The Complete Rockstar Series (4 page)

A
dam

“
O
kay boys
, you go on in five, so make sure you’re ready.” George, the lanky owner of the Drunken Kitten, a decent pub just outside the city proper, pokes his head into the room we’re waiting in to let us know it’s almost time.

Dax and I were lucky to get this gig. The DK is a popular hangout for young people, being close to several universities and located amongst the trendier spots on this side of town. I almost blew the audition with my fucked up hand, but George saw our potential and luckily, believed me when I said I’d be able to play by tonight.

“Ready?” Dax stares at me as he cracks his neck and strums a few quick chords.

I breathe in and out in a pathetic attempt to control my nerves. Dax and I are both guitarists. We play an all-acoustic set of different songs, new, old, and some of our own originals. I sing lead, he sings backup. I anticipated a lot of different problems tonight, but me being nervous wasn’t one of them.

“Yep. Ready as I’ll ever be.” This is our first paying gig. A real paying job, for actual money. Money not earned illegally by working for my brother, running his drugs for him, and it feels bloody fantastic.

Quickly, I strum through my practice chords and nod, “I’m good.”

Dax grins and holds out his huge, scarred fist. I put mine up and bump it to his. “We’re gonna kill this, Reynolds.” His confidence knows no bounds.
Must be nice.

George comes into the tiny room where we’re waiting and smiles. “Full house out there gentlemen, let’s do this.”

He motions for us to follow him to the small stage at one end of the dark pub. As George chats up the crowd, I let my eyes scan the room. George wasn’t lying, there’s loads of people here tonight.

Shit, Reynolds
. Don’t be a big girl’s blouse and just man the fuck up. Dax shoves his elbow into me, pushing me toward the stage. “Go, idiot! They’re waiting,” he whispers.

I snap to my senses and hop up onto the wooden platform, walking over to the microphone. I’ve always been good at being the charming, likeable guy. I can wear it whenever I want. It’s the product of having a shitty home life, creating a personality to hide behind. Hell, maybe I
am
the charming, likeable guy. Fuck if I know who I’m supposed to be after all these years of pretending everything is okay when my life is actually complete crap.

The crowd applauds as we step up to our individual microphones. The loud noise lessens and I hear our names being screamed by a group of girls off to the side. Turning to give them one of my best wicked smiles, I make eye contact with one of them and freeze.

It’s Ellie. Ellie Palmer. The same Ellie Palmer that I’ve been obsessing over for the last three weeks. The girl that I traded my soul for in order to keep her safe. My heart is hammering in my chest and it feels as if the breath has just whooshed out of my lungs, leaving me speechless. She’s just as shocked to see me as I am to see her.

“Our first song is one you’ll recognize,” Dax says, his voice ringing clear over the speakers as the crowd quiets down.

Crap
. As the lead singer, I’m supposed to introduce the songs. I to see Dax giving me an incredulous look. All I can do is shrug stupidly and start playing.

We breeze through our set, starting with popular ones like the Eric Clapton version of
I Shot the Sheriff
, and closing with the Beatles’
Let It Be
with a few of our own songs in between. I’m pretty sure the crowd liked our music, but I was too busy focusing on Ellie to notice much else. Every time I looked her way, she was staring directly at me, either unashamed at being noticed or too caught up in her thoughts to realize she was doing it. I don’t care which it is, just the fact that she’s acknowledging my existence, even without meaning to, is enough to make my heart falter in an unfamiliar yet not unpleasant way.

“That was brilliant!” Dax exclaims as he thumps my back once we’re backstage. “Such a fucking rush!”

“Yeah, it was,” I agree. I take off my guitar and pack it up in its case, stretching out my fingers. I’d been so wrapped up in Ellie that I hadn’t noticed the throbbing pain in my hand until now.

“Boys, that was abso-fuckin-lutely fantastic!” George says, barging into the room with a pint for each of us. Sweaty and hot, I accept the beer gratefully and chug down half of it. “So, you want to be regulars, on Friday nights?”

Dax and I freeze in place and exchange shocked looks. “You mean, every Friday night? Like a permanent thing?” I ask.

George pats my shoulder, “Of course like a permanent thing. They fucking loved you two.” His eyes dart from me to Dax, waiting for an answer. Before either of us can speak, he continues. “Have you ever thought of bringing in another guitarist and a drummer? Because my nephew is here with my sister for the school year. He’s American, and he and his mate have been looking for a few guys to play with. You’d be brilliant together.”

