Undone, Volume 3 (17 page)

After a few more
drinks, I found myself relaxing. How did the saying go? If you
couldn’t beat them, join them? I wasn’t exactly joining. I wasn’t
having a go at the chandelier, for example. But I felt a hell of a
lot less stressed out as things got a bit more blurry. The more fuzz,
the more I got to asking myself what was the big deal? So my band
mates were up here having a good time with some good-time girls. What
was the harm in that? It wasn’t like they were out stealing purses
from grannies or abusing puppies. They were good guys, once you got
to know them.

And Connor was a
fucking riot. Once he got to doing impressions of some of the more
stuck-up celebrity twits we knew and did not love, he had us all
rolling. Too bad he wasn’t a transvestite. He could do a mean
impression of a pissed off, bitchy lady demanding better service in a
restaurant. Which was something we’d seen an Oscar-winning actress
do back at a restaurant in L.A. a couple of months ago.

“What did she send
the eggs back, three times?” I laughed, remembering how furious
she’d looked, how outraged at the insult and injury from an
improperly cooked meal.

“Seriously, mate.
Four times.” The room broke out in laughter.

“No.” I didn’t
think it had been four times. Connor liked to exaggerate. But maybe
he was right? I couldn’t really remember the details, all I knew
was he was nailing it in his impression.

“Do you call this an
egg?” Connor drew himself up to his full height, not more than 5’6”
but he worked it. Pursing his lips and waggling his index finger, he
had her down.

Later, much later, I
stumbled my way into the kitchen. Some water would probably be a good
idea. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind I thought I recalled
something about leaving early the next day. As in the day it now was.
So probably in a few hours. That might not happen.

Stooping over the
faucet, I let the water run as I stared at it. Interesting thing,
water. At least when you were drunk.

Bumping up against a
counter, Conner lurched in after me. He looked like an extra from a
zombie movie, his shirt torn at the bottom, his hair wild and his
skin deathly pale with a faint tint of green.

“You look like shit,”
I informed him.

“I’m fresh as a
fucking daisy!” he insisted in an exaggerated Irish brogue, then
attempted to dance himself a wee leprechaun jig. It didn’t go so
well. Tripping on his own feet, he crashed into the fridge and then
landed down on his ass with a loud thud. We both started laughing so
hard we could barely stop.

“You OK, man?” I
managed once I could.

Sprawled out on the
kitchen floor, he shook his head. “Not at all.” But somehow that
devilish smile coupled with the accent made everything sound like he
was taking the piss out of me. He looked like he had one foot in the
grave, but you could never really tell with Connor. Just when you’d
think he was down for the count, he’d jump up and catch you with a
mean right hook.

I gave him my hand and
helped him up. “Thanks, mate.” He clapped me on the back, then
joined me in filling up a glass of water at the sink. “So, where
you been, Ash?”

From the serious turn
his voice took, I figured he wasn’t just talking about the last
couple of days. But I decided to go for the easiest answer, anyway.

“We got snowed in up
here.” I gestured out the window, though with no lights on outside
you couldn’t see a thing.

“Yeah, I figured. But
where’ve you been the past month. It’s like you”—he clapped
his hands together, then brought them up like a magician after a
trick—“disappeared.”

I winced and scratched
the back of my head, uncomfortable. I didn’t feel all that drunk
anymore. At least not drunk enough for this conversation.

“I’ve had a lot
going on,” I tried. “I’ve been dealing with this Mandy Monroe
shit.”

“Seems like more than
that.” Connor suddenly seemed sober as a nun. Where was a bottle of
Jamison when you needed one? I fidgeted like I was in the principal’s
office instead of talking with my best friend. That made me feel even
worse.

“I miss you, mate.”
He looked up at me, all rumbled and sad.

“Yeah, me too.” And
I did. I missed how it used to be, how much fun we used to have. Back
when we were just starting out, it had felt like we’d gone from
outcasts to the most popular kids in school overnight. Or like we’d
gotten away with a multi-million-dollar heist, walking away
scott-free with the profits. Together, we’d been unstoppable. When
had that changed?

“It’s been a rough
couple of weeks.” He looked down at the floor. I realized I had no
idea what had been going on with him, none at all.

