FOUR
CHAPTER
I pulled the limo to the front of my apartment complex. I lived in a cement box of a building, with pale gray stucco and crooked railings peeling lime green paint.
“I know it’s not the luxury villa you’re used to,” I told her, “but beggars can’t be choosers, am I right?”
The girl, still deep in her booze-soaked nap, wasn’t in a position to choose anything.
I parked the limo along the side of the building as close to my first-floor apartment as I could get. Illegally parked but hidden from the street.
I jogged to my front door, unlocked and opened it, and flipped on the light near the door. Back at the limo, I climbed in and sat beside the girl.
“Hey,” I said, nudging her arm gently. “Hey. Can you wake up for me?”
She didn’t stir.
“Shit.” I heaved a breath. “All right, here we go.”
She was a slight thing, maybe 5’5” and couldn’t have weighed more than a buck-ten, but the alcohol had turned her to dead weight.
Her limbs were limp, and her head lolled.
I struggled to get her out of the damn limo without banging her head on the door.
I hoped to half-carry, half-walk her inside, but she was like jelly, oozing out of my arms.
I sucked in a deep breath and lifted her under her knees and back, cradling her, so that her head rested against my chest.
Dr. Morrison would have a conniption if he saw me lifting an entire human being.
Theo would lose his shit. But neither of them was there now.
Another perk about the night shift: aside from a text or ten from Theo, I was free of the scrutiny that only reminded me of my predicament when I was trying to put it aside and keep to my schedule.
I carried the girl through the open door of my place, and kicked it shut behind me with my heel. I laid her out on the couch and sat beside her to catch my breath. I was winded but it wasn’t bad. A few deep breaths and I was back in business.
“That wasn’t so tough, now, was it?”
The girl’s full lips were parted, and she was breathing easy, a thin sheen of sweat over her forehead and across her chest. I couldn’t imagine she could be very comfortable in those boots and bustier.
Not that was I about to do anything about it.
It was bad enough I had her in my apartment.
Even taking her shoes off might add fuel to whatever PR nightmare was awaiting me tomorrow.
I wondered if I could lose my job over this. Over her.
Now that she was safe, I spared a thought for my situation.
I needed my job. I had the perfect routine going and I couldn’t let one goddamn thing throw it.
I was supposed to go back to the Pony Club to pick up the band like I’d been hired to do, but then what?
Bring them all back here to get their guitarist?
And was it a good idea to leave her alone in the first place?
I looked at the girl. Young woman. I guessed maybe twenty-two. She was out cold, but her beautiful face was at peace, her brows unfurrowed for the first time all night.
I sighed. It’s late. Let her sleep.
I called A-1 back and told Tony I had the stretch and would have it back at the garage by seven a.m. Tony warned me that our boss, Harry, would lose his shit to know one of his cars was out. Not to mention I’d left the band stranded at the Pony Club.
“But then again, Harry fucking loves you,” Tony said. “You’re his favorite driver.”
That was true, which was why I was entrusted with the Rapid Confession job in the first place. Still, I was taking a huge fucking risk with my job—a job I desperately needed.
With a frustrated groan, I chucked the phone onto my old junker of a coffee table in front of the couch. It clanked against one of three blown-glass pieces sitting on its scratched, wooden surface.
From the hall closet I retrieved an afghan and draped it over my houseguest, then set a glass of water and two aspirin from my personal miniature pharmacy on the table beside her. A peace offering should the girl wake up and wonder if she’d been kidnapped by a crazed, knick-knack-collecting psycho.
The girl. If I called her that one more time, even in my own mind, I was going to lose it.
My laptop was on the kitchen counter that overlooked the living room.
I opened it up and typed Rapid Confession into the Google search bar.
A bunch of photos and articles came up, many of them as recent as yesterday.
The band was about to “explode on the music scene like a Molotov-cocktail” (according to Spin ) and “was the best thing to happen to rock and roll since the Foo Fighters” (so speaketh Rolling Stone ).
I scrolled until I found cheeky promotional photos naming each band member.
“Kacey Dawson,” I muttered. “Hallelujah.”
I stared at the promotional pic. Even flipping the bird with an ‘I don’t give a fuck’ expression on her face, Kacey Dawson was breathtaking.
“Get a grip, Fletcher.”
I snapped the laptop shut and headed for the bedroom. On the kitchen wall, the phone’s answering machine was blinking insistently. I hit the playback button.
“You have three new messages. ”
I should’ve just gone to bed.
“Hey, Jonah, it’s me, Mike Spence. From Carnegie? Look…I know you’re going through some heavy shit now, but…let’s hang out, man. Let’s grab a beer for old time’s sake. Or at the very least, call me back and—”
I jabbed “delete” and the machine moved to the next.
