Author: Olivia Cunning

“Yeah, fine. Whatever.” Sed stood, took Jessica’s hand, and headed for the door. At least Jessica was on his side. It made him feel a little better about doing what he knew he had to do. No one was going to like it. Least of all Trey.

***

Jessica closed the bedroom door behind her and grabbed Sed’s arm, hoping no one could overhear their conversation in the main cabin. Trey and Brian were quietly strumming their guitars while Jace and Eric listened to them play. The bus slowed as it entered the exit ramp to a midsized town.

“I’ll go inside the pharmacy with Trey,” Jessica whispered. “He’ll be less suspicious of me.”

Sed nodded. “Yeah, we need to be careful or he’s going to become better at hiding it from us, which will make it harder to help him.”

She touched his face. He really did care deeply about people. She didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it before. Jessica leaned against him, resting her face against his chest and murmured, “You’re a good man.”

He chuckled. “Nosy, you mean.”

She smiled. “That’s one way to put it. Righteous is another.”

“Self-righteous?”

She laughed. “That’s not what I meant, but yeah, sometimes.”

“I really don’t know if you’re insulting me or complimenting me.”

She leaned back to look up at him. “I like it when you do what you think is right, even if you have to go it alone. It shows your strength.”

He stared down into her eyes and lifted his hand to brush a lock of hair behind her ear. She tilted her head back to accept his kiss, but the bus pulled to a stop. Jessica braced herself so she didn’t topple over from the momentum. “I’ll try to see if I can find out how he’s getting all these refills.”

“Don’t blow your cover.” He kissed her forehead and slipped through the bathroom door, closing it behind him.

Trey set his guitar aside and climbed to his feet. “I’ll be right back. Anyone need anything?”

“I do.” Jessica stepped forward. “Just a few feminine products. Tampons, maxi pads (the overnight ones), panty liners, a disposable douche, body wax. You guys will probably appreciate me having some Midol on hand and—”

Trey winced. “I’m not going to buy all that girl stuff for you. Get it yourself.”

Jessica huffed with annoyance. “Fine. I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s not like the clerk is going to think it’s for you.”

He opened the bus door and Jessica followed him. “I’d end up getting the wrong thing and you’d send me back in there for more.” He shuddered.

She laughed. “Probably.” Well, now she had a legitimate reason to be in the store with him. She just hoped the aisles were arranged properly for eavesdropping. She walked beside him across the parking lot, trying to think of something to say that might get him to reveal something. “I was listening to you play back on the bus. You sound great.”

He stroked his eyebrow with the side of his finger. “You think so? I still can’t get my middle finger to go where I want it, but the rest are back to normal. Mostly.”

“Just think where you were a month ago. None of your fingers would go where you wanted them.”

He smiled slightly. “I guess so. Maybe I’m getting better faster than I think.”

“You’re doing great, sweetie.” She rubbed his back encouragingly. “I’m amazed by how hard you’ve been working. I don’t know where you find the will to carry on. It must be frustrating.”

He looked away. She caught a flash of guilt on his face before he smiled. “Yeah, well, I know the guys are counting on me. And the crew… The opening bands… The fans… The record label…”

“That’s an awful lot of pressure.” When he started fidgeting with the chain dangling at his hip, she decided to drop the subject.

They entered the chain drugstore through a pair of sliding doors. Trey examined the layout of the establishment and located the pharmacy counter at the back.

“You don’t have to wait for me,” he said. “If you just want to get your stuff and go, that’s fine.”

She nodded, deciding it would look suspicious if she dawdled while he waited on his prescription. While she pretended to shop for vitamins near the prescription counter, she kept an eye on Trey out of the corner of her eye.

He opened his wallet and presented a prescription slip to the technician at the counter. “I need to have this filled.”

The technician read the prescription. Her eyes widened and she looked up at Trey.

“Head injury,” he said, pushing back his hair to show her the wicked scar that curved across the side of his head. “I need those quick. I ran out of my last prescription a few hours ago and I am supposed to take my next dose in a few minutes.”

“You need to be careful about running out of these things. I hear the withdrawal symptoms are horrible.”

“Yeah. I was going to wait until Monday, but my doctor told me to find the nearest pharmacy and get it filled.”

“Do you have an insurance card?”

Trey made a big deal about riffling through his wallet several times. “Shit. I seem to have lost it.” He sighed and buried his forehead in his hand. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“If you have a credit card—”

Trey looked through his wallet again. “I’m sure I have enough cash, I just hate to see my insurance company get out of footing their part of the bill.” He grinned at her. “Leeches.”

She smiled. “Maybe if you keep your receipt they’ll reimburse you. Or you could call them and get your prescription card number.”

He sighed. “I think they’re closed on the weekends, but you’re a real sweetheart for helping me out.” He pinned her with those sultry eyes of his and Jessica knew the sweet thang behind the counter didn’t know what hit her.

The technician blushed. “I’ll just call your physician to make sure this is legit and put it in with the pharmacist.”

