The Rocker That Needs Me (The Rocker...) (18 page)

He groaned when I leaned over and kissed is cheek. “Goodbye, Drake,” I whispered.

As I straightened, he stretched out and turned on his back. Even as I turned away his eyes opened. “Is it morning yet?” he asked, a slur to his words even now. “Come back to bed, Angel.”

I didn’t turn around as I moved toward the door and met Shane. His face was clouded with emotions, but I saw the tears glazing those beautiful eyes of his. I knew that he was hurting for me.  As I went to move past him he pulled me into his arms and kissed my forehead. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

I didn’t raise my head to meet his eyes. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” I assured him and stepped back. “I…I’ll see you around, Shane.”

“Angel?” Drake was waking up more now. I closed my eyes, trying to draw strength from deep down as I finally turned and met his gaze.

“Bye, Drake,” I said in a dead voice and walked away.

…Emmie…

I wasn’t completely asleep when my phone rang.

Nik was playing with my hair, his fingers stroking through the ends in a way that was both soothing and arousing. It wasn’t too late, just after eleven, but I had learned that with a baby eleven was late enough.

Nik’s dick was twitching every now and then against my ass. I wasn’t sure if he was just teasing me, or if he was going to try to get me to turn over and let him prove all over again that he worshiped my body. I was also unsure as to whether or not I would let him.  Mia would be up at the crack of dawn wanting a dry diaper and some breakfast.

But still, this was Nik. He was worth feeling sleep deprived.

That thought was just crossing my mind when my phone went off. Nik sighed and kissed my cheek as he reached across me and picked up the phone from my bedside table.

“It’s Shane,” he informed me with a frown.

“Answer it,” I told him, still clinging to that pre-sleep phase.

“Hello?” Nik paused and I could feel the tension filling his body.

That tension was all I needed to wake up. Something told me I wasn’t going to like the reason for Shane’s call. It was after two on the East Coast, so I was sure that whatever was going on wasn’t going to be amusing. He knew better than to call after nine my time because of Mia’s bedtime. The look on Nik’s face confirmed my suspicions. His blue eyes were on fire with a temper that looked close to boiling over.

Nik kept listening for a long moment and then, without another word, he gave me the phone. Muttering some curses that I would have smacked him in the back of the head for saying in front of our daughter or Lucy, he started pulling on clothes.

“Shane?” I greeted.

“Emmie!” Shane sounded strange to me. A mixture of emotions in the way he said my name. My heart clenched because whatever was wrong was bad. Very bad. “Emmie, I need you.”

“What’s going on? Are you okay? Is Drake?” Fear made me grip the phone tighter. “Lana?”

“I… Drake got drunk at a party at Axton’s. Liam is in town and he threw a party without Axton knowing about it. Axton invited Drake over after work yesterday and… He started drinking again, Em.”

I bit my lip. “That isn’t the end of the world, Shane. We all knew that he could have set backs. All we have to do is show him that we love him and support him through…”

Shane cut me off. “Emmie, that isn’t what I’m calling you about!” He paused, blowing out a frustrated sigh. “Drake is passed out in his bed, Emmie. And he isn’t alone.”

“Don’t tell me he got Lana drunk too!” I pushed the hair out of my face, already imagining the fit that Jesse was going to throw as soon as he heard about Lana’s partying with Drake…

“It isn’t Lana.” The words came out soft, as if he was trying to break something major to me. I wasn’t all that worried about myself right then. Drake had cheated on Lana. Oh, fuck! Jesse was going to kill him!

“Gabriella Moreitti is in bed with him.”

My head snapped back as if Shane had physically slapped me. No. No. NO! “I don’t believe you,” I whispered. I thought I was rid of that stupid bitch when Axton told me he had called things off with her. He hadn’t reverted to his old ways and let her back in his life after the last bitchy trick she had pulled months ago. Now…

“I swear to you, Emmie. I witnessed it with my own eyes. They are both naked and in bed…Lana just left…”

“Lana! Why the fuck wasn’t she with him in the first place?” I demanded.

“Because she was with me all afternoon yesterday getting ink. She wanted to surprise him with… That doesn’t even matter right now, Emmie!” he exclaimed. “Don’t you dare put this off on Lana. She’s destroyed right now!”

