Fractured Beat (Meltdown Book 1) (17 page)

Mallory

W
ell, that went
well,
I thought, as I watched Grant escape into the elevator. I turned to insert my key in the door and noticed Chaz staring down the hall after Grant with an odd look on his face.

“Everything okay with you two?” I asked.

The look was instantly replaced with a very charming smile. “Sure, why wouldn’t it be?”

Chaz Jones wasn’t a bad looking guy per se, but if placed side by side with Grant Hardy, Nash Bostwick and Lucas Brose, he was definitely the ugly duckling of the group. His hair reminded me of a young Billy Idol in his
White Wedding
days, except it was dark brown instead of bleached white. His skin was pale. I’m talking glow in the dark pale. Until tonight Chaz reminded me of a cute little puppy, always wanting to please and falling over his feet not to disappoint. Tonight he seemed…different, almost confrontational and not at all like the Chaz from the past few days.

“Would you like a bottle of water? Sorry, that’s all I have to offer,” I told him, as we entered my suite.

“Don’t you have any beer? Oh, that’s right, you don’t drink. By the way, you never told us why you don’t drink.” Being that he had his usual puppy dog smile on his face, I wasn’t sure if he was teasing or not. I sensed he was trying to put me on the spot but wasn’t sure why. Wanting to get rid of him but not wanting to be rude about it, I decided to nix the water altogether. As I watched him get comfortable on the sofa, I reflected on his behavior with Grant. I felt definite tension between the two of them and wondered if I’d missed something.

Plastering a smile on my face, I sat in the chair next to him. “How about we start with a less personal question,” I suggested. His eyes hardened, but he played his irritation off behind a big smile that didn’t remotely ring true. However, he was smart enough to take my hint and back off.

“My bad, how is Grant’s treatment going? From what I can see, not too well.” He let out a chuff of laughter. His attempt at being humorous fell flat. If you asked me it was borderline crude, which made me think twice about Chaz Jones as a person.

“I meant less personal as in, where are you from or are you enjoying the tour?” I clarified.

His amused expression sobered a bit. “Relax I’m just messing with you. I’m from the Beaumont, Port Arthur area. How about you?”

“Dallas,” I answered.

“You’re from Dallas or you live in Dallas?”

“I live in Dallas.”

He perused the room as if looking for a topic of conversation. When his eyes came back to me, he asked, “So where are you from?” I don’t know why I didn’t want to answer him. It wasn’t as if I disliked the guy. He’d been nothing but nice to me, but his questions seemed pointed, and not like he wanted to get to know me pointed, but more like he was prying in my business.

“I grew up in New York.”

His lips turned up in a smile. “Oh, so you’re a city girl, are you?”

In an attempt to change the subject of my origins, I spit out the first question that came to mind, “Does your family still live in Beaumont?”

His smile slightly wavered. “They do.”

“And do you have any siblings?”

From the look on his face I knew I’d hit a nerve. He glanced down at his watch and pretended a nice big yawn. “Look, it’s getting late. Tomorrow is going to be a big day. I think we should call it a night.” Relieved beyond words I stood and followed him to the door. He paused with his hand on the knob and stared down at me.
Please don’t kiss me
, I thought. “Sleep tight,” he whispered, and walked out the door. Halfway down the hall he turned and waved and I let out the breath I’d been holding. It looked as if I wasn’t the only one with secrets.

As I washed my face and brushed my teeth I thought about Grant and the look on his face when he saw me with Chaz tonight. If I didn’t know better I’d think Chaz was trying to make Grant jealous. I found whole thing with Chaz just plain weird. I understood Grant’s agenda. I just wish I knew what Chaz’s was.

The next morning I woke early and went for a run. On the way back to my suite I decided to stop by to apologize for running out on Grant and to see if I could talk him into making time for us to talk on the bus ride to Charlotte. Luke answered the door wearing nothing but boxer briefs, Confederate flag boxer briefs to be exact.

“Nice underwear,” I commented, once I got over the shock of seeing him half naked. With his long brown hair and chiseled features I’d pegged him as more of a pretty boy. I couldn’t have been more wrong. He may have a pretty face and better hair than ninety percent of the women on planet Earth but Luke Brose was most definitely not a boy.

