Night Shifts Black (14 page)

“You know, Casey wrote
most of that one,” Luke announces, and I’m not surprised based on our earlier
interaction.

Casey just shrugs.
“Black sheep, right?” he says with a quick smile of explanation. I have mercy
on him and return it. I remember what Luke had said about the meaning of the song,
and realize Casey must have a story I’ll need to hear one day, too.

“It’s basically what
got us signed,” Luke continues.

“Well, that and our
devastating good looks,” Casey jokes, not even acknowledging Luke’s praise. I
roll my eyes, and he grins, although he’s probably not far from the truth. It
certainly wouldn’t have hurt.

“She thinks it’s
pretty,” Casey continues, and a knowing smile flashes across Luke’s face.

“Pretty? ‘Argyle?’ She
would.”

“I would? What’s that
supposed to mean?” I counter.

Luke shrugs lightly.
“Nothing, I’m just not surprised, that’s all.”

I blush a little, not
sure what he means by that. “Well, excuse me if I’m not dark and depressing
enough for you edgy rockers.”

Luke and Casey
exchange another grin, and I cross my arms. “What? What did I do now?”

“Nothing,” Luke
replies.

I glance to Casey, but
he just shrugs and looks like he’s stifling a laugh.

I glare at them both.
“Fine. I should probably get going anyway,” I retort.

“Callie…” Casey grabs
my arm as I pass. “We didn’t…”

I pull away and
continue on.

“Callie!”

I know I’m being
childish as I hide in the extra room, but deep down I’m also smarting from the
nerve they struck. The truth is, I really am self-conscious about the fact that
I don’t fit in. I act like I’m confident and don’t care, and maybe a lot of the
time that’s true, but sometimes, moments like today when I’m tired and coming
off a string of trials, I’m too exhausted to be the ambassador. Sometimes I
just want them to try to come into my world for once.

A knock interrupts my
thoughts, and I glare at the door. I don’t respond, but it doesn’t matter, and
I’m surprised when it’s Luke who pokes his head in. He gives me an apologetic
look and completes the journey into the room. I still don’t say anything, but
shift a bit so he can sit beside me.

“You know we fought
over who would come in here,” he begins, and I’m not sure how that helps.

“You lost, I guess?”

He looks surprised and
laughs. “No, I won!” he cries in exasperation. “God, Callie, don’t you get it?
We don’t want you to be like us! We want you to think our music is pretty and
tell us when we’re being assholes. You have to stop thinking that the gap that
separates us is because of a shortcoming on your part. Did you ever think that
it might be on ours?”

I swallow, floored by
his words for so many reasons.

He lets out his
breath, staring at the floor. “I can be a major pain-in-the-ass. I know that.
Last night…” He shakes his head, and I’m not about to correct him. “Anyway, my
point is, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for last night. I’m sorry for this morning. I
have a ton of issues, but I never want you to think you’re one of them, ok?”

I finally allow myself
to glance over at him, and all the fear, and longing, and pain, and confusion
come rushing back into me at once. I don’t know what to do with it as my eyes
fill and I lean into him. Luke wraps his arms around me in return, and I hold
on, terrified that I will lose him one day.

“I was so scared last
night,” I whisper into his shirt. I pull back slightly, and look up into his
face. “I didn’t know…I mean, you…I hated seeing you like that.”

He looks away, and I
catch a glimpse of all the agony that led to last night before he tucks it out
of view. I let him go, and he squeezes my hand gently before retreating into
himself and facing the wall again.

“That used to be
normal.”

“I know.”

He glances at me
sharply. “Casey told you.”

“Casey loves you and
is probably the best friend you have.”

Luke seems skeptical,
and I shake my head. “No. You need to listen to me, Luke. Last night it was
Casey who took care of you, not me. It was Casey who wiped the puke off your
face and nursed you back to health.” I pause. “You need to let him back into
your life.”

Luke’s expression
hardens. “I can’t.”

