9. Arlo
Chapter 9
Arlo
June, Los Angeles
“ G ary won’t go for it,” I said, lounging back on the couch, an unopened can of beer in hand.
“I don’t give two fucks about what that dickhead wants,” Beckett growled as he angrily tapped at his phone. “Henny needs a doctor who can prescribe actual medicine, not Gary’s special pills.”
Hendrix was still doing terribly. It had been weeks of him vomiting, nearly keeling over during practices, and looking like a lightly animated corpse. Yet, right before we got on stage, Gary would give him something, and he would inexplicably perk up and be able to do the entire show with no issues.
Once or twice, we accepted it because we had contracts and fans we couldn’t disappoint, but it was starting to get ridiculous.
Beckett was calling a doctor. A real one.
“And if Hendrix doesn’t want to go?”
Beckett shrugged. “I’ll handcuff the fucker and make him go.” His eyes narrowed, shoulders squaring as he went to work getting Hen the help he obviously needed. Once Beckett looked like that, there was no dissuading him. Not that I would, since I agreed with him.
Beckett’s phone buzzed, and he huffed, reading the message. “Thank fuck. We’ve got someone for today.”
So many years in this industry, and I still wasn’t used to the fact that throwing money around would get us anything we wanted.
“How long until they get here?”
“Half an hour.”
“Do you remember when we used to have to wait, like, six weeks for a doctor’s appointment because they were always booked out?” I asked. The bigger we’d gotten, the easier it was for us to get what we needed. And a lot of things we definitely didn’t need, but wanted anyway.
“Back when we were no-names. You had that rash on your ass from poison ivy that just wouldn’t go away, and Gary had us grinding ourselves to the bone, so we couldn’t find time to get you an appointment.”
“At least I learned not to go streaking in the woods in Florida.” My ass still had a weird discolored patch from that. I laughed. It hurt like a bitch. Thankfully a few groupies had been more than willing to distract me and kiss it better.
Beckett sighed, rubbing his hand on his forehead. “It doesn’t make sense. The sickness is one thing, but have you noticed he hasn’t touched a single groupie in the last few weeks?”
I hummed. “Yeah, that is strange. Henny is the biggest manwhore out of all of us. Something’s gotta be seriously wrong for him to not be getting his dick wet.”
Beckett shoved his phone in his back pocket with a sigh. “I’ll go get Hen. He stayed late at sound check, sucking up to Gary.”
“Good luck!” I cried at his retreating form.
It didn’t take long for Beckett to grab him. By the time the doctor arrived, Hendrix was sitting on one of the tour bus couches, looking green around the gills.
“We have practice soon,” he grumbled.
“Yeah, but you haven’t been making it through a full practice lately,” Beckett said. “You look like death, and you’re not fooling anyone into thinking you’re actually the picture of health.”
“Gary won’t like it. He says I’m just run-down.”
I snorted. That was such bullshit. “Where’s your keeper?” I asked.
Beckett answered for him. “Gary is in a promotional meeting for the next hour, so he won’t be able to stop us.”
Hendrix was quiet, sullen. He probably didn’t even have the energy to fight the idea without Gary dosing him up.
There was a knock on the door of the tour bus, and before anyone could answer it, the door opened and Phin ambled in, followed closely by a middle-aged man in scrubs.
“Hello there, I’m Dr. Corbett. Who’s the patient?” he asked, looking between us.
“Mr. Nauseated over there,” I said, pointing at Hendrix.
The doctor turned and gave him a once-over, wincing. “You look like you’ve seen better days, young man.” He placed his medical bag on the counter and pulled out a blood-pressure cuff, attaching it to Hendrix’s arm. “Can you tell me a little more about how you’ve been feeling?”
“I always feel sick and dizzy, and my chest hurts.” Hendrix groaned, the sound transitioning to a whine as the cuff squeezed the shit out of his arm.
Dr. Corbett’s head whipped up from where he had been adjusting the heart monitor. “Chest pains? Those can be serious. Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“They’re not like chest pain, chest pains. It’s more like…pectoral pain?” Hendrix frowned as he spoke, his fingers sliding over the muscles in question.
“His man boobs have been tender as fuck lately.” I laughed.
“Huh.” The doctor checked all of Hendrix’s vitals, detaching the blood-pressure cuff after noting the numbers. “How long have you been feeling unwell?”
“Since Seattle,” I answered for him. “It’s been a couple months now.”
“You’ve waited two months to seek treatment?”
Beckett grimaced. “Our manager keeps us busy.”
“And gives me vitamins to keep me standing,” Hendrix added.
I snorted. If what Gary was giving him was vitamins, then I was a fucking bunny living in Easter Land.
The doctor absorbed everything we told him, writing down notes to hopefully get a big picture of what was going on with Hen. “Would you mind if I did a few finger prick tests so I can check a few things?”
“I don’t like needles,” Hendrix grumbled.
I burst out laughing, as did everyone else on the bus. Even Beckett cracked a smile.
“What’s so funny?” he pouted.
“Hen…you’re covered in tats. How the hell can you dislike needles?” Phin chuckled.
“That’s different.”
“Do the blood test,” Beckett instructed the doctor. “Ignore the man baby.”
The doctor nodded, pulling more equipment out of his bag. “Your blood pressure is a little high. Let’s see what this shows, and then I’ll probably prescribe you something to help with that.”
Hendrix looked at the small finger prick needle in horror but held out his hand all the same.
The doctor’s eyes darted between the small screen and Hendrix. “Um…do you want to talk in private?”
“You can tell these fuckers anything.” Hendrix waved off his concern. “My dick isn’t going to fall off, is it?”
I snorted. Of course that was his worry.
