Strung Out (Needles and Pins #1) (19 page)

Okay. That was direct
.

Gage’s kiss the night my mother had left heated my memories.

“I always had a dozen crushes. From the second my boobs showed up, I noticed boys. But Gage was my brother.”

Liar. Gage was never your brother after that kiss
.

Well technically
, the little devil on my other shoulder defended,
the night of the kiss he was no longer your
stepbrother since your parents were separated
…

Smooth!
Another devil fought for territorial shoulder space.
Smooth move to use the mention of your boobs as a distraction
!

I couldn’t tell what Colt was looking at from behind his dark shades. However, I had that tingly feeling that often accompanied focused male assessment. A bit embarrassed that I’d actually vocalized the errant thought about my boobs, I crossed my arms over my chest.

Last night, when I had texted Colt about the shape Gage was in, he’d texted back, promising he would be right over. I had let him in and remained downstairs while he went up to check on Gage. After reporting to me that Gage was fine, with a steady pulse, just sleeping it off, we’d talked while sitting around the island in the kitchen. I had expressed how angry and frustrated I was with Gage—so much so, I no longer wanted to be under the same roof. One thing had led to another, and he had invited me to stay in the guesthouse at his place.

I knew a normal person’s next move in this situation would be to check into a hotel, or schedule my roundtrip home, now that it seemed Ivy was quite possibly fine. But the first thing I had done last night, after arriving at Cole’s, was to check my bank balance.

It was grim. I had enough for one night at a hotel and then some change.

“And now?”

“Huh?” I shook my anxious thoughts away and settled my own sunglasses more comfortably on the bridge of my nose.

“Your crushes. Got a boyfriend back home?”

“No.” I paused precisely long enough to deliver the punch line perfectly and made sure I smiled sweetly. “A girlfriend.”

“No! No. Really?”

I shrugged and hoped that would keep his eyes off me until I figured this mess out. I knew I should be gone by, at the latest, the following morning. And that was probably pushing a near stranger’s hospitality.

“My turn with the twenty questions.” I crossed my legs and tossed out the challenge.

“Ask me no questions. I tell no lies.”

“Well, I’d hate to make you lie. So I’ll just say, Caroline seems really nice.”

“She is. And a great mother.”

“It’s great you two are able to live close enough to both be there for Seth.”

“I was glad she was open to the idea of moving out here.”

“Did you know?” I bit back my words, finding it hard to query him as ruthlessly as he had me. But his answers had me intrigued. The fact that he so fondly endorsed his ‘baby momma.’
To hell with it
. “I mean, I guess I was wondering when you knew about Seth. Like, if there were a lot of years you only saw him randomly because of working and tours.”

“I didn’t know. No. He had just begun school when I found out. She had put me on his birth certificate, so there was some signature the school needed from me, and that’s when she told me.” His wrist relaxed on his knee, and his phone hung idly in his hand. “Crazy, huh? But we worked it out.”

My phone buzzed my butt cheek, but I ignored it. At this moment, unless it was Ivy, I couldn’t think of anyone else I would want to talk to. “Your cat is eating a giant bug.” I’d been watching the silver tabby, playing in the built-in planters and stone walls that made the pool area almost look as if it had been stumbled onto during a hike.

“She does that. Less bugs to sting or bite you.”

We laughed. It was easy to forget I was irritated with him for expecting Gage to work alone on a song the entire band had due in a week, and for his nonchalant attitude about Gage’s legal troubles. Instead, I saw a guy who had twice now, in the short time I had been around, jumped into his car and driven over in the middle of the night to check on his friend. And the guy who had invited me to stay with him, no strings attached.

Holding his phone, he jumped from the waterfall platform and waded to the side of the pool where he hopped out.

Like the bratty brother he’d speculated Gage had once been, he shook over me like a dog and chortled when I screeched. Our eyes met, and I forgot to take my next breath. His blue irises glittered like gems, and when he was in the sun, flecks of brown decorated them. The long layers in his hair, gleaming and made darker by their dampness, fell along the strong planes of his face. His lips tipped into a panty-melting grin, acknowledging the moment between us.

Then, just as easily as I had forgotten, I was jarred back to reality by his next move. He was a musician. Disturbed. Dangerous. Unpredictable.

His hand went to one of his necklaces, a silver bullet hanging from a chain, and he lifted it over his head. To my astonishment, he twisted the bullet apart and offered it to me as he dropped into the chair adjacent to mine. I shouldn’t have been surprised. One of Gage’s necklaces was the size and shape of a dog tag, only thicker, and the top slid off and doubled as a straight edge.

When I didn’t immediately respond, he pressed. “Want a hit?”

I shook my head, and he tipped it to the top of his hand, right above his thumb and snorted.

“Damn, that’s good! Sure?” His head moved in an exhilarated shake.

Without bothering to answer, I twisted my head toward the magnificent view of the canyon side.

Colt continued, seemingly oblivious. “This straight edge scene you got going on—I respect that.”

“Great.”

A smattering of birds dotted the blue sky and dipped into the treetops.

I didn’t care what he thought, and he laughed, clearly unfazed by my brushoff. “Shit. I said that all wrong. I just meant, I get it. And I was trying to say it without bringing up—you know—Tyler.”

“Good. I hate when people talk about him.”

“Yeah.” Now he seemed slightly remorseful and twisted at one of the rings on his fingers. “But what’s fixing to happen? I mean… Is that one of the reasons you’re in L.A.? Your John Hancock needed on a bunch of legal shit?”

Now I looked back into his handsome face. This was one of those times when the personality difference between Colt and Gage was black to white. Colt was pushy. He had to get his way, no matter anything else. Gage, on the other hand, almost always prioritized my feelings and wants.

