DRASTIC (Book 4 of the Soundcrush Series)

Chapter 5: Drummer Boys Seek Professional Help

Bodie, Present Day

Back On Tour After The Labor Day Party In Martha's Vineyard

I lie in bed, listening to Arabella's whimperings.

You'd think after two Xanax I would be able to sleep, but I can't.

I can't ever sleep when she starts sleep-talking.

"No, please. I don't like it. No...don't. Daddy..." she mumbles.

That's it.

My feet hit the floor and I'm pulling on jeans and padding out to the patio to before she says some shit that will force me to wake her up.

I used to wake her up whenever she started sleep-talking. Try to ask her about her dream.

She went crazy every time.

Finally I realized they weren't just bad dreams.

She won't ever talk about it, though. I don't know exactly what she's been through, but I know the dreams are getting worse.

I think I know why.

Because her dad has called her three times this week, asking for money.

He called before the show last night and upset her so bad that she messed up a few times during the performance. She's not Mac, but she's usually a competent keyboardist, so she was pretty pissed at herself after the show. Trace and Adam didn't help, lecturing her about not drinking too much before we take the stage.

She wasn't drunk.

She was shook.

I finally found my balls to confront her about her dad when we got back to the suite. Despite the party going on in the main room, I took her in the bathroom and I asked her why she lived with her Uncle and his wife growing up. She said it was "a bad scene" at home.

"I had to get out of there," was all she would say.

I asked her bluntly if her dad did something to her and she denied it, screaming and cursing and throwing shit at me. That pretty much ended the suite party. Then she washed four pills down with tequila and passed out.

She scared the fuck out of me. I've been up all night, holding her, making sure she was breathing. When she started sleep-talking, I knew she was coming out from under the deep drug coma she was in.

No, please. I don't like it. No...don't. Daddy...

Thinking about her pleading dreams and what kind of "bad scene" she might have been in as a little girl, my gut churns. I vomit in a plant on the patio, and I sit there with my head between my knees. 

Eventually I stumble back into the suite and she's awake, standing naked in the kitchen in front of the open refrigerator door, downing a water. I breathe a sigh of relief that she's alert. Maybe I can get some sleep now.

"What the fuck were you doing?" she hisses at me, her face drawn into an angry scowl, her eyes ringed like a raccoon's because she didn't take her stage makeup off. "You woke me up, crashing around." She leaves the refrigerator door open and leans on the marble kitchen counter. She's shaking, but I don't know if it's from cold or coming down off the pills or just from whatever she was dreaming about.

I close the refrigerator door. "Sorry," I move behind her, reaching out to pull her against me and give her a little heat, but her skin is slick with sweat and she slaps at me in irritation.

"Get off me. Is fucking all you ever think about?"

Despite the fact that she is naked, sex was very far off my radar right now. I just wanted to give her a little comfort, but I wince in sympathy for her prickly feelings. I back away from her at once. She's a beautiful girl and to the world she fronts like a completely sexually liberal siren, but the truth is she's all over the place in her attitudes toward sex.