I erased that one too, wishing I could erase the tentative tone in my mother’s voice as easily. She sounded like she was always bracing herself for bad news.
The final message played, this one having come in just a few minutes ago, maybe while I was unloading my unconscious cargo from the limo. I knew it would be Theo even before I heard his voice.
“Hey bro, just checkin’ in. Call me back. Later.”
Theo sounded casual, but the time of his call and earlier texts gave him away. Irritation flared but I battled it back. Maybe Theo was working late at Vegas Ink. Sometimes he had clients coming in at all hours. Or maybe he was out late on a date—I couldn’t keep track of his women, they came and went in and out of his life so quickly.
I erased the message just as a text came in on my cell. I grabbed it off the coffee table while Kacey Dawson slept on, oblivious.
Theo: Still at work?
Now I rolled my eyes, as the irritation took root. I jabbed a text. No, I’m out chain-smoking Marlboro Reds and eating raw steak.
Very funny. Home???
I sighed and contemplated the blank space, my thumb itching to tell him off, to quit hovering over me and leave me alone. I jabbed a few words to that effect, then backspaced the text away with a sigh. I didn’t get to be pissed off anymore. Not on the outside, anyway. Not at him or my parents. My whole situation was shitty enough without making them feel worse.
Yes, I’m home now, I texted. Goodnight, Theo.
C U at shop on Sun.
“I’m sure I will,” I muttered.
I silenced the phone and left it on the kitchen counter on the way to the bedroom. There, I changed out of my limo livery and laid it out on the bed that was neatly made and probably slightly dusty. I changed into a white wife-beater and sleep pants from the plain wooden dresser, then headed to the bathroom in the hall to take a piss and brush my teeth.
I brushed and made plans.
Take Kacey back to the Summerlin house first thing in the morning.
Return the limo to A-1 and get my truck.
Go back to my routine.
No problem. One little speed bump, that’s all tonight had been.
In the living room, Kacey Dawson looked to be sleeping comfortably—or as comfortable as one could get in leather and vinyl. I remembered from my own college days that being hungover and sweating out last night’s booze was a rotten combo. I turned the AC unit at the window on, and settled into the reclining chair across from the couch.
I had to laugh at the scene that would greet my guest should she wake up in the middle of the night: a dinky apartment instead of her mega-mansion, and a strange dude sleeping in a recliner not five feet away instead of in the bed like a normal person.
“Stephen King should take notes,” I muttered, settling into the half-way lying down position my doc recommended. “This’ll learn you to drink your options away, Kacey Dawson,” I muttered as my eyes drifted shut. “Everything in moderation.”
Like my sleep.
I woke up at six, my ass numb from sitting in the same position all night. Not being able to change positions sucked, but I never slept much anyway, and I always came awake sharp and alert. It was as if my body knew time was no longer a luxury I could afford to waste.
I steered my thoughts toward something positive. Sunlight—yellow and sharp—slanted in from the front window. The glass bottles and paperweights caught it, captured it, and sprayed it out on the coffee table in mottled reds, blues, and purples.
“Beautiful,” I murmured. And I had the entire Saturday at the hot shop before me to create more.
The figure on the couch moaned and sighed in her sleep, reminding me with a small jolt I had some unfinished business to take care of first. I threw off the light blanket and moved to the couch. Crouching beside Kacey Dawson, I studied her sleeping face a moment.
“Hey.”
She didn’t stir. Her mouth was slightly open. Dead to the world.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” I told her. “Don’t steal anything.”
I pondered writing her a note to tell her she wasn’t kidnapped but then this probably wasn’t the first time Kacey Dawson woke up after a hard night of partying not knowing where she was. I left it to chance and took my shower.
She was still out cold when I re-emerged, dressed in jeans and a plain T-shirt. My hot shop uniform. At precisely seven a.m. I took my meds, choking down one pill after another. Fifteen in all. My stomach complained instantly, and I got to work making the equally stomach-churning protein shake I drank every morning.
“Sorry, Kacey, this is going to hurt,” I muttered and hit the button on my blender, filling my small apartment with a god-awful buzzing.
The massively hungover Kacey Dawson stirred, groaned, and finally sat up, pushing her tousled hair out of her eyes. She looked around blearily, not seeing me in the kitchen behind her, watching her.
I didn’t know it then—I couldn’t have—but in that moment, the rest of my life, or what was left of it, began.
Someone was cutting down a tree. Fuck that, a whole forest.