“No. I came to see Ivy, but I’m leaving before my birthday. I will have to fly in for the legal stuff because it has to be done in California. But I’ll just be in and out. And if it’s too crazy—the press—the lawyers are going to meet me in San Diego.”

At least that
had
been the plan. Until I had developed these mixed up feelings for Gage. Now, despite being furious with him, I wasn’t sure I could leave him to kill himself slowly as a junkie. Still, I hadn’t outright admitted that part. It was in the back recesses of my brain. Also, it still seemed insanely hard to believe Ivy was living it up with a hunky movie star and had not contacted me in some way. I didn’t want to leave without laying eyes on my friend, although if the chick was fine, I would probably punch her.

“Well. I was asking because I was hoping you were staying. And you’re welcome here as long as you want. Hotels can be hell. Especially when it comes to privacy.”

“Thanks.” I heard the hostility leave my tone. “Really.”
Damn I could use a hit of that coke!
Suddenly I was feeling the effects of a night of managing only a restless doze, and I stifled a yawn. “About Bradley Walker, did you ever figure out anyone with a connection to him?”

He stretched his legs out straight and reached for his necklace. “Yeah. I did. It’s Gage. Gage has a cabin on Arrowhead, and so does Walker. I wasn’t thinking of it at first, because Walker’s never been there when I’ve been there. But now I’m sure I remember Gage saying Walker bought the place right up the road from him when it went up for sale, and brought down this insanely sick boat.”

He was about to twist the cap from his bullet again, but stopped when a voice hailed from the direction of the house.

“What’s shakin’, bacon?”

Colt’s home appeared to be an older architectural design than Gage’s. I had seen very little inside the main house but when passing through the previous night, I’d noted that despite its spaciousness, it was rustic with lots of wood and rafters. Instead of opening completely to the outside as Gage’s did, this one had French doors that folded back accordion style. Caroline stood in the doorway now, pushing one French door back until it stopped in the track. “Your house is stuffy,” she announced.

“Can’t have that,” Colt returned. “The neighbors are stuffy enough.”

Caroline giggled and made her way around scattered deck furniture to sit with us. “Aw, come on. In all fairness, the realtor should have disclosed a musician was living next door, with wild parties going on at all hours of the night and day—and naked women running through the neighborhood.”

“You’re never going to let me live that down are you?” Dipping his head, he replaced the necklace without partaking of its contents.

“Nope.” Caroline sat back with a smug smile.

“So, the brat’s home?” The affection Colt laced into the nickname was accompanied by a special light in his eyes and a smile.

“Yep. He’s all yours for the next few days. Be good.”

The current transmitting between the two of them was a tangible thing, and again I found myself wondering about their relationship. How they could have this easy closeness, obvious affection, private jokes, and a child together, yet not
be
together.

“Dad!” Seth hung over a balcony on the second level. “I’m going to skate, right? Jeter’s mom is picking me up in an hour. Hi, Scarla.”

I waved and listened to Colt and Caroline converse for a minute before Colt hollered his okay up to their son.

Caroline lingered, visiting, for a bit more before standing. “I’ve got to get going. Second shift today. Nice to see you again, Scarla.” Here I responded likewise, and then the other woman tipped her head to Colt. “Can you walk me out?”

I assumed Caroline had something more to discuss with Colt about Seth, and I used the opportunity to scurry toward the guesthouse. I would Google Bradley Walker’s home, and see if it was on one of the celebrity tours. I didn’t want to have to ask Gage for anything anymore.

With that thought, I entered my accommodations and headed straight for the bathroom first. What I didn’t count on was the room being directly below the incline where Colt and Caroline stood conversing on the driveway and their voices carried clearly somehow, through the intake vent.

“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not asking for me! I’m telling you what I know. And if you want your band to stay together, you need to get her out of here.”

“And you know about her and Gage how?”

“I have eyes. It’s that simple. Keep your cock in your pants with this one. And if you’ve already fucked her, then get ready for the fallout!”

At first, I was startled and couldn’t seem to stop eavesdropping. But finally shocked enough by Caroline’s words, I backed out of the room.

T
he walls trembled with the aftershocks of his frustration. Every agonizing emotion went into the instrument and manifested into a thunderous symphony of sound. The chord progression was angry, rising and holding through several measures before falling again. As the abuse to his instrument began to tax his limbs, his mind, and the jaw he’d held clenched for too long, the trip back down the G scale slowed. He plucked at the strings instead of tearing at them. The melody declined from a raging hurricane to a spring shower and then to the gentleness of falling tears.

He ceased playing and flicked the pick aside. Using both hands, he tucked his sweat-dampened hair behind his ears. Ironically, when the hush fell around him, he could hear his cell phone ringing beneath the placid surface of the pool. This caused a fresh wave of pain—a reminder that only minutes before flipping out and chucking the phone into the water he’d maxed out the volume so he wouldn’t miss Scar’s text or call.

Trading the guitar in hand for the pool skimmer, he scooped the now silent phone from its watery resting place and wondered how deep one point five meters was, when converted to feet. The factory advised safe depth must not have been exceeded, because the phone chirped with a text as droplets rolled from every surface.

Nothing from Scar.

He checked Colt-the-traitor’s thread to see if anything had been sent after the ‘idiot’ text.

Nothing.

He ignored all other blinking names. Returning inside, he went to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water, and paced. He wanted nothing more than to crank his bike and roar down the mountain the few miles to Colt’s. Colt would only hurt her. He was capable of being a decent guy, but that wasn’t going to happen until he and Caroline got their shit straight and committed to one another.

The next minute he cursed Scarlette for the way she’d acted and hoped he didn’t see her again. Who was she to be judgmental? To assume because she didn’t agree with something, it was wrong for everyone?