Gabe rested a placating hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “He doesn’t mean literally. She’s fine. Well, not any worse than she was the last time you saw her.”
“Don’t freak me out like that,” Jacob said. “I don’t need the nightmares. My life is enough of one already.”
Adam flipped the page and wrote My Life, I don’t need the nightmares. My life is enough of one already.
“Are you turning my comments into lyrics?” Jacob asked.
“No one is safe,” Owen said and laughed.
Adam flipped the page and wrote No One Is Safe, dark things reside deep in my thoughts. My greatest concern is if I’ll get caught
Owen fisted a hand in Adam’s T-shirt.
“Hey, stop that,” Owen demanded.
Adam turned to another blank page.
Hey, stop that, he wrote, just to tease Owen.
Gabe chuckled. “I think we’ve created a monster.”
The monster I created ended up scrawled on the next page. That idea had a bit more merit.
“Pencil dick the love machine,” Owen said.
Adam glanced up at him, an eyebrow lifted in question.
Owen laughed and patted Adam’s shoulder a bit too forcefully. “Just seeing if you’re paying attention or just writing down everything we say.”
Pay Attention Adam wrote on another blank page.
I know a guy named Owen
A civilian who wears dog tags
And they call him pencil dick the love machine
“Pencil dick the loooove machine,” Jacob sang in his best impression of Barry White on a porn movie soundtrack. He even gyrated his hips for effect.
“That will be the first single off the new album for sure,” Gabe said.
Adam laughed when Owen launched himself on Gabe’s back and locked him in a choke hold.
“I wouldn’t mess with him,” Jacob said. “He’s used to getting his ass kicked by professional MMA fighters.”
“Semiprofessional . . . UFC . . . fighter,” Gabe said breathlessly, landing a fierce blow to Owen’s ribs with his elbow.
“Oh, my bad,” Owen said, wincing, but not releasing his hold. “I thought he got his ass kicked by the Pillsbury Doughboy.”
“You mean that was you?” Gabe taunted.
Owen squeezed harder. “Some of us have to work at perfection, chicken legs.”
Jacob laughed. “You two really need to work on your insults.”
“Gabe?” a soft voice said from the open bedroom door.
Adam’s smile faded when he saw the look on Melanie’s face. He knew that look. That was how he’d felt when Madison had closed the hotel door behind her as she’d left him.
Owen released his choke hold and slid down Gabe’s back.
“What’s wrong?” Gabe asked, moving to stand before her. He took her upper arms in his hands and stared down into her tear-streaked face.
“I have to leave,” she said.
“What? I thought you were going to go on the road with us.”
“She is?” Jacob said, but he was ignored.
“I want to, but Nikki, she . . .”
“Melanie, you can’t let her rule your life.”
“If I leave her alone, I’m afraid she’ll try to kill herself again.”
“Again?” Gabe questioned.
Nodding, Melanie tucked her hair behind her ears. Her hands were shaking so bad, Adam could see the movement from ten feet away.
“She’s in a fragile state right now.”
“Which is why she should be admitted,” Gabe said. “You aren’t a psychiatrist, Mel. She needs professional help.”
“Don’t you think I know that!” Melanie snapped.
Gabe jerked as if she’d slapped him.
“I’m sorry,” she said and caressed his cheek. “I didn’t mean to yell. And I’m not leaving forever, just until she’s stable. She needs me.”
“I need you too,” Gabe said.
Adam turned his attention to his sketch pad, drawing a lionfish on the corner of the page.
“So,” Owen said loudly, “how about them Cowboys? Think they have a shot at the Super Bowl this year?”
“How should I know?” Jacob said, apparently oblivious to the reason Owen was trying to change the subject. “The season hasn’t even started yet.”
“I’m not breaking up with you,” Melanie said clearly, as if she and Gabe did not have a small yet uncomfortable audience. “I just need to do this. Okay? Please don’t make it harder than it already is.”
“I feel like Nikki will always come first,” Gabe said.
“Lucky girl,” Owen chided.
“Shut. Up. Owen,” Gabe said, giving the quipster a glacial look over his shoulder.
Owen covered his lips with one finger and pressed them into his teeth.
“She doesn’t always come first, Gabe. She’s going through a really rough time right now. What kind of friend would I be if I turned my back on her? I’m sorry, but I just can’t do it.”
“You should stay,” Nikki said as she ventured out of the bedroom wearing one of the band’s discarded T-shirts. Melanie’s face was streaked with tears, but Nikki’s was downright flooded. “I can go home by myself.”
Adam offered Nikki an encouraging smile, but she was too focused on Melanie to see it.
Gabe looked Nikki over from head to foot, his gaze pausing at her throat and cheek where colorful bruises marred her flesh. He sighed and turned his attention back to Melanie.
“When will I see you again?” Gabe asked her.
“Soon,” she said. “I promise.”
“If I wasn’t on tour, I’d follow you home and help you with this.”
“I know that,” she said, kissing his lips softly. “It’s one of the thousands of things about you that makes it so hard for me to leave.”
But she did leave. Packed up herself and her friend and headed back to Kansas.
Adam continued to toy with his new lyrics at the dining table until Gabe sank into the bench across from him after sending the two women off in a cab.
Gabe linked his hands on the table in front of him. “Why is it that we have willing women coming out of our ears, yet it’s so hard to convince the ones we actually want to stick around?”
Adam stiffened. Did he know that Madison had left him? Adam hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. It sure seemed as if Gabe were trying to commiserate, which meant he knew they had something to commiserate about. And maybe that was okay. Despite having people around him all day, he’d never felt more alone.