A red tainted Silence (76 page)

“Yes. This extra sleep isn’t a bad thing, Mr. Kilmain. His vitals are good, and the rest will do him good as well. I need to check his catheter, though, so, if you gentlemen would please leave ...”

Jon glanced over at that. “He has another one?” He winced, covering his own dick and winking at me. I rolled my eyes at him.

“Yes, hopefully he’ll get it out today. Now, if you two would please --”

“Get your asses out of here, in other words,” I said and looked pointedly at Jon. He grinned.

“Okay, okay, no need to growl at us. We’ll vacate. We’re going to go get something to eat. Want anything?” Jon said.

“No, I’m fine.” I frowned. “But we just ate.”

Jon grinned, sticking out and patting his tummy. I wanted Brandon to gain weight, but if he ever developed a belly like that, I’d tie him to a treadmill. Jon looked almost as pregnant as Jenn. “I’m hungry anyway. Must be the good mountain air. We’ll be back later.” Adam nodded to me and followed after Jon, passing Jeff and Mutt, who were talking to Lee outside. Jon said something to him and he nodded, winked at me. Once the door was closed, the nurse smiled at me.

“I’m staying,” I said.

“I expected you to stay. Family is good to have around, but right now he just needs quiet.”

“You don’t have to check his catheter?”

She laughed. “No. I’ll come back later and see how he’s doing.”

“You are a gem. Thanks.”

Once she was gone, I studied Brandon, watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest. It bothered me he’d woken up, but it was good, seeing him smile at me. I guessed he didn’t A Red-Tainted Silence

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remember what he’d been through, the relapse, nor that he was supposed to have come home.

I leaned over him, batting my eyelashes gently against his cheeks. Butterfly kisses, followed by a gentle brushing of my lips over his eyes, his nose, breathing in his scent. He smelled kinda like baby lotion. I kissed his cheek, moved down to the corner of his mouth, gently nuzzled his neck. No response, but maybe, just maybe he’d have sweet dreams and wake up thinking about me and wondering if I’d watched over him while he slept.

Which, of course, I did.

I felt a strange urge then, a wave of protectiveness sweep through me. A fierceness.

Whoever was trying to hurt him wasn’t going to get to him ever again. I would sacrifice myself rather than let him be hurt again. Nothing else mattered.

Nothing.

With a sigh, I settled in the chair next to him, and as I had so many times now, and as he’d done so many times when I was at my sickest, I opened my laptop. I stared at the screen, my finger poised to click the file open. Dread filled me -- this that was coming next was the part I was scared of reading, but for entirely different reasons than one might think.

During all those long, horrid weeks while I was caged up like a dog, all I could think about was Brandon. My beautiful Brandon, holding the teddy I’d left him, wondering if he’d ever see me again.

I wasn’t afraid to die. Oddly, that’s never frightened me, the thought of dying.

But what frightened me, and what I fretted over so much, what made my heart pound and made me cry, was thinking about Brandon, my beautiful Brandon, out there wondering what had happened, getting those awful pictures, not knowing where I was or if I was going to die and leave him completely alone for good.

I wasn’t sure he could have survived that, being alone like that. Not knowing what I know now about him, the real Brandon Ashwood. Oh, how I thought I’d really known him, but I’d barely known the slightest sketch of the man he was, even after all those years we were together. He’d never shown the reality of himself to me -- not until now, with his words, with this story he was telling to me now.

And as I drank in each word, felt every tear, every agony, every cry of frustration and anger, I fell harder for him, ever harder with the real man who was Brandon Ashwood.

Oh, God, I love him so much, so very, very much. Please let me save him. Please give me the strength.

With a deep breath, I began once more to read, Brandon’s voice filling my mind.

* * * * *

452

Carolyn Gray

“Brandon, son, you need to eat something.”

“No.”

“You aren’t doing Nicholas any good --”

I whirled on my mom. “No. I said no! I can’t --” My stomach clenched, and I had to fight not to wrap an arm around my middle. She would ask me what was wrong, and she couldn’t know. “How can I eat when we don’t know ... if he ...” I collapsed on the couch, my hands cradling my face. The scent of pizza, my favorite, permeated the room, but all I could smell was my fear.

Fear that I’d never see him again.

