Strung Out (Needles and Pins #1) (29 page)

We had stormed the gate at Bradley Walker’s fancy house as Gage had promised. After Gage had explained into the intercom who he was, the gates had swung open. However, staff had shown us in, and after waiting in an impressive parlor, Bradley’s personal assistant had welcomed us only to impart that his boss was out of town for an indefinite span of time.

“This is Scarlette Conterra.” Gage had introduced me. “She and Ivy Messlehof have been best friends for around ten years.” The assistant had made a non-committal hum in his throat, but his expression had pricked with interest. “They lost touch, and well, we were hoping Bradley could pass a message?”

The assistant had politely taken our contact information. The entire ordeal had confirmed what I already knew. Ivy obviously didn’t give a shit whether she spoke to me again. The painful realization had kept me awake nights.

“Thank you,” I murmured when a fur parka was draped over my shoulders. Beside me, Gage donned the garment given to him but declined the hat.

“Right this way.” We fit our gloves on as we followed our hostess into the bar kept at a perfect twenty-eight degrees.

I was tagging along to a meeting Gage had scheduled with a musician who was interested in collaborating with him on an upcoming project. He had practically insisted I come after bribing me, saying afterward we would grab fish tacos, which had become one of my favorite L.A. cuisines, and I knew it was because he was worried about me.

The man was already seated at the bar, and he politely stood as we approached. He and Gage bumped fists and then shook hands at the end of the ritual.

“Scarlette Conterra, Beau Jax.” Gage introduced me for the second time by my birth name.

A pleasant surprised expression crossed the other man’s face, and I was sure my expression mirrored the feeling. The musician was well respected in the industry; his successful career was two decades old. I wanted to kick Gage for staying silent in the car—for not giving me the heads up when I was about to stand before a rock god of two decades.

“An honor to meet you.”

“The honor is mine, Mr. Jax.”

“Just Jax.” He shook my hand and held it in his warm grasp a moment, and I braced myself for the norm. Only something strange happened. The inward cringe I normally experienced while waiting for the inevitable reference of my father didn’t happen. I found myself almost welcoming the mention by someone who had clearly known him. Jax’s eyes sank into mine, and he only repeated almost reverently, “A real honor.”

“You too.” I flashed a smile and tried not to reveal how starstruck I was.

“You two are stepsiblings if I’m recalling right?” Jax seemed to be waiting until I was seated before he sat, and I dutifully slid onto a stool. Gage reeled with an almost invisible wince at those words. Possibly I did too because Jax’s eyes narrowed with understanding for the barest moment before he looked away and indicated the shelves of vodka bottles before us. “I’ve never seen some of these in the States. I couldn’t wait for you.” Using his fingers on the rim, he twirled his empty glass.

When after the first round of vodka shots, Gage ordered pomegranate juice—the recommendation by our bartender as a nonalcoholic drink—Jax curiously inquired and Gage admitted he was in detox, which included as little alcohol as possible.

“I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know. We can go somewhere else.”

“It’s fine.” Gage insisted. “Drink up. Not bothering me. In fact, I’ll be back when I come out on the other side. I never knew this place was here.”

We settled in, and shot after shot of exotic vodkas were sampled by Jax and me while Gage and Jax had their heads together deep in artistic discussion. Every once in a while, they would pause and courteously draw me into the conversation with a “How was that Russian?” or a “What did you think of that last one?” But for the most part, for over a half hour, they seemed passionately distracted with the project on the table. So distracted that it was only after the third time I requested a repeat sample of the most recent vintage from our server that Gage paused the discussion to eye me. I only smiled and downed the most recent shot.

He kept a steadying arm around me as we made our way to the exit.

“Can I drop you somewhere?” Jax asked, once we were divested of our thick furs.

“Thanks, but that’s us right behind you,” Gage replied, with a look at the idling Viper and driver. The Escalade we’d arrived in, driven by Gage’s assistant who was acting as chauffeur today, was directly behind it. “Is that your son?”

