Page 11 of Last Chorus (A Perfect Song Duet #2)

CHAPTER NINE

wilder

F rank Clarke wipes a napkin roughly over his mouth, causing his bushy gray mustache and surrounding beard to expand like porcupine quills.

With an exaggerated groan, he leans back in his chair and belches.

Disgusted looks are thrown our way from the nearest table, but Frank just grins at me and winks.

I roll my eyes at his antics. I’d wanted to meet at the house I’m renting, but he’d breezily suggested lunch.

After years of him pulling this exact shtick whenever we’re both in town, I didn’t bother trying to dissuade him.

At least the restaurant he chose this time doesn’t have a dress code and didn’t require renting a plane.

The quaint, Santa Monica café may be casual, but in keeping with Frank’s tastes it’s highly exclusive. I hadn’t even bothered with calling for a reservation myself, knowing they’d think I was lying about who I was, and instead texted my PA to do the honors.

Normally I get a kick out of bringing the burly, aging biker into social spheres he wouldn’t otherwise be able to access.

But the last hour has been a struggle. I’m bent out of shape about last night, exhausted and impatient.

So while he’s decimated his food and talked nonstop, I’ve barely touched mine and most of my responses have been monosyllabic.

Frank slurps his Americano contentedly. I continue pushing food around my plate, ignoring curious stares from teenagers whose wealthy parents have dragged them out for New Year’s brunch.

After a few more minutes of torture, Frank finally sets his cup down and folds his hands over his belly. “Okay, champ. Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

I glance around one more time, reassuring myself that the closest tables are actually pretty far from us and no one is pointing a phone in our direction. I still speak softly and don’t use names as I tell him everything from Matt and Sophie’s impromptu visit to what happened last night.

Even without names, Frank knows exactly who I’m talking about, having been on the receiving end of my verbal vomit more times than I can count. Sober himself for three decades, he’s been a drug and alcohol counselor almost as long.

I met him at Oasis, the desert treatment center where I spent three months and where he works as a group therapy facilitator. In my first week there, he took a liking to me. Apparently how deeply pathetic and ornery I was reminded him of himself at my age.

Our unlikely bond grew and was solidified when, a few days before leaving Oasis, I had a severe panic attack. Despite all the work I’d done, despite feeling mentally stable and even hopeful about the future, the impending leap back into my life—and all it signified—hit me like a train.

What sent me spiraling wasn’t the impending start of Night Theory’s delayed world tour; I was amped to play music again.

Nor did I really care about what the press was saying about me.

The problem was everything else. All the consequences of what I’d done to Evangeline, to my family, to my supportive but rightfully resentful bandmates, and the fact I’d have mere days to start repairing all my relationships before touring for months with temptations everywhere.

I was still shaking from the effects of the attack when Dr. Chastain called for Frank to join us in his office.

I didn’t know what was happening until Frank appeared like a prison-tattooed Santa Claus and in his usual, gruff way said, “I haven’t been a roadie for forty years, but if you want some company on tour just say the word. ”

And that was that. With Chastain’s support, Frank took a leave of absence from Oasis and came on the road with me for seven months.

He’s been my sponsor ever since. By the end of that tour, I’m pretty sure my bandmates and our road crew liked him more than me.

My family, too. Not really surprising in hindsight.

I was legitimately fucking nuts for the first year of my sobriety, on a daily rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows.

Kind of like right now.

When I’ve finished unloading the chaos of the last week on him, Frank studies me in silence, his lips working against the scraggly ends of his mustache. The objectively nasty habit is his tell that he’s about to impart some wisdom I don’t want to hear.

“She’s not yours, Wilder.” When I stiffen, he lifts a hand. “Before you get your panties in a twist, I’m not saying you shouldn’t care or even that you shouldn’t try to help, but if you only want to help her because she might fall in love with you again… well, that’s selfish as shit, isn’t it?”

My abdominals clench against a blow that bypasses them and lands deep in my gut. Rubbing my hands over my face, I mumble, “What am I supposed to do? ”

“The only thing I’m qualified to give you advice about is how to stay sober and not be a dick.”

I drop my hands to glare at him.

He heaves a sigh. “I won’t sugarcoat this for you.”

“I don’t want you to.”

He shifts in his seat, wrinkles deepening around his eyes.

“Your friend seems to be in a tough spot. Between what the man last night told you and what you observed, there are a lot of markers pointing to psychological abuse.” He pauses for another round of mustache chewing.

“Statistically, it takes an abuse victim seven times to leave their abuser for good. Do you know if she’s tried to leave him before? ”

I shake my head, my stomach roiling. “I don’t. I guess I can ask…” I trail off, thinking about my phone call with Lily and Rye this morning. Their stunned silence after I told them what Martin said and what I saw with my own eyes.

They judged Evangeline harshly. Had all but written her off. And now they’re sitting with the knowledge that her withdrawal and hurtful behaviors might have been cries for help.

All I could do was tell them it wasn’t their fault. How were they supposed to know? Evangeline has always been a fortress, and they aren’t mind readers. It’s no one’s fault but Clay’s—and maybe mine .

Logically, I know I don’t have that kind of power. But I still feel responsible. What if what I did to her made her more susceptible to Clay’s abuse somehow?

I’m haunted by the image of her when I walked into the room last night. How she sat so still, pale and rigid on the bed. Like a broken doll, her eyes lifeless.

Frank grunts, and I realize I’ve curled my fingers around a knife on the table. I release it so fast it spins and clanks against my plate.

“I want to hurt him,” I confess.

“I know, bud, but you won’t. Because you want to help her more.”

