Heart Broke (Hard Rock Roots Book 8) (2 page)

“And if the cops come looking for Cohen?” I ask, because somebody's got to put that out there.

“Why the fuck would he be here? We know nothing; we've done nothing.” Ronnie pauses as a pounding bang echoes from the direction of the bedroom. I raise my brows and we all exchange nervous glances.

“Want me to get it?” Nobody answers, so I turn around and make my way into the bedroom, hurrying for the door when I hear Turner's voice booming through from the opposite side.

“
OPEN THE FUCK UP!
” he screams in the way that only he can, like a wicked god's just found its way to earth, split the ground and climbed up from the fiery depths of hell.

“What on earth are you shouting about?” I ask as I let him in and he comes stumbling across the sitting room area, pausing and casting a very strange expression my way.

“The fuck are you doing in here?” he asks, head whipping around as Ronnie appears in the bathroom doorway. “The … fuck? Are the two of you …
doing it?
” Turner lifts his hands up before either Ronnie or I can respond. “Doesn't matter. I don't care. I don't fucking care.” A smug smile curls his lips. “My woman's awake. She's
a-fucking-wake.
”

“Naomi's … what?” I ask, blinking away my surprise as Turner nods and lifts his hands up, lacing them behind his head. Less than an hour ago, he was stumbling drunk and slurring his words. Now, he's all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. “Did the hospital call you?”

“Damn straight they did,” Turner snaps, acting like his usual arrogant, bad boy self. I can see right through him though, to the rapid rise and fall of his chest, the pounding thump of his pulse in his throat. He's scared, terrified maybe. Nervous as hell, too. “She opened her eyes and frigging everything. I need to get down to the hospital like yesterday.”

Lola and Jesse appear behind Ronnie, limned in golden light from the bathroom, while Turner's brows climb up to his hairline.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you guys having an
orgy
in here?” he asks, before his gaze finally catches on the blue gloves we're all wearing.

“Turner,” Ronnie begins, but his friend's already backing towards the door and shaking his head.

“Nope. Nope. Don't tell me. I don't want to know. And I don't give a shit neither. My one woman's awake and I need to get to the frigging hospital.” Turner pauses, looking for the briefest of seconds like he's unsure, like he's still that toothless boy from the trailer park. It fades in an instant, but that's okay. I saw it, and I know what he's getting at without him having to say it.

“Is it okay if I come with you?” I ask, knowing that there's an unspoken reason for him showing up here in the first place.
Can somebody come with me?
But … well, he's a guy and an asshole at that, so he won't ask for the things he needs. Good thing I'm one perceptive bitch.

I snap one of my blue gloves off and glance over at Ronnie. He nods imperceptibly as we exchange a wordless understanding. This Cohen Rose thing is a big deal. Our friend's soul mate waking up from a coma … bigger deal.

“Yeah, uh sure, whatever, but hurry,” he says, stressing that last word with a shrug and another wary glance at Ronnie, Lola and Jesse. “Just … hurry.”

Turner lets himself out into the hallway as I toss my gloves on the nightstand and take a deep breath.

“Think you can guys can handle this without me?” I ask, casting another glance at the bathroom door. From here, everything looks normal. Well, as normal as a fancy Beverly Hills bathroom will ever look to me—like a palace, like a dream born of nightmares. I'm not really sure I'm comfortable here. Crappy apartments with peeling linoleum, single wide trailers filled with garbage, crack dens. That's what I know. All of this? Just spun sugar and fluff.

I'd take a bite, but I'm not big on cavities.

“We can sure as hell try,” Ronnie says with a slight smile, waving me away with a flick of his hand. “Now get the fuck out of here and make sure Turner doesn't make too big of an ass out of himself. I'm not a hundred percent sure that Naomi Knox knows that they're engaged yet.”

I laugh, but the sound's a little dry, a little bitter.

Even with a dead body and a coma victim on my mind, all I can really think about is one thing.

There's a chance I might see
Dax at the hospital.

I hate that that's the thing that spurs me down the stairs and into the waiting the van the fastest.

“Oh, oh, oh fuck,” Turner mumbles, his words running over each other as he stumbles to the edge of the hospital bed and practically collapses, curling his inked fingers around Naomi's pale ones. “Shit, shit, shit.” If I didn't know the man any better, I might say he was crying.

I tilt my head to the side as I watch him. Wait. No, wait, maybe he
is
crying?

“I knew you'd wake up,” he murmurs, brushing Naomi's hair back from her face. A doctor tries to get his attention and Turner's face snaps up with gritted teeth and a rancid little snarl. The man pauses and takes a small but respectful step back. “I knew you'd come back to me, baby,” he continues as I stand in the corner of the room as unobtrusively as I can. I feel like a fucking asshole even being in here. This moment should be private or something, shouldn't it? “Why isn't she talking?” he growls, looking up at the doctor with a gleaming rage in his gaze.

Here we go.

“Turner, honey, you're scaring the poor man,” I say, moving over to him and laying a hand on his shoulder. He jumps, but at least he doesn't elbow me. Wouldn't blame him if he did. The poor kid's had his instincts beaten into him. Even all these years later, his reactions are a little knee-jerk.

“Miss Knox,” the doctor begins as Naomi groans, lids flickering and fingers curling tight around Turner's. I stare down at her pretty face, her gently parted lips, that slightly crooked nose of hers. She looks good—for someone in a coma, I mean. But still. Good. Like a rock star, baby. “Miss Knox,” the doctor starts again, but Turner cuts him off with a wave of his hand.