“What’s up?”

“Tandy’s in rehab
again.”

“Aw, fuck.” His
sister had been in and out for the past few years. I knew it was hard
on him. They’d relied on each other for so much growing up.

“She swallowed a
needle and her lungs got infected.” Connor’s voice broke and he
raked a hand through his hair like he wanted to rip it out.

“I’m so sorry.”

“She almost didn’t
make it.”

“Christ.” I shook
my head. I still remembered her when I’d first met her, over break
the first year Connor and I had met in school. She’d been nine or
ten, all chubby and round-faced and completely in love with me. She’d
been a cute kid. Last I’d seen her, she’d been skin and bones,
her hair hanging in lanky strands.

“Where’ve you
been?” he asked again. Oh shit, Connor’s voice shook and nearly
broke. He looked like he might cry any second.

I was used to a lot of
drama from Connor. High and yelling at the top of his lungs while
standing on top of a table? I’d seen it many times. Connor messing
around with three girls at the same time? Sure. Connor coming up with
a bloody genius guitar lick in between doing shots of tequila? That
was the Connor I knew like the back of my hand.

But this Connor,
looking scared and vulnerable in the kitchen? He scared the shit out
of me. His hand trembled as he brought it to his head. I didn’t
know if I’d ever seen him cry before. I didn’t think I could take
it if he did.

“Are you going
Beyoncé on me, mate?” he asked, thank God lightening the mood
though I could tell he had a dead serious question in there. “What
am I, Destiny’s Child?”

“Don’t go chasing
waterfalls.” I brought my hand to his shoulder, trying to laugh it
off.

“That was TLC.” He
looked at me with disgust. “So now you don’t even know your R ’n’
B girl groups anymore? Who are you?”

“Sorry, sorry. My
bad.” At least he was teasing me now. That, I could handle. But he
wasn’t done yet.

He looked at me,
serious as the grave. “I miss you, man.”

No, that was a fucking
tear at the corner of his eye. Aw, no. Not a tear. It hit me right
square in the middle of my chest like a fist. Fuck. Connor, whom I’d
known since I was 12. Connor, who’d jumped into a fight to help me
out when I was a 120-pound weakling getting my ass kicked. He’d
gotten his ass kicked right alongside of me. We’d bled together.
And now he stood there next to me choking back tears.

“I’m sorry.” I
snuffled out, feeling like a grade-A asshole.

He nodded. “S’OK.”

“No, it’s not. I
guess I have been pretty wrapped up.”

“We’ve always been
in this together. It’s always been you and me. And now it’s like
you think I stink. Like you don’t even want to be in the same room
as me.”

“No, no, man, that’s
not how it is.”

“You remember last
New Year’s?”

I scratched my head,
squinted, tried to make the hamster spin that wheel in my brain.
Nope.

“It was the fuckin’
bomb, man. That’s how we do.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

He went on, pulling out
a couple more memories I didn’t admit to him that I didn’t even
have, myself. I went on feeling like shit.

The worst part of it
had to be the fact that I didn’t even want to be standing there
talking to him. Even as I stood there and reassured him that I was
going nowhere, that nothing was changing, my mind kept darting back
to the bedroom. I wanted to be back there in with Ana.

She’d be in bed,
naked and warm. I wanted to wrap my arms around her, pull her down on
my chest, listen to her breathing so content and peaceful. That’s
where I wanted to be.

But guilt was a hard
thing to fight. It kept me nailed right to the floor, nodding and
laughing along. Because in my heart, I knew Connor was right. I was
moving on. I hadn’t even fully known it until he named it. I
probably needed to take some time off from the band. That was going
to be a fun conversation to have with everyone.

And it wasn’t a
conversation I was going to have half-drunk in the middle of the
night standing in a kitchen with my former BFF. No, right then I took
the easy way out. I stood there with stupid words tumbling out of my
mouth.

“No, man, nothing’s
changing. Yeah, can’t wait to get back to the way things were.”
And the more I protested and denied that anything was changing and
insisted on everything going back to the way it was, the more I knew
that would never happen.