“Ah, yeah. He’s living here now.”

I tripped on the sidewalk, and Gage grabbed me tighter. My head was spinning a bit as the conversation went on around me. The heat after the cool interior of the bar baked my skin and further mushed my mind. Waves seemed to hover above the traffic, and I jerked my gaze from the disorienting sight. I’d had too much to drink.

Did one hallucinate from rare vodka?

In my vision, a lime green cab stopped in the street. Traffic honked as one of the back doors swung open… And my mother alighted. The cab began to flow with the traffic, and my mother headed straight toward me.

“Noo…” I managed the word although my tongue felt numb and jerked from Gage’s grasp with one agenda on my mind. The safety of the Escalade. Unfortunately, the sidewalk buckled, tripping me yet again, and this time Jax caught me and handed me off to Gage.

By the time I was oriented once more, I was face to face with my very angry parent.

“Scarlette Rose! Did you drop your phone in a toilet, or are you ignoring my calls?”

“You came all the way to L.A. to ask me that?” Oblivious to the onlookers around me, my stance widened as I challenged my mother. Part of me was curious to see if she would own up as to why she was stateside. Part of me wanted to shove the woman aside, get into the car, and escape this drama.

“We need to talk. Now.”

A long, manicured nail waved in the air an inch from my nose, and this time, I did shoulder my mother aside. Possibly anger sobered me some, because I made it the six steps to the waiting car and ripped open the door. Gage in all of his chivalrous glory was right behind me, helping me into the seat. But when he began to swing the door closed, my mother intercepted.

“I’m serious, Scarlette Rose.”

“Stop calling me that, and get out of my face. We’ve nothing to talk about.” Up until now in this confrontation, I had managed to remain impassive. But the self-righteous fury in my mother’s eyes triggered a dark and ugly venom. It spread, saturating and staining every cell. “I know what you’re doing here! You’re pathetic. You whore whatever you can for money. Even the memory of a man who hated you, and his right to rest in peace!”

Henni Smythe drew herself upright, ramrod straight. “Oh, darling. Did I not explain the birds and the bees good enough? You are not a product of hate, my sweet daughter.”

“When it came to birds and bees, you were more of a ‘show’ than a ‘tell’ type of mother, actually. Remember? I was eight when I walked in from school to you and ‘rocker with the green Mohawk’ doggy style over the freaking coffee table. And then what was I? Fifteen? When the one with the piercings on his cock asked me if I knew why they were there? And sixteen. Was I even sixteen when Anaconda Ronda asked if I wanted to join the two of you? So don’t even pretend to be a soccer mom who had meaningful adolescent talks!”

My mother’s fingers rising to settle in a chokehold-like clutch to her own throat told me I had taken things too far with my screaming tantrum. The woman appeared fragile as she staggered back a step, and Gage took the opportunity to slam the vehicle door. If he worried about the chalky pallor of Henni’s face, he didn’t show it when he turned his back.

My eyes ached, but they remained dry. Through the glass, I watched Gage and Jax, and a younger version of Jax who was now on the sidewalk. They all spoke for a moment, shook hands, and parted. Gage was intercepted by my parent, who seemed to have gained her second wind. She appeared to be arguing fiercely. Instead of reopening the back door to slide in beside me as he normally did, he folded into the passenger seat.

“To the house,” he instructed his assistant-slash-driver, and then turned to me. “You okay?”

My mother pacing in place had been holding my attention, but as the car pulled away and the figure grew distant, I let my head loll back to the seat. “I feel sick.”

“It’s going to be okay, Scar.”

“No. I really feel sick. Can we stop?” The moment I uttered the words, I knew the burning in the back of my throat and the roll of my stomach wasn’t going to wait.

My fingers stabbed at the door, searching frantically for the window lever. Even as I did, a vision of hurling in traffic, vomit flying onto the side of the car and onto other cars, had me questioning my intent. The point was moot when the window didn’t slide down.

