The Song Remains the Same (60 page)

How can I not give ten weeks for her?

“She wants…no, she
needs
you to do this, Phil,” said Connor. “She wants you to get well. She knows you need help, and she’s not the one who can heal you this time.”

“Okay,” I gasped, snotting and snorting.

Dad handed me some tissue, and I wiped my face.

“I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” said the soulless ginger.

I’d ended up staying in the hospital for three days. After I was no longer fuckin’ toxic, I’d gone in for CT scans, and—
thank fuck
—I hadn’t done any more damage to my body. My bones were still fusing nicely, the cast had been replaced with a brace, and my blood work had shown that I hadn’t done permanent damage to my organs.

What hadn’t shown up on any of these tests was the damage that had been done to my soul. I was just defeated and wrecked on a level that I hadn’t known before. Without Kenna, my life made no sense.

When it was time to leave, Dad wheeled my ass out of the hospital to the black van where I met up with the guys and Sheri along with Siggie behind the wheel. The guys were all set to head to the airport where Dad’s friend with the private jet would fly us out straightaway.

Sheri was on the phone, and her eyes lit up when she saw me.

“Here he is,” she said to whoever was on the other end before shoving her phone in my face.

“Hello?” I asked, giving Sheri a raised eyebrow.

“Hey, babe,” came the most precious voice in the world through the phone, like a warm bit of magic.

“Baby Girl…” I breathed, my chest filling up with a healing hot tingle. “Oh God, Kenna, I miss you so fuckin’ much!”
Fuck it.
I was crying again.

Everyone had walked away, leaving me alone in the wheelchair.

“I miss you, too,” she replied, sounding like she was doing a bit of crying herself.

“Where are you? Can’t I see you before I head out? I need to see you, Baby Girl. I’m dying inside.”

“I’m at the airport—”

“We’re headin’ there now! I’ll come and—”

“My flight is boarding in about fifteen minutes. I wouldn’t be here when you arrived.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you,” she replied
.
“I promised Connor and our parents. I think it’s probably for the best. I have some shit I need to work through, too—”

“We should be doin’ it together, Kenna. This don’t feel natural! You shouldn’t be dealin’ with this on your own.”

“I’m not. Alys is with me, and Lili’s going to meet up with us later. We just need to be able to get through this. If we can get through this, we’ll get through anything.”

Connor started walking over, and I glared at him.

“Yeah, but you’re goin’ through somethin’ I should be a part of.”

Kenna sucked in her breath, and Connor froze about two feet away from me.

“What are you talking about?” Kenna asked.

“Little Zephyr,” I replied softly, feeling my throat close up.

“That rat bastard!” she shrieked just as Connor lunged at me for the phone.

Yanking the phone out of his reach, I smacked the shit out of his face. “Try it again, soulless, and I’ll slap the fuckin’ cracker right outta you!”

Cradling his stinging cheek with his hand, he hissed, “You weren’t supposed to know!”

“Fuck you, douche! If it weren’t for you, I’d be with her right now, doin’ what’s right, and bein’ by my woman’s side! So, fuckin’ take your ginger ass back over there, and let me talk to her in peace!”

“I can’t believe it! He just couldn’t keep his mouth shut!” Kenna wailed.

“I had a right to know,” I stubbornly told her. “But I understand why you didn’t tell me. When…when all this is done and over with, you and I can sit down and talk about it, and I can apologize to your face for bein’ a selfish fuckin’ prick.”

She sniffed. “Yeah, all right.”

“I’m…
damn it
.” Tears were just flowing. I couldn’t stop it. I had just spent the last few days crying until I was dry. I shouldn’t have been able to produce more.

“Will you do me a favor, babe?”

“Anythin’!” I gasped.

“Just…focus on yourself. Use this time to heal, and find out who you are now. Figure it all out. Because you won’t be able to be there for anyone else if you’re not there for yourself first. Okay?”

“Can’t I do this for us?”

“Without you, Phil…there is no
us
.”

Damn it.
I’m gonna have a fuckin’ heart attack before I make it to thirty.
“What are you sayin’?”

“I can’t go through that again, seeing you so destroyed, and by your own hand, too! I was dying inside! You were so sick that I honestly thought that was it for you. You could’ve died! Covered in your own puke and piss, you were unable to even—”

She swallowed hard, and I was filled with a shame that seemed endless.

“Baby Girl, I ain’t ever gonna do that to either of us again. When I woke up, I knew I had to do right by you—”

“You have to do right by
you
,”
she snapped, getting all fired up. “Until you do, there’s nothing for us to stand on.”

“Don’t…” I sniveled. “Don’t say that! Please, Baby—”

“I have to go,” she said. “Our flight’s boarding. I’ll try to find a way to get in touch with you soon, okay?”

“Promise me, you ain’t givin’ up on us, Kenna!” I begged.

“I won’t if you won’t,” she replied
.
“I’ll always love you, Phil,” she told me, her own voice cracking.

