Blame It on the Bass

Dedication

For Sami Lee, Jess Dee and Rhian Cahill. My friends, my support, and quite often my sanity.

Chapter One

“Are you going to tell me what’s bugging you?”

Levi Levistan dragged his stare from the crystal glass in his hand, currently a quarter full of Chivas Regal scotch whiskey, the same liquid currently burning a path down his throat. He grimaced at the man sitting opposite him. “Not much to say. Corbin hasn’t said a word to me for over a month. We haven’t slept together since the funeral. Haven’t touched since then either. To be honest, I don’t even know where he is at this very moment in time. Could be back in the States.” He shrugged, raised the whiskey to his mouth and swallowed the last of it in a single gulp.

He grimaced again.
Yep, there’s the burn all right.

Nick Blackthorne raised his own glass and drained it with equal speed before wiping at his lips with the back of his hand. “The funeral messed you both up, Levi.”

Levi stared at his now empty glass. “You can say that again.”

In the background, Nick’s baby daughter—now a healthy two-month-old and well on her way to emulating her daddy’s phenomenal voice if the protests she made at having her nappy changed earlier were anything to go by—cooed happily.

The sound tore at Levi’s heart. He knew Nick was doing his best to keep Chloe away from him. Knew Lauren, Nick’s wife, had taken the babe into the back guest room of Nick’s sprawling home to spare Levi the pain of seeing her, but at every healthy, happy gurgle he heard—no matter how faint—his gut clenched. It seemed he was a masochist in his grief. Every time little Chloe made a sound, he strained to hear more.

Ached to hear more.

Ached for what should have been.

Levi placed his glass on the coffee table between him and the man once considered the greatest rock star in the world and then reached for the bottle of Chivas. He didn’t drink in excess. Hadn’t done for years. Not since the band’s wild days. But with the way life had fucked him over these last two months…

Burn the pain away, mate. Burn it away.

A heavy prickling sensation on the top of his head told him Nick watched him. Silently. It was the singer’s way. Not say much, observe. Take it all in. Levi was the same. It was one of the reasons he and Nick had connected when they’d first been introduced by Walter Winchester, Nick’s long-time record producer in a recording studio in Melbourne close to twenty years ago. Levi was never meant to be Nick’s permanent bass player, but they’d clicked straight away. From that point onward, Nick had refused to perform with anyone else on bass.

“You think I’ve had enough?” he asked, pouring himself another drink. His third? Or fourth? He didn’t really know.

“I didn’t say that.”

Nick’s calm response scraped at Levi’s frayed state of mind. He picked his glass up and settled back in the armchair, staring at the amber liquid within in. “Didn’t have to.”

Silence greeted his response.

Levi let his head fall back against the chair, moving his gaze to the window behind Nick. “Remember when Jax cracked his head open the night he fell off the stage? In London?”

The sound of ice settling in his glass punctuated the silence. “Strings called me a coldhearted bastard, remember that?”

“Because you told us to continue the show without him.”

“Yeah. We sent Brutal and Aslin to the hospital with him.” Levi scratched at his beard. It was due for a trim. He’d let it go since the funeral. Hell, now he thought of it, when was the last time he’d combed his hair? His gut twisted. “Do you think Strings was right?” he asked, looking at Nick once more. “About me? Do you think I’m a coldhearted bastard?”

“I think you deal with things differently than most. That’s all. This isn’t about Jax or Samuel though, is it?”

Levi snorted. Nick Blackthorne always did have a way of cutting straight through the bullshit.

“Is it, Levi?” the singer repeated.

Closing his eyes, Levi let out a ragged sigh. “He called me an unfeeling bastard.”

“Corbin?”

He nodded, raising his dry eyes to Nick. “The morning of the funeral. I was fixing his tie—he always gets it crooked—and he told me I was an unfeeling bastard.”

“Grief.”

Levi’s chest squeezed. Leave it to Nick to put the weight of the world in one damn word.

Swallowing, he opened his eyes and looked at his friend over the rim of his scotch glass. “It wasn’t the first time he’d called me that since we’ve been together.”

But it might be the last.
The bleak thought cut at Levi like a rusted blade.

Nick remained silent.

Levi returned his stare to his scotch. “I know he was hurting. Fuck, I was hurting, and Corbin always feels everything so much more than I do. I knew he was grieving, but I told him crying about the situation wasn’t going to help.” He swirled the glass, watching the liquid move around its interior like a wave. “On reflection, it wasn’t the right thing to say.”

“You haven’t cried yet?”

Cold guilt sheared through Levi like a blunt blade. “You know me, Nick. I don’t…letting emotions out…I’m not good with letting people see how I’m feeling.”

“Corbin isn’t just
people
, Levi.” Nick’s voice was calm. “He’s your partner. The one person you never hide anything from.”

Levi flicked a glare at his friend. “I hid who I was for so many years it’s second nature to me.”

“And I told you years ago hiding who you are is a fucked-up way to live a life.”

It was Nick that Levi had first come out to a billion years ago, long before telling his own family and the rest of the band. Somehow, the singer had known Levi was denying who he really was and, backstage during their last performance in Berlin, he’d asked Levi if there was something he wanted to tell him. But telling Nick he was bi was different to admitting he may have hurt the man he loved more than anything.

Sitting opposite Nick now, in the comfort of the singer’s home, with the faint sounds of Lauren moving around in other parts of the house, Levi both hated and appreciated the man’s uncanny sixth sense.

“So…” Nick studied him, his gaze unwavering, “…do you think Corbin’s got a point?”

Levi moved his glare to the glass in his hand, raised it to his mouth and drained the scotch in it with a single swallow.