I shoot Dax a concerned stare, one eyebrow raised suspiciously. I don’t want to get stuck with George’s halfwit nephew for a band mate.

“Uhhh, we hadn’t really thought about it, George. To be honest, we’ve only just started seriously playing in the last year or so,” I tell him truthfully. Dax and I have both had guitars since we were ten, but it’s only recently that we started putting together actual songs and not just screwing around.

“No worries, I’ll have them stop by next Friday to see your show. You’ll love them!” George pulls a wad of bills out of his pocket and hands us each a large amount. “Here, you did great. See you next week!” He spins and disappears back into the pub.

“Lovely,” Dax hisses, “Now we get to babysit George’s nephew?”

I can’t worry about new band mates or George’s prat nephew. I’m too distracted by the thought of Ellie Palmer and whether or not she would be willing to kiss me again.

E
llie

“You can do this, Ellie,” I mutter as I walk toward my first period class.

I’m nervous to see Adam after I bailed Friday night at the DK. I told Kate my stomach hurt and convinced her to leave her friends and go home with me as soon as Adam and Dax’s set finished. That way, I wouldn’t have to face him at the pub. After the intense looks we had been exchanging all night, I was too afraid to find out what exactly, they meant.

Now, it’s Monday morning at eight, and I have no choice but to see Adam. This time, without the comforting buffer of alcohol, a crowd of people, and dim lighting.
Wow, am I ever stupid.
I should have just gotten it over with at the pub on Friday night, because facing him today under the harsh fluorescents and stares of other students is going to be awful.

Taking a deep breath, I wipe my sweaty palms on my skirt, shoulder my bag and walk into the room. Keeping my eyes down, I let them flick up briefly as I approach my desk. When I see that Adam’s seat is empty, I’m simultaneously relieved and dismayed at the same time. I’ve only known him a few weeks, and haven’t spoken to him since that dreadful day. How is it that I’m so affected by him?

I drop into my chair and pull my brows together in confusion. From my observations over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed that he’s usually here by now. I waited until the last possible second to enter the classroom to make sure he would be here first. Thankfully, Callum and Ryan don’t say a word to me, or even acknowledge my presence. Strangely enough, they’ve been leaving me alone, but I’m afraid of what might happen today without Adam next to me.

The bell rings and I resign myself to a long day complete with a nervous stomach, crushing disappointment, and no sign of Adam. Somehow I trudge through my classes, hardly able to concentrate on anything my teachers say. Kate manages to get a laugh out of me at lunch, but that’s about the extent of my happiness.

“Ellie! Wait up!” I’m about to head home when I hear a deep male voice shouting my name. My body stiffens in fear as the heavy footsteps approach from behind.

Grabbing my overloaded book bag tight in my fists, ready to swing at an attacker if necessary, I spin around. “Dax! Bloody hell, you scared me!” I clutch my chest to calm my racing heart.

His eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “What? Oh shit, Ellie. I’m sorry.” Dax’s face and neck turn red with embarrassment when he realizes that he frightened me.

“So…” I twitch nervously, “what do you want?”

“Oh, I uh…” Dax runs a large hand through his very short blonde hair and looks around us nervously, not meeting my stare until he speaks again. “Can you come with me?”

I narrow my eyes and look up at him. “I think I’ve learned my lesson about going off with boys I don’t know. And why weren’t you and Adam in school today?” I’m acting somewhat braver than I probably should feel. Dax is absolutely massive, easily well over six feet tall and fourteen stone. His fist is probably as big as my head.

Dax turns and takes a few steps away from me, hands laced on the back of his neck, obviously struggling with what to say next. “Crap, Ellie.” He spins back to face me, his handsome features twisted up into a grimace and his brown eyes urging me to trust him. “You can’t go home alone, okay? Adam didn’t want me to tell you, but he’s been following you every day to make sure that Callum and Ryan don’t try anything and he can’t be here today. He… he asked me to bring you to his place.”

My heart soars at the news that Adam has been looking out for me all these weeks. All that time I thought he was ignoring me, watching girls throw themselves at him as I sat nearby, and he was actually worrying about my safety. As Dax’s words sink in, I become confused and frown. “Why can’t he be here? And why can’t you just walk me home?”

Dax huffs impatiently, waving his arms around as if he can’t speak without them moving. “Adam will explain it all when you see him. He really wants to see you Ellie, and he … he’s not in any condition to leave his flat.”

What?

Swallowing loudly, I decide to go along with his instructions and save all of my questions for Adam. “Okay Dax, take me to see him.”

