Love Will (51 page)

“I can see that. Why the hell did he beat you up?”

“You didn’t bother to tell him
that
part?”

Damon shakes his head.

“Great.”

Before I begin, a new doctor and nurse come in to give me a once-over and tell me I’m free to go, which shocks the hell out of me since I feel
so much worse
. After I get a few prescriptions for painkillers, Jon drives all of us to the pharmacy and then back to the bus in his rental car.

I tell him about the hotel I’d booked for me and Shea, so he helps me pack up a few things and takes me there, deciding it’s the best place for me to get peace and quiet, which was one of the things that was recommended to me by the physician. The rest of the guys had plans to rehearse with a replacement guitarist that the label had arranged for as soon as Damon had told them about the fight. A part of me had wanted to stay and listen, but that part was soon overtaken by numbness and drowsiness once the meds started to work their way into my bloodstream.

“Will?”

“Yeah, Jon,” I say to him as he tucks blankets around me carefully.

“Going back to what you told me in the car,” he starts. I had a feeling he was waiting to continue the conversation until we were alone. “You
swear
nothing happened between you and Lola after you met Shea?”

“Swear,” I say simply, wishing that hadn’t been the question he asked. I really thought he knew me better than that.

“Okay. Get some sleep, kid.”

“Jon, I need you to go get me a new phone. I can’t not have a phone. What if she’s trying to get in touch with me?”

“You sleep. There’ll be a phone waiting for you when you wake up, hopefully with a message from her, all right?”

“Make that happen,” I say, having a hard time keeping my eye open.

“I’ll do my best.”

It’s dusk by the time Jon wakes me up. “What?” I mumble sleepily.

“You should get up and eat something, or else you’re going to wake up starving in the middle of the night,” he says. “You haven’t eaten all day.”

“Phone?”

“It’s right next to you.” I stare at him with my one good eye, literally helpless. I can’t turn my body to be able to see the night stand where the device may or may not sit. “Sorry, sorry.”

He helps me up and puts the phone in my hand.

“Does this have my same number?” I ask when I notice there are no missed calls and no texts.

“Yeah,” he says solemnly, sensing my disappointment. In the contacts, he’s gone through and added our family, Shea’s information–which he got from her when she found him online before Christmas–and Damon’s number. Aside from that, the phone’s completely empty. I set up my email account so I can at least check for messages from my former boss and coworkers. “There’s a burger place across the street. I’ll go pick something up. Sound good?”

“That’s fine. Anything’s fine, I’m not that hungry.”

“Okay. I’ll be back in a half-hour. Call me if you think of anything you need while I’m out.”

“Thanks.”

The second after he leaves, I realize I should have asked him for help getting out of bed and going to the bathroom. Instead of calling him back, I cringe through the excruciating pain of my bruised ribs and limp to the restroom, not even bothering to lift up the seat to take a piss. The relief I get from that makes the suffering worthwhile.

I pick up the Van Halen shirt I’d been wearing yesterday and frown as I sit down on the bed to mourn the loss of it. The paramedics in the ambulance decided to cut the damn thing off of me to check out my injuries. There’s no way to save it. It was an original concert tee that I’d stumbled across at a thrift store back in college. The thing was priceless to me.

Tossing it in the plastic trash can, I return to the bed and try to lie down again without doing any more damage to myself. Once I’m as comfortable as I’m going to get, I see the pills sitting on the dresser across the room. At this point, I’ll wait for Jon.

My phone in hand, I tell it to dial Shea’s number. Not surprisingly, my call goes to voicemail after one ring, which means she’s avoiding me. I’m not really prepared for what I want to say, so I just start rambling:

“Shea, I am so sorry. And I don’t know how much you heard last night. Shit happened after you left and I don’t remember everything clearly. I didn’t cheat on you with Lola, Shea, if that’s what you’re thinking. I wouldn’t do that. I, uh…”
Do I tell her what happened over voicemail? Does she already know? Am I making things worse? What does she want to hear? What will get her to call me back, or take my calls?

“Thank you for your message. Goodbye.”

“Fuck.” I send her a text message, simply asking her to call me. After five minutes, I try her number again, and am rerouted to voicemail a second time. I speak quickly. “I met Lola in Chicago, like, three-and-a-half weeks before I met you. I met her before Ben met her. I mean, not long before he did, but still. It was after our show, I was amped up, and she, uh… it felt like some kind of a set-up, honestly, but she said she saw me at the show and wanted to do something nice for me. She gave me a blow jo–”

“Thank you for your message. Goodbye.”

“Fuck!”

I call back. “A blow job. I didn’t reciprocate. She didn’t want me to. I left, and then a few minutes later, she showed up to the bar we were at where she met Ben. Like, literally, from that moment on, Lola and Ben were an item. I had no opportunity to make things right. It’s like I was fucked from the start, and for what? I didn’t do anything wrong. She didn’t either. We were both single at the time.” I hang up before I get cut off, and call back one last time. “Shea, nothing was going on between me and Lola. Nothing at all. I love you. I need you to call me, Shea. I love you.”

After Jon and I finish eating, I take another Percocet and settle in for the night. I look over at my brother, pretty disappointed that I’m sharing the king-sized bed with
him
. He certainly wasn’t who I’d been planning for. Still, I’m glad he’s with me, and that there’s someone here taking care of me.

I try Shea one last time. “Shea, if you’re still in Colorado, please do not leave. Give me a chance to work this out with you, please? I love you. Try to sleep.
My
only hope is medication. I need you.”

“She’ll come around,” Jon says, looking up from his book. “It’s only been a day.”

“I hope so. If my phone rings and I don’t hear it because of the drugs, will you answer it?”

