CHAPTER 40

JARED

I woke up with something warm wrapped around me. At first, I didn’t know what it was. Cracking open an eye, I was relieved there was no pain in my head and my mouth didn’t taste like something crawled in and died.

Only the faintest glimmer of early morning light shone through the gaps between the curtains in my hotel bedroom and the wall, which meant it was early. Way too fucking early for me to be awake. I hardly ever woke up before noon.

As I came to, I came to two realizations.

The first was that waking up without a hangover for once after the successful day we’d had the day before was strangely satisfying, and the second, much more disturbing one, was that I’d slept next to Alicia. As in, I actually slept with a woman. In my arms.

We’d slept together before, but I never asked her to stay like I did last night. It had always kind of just happened. We would fall asleep after sex sometimes, sleep next to each other, and never talk about it again. This time, though, I’d asked her to stay. I’d gotten on top of her when she tried to leave and physically kept her in bed with me until I could see her eyes change when she made her decision to stay.

Insanity, that had to be what this was.

I couldn’t explain the feeling I had, waking up next to her. There was some peace, some terror. I should’ve wanted to run screaming to the hills, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to move a muscle that might wake her.

Alicia had one arm draped around my stomach, her head resting on my shoulder. Surprisingly, she actually looked comfortable. Her lips were gently parted and her breathing even. She looked young, carefree, relaxed. In a word, beautiful. She truly was gorgeous.

Running my fingers through the ends of her hair, I couldn’t stop staring at her. I soaked in what she felt like lying next to me, the feel of her silky hair between my fingers, and I kind of wanted to stay right here with her as long as I could.

Absolute. Fucking. Insanity.

A knock at my door cut into my thoughts. I ignored it at first, but whoever it was, was persistent. Another knock came not ten seconds later, followed by Nick’s insistent voice. “Jared! Wake up. I need to talk to you.”

“Fucker,” I breathed, moving away from Alicia reluctantly. She sighed, and I froze, convinced I’d woken her up regardless of trying my best not to. Turning onto her side, she burrowed her face into the pillow, let out the cutest little noise and stilled again.

I grabbed my jeans, pulled them up, and went to the door while still tugging a T-shirt over my head. Nick stood waiting on the other side when I opened it, his eyes glassy and red-rimmed. He still wore the same clothes I’d seen him in before I left last night.

“You haven’t slept.” It wasn’t a question. “If this is about the party carrying on somewhere else, I’m not interested.”

“It’s not that.” He shifted on his feet, spearing a hand into his thick, black hair. He was uncomfortable, and Nick didn’t get uncomfortable.

A feeling of trepidation hit me square in the gut. “What’s wrong?”

“Last night got a little out of control.” Stepping back like he was trying to avoid an incoming blow, he said quickly. “We were doing shots and … shit, man. I don’t know how it happened, but Caleb’s in the hospital with alcohol poisoning.”

“What?” Blood fled from my face, and my body went colder than it had when we’d done that ice bucket challenge for charity.

Nick shuffled back more, his tired eyes on mine. “He was admitted an hour ago. I stayed until they hooked him up to some IVs and came here.”

“Is anyone still with him?” My mind was racing too fast for me to keep up, my vision getting blurry as I got colder.

Caleb was my little brother, and he was lying in a hospital somewhere in a strange city, completely out of it probably. If they’d left him alone …

Nick paused and then shook his head. “They told us we couldn’t stay with him, so we—”

“You did this to him, and then you just left?” I was yelling now, no longer caring if I woke anyone up or who overheard us.

My fist was clenched and shot out ahead of me before I could even think about controlling it, and it caught Nick square in the jaw. “How about doing the right fucking thing for once in your miserable fucking life?”

He stumbled back and hit the wall on the other side of the hall, cursing as his hands flew to his jaw. Flexing it while rubbing his reddening skin, his blue eyes narrowed and shot flaming daggers at me. “I didn’t do shit to him. He did it to himself, man. No one was pouring alcohol down his throat.”

Sadly, he was right. I didn’t doubt my brother had drunk himself to this point. He’d never needed anyone to hold his mouth open while he guzzled the stuff.

If anyone was at fault here, it was me. He was my brother, and I let it get to this. I was laying into Nick for not doing the right thing, whether that would have been cutting Caleb off or at the very least not leaving him alone, I didn’t know in that moment, but Caleb was still my responsibility.

Logical thought and reasoning had fled as soon as Nick told me what had happened, though. I should’ve been pissed at myself, but instead, I looked at Nick with anger at him twisting my features. He’d been with Caleb when this happened, so why hadn’t anyone stopped him?

