TWO YEARS LATER
Spider
A HALF-HOUR BEFORE SHOW TIME at Madison Square Garden, I’m tossing back a shot of expensive tequila as a knock comes on my dressing room door. It’s my second drink before the show starts. I need it to get me loose, but I’m never blitzed on stage. I made a promise to Sebastian that I wouldn’t do that, and so far I’ve stuck with it.
But afterward, once the music is over and the crowds have gone . . . it’s a whole new ballgame.
I’m wearing my usual outfit for a show: a pair of black skinny jeans and a distressed gray shirt with holes ripped artfully in the high-dollar fabric. I’m decked out in silver jewelry and the makeup girl has already popped by to outline my eyes in black kohl.
I fling open the door, expecting Sebastian or our drummer Rocco. Both of them are big talkers who like to chat before they go on . . . mostly nerves. Rocco likes to shoot the shit about the charcoal drawings I’ve been doing, and Sebastian likes to talk through the sets. Max, our rhythm guitar player, is a quiet guy who likes to be alone until we go on stage.
But it’s neither of them. It’s Rick, one of the roadies for the Wake Up and Die tour we’re currently doing after the huge success of our latest album.
“Hiya. What’s up?” I ask.
He’s chewing tobacco and swishes it aside to speak. He has a slow southern drawl; I believe he’s from Alabama.
“There’s a girl at the back door asking to see ya.”
I arch a brow. “No groupies till the show’s done, mate. Just call security.”
He spits in an empty water bottle. “I radioed them but can’t get them on the line.”
“She’ll go away once the show starts,” I tell him, my head already moving on to other things. I need to call Father and verify where I’m staying here in New York after the concert. Whenever I come here, I usually end up staying at one of his properties instead of a hotel. I probably should have done that by now, but we’re at the end of our tour and my head is everywhere.
“She says she knows you.” He’s looking at me with narrowed eyes now, like he knows something I don’t.
“Don’t they all?”
He glances down at the new tattoo I have on the top of my left hand, a red unfurled rose. I got it last week. On my back is another rose, which I got during the first year after I left Dallas.
“She says to tell you her name is Rose.”
I feel like all the air has been sucked from the room, and I cling to the side of the metal door to keep from falling.
“Did you see her? What does she look like?” My voice is thin.
He nods. “I cracked open the door, boss. She’s a looker, dressed in a tight black dress and heels. Looks like your type, a brunette.”
Sebastian walks up, dressed like he’s ready to go in jeans and a black leather jacket. His golden mane falls around his face, and I can see he just came from having his hair blown out. He stops short at my door. “Dude, you look like you just saw a ghost. You good?” His eyes search mine.
“Good,” I push out.
He eyes us carefully but keeps walking. “See you by the stage door in a few?”
I send him a nod, but I’m looking at Rick.
He continues. “Normally, I’d just ignore girls at the back door, but well, she knows your real name: Clarence.”
Pure heat ignites as images of Rose fly at me . . . our kiss on the plane . . . her under me in the penthouse . . . her breath like angel’s wings as it touches my skin.
The one memory I play in my head the most is her expression when she saw me with Mila.
I shove away the image of her ashen face.
Don’t think about that.
Most of all, I think about the promise I made to my father when I left Dallas. I swore to him I’d leave Rose to live her life, to grow up and be the person she’s meant to be. I took his half a million dollar offer and made a life for myself in LA.
Yeah, but wouldn’t you like to just . . . see her?
My heart jumps at the thought.
“Boss, what do you want me to do?”
Let her in, my body screams.
She isn’t seventeen anymore.
But . . .
I’m still not clean. Sure, I have good days, but I’m not what she needs. I have to be strong for myself before I can be strong for her.
Sebastian yells out my name. “Ten minutes. Come on, I want to run something past you.”
I stare at Sebastian blankly, my head somewhere else, and he gives me an impatient look. “You coming?”
I nod and push past Rick. “Tell her you’re calling the police if she doesn’t leave.”
