Although business is booming, personally I’m only taking on a couple clients, Justice being one of them. If I didn’t believe it before, Justice and I have officially crossed into close friend—almost family zone. After we got settled back in New York, he and Ally came for a visit to help out. Of course, Justice kicked and screamed the second they touched down at LaGuardia. But after being pulled in by the sheer magic of the city—the bright lights, the colorful characters, the constant symphony of car horns—he began to settle in and make himself at home. As he should.
I look around my office, which apparently moonlights as a flower shop considering the sheer fuck-cophony of fragrant, floral arrangements that fill it. We received flowers after the accident. We received them when we came back to the city. And now I’m getting “Welcome Back” bouquets at the job. Awesome. But I’m not complaining. Not on the outside at least. I’m just grateful to be alive, to be able to work and bitch and gripe and deride another day.
After an uneventful first week back, my body is certainly feeling what several months out of work will do to you. I love it though. But the only thing I love more is opening the front door to our condo to find my handsome husband stretched out on the couch, those Tom Ford readers on his nose, and a book nestled between those large, yet delicate, hands.
“How was your day, baby?” He smiles, placing the book down flat so he doesn’t lose his page.
“Long. Busy. Great,” I answer, kicking off my Tory Burch flats, which honestly, aren’t nearly as comfortable as my favorite heels. “How about you?”
He smiles again and shrugs. “Nothing too exciting here. Oh, the life of a well-kept house husband.”
“Well, who needs excitement?” I sigh as I sink into the couch beside him, curling into his side. “I think we’ve had enough excitement for five lifetimes.”
He wraps me in his arms and holds me close, running his lips over the crown of my head. “Well, it’s date night. I don’t suppose you’d want to go out, would you?”
I shake my head and smile, burying my face into his shirt to steal his scent. “No. Let’s just stay here tonight. Just the two of us.”
“Good. I was hoping you’d say that. Angelo’s?”
I chuckle at the hopeful inflection of his voice. Leave it to Tuck to find an excuse for pizza. “Sure,” I acquiesce. “But don’t forget the garlic knots.”
Like two old married people, we spend our Friday night on the couch, eating pizza and drinking wine. He fills me in on whose team is going to the playoffs and who will be out for the season after an ACL injury, and I give him an earful on all the latest gossip around town, and who’s hot and who definitely is not.
Neither one of us truly cares about what the other is saying, but we listen anyway, and comment when appropriate and laugh when something is funny. We do it because we love each other. And we do it because that’s marriage. Celebrating and arguing and kissing and crying and loving and sexing. And everything in between. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
We switch the TV over from the nightly news to see what else is on. Tucker flips through the movie channels while I grab the popcorn with extra butter, before squeezing into his side as close as I could possibly get. He laughs, and somehow manages to pull me closer while nabbing a handful of popcorn. I pinch his side. He licks my nose. We laugh and toss salty, butter-coated popcorn on my expensive all-white sofas.
When we finally calm down long enough to settle in for a movie, we hear something on the television that catches both our attention.
There’s a heavy drumbeat, the zing of electric guitar and heart-pounding melodies. And then just as the singing begins, the title of the program appears on the screen.
A N HBO E XCLUSIVE S PECIAL
T HE H OSTAGE W ORLD T OUR
S TARRING R ANSOM
We look at each other, smile, and turn off the TV.
Epilogue
It’s been 9 months, 3 weeks, and 5 days since I saw her last.
9 months, 3 weeks, and 5 days since I hit rock bottom.
The police and press labeled it an accident—an unintended devastating tragedy—but I know the truth. Shit, pretty hard to ignore when it’s all I can fucking think about when I’m not on stage or in rehearsals.
I’ve worn the guilt every day since, cloaked in shame and anger and pain. I fucked up . . . fucked up so bad that I ended up almost killing her. And while I’m still learning how to forgive myself for that day, I’m not ever sure I can forgive myself for falling in love with her. Sordid shit aside, I love Heidi—loved Heidi. And that was my biggest mistake of all.
So here I am, nursing a beer in a damn near deserted hotel bar in the most romantic city in the world. The band just killed it at one of our most incredible venues to date, and while they’re all out wreaking havoc on the streets of Paris, I’m pathetically alone, licking old, scabbed-over wounds. For one, it’s better for my recovery, and healthier for me both physically and mentally.
See, the booze and the drugs weren’t my issue. I don’t even know if sex was either. It’s just . . . me. I have what people would say is an addictive personality. I chase highs of all varieties. I drank because it masked my pain and got me outta my head. I drugged because it made me forget the bad shit and elevated my state of mind to another plane. And I fucked because, plain and simple, it felt fucking good. Sex was my biggest issue, by far. So much so, that it was threatening the future of the band. Let’s be honest, pussy is easy to come by when you’re an international rock star. But the more I indulged, the more I wanted. And the more I had, the emptier I felt. So I tried to bury it with more, desperately searching to fill that fucking canyon inside me. When it started affecting the music, I tried to self-medicate. And when that didn’t help, I was instructed to seek “professional” help. For a minute, I thought that shit was even helping.
Until Heidi.
Heidi was an addiction all on her own. Funny that I called her H, although I never had an itch for heroine. However, she wasn’t drugs or booze or even sex to me. She was every fucking vice rolled into a never-ending joint and sprinkled with candy-flavored crack. I knew it when I saw her, long before I had her . . . before her husband had coerced me into fucking her. He said it was like using Methadone. Having her would staunch the need for random hookups until I could successfully kick the habit altogether. She wouldn’t be the real thing. Except . . . she was so much more.
Loving her wasn’t part of the plan. Shit, neither was losing her. But I knew that if I didn’t let her go cold turkey, neither one of us would recover.
So here I am. Exactly where I was before. Hollow. Hurting. But this time, I’m surviving. I owe it to the guys too. I owe it to myself. And I owe it to Heidi. If she could overcome the horror of that day, I could learn to control my dick.