I stood, kicked the coffee table. “I’m going out.”

“Where?”

Anger flared. “I don’t know, okay? I just -- I gotta get out of here.”

“Brandon!” she said sharply. I stopped. One didn’t disobey that particular mom voice no matter how old one was. “Have you been drinking, son?” I laughed, bitter and hard. “Drinking? No. No, Mom, I haven’t had another fucking thing to drink, and I won’t. So don’t worry, I’ve no intention of letting myself be killed now.

Not until I kill the bastard who took Nicholas. I’ll be back later.” My mom watched me as I grabbed my keys and my cell phone, pausing to grab the little teddy bear. I left her standing in my kitchen, watching me as my descent into stark terror truly began. A good son would’ve reassured her that I was really okay, that I’d be fine, I could handle this. But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t even give my mom that much.

After all, I wasn’t sure I believed it myself.

I drove. Not sure where, or how long, just drove. Thought about everything that the cops had told me, let the words and the horror play over and over again in my mind as if by doing so I could make sense of the terror Nicholas had to have felt as someone else took control of his life.

I knew he had to have hated that.

His flight to LA arrived right on time. No problems there. He was on it, had checked in, charmed his flight attendant as he always did, helped the lady in first class next to him with her two-year-old twins, happily playing with and holding one or the other and talking to their mom. She had loved talking to Nicholas, of course, and he’d told her all about me.

When I met her, later, to go over everything he’d said just because I had to do that, she’d been so sweet and kind and caring I could see why Nicholas had opened up to her.

She has damn lucky kids to have a mom like her.

Eventually the kids had fallen asleep, and Nicholas had written some, just little emails and stuff, a journal he liked to keep for his fans that sometimes he actually remembered to A Red-Tainted Silence

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send in to his website manager. Jotted a few lines down for new music and, to my sad amusement, tweaked some of our old songs, ones we never recorded but he’d liked anyway, though he always said he couldn’t get the damn things right and maybe later, someday, he would find the right words.

Such a perfectionist, my Nicholas.

The plane landed on time, like I said. He disembarked, saying goodbye to mom and twins, meeting their daddy, who asked for an autograph. And Nick being Nick, he did that, and promised to stay in touch “’cause he was the twins’” uncle now, you know.

Nicholas would adopt every child in the world if he could. I really wish he could have one of his own; I really do. He’d be the best dad ever.

He picked up his luggage from baggage claim, just the one piece, and called Marisa to let her know he’d arrived safely. She told him to come by and see her, and he agreed, after he picked up Barkley from the vets because they closed at six p.m. and he really missed his dog.

Then he called the vet to let them know he was on his way, and paid for his car, which he’d kept on the airport parking lot so he wouldn’t have to bother any of his friends to come and get him.

He ticketed out of the airport grounds, and just after that called his sometimes co-writer Blair, who he was to have a late dinner with to let her know he was back home. She was the last one he spoke to.

All these things the detective told me. Those were the cold, hard facts, what they had to go on. A few phone calls, one passerby’s observations, and scant little else. There was nothing else, and the realization that all I could so was wait, and see what the kidnapper wanted, about killed me.

Money, of course, I thought. Well, I was ready to give every dollar I had to get him back. Considering how much I was worth, that was a considerable amount, but I didn’t care.

The money never meant much to me, except for what it could give my family.

I constantly gave my money away. Donations, family, friends, anyone who needed it, really, if they were important to me. Or the cause was. Even then my net worth only continued to rise. Not nearly as much as Nicholas’s did, but rise it did, and now it felt like an albatross around my neck.

Was this why he’d been kidnapped? For the money?

Eventually, I got tired of driving. Really wasn’t sure where I’d ended up, somewhere along the beaches. I stopped the car and got out, sat on the hood of my car and looked out at the waves, a bottle of water in my hand. The sun was setting over the clouds along the horizon. They looked like mountains, and I was reminded of a time Nicholas and I had snuck off to Colorado for a weekend of fun and frolicking and lots and lots of fucking.

Marisa had been livid. When we got back, she and I had our first really bad fight. I’d accused her of being a controlling self-righteous bitch who thought only of herself and not 454

Carolyn Gray

about Nicholas, and she’d slapped me and called me a worthless cocksucker who thought only of my dick and where I could cram it next. Of course she assumed I was top. I’d laughed at that. Proved my point -- she didn’t know Nicholas if she didn’t think he was a total top, at least then.

