Strung Out (Needles and Pins #1) (2 page)

“Did you get the notes downloaded?” Like me, he maintained a 4.0 average and always had an assignment, test, or paper on his mind. I nodded, and he went on. “We’re putting together our usual study group. One night a week for the rest of the month. And then three sessions the week before finals.”

The relief bartender interrupted, rushing in with her hair dripping onto her shoulders and a few minutes late as usual. This coworker was recently divorced with too many kids, and I waved away the harried woman’s apology. It took less than a minute to clock out and grab my things.

Derrick settled his tab and sprang off the stool to exit with me. Mutually, we paused beneath the overhang instead of separating to our vehicles. The streetlights were flickering on. But it was still light enough to see his car parallel parked several lengths ahead of mine.

“Can you text me your schedule later?” He pulled his hoodie up, and strands of hair stuck out when it settled on his head. “So we can get the studies set up?”

Damn it all
. I could pretend I hadn’t received an email less than an hour ago from university financial services. I could pretend for now nothing was wrong. I could go home, pour a stiff drink from my mother’s cheap vodka, and process the inevitable alone for a bit before having to deal with it and the consequences.

Or I could be done with it. “I won’t be joining a study group. Thanks though.”

His smile fell. “Aw, come on. We need you. You didn’t join another group, did you?”

His scrutiny deepened a bit with the last question. As if he thought our two worlds might no longer be coexisting. Pausing, I opened my umbrella. He ducked beneath the dome shelter with me, and I drew in a heady breath when his attractive face held my attention for a few moments. We’d shared a friends-with-benefits relationship over the last two semesters. He was uncomplicated and sexy. We had no problems spending an hour with notes spread all over the bed and then stacking them aside to spend an hour rolling all over the bed.

“I dropped out.” When his eyes blinked rapidly, I expanded my answer. “Just this semester.” His gawk morphed into a ‘have you lost your damn mind’ look, fixating on my face, and I understood. My grades were great. The semester was on the downhill slide to finals. I began walking and he fell in step.

“What’s going on?”

Hopping over a puddle, I debated my answer. If I told him the truth, he would offer to help. Having the money would fix one problem, but borrowing it from the guy I was ‘hanging out’ with had the potential to create different problems.

“Family emergency.” I lied. Although Ivy was as close as family to me, and her disappearance was under unusual circumstances, I wasn’t sure I would have dropped everything in the middle of a semester to fly to another continent and search my friend out if an email from financial services hadn’t intervened. “I’ll make the classes up in the summer sessions.”
When money is no longer a problem
—
ever again
.

“Damn, is there anything I can do?” His handsome face puckered in concern.

“Take me out on the wave runners the moment I get back from the States.” Striving to lighten the mood, I passed him the umbrella, and he held it as I folded into my piece of shit car.

“You got it.” He agreed, and I loved that he didn’t pry. Instead, he snapped the umbrella closed and dropped it to the floorboard behind me. “The States, huh? Have a safe trip.”

He pushed closed the car door, and I waved as I cranked the engine. It wasn’t yet Belize’s rainy season, but the storm had become a torrent, splattering the windshield and aptly replicating my morose mood.

Dear Ms. Smythe, We regret to inform you your last two direct paym
ents didn’t clear… Your exemplary GPA is the only reason financial services waived the deadline last month. We want to work with you. If you can pay the amount due by Friday…

Instead of putting the car into gear, I pulled up the banking app on my phone. The balance was as dismal as it had been when checking it right after receiving the email. With a practiced eye, I ran down the debit transactions and noted a few I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t the first time my mother had helped herself to my debit card and put it back without a word. This situation was my own fault, for not managing my money more closely—for keeping a running total in my head instead of looking at my damn bank account once in a while.

Mentally, I summed the figures. The balance combined with my upcoming paycheck wouldn’t be enough to pay the university, but according to Travelocity, it was enough for a flight to Los Angeles. I hadn’t been bullshitting Ivy, or Derrick. I was going.

Closing the apps, I scrolled though my text contacts, stopping on ‘G’.

Gage
.

The name on the screen next to a blinking cursor was as near and dear to my heart as it was practically a stranger these days.

Drawing in a breath of courage, I began tapping my thumbs to the keyboard.

At one time, my former stepbrother and I had been as close as blood siblings. Possibly closer, since we’d rarely fought like a real brother and sister. After our parents’ divorce, we’d kept in touch for a few years with texts and calls before contact had dwindled to nothing.

Tossing the phone to the passenger seat, I didn’t wait for a response. The waiting made me too nervous. Was it because he and his band had catapulted to fame and were everywhere on social media? Or was it because last night I had dreamed again of our kiss?

