Chapter 29
Xander
My heart was in my throat as I tore through the house to Noah’s room one level down. When I reached the door, I tried to open it, but it was locked. I didn’t even bother to knock. I didn’t give a shit what I walked in on—and I’d already seen all the guys in every imaginable position.
I braced against the frame, lifted my leg, and kicked the door toward the knob. Despite my rage, it didn’t immediately break open. So I kept kicking. Twice. Three times. On the fourth, the door burst open.
Revealing my literal worst nightmare.
Noah was passed out on the small sofa in the corner, his left arm tied off and paraphernalia all around him.
“ NOAH! ” I dove across the room and knelt next to him, feeling his neck for a pulse.
I couldn’t find one.
“Fuck! FUCK! ” Cursing him, drugs, and whatever the fuck he’d been hiding from us, for god knows how long, I pulled him down on the floor on his back. “Harper! HARPER! ”
After giving him two rescue breaths, I started compressions, counting out loud. “Come on, buddy. Don’t leave me man. Fuck.”
“I’m here, Zee.” She knelt next to me, talking on the phone. “Overdose. Looks like heroine I’m guessing? Yes. We’re at—” She rattled off an address.
“Get the Narcan in my bag.” I breathed into Noah before I went back to compressions.
“What? You travel with Narcan? Seriously?”
“YES! Go get it. Black bag with gold zippers. It’s in the middle pocket. Red and white box.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for—”
“ GO GET IT NOW! ”
Harper tore out of the room, and I kept giving compressions.
“Shit.” Walker’s voice came from the doorway but I couldn’t look up. I kept my eyes on Noah, willing him to open his and look at me, give me shit for waking him up. Something. Anything .
“Fuck.” Walker swore again. “I swear I didn’t find anything when I searched his room earlier. I really thought he was clean.”
“What?” Finally I looked up even as I kept up compressions. “You searched his room? Why?”
Walker buried his hands in his hair as he paced agitatedly back and forth. “Because of Diego. Harper was suspicious, and so was I. Noah’s been so squirrelly lately and not in his usual funny, squirrelly way. He was off. Not himself. Stilted. Angry. But I looked everywhere, and I didn’t find shit. I thought we were safe since Diego must’ve been his hookup. I swear, I wouldn’t have—”
“Here!” Harper shouted as she raced into the room. “I got it.”
She passed it to Walker, who ripped open the packaging and knelt next to Noah’s head. I paused my compressions and watched helplessly as he held the nasal spray up to Noah’s face.
We waited a few seconds in suspended anticipation. After the longest ten seconds of my life, and just as I started bending forward to restart compressions, I heard the sweetest sound on this fucking earth.
Noah groaned lightly.
“Noah? You there buddy? Can you hear me?”
His eyes flinched and I slumped back in relief. “Thank Christ.”
He didn’t say anything, but he was breathing on his own now.
Walker passed the nasal spray to me. “He can have another squirt in a minute if you think he needs it. I’m going to wait for the ambulance out front.”
I took the bottle from Walker, but I couldn’t look away from Noah’s pained expression. He was breathing.
Thank fucking god, he was breathing.
“Why do you travel with Narcan in your bags?” Harper asked in a shaky whisper.
“Because the last fucking time this happened with Liam, I wasn’t there. And the time before that, Liam almost fucking died because no one on the scene had it. I had to give my own fucking brother CPR. He almost died. Never fucking again.”
“I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you—”
“I don’t want to fucking hear it. How about we wait until he’s on the fucking ambulance before you tell me all the ways you’ve fucked up?”
Harper flinched like I’d hit her, but I couldn’t find it in myself to apologize. She deserved it and more for keeping this from me.
There was a commotion in the hallway as the EMTs arrived and loaded Noah on the stretcher. I passed them the Narcan we’d used and recited what’d happened.
But Noah still hadn’t opened his eyes.
As they wheeled him down the hall, Chase, Jesse, and the girls came down the stairs behind us.
“What’s going on?”
“Who’s on the gurney?”
“Noah? Noah!”
“Is he all right?”
And Tyler came in through the opened front door. “Oh shit.”
“I told you we should’ve done something!” Harper shrieked as she ran up to him. “He fucking overdosed because we didn’t do anything. This is your fault!” Harper shoved Tyler with two hands.
Tyler went back a step but didn’t try to defend himself. “I talked to you. I talked to Noah. He wouldn’t admit—”
“He’s an addict,” Harper cut him off with a shriek. “He’s not going to admit to shit. We should’ve done something. Told the guys. Staged an intervention. Drug tested him. Canceled the tour. Something. Anything . I’d trade my fucking career if it would’ve kept him off that fucking gurney and got him help before it came to this.”
Shay and Ella put their arms around Harper and guided her away from Tyler, murmuring platitudes to try to calm her.
I watched the whole scene with a strange detachment.
The ambulance doors slammed shut with Noah inside and lights flashing, the ambulance pulled out away from the curb.