Strung Out (Needles and Pins #1) (18 page)

Was it harder to grow up without a mother and to be subjected to stepmothers like Henni Smythe, or was it harder to have Henni Smythe as an actual mother, as I had? There was literally—yes, literally―a million-dollar question. There was a picture of him and his father, possibly at an awards ceremony. By the looks of Gage, it had been only a few years ago. And the one that always caught my eye each time I used these stairs. A picture of him and me as a tween and young teen, taken at a birthday party. The camera had caught us laughing together at who knows what.

Was he still my silly, but now disturbed brother? Or was he becoming something more to me?

My feet touched the landing and instinctively, I turned toward his room. The door to his bedroom was ajar, as if Rascal had pushed his way inside.

Sure enough, Gage was half-propped, half-lying against the headboard of his massive bed, and the canine rested in his normal spot near the footboard.

“Hey!” My heart sped up at finding him home and awake. “Guess what! It’s a weird story, but I found Ivy!”

He stirred a bit, and his lips moved as if they were returning my smile, but they didn’t quite. “That’s great.” When he asked no further questions, showed no further interest, I turned, looking behind me to see what held his attention on the television.

But the TV screen was black.

“Are you feeling okay?” I had been moving closer as I spoke, and he answered when I stopped beside the bed. The lamp illuminated his face enough for me to see his droopy eyes. His lips were slightly parted in the slack-jawed look often accompanying sleep.

“Yeah. Just tired.”

His answer seemed to rumble out on a fatigued breath, and I nodded, for a moment, fully convinced.

“Do you want me to lock up your studio?”

His gaze flickered as if remembering he had left it and not returned. “Nah.”

The word rang with a careless ‘who-gives-a-shit’ tone. And I knew that wasn’t right. Because Gage gave a shit about his studio. It was his hallowed domain, kept locked because he didn’t even want the cleaning service inside.

“You don’t look good,” I repeated, hating the suspicions beginning to cloud my brain.

“Something I ate.” Again only the barest use of syllables in his reply.

“We didn’t eat.”
That was it!
He hadn’t eaten all day that I knew of. I’d fixed myself some of the breakfast casserole, but he hadn’t. And neither of us had ordered takeout as we normally did for the evening meal. “Want a couple of pizza pockets? I’ll nuke them and be right back.”

I pivoted around, and that’s when my gaze took in the open bathroom. The vanity lighting practically spotlighted the ugliness of the paraphernalia cluttering the beautiful granite, or marble, or whatever the smooth surface might be. The same shit had been in that same place roughly a week ago when he lay across from it, dying in the shower!

“You motherfucker!” Whirling on him, I balled a fist to restrain the urge to slap his fucked-up face. “What are you fucking doing to yourself?”

A baleful stare was his only reaction to my outburst.

“You’re putting that junk in your body again. My God, Gage. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking…” Now he did manage a smile. “I’m thinking you’re sweet to care.” His lashes blinked and he looked like a chagrined child being screamed to by an adult. “It’s okay. I promise.”

“It’s not!” I paced just short of the edge of his bed, gnawing at my fingers and taking in his lethargy. “It’s not.” Tears welled in my eyes. “I can’t be here if you mess up again. I can’t watch this.”

I stormed toward the room’s exit into the hall and slowed when he called after me.

“Don’t. Whatever you’re doing, don’t. Please, Scar.”

Earlier this evening it had been nothing to resist Colt calling after me. But Gage’s husky sweet voice pricked—like a needle—at my barriers. When I stilled completely, he implored again.

“ C’mere. C’mere and be with me. Be against me. Like this morning. So sweet…”

Something tickled my cheek, and I raised a hand, finding my face wet. I faced him, unsure of what I was going to say. I only knew I had to get out. Get away. And I had to tell him again without screaming it. But after wiping another tear, I simply turned back to the door and raced down the hallway to my room.

“Ah, fuck, Scar… Fuck!”

“Hey! Guess wha
t! It’s a weird story, but I found Ivy!”

“That’s great!”

“Where?”

“How? Tell me, Scar!”

“This is amazing. Tell me everything. I want to know the weird story.”

“Scar? Scar. Scar!”

Her name hissed through his parched lips on a sad breath. Why wouldn’t she answer?

His eyes opened to his dim bedroom, and he eyed the square of light falling on the floor from the bathroom. A hopeful look to his nightstand for a bottle of water was disappointing, and he tried to swallow, to wet his parched throat. Tunneling his hand from beneath his coverings, he reached for the little box that was almost always at his fingertips after… after he fucked up. Because that’s how he was beginning to feel about it, despite not staying in rehab long enough to be conditioned to think that way.

Touching the brass pipe to his lips, he flicked a disposable lighter and when he was done, let the lighter drop to the floor. He inhaled and held it, hoping for some quick relief.

Rousing awake again, he swung his feet out of bed and skimmed through the senders of the fifteen messages. Without reading anything beyond the names, he stood, stripping as he dragged his feet to the bathroom. After a warm shower, he wrapped a towel around his waist and stood at the mirror shaving. He brushed his teeth. Combed his hair back.