I bolt for the stage, my body wired as I cover the distance between where I am and where I need to be. I run, otherwise I might just crack.
I might open that back door and let her in.
I might press my lips to hers and tell her the truth.
That she’s the one I think about when I close my eyes at night.
I snap awake as a police siren blares through an open window.
Fuck.
Where am I?
I look around, taking in the small, cramped flat. Clothes are strewn everywhere, and the place reeks of cigarette smoke and booze. I look up and take in the popcorn ceiling, the dark water stain on the corner of the wall. It’s a dump, but I’ve woken up in worse places.
I scrub my face, my head banging like the drums at last night’s concert.
I hear a groan from the other side of the bed.
There’s a naked girl next to me and her face is unrecognizable. All I see is a mass of tangled blonde hair. Thank fuck—I can’t take any more brunettes.
I stand and stretch, my head running through what I got into after the show.
A nightclub on top of some hotel.
Snorting blow off some chick’s ass in the bathroom.
I pull on my jeans and shirt, feeling like death warmed over. I have to get the hell out of here.
“Where you going?” says the girl as she props herself up against the headboard, tits hanging out. My stomach turns and I quickly look down as I push my feet into my Chucks.
“I gotta go.”
“It’s still early. Let’s go for breakfast.” She stands, and I do a double take at how tall she is.
Ah, that at least explains why I chose her.
Tall girls, brunettes, girls with green eyes—they’re all Rose in my head.
I take them, because I can’t have her.
She’s shrugging into a silk robe as I dart to the den.
“Wait!” she calls out. “I need your number. Don’t you want to call me when you come back to New York?”
Fuck no. I cringe at the thought.
There’s a straw cowboy hat sitting on the back of the couch. I snatch it up and twirl it around. “Mind if I take this?”
She murmurs an okay but tells me it’s a girls’ hat.
I don’t give a shit; I just don’t want to be recognized.
“Can I see you again?” She runs her hands down my chest as I push the hat low on my head and inch closer to the door.
I ramble off an excuse, saying I’ll be out of the country on tour for the next few months, and then before she can follow me, I mumble a hasty thank you and head out the door.
Instead of waiting for the elevator, I take the stairs. I don’t even know how high up I am, but I don’t care.
I need the burn.
I take the stairs two at a time until I finally burst through the door and into the New York morning. I inhale deeply, finally able to breathe. The streets are mostly quiet because it’s Sunday, and I check the street signs, popping out my phone to see where I am: Bedford Street in the Greenwich Village area.
My half-awake brain figures out I’m near NYU. I pause. Rose is nearby . . . just a few blocks away. I know because she’s living in one of Father’s properties, and I know that because . . . well, I know everything about Rose. Father keeps me updated and I have my own people who check in on her periodically.
I’m not even aware of what my feet are doing . . . not until I’m standing outside her building near Washington Square Park.
I dart inside a Starbucks across the street to get something to drink, and an hour later, I’m sitting on a barstool facing her place when she comes out.
She is . . . everything.
Her face is a piece of art. Her movements like a sweet song.
She cranes her neck and looks down the street as if she’s expecting someone. My eyes dart wildly around . . . and then I see him walking in her direction. He’s waving at her, a wide smile on his handsome face.
Trenton.
I close my eyes so I don’t see them together . . . even though it should come as no surprise. After all, I put her here with him. I created this fucking mess.
I can’t help but open my eyes and watch them.
I need to see it. I need to see if she’s moved on from me.
He reaches her, sweeps her up in his arms, and kisses her soundly.
She wraps her arms around his neck and clings to him.
As for me . . . I die.
I fucking die.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
God.
I hate myself. I hate this life I have without her. I fucking hate everything.
I can’t go on without her. Not anymore. I’ve tried for the past two years. I’ve pretended I’m okay . . . but I can’t do it any longer.
I want to yank her out of Trenton’s arms and make her love me again.
And my heart . . . it knows what I have to do to make that happen.
I have to get clean.