“Oh God. I’m so sorry.” I’d leaned forward enough so hopefully the contents of my stomach landed mostly on the floor mat. The smell assaulted my senses and I heaved again. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

Was it a bad thing when I hadn’t cried over the confrontation with my mother, but I was crying over the humiliation of puking in Gage’s car in front of him and his employee?

Dusk fell while we were parked on the jammed up freeway, and the skies darkened completely about the time Gage’s assistant parked the vehicle on the driveway. Understanding the outside location was so he and Gage could clean my mess, I stopped short of the open garage. When I lost the argument to take care of it myself, I went into the house, feeling like shit, mentally and physically.

With no purpose, I ambled to Gage’s studio, picked up the Taylor I’d been practicing on lately, automatically ran my practice drill, and then dropped the instrument like a hot potato.

Since when? The guitar. Really?

I exited to the pool area through the little door, since the glass was closed.

The water was a rectangle square of light, casting a blue glow into the night. I kicked off my shoes, and let myself free-fall. The water closed around me, shutting the world out. I sank to the bottom with my eyes closed, reveling in the blissful otherworldly silence. For all of five seconds.

The deepest part of the pool was no more than five feet. I was in no danger of drowning as all I had to do was push to my feet and my head would be above the surface. But Gage apparently didn’t see it that way.

A splash confirmed I wasn’t alone in the pool. Opening my eyes, I found his blurred face before mine, little air bubbles rising around him.

“What the hell? Did you fall in?” He demanded, the moment our heads were both above the surface. When I didn’t answer, he furthered the interrogation. “How drunk are you?”

“Not drunk enough to forget my best friend has gone so mental she doesn’t give a fuck she’s worrying me and her family. Or drunk enough that my crazy mother can’t still make me lose it on a public street!” Rubbing my hair from my face, I peered at him. “And not drunk enough to be ignorant of the fact that you’ve dodged every question I’ve asked and have been very weird since the meeting with your lawyers.”

“I can’t talk about it right now.”

There it was. That shimmery second of desperation I’d glimpsed mere hours after the appointment when I’d plied him for information.

Relaxing my knees into jelly, I once more welcomed the water enveloping me. Oblivion was obtainable, but only in lungs full of oxygen increments. My legs floated in front of me as my butt cheeks hit the pool bottom.

Then Gage’s hand covered mine. I found him sitting beside me, and he seemed to be staring at my feet. My gaze drifted past my knees to the licorice and pink pinstriped toenails that matched my fingernails.

“How in the hell
did she find me?” Bored with my underwater reclusiveness and slightly sobered, I began to question the coincidence of my mother happening on me in a city the size of L.A.

We were still neck deep in the water. Both of us were reluctant to exit the pool because of the canyon breeze gusting over the glass partition, chilling our wet heads and the thought of it chilling our entire bodies.

“That’s kind of my fault.” He explained taking a selfie with Jax and tweeting it in the secret hope his band and label would see it and recognize he had options. He wanted them to know he could and would move on with his music if they cut him.

“So she saw it? Like she’s stalking your account?”

“That’s my guess. Since my dad told you she wanted my phone number and address, and he wouldn’t give it to her. She knows you’re staying with me, right?”

“You weren’t afraid of a fan craze by giving out your location?”

“It was tweeted ten minutes or so before we left the bar. She must have been close by.”

“They’ve put her up at the Crescent hotel.” I remembered the information Gage’s father had given me.

“Of course they did. It’s right down the block. And with the shitty run of luck we both seem to be having, it fucking figures.” He ran a finger down my cheekbone. “You’re freezing.”

“Just my head. The water’s warm.”

“Your teeth are chattering. Stay right here.”

He hopped the side and went into the bathhouse. Right away, he returned with a towel over his shoulders, an extra towel hanging in the crook of his elbow, and held a thick white terry robe.