“What about seeing her? Being there for her?” I shake my head, totally disgusted by what he’s saying. “What is wrong with you?”
Something ugly takes over his face. His eyes turn almost black and his lips snarl as he stares me down. He’s angry, but I’m not sure why, with who, or at what.
Releasing his shoulder, I take a step back, then wait for him to answer me. He looks unhinged, but I want to know just what in the fuck has happened between a couple weeks ago and now.
“Better off without me, Beau. They both are. I’m ready to have some freedom and I’m going to hold on to it with two hands. I’ve had a taste and I can’t handle scraps anymore, I want the whole fucking meal.” He grins, shaking off his anger almost immediately.
“How can you say that? You need to get some sleep, really think about all of this. You’ve always been the steady one, Brian. Out of all of us, you’re the logical one, the calm head.”
“I don’t have to be that anymore.”
He turns his head from me, refusing to say or listen to anything else. I could try to shake him, force him to look at me, but he wouldn’t hear a thing that I say. Turning my head, I see Austin watching us. He lifts his chin and I make my way toward him.
“What do you know?” I ask.
“Not much. I do know that he’s been using, a hell of a lot.”
“What’s he been dabbling in?” I ask.
Brian did a lot of drugs as a teenager and in his early twenties. I don’t know that side of him, because by the time our group formed, he was clean and as far as I knew, he’s been clean this entire time.
Now, I’m wondering. I’m questioning everything.
“Heard through a rumor tree,” Austin says, jerking his chin toward Daniel who is already cozied up to some woman in the corner. “That he and Andi ran into one another a few months ago while you were in rehab. They had a fling, then it became regular and you know how Andi likes her dope.”
“Fuck,” I hiss.
“Daniel wants her around, not only because the publicity of the two of you is amazing, but because Brian was filling him full of shit about you and Hutton. Telling him that you were going to retire completely and marry the girl. That you were going to drop out of the spotlight all together, which means no paycheck for Daniel and he can’t have that now, can he.”
“And you?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I thought the same at first, that between sobriety and this girl, it was going to be the end of your career, but it isn’t.”
“Yeah, that why you were so pissed?”
He chuckles with a nod. “I think you’re going to come out on the winning side of all of this, Beau. With or without a band behind you, this life is yours. Music is inside of you, more than anyone I’ve ever seen. You’re like a fucking prodigy.”
I snort at his words. “I don’t know about that.”
He takes a step away from me, lifting his chin toward me. “The fact that you don’t even see it, means it’s fucking true. You got lost in booze, but you’ve never lost your music. You’re so fucking talented you make the rest of us look like middle schoolers up on that stage trying to piece together the right chords and beat.”
Austin finishes his speech, grins, then turns and walks away from me before I can say anything else. I’m glad, because I don’t even know how to respond to that shit.
Shaking my head, I reach for my phone and decide to call Louis. Hutton hasn’t returned my calls, even after two hour’s time and that shit has me really fucking concerned.
LOUIS
I answer on the first ring, not because I have nothing better to do, but because it’s Beaumont and also because I have nothing better to do. Gallup is my retreat, my time to relax from training to enjoy peace and quiet, to take in the calm and just breathe.
However, it can be boring as fuck sometimes. That’s why I like it when Beaumont is in town. He’s usually who I hang with. Wyatt, Rylan, and Ford work all week long and I admire that shit, but it means they’re busy all week long while I stare at the fucking wall.
“Yeah?”
“You made sure that Hutton got into the house okay, right?” he asks as his greeting.
Frowning, I clear my throat. “Watched her walk up to the door and open it. What happened?” I demand.
He takes a moment, too fucking long as far as I’m concerned to tell me what’s wrong. “I haven’t been able to get ahold of her at all,” he explains. “I’ve called, and called, she hasn’t returned them. I’m starting to get pretty worried. Hutton always answers or returns my calls almost immediately. This isn’t like her.”
“Fuck,” I bark as I stand from my sofa. “I’ll run over there, check on her.”
“Thanks,” he murmurs.
Ending the call, I slip into my shoes and practically run toward my truck. I may be next-door neighbors with Beaumont, but that doesn’t mean that I can even see his house from mine, I can’t.
Speeding down the old road that connects Beaumont’s property to my own, I turn hard into his entrance. His gate is open, and that’s the first sign that something is possibly wrong. That gate closed behind me, I watched it. The only way that it could stay open is if someone knew how to do it through the control panel inside.
Making my way down his long drive, I slam on my brakes as soon as I’m in front of his house. Shifting my truck into park, I jump out and jog toward the front door. The door opens before I can even reach for the knob, as if someone was watching me the entire time.
I don’t know who I expect to see on the other side of Beaumont’s door, but it is most definitely not an almost naked Andi Anderson.
Her lips turn up into a smile and she tilts her head to the side. “How did I know it would be you who would come in here like a knight ready to save the day?” she asks, taking a step back so that I can walk inside.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I growl.
Her laugh is loud and long mixed with a little evil. “Running off little fat girls who don’t know their place. You know she actually thought they would be together, really together? I guess she didn’t get the memo that men like Beaumont don’t end up with girls like her.”
“So, you think that we end up with women like you?” I ask.
Her lips turn up into a wry smile. “Naturally. It’s just easier, Louis. How have your relationships with nobody’s turned out?”
I curse to myself. She’s right. My relationships in general have been fucking shit. I thought that I had something with Tulip, at least the beginnings of something, but after just one night together she went back to her ex. She told me it was just easier to stay with him rather than be with someone like me.
As much as I want to think it was because I’m a boxer and gone a lot of the time, I know it’s because I’m half-black. That’s always the reason that they leave me.
Andi has a point, famous women and women who are climbing toward fame don’t give a fuck what color you are, if you’re fat or short, thin or tall. They’ll cling to your arm just for the chance to rise.
“Beaumont isn’t like the rest of them and Hutton isn’t either. You came here to be a cunt and Beaumont ain’t gonna appreciate that shit, not at all.”