Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Tobias
Porcelain skin smeared with red, the viscous fluid welling along neatly formed lines. My heart pounded, trying to escape the squeeze of my lungs as I stared down at the pale face I see in the mirror. No breath. No warmth. My life was over.
I regained consciousness with a gasp that made my throat ache. Where the fuck was I? My mouth tasted like a robot vomited gasoline into a cocktail, and my head had its own heartbeat. The light in the room burned my eyeballs even with my lids closed. Today was going to be no fun at all.
And it was all for nothing because the dream found me anyway.
I groaned, ready to roll over and sleep for the next week when I heard voices outside.
“He’s fine, really. He just had a little blowout on the juice, but he’s sleeping it off.” Frankie’s whine set my teeth on edge. If I didn’t know how reliably he could get me fucked up, I wouldn’t associate with the blowhard.
“Juice? You mean GHB?” Shit, that was Calix.
The thump of a body hitting the wall was all the evidence I needed that I would have been better off not waking up at all today.
I considered intervening when the meaty crunch of flesh on flesh followed, but it all seemed like too much work. If my brother killed my dealer, it would be a hassle to find a new one, but not impossible. As the sounds of fighting continued, a subtle click preceded a much lighter set of footfalls.
The bed? Couch, maybe? Wherever I was dipped beneath me, and a cool hand pushed back my hair.
“You must be Tobias,” a gentle voice said.
With a herculean effort, I pried my eyelids open, suppressing a hiss of pain as the light hit my sensitive eyes. It was worth it as a face came into focus. Oval-shaped, with fine brows that were pinched in concern, haloed by the sunlight streaming through the uncovered bedroom window.
“You must be an angel,” I replied, lifting a shaky hand to pinch the blonde tips of her hair where they rested on her shoulder.
She snorted, and a long-fingered hand shot up to cover her mouth.
Her nails were short and bare. Such a difference from the groupies I was used to. Their nails were often long and sharp enough to tear. Who was she? As though reading my thoughts, she grimaced and held out a hand.
“I’m Tatum, your new—”
“Get away from him.” The human thundercloud that was my twin came storming into the room. His knuckles were grazed and bleeding in spots, and the throwback to my dream made such a visceral shudder run through me that Tatum laid a hand on my shoulder, her hazel eyes creased in concern.
“I’m fine, Cal. Just…hungover.”
The angel swung back toward my brother with a frown I would have found entertaining if the entire room wasn’t starting to spin.
“He can call you Cal, but I can’t?”
Calix’s face was flooding with color in a way it rarely did. She was already under his skin then. Interesting.
“He’s my twin. He’s also not currently plotting how quickly he can report to the record label that the drummer from Goats and Vandals almost died of a drug overdose last night.”
Woah, hang on…
“Fuck off, Calix. You’re not helping. And I already told you, I’m here to help. If I screw you guys over, I’m out of a job, and I need a job right now.”
“You really are an angel,” I muttered.
No one stood up to Calix when he was in a mood, and he was always in a mood.
Tatum grinned down at me. “I like you already. Way more than your brother.” She cast a quick glare over her shoulder before continuing, all business-like. “Let’s get you showered, then Calix can buy us some lunch and get you back with your bandmates, so they don’t worry.”
“No one worries about me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course they…” Her words died off as she pulled the covers back, and we both realized I was naked underneath.
Shit.
While the angel and I both froze, my brother was in full defense mode. AKA being a complete asshole.
“What’s wrong, Tater-tots? Never seen a flaccid dick before?”
She tilted her head, her face blank, despite the pink crawling up her throat. “Not one with quite so much hardware, honestly. Didn’t that hurt?”
Sitting up quickly, I cupped my junk in my hands while glaring at my brother. The longer she stared at me with those fascinated eyes, the less flaccid I became and wasn’t this one hell of a first impression?
“I’ll just get that shower,” I muttered, pushing upright on unsteady legs and trying my best to ignore the fact that this angel, who I was apparently going to be working with, was probably getting one hell of a view of my naked ass as I shuffled into the ensuite.
The shower was a life-altering experience I wished I could have enjoyed, but as clarity and rational thought returned to my drug-addled brain, I realized I didn’t want Tatum or my brother to have to spend more time in a place like this.
I knew the suburbs triggered the fuck out of Calix.
Hell, I was triggered, too. But the sweet call of oblivion was always enough for me to push through the discomfort and seek Freddie out for another hit of whatever was on offer.
Leaning over the basin, I stared at my knuckles, slightly white from my grip.
On one hand, the word peace was spelled out in fancy cursive, one letter per knuckle feeding into the image of a sun bursting out over the back of my hand.
On the other hand, was chaos in a jagged script bleeding into a chaos star.
God, you’re a piece of shit. At least if you’d overdosed properly, Calix would finally be rid of you.
I shook my head, trying to rattle loose the voice that had been getting louder in recent months.
Truth be told, it had been near constant since our tour had been announced.
It told me I was a fuck-up. That I was going to ruin everything the guys had worked so hard for.
That everyone would be better off without me.
But there was some stupid, selfish part left in me that couldn’t let Calix go. I’d keep trying because I didn’t want him to forget me.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Move your ass, bro! We got shit to do!”
Wrapping a towel around my hips, I pushed into the bedroom in time to witness the scowl on the angel’s face as she growled, “Is the hollering really necessary?”
Calix smirked. “Still nursing that hangover, Tater-tots?”
She lifted her middle finger at him and turned to me. “Do you have any other clothes? I’d rather not take you into the studio in just a towel.”
I blinked at her dumbly, unsure what to make of her. She clearly wasn’t scared of Calix, and he seemed weirdly comfortable with her considering…
“Wait, who are you to us now?” I asked.
“She’s the new Marisa,” Calix said, rifling through the closet in the corner of the room. Grunting, he pulled out a pair of basketball shorts and tossed them at my head.
“And the old Marisa…?”
“Gone.” He lifted his chin at the shorts in my hand.
With a grimace, I slid them on, hoping the previous owner hadn’t had anything transmissible.
Calix’s mood was setting me on edge, and I couldn’t work out whether it was my relapse, the house, or our new friend causing it.
So as soon as my naughty bits were tucked away, I led us past Frankie’s unconscious, but breathing, body and out to the front of the house.
As I slammed the ornate thing behind me, I got the oddest sense I was closing a metaphorical door as much as a physical one.
Ah, the optimism of the hungover. My sobriety was likely to last about as long as the headache I was rocking, but one could dream. And hey, maybe the tour was exactly what I needed to dry out and fly straight.
Or maybe I’d end up dead in a ditch somewhere between here and Kentucky.
Either way…
Sliding into the passenger seat, I pretended not to notice how my brother’s eyes slid to the angel in the backseat who curled up against the door as though ready for a nap.
This could be a good thing. Calix needed someone else in his life.
Someone more reliable.
Someone more permanent.
Because we all knew I wasn’t a great bet.