Authors: Bec Linder
But Andrew, of course, saw none of the love and despair in O’Connor’s tone, only the anger. His face crumpled and he looked away.
“Oh,
Andrew
,” Rushani said, and knelt on the floor beside his bed. She covered his hands with hers. “Why did you do it?”
Andrew looked over at James and O’Connor, his eyebrows lifted. There was an awkward pause. O’Connor stuck his hands in his pockets. Andrew said, “Get out.”
James snorted, but they could all read the writing on the wall: Andrew wanted to have a heart-to-heart with Rushani, and he wasn’t going to say a word until James and O’Connor scrammed. Some part of O’Connor was hurt that Andrew didn’t want to talk to him, but mostly he knew that he deserved it. He hadn’t been a very good friend, lately. He hadn’t been paying enough attention. He was glad that Rushani was there to do the emotional heavy lifting, as always. What was he going to say to Andrew, anyway? Sorry you tried to kill yourself? Don’t do it again? I’m a fucking asshole for ever letting things get this bad?
He grabbed James’s elbow and steered him away.
James didn’t protest. They left the emergency room altogether and walked a loop through the hospital’s first floor. James muttered to himself under his breath, and O’Connor left him alone. He could imagine James’s dark thoughts all too well. Best to just leave it alone.
He realized that his phone was buzzing steadily in his pocket. He pulled it out and answered without looking at the screen. “Yeah?”
“Hey,” a voice said. Leah. “You haven’t been answering my texts.”
A wave of irritation flooded through him. Of course he wasn’t answering her texts—he was in the fucking hospital with Andrew, who had just tried to kill himself. He took a deep breath. Leah had no way to know that. They’d made plans, and all she knew was that he had bailed on her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Look. There’s been an—we’ve had an emergency.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Andrew.”
“Yeah,” he said. “We’re at the hospital now.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. “But we won’t be heading to Kansas City tomorrow.”
“Do you want me to come there?”
He didn’t; he didn’t want her to see this, the raw breakdown of all of his dreams, Andrew’s desperate attempt to get someone to care about him. “It’s okay,” he said. “Maybe tell the roadies what’s going on? Hold on a second.” He dropped the phone to his side and turned to James. “It’s Leah. Do you want her to tell the crew what’s up?”
James nodded. “Tell them we’ll be here at least another day. We’ll make a decision about canceling dates later this afternoon, and someone will let them know what’s happening by dinnertime.”
He passed the message along to Leah. “Okay,” she said, sounding uncertain. “I’ll tell everyone. Do you want—is there anything I can do?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. He had planned to spend the whole day in bed with her. That seemed very distant now. “We’ll probably be back at the hotel in a few hours. I don’t know yet.”
“Okay,” she said again. “Well.” A pause. “Good luck.”
They kept walking, him and James, through the hospital’s white, brightly lit, gleaming corridors. The air smelled faintly of cleaning solution and even more faintly of urine. A red and white sign appeared above a doorway before them: they had made a full loop of the hospital, and were back at the emergency room.
They came to a stop. James said, “Do you think he’s done talking to Rushani by now?”
O’Connor shrugged. “What are you going to say to him, anyway?”
“I have no fucking idea,” James said.
But it was a moot point; Andrew was in the process of being moved upstairs to the psych unit, and Rushani came over to them from out of the swarm of nurses and said, “He’ll be meeting with the psychiatrist soon. So we can wait, I guess, to see if they’re going to admit him, or else go back to the hotel and come back later.”
O’Connor shrugged. What was he going to do at the hotel that he couldn’t do here? “Let’s wait. Then we can all make a decision together.”
“We’re going to have to cancel the tour,” James said.
It was exactly what O’Connor had been thinking earlier, but he said, “Maybe not. Maybe only a few dates.”
“Definitely tomorrow’s show,” Rushani said. “We won’t make it in time.”
“I’ll take care of it,” James said, and settled a comforting hand on Rushani’s shoulder. “We’ll call Hakeem later.”
