Or whatever. Seriously? My grandmother just had a stroke and Elijah’s hitting on me? I shoved him away. “You’re unbelievable.”
Shocked, maybe a little hurt, he stared at me. “What?”
“I cannot believe you’re still trying to hit on me in a freakin’ hospital!”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down at his feet with a scowl. “I was not hitting on you. I happen to know a few things about worried parents and thought you could use a friend. So call Rachel and I’ll get the hell out of here.”
Rachel. It never occurred to me to call her. She’s not really good in situations like these. She tends to cry and mope, and you end up taking care of her.
“I’m sorry,” I offered quietly once I’d thought things over. “In my defense, you have to admit you have a track record where girls are concerned.” I’d intended to tease him and make him smile.
Instead, a dark flush crawled up his neck. He shifted, scratched his neck, and cleared his throat a few times. When he finally lifted his eyes to mine, I saw he wasn’t amused at all. He looked kind of pissed off.
“Kristen.” He lifted a hand and then jerked it away. “I know what my reputation is. I work pretty damn hard on it. But a pretty significant portion of the stuff you’ve heard about me is entirely made up.”
“Really.” I drew the word out, lifting both eyebrows. “Sex in the bathroom over at the restaurant where my brother works?”
“Never happened.”
“Sex at the homecoming game last year?”
“Never happened.”
“What about what’s-her-name from the mall? You nearly swallowed her.”
He laughed once. “She kissed me. I only made sure people saw it. That’s how I build my rock star reputation. But I don’t let it go further than that.”
I let that sink in for a minute or two. “So why tell me?”
A car door slammed in the parking lot, and Elijah’s head snapped to the sound. He watched the driver hurry to the entrance and then shrugged. “Because my friends know me. I want us to be friends and figure that can’t happen until you know me.”
My head felt like it was stuffed with blankets. “Okay. I’m sorry for what I said. Tell me what you meant by the ‘whatever’ part.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “When I’m really upset over shit, I do things to blow off the steam, you know?”
No. No, I didn’t know. “What things?”
“Nick, Sam, and I head to the beach, get drunk. Sometimes, we camp out.”
“I can’t get drunk with you guys.” Dad would send me to a freakin’ convent.
He waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter what we do. The point is everybody does something when they need to cut loose.”
My eyes filled again. “Yeah. Etta and I always eat lots of chocolate and cry together.”
His lips twitched. “If you need to eat tons of chocolate or shop out entire stores or go get a facial or something, I’m there.”
A giggle exploded. I wasn’t sure I’d ever laugh again, but the thought of Elijah Hamilton with his hair in a messy bun and mud all over his face was hard to resist. “Thanks.” And then that moment of hilarity ended when I remembered Etta’s condition. “I really don’t know what I’ll do if she…”
“Stop. Don’t do that what-if shit.”
“I can’t help it!” I flung out both hands and let them fall. “Etta’s all I can think about now.”
“If you need to step back, skip the mall gigs to be with your Etta. I’ll figure it out somehow. Don’t worry.”
That’s exactly what I wanted. I wanted to go home, find the air mattress, set it upright next to Etta’s bed, and never leave her side. I wanted to forget all about concerts and the stupid fashion show and my conservatory applications because none of that stuff mattered. All that mattered was Etta.
Are you mad, darling? A true professional never lets anything prevent her from taking the stage.
I sighed. “No.” I shook my head. “Etta would hate it if I used her as an excuse to cancel an appearance.”
Elijah laughed. “The show must go on?”
“Exactly.”
“Okay.” He shifted on the bench and fiddled with the leather cuff on his wrist. “Here. Take this.”
“What? No!” That leather cuff was one of the first things I’d noticed about Elijah. I thought it was cool.
“Yes. We all have one of these.” He buckled it around my wrist. “Now you’re officially in the band.”
Slowly, I ran a thumb over the embossed design, Ride Out’s logo. I was still wearing his sweatshirt. Oh my God, had I fallen into some parallel universe? A couple of weeks ago, Elijah Hamilton was just one of the many obnoxious people insulting me online, and today, he was holding my hand, drying my tears, and helping me make a dream come true. “Why?”
“Huh?”
“Why?” I looked up at him, into those amazing eyes. “You don’t even like me.”
“Don’t like you?” he echoed, looking at me sideways. “You really think I write songs for every girl I meet? Or invite them to sing in my band?” He surged to his feet and paced a few feet away, like he didn’t trust himself to be near me. “Or consider breaking a promise to my best friend for?”
I stared at him, mouth hanging open. “What promise?”
He didn’t answer my question. “Come on. It’s cold. Let’s find the cafeteria.” As I followed him back through the main entrance, it occurred to me that he’d never answered me. I still had no clue why Elijah was being so damn nice to me.
And I wished—almost as much as I wanted Etta better—for him to never stop.
17
Elijah
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A stroke. Jesus.
Only a couple of hours ago, I’d been jazzed over Kristen’s decision to keep singing with us. The fashion show at the mall would be excellent exposure for the band, and now that the county had green-lighted our appearance at the festival this summer, I was certain bookings would fill up the calendar.