It’s only about a ten-minute walk to Adam’s flat, but it feels much longer. I thought my street was bad, but it has nothing on Adam’s. Graffiti covers the abandoned properties, broken glass crunches under our feet, metal shells that used to be cars are left to rust alongside the curb, and everything smells like rubbish. It’s positively depressing.

Neither of us says anything, and Dax only speaks right before he opens the door to Adam’s rundown flat, hand hovering over the handle.

“Ellie, don’t freak out, okay?”

The hair on the back of my neck stands up in fear, and my heart begins to pound against my chest again. At this rate I’ll have a heart attack by the time I’m twenty. “Freak out about what?”

“Adam, he… well, he got hurt,” Dax explains, a pained look in his eyes.

“Is it… is he okay?” I choke down the overwhelming feeling of terror that washes over me.

“Yeah, he’ll be okay. Just… just don’t baby him. He’ll act like everything is fine, and you need to go along with it. He doesn’t like pity.” Dax studies me intently, looking down, making sure I can handle this.

Not able to find my voice, I nod and wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans. Dax inhales deeply and pushes open the door. I can’t help the gasp that escapes as I take in Adam’s home, if you can even call it a home.

There’s hardly any furniture in the small space, just a crumbling couch and a shoddy table with two metal folding chairs. A crooked wooden unit holds a tiny television in one corner. Clothes, rubbish, and other random stuff are scattered around the room, obviously left where they landed and quickly forgotten.

I reach over and squeeze Dax’s hand.
Adam lives here?
He glances down at me and presses his mouth into a tight line. “C’mon, in here.” He points with his chin and leads me to a door off of the main room.

I’m not sure what I expected to see, exactly, but it certainly isn’t the sight in front of me. My hand flies up to cover my mouth, squelching the cry that threatens to tear from my throat. I have to physically swallow down the bile that churns painfully in my stomach.

“Ellie?” Adam grunts as his head rolls to look at me from where he’s sitting on a dingy mattress all twisted up in the sheets, his back propped against the wall. “You came.”

“Yeah,” I manage to croak as I move to sit beside him on the mattress on the floor of his tiny room. Taking his clammy hand in both of mine, I clasp it tightly and hold back the tears I feel welling up behind my eyes. “What happened?” I caress his hand gently, loving the excuse to touch him, even as the horror of the situation sinks in.

Be strong Ellie. Screaming would not be helpful right now.

He attempts a smile, but hisses in pain and grimaces, his normally pale skin even whiter than usual. “Nothing, don’t worry about me.” His eyelids are heavy and he’s having a difficult time keeping them open.

My eyebrows rise in disbelief.
Don’t worry?
How can he expect me not to worry considering he looks like he was kicked onto the tracks in the tube and run over by the train?

I quietly take in every injury on his beautiful body, cataloguing each one. His gorgeous face is black and blue and swollen, and there’s a deep cut on his lip that threatens to crack and bleed at any moment. He’s wearing only a loose pair of navy blue athletic shorts, so I can see that he has more dark bruises covering his ribcage on both sides. Scratches appear haphazardly across his chest, arms, and knees, some shallow and some deep.

Those injuries are minor, however, because what makes my stomach twist is the giant, dirty bandage across his abdomen with a large, wet splotch of blood seeping through it.

“Adam, you need to go to hospital,” I encourage soothingly, flicking my eyes over to Dax who is leaning his large body against the doorframe, looking much, much older than seventeen. “Dax, tell him. He needs a doctor.”

“Ellie,” Dax whispers, his eyes plagued with guilt, “we can’t. The police will get involved if we do and then a stab wound won’t be the worst thing that happens to him.”

“Stab wound!” I leap off of the mattress in astonishment. “What the hell? Who stabbed you Adam? Why would someone do that?”

Adam’s gaze drops to the bed, either unable or unwilling to meet mine. I turn to Dax again, hoping he’ll give me some answers, but Dax is gone.

Turning back to Adam, I sit down and lift my trembling hand to his uninjured cheek. My fingers skim along the rough stubble, fluttering gently down to his swollen lips.

“Adam,” I breathe, “who did this?”

He closes his eyes and almost imperceptibly leans into my touch, like a kitten would when you reach down to scratch its ear. “I don’t want to drag you into it, Ellie.”

“Then why am I here?” I ask, still gliding my hand over any bit of undamaged flesh that I can find, skimming over small freckles, a day’s worth of beard, the thrumming pulse at his neck.

Adam’s eyes open and I’m captivated by the intense combination of brown, slate gray, and green that seems to penetrate right through me. “Because I missed you,” he whispers, lifting his hand to drag his fingers across my lips.