She’d been trying hard to be strong, but I could hear it. She was breaking down.

“I love you, too.”

Then, she hung up.

I hadn’t heard from her since.

The Gentle Oak Rehabilitation Center was just what Dad had promised. It was a rehab center for spoiled rich shits who had pissed off their parents one too many times. A nice place, it was surrounded by forest and mountains, kept way under the radar so that celebrities could sneak in, do their time in a retreat setting, and then slip back into the limelight with no one even noticing.

“Shit, this is gonna be hell,” I mumbled.

The facility looked like a spa resort, tucked away from the public eye. People who checked in had their own fuckin’ home-away-from-home deal, including a personal chef, trainer, and life coach. The whole team of people could keep a spoiled brat cushy while getting clean.

“It looks nice,” said Jason.

Whatever.

The guys would be staying, too, in a separate part of the resort, so we could continue working together a few hours a day. It was part of the deal. Mostly, I’d be working on getting my head back on track, but Dad and Sheri had made arrangements with the center’s administration for Jason, Flipper, and Connor to be on hand, especially because Dad and Sheri thought it’d be a good idea for all of us to go through some group shrinking.

“You
all
lost X,” Sheri had told us. “There might be some issues that, as a band, you could work through.”

Whatever.

She just wanted Jason to stay away from booze, too. He’d ended up going to the hospital. He had been that sick after our bender. But he didn’t have to do the damn rehab shit like I did.

Douche.

With a really foul disposition, I checked myself into Gentle Oak. The guys all had to sign contracts, promising not to bring drugs or alcohol on the premises, blah, blah, blah.

“Mr. Deveraux, if you’ll come with me?” asked a perky little brunette with even perkier tits.

Grabbing my bag and tucking my crutches under my pits, I gave the guys a nod. “See y’all later.”

“Phil—” said Connor.

I flipped him the bird and didn’t look back.

“My name is Willow,” said Perky Tits. “I’ll be giving you a tour of The Gentle Oak Rehabilitation Center this evening…”

Damn, what an annoying little shit she is.
She had one of those high-pitched voices that hurt the ears after about two minutes. Rambling on like I actually gave a shit, she pointed out different buildings as she led me to my designated home for the next ten weeks. It was like a glorified pool house without the pool.

Waiting outside my pool house were three people, looking like servants ready to greet the lord of the manor.

“This is Gustav,” said Perky Tits, waving her hand to a scruffy little dude. “He is your personal chef. Tatiana”—she gave a slight wave—“is your personal trainer and physio-therapist. And David here is your live-in counselor. They are here for you in any capacity you might need to help you through the program.”

Perky Tits smiled like she was posing for a photo shoot. Then, she turned on her heel and bounced back down the path.

Tatiana came forward. Her tits were as big as Sheri’s. “If I may?”

“What?”

“Your bag.”

Handing it over, she dropped it to the ground and pulled out a small flashlight from her back pocket. Quickly, she dug around in my shit, looking for contraband.

“Clean, as far as I can tell,” she stated with a smile. After zipping it back up, she hefted it over her shoulder.

“Yeah. I really don’t have an addiction. I was drinkin’ to try to forget. That’s all.”

“Well, we’re here to help you with that,” said David. “Come on in, and make yourself at home.”

There was no way. My only home was on a plane to God-knew-where, and there was a very real possibility that she would come back and tell me I wasn’t the man she had hoped I was.

Kenna

“Let’s have a beer,” Alys suggested.

“Yeah, I think I could use one.” I sighed heavily.

The flight had taken it out of both of us, and we still had one more to go before reaching Inverness. Stuck at Heathrow for the next few hours, Alys and I traipsed into the first-class lounge and plonked down on a couple of barstools.

“Well, if this just isn’t a bit of déjà vu.” A warm voice laughed from down the bar.

Both Alys and I glanced that way, surprised to see Devon sitting with his own pint. Scruffy and rumpled, he was even sexier than when he was scrubbed up and polished. Picking up his glass and bag, he made his way over to us and sat down next to me.

“Devon,” I said, still in a bit of shock.

“That I am,” he replied, smiling sweetly. “What brings you ladies my way? I like your hair, by the way. You look like a sexy pixie.”

Before leaving, I’d had Tricia, my hairdresser, fix the butcher job left by the doctors. Indeed, she had given me a hot pixie bob, long in the front and nearly nonexistent in the back. I liked it, too, but I was happy Phil hadn’t seen me before we’d left. He would’ve had a conniption at the loss of my too long hair.

“Where are your men?” he asked, looking around as if Phil and X would pop up any second.

Alys gasped, and the blood drained from my face.

“You haven’t heard?” I asked him.

Devon’s features turned highly concerned. “Heard what? I’ve been in Tibet since February.”

Alys and I just stared at him, unable to say a word.

He cocked an eyebrow at us. “What happened?”

“You didn’t hear about the bus accident in Canada…” I wasn’t asking.