And then, like the snap of a finger, things changed.
A sigh from Kristen compelled me to steal a glance at her. She looked like shit. Her face was too pale, and there was no twinkle in her blue eyes. Her lips were cracked, and there were tear tracks on her cheeks. One look and all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around her and sing in her ear until she smiled again.
But I couldn’t do that.
I cursed Sam—again—and flung open the cafeteria door a bit too hard. She looked at me sharply but walked ahead without a word. On a Sunday night, the place was hopping. Doctors and nurses in various colored scrubs sat in clusters around the big room, and others were by themselves, huddled over files or textbooks. Here and there, a few people hunched over cups of muddy coffee for the heat, not the taste, if the looks of disgust were a good indication.
I scanned a critical eye over our choices and decided packaged stuff was a safe bet. I grabbed a couple of cellophane-wrapped snack cakes, a bottle of water, and watched Kristen head for hot chocolate. I snagged us a table far from the joking and flirting going on at the group table, then grabbed a pile of napkins when Kristen jostled her cup.
“Thanks,” she murmured softly.
I shrugged. Her eyes still held suspicion. Expectation. Like she was waiting for me to fuck up. I opened my mouth, about to blurt out that I freakin’ loved her—and fuck Sam if he said a word about it—because it was suddenly critical that she stop looking at me like she had me all figured out, but her eyes filled with more tears before I could.
“What? What happened?”
She shook her head and waved her hand. “Nothing. I just can’t stop thinking the worst, you know?”
I did know. And it really
sucked. “Yeah. You have zero control over it. Any of it.”
Her lips twitched. “Stick to music, Guitar Hero. Leave the God stuff to God.”
I propped my elbows on the table and rested my chin on one hand. “You believe that?”
Her eyes met mine over her cup. “What, God?” Then she lifted one shoulder. “I don’t know. I guess. We’re not especially devout or anything.” She stared into her cup like it was going to reveal the secrets of the universe. “What about you? Do you believe?”
I shook my head. “Not since Anna was born, no.”
Her eyebrows drew together, and she angled her head, waiting for me to explain, and even though I hated talking about this, about Anna’s issues, I suddenly was. “I can’t even count how many people told us crap like God has a plan or God only gives us what we can handle. That’s just bullshit. Any God who thinks it’s cool to…to doom a kid to live with the kind of shit Anna lives with every day doesn’t deserve worship.”
Kristen made a sound of commiseration so I kept going. “Do you know what’s wrong with Anna?”
Her eyes shot to mine. “Autism, I figured.”
I shook my head. “Yeah, but that’s not all. It’s genetic. She has an extra chromosome and—” Abruptly, I shut up and shrugged. “I’ll spare you all the gory details, but the point is it’s genetic. It’s in me too.”
She gaped at me, her eyes falling to my stomach like it was about to burst open from some Alien movie creature or something, which might have been hysterical under other circumstances. But she didn’t pull away. I looked at her head-on and dropped all my shields. “I love Anna, and there is literally nothing I wouldn’t do for her, but if there’d been any kind of choice… Nobody gets it, Kris. Nobody really understands.” I had to stop when my voice cracked, and I shook my head hard to stop the tears that were suddenly right there, salty on my tongue. “It’s hard. It’s so fucking hard to watch her struggle. She can’t be left alone—ever. She can hardly dress herself. She needs help in the bathroom, and she can’t understand why she bleeds every month, and she loves music and will never, ever be able to process anything without around-the-clock help, and watching her go through that struggle every damn day is—” The dam burst, and I turned away. I dropped my hand on the table hard enough to make the plastic utensils jump and bit my lips together because for the first time, I got how fucking scared my parents must be.
I scrubbed both hands over my face, ripped the elastic out of my hair, and twisted it around my fingers just for something to look at because I couldn’t look at Kristen right now. “It’s hard, too fucking hard to pray to a God that doomed a kid to a life that’s no life at all.”
I looked up in time to see Kristen’s eyes slip shut, and she shrank deeper into her seat and farther away from me. “I’m sorry,” she said, spreading out her hands with a sad smile. “I knew your sister had some challenges, but I didn’t know how…” She trailed off, waved a hand around, and just gave up trying to find the right words.
I changed the subject before I started bawling like a toddler. “I didn’t meet Sam and Nick until eighth-grade music class. Sam wanted to start a band. It sounded like fun, so I said yes.” I laughed and rolled my eyes. “You should have seen him! In eighth grade, Sam was hilarious. He wore his hair short and spiky and so full of gel, it could draw blood if you touched it. His guitar playing was decent, but nothing like it was now. Nick was…just Nick. The same serious and loyal dude he is today. Rock steady and really cool dealing with the diva personality we had in Sam. Sam wanted to play lead guitar, he wanted to sing, he wanted to write the songs, and he wanted to name the band. The only problem was he sucked at half of those things. I listened to him drone on and on about the hot new song he’d written, and when he showed it to us, I ended up rewriting the whole thing. He complained and protested at first, but when Nick pointed out how my changes worked with our talents instead of against them, he listened. It didn’t take long for the three of us to mesh.”