I sucked in a deep breath, trying to gain control over myself. I couldn’t keep blaming Lana for Drake’s mistakes. Everything she had ever done had been to help him, even if I hadn’t seen it that way at the time. Lana was the best thing to ever happen to Drake.

And now he had completely fucked that all up!

Not even I could fix this for him.

“He’s still passed out, Emmie. Both of them are.”

“What do you want me to do, Shane?” I asked.

He blew out a long breath full of frustration, disgust, disappointment, and rage. “If you can’t come take care of this, then no one will. Because if I have to do it, I will kill him. Lana is… I think she needs Layla.”

“How pissed was she?” I know I would have been tearing the place apart if I had found Nik in the same situation. And Lana, she was as big a firecracker as I was when it came to raging.

“That’s just it. She was all calm. Her eyes were all dead, and she even kissed him goodbye before leaving. She wasn’t herself. I’m worried about her. Please, Emmie. Come help me.” His voice was broken.

“I’ll be on the next flight out.”

“Thank you, Emmie.”

“I have to go. I love you.”

“Love you, Em!” And he hung up.

Nik was already tossing my clothes into a carry-on. “What can I do?” he asked from across the bedroom at my closet.

“I have to go to New York.”

“I know. Should I stay here with Mia? Or do you think we should take her?” He looked concerned.

I bit my lip again. I hadn’t spent one night away from my baby girl since we had brought her home from the hospital. “I don’t know.”

Nik stopped what he was doing and came back to me. “Get Jesse, Layla, and yourself on tonight’s flight. If this takes more than a few days, then I will bring Mia and Lucy out. Okay?”

I nodded, tears already spilling from my eyes. Nik kissed me tenderly and pushed my phone into my hands. “It’s going to be okay, baby. Mia will be okay.”

“I know…” Closing my eyes, I sucked in a deep breath. After a moment, I opened my eyes and hit Jesse’s name on my contact list.

It rang and rang and rang. When it went to voice mail, I hung up and dialed it again. “This better be good,” Jesse growled into the receiver several rings later.

“Jesse.”

“Emmie?” He was awake now and I was sorry that I had scared him. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “But you need to wake Layla up. Pack her a bag and I’ll pick you both up. Drake…” How did I tell him without him going nuts? How did I keep one of the guys I loved so much from killing another one of the important men in my life?

“What about Drake?” he demanded. “Is he okay?”

“He’s fine.” For now, I thought as I pulled on a pair of jeans. “Listen, I will explain on the way to the airport. Just get ready.”

“Okay. Okay.” He sounded stressed. “It isn’t Lana, is it?” His voice cracked and I closed my eyes. Layla and her sisters were his world now. If anything happened to any one of them it would destroy him. Which was why I feared for Drake’s life!

“Lana is fine. She and Drake are having some issues. That’s why I need Layla. Okay? Now hurry, Jesse!” I hung up before he could question me further. “Nik, will you call a taxi?” I asked even as I was surfing my phone for LAX.

It took twenty minutes and paying double what I would normally have agreed to pay, but I got the three of us on a flight for one o’clock out of LAX into JFK. As soon as the taxi pulled up, I hauled ass. I kissed Nik goodbye, fighting tears as I had to leave him and Mia behind even for a day or two. Jesse and Layla were already outside waiting for me. Nik was going to walk over and pick Lucy up.

Layla looked wild as she climbed in the back seat beside me. My best friend hugged me tight. “Is she okay? Really?”

“There are different types of
okay
, Layla,” I told her. “I’m just not sure which type she falls into.”

Jesse’s eyes darkened. As the taxi driver drove like the hounds of Hell were after him, which was what I was paying him good money to do, I could see the way his eyes changed colors with his emotions.

“What happened?” he demanded, and I knew that he wasn’t going to take my evasion tactics any longer.

So I told them what I knew. They were quiet, their tempers growing as they listened to me, and I was just finishing up by the time the taxi pulled to a stop in front of LAX. We had exactly fifteen minutes to get our tickets, get through security, and board our plane, but I had so much experience with cutting it close like this that it went smoothly.

