Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Alec
After what feels like fucking forever, I’m back home.
Or at least back in the city that’s supposed to make sense—the only place where my brain slows down enough for me to function like a semi-civilized human being instead of the man who nearly strangled a paparazzo with a mic cord a few weeks ago.
Okay, I didn’t actually do it, but I thought about it. I was close enough to taste the lawsuit.
The truth is, Seattle is the only place where my pulse doesn’t try to sprint out of my chest. Here, I can almost believe I’m a person capable of peace. Or the watered-down version of peace that passes for my reality.
The sedan glides up the ramp from Sea-Tac, tires skating over damp pavement. The air outside the cracked window carries that familiar February chill—cold enough to wake up my senses, not cold enough to punish me for being alive.
The second thing I notice is the music—violins, low and melodic, drifting through the car speakers.
Classical.
Of course Eddie arranged this.
He probably told the driver, “Appease the beast. Play something soothing so he doesn’t bite through the steering wheel.”
He might be onto something, because the sound does something to my nerves I don’t want to analyze too closely. He also offered to send the jet, his pride and joy—the one with leather seats, a minibar, and a flight attendant who’s been flirting with him since ’99.
But I can’t do jets. Not after that last flight—turbulence hitting hard, the cabin shrinking, and me convinced I’d die in noise-canceling headphones listening to Bach. Not exactly the exit I’d want.
So, no. Private jets are off the table.
Now they just trigger every worst-case scenario my brain’s been stockpiling for years. The air feels thinner. The walls feel closer. And I remember things I’ve worked very hard to forget.
Fuck jets.
Cars, though—cars I can do. Wheels on pavement mean escape is possible. Doors open from the inside. Oxygen exists.
At least someone understands it and humors me.
That’s the thing about Eddie—childhood friend, almost-brother, and the one person who somehow learned to read me long before I learned to read myself. He’s flawed as fuck, but he tries. And he tries for me harder than I deserve.
Which is probably why he sent this driver.
The man looks like someone’s proud grandfather—silver hair, posture so straight he could balance a dictionary on top of it. He greeted me politely when I got in, then went silent.
He didn’t ask about the flight. Didn’t comment on the weather. Didn’t mention movies, politics, or music. Either he sensed that today is not the day to poke the bear . . . or Eddie told him to avoid any conversational triggers that might lead me into an existential spiral.
Knowing Eddie, he faxed the man a manual titled Operating Alec Horvath Without Causing Damage.
If he did, I’m grateful, though.
The silence helps.
The violin helps too, even if I’d never admit that to anyone without a medical degree.
After spending several weeks in Los Angeles, this moment—this stillness, this almost gentle atmosphere—feels unnatural. Like I’ve stepped into a scene someone else ordered, and I’m just borrowing it for the night. A little too calm. A little too beautiful.
Maybe even a little too out of reach.
Listen, I’m all for supporting my former bandmates.
For sticking by the idiots I love more than I’ll ever admit.
And sure, Dexter—my best friend—finally decided to fix his life.
Finally got in front of cameras and said something like, “Yeah, I screwed up. My family’s a tabloid circus, and I’ve been part of the act by avoiding everything and more. But I’m done running.”
What do you call that moment? When your whole life collapses, and then you drag yourself into the spotlight to tell the truth?
Oh, right—being a grown-ass man.
Years ago, I told him to face his truth and stop feeding the gossip gobblers. To quit drinking like his bloodstream was auditioning for a distillery, to knock it off with the drugs, and to stop sprinting away from himself every time life got loud.
He didn’t listen.
Instead, he spiraled. Vanished. Checked into rehab. Checked out. Checked back in. Crawled his way forward inch by inch. Then repeated the cycle for . . . well, he’d done it so many times I lost track.
But now he’s finally pulled himself together.
I’m proud of him—of course I am. Proud in that way you feel when someone survives something they shouldn’t have survived.
But I’m also exhausted. Exhausted in a way that makes me feel like the villain for even thinking it.
And, fuck, Los Angeles . . .
That city did things to my soul I’m not ready to unpack. The noise. The lights. The constant expectation to smile and greet people like we’re all on the same anti-depressant commercial. Every day outside my apartment or Eddie’s place felt like a performance where I didn’t know my lines.
I did my best, though. Truly.
