Take Me Home (The Heartbreak Brothers 1)

He still couldn’t get over the fact that it was Maddie Clark who helped him escape from church. When the hell did she grow up? But more importantly, why had she lied about who she was?

She knew who he was. She’d admitted as much, when they were trying to climb over that damn wall.

He’d tried to distract himself by playing his guitar. He had an album of songs to write and a studio booked in four months’ time, yet his fingers didn’t seem to be working. It was like he’d forgotten how to write music, to lay one note next to each other until it became a melody. Instead, each time he strummed it sounded wrong.

So wrong.

He’d put his guitar away and showered, then lay down in bed, trying to remember why he’d come back here in the first place.

Because you promised your sister. And your father’s sick.

Oh yeah, and the fact he hadn’t been back to Hartson’s Creek in forever. In the end, sleep seemed preferable to overthinking, but like everything else in his life it was stubborn.

It was a few hours later that the first drip came. It barely registered in his slumbering mind. The second worked its way into his dream as rain. But it was the third that woke him up.

Not that it was only a drip. More of a flood pouring down from the ceiling and drenching everything in its wake – including Gray and his bed.

He sat up, spitting water out of his mouth and blinking it out of his eyes, his brows pulled together as he tried to work out what the hell was going on. The water continued to pour onto the dent in the pillow where his head had been, and he followed it to the source – a hole in the plastered ceiling that revealed half-rotten beams and a rusty pipe.

A rusty pipe with a hole in it.

He jumped out of bed and looked around for a bucket, a bowl, anything he could put under the deluge. “Tanner!” he called out. “There’s a leak in the ceiling. Help me out.”

“Wha?” Tanner asked, running into his bedroom, clad only in a pair of pajama pants. That was one up on Gray, who was only wearing a pair of boxer shorts, and running around to try to find a goddamned bowl.

“Where is it?” Becca appeared carrying a bucket, thank the Lord. He and Tanner pulled the bed across the room then settled the bucket under the leak.

“Where’s the water shut off?” Gray asked.

“Under the kitchen sink.”

He ran down to the kitchen, Becca and Tanner following close behind. As they passed Aunt Gina’s room, she pulled open the door. “What’s going on?” she asked them.

“Another leak. Gray’s room this time,” Becca told her aunt.

Another? This time?

Gray knelt down in front of the sink, yanking the painted wooden cupboards open and pulling out the cleaning bottles that were stored there, then leaned forward to turn the shut-off valve. It was stubborn and rusted, and his arm ached from reaching at an awkward angle. But eventually it turned, and he sat back with a sigh.

“When did you get that tattoo?” Becca asked, taking in the ink on Gray’s body.

He looked down at his chest and the black scrolling tribal tattoos that radiated from his chest to his upper arms. “A while back.” The design had taken over a year,

intricately planned with his tattoo artist who’d flown into whatever country he’d been touring in at the time. From the moment he’d felt the first needle puncture his skin it had felt right. Like layering up his armor, protecting himself.

“It’s pretty,” Becca said, following the design around. “But don’t let Dad see it. He wasn’t keen on your second album cover.”

“Yeah, well I kind of had to bleach my eyes myself,” Tanner said, grinning. All those billboards in New York with my brother’s naked body staring down at me. They gave me nightmares.”

“Do you regret them?” Becca asked him, ignoring Tanner.

“Nope. In my list of regrets, they’re lingering right at the bottom.” Gray shrugged. “Now, do you have a number for the emergency plumber? We need to get these pipes replaced.”

Chapter Eight

“What do you mean he won’t get all the pipes replaced?” Gray asked, his voice tight. “It’s crazy to replace one piece of pipe when you know the whole thing is rusting. How many leaks have you had in the last year?”

“A few.” Aunt Gina shrugged. “But you know your father. He’s stubborn. And he didn’t like any of the quotes he received for the work.”