Chapter 2 #2
“I can’t even stand up,” he mumbles, slumping down against the shower door behind him again.
“I know. But you will. I’ll help you, and you’ll accept my help, because spending the night on this floor, suffering, isn’t an option.” I wrap my arms around his chest—I use that statement in the most professional capacity—and press my body up against his.
Professional. Word of the day. Be it. Completely.
I force myself to ignore the riot of sensation that swamps me at our proximity as I give him my support, helping brace him so he can get to his feet. He’s shaky, but I’m not. Despite our height difference and the weight he has on me, I’m solid. There’s no way I’m letting him fall.
“I know the IV isn’t fun, but sometimes it’s necessary. We’ll get you into bed and get you taken care of, then the buses will get back underway. We won’t be late, everything will get set up on time, and by tomorrow evening, you won’t be good as new, but you’ll be out there doing what you love.”
I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep. But I will keep this one. I’m not letting Wilder miss this show. At least not if sheer force of will has anything to do with it.
My confidence seems to give him what he needs. He powers through the nausea of getting upright, and even though he has to lean heavily on me, we squeeze through the narrow bathroom doorway, make a hard turn, and almost make it four steps to the bedroom before Wilder’s legs give out.
Luckily, he throws a hand out to the wall, and I lean into him, sandwiching him there until he can catch a breath.
“It feels better when I’m doubled in half.” He side eyes me. I wipe all traces of alarm off my face. “That’s not good, is it?”
The cramping has to be brutal, and it’s not going to be just in his stomach if I can’t get him hydrated.
I wedge myself right up against him, pressing all of me into all of him, though he’s far too sick to notice. Not that he would anyway.
For the past five years, Wilder dated Alicia Thorton, one of the world’s most beautiful models.
The public adored them. Shipped them. Stanned them.
What-the-fuck-evered them. When they broke up three months ago, hearts were broken worldwide, and dating offers immediately tripled online and in person.
Tripled? I use that unit of measure lightly. They might have millionified.
The point is, Jackson Wilder can have anyone he wants.
The world is at his feet. There’s no way he’d give a shit, even if he weren’t feeling like total ass and just about ready to pass right out, that my body is right there, my breasts jammed into his chest, my arms a solid circle around him, and my legs parted around his rock-hard thigh to pin him in place.
Wilder gulps in air, chokes, gags, and lets out a groan that vibrates all the way straight to the pit of my stomach. “I’m okay,” he wheezes, even though he’s so clearly not okay. “Let’s go. We need to get back on the road.”
He still has to lean heavily on me, but he hobbles, slightly crouched over, into the bedroom. It’s only a few feet away. When we enter the room, he peels himself out of my arms, falls onto the bed, and drags himself over it, curling into a fetal position.
I get him a trash can for the side of the bed and squeeze his shoulder. “I’ll be right back, okay? I’m just going to see if my bag is here yet, and I’ll talk to Benny about getting the bus going again.”
He closes his eyes, swallowing convulsively. “Okay.”
Benny meets me in the hall, carrying my bag. “I was just coming to give this to you.”
I thank him, clap him on the shoulder, and give him a quick debriefing. He’s driven through the worst of shit over the years. Storms of all kinds in all seasons, crazy road conditions, jam-packed traffic… In the dead of night or the light of day, there’s no one better than he is.
When he says he’ll get us up and running immediately, I trust him.
Not even ten minutes later, the bus is moving again. I give the guys an update, not that they were overly interested in what I had to say, assholes times ten, take my bag, and head back to the bedroom. I shut the door behind me, locking Matt and everyone else out.
If Wilder could just, for one second, not have to rise to every freaking dare they ever threw his way, then this wouldn’t be happening. He’d still have his real teeth too.
The tour bus is spacious, but this back room isn’t as big as one might think it would be.
The queen-sized bed takes up most of the room, but there are a few built-in nightstands attached to the back wall, a small closet on the far side, two windows with the blinds tightly closed, and a whole lot of Matt’s stuff strewn about.
Matt shoved most of his bags against the far wall, but it wasn’t done with much care. His guitars, on the other hand, are neatly placed in the corner, their cases carefully aligned and blocked in with a row of duffel bags to keep them from going anywhere.
Wilder eyes me from the bed like my small black duffel bag contains the end of the world. “I hate this room,” he grunts. “Everyone would have accused me of being a diva if I’d taken it, but that wasn’t why I didn’t.”
I know that, but I don’t interrupt him.
“I like being in the bunk. It’s closed in, pressing down all around you. I find that comforting,” he continues.
I found the bunk to be as coffinlike as everyone said it was, at least at first. On the first tour I went on, I don’t know how many audiobooks I listened to just to take my mind off the crushing claustrophobia.
I unzip my bag. “What else do you find comforting?” I ask, trying to divert his attention from it.
He narrows his eyes. “You’re trying to distract me.”
“I absolutely am. Talk to me about something else, and it might work. Think good thoughts. Think about tomorrow night when you’re on the stage staring down the massive crowd, singing your heart out, and listening to thirty thousand people echo it back at you.
You wave your arms, they wave their arms. You tell them to clap, they clap.
You want them to riot, they’ll riot. You ask for their lights up in the air, they’ll give them to you.
Whatever you ask for, they’ll give back to you.
They love you, but you loved them all first. You’ve given everything you have to them.