The psychiatric ward was upstairs, at the end of a long hallway. A nurse directed them to sit in a small empty waiting room. An hour went by. O’Connor poked listlessly at his phone. Then a man in a white lab coat came into the room and smiled at them. “You must be Andrew’s friends. I’m Dr. Ofori. I’m the psychiatrist on duty.”
He shook their hands, and then took a seat in the chair beside Rushani. “Andrew gave me permission to speak with you. He’s resting now.”
“You’re admitting him, aren’t you?” Rushani asked. “For more than just the one night, I mean.”
The doctor nodded. “Yes. He’s in a bad state. He’s quite suicidal. We’ll keep him inpatient here for a few days, maybe a week, get him started on some medication. And he’ll need extensive outpatient treatment. Medication, regular therapy.”
They sat in silence, absorbing this information.
“Don’t worry too much,” the doctor said. “The good news is that depression is highly treatable. So with time, he should be able to resume his normal activities. I understand that you’re musicians?”
“Yes,” James said. “We’re actually in the middle of the tour—”
Dr. Ofori shook his head. “There’s no question of that continuing, I’m afraid. Andrew needs at least two months to do absolutely nothing but focus on his recovery.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“So what else did he say?”
Leah shrugged. “That was it. I don’t know anything else.” O’Connor hadn’t been too informative.
The gathered roadies—about half of the crew, which was all that Leah had been able to round up—were silent, probably absorbing what this meant for their paychecks. Then Vince, Andrew’s guitar tech, said, “I want to go see him.”
“Call Rushani,” Leah suggested. “I might head over there later, but I’m not sure he wants any visitors.”
“I hope you suckers have other work lined up,” Luis said. This comment was loudly booed, and Leah shot a guilty look at the front desk, hoping they weren’t being too disruptive. But it was the middle of the day and the lobby was mostly empty.
“You should be more worried than any of us, Luis,” Dave said. “You’re so annoying that nobody else is going to hire you.”
Leah walked away, shaking her head. It wasn’t her job to wrangle the roadies. She just wanted to—well. She wanted to see O’Connor. And she wanted to know what was going to happen; whether she would be going back to L.A. soon. Whether their idyll was over.
O’Connor knocked on the door of her hotel room half an hour later. He was tense, frowning. She let him into the room and he sat on her bed, distracted, fiddling with the lowest button on his shirt.
“So?” Leah said.
“It was a suicide attempt,” O’Connor said. “He took too many sleeping pills. It didn’t work, obviously.”
“Jesus,” Leah said. She had suspected, of course—but O’Connor had just said it was an “emergency,” which could also have meant food poisoning, or a broken bone. Hearing O’Connor say it like that, flat and abrupt, rattled her. It was too much like Corey. And she wasn’t over that, still. The wound would heal, but there would always be a scar.
“We’re going to cancel some tour dates,” O’Connor said. “Definitely tomorrow. Maybe a few after that. They want him in the hospital for at least a few days. The doctor said Andrew shouldn’t tour for a while after that, but we’ll see. We don’t want to cancel the whole tour.”
“It’s just a few more weeks,” Leah said tentatively. “Maybe—”
“It’s not an option,” O’Connor said, and sighed. “Rushani called our manager, and he talked to the label.”
“They’re assholes,” Leah said, genuinely angry. “If they don’t care that he’s in the hospital—”
“They don’t care about anything but money,” O’Connor said. He seemed weary. Defeated. “But we’ll see what happens. God, what a fucking day.”
Leah crossed the room to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. He set his hands on her hips and leaned his head against her sternum, his face buried between her breasts. They stayed like that for a while, breathing together. Leah felt a mess of emotions, regret and worry and sorrow, and a sort of painful tenderness for O’Connor. She knew what he was going through, more or less.
He made a noise and slid his hands lower, from her hips to her ass, and he groped her through her cut-offs. “Leah,” he said.
