“Sorry to rush you!” she said with a grin. “But I really have to pee.”
“Oh, uh, right.” He stepped out of the doorway even as he held the bathroom door open for her. “Sorry I took so long, Jelly Bean.”
“No problem.” She glanced into the dark bathroom curiously. “Is the lightbulb out?”
“No.”
“Oh.” This time her curious look was leveled at him. “Why didn’t you turn the light on? It’s pitch black in there.”
Since he couldn’t tell her the truth—that it was easier in the dark because he didn’t have to look himself in the mirror—he just shrugged.
She seemed to get it anyway, her face softening as she pulled him in for a warm, tight hug. Then again, he’d never had to tell Jamison anything, had he? Little sister of Jared, Shaken Dirty’s lead guitarist, and now fiancée to their lead singer, Ryder, she’d been around since they’d been in high school, rehearsing cover songs in her and Jared’s parents’ garage, dreaming of writing their own songs and maybe even hitting the big time.
Well, they’d hit the big time, all right. And everything had fallen to shit around them, including him. Maybe especially him.
“It’s going to be okay,” Jamison whispered as she held him close. “You’ve got this, Wyatt. I know you do.”
Well, that made one of them. Not that he could say that to her—she’d been there every step of the way through rehab and he didn’t want to disappoint her, didn’t want to let her down, not when he’d already done that so many other times through the years. It was why he was here, using every ounce of willpower he had not to walk into the front of the house and score some horse or molly or even some weed. Something, anything, to take the edge off. To make it easier to breathe in his own skin.
“I’m all right,” he told her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before untangling himself from the hug. “Go pee. I’ll hang with the guys.”
As he walked away, he pretended he was totally fine. Just like he pretended he couldn’t feel her worried eyes tracing his every step. It worked, too, at least until he walked into the communal dressing room that doubled as the green room, and every single person there turned to look at him like he was some kind of animal at the zoo that they’d paid twenty-five bucks to gawk at.
Oh, they were more subtle than tourists at the zoo, but he knew they were watching. Knew they were worried. Ryder and Jared were arguing over the merits of Cap’n Crunch versus Coco Krispies (like there was even something to argue about—Crunch Berries obviously ruled) but they kept glancing over at him when they thought he wasn’t looking. Quinn, the band’s keyboardist, was cuddling his woman, Elise, on his lap, and though he was nodding along to whatever she was saying, his gaze was pinned to Wyatt. And finally, Li, the Austin bassist they were trying out tonight to see if their sounds meshed during a live show, just kept staring at him like he thought Wyatt was going to fuck up his one big chance.
Which pretty much made Wyatt not like him on principle…but hey, who the fuck was he to judge anyone?
Grinding his teeth, he pretended he didn’t notice his bandmates’ scrutiny as he moved deeper into the room. Yet another part of the program that was total bullshit. His shrink had spent much of the last ten weeks telling him he needed to be “authentic.” That his feelings had value. That he needed to share those feelings with the people closest to him even if it made him—or them—uncomfortable.
What a total crock. The only thing he would accomplish by admitting to his best friends how badly he needed a fix was to freak them all out. Not to mention have them crawl even deeper up his ass. As for Li, there was no way he was saying anything in front of a guy he was already pretty sure wouldn’t make the cut. It was a feeling that had nothing to do with how much he already disliked the guy—or at least, that’s what he was telling himself.
Ducking his head, Wyatt made his way across the room to the small fridge in the corner. He pulled it open hoping there was something in it besides beer—he wasn’t thirsty, but a bottle of water would at least give him something to do with his hands until he got his sticks in them—and found that it was completely empty. There wasn’t so much as a can of Coke for him to grab.
Fuck it. Just fuck it.
He closed the fridge door extra carefully—because what he really wanted to do was slam it—and took a few seconds to just breathe before turning around. It wasn’t that the fridge was empty that bothered him. He wasn’t that kind of diva and never had been. But what bugged the shit out of him was that he knew it had been full when they’d gotten there. He’d seen Jared open it, had seen the bottles of beer lined up one after the other.
Which meant they’d taken the opportunity to get rid of all the alcohol in the room while he was in the bathroom.