The Rocker That Holds Her (The Rocker...) (6 page)

“
Wake up, baby girl.” I grinned when she muttered a curse and pushed her ruined coffee away.

“
Sorry, I have a headache. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

My grin died. The storm the night before must have kept her up. “Sorry, Em. Did the storm get that bad?”

“Bad enough…” 

…
Emmie…

Nik and the guys were on stage when I got the call I knew was coming.

My fingers trembled as I pressed the connect button on my phone and pressed it to my ear. I swallowed hard as I listened intently, my eyes were focused on the man singing one of my favorite songs to at least five thousand fans. Blinking back tears, ones that were more for the man I loved than myself, I told the person on the other end of the phone to start making the appropriate arrangements. Arrangements I had set up a year ago when Nik’s mom had started going downhill in her fight with Alzheimer’s.

While the guys finished up on stage, I got busy taking care of the other million and one things that would have to be done by morning. First I called Rich Branson and what a lovely conversation we had. Gods, I hated that fucker! While talking with him I surfed the net and found plane tickets for the five of us to get to California by dawn.

When the concert came to a close, I stood directly on the sideline of the stage and made sure that Shane didn’t run off with the salivating groupie skanks that had been eye fucking him all night. Seeing my expression, he handed his guitar off to a stage tech and headed toward me along with his three band brothers.

Drake and Jesse reached me first, and I just squeezed their hands. They could guess what was wrong by the look in my eyes and they stepped behind me as I reached for Nik. Those ice blue eyes turned stormy as I grasped his hands. I had to swallow twice before I could get the words out. “I’m so sorry. She’s gone, Nik.”

The agony on his face at my words nearly crippled me, but I had to be the strong one here. Nik needed me and I’d let him lean on me for as long as he had to. Those eyes that haunted my dreams as well as my waking hours filled with tears, and he pulled me against him. No sound left him. He just held on to me and didn’t let go.

My arms held him close, rubbing my hands up and down his tense back. His pain soaked into me, making it hard to breathe for a moment. Jesse squeezed his shoulder as Drake and Shane surrounded us. “I’m sorry, bro.”

Nik sucked in a deep breath, his hold on me easing as he took half a step back. “What do I need to do?” he whispered brokenly.

“
Nothing,” I assured him. “I made sure that everything was set up when she had the feeding tube put in. I told the administrator to follow the plan we talked about …” He really didn’t need to know all of that. We had argued about it for several weeks before he had finally let me make the funeral arrangements for the future event of his mother’s death. I had hated myself, but I knew that he wouldn’t have been able to make the decisions that needed to be made when the time did come and Sarah passed on.

“
I have to tell Rich that we are leaving the tour.”

I gave him a tiny smile. “No, Nik. I’ve already taken care of all of that. Everything has been arranged from the flight to the car that is going to be waiting on us when we land. I even called Tommy and told him we were going to use his house while we are in town.”

I had hated talking to that old pervert nearly as much as I had hated talking to Rich. Tommy Kirkman wasn’t exactly my brand of rocker with his taste for overly young girls, but my guys respected him and looked up to the old rocker who had taken them under his wing and shown them the ropes. So I tried to keep the peace.

I was lucky to get a flight that had room for all five of us. Of course we were spread out. Drake and Shane were all the way in the back by the bathrooms and Jesse somewhere in a middle aisle with a few business men. The only two seats beside of each other that I had been able to get were close to the front of the plane and Nik asked me to sit with him.

I tried to stay with him as much as I could in between going to the bathroom because of the air sickness I always got. There had been no time to get a prescription for the patches that normally eased my discomfort, so I struggled through. Being close to Nik, knowing that I was helping even a little bit, soothed something inside of me. I tried to rub his back, but he just wanted to hold my hand.

It was only a three hour flight, but we were all exhausted by the time the plane touched down at LAX. Aunt Sarah, as we had all called her, except for Nik who called her Mom, was the only decent female I have ever came into contact with. Drake and Shane’s mother had been nice, but she had worked all the time and I had rarely seen her the few years I knew her.