I broke off, the smile fading. Kristen listened, her eyes pinned to me.
“They saved me,” I whispered. “Sam and Nick. They have no idea, but they saved me. Gave me something that I could be good at, something I could be that wasn’t Anna’s brother, and even I didn’t know how much I needed that until it was there.” I took her hand, felt her quick jerk back, and tightened my grip. “Since eighth grade, it’s been the three of us. We made a pact. We’d never let a girl go Yoko on us and break up the band. Sam and Nick showed me how to keep things cool and casual when girls started sniffing around us. How to tell which girls understood I don’t do the boyfriend thing and which ones would always want more.” Kristen squirmed a little, and I suddenly remembered that she’d heard all about my various hookups, and for the first time since we’d started the band, I was embarrassed.
“Everything worked really well—until now. Nick met Leah, and that nearly split us up until he promised he’d never let her interfere with the band. And she hasn’t.”
Again, her hand jerked in mine, but I wouldn’t let her go. I couldn’t now. “Then one night, I had to tell them I might need to quit the band. Unless we could find a way to hit big and hit fast, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to give them my all. Instead of letting me quit, Sam and Nick promised they’d do whatever they had to do to keep me. Whatever they had to do turned out to be you. As soon as I saw you, it was like, bam!” I finished with an explosive hand gesture. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you in that white suit thing you were wearing, and then that voice, finding out that voice come from the same body—” I was rambling so I clamped my teeth together before any more embarrassing shit leaked out of my mouth. “Kristen, you could make it happen. You could make it all happen for us, but if you tell me now you want out, you want to be with Etta, I’ll understand, I swear it.”
Her chin wobbled, and her eyes filled. Her other hand covered the one I was using to hold hers. Squeezed. I breathed a little easier then.
“Elijah,” she began. “You’re an ass most of the time, but right now, I could kiss you.”
“Could you?” I smirked.
“Shut up.”
God, I loved rattling Kristen Cartwright. She even managed a tiny smile.
“I’ll stay with the band because of what I said before. Etta would kill me if I canceled a performance because of her. She was the one who thought this would be a good idea. She wants me to knock those stuffy conservatory admissions committees on their asses. I have to do this…for her.” She sat up straight and rolled her shoulders. “I’ll do the rock chick thing for you. I’ll even put up with Sam’s dickish behavior as long as you stop acting that way too.” She stuck out a hand, and I grinned.
“Deal.”
• • •
It was well past midnight by the time I got home. The house was dark, except for the single light my parents always kept on in the kitchen. I tiptoed inside, locked up behind me, followed the light into the kitchen, and hung Mom’s car keys on the hook near the garage door. The room had been viciously cleaned and smelled like lemons.
I wondered what Anna had done this time.
“Where the hell have you been?”
I whipped around and pressed a hand to my pounding heart. “Dad. You scared the crap out of me.” He sat at the kitchen table, a glass of water in front of him.
“Good. Now you know how I feel.”
Guilt prickled up and down my skin. “I told Mom I was taking Kristen to the hospital.”
“Elijah, that was damn near five hours ago.”
I spread out my hands. “I couldn’t just leave her there, Dad.”
Dad opened his mouth, then shut it. He leaned over the table, propped his elbows on it, and rubbed his hands over his face. I got a good look at him then. His face was the color of the tile on the floor…an ashy gray, his eyes were bloodshot, and his hair stood up in places.
“How is her grand
mother?” he finally asked.
I shook my head. “They don’t know yet. She had a stroke. They think they got her treated fast, but they won’t know if there’s any permanent damage for a few days yet.”
“A stroke?” He sat back and shook his head with a frown. “Jesus, that’s got to be rough.”
I pulled out a chair and sat opposite him. “Kristen’s a mess. She’s really tight with Etta—that’s what she calls her grandmother. I only met Etta one time, but, Dad, she’s not at all your typical granny, you know?”
Dad’s lips twitched. “No? So what is she like?”
What’s she like? That was like trying to describe the sun. “You know that saying, a force of nature? That’s what she is. I met her after Kristen’s acting class. She was dressed up like she was going to a party. Makeup, fancy clothes, and all these accessories that matched. And the way she talks! She has one of those fake accents and emphasizes words with big gestures.” I flapped my hands around to demonstrate. “Kristen says she taught her everything she knows.”
Dad nodded. “She sounds like an interesting character.”
She was. Like I said, I’d only met her once, but I was sure I’d never forget her.
“And how’s Kristen holding up?”
My chest tightened. I hated leaving her, but she’d had enough of me. I lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. She was crying her eyes out at first, but I got her to calm down—”
“You did? Where was her family?”
“They were all upset, and she was kind of lost, you know? She needed someone…”
“Elijah, what are you doing?”
I blinked at my father. It was late, and I was tired, and there were half a dozen ways to answer that question. I could only stare at him and wait for him to elaborate.
“You’ve never brought a girl home before, and now this Kristen is singing in your band, going to the mall with you and your sister, and you’re sitting in hospitals with her. It sounds pretty serious to me, and I need to make sure you’re being safe.”