As does mine. “You
have to.”

“You don’t understand.”

I shrug. “Ok, then
explain it to me. We’re past the ‘no personal stuff.’”

Luke shakes his head
and won’t look at me.

“He’s a good person,
Luke. And after what I saw last night, I’d venture to say, better than both of
us.”

Luke shakes his head
again, looking like he wants to speak but can’t. Or won’t.

“What? I don’t know if
maybe you’ve had a falling out in the past, but he wants to make it right
again. He wants to be a part of your life.”

Luke glares at me, and
it’s then that I see the self-loathing Casey was talking about. It’s so vivid I
almost gasp.

“He can’t be part of
my life. I’m not doing that to him again,” he hisses. Then rises from the bed.

I watch him leave in
stunned silence.

∞∞∞

Casey is oblivious when I emerge from the
room, still seated at the island, studying his phone. He glances up at my
entrance, but his smile fades when he sees my face.

“You’re still mad. I’m
sorry, we didn’t…”

I cut him off with a
hug. He doesn’t speak, even though I know he’s confused as my arms tighten
around him. He reciprocates, and I feel his chin resting on my head. He adjusts
so we can be closer.

“What is it? What’s
wrong?” he asks, allowing me to settle into him.

I want to say
something, to explain, but I don’t know how. Nothing’s wrong and everything’s
wrong. And some things are right, but maybe not enough things.

“I want you to stay,”
I whisper. “No matter what happens, what he says or does, you need to stay.
Please?” I ask, pulling back so I can search his face.

His eyes fill with
concern, and I realize how beautiful they are. I’d thought there could be
nothing more consuming than the painful depth of Luke’s gaze until I got lost
in the compassionate abyss of Casey’s.

He just nods. I know
he knows there’s more to this, that he’s going to regret his promise as much as
be glad for it, but he makes it, silently, and I rest against him again,
holding on.

“I can’t help him
alone, Casey. I know that now. He needs you. I need you, too.”

“I’m not going
anywhere,” he responds softly.

“Promise?” I ask,
looking up at him again.

He nods. “Promise.”

I force an awkward
smile that he returns, suddenly feeling safe again. It’s funny how Luke stirs
me up but Casey seems to calm me down.

“He told you he wanted
me gone, didn’t he,” Casey guesses after a long pause.

I don’t respond at
first. It does us no good to lie.

“Yes, but not for the
reasons you’d think. I actually think it’s because he believes he’s bad for
you. I think he’s afraid he’ll drag you down with him. He said ‘again.’ What
does that mean?”

Casey looks away,
conflicted, and sighs.

“Please, Casey, I’m
tired of being involved in your lives and yet not knowing anything. I don’t
know how to help, how to even act, when I’m around you two.”

He nods and glances
down the hall, probably to make sure we’re alone, before leading me to the
couch. We sit facing each other, and I wait as he gathers his thoughts.

“If you think things
are bad now, you should have seen what happened after Elena,” he begins
quietly. “Luke completely imploded. I doubt he even remembers the first month.
The band took a hiatus, everyone understood, and the publicity actually helped
us. You know how tragedy goes…well, as long as it’s not your fault.” He stops
and looks away. “And it wasn’t, and the media had a field day with it. Our
Label didn’t help matters and sucked every last dollar and headline they could
out of Luke’s devastation.”

He takes a deep
breath. “The problem is, it kind of was his fault. Not in an obvious way, a
criminal way,” he adds quickly. “But the kind of way that tears you apart
inside and turns compassion into poison.” He quiets again. “Everyone said he
just needed time…and space. Even the other guys let him go. They wouldn’t have
known what to do with him anyway, but I couldn’t. I stuck by him.” He looks up
again, and I can see how painful this story is, and yet, how relieved he is to
finally release some of it.

He lets out a bitter
laugh. “Oh, he hated me for it, believe me, and made nothing easy, but he was
my brother, and I couldn’t just abandon him and take advantage of his pain like
everyone else.”