While Aunt Sarah had been kind, she had still been distant with me. I didn’t hold it against her. I knew that she thought I would one day turn out like my mother, and that she hadn’t wanted her son to get pulled into that type of lifestyle. I had made myself a promise at the age of five that I was never going to let myself become my mother. If I was ever lucky enough to have a child I would devote my life to being the best mom. My kids would never have to wonder if they were going to get fed that day, or sleep with one eye open just so they wouldn’t be taken by surprise by a midnight beating.

The limo was waiting and we all climbed in for the trip to Tommy Kirkman’s house in Beverly Hills. Tom was out of the country for the next year or so, business or pleasure I still wasn’t sure. He tended to mix the two anyway. It made relaxing in the man’s house that much easier. I hadn’t told the guys but when I was seventeen Tom had tried to seduce me. One try and that was all he needed to know not to fuck with me again.

There were still several hours to go before we had to go to the nursing home to make sure that everything was in order. I hoped that Nik wouldn’t want to go, that Jesse or Shane could just go with me to sign the papers that needed my attention. But when I suggested Jesse go, Nik went a little crazy and stormed off toward the room he normally claimed as his when we stayed with Kirkman.

Jesse’s big hand touched my shoulder gently and I covered it with my own, comforted just having my friend so close. I wasn’t sure what it was about Jesse, maybe the fact that he was the one that had always played the role as my mother and father, but I always needed him close or I began to feel anxious. I had an odd connection to all of my guys. Shane was like my best friend while Drake was just like a brother to me.

And then there was Nik. I needed him in my life just as much as I needed the other three, but with Nik I was always being pulled in two different directions. He was my friend. He was the man I loved. I couldn’t have it both ways and had learned early on that he only thought of me as his little sister. The girl he had spent the majority of his life taking care of.

I was okay with that. Really, I was. And for the most part I could handle the skank groupies that warmed his bed on a nightly basis.

Oh, who was I kidding? It was driving me crazy.

Leaving Jesse and the others in the living room, I followed after Nik. His door was unlocked and I barely knocked before opening it and glancing inside. My heart broke for him when I saw that he was sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. I shut the door softly behind me and went to him.

Dropping to my knees in front of him, I touched his hands gently. I had such wonderful memories of those hands on me from just a few weeks ago, but I put those thoughts out of my head as I wrapped my arms around him. He buried his face in my neck and I felt his tears falling onto my skin. His hands caressed down my back and then I felt his hot, rough hands touching my bare skin under my T-shirt. Being skin to skin with Nik was like being offered a glimpse into paradise. It was enough for me because I knew it was all I would ever have from him. 

How long I sat there on my knees just holding onto him, I wasn’t sure. My legs had long since fallen asleep when Nik raised his head. “Will you stay with me until we have to go?”

“I’ll stay as long as you need me, Nik,” I promised.

I thought I saw a flash of something intense cross his face but was too tired to question it as I stood. For the next few hours I lay in bed with him. One arm was under his head while the other wrapped tightly around my shoulders. His fingers played with the ends of my hair like they always did, and I wondered if the action was just as soothing for him as it was for me. Neither of us spoke and I let myself relax to the sound of his steady heartbeat under my ear as I rested my head on his lean, muscled, hard chest.

The sun came up but we stayed where we were. It was after eight before he finally moved around, trying to work some of the kinks out of his stiff body. When he left me to shower, I took a moment to make a few necessary phone calls before going to shower in my own room.

Over the next two days I stuck to Nik’s side like glue. It was where I wanted to be the most, and I was so thankful that it was where Nik wanted me too. It was like a dagger shredding my heart as I watched him silently cry while his mother was slowly lowered into the ground.

Aunt Sarah was the last of the family we had, except for Drake and Shane’s dad and sister back in Ohio that they didn’t acknowledge. So now it was officially just the five of us. We only had each other, and that was okay with me. Those four guys were all I had ever had anyway.