At that point I think I called her a whore who didn’t know an ass from a dick. Not sure.

Think so, though, because I got slapped again.

Lovely, huh. Never told Nicholas about that.

In any case, this happened long, long ago, before the second album. Before I really started to pull away from Nicholas. He’d begged me to take him skiing, which he was lousy at, but it had been fun, just the two of us decked out in our parkas and escaping for the weekend. We told Lee where we were going, but unless someone died, he was sworn to secrecy.

“Glad to help out,” he whispered to me. “Going to be hell of a lot of fun watching Marisa scream.”

And scream she did.

Later, when she found out Lee had known and refused to tell her, she wanted him fired. Nicholas, of course, didn’t permit that, but where she and I never forgave each other, she and Lee did.

Losing my train of thought here. I took Nicholas skiing, and it was one of the best weekends of my life. Cold, yes. Nicholas had a hell of a time with his skis, yes. But we made it up to the top of the mountain, and the ski lodge. I popped my skis off, and he was still struggling with his poles, getting the loops off his hands.

“Here, let me help you,” I said, clomping over to him. I smiled, shaking my head as he pouted up at me.

“I am not sure about this, Brandon.”

I pulled one of his gloves off so he could get his hand out. “You’re the one who wanted to do this.”

“I wanted to snuggle in front of a fire with snow and mountains outside,” he said, looking around to make sure no one was looking. “With you,” he added in a sharp whisper.

I chuckled and bent over to help him get his skis off. “Lift up,” I said.

He leaned on me, taking advantage of my position to pat me on the rear. “Nice butt.” I popped his other boot off, then stood, taking him in my arms. His hair was still long back then, so I kissed him, hoping anyone who happened to pay attention would think he was a girl.

So that was a little silly, but with his hat on and freshly shaved and glasses and long hair sticking out, and the ridiculous parka he’d insisted on, and that pout and those incredible, full lips and pale, cold-blushed cheeks -- he looked positively fem. So I kissed him.

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He gasped. “Brandon,” he whispered and took off his glasses. He winced -- the sun was bright -- but his eyes held the kind of heat and promise I hungered for. I didn’t dare kiss him again, though.

I nodded toward the lodge, started to walk that way. “Come on, let’s go get some hot chocolate.”

“With peppermint schnapps?”

“Sure, that would be good.”

He caught up with me. “Be even better if we were naked in bed drinking it.” I laughed as we reached the bottom steps and pushed him up them. There were quite a few, and he clomped noisily up them, like a kid in his dad’s boots. “Is that all you think about?” I said to him as I followed.

He looked over his shoulder. “What, sex?”

He got a few looks for that one.

“Yes, silly, go inside.”

“Not silly,” he said, then turned around and gasped. “Brandon!” I reached the top of the steps to turn and see what he was looking at. Someone tried to pass us, so I pulled him out of the way but he barely noticed I’d grabbed his elbow and tugged him aside. “What is it?” I asked once we were finally out of the way.”

“Look.”

I slid behind him, realizing that here at least, out of the way, no one was behind us. No one had recognized us, either -- back then, we still enjoyed a certain measure of peace. We were just two guys having some fun, like everyone else. No one would know if I slid my hand around his waist, so I did. He dared to lean back against me, his cheek pressed to mine.

Still no one noticed, so I said, “Fuck it,” softly in his ear. He smiled at that, turned his face to mine, nuzzled along my cheekbone.

We looked down, then, at what had entranced Nicholas so.

It was midday, just after lunchtime. The sun shined bright on the snow, fresh and clean and sparkling white. We were at the top of the mountain, and swaths of white trails split the trees, leading down to the ski village below. Bright blue skies, crisp fresh snow, towering trees, nude and evergreen, lined the trails. Other mountains rose up around us, yet didn’t seem to reach as high, studded with evergreen trees and deep banks of snow. I pulled Nicholas closer to me, nuzzling his ear. A few curious looks were cast our way, but nothing bad, no one with any menace in their eyes. Still, I felt a protective wariness as I cradled him close. If one person had said anything to us, I would’ve been ready.