CHAPTER 43

ALICIA

“Have you heard anything from Jared?” Gerry walked into my office without knocking, striding across it without being invited in and sinking into the chair across from my desk without asking if I had time for an impromptu meeting. If that was even what this was.

Suppressing a sigh, I saved the document I was working on and threaded my fingers together on my desk, turning my attention to my boss. Or the man who fancied himself my boss. He wasn’t really, but since he owned the company that owned the building the offices were in, he lorded it over everyone and acted like the offices, well, like they belonged to him.

Unfortunately, that also meant he thought he didn’t need appointments and everyone always had time for him. We didn’t.

Like now, I was supposed to be crafting a response to an article about Destitute that was due to be released in an hour. Instead of doing that, I was settling in to talk to Gerry. If I wasn’t curious about whether he’d heard from the Larsen brothers, I would’ve carried on working to let him know I didn’t really have time.

Unlike so many others around here, I wasn’t afraid of Gerry. I spoke my mind around him, and I usually didn’t take his crap. Or his intrusions. Jared and Caleb, however, were constantly on my mind, and I was dying for an update.

“I haven’t,” I told him, mentally crossing my fingers and toes that he had.

Gerry’s lips almost disappeared he set them in a line so thin. “Fuck. No. I haven’t either. I was hoping you would have something.”

My heart sank. Shaking my head, I tried to push aside my disappointment. “I still haven’t been able to get ahold of him.”

Not to get an update on Caleb’s condition or anything else. Despite the strides I thought we’d made in our relationship in New York, I hadn’t heard a thing from Jared since I got back. The last I spoke to him was when I said goodbye at the hospital.

He’d understandably been so preoccupied with Caleb, having been told he was okay, but I’d heard nothing more by the time I had to leave for the flight. I’d gotten only one distracted kiss before he was gone.

And that had been that. I tried to call him, and I left him messages to call me back, but he hadn’t answered the phone or returned my calls. He didn’t text, send a smoke signal, or a carrier pigeon.

Zip. Zero. Nada.

For all I knew, the two of them had taken off to become cowboys or beach bums somewhere. Since I didn’t know where the front man and lead guitarist of the band I worked for were, it posed a professional dilemma of epic proportions. But that was nothing compared to how I was feeling about Jared shutting me out so completely after the night we’d had together in New York.

I’d been so sure something had changed between us that night, and then he pulled this radio silence routine. I just didn’t know what the hell to think anymore.

On one hand, I knew he was busy with Caleb, and frankly, I was worried about the younger Larsen brother as well, but on the other, how long did it really take to send one damn text?

Gerry looked perplexed, his eyes drifting to the ocean beyond the window behind me before focusing on mine again. “What are we going to do? It’s been two days since we flew back with the rest of the boys, and I don’t even know if our lead guitarist is still alive.”

“Gerry!” I admonished him, the first tendrils of fear wrapping their icy tentacles around my stomach. I refused to think that Jared had fallen off the face of the planet because something had happened to Caleb.

No. Caleb was fine, and Jared was just waiting until he was better before contacting us. Maybe the two of them were even kicking back in New York for a few days, taking a break after Caleb got discharged. I was hoping it was that. It had to be that.

“What?” Gerry shrugged, but his eyes were troubled. “What are we going to do, Alicia? This is a fuck up we can only cover up for so long. Forty percent of one of the hottest bands in the country at the moment is missing. We have no idea where they are or what they’re doing. They really could be lying in a ditch somewhere.”

“They’re not,” I said with conviction, but Gerry wasn’t convinced.

“You haven’t heard from him either, so how could you know?”

I couldn’t explain it. There was just something in my gut that said Jared was fine. I wasn’t delusional. I knew Jared and I weren’t connected or anything. We weren’t soul mates, but I just knew he was okay. Physically at least.

“I just know.”

Gerry shook his head. “I’ve never heard of anything like this. How could we not know what the hell is going on there?”

“I’ll make a call to the hotel later, at least that way we’ll know if they’re still in New York.”

“Okay. I ‘ve tried the hospital, but they’re refusing to give me any information whatsoever,” Gerry lamented. He rubbed his hands on his thighs and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Do you think we need to go to the press with this?”

Making a snap decision about the article I’d been constructing an answer to, I reached for my computer screen and turned it toward him. “Too late. Someone beat us to it.”