It was Nick he’d confided in when he and Corbin had decided three years back they wanted to expand their family. It was Nick Levi had emailed first when they’d finally found a suitable surrogate mother.

Nine weeks ago, it was Nick Levi had called when the mother—a lovely young woman from Sydney called Connie—died in a horrific car accident as she sped to the hospital in heavy labor, moments away from giving birth.

“Do I think I should have let Corbin see my pain?” Levi asked, willing the burn of the scotch to find his numb soul. It didn’t.

For an answer, Nick watched him.

Levi twisted the empty glass in his hand, the memory of the funeral haunting him. Corbin hadn’t uttered a word to him. Wouldn’t even stand beside him.

When the reverend had thrown the switch to cremate the bodies of the young woman and the stillborn babe lying in the flower-covered mahogany coffins before him, Levi had wanted nothing more than to feel Corbin’s hand in his. Instead, his lover had stood apart from everyone else there, staring at his feet.

Not at the tiny coffin in which the baby who was meant to be Levi’s and Corbin’s daughter lay—the baby who was meant to be their life, their love. Their future.

A little girl they were going to call Isabella Mae Levistan.

“Do the rest of the guys know what’s going on?”

Levi shook his head at Nick’s low question. “Not about Corbin. They think…they think I’m messed up about Bella’s death. I…” He swallowed, cold pain constricting his chest. He couldn’t bring himself to tell them he was also tormented by the loss of Corbin as well. It would seem so…selfish.

But he’d needed to talk to someone. Someone who wouldn’t judge him, or try to help him heal, or pity him, so he’d driven to Murriundah. Had walked out of his Sydney waterfront apartment six hours ago, climbed into his car and driven to Nick’s home. After all, he couldn’t talk to Corbin. Corbin wasn’t there. Since the funeral, Corbin hadn’t wanted to be with him.

At least that was the only conclusion Levi could draw, seeing as his partner had withdrawn from his life.

It had been the right thing to do, coming to Nick’s, and yet here he sat, aching for a baby he’d never hold as Nick’s beautiful, perfect baby lived and breathed and…and…

Shutting out the bleak rage, Levi splashed a double shot of Chivas into his glass. Without looking up at Nick, he closed his eyes, drew a slow breath and then swallowed the liquor in two gulps.

Somewhere in the house, Nick’s baby daughter giggled, like a faint ghost teasing him.

Levi’s heart twisted. His throat clamped tight.

Scowling, he opened his eyes and reached for the bottle again. The alcoholic heat in his belly was doing fuck all to ease the empty ice in his soul. Or dull the angry roar in his head.

“I think that’s enough, Levi.”

He flicked Nick a glance. He thought about pouring another glass—fuck, did he think about it—and then slumped back in his chair. Dropping his head to the cushion, he stared at the ceiling instead. “I miss him, Nick. It’s like someone yanked my heart out and left a gaping wound in my chest. And I’m ripped apart over Bella’s death—and Connie’s—and the only person I want to turn to about it isn’t there anymore. And in amongst all this…all this shit, we’re meant to finding someone to replace you and record a fucking song for a movie and the director’s calling me every damn day asking where it is, and my reputation’s on the line and I…and I…”

Levi stopped, scrunched up his face and balled his fists in his hair.

Hell, he was a mess. Empty, wretched, miserable and pathetic.

“Nigel McQueen can bloody well wait for the song,” Nick said, his voice calm. “I know for a fact filming is
months
behind schedule, so McQueen can fuck off for a while. And there’s no way the rest of the guys are going to expect you to be doing anything at the moment but grieve. Where are they now?”

Opening his eyes, Levi stared at the ceiling again. “Noah and Pepper are in New York dealing with a situation concerning his bar. Samuel and Lily are in Paris for the week on their honeymoon and Jax is probably in bed somewhere with someone.”

“Good.”

With a frown, Levi looked back at Nick.

The singer leant forward, curled his fingers around the bottle of Chivas and filled Levi’s glass. “Gives us a chance to get shitfaced together. Then tomorrow—after we’ve thrown up a time or two—we can track Corbin down and you can tell him—”

“Dad, have you seen my… Oh shit, sorry. Hi, Levi.”

Levi swung to the twenty-one-year-old carbon copy of Nick currently hobbling into the living room on crutches. “Hi, Josh,” he said, forcing relaxed composure to his voice. “How goes the knee?”

Nick’s son threw a disgruntled glower at the metal pins and plaster surrounding his right knee. “Yeah, not good. Even worse when you play soccer for a living.”

“You out for the season?”

Josh didn’t answer, his stare fixed on his knee for a long moment. Long enough for Levi to notice the knuckles of his hands turn white as he gripped the crutches tighter. Long enough for Nick to catch Levi’s eye, expression worried.

“Out for good most likely,” Josh finally answered. “At least that’s what the doc says.” He raised his head and gave Levi a lop-sided smile, part self-deprecating, part angry and more like his father’s than Levi could believe possible. “Twenty-one years old and my pro-soccer career is already shot, ’eh. Thank God, Dad’s rolling in it.”

Nick chuckled. Levi didn’t miss the concern in the good-natured sound. “You’re not getting any pocket money, boy, until you take out the trash.”

Josh rolled his eyes, adjusted his armpits on his crutches and shook his head. “You’re a sick man, Dad. Sick.”

Nick pulled a wounded expression. “What? I can’t do it. I’m too famous.”

Josh smirked. “You’re an old fart.”

“Oi.”

Josh grinned at his father. “Yeah, yeah. You know it’s true, old man. Now shut up and tell me where my guitar is. I feel the need for some mindless time wasting.”