“You can call her Mrs. Campbell,” he says and I swear to Christ, I almost slap him in the back of the head.

“Naomi Campbell, Turner?” He throws a nasty glance over his shoulder and I catch the slight sparkle of wetness on his cheeks. I'd make fun of him for crying if it wasn't so goddamn precious.

“What's wrong with that?”

“It's only the name of one of the world's most famous supermodels is all. It'd be like me calling myself Kate Moss or Tyra Banks.”

“You know what, Sydney,” he starts growling, but Naomi groans again and his attention snaps down to her face. “Baby? You okay, baby?”

“Miss Knox has suffered some serious injuries, Mr. Campbell. We can't expect her to bounce back at full capacity in an instant. The recovery process can be long and difficult, especially when we're—” Turner cuts the poor dude off again with a wave of his hand. I shrug my shoulders when the man casts me a pleading look.
Hey, what can you do? The guy's a rock star.

“She's gonna be fine, aren't you, Knox?”

Naomi's eyes flicker again, that mesmerizing orange-brown color of her irises a vibrant splash against her pale skin and the white sheets. I watch as Turner curls their hands together and presses a gentle kiss to her knuckles.

Wow. From playboy to lover boy. I never would've believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

I want to fall in love, too.

The thought's like a shot to the stomach, making me clamp a hand over my mouth and stomp out my feet against the sterile tile floors. It's a sensation thing, okay? Sometimes … sometimes, I just
feel
shit and I want it to go away.

This feeling doesn't go anywhere.

“Excuse me for a second,” I say, giving Turner's shoulder a squeeze and bolting out of that room, past Brayden's planted security guy and straight to a silver water fountain that's bolted to the white wall.

I want to fall in love.

I'm almost thirty years old and I've never—
never—
had that thought before. Not once. Honest to God.

I take a sip from the fountain and stand up, tucking some blonde hair behind my ear as I cast a glance in either direction. No sign of Dax yet, but … why the hell do I think the word
love
and then immediately start thinking of Amatory Riot's drummer?

“Oh God,” I think as I turn and put my back to the wall. I don't want to fall in love with Dax. Do I? Do I? “Fucked up tour from hell,” I mumble under my breath as I slide Turner's phone from my pocket. He gave it to me in the van on the way over here so I could call up the rest of Naomi's band and give 'em the good news. The only number I can make myself look up is Dax's. “Must be some crazy ass hormones in the water or something. First Turner, then Ronnie, and now …”

I shake my head because that's just ridiculous. I don't give a fuck about Dax. I don't. Seriously.

My thumb hovers over the call button for a split second before I make my decision.

Today, I'll be the friend that my brother and his buddies need, help 'em bury the body (quite literally) and all that, but tomorrow, I make room for Sydney Charell. I get
my
life back on track. I might be stuck with these assholes, but that doesn't mean I can't help them
and
do my own thing.

Dax, well, I'm just going to have to forget all about him. That's what's best, right? I'll forget him and the cool brush of his fingers, the icy bite of his lips. Yep. Just wipe all of that weirdness from my mind. I mean, like, what did we really share? One drunken screw in the back of a strip club? Hah.

I dial Dax up and wait, confident that I'm making the right choice.

We're both better off this way.

Besides, who has time to think about love when there's a dead rock star back at their place?

Not this girl right here. Nope. I don't give a shit about love—or Dax—at all.

So why do I feel pissed when I get kicked over to his voice mail?

Holy fuck.

I wake up a few hours later without a single memory of the night before. Honestly, I'm not surprised. I've been drinking and smoking and drugging away all of the moments since Hayden's—and Tara's—deaths. At this point it's like, why bother? Why keep trying to crawl out of this black hole when gravity keeps sucking me back in?

“Fuck.”

I toss an arm over my eyes, like a shield against my pounding headache, and do my best to fall back asleep. See, sleep is like this … this alternate universe where all the wrongs of the world fade away. Even nightmares feel like dreams at this point.

“Hey dude.” A finger pokes my arm and I ignore it. Kash never gave a shit about me before, so why should he start caring now? I roll away from him and bury my face in a pillow. Juvenile, sure, but whatever. I'm so past the edge of giving a crap about anything at this point. Hayden, dead. Tara, dead. America, dead. Naomi and Blair, almost dead. I can only pray that I'm next. “I know you don't want to talk to me right now. Hell, I know you don't want to talk to anybody right now, but I just thought you should know, Naomi's awake.”

I snap to like I've been slapped, sitting up so quick that my head spins and twists and my vision flickers like I'm two seconds away from passing the fuck out. I blink away the cobwebs and stare Kash down, demanding answers without a single word passing from my lips. He knows better than to screw around with something like this.

“She, uh, woke up like an hour ago?” he asks as a question, his blond hair sticking up every which way. On the couch across from me, his girlfriend—well,
one
of them anyway—is fast asleep. At first I wonder why the hell she's in my room, and then I realize that
I'm
actually the one in Kash's room. “Turner Campbell called your phone like ten times. Texted you, too. I didn't mean to screw around with your stuff, but since you didn't seem like you'd be getting up anytime soon …” Kash trails off as I throw my feet over the edge of the bed and force myself up. The room spins around me for a second, but I manage to keep my balance. My friend, our lead guitarist, our new lead singer, she's not just alive, but awake. Right now, to me, that's a fucking miracle.