Fade Into You (Shaken Dirty 3)

Oh, they were more subtle than tourists at the zoo, but he knew they were watching. Knew they were worried. Ryder and Jared were arguing over the merits of Cap’n Crunch versus Coco Krispies (like there was even something to argue about—Crunch Berries obviously ruled) but they kept glancing over at him when they thought he wasn’t looking. Quinn, the band’s keyboardist, was cuddling his woman, Elise, on his lap, and though he was nodding along to whatever she was saying, his gaze was pinned to Wyatt. And finally, Li, the Austin bassist they were trying out tonight to see if their sounds meshed during a live show, just kept staring at him like he thought Wyatt was going to fuck up his one big chance.

Which pretty much made Wyatt not like him on principle…but hey, who the fuck was he to judge anyone?

Grinding his teeth, he pretended he didn’t notice his bandmates’ scrutiny as he moved deeper into the room. Yet another part of the program that was total bullshit. His shrink had spent much of the last ten weeks telling him he needed to be “authentic.” That his feelings had value. That he needed to share those feelings with the people closest to him even if it made him—or them—uncomfortable.

What a total crock. The only thing he would accomplish by admitting to his best friends how badly he needed a fix was to freak them all out. Not to mention have them crawl even deeper up his ass. As for Li, there was no way he was saying anything in front of a guy he was already pretty sure wouldn’t make the cut. It was a feeling that had nothing to do with how much he already disliked the guy—or at least, that’s what he was telling himself.

Ducking his head, Wyatt made his way across the room to the small fridge in the corner. He pulled it open hoping there was something in it besides beer—he wasn’t thirsty, but a bottle of water would at least give him something to do with his hands until he got his sticks in them—and found that it was completely empty. There wasn’t so much as a can of Coke for him to grab.

Fuck it. Just fuck it.

He closed the fridge door extra carefully—because what he really wanted to do was slam it—and took a few seconds to just breathe before turning around. It wasn’t that the fridge was empty that bothered him. He wasn’t that kind of diva and never had been. But what bugged the shit out of him was that he knew it had been full when they’d gotten there. He’d seen Jared open it, had seen the bottles of beer lined up one after the other.

Which meant they’d taken the opportunity to get rid of all the alcohol in the room while he was in the bathroom.

They didn’t trust him, didn’t have any more faith in him—and the program that he’d just completed—than he did.

Ten weeks, close to a quarter of a million dollars, and more bullshit than he could ever hope to shovel, and the program hadn’t worked worth a damn. He was still a junkie, still an alcoholic, still a failure who couldn’t get—or keep—his shit together.

He knew it, had known it from the moment he’d walked out of that damn rehab center this morning. So why the fuck did it bother him so much that his friends knew it, too?

“Hey, man,” Quinn said, like he had a clue what Wyatt was thinking. “They’re bringing us some soda from the FOH. Should be here any minute.”

He didn’t have a chance in hell of forcing words past his clenched jaw or too-tight throat, so he just nodded. Then he headed for the closest door like hellhounds were nipping at his fucking heels.

It turned out the closest door led outside, to the alley behind the club, thank Christ. He let the door slam behind him then took a deep breath of the thick, humid air that permeated all of Austin in early September. Pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, he lit one. Took a long, deep drag. And fought the urge to hit the brick wall behind him until his knuckles broke and his fists bled.

The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that if he did it—if he gave in and shattered his hands and his life wide open—then he couldn’t play tonight. And it would just be one more failure, one more fuck-up, one more way he let down the only people he gave a shit about in the whole fucking world.

Chapter Two

Poppy Germaine slid into the waiting limo—and its very welcome air conditioning—with a sigh of relief. It had been an absolutely insane day, one that started with a flight from New York to L.A. for a whirlwind round of meetings that had been cut short when she’d gotten the call from Caleb telling her to catch a plane to Austin ASAP.

Austin wasn’t in her itinerary for the week, but he’d said he needed her. And since being his older sister (by only four minutes, but still) was a responsibility she took very seriously, she’d dropped everything and run for the nearest airport.

And now, here she was.

But her relief at being out of Austin’s stifling heat was short-lived, considering Caleb was supposed to be meeting/picking her up at the airport and unless this limo had a couple of secret compartments, he was definitely not in it. Which was a problem, considering she had no idea what she was doing here.

Pulling her cell phone out of her purse, she checked both her text messages and call log, but there was nothing from Caleb. A quick glance at her email told her there was nothing there either, though there was a fairly irate message from her father complaining about her “harebrained” penchant for running out on important meetings without notice. He didn’t, of course, mention the fact that she’d held the meeting via Telepresence as she’d raced to LAX. Or that she’d rocked the meeting, putting together a marketing plan that made both the artist’s management and the label’s accountants happy.

But then, why should he when the only reason he’d give

n her control of marketing on this project was to see her fail? It was supposed to be his big, shining proof that women shouldn’t be record execs. That they were fine as admins and first- or second-level managers, but that they couldn’t hold their own when it came to sitting in on the labels’ top decisions. Not because he was inherently sexist or anything—at least that was his story and he was sticking to it—but because the talent didn’t take them seriously. Rockers and rappers weren’t going to take orders from a woman.

She’d tried to tell him a million times that this wasn’t 1965. Or even 1995. The new generation of rock stars would take seriously whoever made them famous and filled their bank accounts. She wasn’t sure the guys she’d been dealing with today even knew she had a vagina.

Her dad wasn’t buying it though. No daughter of his was ever going to run a record label. No, that was going to be Caleb’s job. The fact that Caleb didn’t want it—not to mention was hopelessly inept at everything but the accounting/business side of things—didn’t seem to matter in the slightest. He was going to get it, and she—she was going to be stuck trying desperately to prove herself to her father for many, many more years.

Since dwelling on it only depressed her, she shoved thoughts of her dad out of her mind and concentrated instead on trying to figure out what the hell was up with Caleb. Glancing around impatiently, she was just thinking about getting out of the limo—maybe she’d taken so long getting her luggage that he had gone into the airport looking for her—when the driver pulled smoothly away from the curb and into traffic.

What the—

Punching the intercom button, she told the driver, “Wait! We’re still missing one person. My brother is supposed to meet me here.”

“According to my itinerary, you’re my only passenger.”

That didn’t make sense. “That’s not possible. I don’t even know where we’re going.” She was so going to kill Caleb when she got her hands on him again.