“Mallory! We were just about to order breakfast. Come join us!” he shouted. After blatantly scanning my body from top to bottom he let out a whistle. “Wow, you look hot, and I mean that in the raunchiest way possible. Damn, you have a smoking hot body. If I wasn’t otherwise occupied I would offer to lick the sweat off of those nice firm titties, woman!” Coming from anyone other than Luke I would be offended. But Luke was Luke and I found him more entertaining than insulting.

Letting out a snort of laughter I followed him around the corner and over to a table where two women were sitting. One was wearing a man’s t-shirt and the other a barely existent dress. Both were jaw droppingly gorgeous, but especially the one in the dress. At first glance I thought of Catherine Zeta-Jones but after a minute or so decided she looked more like Megan Fox. I was surprised to see them there and immediately wondered where Grant was.

Luke started to introduce us, “Ladies, this is Mallory Scott. She’s Grant’s ther…” His eyes hit mine as he realized his mistake and I shook my head, no. “Girlfriend,” he blurted, “Mallory is Grant’s girlfriend.” The second the words left Luke’s lips, Grant stepped from one of the bedrooms. Like Luke he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. Megan Fox’s lips turned up into a sexy smile when she saw him.

“What did you say?” Grant directed at Luke. He spotted the women at the table and frowned. I was too shocked by Luke’s words to respond.

Other than a slight flinch Luke never missed a beat. “Awww, c’mon, you know people were going to find out about Mallory sooner or later.” The girls both stared at me, one with interest and the other with venom. Luke shot Grant a get-with-the-program look, which in turn stirred Grant into action.

The wrong action.

Grant’s shoulder’s dropped and he let out a dramatic sigh. “You’re right.”

“What?” I half squealed. Clearly they’d both lost their minds.

In two strides Grant was by my side with his arm wrapped around my waist. Ignoring how good he smelled or that we were mostly standing skin to skin, I opened my mouth to protest, but before I could get the words out he swept in and kissed me, and I don’t mean he gently pressed his lips to mine, I mean he gave me a proper tongue lashing. After a second or twelve I let out a very weak squeak of protest. When he didn’t let up I reared back and punched him in the side. Instead of letting me go, he simple picked me up and carried me off to his bedroom in a very Tarzan like fashion.

As we exited the room I heard Luke say, “They’re crazy about each other.”

Only one of us was crazy and it sure as hell wasn’t me.

Grant carried me over to the bed before dropping me like a sack of potatoes. The thought that I was lying in his bed, the bed he most likely slept with
her
in, repulsed me. I opened my mouth to let him have it and I found myself flat on my back with his hand on my mouth. His half naked body hovered over me and it was almost too much. “Don’t say a word, just listen,” he whispered. I glared at him and contemplated biting his hand off. “Please?” he pleaded. Finally I gave in and nodded my head. Hand still on my mouth he started to explain, “Look, if those girls in there find out that you’re shrinking me for my supposed drug addiction I can kiss my career goodbye. If this was about me and only me, I wouldn’t give a flying fuck, but it’s not. It’s about Nash, whose mother has cancer and Luke, who is paying for his sister’s school and his parent’s house. It’s about years of friendship and love for the music that I can’t throw away, no matter how much I may want to. So, I’m asking you. No, I’m begging you, please don’t ruin this. Not for me but for them.” I tried to reply but it sounded like gibberish behind his hand.

“Promise not to scream?” he asked. I nodded, yes, and he hesitantly let me go.

Using the force of both hands I pushed him off of me. Then I sat up and glared poison tipped daggers at him. “You have lost your mind!” I hissed. “That,” I pointed at the door, “was completely uncalled for, and this, I pointed to the bed, it just gross.”

His jaw clenched and unclenched a few times as I watched him struggle with what to say. “That was a lesson in self-preservation, Mallory, which is a skill you must have in the world I live in.”

I wasn’t sure I understood what he meant but I wanted to. I really did. “Talk to me, Grant, and I don’t mean tit for tat, I mean seriously talk to me.”

His eyes dropped to my chest. “But your tits are so nice,” he teased.

I shot him a look of exasperation. “Really?”

“Fine,” he sighed, “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me what really happened that night in Houston.”

He shifted around until his back was against the headboard and his feet pointed to the foot of the bed, and began talking, “I had three drinks before the show in my dressing room that night, a beer which I opened myself and two cocktails which someone handed me. Little did I know that one, if not both, of the cocktails were laced with Oxycodone. I made it to the stage okay. I mean, I was sweating like a pig but I put it off as a case of the nerves. Right as we started playing it hit me. I’m talking double vision, dry mouth and pretty severe stomach cramping. I knew something was seriously wrong when the cramps became unbearable and my chest started aching.”