He sits back and
shakes his head at another memory.

“You know, at one
point the Label almost cut me because I refused to be part of some major cable
‘special’ about the whole thing. I don’t know why Sweeny and Eli did it, but
they did. I guess the Label realized Night Shifts Black couldn’t afford to lose
both Luke and me, so they agreed to let me sit out the interview if I agreed to
participate in another tour. We had canceled the rest of the current one after
what happened.”

“And Luke blames
himself for almost getting you kicked out of the band?” I guess, studying him
carefully.

He shakes his head.
“No, Luke blames himself for almost getting me killed,” he says quietly. He draws
in a deep breath. “I’m not an expert at grief, and I certainly wasn’t then. I
didn’t know what to do with Luke, how to take care of him. I was full of my own
pain, too. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to abandon him like everyone
else. But I’ll admit, in the beginning, I made the mistake of thinking ‘being
there for him’ meant ‘joining him.’”

He looks away again,
and I find myself instinctively taking his hand. My instinct reacts surprisingly
open with him for some reason.

“I tried to be the
responsible one, but failed more times than not. One night…” He shudders.
“Anyway, we both ended up in the hospital, along with a ton of headlines the
Label was not happy about. Unfortunately, since I’m not Luke Craven, I didn’t
get the grace Luke did. They basically gave me a choice at that point, distance
myself from Luke and rejoin the band, or they’d drop me. So I had to make a
choice. Career or friend.”

“And you chose career.”

Casey laughs. “No, of
course not. I chose Luke, but he wouldn’t let me. We fought about it for days,
and then suddenly, he just disappeared. Abandoned his house, his accounts,
everything, and stopped answering his phone. No one knew where he went,
including me.” He sighs. “To this day, I don’t know if he ran for my sake or
his, but the result was the same. I had no other choice at that point. If I
couldn’t help him, I had to go back. So I did. Cleaned myself up, got back on
track, and was thrilled when our manager called to say that he’d finally heard
from Luke. That he was here. I came as soon as I could which was during our quick
break before the Calisto Festival.”

“The day you came to
breakfast club,” I recall, and he nods.

“Believe me, I was in
shock he not only let me in when I showed up, but let me stay the night. It was
a short honeymoon, as you saw, but at least we started talking again.” He
shrugs. “He invited me to his party, right?”

“He loves you,” I say,
squeezing his hand. “He does, he just hates himself too much to let anyone love
him back.”

He grunts. “I know. I
mean, most of the time I know. It’s hard to believe that sometimes, but I try
to keep hoping he’ll let me back in at some point. I don’t know how to help him
if he doesn’t.”

Casey’s phone starts
buzzing, completely startling us, and he glances at the screen. He curses and
gives me an apologetic look.

“I should take this.
Sorry, give me a minute?” he asks, and I offer him my most forgiving smile. I
have plenty to absorb anyway.

I watch his face as he
answers and gets to his feet.

“Yeah. Wait, what? Why
would you do that?” Casey cries, clearly exasperated, and rubs his hand over
his face. “No, I know. I just…yeah…Yes, I know where he is. I’m with him now.
No, it’s not…Because he’s not ready!...I don’t know, I’ll figure something
out…Dammit, TJ, I told you I know! I’m working on it! …Ok, yeah…Ok…just
don’t…no…I know...ok, just don’t call him again, ok? Call me if you need
anything. Me, not him!…ok…yeah, ok. You, too.”

Casey hangs up with a
curse and shakes his head. “What an idiot,” he mutters.

He gives me another
apologetic look. “Sorry about that.” He takes a deep breath. “You know, sometimes
I think I wish my life was more shallow, but then I talk to TJ. He always snaps
me out of it.”

“TJ?”

“Our Manager.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah…He’s awesome at
what he does it’s just unfortunately all he does. He tried to call Luke.”