“A
nother?” The bartender flipped a bar towel over his shoulder and paused in front of Gage’s section.

“Please.” Reaching into his back pocket, Gage pulled out his billfold and extracted a twenty. When the young man returned with his longneck, Gage nodded to him to keep the change.

The television over the bar flickered with a muted procession of sports and entertainment news. He experienced a private moment of amusement when a soul-sucking succubus he’d briefly dated starred in one of the scandalous headlines. His inner smile quickly dissipated when the host moved on to the next story and his own face filled the large flat screen. Hunching his shoulders, he lowered the brim of his hat on his forehead. Nonchalantly, his gaze swept the immediate vicinity to gauge if anyone else at the bar was watching this crap.
Of course
. A half dozen eyes were glued to the video clips and scrolling captions.

Gage Rem
ington… voluntary rehab after an incident onstage… left the facility without checking out… will this escape from rehab cause his record label to drop him and his band Fire Flight…

What a bunch of bullshit!
Escape
. Surging to his feet, he swung around a little too clumsily in his anger. His elbow toppled the beer bottle, spilling what remained of the contents onto the bar where it quickly rivered into the lap of the nearest patron.

“Hey, asswipe!” The man had a few silver hairs streaking through his dark cut, but he had the attitude and build of a younger man. “What’re you going to do about that?” Fury dilated the man’s pupils and his jaw worked in anger.

Taking in the other man’s wet jeans with a disdainful appraisal, Gage yielded to the temper he was becoming infamous for in the tabloids. Waving a red flag in front of a bull is what he did well these days. Mouthing off an insult he wouldn’t be proud of later, he skirted the man and the barstool he perched on with the sole intention of eighty sixing himself from the joint. It wasn’t that easy. The man jumped from the stool and swung. Gage swung back, connecting with his chin.

And that’s when the bouncer and his own capable bodyguard ushered him outside.

“How many lawsuits is enough?” His security detail muttered while cramming him into the passenger seat of a very plain SUV.

“One more can’t hurt.” He knew he was being a shit to the person who was on his payroll to save his ass from himself, as well as others. All joking aside, he hoped he hadn’t been recognized. He didn’t need any more trouble coming his way.

Reaching for the radio, he turned it up and whipped his phone from his jacket pocket to text his publicist. The blinking notification however, hurtled him from the present to the past.

The texts flew back and forth. He frowned when she mentioned working in a bar and smiled when she mentioned classes.

And apparently ‘escaped from rehab…’ after said tour.

He paused, looking out the window. The city was getting dark. But it didn’t hide his sins. How much did she know?

The gears in his mind churned with the possible reasons she might have to come to L.A. And were the semesters different in Belize or was she on a spring semester break? What registered and took root was the fact that Scarlette, his little sis and best friend, would be in the same room with him in the near future.

She flipped him off via emoticon for the redneck nickname, and he sent the same emote back for her ‘rockstar bubbah’ ridicule.

“M
y passport!” Raising my voice to be heard in the next room, I frantically sifted through the safe in my mother’s bedroom closet. “The bag isn’t here!” Rifling through the vinyl zipper bags, looking for the red one that contained our birth certificates and a few other important papers including our passports, I began to panic.

My mother appeared in the doorway and lifted a wineglass to her lips before sauntering into the room. After scanning the area, her eyes settled on the dresser, and she gestured with the stem. “There.”

“Oh.” I fell back on my heels, relieved. Straightening, I eyed the clock on the nightstand. Three hours before I needed to be rolling up to airport check-in. At the dresser, I fetched the passports from the bag, separated my own, returned my mother’s, and re-zipped the holder. “Why is this out, anyway?”

My mother downed another swallow. “I laid it out for you.”

My bullshit detector registered, but after a quick close scrutiny of my mother’s flushed features, I decided the odd tone was alcohol related. “Thanks.”

“You know, that boy has been in a lot of trouble. Be careful.”

Already in the hallway, I turned, fixing an incredulous look on the other woman. “It’s Gage. I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Hadn’t I addressed the queen of trouble with her endless number of degenerate rock musician serfs as ‘Mom’? I could certainly handle a rock star stepbrother.

My mother followed me to my bedroom, where I zipped my luggage. “You’ll be back in a week?”

“Two weeks max.” I hugged her. “I’ve got to get going.”

“But it’s only a two hour flight. And I thought you were arriving at midnight.”

“I had to do a layover to save money. And it’s a long one.” I bit my tongue on a sarcastic retort about why I had to save money. I’d already had a screaming confrontation with my mother over my bank balance, and she had seemed ashamed.