Ana

When I woke up, I had
no idea what time it was. I did know that my head hurt like I had a
bad hangover, even though I’d had nothing to drink. I guess I had
gone to bed in a high dudgeon. Anger, resentment, spite, those
weren’t great emotions to tuck in with for the night. I must have
brewed in them as I’d slept, steeping myself in all that yuck, and
now I felt like hell.

Sitting up, I got my
bearings. And realized Ash wasn’t in bed with me. Was he mad? He
might be.

Had I over-reacted last
night? Maybe. Damn it.

I padded into the
bathroom and splashed a little water on my face. It was still dark
out the windows, so it wasn’t really time to wake up yet, but then
again I’d gone to bed early. Really early. Maybe they were all
still up?

I looked at myself in
the mirror. Plain, no makeup, wearing an old T-shirt. I pulled my
hair back into a ponytail. So here I was, the woman who’d been
gallivanting around with the world-famous Ash Black. I didn’t look
like anything special.

And last night, when
his closest friends and some fans of the band had arrived at the
cabin, I’d basically thrown a tantrum. The way I threw tantrums, at
least, getting all withdrawn. The angrier I got, the quieter I tended
to become.

I’d gotten real quiet
last night, and then I’d sulked myself off to bed. When one of the
girls had told me I needed to loosen up, I’d practically hissed at
her. But maybe she was right?

At the very least, it
wasn’t Ash’s fault that they all came up here. He tried to
explain it to me, that the band all owned the cabin together. The
place belonged to Johnny and Connor as much as it belonged to Ash.
And Ash hadn’t seemed any happier than I had about the intrusion.
Maybe I should have tried a little harder, at least had a beer or
two, instead of popping my head under my shell like a freaking
turtle.

Johnny their drummer
actually seemed kind of nice. He struck me as a good guy, friendly.
He didn’t give me the creeps. Johnny wasn’t the one I had a
problem with.

It was Connor. He gave
me the willies. There was the aggressive way he’d come on to me, of
course, but really it was more than that. There was a wild, unhappy
electrical current charging through him, driving him, pushing him
past normal limits. I could see it in the way he goaded others around
him. He was a manipulator. And he didn’t like me in Ash’s life, I
could tell that, too.

And then there was the
fact that someone had slipped something into my drink New Year’s
Eve. I had no proof that it was Connor. It could have been anyone.
That drink might not have even been intended for me. And Ash said it
was Connor who’d found me passed out—in a good way. Like Connor
had been trying to take care of me.

But that just didn’t
ring true. I hadn’t sensed a caretaking bone in Connor’s compact,
wiry body. He seemed as selfish as they came.

But, then, I didn’t
know him. Not like Ash did. He’d explained that they went way back.
I’d always trusted first impressions with people, that gut feeling
you got about someone when you first met. But maybe there was a lot
more to Connor than I’d seen? And if I really cared for Ash the way
I thought I did, I needed to give his closest friend more of a
chance.

I thought for a second
about putting on some makeup, then decided against it. What did it
matter, really? If they were up, they’d all have to be so shitfaced
by now it wasn’t as if I needed to impress. There’d be no
photographers up here. And Ash had seen me in a state of complete
undress for days on end, no styling, no nothing. And he seemed to
like me just fine.

Giving myself a smile
to boost my self-confidence, I turned out of the room. I’d go find
them, and if they were still hanging out maybe I could at least spend
a little time with them as well. I could let Ash know I didn’t
blame him for them arriving up at the cabin they co-owned. It would
feel good to let go of the anger.

In the main room of the
cabin, a girl lay fast asleep on the couch. She had a blanket over
her and she looked peaceful. And young, younger than me. How old was
she? Did her parents know where she was?

OK, I took a deep
breath. I needed to try to relax. This was a whole different scene
than what I was used to, but that didn’t mean I needed to fly into
a panic. She looked over 21. Probably. And she looked fine. I saw no
sign of the others, but then I heard some voices in the kitchen.

“Thought I’d lost
you, man.” That was Connor, I recognized the light Irish brogue
that seemed to come and go. Sometimes he laid it on thick, other
times not so much. I wondered if he calculated when it would have the
right reaction. But, see, there I was again getting all judgmental
and bitchy. That wasn’t how I supposed to be feeling right now, so
I tried to tamp it down.