The Boy Next Door

He stood by the door, gesturing like he was trying to sweep the women out of the room.

“Hey!” Mark shouted from the couch where he was sitting with his arms around two women. “What the hell?”

“You heard me. They need to go,” Carter said. “They are welcome to come do the Roman orgy thing some other time, but for right now, I need them gone.”

The women stood and threw Carter nasty looks as they sashayed out of the room. Mark jumped to his feet and approached Carter angrily.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? This isn’t just your room, you know. And those women came here to see me.”

Carter shook his head incredulously, then opened the door he had just closed.

“You know what, Mark? You’re right. They were kind enough to follow you in here. The least you can do is go with them,” he said.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Luke hide a laugh as Carter shoved Mark out of the room and closed the door behind him. For a second I was sure Mark was going to burst back in and we’d have a brawl on our hands, but the door stayed shut and Carter came farther into the room.

“What is this all about?” I asked.

Carter paced back and forth across the room for a second like he was trying to build himself up to tell me something. Finally, he took a step closer to me.

“All right. Listen. After the set, I went out in the hall. Mark was already building up his harem in here, and I didn’t feel like dealing with that shit right now. So I went out there to cool off a bit,” he said.

“Probably chugging down some booze to lower your body temperature,” Luke interjected with a laugh.

“Shut up,” Carter snapped. “I don’t see you leading the temperance parade, either.”

Luke looked at the bottle of beer in his hand, shrugged, and took another swig of it. I could see this conversation was already going off the rails. If I had any chance of getting back into the wing to listen to the rest of the set, I needed to help it along.

“Okay, so you were in the hall. So, what? Why did you need to bring me back here to tell me that?” I asked.

“It’s not that I was in the hall. It’s what I saw in the hall,” he said. “I was just standing there, and I looked up and saw this woman coming toward the exit. At first, I didn’t think anything of it. I figured she was lost trying to find her way out or something, but then I realized her face looked familiar.”

“Who was it?” I asked.

“It took me a second, but then it hit me. I did know her. It was that girl you used to hang out with. Leah,” Carter said.

Bright flashes of color burst in front of my eyes, and I felt like the world was spinning around me. Heat burned on my neck and face, and it was like someone had punched a hole in the center of my chest. I blinked a few times, trying to process what he just said.

“Leah?” I asked. “You saw Leah?”

“Yep,” Carter said with a nod.”

“You’re telling me Leah is here? At the arena? She came to see the show?” I asked.

“She was definitely here, and she said she watched the show. As a matter of fact, she said we sounded great.”

I launched at Carter, grabbing him by the front of his shirt so he had to look at me.

“You have to bring me to her. Did you see where she was headed? Did she mention where her seats were? I need you to bring me to her,” I said again.

Carter shook his head.

“I can’t. She’s long gone.”

“What do you mean she’s long gone?”

Carter pulled free and brushed his hand down the front of his shirt like he was trying it to get rid of the feeling of me holding on to him.

“I tried to bring her back here to talk to you. I told her how messed up it was what she did to you and said she needed to come back here and talk to you about it. But she took off running toward the parking lot.”

“Fuck,” I muttered and dropped down onto the couch.

I covered my face and let out a groan of despair. How could this even happen? It had been so long. Ten months without a single word from her. The day she disappeared from my bed was it between us. I never saw her or heard from her again. Finally heading out on the tour with the band was my only saving grace, the thing that kept me distracted and prevented me from driving myself completely crazy at home without her.