Grant’s head dropped back against the headboard and he closed his eyes. I tried to focus on his words but my eyes kept drifting to his body. He had broad, muscular shoulders and an impressive chest. I wouldn’t call him body builder ripped but he was definitely in good shape. Six pack abs tapered into a well-defined v and a very impressive bulge. My face flushed with embarrassment. There he was talking about almost dying and here I sat ogling him.

“I thought I was having a heart attack. I barely made it to the side of the stage just in enough time to vomit my guts out and when I came to I was in a private medical facility surrounded by a very angry Blane and company.”

Jerking my eyes from his body, I asked, “Why were they angry with you?”

“Well, it seems that while I was at death’s door Blane and my bandmates, my supposed best friends, were busy searching my hotel room for drugs.”

This made no sense. “Why would they think you had drugs in your hotel room? I mean, no one knew what was actually wrong with you until the toxicology report, right?”

His head lifted and our eyes met. “You know, I never thought to ask how they knew.”

“I assume they found drugs then, correct?”

“Yeah, they found a vial of cocaine, a bottle of Oxycodone with my name on the label and a bag of weed, or should I say they allegedly found…”

“Allegedly meaning they lied, or allegedly meaning they weren’t your drugs?” I had a feeling it was the latter but was beginning to wonder if it was the former as well.

“The pot was mine but the rest wasn’t.”

“By the way they’ve been acting can I assume they didn’t believe you?”

“They didn’t believe me. So, off to rehab I went.”

I wanted to tell him I knew about Blane’s gambling problem, but that meant I would have to tell him I eavesdropped on his conversation that night. I decided to focus on the allergy angle instead. “I’ve heard you mention on more than one occasion that you’re allergic to Oxycodone. In fact, even the therapist who treated you at the rehab mentioned it in her notes.”

“I am,” he answered.

“Do you have any proof that this allergy exists, as in let’s say medical records or a doctor’s note?” I seriously doubted he carried around a copy of his medical records. If so they most likely wouldn’t date back to his childhood but it was worth asking about.

“You believe me?” The hope in his voice made my heart hurt.

Do I believe him?
I asked myself. My gut said he was telling the truth. “I think I do,” I answered.

His eyes narrowed. “Why do you believe me?”

I crawled up beside him and flipped around to lean against the headboard. Bumping shoulders with him, I said, “You and I both know you’re not an addict, Grant.”

“And how do we know this, Mallory?”

“Because an addict will do anything, and I’m talking anything, to get a fix. If you were an addict I would have seen you exhibit manic if not unstable behavior by now. An addict doesn’t go running unless it’s to their dealer’s house to score, and trust me, they don’t take their body guard along with them. They go in secret because everything they do is one big secret. An addict doesn’t just drink one beer, they drink twenty. They don’t take just one pill, they take five. An addict doesn’t care about maintaining fitness. Most of all an addict doesn’t have an off button….ever.” Grant’s gorgeous amber flecked eyes absorbed each word I said as if it was gospel and a part of me wanted to confess every ugly, dirty secret I had. He stared at me as if I could save him and all I wanted to do was vomit out all of the festering, putrid shit that lived inside my head and heart. But this…this was not about me. This was about Grant, and for me to lose sight of that would be very, very bad.

His shoulder brushed against mine and I felt his touch in places I shouldn’t. “Are you speaking from experience?” he asked. Finally, the moment of truth was upon us and I knew that in order to get all of him I had to give just enough of me.

I swallowed deeply before answering, “Yes.”

“When?”

“After my accident.”

I felt his fingers slide into mine as he clasped my hand and I fought back an overwhelming urge to cry. “Talk to me,” he encouraged.

“After I got out of the hospital I was in a lot of pain.” What I didn’t tell him was that the pain was more mental than physical. “Rehab was brutal.” Rehab was brutal but only because I didn’t want to go in the first place. If I could never ski again who cared if I walked or not? I sure as hell didn’t. “One day the pain was so bad I took two pills instead of one and what do you know? I actually felt a little better. Within a month I was up to six pills a day. At that point I shouldn’t have been taking any pills at all. When my doctor cut me off I fired him and found another. It wasn’t that hard to do. Pretty soon all I cared about were the pills. I rehabbed my knee, not so I could walk but so I could drive, because once I could drive myself places, I could get away from my parent’s prying eyes and be free to score more drugs.”