We returned to the tour and everything began to get back to normal.

Until I started getting sick.

What’s Wrong With Em?

I didn’t think I was going to get over my mom’s death. Even with my band brothers and Emmie to help me through it all, I was still having a difficult time over two months later. She had been special, a one of a kind loving person, and I felt cheated that she was gone.

Being so out of it I didn’t notice how sick Emmie was until I heard her throwing up on the tour bus one morning. At first I thought it was Drake because he was always in there first thing in the morning emptying his system of the poison he had filled it with the night before. So it came as a shock when I saw Emmie coming out of the bathroom a few minutes after I heard the toilet flush.

I didn’t say anything right away. After all, I wasn’t sure if it was something serious or not. When I mentioned it to Jesse later that morning he looked disturbed. We talked and I started putting a few things together. Emmie was sleeping all the time and she had lost weight, not to mention the mood swings that I hadn’t questioned until now. When I looked at her a few hours later I saw that she was skin and bones, and she hadn’t had any weight to lose to begin with.

Jesse and I cornered her that afternoon as the bus drove toward another city for yet another concert. We were all burnt out, and I suspected that the heavy pace was taking it’s toll on Emmie just as much as it was the rest of us. Maybe more. We didn’t really think about what she had to do to keep our lives simple. She was always taking care of something, planning ahead so that everything ran smoothly for us. We were taking the summer off, having our first vacation since we had hit it big. Just a few more days, two more concerts in Galveston, and we were headed to Florida for three full months.

Emmie being Emmie, she pointedly refused to go see a doctor at first. When Jesse told her just how worried we were, she reluctantly gave in. It shouldn’t have bothered me when she agreed for him, but it did. And when she crawled onto his lap to comfort him because he was so worried, I saw red for a minute.

I had to sit there and watch them. Emmie was wrapped around Jesse like she belonged in his arms. It felt like a punch directly to the chest, but after a few minutes of hating my best friend I realized that no matter how I felt all I really wanted was for Em to be happy. If Jesse was what she wanted, I would step aside and let her have him.

I prayed that wasn’t the case though. It was getting harder and harder to hide how I was feeling. A song had been scrambling around my brain for a few weeks now and I knew that I had to get it out. Maybe, just maybe, once I had the song ready and Emmie heard it she would realize that I loved her…

Perhaps she would be able to come to love me too.

When Emmie fell asleep in Jesse’s lap, I had to get up. I couldn’t watch them sleeping together. Walking through the moving tour bus, I went straight through the sleeping quarters without stopping. Shane and Drake were already asleep, taking up one set of the bunks. I could have climbed onto the top bunk on the other side, which was my usual bed anyway, but I wanted to feel closer to Emmie.

She always took the front of the bus. It was her own space and we usually respected it as hers. Her computer was on the long table in front of the couch that she normally slept on, and there were a dozen different papers scattered around the computer. I stretched out on the couch on my stomach, hugging her pillow under my head. Breathing deep, I took in the scent of her shampoo—lavender and vanilla.

It gave me a little peace from the ache seeing her with Jesse caused, as well as the nagging worry I felt after opening my eyes to just how sick she was now. A few lines from the song I was working on clouded my brain, and I hummed the lyrics a few times as I slowly drifted to sleep.

Gentle yet firm hands pushed on my shoulder. I turned over, still half asleep until I felt Emmie snuggle against my bare chest. She put her head on my chest and closed her eyes. My heart swelled as I wrapped her safely in my arms. Tenderly, I brushed a kiss over her forehead, breathing in her sweet scent.

“
You don’t know how happy you just made me,” I whispered, knowing that she was already asleep and couldn’t hear me.

--

As soon as the song was finished I knew I had to sing it. Emmie had to know what I was feeling and I needed her to know before we started our vacation. I didn’t want to spend the entire summer hiding how much I needed her.

