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“Thank you. Text me after.”
“Will do.” I grab my wallet and keys from the dish on the kitchen island.
She’s silent for a beat too long. “Don’t bring him back home tonight. Mom doesn’t need to see it.”
I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. “He shouldn’t have called you. This isn’t your mess.Noahisn’t your mess.”
“He’s not anyone’s mess. He’s ourbrother, and I would rather him call me for help than stumble home and get hit by a car,” she snips, and I can picture the sharp twist of her mouth as she scowls at the phone.
“He’s barely twenty years old. It isn’t okay for this to be happening. Mom and Dad need to take care of it. I’ll pick him up tonight and bring him home with me, but I can’t keep letting him piss his life away.” A sniffle on the other side of the call has my steps faltering on my way into the private elevator. Guilt rips through me, and I soften my voice. “I’ll handle it, yeah? I promise.”
“He was excited when he called this afternoon. Said he was playing a gig tonight,” she whispers.
I press the button on the wall for the main floor and exhale when the elevator starts moving.
Noah is a great musician. He has been since he was old enough to pick up his first instrument. It’s just a shame he’s wandered from that pretty path and ended up in a pit of quicksand that keeps pulling him deeper and deeper every day. At this rate, it won’t be long until he’s sunk so far he won’t be able to breathe. That’s the day I fear the most.
“I’m sure he was. I’m leaving the penthouse now. I’ll text you when we get back. Try not to make yourself sick worrying about us, okay?”
“I’ll try. I love you.”
“I love you too. Get some sleep,” I order.
“Yeah, I’ll try. Bye.”
“Bye.”
The elevator doors open as I shove my phone in my pocket and walk into the lobby. It’s quiet, empty besides the security guard leaning against the front desk, scrolling through his phone. He looks up and gives me a nod as I walk past, and I return the gesture, albeit stiffly.
I step outside the building and just stand there, right in front of the glass doors, as the warm breeze runs over me. My head falls forward, and I release a tight breath.
“What have you done this time, Noah?”
* * *
Ralph’s isa hole-in-the-wall bar in a part of town I wasn’t familiar with until the first time I picked Noah up here. It’s on a deserted road littered with closed businesses, all of which have boarded-up windows and Keep Out signs plastered to the doors. It’s a place you don’t go to unless your plan is to run away and hide from life. And when it comes to my brother, he wants to hide from everything. Not from fear like most assume, but because he just simply doesn’t want to be around anyone.
There’s only one person Noah has ever wanted to spend time with, and she lives across the country.
I lock my truck doors twice for good measure—even if it wouldn’t be hard for someone to break into it if they wanted to badly enough—and start up the sidewalk. The drunks stumbling around outside of the brick building make my stomach churn as I brush past them. The air stinks like smoke and vomit, and needles are scattered across the concrete. If Dad knew I was here . . .
“Uh-oooh, the fun police is here!” one of the men slurs as I push past him. He’s vaguely familiar, but not enough I can recall his name.
His bony fingers wrap around my wrist before I can create enough distance between us, and I slowly look down at where he’s holding me before moving my eyes up to his. “What are ya gonna do? Arrest me? I remember you from last time.”
“I doubt you remember what you ate for breakfast this morning.”
I get a good view of him when he steps closer, shaking slightly. His pupils are black dots the size of one of the needles on the ground, and his lips are cracked and bloody. It’s hard to keep my face neutral, but by some miracle, I do.
“Let go of me,” I say calmly.
“Where’s the please?”
I tense up when someone else moves to stand beside me, but a brief sideways glance is enough to know it’s Noah. Still, I don’t relax. I won’t until we’re far from this place.
“Let go of him,” Noah orders gruffly. His voice is cold enough to make me shiver. He’s detached, more so than normal.
“We’re leaving.” I rip my arm from the drunk and start to shove my brother down the sidewalk, away from that damned place. He doesn’t fight me on it. He never does. “Where’s your guitar? You don’t have it.”
