Page 85 of Goode to Be Bad
He shrugged. “To take the bull by the horns.”
I felt my heart skip. “What’s that mean?”
He was utterly serious, eyes burning and intense. “It means I postponed all my shows for the rest of the tour. Refunds to all who ask, vouchers for upgraded seats to everyone who kept theirs. It means there’s no way off this island for two weeks. No boat, no plane. No phone service, no internet. Just you and me, and our issues, and all the time in the world.”
“Myles…”
“You damn near drank yourself to death, Lex, and that’s no joke. I had a doctor check you out before we left Europe. He wanted to admit you, intubate you, and IV you, but said as long as I watched you carefully and made sure you were hydrated when you recovered, you’d be okay.” He was frowning, hard. “I ain’t no stranger to partyin’ harder than I should. I’ve woken up with hangovers from hell. Done shit I shouldn’t. But this? This was different.”
I rested my forearms on the railing, watched the sun glinting off the waves. “Yeah, it was. I’ve gotten crazy wasted before, but I’ve never been passed out fordays.”
“Well, to be fair, I don’t think you’d been sleeping much before that.”
I shook my head. “No, not for more than a few hours a night.” I hesitated, swallowed. “Too…too much of everything to be able to sleep.”
“I needed a time-out. You needed a time-out. I can make up the shows. I can afford to refund the tickets.” He gestured. “So, here we are. Hell of a place for a time-out, huh?”
I sighed. Tried a smile, and failed. “Yeah, I guess. It’s beautiful, all right. Peaceful.” I turned, rested a hip against the rail, and faced him. “So. Where do we start?”
He eyed me, his expression neutral. “Well?” He knelt, slid my flip-flops off my feet, stood and plucked my sunglasses off my face, setting both aside. I got excited, despite still feeling like shit, because things had been off between us lately and I hated it. And this felt like him making the move on me I so desperately wanted.
His hands clutched my waist.
His lips touched mine. Soft, quick. Not a kiss, just a touch.
“First thing is…this.” And he tossed me off the side of the balcony into the water. I hit with a splash, sprawling into warm ocean brine, gentle waves rolling over me. I heard a splash nearby, and surfaced to see Myles beside me, hair in his eyes and a grin on his face.
“I’m way too hungover to swim, Myles.”
He laughed. “Nah, best thing for you.” He wrinkled his nose. “Plus, you stink.”
I laughed, then sniffed my pit, and reared back, gagging. “Yikes. I may need more than a dunk in the ocean.”
“Yeah, like soap and a toothbrush. And shampoo.” He kicked to get closer to me, wrapped an arm around me and twisted to his back, taking me onto his front as he floated, kicking away with me on his chest. “But for right now? Just chill. You got nowhere to be, no one to answer to, no one to perform for.”
“Except you.”
He shook his head. “You don’t owe me shit, Lex. We ain’t here for me to force a story out of you. I was worried about you, so I took you away from everything.” He spat water out of his mouth, one hand on my ass, the other pulling at the water, his legs kicking steadily. “You wanna fuck, we’ll fuck. You wanna talk, we’ll talk. You wanna dig out your secrets and let me help you carry them, I’ll listen and I’ll cry for whatever pain has you so fucked up, and I’ll hold you and help you figure out the way forward. You don’t want to do any of that? We won’t.”
“What if I just want to go home?”
His eyes pierced mine. “And where would home be for you, Lex?”
I clung to his shoulders and swallowed hard. “I…I don’t know.”
“You can leave anytime you want, but the only place to go aside from the hut is the island, and there ain’t much there but the generator hut and other mechanical shit, a little caretaker’s hut, a storeroom for backup supplies, and a storm shelter. Other than that, it’s just a little rock in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere, with perfect weather and a little hut to sleep in.”
“We’re really stranded here for two weeks?”
“Yep.”
“What if there’s a hurricane?”
“Well, it ain’t typhoon season, I’m told, and if there was, we’d ride it out in the shelter. It’s stocked with rations to keep four people alive for a week.”
“Oh.”
“Any other questions?”