Page 160 of The Comedown

My hands shake with need. Need for a fix. Need for a fight. I start flipping through more photos to keep them busy during the ride down to the lobby. It’d be so fucking easy to line up either one right now, man.

But Collette doesn’t need me like that and neither does Holter. Their needs outrank mine.

Before this tour, I’d only take selfies when fans asked me to with them, but since I started spending time with Collette and her boy, I’ve probably taken hundreds—with Collette, with Holter, with them both. After pausing on a few of those, I go to some others. The first pic is Holter trying to copy Collette’s backup dancers during practice. Another one’s of Collette reading a book out loud for everyone on the bus, changing her voice for the different characters so we’d all laugh. Then there’s Collette applying mascara to the top of Bare’s head to look like hair when we had shit else to do on a rainy day.

My thumb hovers over one I don’t remember taking, and I expand it, realizing it’s because I didn’t take it. Did Collette? It’s of me and Holter, and we’re smiling at each other as we prepare to run down the street in front of one of those speed trap machines cops leave on the side of the road. It was on a quiet road with zero traffic, so we thought we’d see who was faster. I remember handing my phone off to Collette before lining up next to Holter like we were about to race. I didn’t know she took a picture of us.

Fuck am I glad she did.

I swipe, finding pictures of both of our individual speeds on the electronic reader board, further proving my point that Holter should play football. Collette’s kid fucking smoked me that day.

Too bad shit like this doesn’t make headlines. This is the shit that should matter. The only shit that should matter.

It’s all that matters to me.

I’m sneaking between the elevator doors before they’re even fully open, charging through the lobby, not giving a shit about the people calling my name. I just want my woman already, and I know exactly how to find her.

“She in there?” I ask Bare standing by my bus’s door, grateful I sent him after her. Not for blackmail like Bodee would’ve done, but to make sure she was safe. To make sure she didn’t do anything stupid…like walk on my bus by herself.

When Bare first told me where Collette was, I didn’t believe him. I warned her so many times not to come here.

But the look on Bare’s face confirms it, and now I’m pissed the fuck off, my gratitude gone in a flash. Bare should be inside, keeping eyes on her.

Actually no, fuck that. He should be carting her ass off. My bus is a sinkhole for morality. I should know. I specifically designed it to be that way.

“I tried,” is all he says as I pass him, and I can tell he’s tired. There’s so much I could say right now, so much rage waiting to be unleashed, so much fear looking for an outlet to hide behind, but all I care about is getting to Collette. She came here without me, willingly. That tells me everything I need to know. It’s bad. So fucking bad.

Hauling my ass up the stairs, I feel like I’m a kid all over again, the sheen of what I thought was great falling away to reveal something fucking ugly, insidious. What once gave me comfort, now doesn’t. Seeing my bus through eyes that aren’t for me and my use, but for someone else’s, changes everything.

I spot her right away, and that same feeling I experienced at our first performance, when she was by herself amongst a stadium of rabid fans, fills my chest, making it tight. Collette’s standing—a good sign—watching a girl beside her play a harmonica using only her nostrils, but her eyes keep blinking long and slow as she tries to focus—not a good sign. Jesus fucking Christ, Imma start swingin’.

No. I can’t. Collette needs me to have a level head.

Axel stands, saying, “Finally.” But I don’t even bother acknowledging him as I make my way down the aisle, that same urgency as before demanding I go even faster. I definitely don’t have the headspace to deal with anyone else right now. Irelynn didn’t call me. Bare didn’t call me. Axel didn’t call me.

Why didn’t they call me?

Someone hands Collette a shot, and she goes to toss it back without even asking what it is or who poured it. I used to do the same thing, nightly. Okay, daily. Every day I’d drink whatever was put in front of me, and even now, looking at the bottles littering every available surface, the itch to do just that is strong. But seeing Collette do it? Panic so intense it nearly buckles my knees floods my body as I pick up my pace, getting to her in time to take the glass right from her hand. I drink the shot instead, leveling my eyes on hers as I do, daring her, just fucking daring her to fight me on it.

She doesn’t, which tells me what I already knew: Bare’s not the only one who’s tired. We all are. Today siphoned the life out of all of us. I hadn’t even realized until today what Holter brought to the tour. He brought life…to everybody. I thought having a kid around would be a major buzzkill, a drawback I didn’t feel like putting up with, but he wasn’t.

If anything, Bodee’s the fucking buzzkill, coming in here and taking away the only good, innocent thing this tour had going for it.

And now I’m about to steal the next best thing and hoard her all to myself. If I can’t, I’m not sure there will be anything keeping me from drifting down my ever-trustworthy sinkhole of destruction.

Leaning casually against the counter directly across from her, I rasp, “Welcome to my kingdom,” hoping she can’t hear the fear in my words. Hoping nobody does. What if I hadn’t shown up? What would’ve happened?

Collette keeps eye contact, tipping one side of her mouth up, and I almost fold, falling at her feet. I don’t do scared, but this woman’s got me fucking shook.

I keep up the act though, playing along when she greets me with, “The King of the Underworld.”

Without flinching, I greet her back, saying, “The Queen of Lost Souls.” Whether Collette wants to admit it or not, she’s got mine in the palm of her hand, and I’m as lost as they come. I’m the runaway train that everybody’s been turning a blind eye to.

Everybody, but Collette.

“I thought I was supposed to be your queen?” she slurs with an eye roll as she blindly grabs a bottle from the assortment behind her.

The most pristine disaster I’ve ever seen and it’s at my own hands. Bodee might’ve been the one holding the photos, but I alone hold the starring role in every single one of them. I ran Collette off the tracks myself. That’s why no one called me. Why would they? What could I possibly do to help The Collette? I’m not fit to help anybody, not even myself.