Page 23 of Accidental Fire
Kit stared out at the ocean as I’d been doing. “Do you think you’d like to have kids?”
He glanced over at me with a small smile. “Until about half an hour ago, I thought I’d find a nice girl and settle down soon, but now… Well, I’ve got some thinking to do.”
I tried to understand what he meant with his comment, but my brain was too alcohol addled to process things properly. “I better go.” I stood and stumbled, nearly going over the railing of his balcony.
Kit grabbed me by the back of my shorts and pulled me back into the chair. “I think for safety’s sake, you better crash here. You can share with me. The sofa doesn’t pull out.”
That was the last thing I remembered until the urge to hurl woke me, and I rushed into the bathroom. Kit came in with water, and there I was, leaning over the toilet. What a way to start the day.
I glanced down to see I was in my red briefs and nothing else. I had to wonder where my clothes ended up and whether anything had happened that I’d want to remember. I stood from the bathroom floor. “Where’re my clothes?”
Kit chuckled. “You jerked the bucket off the table when you decided you were going to the penthouse and spilled cold water all over both of us. Your shorts, my shorts, and your T-shirt were soaked, so I hung them on the balcony railing to dry. Let me get your stuff.”
He stepped onto the balcony and returned a minute later with my shorts and T-shirt. “They’re still a little damp, but they should get you to your penthouse without a problem.”
I quickly dressed. “I’m sorry I ruined your plans last night. I wanted to go to the Cultural Center, but I messed up by getting drunk. I, uh…” I had no idea what else to say.
Kit went to the dresser and pulled out a pair of shorts, sliding them over his muscular legs. “No worries. Best laid plans and all. Maybe this was what you needed more than that. Anyway, come on. I’ll walk you to your room. I’m going for a run to sweat out some of the alcohol and see if I can get this headache under control. I guess I’ll see you at the venue at two. You guys go on at five, right?” Kit opened another drawer and grabbed a pair of socks before he sat down on the bed to slide them on.
“You don’t have to walk me up to the penthouse. I’ll be fine. Yeah, Clancy’s supposed to take us there for a sound check at two.”
He quickly slipped on his running shoes and tied them before he grabbed his phone, earbuds, and an elastic band from the desk, sliding it up his arm to his bicep and then handing me a set of keys. “Give these to Clancy for me. I borrowed them last night, but we didn’t end up going anywhere.”
I nodded and opened the door to the room before heading toward the stairwell to the penthouse. I glanced behind me to see Kit stretching in the hallway. He gave me a wave and a smile, and I nearly skipped up the stairs, which opened next to the penthouse, in a much better mood than I deserved.
Thankfully, my phone was still in the thigh pocket of my cargo shorts, so I used it to open the suite door. The shared space was empty, but there were remnants of what they’d done the previous night: two empty tequila bottles, an overflowing ashtray of cigarette butts, and two pipes. There was a plastic bag with a few weed seeds and a package of rolling papers.
The silence in the penthouse told me they were still passed out, and that was about to end. I wished to hell I had that bucket from the previous night. I went to the kitchen and found a large pitcher, filling it with cold water from the fridge before I went to the first door, which was Arlo’s room. I walked in and poured the liquid on my brother.
“What the fuck?” Arlo complained.
I then proceeded to continue the process.
“You bastard!” JD. Clearly not happy.
When I opened Goldie’s door, his bed was empty. I stepped farther into the room and found him on the floor, where I dumped water onto him. He didn’t move for a moment, which worried me. I reached down and touched his neck to check for a pulse.
His eyes shot open, and he inhaled a big breath. “You scared the fuck out of me.”
“Get up.”
I went to the last door and opened it, seeing Hardy sitting against his headboard with his eyes closed. “Don’t you dare throw water on me. I’m awake. I’m meditating. What do you want?”
“Meditating? When did this start?” We’d been on the winter tour earlier in the year, and I hadn’t known him to meditate once.
“I was having sleep issues after the tour, so I went to talk to a therapist. Instead of prescribing sleeping pills, we decided it would be more beneficial if I did yoga and meditation. You should try it. I could lead you through some poses sometime.” That was the last thing I expected to hear from him.
“With all the weed you smoke, you do yoga?” I was truly surprised by that information.
Hardy chuckled. “Gotta put up the rock-star front for the fans, you know. I don’t smoke as much as I make it look like. Goldie, though, that guy’s our lead singer, and his voice needs to be protected. He shouldn’t smoke or drink nearly as much as he does. He doesn’t respect his instrument at all.”
“Yeah, well, I think we all need to start respecting ourselves a lot better. I’m going to talk to Marsh about a few things, but I think the five of us should go to the spa and take a steam bath to sweat out the toxins from last night. I’ll go down and arrange for us to use the steam room without other guests. We have to be at the Cultural Center at two for our sound check, so we need to get going. Rally the others and meet me downstairs. We’ll get breakfast and have a band meeting after the steam.”
I left the penthouse, deciding I’d shower after sweating out the yeast and hops I’d consumed the previous night. I hoped we could come to the consensus that we needed to take better care of ourselves so we wouldn’t burn out before the end of the tour. We were young. We should have many years before that happened.
With Arlo now expecting a baby, it was more important than ever for us to be successful. I was sure he wouldn’t be the only one of us who had a family in the years to come, and we needed to be able to support them.
None of us knew what was in store for our futures, but unlike Regal, I planned to do as much as possible for those I loved. I wouldn’t expect someone else to dig me out of a hole I created like Regal had done to Skyler.