Didn’t maim anyone. Didn’t even throw a punch. Not when some gossip columnist insinuated I was “the next Dead-Moth-Parade meltdown waiting to happen.” Not even when a manager of a manager of a manager tried to tell me how to be “more lovable for Dex’s image.”
My anger management coach would’ve pinned a blue ribbon on my shirt.
My yogi, however would say something like, “Why didn’t you breathe more, Alecsander? Why didn’t you visualize a calm river, Alecsander? Why didn’t you chant your mantra, Alecsander?”
Because the universe didn’t give me enough tranquilizers, that’s why.
And my name is Alec. Not Alex. Not Alecsander. Not anything with extra letters meant to look dignified on a diploma. My birth certificate says Alec Dominique Horvath, and if I could ask my parents why they named me that, I would.
But I can’t.
Because I don’t have parents. Never met them, and if I did, I don’t recall.
There’s just a trail of foster homes that remembered my age when it helped them financially and forgot who I was the second I stopped being convenient.
Some places tried. Most didn’t. Others went past neglect and into something worse—environments where a raised voice made me tense before I even understood what I’d done, where doors closing too fast hit something instinctive in me, where I learned to track danger without announcing I was paying attention.
I learned early how to stay quiet, how to step aside, how to read an entire room in half a second. I learned what people looked like right before deciding you were too much trouble. I learned too much, too young, and none of it came with a guidebook or an adult who gave a damn.
But sure. Let’s pretend a few deep breaths and a serene smile would undo years of that.
The car keeps moving through downtown Seattle, the daylight bright but softened by thin winter clouds.
Reflections from the glass towers sweep across the windshield as we pass.
Street vendors, café patios with heat lamps humming, commuters wrapped in scarves—it all blurs into a quiet collage of a city going about its day, indifferent and moving forward whether I’m ready or not.
For a moment, the movement eases something inside me. Not peace—but a pause. A held breath.
The driver clears his throat. Not words—just a light sound.
It startles me.
And that’s when I realize I’ve been talking.
Out loud. For several minutes. Who knows when I moved this conversation from my head to .
. . well, the car. I do it often when I’m alone.
He probably heard the whole rant about Dexter, rehab, yogis, my childhood, and the fact that my therapist is probably drafting an entire lecture about why I can’t vanish for months and expect “phone check-ins” to count as actual therapy.
“Fucking fantastic.” I scrub a hand over my jaw. “You probably didn’t need to hear all that.”
The driver glances at me in the rearview mirror and just nods once, calm. “Happens more often than you’d think, sir.”
I sigh, knowing that I need to get back to therapy. Immediately. Tomorrow. Twice a week. Three times. Hell, Dr. Bennet can just set up a cot in his office, and I’ll lie there between sessions and yoga classes and whatever else he thinks might keep me from combusting.
And I desperately need to avoid people for the next six to one hundred months.
Especially children.
It’s not that I hate kids—I don’t. I love my nephew Arlo. He’s adorable. He smiles with his whole face. He reaches for me with this trust I still don’t know what to do with. But the crying? The teething? The constant need for attention? I swear he drained whatever life force I had left.
Roderick asked if I wanted to babysit next weekend so he could take Kit out on a getaway date.
I considered faking a knee injury. Or malaria.
Ended up offering to pay for a good babysitter.
Eddie’s assistant found me the best in the city.
And when Kit casually mentioned Arlo’s birthday in June, I felt something inside me threatening to bolt.
I’m going to need an excuse so bulletproof NASA engineers would be impressed.
A retreat? A work emergency? Nope, that wouldn’t fly. I don’t have a job, but I could say that I’m starting a new band. Yes, that’s it. Starting a new band with a name that sounds too important to cancel.
Nah, I wouldn’t be able to launch it before his birthday. Also, I don’t want to deal with new people. I have trouble socializing as it is.
Yeah, Tibet sounds promising. People don’t argue with Tibet. Altitude, spiritual enlightenment, yaks.
“Sorry, I’ll be hiking near the Himalayas in June, rediscovering my center,” sounds far more respectable than: “I cannot endure another baby meltdown without losing whatever’s left of my sanity.”
The car slows as we near my building—a tall glass high-rise overlooking the bay. My penthouse sits on the top floor like a crown I never asked for, but it’s mine. My sanctuary. My ritual. My structure.