She swallowed. Even under these pretty dire circumstances, her body responded to the touch of his hands. “Yeah?”
He didn’t answer in words. He unzipped her shorts and tugged them down her thighs, until they pooled on the floor at her feet, puddling on top of her flip-flops.
She looked down at the top of his head, considering. Sex wouldn’t be what she needed, in this situation, but maybe it was exactly what
he
needed. Okay. Game on.
She stepped out of her shorts and kicked her flip-flops away. She stood there in her T-shirt and underpants, feeling the air conditioning raise goosebumps on her bare legs. She was glad she had worn nice underwear today, little lacy shorts cut high in the back, in anticipation of the lazy afternoon that wouldn’t happen now. O’Connor ran his hands down her thighs and back up. He was still leaning against her. She wondered if he could feel her heart pounding through her shirt.
His hands roamed across her hips and ass. He traced the lacy line of her panties across her bottom, tucked his fingers in the leg hole, pulled a little. There wasn’t much stretch in the fabric. “These need to go,” he said.
He sat there on the bed and waited, looking up at her expectantly. Leah, feeling her face heat for no apparent reason—he had seen her naked before—bent down tugged off her underwear.
The air conditioning blew a cold breeze between her legs, all the more noticeable against her overheated flesh. O’Connor made a pleased noise and gathered her close again, his face buried against her, his hands curled around the backs of her thighs. She could feel the pressure and warmth of each one of his fingers, close to where she wanted them but still much too far away.
But he didn’t make her wait long. He left one hand curled around her leg and slid the other between her thighs, exploring with a gentle touch, probing at her slick heat. She drew in a deep breath. Her skin felt too tight. She wanted to unzip it like he had unzipped her shorts. Step out of herself.
He fingered her slowly and deliberately. At first he traced his thumb around her entrance, and then he plunged two fingers inside and thrust them in and out in a casual mimicry of fucking. She rested her hands on his shoulders. She was trembling slightly. She gazed down at the top of his head, wondering what he was thinking, until the sensations became too overwhelming for her to keep her eyes open.
He twisted his fingers inside her, curling them, searching for the spot that made her moan. When he found it, she felt his pleased chuckle as a few puffs of air against her sternum. He stayed there, pulsing his fingertips rhythmically, and began circling his thumb around her clit in inexorable circles.
“O’Connor,” she groaned, and beat her fists lightly against his shoulders.
He didn’t take pity on her, as she knew he wouldn’t. He moved at his own pace, too slow for her to get off, until suddenly it wasn’t: the long minutes of stimulation, the frustration of his free hand stroking the back of her thigh, combined into an overwhelming pleasure. She gasped, feeling her nipples tighten, feeling her orgasm approach like an oncoming train. She rocked her hips against him, closer, closer, and he twisted his hand and she plunged over the edge into delirium, shaking like a leaf, her knees going liquid beneath her.
“Whoa, careful,” O’Connor said, and caught her around the waist to keep her from collapsing.
Leah thought of several snappy replies, but by the time she had caught her breath, she decided that none of them were really necessary. She stroked her hands through O’Connor’s hair and tugged on the strands until he tipped his head back and met her eye. “Hey,” she said, and bent down to kiss him.
His hands had been urgent, but his mouth was slow and sweet, tender. And when he toppled her onto the bed and moved above her, the tangle of limbs that ensued could only be described as making love. O’Connor kissed her the whole time, her face and her mouth, and gazed down at her with eyes so clear and focused that she had to look away. She couldn’t bear the intensity of his gaze. She locked her ankles below his hips and moved with him, matching each of his thrusts.
When he came inside of her, he breathed her name like a prayer.
They cleaned up in silence. O’Connor seemed distant, withdrawn—maybe rattled by what had just passed between them in bed. Leah was a little rattled. It was scary to feel that much, to share that much with another person. And in light of what was happening with Andrew, she wondered how much of it really had to do with her, versus some need of O’Connor’s to feel a human connection.