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“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“I will carry your ass back upstairs if you don’t walk.” I picked the shirt up off the floor and tossed it at her. “Put this on and let’s go.”
Beth helped Cee into her shirt and pulled her up off the floor. The second I reached for Cee, she flailed away, knocking a picture off the wall. “Don’t fucking touch me!” she screamed.
The people at the front desk looked over, concerned. “Go make sure they know where to send the bill for the broken stuff. I’ll get her upstairs.”
“The hell you will,” Cee spat at me.
“Time for bed, bestie. You’ve had enough fun for one night.” I ignored her wrath and took her by the hand, pulling her toward the elevator. When she resisted, I picked her up, hauling her over my shoulder and brought her upstairs, kicking and screaming.
I brought her to my room, on a different floor than the ongoing party. She continued screaming at me, trying to leave the room when I put her down. “Calm the fuck down, Kate. You just need to sleep off whatever you’re on.”
She looked at me with fury in her eyes. “You left me.”
“What? When? I haven’t seen you in days.”
“Because you left me,” her scream wavered with tears to come.
“I didn’t leave you. The last time I saw you was in my bed. You told me to do my job and that you’d wait for me there. You were gone when I got back an hour later. You left me.” She looked at me, confused. “We can argue about this tomorrow when you’ve had some sleep. Come on. Into bed.”
“Will you tell me a bedtime story?”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “Just get in bed.”
Cee kicked off her shoes and her skirt. I handed her my t-shirt, and she swapped her shirt and bra for it. “Thank you,” she whispered. We both crawled into the bed, and I hit the switch on the wall, sending us into darkness. She laid her head in the crook of my arm. “I’m sorry I’m such a fucking disaster.”
“It’s okay. I would be too. Let’s just sleep.”
“Tell me about Sofia,” she murmured, already half asleep.
Sofia was my girlfriend back before we became famous. “How do you know about Sofia?” I asked defensively. I didn’t want to talk about Sofia.
“I heard Connor and Tom talking about her.”
I ran my hand through her hair and asked quietly, “What’d they say?”
“That she fucked you up. She’s why you don’t drink.”
I sighed. “There’s not a lot to tell, really. Sofia and I dated for about a year when the band was first getting big. We partied all day and all night. Shit got out of control. But I was spending all my time fucked up, and I didn’t notice that she was slipping away. I let the band’s obligations take precedence over making sure she was okay. After a while, it was obvious to everyone except me that she had a problem. Hell, even Kyle knew it and look what happened to him.” I let out an exasperated sigh. “Anyway. Long story short, we broke up. She went to rehab, and I haven’t heard from her since. I don’t drink anymore because I hated myself for not seeing what was right in front of my face.
“I haven’t had a relationship since. I know this lifestyle is brutal and that I’m going to have to put the band first and a relationship behind it, and that’s not fair to anyone I’m with, so I just don’t have real relationships.”
“But you were dating that girl when Elle and Silas met.”
“Yeah, I thought my time on the road was done. I didn’t really see this blowing up the way it has. I broke it off with her the day we were leaving Atlanta for that trip. It was a dick move, but what I felt was necessary. Besides, once she found your sister’s bra, she lost her shit and accused me of cheating. It was the excuse I needed to break it off.”
Cee frowned. “That must be lonely.”
“It can be. But I have the guys and you know I meet plenty of ladies on the road.” I ran my hand through her hair.
“Yes. You seduced me.”
I chuckled. “I don’t recall it taking much seduction.”
“You’re a sexy man, drummer boy.”
Forty-Two