“Of course.”

I smile at him and hand him my phone, grateful. “Thanks for coming, Jon.”

“Love ya, kid.”

Chapter 22

The pain in my side is even worse the next morning. It hurts to breathe, but one of the things I’m supposed to do is take deep breaths. Fuck that today.

“Jon?” Slowly, I move my hand to the other side of the bed, only to find it empty. “Jon?” I yell louder, not that the small hotel room really warrants it. He’s clearly not here.

Prying my eye open, I glance around me. The light dispersed through the sheer curtains makes my head throb. I spot my phone on Jon’s pillow. It takes about thirty seconds and considerable suffering to finally get it in my hand, and when I finally look at it, I realize it was a fucking waste of my energy. The only other thing I want is my next dose of painkillers, but the pill bottle isn’t where it was last night. I don’t see it anywhere around.

Someone knocks on the door. I glare at it for a few seconds, thinking that now’s a good time for either the X-ray or telekinetic powers that I’ve wished for since I was a boy to show up. The handle clicks, though, and my brother appears with a tray full of all of my favorite breakfast foods in hand.

“Surely your appetite’s back now,” he says, referring to the fact that I only ate three bites of the burger he’d bought me before I’d put it aside, opting for sleep instead of sustenance.

“You know where my meds are?”

“Yes. How about some breakfast?”

“How about some pills?”

He sighs and sets the tray down next to me on the bed. “You’ve gotta do us a big favor today.”

“I don’t think I do. And who’s
us
?”

“Me and your band.”

“What’s going on?”

“Damon texted me late last night. Apparently this Bradley kid is struggling.”

“Bradley-my-replacement-for-tonight’s-show-Bradley?”

“He’s replacing you for
all
the Colorado shows, Will. You’re out for the week, at least.”

“Fuck, man, no way.”

“You can barely get up by yourself, Will. How the hell are you going to hold a guitar against your ribs, much less play it? Not to mention how you probably look under that bandage… it’s not Halloween, you know? It’s a week before Valentine’s Day, and Frankenstein’s not really that holiday’s spokesman, if you know what I mean.”

“Who gives a shit what I look like?”

“I get that
you
don’t, but I think your fans do. You don’t want to worry them. And if you want to argue with someone about this, don’t argue with me. I’m just the messenger.”

“So what’s the favor? You said I have to do you guys a favor.”

“Lay off the meds today and help Bradley.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I’m not. I just had breakfast with the rest of the band. The kid’s young–”

“How young?!
I’m
young!”

“Younger. He just turned twenty-two, and he’s clearly in over his head.”

“Can’t we get someone else?”

“Damon talked to the label yesterday. He’s the best studio musician they had available on such short notice who actually knows most of the songs already. They only recently started looking for your permanent replacement for the European tour, so they’re not exactly prepared,” he explains.

“This sounds like their problem, not mine.”

“You have to do this for Damon. He’s your best friend.”

“Do you have any idea how much fucking pain I’m in right now?”

“Maybe some food will get your mind off it. Let me help you up.”

“I’m not one of those ADHD people who gets easily distracted, Jon, need I remind you? I can easily compartmentalize about ten different topics and still be intently focused on each of them, so trust me, I can eat and feel pain at the same time.”

“Wow, you’re in a glorious mood–and rightfully so,” he says before I can remind him of the many reasons why I’m not sunshine-and-fucking-roses today. “Say when on the syrup,” he continues, preparing a stack of pancakes for me. I watch it slowly trickle out of the bottle, my mouth watering. “Will? Say when.”

“When it runs out.” There’s no such thing as too much syrup. I’ve always believed that. The bread just soaks it up like a sponge, and then requires more.

“Man, some things never change.” He laughs, taking the sugary liquid and setting it on the nightstand, out of my reach. “Bacon, grapefruit, pineapple, scrambled eggs, OJ… you should be set.”

“Thank you,” I mumble. “And would you mind taking this fucking patch off my eye now, too?”

He looks at his watch. “The doctor said noon today.” I take a bite of the bacon and plead with him silently until he relents, sitting down next to me and peeling away the tape around the bandage, even though it’s four hours too soon. “Shit,” he says once he’s got the dressing off.

“Bad?” I ask, cautiously trying to open my left eye. It’s not as easy as I thought it’d be.

“It’s bruised as hell, and really swollen.” He scrutinizes it quietly. “The stitches look good, though. They’ll leave a kick-ass scar. How’s your vision?”

I close my right eye to let my left one focus. “Seems okay. Is this gonna gross everyone out?” I ask him, pointing to my face.

“Nah. It’ll just earn you more sympathy points.”

“I’m in need of those–with Shea, especially.”

“Yeah, I know,” he says with a sigh, patting me on the leg.

“I take it she never called…”

“No.” I keep eating, wondering what she’s doing, while I continue to test out my vision. “Listen, I’m stuck here for a few days. There’s a monster blizzard back home, and they’ve cancelled all the flights.”

“Sorry you’re stuck, here. You really didn’t have to come,” I tell him.

“Once I found out, there was no way I
wasn’t
flying out here. Shit, Livvy was practically pushing me out the door. We were all really worried. Mom was almost on the plane with me, but they’re being audited at work, so they needed her there. Otherwise, you would have been dealing with her, too.”

“Cool. Well, where are the rest of the guys?”

“Damon, Peron and Tavo are in the restaurant downstairs. They said Bradley didn’t want anything for breakfast. Sounds like they were all a little put out with him last night.” He tells me that they want me at the venue in an hour to oversee the rehearsal. “Damon has assured me that they will have a comfortable place for you. They sent me up here to get you moving.”