At around noon on Monday, I received an apologetic call from Ian. I’d been expecting him.

“Ian, stop. Just stop. It’s not your fault,” I told him, cutting off his explanation midstream. “You got played by Ross. We both did.”

He exhaled in relief. “Oh good. How’d you figure it out?”

“Alexandra ‘fessed up.”

I sighed. The day felt like it was dragging on and on. The only thing I’d done today that felt remotely productive was calling Ward Williams at the Lone Star Lounge and negotiating Rosie a cut of the cover charge. She wasn’t going to make a lot for her performance, but I never let my clients work for free.

Not that Rosie was really my client. She wasn’t not my client either, though. We were at a delicate point in both our professional and personal relationship. She wasn’t really my girlfriend either, although I sure as hell wanted her to be. The sooner we could actually talk, the better.

“Sooo…” Ian asked a moment later, reading my silence in a way that only a blood relative could, “how did things go last night with Rosie?”

“None of your business.”

He snorted at me in apparent amusement. “That good huh?”

He had no idea. And I intended to keep it that way. Time to change the subject.

“Did you know that Victoria asked Rosie to open for you guys next Friday?”

“Yeah. We talked about it this morning. I think she’ll be great.”

“This morning?” Alarm bells started going off in my head. Ian didn’t rise before noon. He was practically physically incapable of it. Like me, rising at all was a daily battle for Ian. If he’d already spoken to Victoria today…

“You weren’t the only one to score last night,” Ian replied in a whisper that told me that Victoria might still be at Ian’s. Or maybe he was at her place. Either way, my headache increased by a factor of two.

Great. They were sleeping together. That was just what I needed. Ian might be stable, but Victoria existed in a state that was almost totally antithetical to stability. She vibrated on a wavelength that was just… heightened. I knew she was probably fun to be around, but the last time Ian had spent significant time with a woman who had that particularly exciting personality type…

I bit my tongue. If I was honest with myself, Victoria reminded me a lot of a more grown up Jen. Maybe that’s why I had such a difficult time being around her. It was nothing to do with Victoria personally. It was my own ghosts that made me nervous.

“Good for you,” I finally forced myself to say. Being disapproving would only push Ian away. I learned a long time ago that Ian would just keep things from me if thought I wouldn’t approve or couldn’t accept what he was up to. That would accomplish nothing, or worse. It might make him lie to me.

I struggled to keep myself calm. To soothe myself, I looked for alternatives. Maybe Ian and Victoria would be nothing more than a one-night stand? That would be good.

I knew they both had short attention spans. Victoria had gone through two of my friends already, leaving nothing but destruction in her wake. But Ian was no saint. He was just as fickle, and as promiscuous. I hoped that at least one of them would get bored and move on quickly.

“Thanks man,” Ian replied. I could hear how happy he was, and it made me want to punch a wall.

Victoria was not good for my brother. I knew Ian. I knew what was good for Ian. I knew better than he did what was good for him.

AA meetings were good for Ian. Meditating was good for Ian. Therapy was good for Ian. Keeping a strict, vegan diet and getting a lot of exercise were good for Ian. Those things had kept him sober for over a year. And more than just sober—they kept him stable.

Victoria wasn’t stable. She was like a walking tornado. If she didn’t get the hell away from Ian, she was going to upset the apple cart and send the apples careering into the upper atmosphere. She’d destroy his delicate balance and Ian would cope the only way he knew how—racing to the bottom of a glass. We’d be right back where he’d been before the intervention that saved both our relationship and Ian’s life. I wasn’t sure either of us would survive a second round.

“Please just be careful,” I begged. I knew I shouldn’t say anything, but I couldn’t resist. “Protect yourself.”

I’d long wondered if it was the music business that created addictive personalities, or if just attracted them. Perhaps it was a bit of both. With Ian, he was born looking for something that regular life just didn’t give him. Of the two of us, he’d always been the one that was the risk taker. I was the studious, boring, smart one, and he was the free-wheeling, talented, fun one. It had been that way since we were kids. Exposure to the wild world of music had just brought out what was always in him.

Jen had been the same way, but for different reasons. She was so sensitive that she just felt things more deeply than other people. It made her highs go higher and her lows go lower. Music, and the drugs and bad behavior that accompanied the business, just amplified her already wide range of emotions. It hadn’t been a sustainable problem to have.

I wasn’t sure what Victoria’s problem was. I just knew that she had one.

“I’m always careful,” Ian replied. “Don’t worry little brother. I always use protection.”

Gross. And that wasn’t even what I meant.