The doctor cleared his throat. “Where’s your omega?”
Hendrix’s eyebrows rose. “ My omega? In my dreams, that’s where the fair, busty maiden resides.”
“Well, you’ve definitely got an omega, because your hormone levels indicate that you’re bonded…pretty recently, in fact.” He turned the screen to us. It was just numbers, but they clearly meant something to the doc.
“No fucking way!” Hendrix cried, sitting bolt upright, and obviously immediately regretting moving that fast, with the way he cupped his face. “I would remember if someone bit me! Wouldn’t I?”
“There’s more…” The doctor grimaced. “You’re showing signs of bonding sickness. It’s a rare thing, since most alphas stick close to their omegas after they’ve bonded, but that’s clearly not the case here. Your symptoms are extreme, and very similar to a lot of pregnancy symptoms, which is leading me to believe that your omega is pregnant, in addition to being separated from you. You’re feeling all of their suffering, on top of your own, from being apart.”
I choked on thin air. What? Did he just say pregnant omega? Beckett looked shell-shocked, and Phin was looking almost as green as Hendrix.
Did Hendrix have a pregnant omega? He’d have told us…or maybe not. It didn’t sound like he had any idea who this omega was. Fuck.
Hendrix looked terrified, his eyes wide, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to find words.
I paused for a moment, waiting for the panic to set in, only it never came.
Because I was fucking elated.
If Hendrix had an omega, that meant we had an omega.
“Dude! Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked, unable to mask my excitement, jumping on the baffled-looking alpha and shaking him vigorously.
“I didn’t know!” he cried.
The doctor cleared his throat. “Well, you, uh…you need to look into that. I’ll prescribe something to help with the nausea, but if this is because you’ve got a pregnant omega, it won’t respond well to treatment. You need to find her as soon as possible because these symptoms won’t be going away anytime soon, and she’ll be feeling a lot worse than you.”
“Finding her will fix it?” Beckett asked.
“Theoretically, yes. Most of the symptoms should be alleviated by proximity. You’ll notice a difference immediately once you get close to her, but if he’s this bad, I’m worried about her . Do everything you can to reunite them.” He passed a prescription form to Hendrix. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”
“This has been very helpful,” Phin insisted. “At least we have a direction now. Thanks for coming.”
Dr. Corbett nodded, offering a small smile before quickly packing up his things and darting out of the tour bus, like he could sense it was about to descend into chaos and wanted out.
“I don’t have a bite mark on me!” Hendrix ripped off his shirt and tried to angle his head to see his neck, which was both impossible and hilarious to watch. “I would have a bond bite if I was bonded.”
I looked at my pack mate, my eyebrows raised. A bonding mark could technically be anywhere on his body—the throat was just the most common.
“Well, there’s only one way to be sure.” I hopped to my feet, facing him with a grin. “Time to get naked.”
Hendrix’s face fell. “What? No…”
“Come on. You’re choosing now to be shy? We’ve seen your cock more times than we can count.”
“Do it, Hen,” Beckett commanded.
“Do it, or I’ll do it for you,” I declared, grabbing the scissors out of the knife block in the minuscule bus kitchen we never used. “How much were those fancy designer jeans?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.
Hendrix paled. “Okay, okay, I’ll do it. I don’t trust you near my junk with those things.”
A smart move on his part, really. While I might have good hand-eye coordination with a guitar, I made no guarantees when it came to scissors.
Undoing his belt, he avoided eye contact with us as he pushed the jeans down.
Naturally, the fucker went commando, so I was gifted with the sight of his soft cock.
“Look! No bite marks.” Hendrix threw his arms out and spun in a circle, like this was some fucked-up fashion show.
“Uh…Hen?” It was Phin who spoke from behind Hendrix.
“What?”
“You’ve got a bite mark on your ass,” Phin declared at the same moment Hendrix turned to face him, presenting me with a clear view of his butt and the small, defined bite mark on the bottom half of his left cheek.
“We’ve got an omega!” I clapped my hands, bouncing on the spot.
Hendrix let out a strangled, panicked sound, dashing to the far wall where there was a small mirror, tripping over the jeans around his ankles in his haste to see the bite mark.
“Who?” Beckett asked as Hendrix twisted and turned to get a good look.
“I don’t know ,” he admitted.
“You haven’t fucked anyone since Seattle,” Phin pointed out.
“Oh, yeah!” I cried. “You had that blonde in your bed, the one who fell out of the bed when I came to get you…but she was a beta, not an omega.”
Hendrix looked into the distance, his eyes losing focus. “The rose and lilac…That wasn’t a beta scent.” He dragged his hands over his face. “Come on, brain. Fucking work . Seattle. Omega.”
“I remember the scent,” Phin added. “Almost fought you for the bed that night so I could roll around in it.”
“Okay, that’s progress,” Beckett muttered. “ White rose and lilac. I remember it too. Shit. Are we going to have to do a weird Cinderella thing to find this omega?”
“Would the venue have a list of the attendees?” Phin asked. “Probably too much to ask for a list of their designations. Hen, what do you remember about the omega? Anything besides scent?”
Hendrix looked at us with pleading eyes.
Beckett stood up taller, realization filling his eyes. “Hen left the VIP meet and greet early. It was probably someone from there.”
“Fuck, yeah.” I beamed. “That’s a way shorter list than everyone at the concert.”
Was our omega pretty? Hendrix tended to have good taste, but then again, I had seen him make some poor decisions while high. Most of the women who ended up in our beds were objectively pretty, though.
Would she vibe with us?
Did she have a nice personality?
What if she was vegan ? I shuddered at the thought.
No, Hendrix wouldn’t have been that dumb. We all loved meat too much…including our own.