Trey’s face fell. “I know my doctor doesn’t work Saturdays. Is there any way around that? I kind of need this now.”

“It’s company policy.” She shifted from foot to foot.

Trey brushed his hair back from his scar. A move that seemed inadvertent, but Jessica knew better.

Staring at the side of his head, the young woman clutched the prescription slip to her chest and winced with empathy. “I know you’re in a bind. I’ll take care of it.” She typed something into a computer and winked at him.

His smile of gratitude probably set her socks on fire. “Thanks. You’re a doll.”

Biting his lower lip, Trey tapped the counter with his fingertips and pushed off its edge with both hands. He turned and his gaze landed on Jessica. She started and knocked half a dozen bottles of vitamins off the shelf. She squatted to pick them up.

Trey’s hand came into her line of sight as he retrieved one of the bottles. “For prostate health,” he read off the bottle. “Either you’re the best transvestite I’ve ever seen or you’re spying on me, Jessica Chase. Did Sed put you up to this?”

She snatched the bottle out of his hand. “No, I was just… just looking for the… uh… iron supplements. I get sort of anemic this time of the month.” She glanced up at him and smiled. “Blood loss. You know how it is.”

He paled and cringed. “No, actually, I don’t. Thank God.” He stood and scanned the shelf. He quickly found the iron supplements, plucked a bottle off the shelf, and put it in her hand. “There you go. Now go find the rest of your girly stuff and head back to the bus.”

Jessica bought all the stuff she’d told Trey she needed. She tried to see what he was up to while she stood in the checkout line, but her line of sight was blocked by a display of cheap stuffed animals.

Sed was waiting for her outside the bus when she left the store. “Well? What did you find out?”

She sighed. “Not much. He had a new prescription slip and he didn’t have his insurance card with him so he paid cash. He somehow talked that poor girl into not calling his physician for verification. She’ll probably get fired.”

“He had a new prescription slip? He didn’t try to get a refill or trick them with that bullshit story about him spilling his pills down the sink?”

“Nope. He handed the pharmacy tech a new prescription slip.”

Sed looked thoughtful for a moment. “I wonder how many of those he has.”

“Sed, I feel sort of bad sneaking around trying to catch him doing something wrong. He’s been through a lot.”

“Yeah, I know. But if he’s using, I’m going to put him through a hell of a lot more.”

Chapter 30

Sed dumped the little peach-colored pills from the prescription bottle into his palm and counted them. Thirty-six. Yesterday, there had been fifty-two. The label clearly said one to two tablets every six hours, not to exceed eight tablets per day. Though math wasn’t Sed’s thing, he knew Trey was taking more than double the proper dosage. Would this be enough evidence to get the rest of the band to make a stand against him? Sed didn’t want to waste any more time. He knew in his gut that Trey needed help and he wasn’t going to wait until they found him overdosed in his bunk as the final sign that they should do something.

Sed carefully returned the remaining pills to the bottle, secured the lid, and tucked the amber container into his pocket. He let himself out of the bathroom and settled on the sofa beside Trey. Trey had dozed off again, his head leaning at an odd angle against the back of the sofa. He never did much more than sleep these days.

“Tired, Trey?” Sed asked and nudged him in the side to wake him.

“Let him sleep,” said Brian, who sat on Trey’s other side watching TV. “The concerts are really wearing him out.”

Sed snorted. “Yeah, the concerts have really been knocking him on his ass lately.” Sed shook Trey’s shoulder. “Hey, sleepyhead, wake up.”

Trey groaned and covered his eyes with both hands. “Fuck, man, leave me alone.”

“Why don’t you just go to bed? You don’t look very comfortable sleeping like that.”

Trey sat there for a long moment as if he were physically incapable of lifting his head off the back of the couch. He finally hauled himself to his feet and headed directly for the bathroom. The bottle of pills in Sed’s pocket suddenly felt very conspicuous.

A lot of loud rattling and swearing came from the bathroom. Trey opened the bathroom door. “Has anyone seen my pills?”

“Did you check your bloodstream?” Sed asked, scratching behind his ear.

Trey was instantly in his face. “You took them, didn’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“Jesus, Sed, give him his pills. What is wrong with you?” Brian said.

“There’s nothing wrong with me.” He locked gazes with Trey. “Why don’t you tell Brian how many pills you took today?”

“Give me my fuckin’ pills, Sed.”

Sed lifted his hips off the sofa and pulled the bottle from his pocket. Trey tried to snatch it from his hand, but Sed held it firmly. “This label says you’re supposed to take four pills a day. A maximum of eight. How many have you taken since last night, Trey? Do you even know?”

Trey grabbed Sed’s wrist and tried to wrestle the bottle out of his hand. When that didn’t work, he took Sed’s little finger and bent it back viciously. “Ow, damn. Take the fuckin’ things then.” Sed released the bottle into Trey’s custody.

“That wasn’t funny.” Trey took several shuddering breaths through his nose as he tried to regain his composure. “You don’t understand my pain. You don’t understand.”