Hell Bent (Rock Bottom #1) (6 page)

“Sooner or later you’re going to have to talk to me.” I keep my head down, pretending I don’t hear Abby over the sound of a demo song Bennett asked my opinion on. When I don’t answer her, she steps around in front of me and pulls the headphones off of my head. I glare up at her, hoping she can tell exactly how upset I still am.

“Busy,” I grumble, grabbing them back from her.
Busy trying not to fall asleep. Busy trying to do everything. Busy working my ass off with Bennett and doing everything else.

“Too busy to actually work this out?
A week
without having a normal conversation with you is too much for me.
This
is killing me, Izzy.”

Pushing off the couch in the corner of my office, I drop my laptop and headphones onto my desk before turning back to her. “You think I don’t realize that? Everything about this fucked up situation is killing me. But yes, I’m too busy to deal with my own shit right now. I’m trying to make sure that Bennett’s career doesn’t tank because we did something wrong or chose the wrong songs to go on his album. Except everything either of us hears sucks and is going to make him seem like a poser. Add that on top of everything else I need to do here, and I’m going crazy.”

She nods slowly, her red hair falling into her face with the movement. She sweeps it back out of the way and meets my eyes. “You’re running around here like a chicken with its head cut off. You’re trying to do everything without help, and it’s wearing you thin. It would be one thing if you were doing it because you had to, but you’re doing it for no other reason than to avoid us. Everyone is worried about you.”

“No,” I snap back at her and lie. “I’m not doing this to avoid you. I’m doing it because if I have to hear one more time how I only have all of this because my father left it to me, I’m going to go crazy. I work my ass off so people know I deserve what I have in life and so they know that it wasn’t simply handed to me.”

“So you’re killing yourself to prove
everyone else
wrong?”

“That’s what I just said, wasn’t it?”

Abby’s temper begins to rise, but she’s doing a better job at keeping herself together than I am. “Yeah, Izzy, it was. I’m just trying to figure out why it seems like you’re actually trying to convince yourself of that.”

Stepping up to my desk, she grabs a piece of paper, scribbles on it, and thrusts it at me. Tears surface when I see that she’s written down my mother’s name and address. It’s everything I’ve been trying to figure out since I found out she was alive. My hands shake as I look back up at her. She seems almost as upset by giving me the information as I am by her keeping it from me.

“You’ve had this all this time?”

She wipes her eyes and backs toward the office door. “Now the choice is all yours. You can either make time for us and find out why we kept it from you, or you can go there and find out what we’ve tried to protect you from.”

“What the hell could you possibly be protecting me from?”

With a sad shake of her head, she shrugs. “Getting your heart broken by the one person that should never cause you harm. When you’re finally tired of pretending you’re Superwoman, ask for some help. You can’t do everything yourself.”

“
Watch
me,” I yell as the door closes behind her. Grabbing the closest thing I can get my hands on, I throw it, watching the glass of the picture frame shatter and hit the floor. 

Leaving the mess, I move in front of the mirror and try to tell myself that Abby was wrong. There is no way that she can tell how tired I am. Sure, I’m running on no sleep but when I looked at myself this morning I looked fine. The coffee and caffeine pills had kicked in, making me look refreshed. Right now though, I see what she’s talking about even if I don’t want to admit it. The skin under my eyes has gone from being bags, to looking like the luggage compartment of a 747. Just looking at the mess I am makes me feel even more exhausted. 

Paging Meg, I drop down behind my desk and cradle my head in my hands, not bothering to look up when she walks in and closes the door behind her. My mind wanders to the paper with my mother’s address, but I don’t know what to do with that right now. I’m not sure I’ll ever know exactly what I want to do with it.

“I need you to get me something to stay awake,” I admit. She’s the first person I’ll ask anything of when it comes to keeping me going. She drops down beside me and forces me to look at her.

“What you need is sleep. Why don’t you take a nap, and I’ll hold your messages and tell everyone you’ll get back to them?”

“If I wanted a nap, I would have said ‘Hey Meg, I’m taking a fucking nap’, but I didn’t. I asked you to find me something to keep me awake.” I don’t mean to sound like an asshole, but I can’t help it. I’m tired of everyone assuming they know what I need to do better than I do myself. Taking a deep breath, I apologize. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.”

“If that was you snapping, don’t worry about it. That was minor.”

“Still wasn’t right.” I yawn, thinking about everything I learned from my father before he died, and I know that treating his employees like shit wasn’t something he tolerated. I know things have changed in the years since he’s been gone, but we’ve all done our best to keep his values around while running the business he worked so hard to build.

She smiles sadly at me, squeezing my knee. For a woman that has thirteen years on me, she doesn’t treat me like our roles should be reversed. While I searched for an assistant, I focused on hiring a person that would respect my age and would want to work for me. I’m so glad that she seems happy here, even with me acting like an asshole.

“Coffee and caffeine pills again?”

I shake my head. “I’ve already tried that. They aren’t working anymore.”

“So what do you want to try now?”

Taking in a slow breath, I lean back in my chair. “Don’t care what they are or how you get them as long as it keeps me awake.” 

“You don’t care what they are?” she asks, looking worried.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Words I never thought would ever come out of my mouth just did, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. I’ll be throwing every promise I ever made out the window, but it’s to keep myself going. It’s just once.

Without hesitating, Meg leaves my office. I drop my head back against my desk while I wait for her despite all the work waiting for me. For a few minutes I try to forget everything I should be doing, and I attempt to ignore the fact that I feel like everything in my stomach is going to come back up. When she shakes my shoulder I jolt awake, immediately looking at the clock on my computer. Twenty minutes lost, but hopefully whatever she found me will keep me going and I can make them up.