Gerry’s eyes widened. I knew what he was reading. It was a big headline, printed in bold letters that lead “Caleb Larsen: The thorn in Destitute’s side?” The article went on to detail that Caleb was hospitalized and included pictures of Jared in and around the hospital.

“Fuck. What are we doing about this?”

“I was in the process of drafting our official response when you came inside.”

He rose from my visitor’s chair with a heavy sigh. “Better get back to it. That’s potentially a very fucking damaging piece.”

“I’ll do my best.” And actually do my job, now that he was done telling me things I already knew.

Gerry saluted me and left my office, but almost as soon as I pulled by keyboard closer to finish drafting my reply, my door opened again. Sliding my eyes to my next unexpected visitor, my irritable snaps disappeared when I saw Nick hovering in the doorway.

“Okay if I come in?”

He wasn’t the type to be hesitant, so the fact he was waiting for me to answer spoke volumes. Nick Masters respected me. When had that happened?

“Come on in,” I told him, motioning to the chair Gerry had vacated.

Nick dragged a hand through his pitch-black hair, shoving his hand in his pocket after shutting my office door. “Thanks. I’m sorry to drop by unannounced.”

“As long as you don’t make a habit of it.” I kept my tone light, wondering what he was here for. It was the first time Nick was visiting my office, and I had a feeling it wasn’t a social call. “What can I do for you?”

His sharp blue eyes pierced mine, searching them. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see the man hadn’t been sleeping well. Strange. I wouldn’t have thought anything could rattle Nick, never mind keep him awake at night.

“Are they okay?” he asked, none of his usual bravado in his voice. It was raw, genuine concern shining through.

“You haven’t heard from them?” I was surprised. I thought the guys were all really close. Jared asked me to bring them home, and I had, but I never considered that he wasn’t keeping them in the loop either. In fact, after putting in a call to the hotel, I’d been planning on calling them all into the office to discuss the Larsen brothers anyway, sure I would be able to get information from them.

Nick blew out a deep breath, shaking his head. “I was hoping you might know something about if they were okay.”

“I wish I could help you.” I really did. “But I don’t have any news on his condition.”

Nodding slowly, Nick angled himself toward the door. He wasn’t planning on hanging around, apparently. “Let me know if you hear anything?”

“I will, Nick. You have my word.”

He reached for the doorknob when the question that had been burning in my mind since that morning slipped out of my mouth. “What happened that night?” I clarified. “At the club.”

Nick turned, his hand on the door. He didn’t turn the knob, though. Leaning with his shoulder against the door, his eyes narrowed for a second, but then his shoulders relaxed. “Nothing out of the ordinary. At least, not at first.”

“What do you mean?” I didn’t mean to make it sound like I was cross-examining him, but I had so many questions about that night. I also really did need some answers if I was going to draft as accurate a response to the article as I could.

Nick shoved his hands through his hair again, ghosts dancing in his eyes. Whatever happened, it was bothering him. Haunting him, actually. “We were at a club. Same scene we’ve been to a thousand times, a million.”

“So what went wrong this time?”

He shrugged, but it wasn’t an offhand, uncaring gesture. It looked more like he really didn’t know the answer. “Caleb kept trying to prove something. I don’t know, to himself maybe. Fuck knows why or what. We’re over that shit.”

“Or so you thought,” I prompted him. “But clearly Caleb had other ideas?”

Nodding, he said quietly, “Guess so. I should’ve stopped him. I tried, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“It’s not your fault, Nick.” I’d had the same conversation with Jared. These guys really were more than a band to each other. They were a family. A messed up at times, dysfunctional one, but no family was perfect.

Nick shook his head sadly and said his goodbyes. After he left, I stared at my computer screen, but the words I was searching for to write my reply didn’t come to me. Eventually, I gave up in my fight not to call Jared again and pressed the phone to my ear. It rang and rang. When a sound came at the other end of the line, my breath caught. He was finally—

No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t finally picking up and talking to me. His voice mail was.

“Dammit.” I cussed out my empty office as I listened Jared’s voice telling me to leave a message. I missed hearing that voice for real so much, it hurt my heart. Mood darkening fast, I dropped my phone to my desk without leaving a message. “Okay. Don’t talk to me, but please come home safe.”