With just two minutes to spare, we dropped into our seats. Unfortunately, none of us were seated together. I was smashed between two business men while Jesse was in the very back of the plane with three older ladies who were on their way to visit their grandchildren. Layla had it the easiest. She had a window seat with two teenaged girls beside of her that were already asleep by the time the plane took off.

Five and a half hours later, the plane touched down. It was almost seven, and I wasn’t in any mood to be trifled with as I pushed us all into a cab and barked out the address for Drake and Shane’s apartment. I knew that Lana needed us, but Drake had to be taken care of first.

Drake
and
Gabriella.

If that little slut was still there when I arrived, I was going to do what I should have done the first time she gave me that twisted, bitchy smile. Her classic, Italian beauty wasn’t going to be very pretty when I got done with her!

Drake

Cotton mouth woke me from a dead sleep.

Groaning, I reached for Lana, wanting to kiss her before I got up for a glass of water. When I didn’t feel her, my eyes snapped open and my head felt like it was going to split in two, but that didn’t matter right then. Lana’s side of the bed was rumpled and still felt warm, but she was gone. The sound of the shower calmed my racing heart and the sudden fear that she wasn’t there.

I closed my eyes again, trying to take stock of my aches and pains. I was hung over, that much was obvious to me. Besides a pounding head, cotton mouth, and a queasy stomach, I was okay. I was mad as hell at myself for backtracking and swore that I wasn’t going to let that happen again.

The shower turned off in the bathroom and I sighed, ready to face Lana’s wrath. I deserved for her to be pissed, but I knew that she would forgive me for this slip. Even if she hadn’t said the words Friday, I knew that she loved me…

The bathroom door opened. I jumped out of bed so fast I nearly fell on my face. My head and stomach protested, but I didn’t give a fuck if I threw up or passed out. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Gabriella grimaced at my loud voice. “Dude, down an octave please. Some of us aren’t used to a raging hangover like the pro that you are.” She held her towel around her with one hand and touched her temple with the other.

My mind, still cloudy with the after effects of liquor, was going crazy. The day before flashed through my brain: being upset over not seeing or talking to Lana all day, going to Axton’s to visit with Liam, the party, Gabriella stumbling around, the urge to drink, and the overpowering need to down a bottle!

My fingers started shaking and I ran them through my hair. I hadn’t been able to resist the need and had grabbed the first bottle I saw. Of course it had been Jack Daniels. I had downed the nearly full bottle in a matter of minutes. By the time Axton had come back to find me, I was out of it because it had been so long since my last drink…

From there everything was a solid blank―no fuzzy memories, nothing, just a big black void. That shouldn’t have surprised me. Downing a bottle that fast always made me black out, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t done something stupid.

Like take home the one woman that would get my head knocked off
by Emmie.

Oh, fuck that! What was I going to do about Lana?

“Did we..?” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words “
have sex
.” That would just be the nail in my coffin. That would mean the end of everything I loved and cherished. Oh, GOD! I had fucked up so bad.

“No.” Gabriella shook her dark head. “No sex.”

“Fuck!” I felt the tears sting my sinus cavity. That didn’t mean shit! So what if I hadn’t had sex with her? She had still been in my room and I had been drunk. Something must have happened even if we didn’t have sex. “Get your fucking clothes on and get out!” I bellowed.

“Trust me, Demon. I was doing just that. I’m not exactly proud of myself, you know.” She dropped her towel and pulled on her panties. The sight of her naked body did nothing for me. If anything, I was more disgusted
―disgusted with her, but mostly myself.

I put on a pair of boxers and followed her out of my room to make sure that she left. I felt the tension as soon as I left the bedroom, knew that I was about to walk into a war zone the second I opened the door. Clen
ching my jaw I took a step forward, ready to face this like a man…

Man or not, I wasn’t ready for the punch that Layla aimed at my throat!

She was standing by the couch, blocking Gabriella’s path to the door. She was glaring at Gabriella hard, her body tense, ready to pounce. I was debating on whether to step in or not, leaning more toward not, when suddenly I couldn’t draw a breath.

A wheeze escaped me and I doubled over, trying to suck in air. The fact that I had nearly swallowed my Adam’s apple wasn’t lost on me as I fought through the pain.