“Thank God you work fast.” Holding my hand out, she drops a label-less pill bottle into it.

“Helps when you used to be paid to know where to go.” I can hear the sadness in her voice, and I hate myself for making her step back into her past. I force myself to stop thinking about it because I have so much to do. Popping the top off the bottle, I shake two pills into my hand, but Meg stops me and pushes one of the pills back into the bottle. “Only take one at a time.”

“What are they?”

“Don’t ask, don’t tell, right? They’ll do the job, though.”

Before I have a chance to say anything else, she leaves, closing the door quietly behind her. Even though my brain is telling me how much of an idiot I am, I don’t hesitate at all on taking the pill in my hand. I swallow it, chasing it with what is left of the bottle of water on my desk.

I drop the remaining pills into the bottom drawer of my desk and lock it. For the next few minutes I listen to the demo again, trying to figure out why I don’t see it working for Bennett, but I can’t. It just doesn’t seem to fit him, or at least that’s how I feel. I figure the pill has started to kick in when I don’t think I’m going to pass out when I stand up. My mind seems to be running a mile a minute, but at least I feel awake. I feel better, and better is good.

Crumpling the address, I toss it into my purse and figure I might as well get some work done with Bennett instead of leaving him alone to work all day. Nothing will get done that way. I thank Meg again, but she barely acknowledges that I say anything. I’ll have to figure out something to do to make it up to her later.

“These demos suck,” I say, after pushing my way into the room where Bennett is working. “Well, they don’t exactly suck, but they suck for you,” I correct myself.

“I was thinking the same thing.” Standing up, he stares at me and seems completely defeated. “So, what do you suggest we do?”

“I don’t want you to put something out just to put something out. I don’t want to force you into a mold that you aren’t made to fit into. All these demos that we’ve been listening to are a waste of fucking time. They aren’t you, they aren’t who you should be, and they aren’t who I want you to strive to be.” I know I’m rambling, but I can’t seem to stop. My mouth can’t seem to keep up with my brain so I keep talking, and I’m not even sure if I’m making sense. “If you put out a cookie-cutter album of nothing but the shit we’ve been listening to you’re going to tank before you even have a chance to prove yourself.”

Bennett narrows his eyes at me, probably trying to figure out what is wrong with me, but he can’t find out what I just did—no one can. “You OK?”

“Never better,” I tell him. It isn’t a lie. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good. I’m alert, focused, and feel happy for the first time in a long time.
Who the hell said drugs were bad?

“So, what do you think we should do?” he asks again. Dropping down on the couch across from him, I push everything he was listening to aside. Grabbing his guitar from the floor beside the table, I set it in front of him with a smile.

“Why be a duplicate when you have the chance to be an original? I think it’s time the world got to see who you really wanna be.”

Bennett

“This isn’t working,” I groan, dropping back against the arm of the couch and throw my leg over the back. Izzy scrubs her hands over her face while yawning.

“We’ve been at this for the past eleven hours, and I’d say quit for tonight, but we have to get something down this week, and I refuse to go back to listening to demos—”

I cut her off. She’s been so talkative for most of the day that I don’t know what else to do. I’ve barely been able to get a word in edgewise. “I don’t wanna quit, Izzy. I’ve wanted this for too long to keep giving up.” I close my eyes, letting my fingers slide along the frets. “I’ve been dreaming about playing the Opry since I was old enough to know what it was. I’ve got shit to say, I just don’t understand why I can’t seem to say it now that I’m being given the chance.”

Izzy mumbles something about being right back, and she disappears when I wave her off without opening my eyes. She’s been running herself ragged these past few weeks so I’m sure she’s off loading up on caffeine to keep herself going. 

I hate this. I can’t believe now that I finally have the chance to do what I’ve actually always wanted to do, I’m choking. 

The air gets pushed around the room when the door opens again a little while later and Izzy pushes my leg off the back of the couch.

“Wake the fuck up, and let’s go, I have an idea.”

Grumbling, I sit up and slide my guitar into the case before driving the palms of my hands into my eyes. “I need coffee or some shit. You want something?” I ask her.

“Nope, I’m good. I already got some.” My gaze snaps to her and finds her wide-eyed and looking like she just had twelve hours of sleep. When she notices me staring, she lifts her cup in mock salute.
I want whatever the hell she put in her coffee to wake up like that.

After grabbing a cup of black coffee and sliding the notebooks I’ve been working in all night into my bag, I stand and grab my guitar. I feel like I’m moving as slow as a fucking sloth, and it’s pissing me off even more. Even on tour when I’m running for days straight on nothing but sleepless nights and alcohol I don’t feel this run down. I sling my bag over my shoulder and pull open the door, following behind Izzy as she leads the way out to her beat up, old truck.

The truck rumbles to life after I close the door for her, and I can’t help but wonder when the last time it was tuned up was. Rounding the bed, the truck backfires, scaring the hell out of me in my exhausted state of mind. I shake it off quickly and slide in beside her, situating the guitar between us. I want to ask her about the truck, like why she drives this when she can have something new, but think better of it. 

“Caffeine kicking in?” I ask, watching her fingers drum rapidly on the steering wheel as she navigates her way through the city.

“What?” She turns to quickly look at me and then back at the road.

“You’re fingers. You seem jittery.”

Her eyes narrow when she looks at her hands. “Oh, caffeine. Yeah, it must be kicking in. I always seem to get super jittery when it kicks in and I haven’t had any sleep in days.”

Something about what she says doesn’t sit right with me, or maybe it’s the way she says it. Hell, maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t slept in days, either. Whatever it is, I figure it’s better to leave it alone.