Tonight was our last concert and I was nervous. Not even during our very first concert had I felt so nervous. I went through the song with Drake several times backstage, and he was giving me some pretty evil looks when he realized just what the new song was about. I ignored him.

When we took the stage, I promised the audience a new song later in the night just so I wouldn’t chicken out and not perform it after all. Greedy for new material from us, I knew our fans wouldn’t let me forget.

With the lights flashing and bouncing to the beat of Jesse’s drumming, I was a little blind to what was happening on the sidelines of the stage. I knew Emmie was standing just out of sight and from time to time I would get a glance of her as she paced while she handled business with her phone. The concert was only a few songs from being over, and I was determined that the next song was going to be for Emmie.

Still singing
Ashes
, I glanced toward where I had last seen her.

I nearly stumbled over the words when I saw her kissing Axton. My heart felt like it was going to explode, my eyes clouded with rage, and it was only because I knew the song so well that I was able to finish the fucking thing. Terrified that I was too late, that Axton was the one she wanted, I rushed to get the next song set up.

Unable to bring myself to look in Emmie and Axton’s direction again. I couldn’t help but wonder what Axton was even doing in Galveston. I knew that he should have been in California with Gabriella Moreitti since they were supposed to be an item now. It pissed me off that he had dropped in right when I was about to make my move.

Drake sat on a stool beside of me with his acoustic guitar and the lights dimmed around us. I took a deep breath, determined that I wasn’t about to let my fucking friend ruin what I hoped to achieve.

You forced my lonely and cold heart to beat

No longer waiting in the shadows resigned to the same defeat.

Now there is an Ember that has sparked a flame,

Bringing me back to life with just a smile.

I was sure that Jesse and Shane were lost, knowing that I wrote only from my soul and life experience. With each line I sang I felt tenser and had to fight with myself not to look toward Emmie. Somehow I got through the song, my chest shaking from how hard my heart was beating.

Finally it was all over. As soon as Drake played the last cord I was off the stool and rushing backstage, ready to face Emmie’s reaction to the song.

She was gone. There was no sign of her or Axton, and my heart dropped to the ground. But as I stood there, glancing around for the girl that I was stupidly in love with, the disappointment turned to anger. I wasn’t sure who I was angrier with. Emmie for not noticing before how much I loved her, or myself for not telling her sooner.

Now she was off with Axton, doing only gods knew what, and I was left feeling empty.

Muttering a curse, I stomped off. I didn’t care where I went, just as long as I got away from everyone. I hated the world, the universe. I thought of hooking up with some random girl, taking her back to the hotel and making sure that Emmie knew that I wasn’t going to keep wasting my time waiting for her to open those beautiful green eyes.

By the time I got to the hotel my phone had started ringing. Seeing it was Axton, I decided to turn it off. I didn’t need him rubbing it in my face that he had gotten what I wanted. That shithead knew exactly how I felt about Emmie and hadn’t thought twice to use it against me.

Like always, there was the usual line of groupies hanging out by the rear of the hotel. They were the hopefuls that hadn’t gotten to see the concert but were still determined to warm one of our beds for the night. The idea to hook up was squashed, however, even as I started to take my pick.

I couldn’t do it. The thought of touching someone that wasn’t Emmie made my stomach cramp and I turned away. Up in my room I ordered a bottle of whiskey and some food. The whiskey kept my attention diverted for a good hour, and I was feeling more than a little mellow when I decided to turn on my phone.

If Emmie was off with Axton having fun then I was going to ruin it. The phone took it’s time rebooting and I was about to bring up Emmie’s name when the amount of missed calls from Axton popped up on the screen. I knew that Axton wouldn’t have been calling that much unless it was seriously important. The guy had better things to do, more stupid ass pranks to play.

My stomach was in knots as I listened to the first message:

“
Where the fuck are you? I have Emmie at the emergency room. She’s seriously sick, man. Come here as soon as you get this!”