I watch as Adam leans in, angling his head toward mine. He winces and I realize that he can’t bend any further because of the pain. Even though I’m worried about him, I can’t help but smile at his efforts. I shift forward to press my lips to his, giving him what he wants. What I want.

He moves his mouth slowly, the pressure so faint that I can hardly feel it. My body and my racing heart are urging me to deepen the kiss, but I don’t, terrified of hurting him. A warm, tingling sensation spreads from my scalp down to my toes and I decide that I never want this glorious feeling to end.

Exhausted from the small effort, Adam breaks the kiss first, slumping back against the wall in the same half-sitting position he was in when I got here. My entire body is tense and crackling with a strange combination of fear and desire. Struggling to control it, I let myself study Adam as he rests.

His eyes are closed again, one lid is swollen and almost black. Down the same side of his face is a large purple stain with a shallow scrape in the middle of it. Adam’s beautiful lips are slightly parted and still damp from our kiss, his lower one cracked and puffy in the center.

My gaze drops down to his torso, which is lean and sculpted like the body of a swimmer or a runner. Cautiously, I touch the corner of his tattered bandage, tugging gradually to try and see the damage.

“Bloody fucking hell,” Adam groans as he weakly tries to bat my hand away. Failing miserably, he lets his arm drop to the mattress from the exertion.

“Adam, this isn’t sanitary. I need to look at it.” Reassuringly, I put my hand over his and rub my thumb in small circles.

Drained, he doesn’t open his eyes but nods his consent. His head thumps back against the wall, he’s trusting me while he’s at his most vulnerable. I grasp a corner of the bandage again and peel it back as gently as I can manage. The tape is already curling at the edges so it comes off easily. The center of the gauze, however, is stuck to the wound.

“Just yank it,” Adam grunts, gritting his teeth together. I look up at his face to be sure that he’s serious. His eyes are squeezed shut and his jaw muscles are twitching. Bracing one hand on the mattress, I squeeze my own eyes closed and jerk on the gauze, hard.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuuuckkkk!” Adam screams in agony and hunches over the edge of the mattress, dry heaving from the pain. “Ughhhhh,” he moans, pressing his sweaty face into his pillow when the sensation finally passes.

“I’m sorry!” I cry. “Adam, please, stay on your back, you’re still bleeding.” I help him roll off his side and inspect the stab wound as he gasps in distress. “Jesus, Adam.” The puncture is long, almost four inches, but thankfully not very deep and only seeping a small amount of blood. It’s more of a slice than a stab and it didn’t go through all the layers of skin. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until I exhale in relief. Thank god I spent the last year volunteering at the local clinic in Shepherd’s Bush or else I’d have passed out by now.

Toughen up Ellie. You can do this, you’re going to be a nurse someday.

“Where’s the gauze?” I ask lightly, trying to keep my voice calm and reassuring even though inside I feel like screaming.

Adam can’t respond to my question, his entire body is now being wracked with small tremors and his teeth are chattering loudly. I place my hand on his forehead, no fever, which is surprising.

“Dax!” I call out, suddenly overwhelmed and truly afraid for Adam.

“Yeah,” he appears in the doorway only a moment later.

“I need help. I don’t know why he’s shivering.” I feel helpless, the tears I had held back for Adam’s sake are now coursing freely down my cheeks.

Dax steps into the room and crouches next to the bed. “He was doing that yesterday when I cleaned the wound. It’s a reaction to the pain or the blood loss, I think.”

“Okay,” I respond uncertainly, trusting that Dax knows what he’s talking about. It takes all of my strength, but I’m able to calm myself down some now that I know Adam’s not having a seizure or some sort of fever-induced convulsions. I swallow and steel myself against the nerves that are bubbling up in my gut. “Well, where are the bandages? I need to cover this back up.”

Dax hands me a plastic sack from the other side of the tiny space. “There’s antiseptic ointment in there too,” he says before he gets up and thankfully leaves me alone to play nursemaid.

I patch Adam up the best I know how, which isn’t much. He remains either asleep or unconscious throughout, I’m not sure which, while I tend to him. I allow myself the pleasure of pressing a small kiss to Adam’s damp forehead before I stand up and join Dax in the main room of the flat.

Free from having to pretend to be unaffected under Adam’s gaze, my entire body trembles and I crumple to the floor. It looks cleaner down here than on that dreadful couch, and that doesn’t say much. As I sit, I put my head in my hands and cry. Dax sits next to me and waits patiently for my breakdown to end.