Addressing the contents of the vanity top, he tore the stamped paper into a few bits and flushed it, disposed of other waste into a sharps container, and stood for a moment eyeing everything else. He scooped it all into the black zip bag and after dressing, carried the pouch downstairs to the kitchen where he rooted around until he found a trash bag. Once it was knotted inside, and safely disposed of in the outside bin for the private trash collection service, he stood for a moment enjoying the sun before returning inside.

Something felt off, and he couldn’t fathom the source. The kitchen was sparkling. He’d set his cup beneath the coffee brewer when realization dawned. The housekeeper’s poppy seed mini muffins had been a favorite of Scarlett’s, since her first taste the week she had arrived. And this morning, the muffins sat on the countertop untouched.

Whipping his phone out of his pocket, he checked the time, and his frown deepened when his phone screen read almost two p.m. Scarlette rarely slept past the a.m. hours.

“Hey! Guess what! It’s a weird story, but I found Ivy!”

The memory buzzing his brain was faint.

Leaving the freshly dripped coffee without so much as a taste, he thumbed once more through the texts. None were from Scarlette. The pool was empty. Unaware that he was following her same routine as last night, he hastened first to the garage and then upstairs when all of the cars were accounted for.

In the middle of the guest room, which he had begun to consider her room, he locked his knees to keep them from buckling. A dresser top empty of scattered cosmetics and hair accessories. The closet was closed. He said a prayer as he opened it and then promptly cursed in frustration when no clothing swung from the hangers and no shoes lined the shoe racks.

Unable to look at the empty room any longer, he paced into the hall as he texted.

Rascal was bouncing his way up the stairs as he was going down, likely reminding him it had been days since he had checked the automatic dog feed and water station. It was one of the jobs the housekeeper routinely completed, but occasionally he had found it empty. Returning to the kitchen, he found that wasn’t the case this time. His pet had plenty of food and water. Handing one of the muffins to the hyperactive animal, he checked his settings, making sure the sound notifications for text was on.

He popped his coffee into the microwave and scrolled through his other texts while he waited. A couple from Ben.

One from his father confirming he’d heard the news and would be back in town in a few days. The ‘love you, son’ made his eyes ache. Most of the time, his father was a hard-ass when it came to anything Gage had done to cause bad publicity. The exception had been his divorce a couple of years back. His father had been incredibly supportive.

And Colt, the fucking jerk. What did he want after being such a douche the night before? He clicked the text.

He choked on his first sip of coffee and then promptly gulped several more.
Kill. Kill that bastard dead. And then kill him again.
Another gulp of coffee and another text smashed into his phone.

Crazy shit went through his head. Had Scarlette and Colt been carrying on some affair behind his back, and she was now moving in with him? The argument he’d witnessed the previous night lurked in his memories. The phone vibrated his hand and let out a bleep.

Fuck Colt Powers and his cryptic shit. His coffee splattered thumb tapped the phone screen in annoyance.

He'd typed the two so close together, but for the send button, they could have been one furious text. And then he waited. Too agonizingly long before the response came.

His neck wouldn’t support his head, and it fell back until he was glaring at the can lighting in the beams of the high ceiling. He almost smashed the phone, but he took a deep breath and typed.

Now he did toss the phone outside the kitchen and felt some satisfaction when it sank into the pool.

Because it was true. He
was
an idiot.

T
he pool at Colt’s house dropped down the mountainside in two levels. The top terrace pool waterfalled into the next level’s pool. About an hour ago, Colt had texted me to join him. He currently sat at the top of the waterfall, tapping his thumbs to the screen of his phone and verbally interrogating me about everything.

His questions began with Ivy, now that I had finally told him what had brought me to L.A. Next he touched on my true identity—my Scarlette Conterra persona, which up until now, he’d been relatively quiet about.

I fidgeted in the deck chair not far from him. I was still dressed in the same clothing from the night before since my rolling duffel piece was still in the back of Colt’s Bugatti. I wasn’t sure if my inner resentment toward being probed about this part of myself showed, or if Colt fell back on a different tack, but after the normal questions most people asked—like ‘did I remember my father,’ and ‘did I like my father’s music’―he moved on to another subject.

Gage.

At this point, I wished he had stuck with the discomfiting questions about my lineage.

“How long was Gage’s dad married to your mom?”

“Um, about six years. Or seven.” I brushed at a water spot near the hem of my shorts.

“I bet he was a bratty brother.”

A few memories quick to surface made me smile. However, when I looked up, Colt’s gaze seemed extra attentive.
He was still trying to figure out the current relationship between Gage and me!

“You’d think. But no. He was the best. My friends had brothers who did gross things―put bugs in our hair or even worse, saying perverted things. Gage never did that shit. What he did do was hang around when my friends were over. I hated that. They all crushed on him, and he ate it up. Then I wasn’t the center of the universe like I wanted to be.”

His laughter carried across the water, and he began reading his screen again. “So you never crushed on him? Only your friends did?”