Page 139 of The Drummer

He winces, but I can’t stop. I won’t. He needs to hear this as much as I need to say it.

“So call it selfish, but I’m not letting you give up again. I’m not doing this without you anymore, and I’m sure as hell not letting your brain take you away from me.”

I search his face, silently begging him to listen. “You’re not a hurricane, Luke. You’re my rock—my fuckinganchor—and I’ll do whatever it takes to bring you back.”

His eyes scan mine, before he directs a pensive frown at the floor again.

He may not like hearing any of that, but I’m not messing around this time. Therapy, medication, whatever he needs to get out of this abyss—we’re going to find it. Because he’s too important to give up. He’s barely begun touching the lives he’s here to impact.

After a long, painful silence, his voice cracks the tension in the air.

“Do you truly believe people can change?” he asks quietly.

Haunted blue-green eyes lift to mine. Searching. Pleading.

Sparks of love and hope surge through my chest.

“Yes. One hundred percent,” I say with a firm nod. “Not onlycanwe. Wehave to, Luke. We fuckinghaveto.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Where’s the road crew when you need one?” Sweeny mumbles as we stare into the wall of black crates and cases packed into the trailer. It’s almost four, but the late arrival of our gear doesn’t matter nearly as much as getting it into that room and unpacked.

“When did you become such a diva?” I shoot back.

He grunts and reaches for the first crate, while Eli jumps in to help him. The two guys who drove the pickup grab another one, and I extract an amp from the world’s most expensive 3-D puzzle.

“What can I carry?” Callie asks, eyeing the remaining equipment.

“It’s fine. We’ll get it,” I say, then wince at her laser scowl.

Right. Zero chance she’ll sit this out.

“The round one there,” I correct. “Just be careful because it’s heavier than…”

Yeah, she’s already halfway up the ramp.

I shift the weight of the amp to follow her, but stop when I realize Luke hasn’t moved. He’s still staring into the trailer with a blank look.

“You okay, dude?” I call to him.

He flinches and casts a quick glance in my direction. “What? Yeah.”

He used to be a much better liar.

I move beside him and suck in a breath.

His pedal board case.

The gray box still has the faded Landry’s Bar logo we jokingly applied on one of our tours. I don’t even remember which one. The sticker was a weird velvet material in the shape of the bar’s obnoxious “L” logo. Eli slapped it on Luke’s case so he’d know which was his and we never took it off.

“They must have loaded it last,” he says in an absent tone.

Because it wasn’t with the rest of our equipment.

I swallow the lump in my throat. “Yeah.”

After a long silence, he inhales deeply and grips the handle. “Let’s hope all the pedals still work.”

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