“Hello, honey, it’s Mom. Just calling to see how you are. I really do hate your late hours. I know I sound like a broken record but… Well, call me in the morning. And we’ll see you for dinner on Sunday as usual? Your father wants to barbecue. Call me, sweetheart. I love you. Okay. Love you. Bye.”
I erased that one too, wishing I could erase the tentative tone in my mother’s voice as easily. She sounded like she was always bracing herself for bad news.
The final message played, this one having come in just a few minutes ago, maybe while I was unloading my unconscious cargo from the limo. I knew it would be Theo even before I heard his voice.
“Hey bro, just checkin’ in. Call me back. Later.”
Theo sounded casual, but the time of his call and earlier texts gave him away.
Irritation flared but I battled it back.
Maybe Theo was working late at Vegas Ink.
Sometimes he had clients coming in at all hours.
Or maybe he was out late on a date—I couldn’t keep track of his women; they came in and out of his life so quickly.
I erased the message just as a text came in on my cell. I grabbed it off the coffee table while Kacey Dawson slept on, oblivious.
Theo: Still at work?
Now I rolled my eyes, as the irritation took root. I jabbed a text. No, I’m out chain-smoking Marlboro Reds and eating raw steak.
Very funny. Home???
I sighed and contemplated the blank space, my thumb itching to tell him off, to quit hovering over me and leave me alone.
I jabbed a few words to that effect, then backspaced the text away with a sigh.
I didn’t get to be pissed off anymore. Not on the outside, anyway.
Not at him or my parents. My whole situation was shitty enough without making them feel worse.
Yes, I’m home now, I texted. Goodnight, Theo.
C U at shop on Sun.
“I’m sure I will,” I muttered.
I silenced the phone and left it on the kitchen counter on the way to the bedroom.
There, I changed out of my limo livery and laid it out on the bed that was neatly made and probably slightly dusty.
I changed into a white wife-beater and sleep pants from the plain wooden dresser, then headed to the bathroom in the hall to take a piss and brush my teeth.
I brushed and made plans.
Take Kacey back to the Summerlin house first thing in the morning.
Return the limo to A-1 and get my truck.
Go back to my routine.
No problem. One little speed bump, that’s all tonight had been.
In the living room, Kacey Dawson looked to be sleeping comfortably—or as comfortable as one could get in leather and vinyl.
I remembered from my own college days that being hungover and sweating out last night’s booze was a rotten combo.
I turned the AC unit at the window on and settled into the reclining chair across from the couch.
I had to laugh at the scene that would greet my guest should she wake up in the middle of the night: a dinky apartment instead of her mega-mansion, and a strange dude sleeping in a recliner not five feet away instead of in the bed like a normal person.
“Stephen King should take notes,” I muttered, settling into the half-way lying down position my doc recommended. “This’ll teach you to drink your options away, Kacey Dawson,” I muttered as my eyes drifted shut. “Everything in moderation.”
Like my sleep .
I woke up at six, my ass numb from sitting in the same position all night. Not being able to change positions sucked, but I never slept much anyway, and I always came awake sharp and alert. It was as if my body knew time was no longer a luxury I could afford to waste.
I steered my thoughts toward something positive. Sunlight—yellow and sharp—slanted in from the front window. The glass bottles and paperweights caught it, captured it, and sprayed it out on the coffee table in mottled reds, blues, and purples.
“Beautiful,” I murmured. And I had the entire Saturday at the hot shop before me to create more.
The figure on the couch moaned and sighed in her sleep, reminding me with a small jolt I had some unfinished business to take care of first. I threw off the light blanket and moved to the couch. Crouching beside Kacey Dawson, I studied her sleeping face a moment.
“Hey.”
She didn’t stir. Her mouth was slightly open. Dead to the world.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” I told her. “Don’t steal anything.”
I pondered writing her a note to tell her she wasn’t kidnapped but then this probably wasn’t the first time Kacey Dawson woke up after a hard night of partying not knowing where she was. I left it to chance and took my shower.
She was still out cold when I re-emerged, dressed in jeans and a plain T-shirt.
My hot shop uniform. At precisely seven a.m. I took my meds, choking down one pill after another.
Fifteen in all. My stomach complained instantly, and I got to work making the equally stomach-churning protein shake I drank every morning.
“Sorry, Kacey, this is going to hurt,” I muttered and hit the button on my blender, filling my small apartment with a godawful buzzing.
The massively hungover Kacey Dawson stirred, groaned, and finally sat up, pushing her tousled hair out of her eyes. She looked around blearily, not seeing me in the kitchen behind her, watching her.
I didn’t know it then—I couldn’t have—but in that moment, the rest of my life, or what was left of it, began.