“How?” I demand. “How do I help her?”

He shakes his head sadly. “I know you want a straightforward answer, but I don’t have one other than don’t confront her. Given your history, I can guarantee it won’t end well.”

“Agreed,” I grumble, thinking about what triggered her anger last night—my ill-conceived comment about how she didn’t belong in Los Angeles. I can only imagine her reaction if I told her she should leave her boyfriend because he’s an abusive piece of shit.

God, the irony. It fucking stabs .

I was her abusive boyfriend once. Lying to her. Manipulating her to keep her at my side.

Dark emotion coils and tightens around my heart. I see it in my mind as a thick, black-scaled snake. Old and tired but still powerful. Selfish. Covetous and borderline amoral.

I’m not a perfect person just because I’m sober. Far from it. Last night I did something I swore I’d never do again—I lied to Evangeline. I told her I wasn’t interested in her anymore, pretended that the idea of me seducing her was laughable.

In the moment, I hadn’t wanted her to see me as one more person who wanted something from her. But I do want something. I want everything .

A handful of times, most recently when I heard she was dating Clay and freaked out, Frank has asked me to consider the possibility that my feelings might collapse in person.

That they’re not actually real. That maybe I’ve been holding onto the idea of us all these years to avoid facing vulnerability with someone else.

He isn’t the only one who’s suggested it.

My parents have voiced similar concerns.

Jax, Eddie, and Zander have as well. And it’s been implied in one way or another by every person I’ve been romantically involved with over the years—usually accompanied by anger—when they invariably realize I’ll never fall in love with them.

But after last night, I know they’re all wrong.

Ten seconds in the same room with Evangeline was all it took.

No matter how much she’s changed, how much I’ve changed, my feelings haven’t.

I felt the same old fire in my gut, my bones, my cock.

In my fingers, itching to touch her. My tongue, burning to taste her.

I still want her. All of her. Her secrets and truths. Every thought and word, sigh and gasp. Every smile and frown and tear. If anything, my obsession is more now. Clearer. Purer. Unsullied by my inner conflict of the past. By my addiction, my self-hatred, my demons.

And she still wants me, too. She’d no doubt deny it, but I saw the proof. The goosebumps on her arms. The fevered intensity in her eyes as they roamed my body. Her expanding pupils. The thumping pulse in her neck. The blush that billowed like a rosy cloud over her chest and face.

Our bodies and souls still sing for each other.

Like Frank is privy to my thoughts, he says softly, “Be careful, Wilder. These situations are delicate and volatile. They’re not dissimilar to the progression of active addiction in the sense there needs to be a rock bottom situation of some kind.

Something that activates an urge to seek help.

The only thing you can do is the same thing I’d counsel loved ones of an addict to do.

Don’t enable but don’t judge or shame. Maintain healthy boundaries while providing a safe space for them to come when they’re ready for change. ”

My mind latches onto two words: safe space . I want to be that for her so fucking badly. Can I? Is there a way to become again what I once was, before all the pain and hurt? Her confidant… her friend?

Frank drops his fist against the table. Not hard enough to alert other diners but still hard enough to jolt me from my thoughts. My gaze flies to his face. Twitching mustache. Knowing eyes.

“Stop scheming,” he says gruffly.

The admonishment lands like an anvil. Annoyed by how easily he pinned me, I quip, “Yeah, yeah. The only person I have control over is myself. Can’t help anyone if I take my oxygen mask off. Stay on my side of the street, et cetera.”

Frank only huffs in amusement, stroking his beard with thick fingers before draping his arms on the table and leaning forward. His expression turns grave.

“Your friend didn’t choose this, not like we chose drugs and alcohol. You get me?”

I nod weakly. “She’s a victim.”

“That’s right.” The sudden worry on his face makes my heart beat faster, and I know what he’s going to say before he says it. “It’s been a long time. Your feelings may not have changed, but…”

My mind fills in the blanks.

…but her feelings might have .

…but you’re setting yourself up for heartbreak.

…but you’re risking a relapse if this spirals.

…but she isn’t yours.

I drop my gaze, unable to hold his. “I hear you.”

Frank clears his throat. “I hate to bail on you like this, but I’ve gotta get back to Oasis.

” He shakes his head in mingled exasperation and fondness.

“For fuck’s sake, next time let me know right out of the gate that you need a serious one-on-one.

I wouldn’t have dragged you out to lunch or yapped so much. ”

I crack a smile. “Fair enough.”

Part of me wishes I could go to Oasis with him.

Back to the place and time when all I had to worry about was putting one foot in front of the other.

Eating three meals at set times. Walking a dusty, rock-lined labyrinth at dawn and dusk.

Swimming laps until my muscles burned. Learning about my anxiety, the root causes and triggers, and how to manage it sober.

In many ways, those three months were the hardest of my life. Dr. Chastain tore my head and guts apart before helping me put myself back together. But despite how painful it all was, there was a beautiful simplicity to the process.

Best of all, back then I still had hope. Naive, selfish hope that my broken heart was temporary. That when I got out, I’d make amends to Evangeline and in time she’d forgive me. Because surely our love was too big and perfect for her to walk away from.

Only it wasn’t.

I thought I’d learned that lesson when I returned to Seattle, when she said all that shit on her parents’ front lawn. When she took the pieces of my heart and stomped them to dust.

But apparently I’m hardheaded as fuck. Or a master of denial still clinging to a single remaining sliver of hope.

Still addicted to her and unable to let go.

“It’s going to be okay, Wilder.”

I nod, not meeting Frank’s eyes, and signal for the check.