My feet were moving even as the next message started playing automatically. “What is the matter with you fuckheads? Emmie is sick and you idiots are off getting laid! Some family you are.”

“They won’t tell me what’s wrong because I’m not family. Get here. NOW!” The third message ended and the fourth started. “Alright, Armstrong. I see how it is. You don’t really care at all, huh? All those drunken confessions of loving Em were just bullshit. Well, I’m not so stupid. If you won’t step up and take care of her, I fucking will. She likes me, you know.”

I nearly crushed my phone as I hit the end button, deleting all of the other messages without listening. Instead of letting his words get the better of me, I tried to stay focused. I had to find the guys, get to the hospital, and make sure that Emmie was okay.

By the time I found the others and we got to the hospital, more than two hours had passed since the first phone call. Axton was standing by the entrance, his phone still to his ear as he tried to call Jesse’s number again. The relief that was on his face when we stepped out of the taxi was evident. It only made my fear and anxiety level rise.

“
About fucking time, dickwads!” he exploded and punched me in the arm.

“
How is she?” Jesse demanded before I could ask.

Axton shook his head. “She was unconscious when we got here, but she’s stable now. They gave her fluids and the doctor was talking to her the last time I peeked in.”

“Thanks for helping her. You can go now,” I told him, not caring that I was acting like a bastard. I should have been shaking my friend’s hand, thanking him on my knees for taking Emmie to the hospital when she had needed help.

“
So you can take over? Looks like you haven’t been doing such a good job so far.” The rock god’s eyes darkened, looking almost menacing. “I think I’ll stay. Maybe finish what we started earlier tonight when she let me kiss her.”

I could picture my fist connecting with his jaw, imagined the bone breaking. As I started to take a step toward the prick to do just that, Jesse grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the door. “Thanks, Ax!”

Shane was already asking a nurse which room Emmie was in. “Are you a family member?”

Drake nodded his head, answering for his brother. “Yes, ma’am. Em is our sister.” The lie was something that slipped off the tip of their tongues easily. From the time Emmie had come to live with us that was what we told most people. For me, it had been a harder pill to swallow when saying those words.

The nurse didn’t question either Shane or Drake. She just glanced down at her iPad and then gave them her room number. I kept a few paces back from my friends as we rushed toward her room. I was still seething after the encounter with Axton.

A doctor was sitting beside Emmie’s bed when we entered her room. She was deathly pale and all thoughts of destroying Axton or being angry at Emmie evaporated. Gods, she looked so small lying in the hospital bed. She was covered with a blanket to her waist, and an IV with rapidly dripping fluids was attached to one of her arms. I could see the wires from what I could only guess was a heart monitor, and I felt like I was going to vomit.

So close. So fucking close! I … We had nearly lost her.

Oh, dammit all to hell.
I
had nearly lost her. There I had admitted it to myself.

The guys were apologizing to Emmie. We should have gotten here sooner. We should have been the ones that had taken her to the hospital in the first place. Axton was right. We hadn’t been taking good enough care of Emmie.

I turned my full attention on the doctor, determined to find out exactly what was going on with Emmie and how to make her better. My fear was that it was some kind of cancer, but we had the money to take care of her. I had seen the effects of it with Liam Bryant’s sister, Marissa, and knew that as sick as Emmie had been it could very well be the same thing.

The first question was going to be the hardest, but I manned up and asked. “What’s wrong with her?” The second question was just as important and I needed to know it more than the first, if for no other reason than to save my sanity. “Is she going to be alright?”

The doctor, a man that looked barely older than me or the others, glanced down at Emmie for a brief moment before clearing his throat. It wasn’t lost on me that he appeared to be intimidated by the four of us. I knew that we could look like scary fuckers. Truth was the doctor had every reason to be intimidated. With the exception of Emmie, we didn’t give a fuck about anything or anyone. We were bastards. And if this doctor thought about standing in our way, none of us would think twice about fucking him up.