Feeling Nick’s hard jaw snap back under my knuckles had felt good, and I wanted to feel it again. It was an outlet for the shame flooding me that I’d failed my own damn brother. The only person I was sworn to protect. And I hadn’t been there when he needed me.

Nick wasn’t taking another shot lying down, though. He stumbled upright, raising and pulling back his fist as I advanced on him.

The next minute, I caught a blond whirlwind from the corner of my eye. Then Alicia was there, standing with a hand on my chest and her other on Nick’s. Her blue eyes darted between us, her brow creased in confusion. “Stop! What the hell is going on with you two?”

The sound of her voice drew me out of my blood-seeking stupor. I blinked down at her, noticing that in her haste get outside to us, she’d tucked the sheet tightly around her body but hadn’t gotten dressed. Something unfurled inside me, making me want to throw her behind me so Nick couldn’t see her like this and simultaneously poke his eyes out with hot needles for already having seen her naked—even if she was completely covered by the sheet.

A primal need to shield her ripped through me. I’d only felt this possessive, protective instinct stir once before. The day I met her.

Before that, I’d always assumed that was just the one manly trait I hadn’t gotten. Figured I’d been out drinking the day whoever handed out aspects of your personality was dishing out that instinct. I had definitely been wrong. The beast reared its head now, tired of having been chained its whole life. I needed to protect both of them, Caleb and Alicia.

They belonged to the beast in me, mine. Both of them. And Nick was poking me at both ends. I turned, lunging for Nick, but Alicia moved fast. She dropped her hand from Nick’s chest and placed both on mine, her eyes searching mine as she looked up at me. “Calm down, Jared. Please. Tell me what’s happening.”

“What’s happening,” Nick sneered behind her, his eyes darting between the two of us like he was seeing us for the first time, “is that Jared’s being the poster child of doing the right thing while also sleeping with our public relations manager. Classy, dude.”

“Fuck off,” I snapped.

Seeing Alicia calmed the rage in my blood, even as Nick’s words stoked the fire that was causing it. My mind cleared as I looked down into her eyes, bright with questions and confusion, but also so filled with warmth and comfort. The haze that had descended as soon as Nick told me what happened lifted, and the urge to get to my brother suddenly felt like a living thing inside me.

I’d needed information from Nick earlier, but I didn’t anymore. I’d find out what I needed to know when I got to Caleb. But I needed to get to him now.

Alicia ignored Nick’s comment, save for a quick, dirty glare shot at him over her shoulder. Her blue eyes were soft on mine. Concerned. Somehow, seeing that expression of worry in her eyes didn’t piss me off more than I already was.

I didn’t have time to think about why that was. My baby brother needed me, lying by himself in a hospital bed. Dragging a few deep breaths into my lungs, I forced myself to calm down as Alicia gazed up at me.

“What’s wrong, Jared?”

One of my hands found her hip, squeezing. “I need to get to the hospital.”

“Okay,” she said. No questions asked. She didn’t even blink. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“Okay.” I walked back into my suite, grabbed the first pair of shoes I found, a pair of flip-flops I didn’t remember packing, and my wallet and was on my way out again a minute later.

Dom was coming up the hall as I marched to the elevator, making a beeline for me as soon as he saw me. He jogged up to me but I ignored him, pushing past him in the wide hall without sparing him a second glance.

It was like I had tunnel vision all of a sudden, a single-minded focus to get to my brother.

Faintly, I was aware of Dominic calling my name. Heard him say something else. But I didn’t listen, didn’t even slow down. I didn’t know if Dom had been with the rest of the band all night, but it didn’t matter anymore. I would find out all that later. After I saw my brother. I didn’t have anything to say to anyone about what was going on with Caleb.

Later, I would get my answers. Who, where, why? The words rattled around my brain, but not loudly enough to draw my attention away from the goal at hand.

The goal? Getting to Caleb. For right now, my brother needed me, and that was all that mattered. A thousand ghosts started whispering in my ears as I ran down the stairs of the hotel. They talked about my brother as a boy and how many times I’d promised my parents I’d protect him. They whispered in my mom’s voice telling me to take care of him.

Nausea rose from my stomach as the knots in it tightened. I knew hundreds of people who’d been hospitalized for alcohol poisoning and all of them made it through just fine. But what if this once it wasn’t fine?

I raced down the stairs, pushing my legs to move faster than ever before. One thought played on repeat in my mind as I finally made it all the way to the lobby and burst through the doors. A single thought that I quietly chanted like a mantra and a prayer all at the same time.

Please let him be okay.