Every award you get, you thank them. Every opportunity, you turn it back to the fans and every single person working behind the scenes. ”
All this time, I’ve been prepping the IV while trying to angle my body away from Wilder so he can’t see it. It’s not like I’m going to trick him, but I’ve always thought that watching someone set something up is unnerving. The unholy anticipation and all that.
I drop down on the side of the bed and set my hand on his shoulder.
As always, the contact sends a charge of electricity through me at dangerous levels.
He’s still soaked, his skin pallid and clammy.
I need to get him out of these clothes and into something clean, or at least stripped down and tucked under the blankets.
I ignore my hopeless hormones and concentrate on reassuring Wilder before he rolls off the other side of the bed and tries to drag himself out of here to escape. “I know you’re distrustful, but you know who I am. I think, most days, you even feel like I’m an okay person.”
“You’re super nice, Carissa. Everyone thinks so.
” He only manages a tiny, watery smile, but it’s still utterly disarming.
Wilder has this gift. Every time he looks at a person, he listens as though they’re the only person in the world.
He doesn’t just pay lip service. He actually remembers what people tell him.
Their experiences are special to him. “You’re incredibly kind.
I find that, out of everything, kindness is always in short supply. ”
“I happen to know that of any fanbase, yours is full of people who value kindness above all because that’s the example you’ve set.
” I smooth my hand over his shoulder, trying to comfort him while, at the same time, having an internal nervous breakdown over the fact that I have zero right to this level of intimacy.
Not that it is. Not in the traditional sense.
This is one thousand percent platonic. I would comfort any other nervous, sick patient this way.
“You could just close your eyes and pretend I’m just a friend who wants to help you feel better so you can get on the stage for one last time and give the performance of your life. ”
His brow tilts up slightly, but if he’s surprised at anything, it’s only that I’ve tipped my cards, proving that I suspect something. “One last time?”
“Last show of the tour,” I correct hastily.
He’s not fooled, but he lets it go, falling back on his classic dry humor. “Probably the last time I’ll ever eat gas station chicken that looked like it was ten days old too. I only did it because Matt was being such an asshole about it.”
“You should know not to let Matt goad you into things. You almost broke your face that way.”
He sighs, his dark eyes dropping down to the black comforter that Matt haphazardly tugged over the bed. “I thought he’d be like a brother for life. That he, of all people, could never hate me.”
A tiny gasp escapes me. I try to compensate for it by leaning forward, but it still feels like my ribs are digging into my lungs. “No one hates you.”
“That’s not true. They do. Out there.” I know he means on the bus.
Namely, Matt, Jameson, and Luke. “They want to keep doing what we’re doing.
The same thing. Again and again, year after year, album after album.
But it’s not just them. It’s the whole world.
I’ve spent fourteen years in the public eye.
What if I just want to be me, and that’s not the Wilder they know? ”
Wilder is utterly transparent most of the time.
You ask him a question, you’re going to get an honest answer.
It’s endeared him to so many people, but it’s also caused him some trouble.
He’s had to learn how to be open and authentic while shielding himself in some ways.
It’s a hard road, one I’d never want to travel.
I wouldn’t be able to stand the entire world watching me, scrutinizing my every move, and twisting and breaking my best intentions, sweetest words, and ideas until they don’t even resemble me anymore.
Wilder’s Peril truly does have the best fanbase, but there are plenty of people out there ready to criticize, cut down, and find room for error—ready to take a truth that isn’t theirs and warp it until it’s all wrong.
“You’re thirty. It’s okay to grow and want different things.” Has anyone ever told him that? Truly?
“It’s okay until everyone wants you to stay the same. When you’re in the public eye, you have no privacy. You don’t always get to choose. Sometimes, you have to play the game and keep playing it until you’re tired.”
We all know Wilder is human, but it’s easy to forget that when he has the energy, the love, the heart, the passion, and the talent he does. There’s nothing more frightening than finally hitting the wall, reaching the end of a journey, or just burning out completely.
What advice can I give him when our worlds brush up against each other’s, but we’re living totally different lives? The one thing he’s always appreciated is truth. I can’t give him my truth, but I can give him an honest opinion.
“Then change. Do what you’ve always done and say fuck it.
You don’t have to play that game anymore.
Reinvent yourself. Try what you want to try.
Take some time off. Take forever off. Be a solo artist. Make your own label.
Buy a little witchy style cottage in the heart of a woods no one knows about and live there with eighteen cats, a dog, a skunk, and three raccoons for the rest of your life. ”
I’m met with silence.
Total. Immediate. Crushing. Painful. Silence.
There was no right thing to say in this situation, but I’ve probably just gone and said the worst thing I possibly could.
That scenario I just painted? It’s Wilder all alone, without the band.
Fourteen years. If he’s not a part of Wilder’s Peril anymore, then who even is he?
Now isn’t the right time to be asking him that question.
This.
This is why I’d never want to be famous. Saying and doing the wrong thing and having someone else pick that apart, or worse, be hurt by it, would truly devastate me.
This kills me.
It’s been killing me for years.
If I were honest about it, there’s no way I should have kept my job.
Even if the band miraculously pulls through this and stays together, I know it’s time.
All things, good or not, have a natural ending.
I need to take the advice I just gave Wilder and reinvent myself somehow.
Find my own little cottage in the woods.
If this is it, and it has to be, no matter how much it hurts, I have something for him.
I didn’t think it would see the light of day, but this is right.
I don’t know anything right now, except that.