “We don’t need to be concerned about this woman you’ve been making a scene with over the last couple of months?”

A scene?

Contention oozed through the words. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you seem to be easily distracted of late.”

“What I do with my personal life is none of your concern.”

“I think you know that’s not the truth.”

I jerked forward in the chair. Anger that continually boiled just beneath the surface threatened to erupt, and after the confrontation I’d had with Jennings this afternoon, I had little reserve left. I swallowed some of it back and tried to make sense of what he was suggesting.

My eyes narrowed, just as tight as my voice. “First you want me to clean up my act and now you don’t want me to settle down. Just what the hell is it you want from me?”

Bitterness fueled the question, because there wasn’t a place inside me that wanted the answer.

He shrugged like he had the right to utter what came next from his greedy mouth. “We want a brand. The troubled rocker we signed without the jail time. And we sure as hell don’t want a daddy.”

I flew out of my seat, palms flat on the desk as I glared across at him.

“I’m not a fucking brand.”

The chuckle rolling from him pissed me off more.

His eyes gleamed. “Ah, there he is. The one who can’t help find a little trouble. That’s who we’re looking for.”

I gritted my teeth. The words I bit out were hard. “What I’ve got going with Shea is none of your business and it’s not ever gonna be. You want
Sunder?
Fine. You have us. But when I walk off that stage, you don’t have anything to say about it.”

I pushed off and stormed toward the door. His next statement had my steps faltering at the threshold, but I refused to give him the courtesy of looking back.

“You settle down with her and you’re going to destroy this band. You know that, don’t you?”

Something fierce bristled inside me. The feeling I was being torn in two directions, ripped and shredded and scored.

God, there was no wiping out the desperate desire to play, to create, that feeling of complete freedom I felt on stage when surrounded by my crew. By the crowd. Energy that roared with a reckless peace.

All of it was at war with Shea.

Shea.

Shea.

Shea.

Her energy brighter.

Bolder.

A rending force.

I pushed the rest of the way out of the room and stalked down the hall.

I cursed when my cell started ringing from my pocket. I dug it out, then nearly crushed it in my hold when I saw who it was.

Another fucking leech.

My piece-of-shit father who no doubt was calling to take a little more.

A parasite no different than Karl Fitzgerald.

No different than the slew of assholes presently taking up my house.

Everyone wanted a piece of Sebastian Stone.

I was sick of it.

Silencing the call, I charged down the hall—cutting along the edge of the living room and bypassing as many people as I could—ignoring the rest who shot me titillated looks. I drove through the huge kitchen inhabited by more insipid faces who thought they saw me, but didn’t know me at all.

Surface.

That’s what they wanted.

The desire for the superficial.

The fake.

A
brand
.

Fuck that.

I flew out the side door that landed me on the terrace at the side of the house. Here, the vegetation was lush and thick. Instant isolation. Hidden behind bushes was a narrow, winding wrought-iron staircase. I went straight for it, ascended two stories of exterior stucco wall, and climbed onto the soaring roof.

Noise filtered up from the party below. But up here it felt as if I were in another world.

An escape.

Guess I shouldn’t have been all that surprised to find Austin hiding away here, too, dark hoodie over his head where he sat close to the edge of the roof, staring over the vast city. A haze billowed around him as he expelled the smoke from his lungs, joint poised between pinched fingers as he prepared to take another drag.

Fuck
.

I rubbed a hand over my face to calm myself before I cautioned my feet as I eased toward him. His back stiffened as I approached. Neither of us said anything when I settled down at his side.

Lights stretched on forever, a beautiful mess of city and a stunning mass of souls.

Austin pressed the joint to his lips, pulled it in, held fast before he turned his head to the sky and slowly let it out. He trained his attention back over the urban sea.

“Was wondering where you were,” I finally said.

For the longest time my introduction remained unanswered. I felt the hesitation before he allowed the words to bleed free. “You ever wonder if there’s anyone out there as fucked up as we are?”

Air puffed from my nose, my tone subdued. “Don’t know, Austin. Sometimes it seems like that would be impossible, but I’ve got to figure there’s a ton of people out there so much worse off. People completely alone. Rejected. Not sure there’s a lot of people out there who’ve got what we do.”

I wasn’t talking material shit.

Knew well enough none of that mattered.

“You know,” he said, voice pensive and rough, “you set me up with all of this.”

He waved the hand holding the joint in the air. “Give me everything I could possibly want. And none of it’s ever enough because I have no clue what it is I really want.”

He drove out an incredulous laugh. “All those people down there? And I’ve never felt more alone.”

“That’s because you don’t belong here.”

He laughed again, an acidic sound before he was sucking in another lungful in an effort to soothe all the shit that’d been haunting him his whole life. Anytime we were in L.A., it was always amplified. Always waiting to drag him under in its seedy grips.

“And just where is it I belong?”

“Austin.” It was a plea.

He shook his head. “I know you’re dying to launch into me, Baz.”

He held out the joint, twisting it around to draw attention. “Tell me I shouldn’t be up here
indulging
. But I just walked in on three chicks doing lines off each other.” He chuckled darkly and spears of fear pierced me. “Pretty sure you’d agree this was the better alternative.”

Fucking Ash.

This shit had to stop. I did my best to keep Austin clear, hide him away from all the garbage that went down, but it was impossible when he was thrown right in the middle of it.

None of us should have been around it.

Not after Austin’s overdose.

Not after losing Mark.

This was nothing less than an insult.

A disregard.

And it wasn’t as if we were welcoming it. It just always came with the territory.

The bullshit side of this life I no longer knew how to handle.

My shoulders bunched. “I’ll kick them out. Get rid of everyone. You don’t need to deal with this shit.”

“But that’s the thing, I need to
deal
with something, Baz. You don’t get it. All this protecting you do. I’ve got to figure this out for myself or I’m not ever going to make it.”

My hand went to his neck, and I squeezed. “Yes, you are. I’m not going to let you fail.”

He cut his face to me, grey eyes pinned on mine.

Intent.

Open.

Hopeful but resigned to what he didn’t know how to control.

The kid hardly looked like a kid anymore.

Words broke on the emotion. “I have to be the one responsible for not failing, Baz. I’ve failed everyone. Julian. Mom and Dad. You.
Mark
.” He swallowed hard. “If I’m going to live, then I need to figure out how not to fail myself. You can’t keep saving me.”

Mark.

Fear struck me again, and I tightened my hand that rested on the back of my brother’s neck. “After my court appearance this afternoon, Jennings followed me out to my truck. Started tossing out a bunch of garbage about Shea…about Mark.”