about protecting her from the invasive questions and photos, why all the secrecy? Why the need to keep their relationship away from public consumption?
In her head, there was only one answer and it was the one she wanted least to believe. Not after the hours they’d spent in bed together that morning and certainly not after the way Ryder had made love to her in the bathroom. For the first time in her adult life, she’d felt like she really was beautiful. That her man saw her in a way she’d never been able to see herself.
Only now she was finding out that man didn’t want anyone else to know he was with her. She’d been around the block enough to know that most men were pretty territorial when it came to the women they were with, so if Ryder wasn’t being like that, it was because he really didn’t think of her as his. He didn’t want her, not the way she wanted him.
It was stupid to be upset by that now—she was the one who’d set the rules, after all. But how could she have known that her feelings for Ryder would deepen, would become so overwhelming, so quickly? She’d wanted him forever, had grabbed on to him with both hands when she got the chance. And to hell with the consequences.
Getting angry at Ryder, being hurt, wasn’t fair. Not when all he’d done was abide by the rules she had set. But knowing that in her head and understanding it in her heart were two different things, especially when each day she fell deeper and deeper in love with him. How could she not when he was
so kind and considerate and sweet to her when they were alone? Of course it had been easy to be blinded by the affection, and the sex. Was still easy, because even as she died inside at this new knowledge that he didn’t love her, not like she loved him,, she also knew that she wasn’t going to do anything drastic. It wasn’t like she had any intention of putting a stop to their relationship. Not when she so desperately wanted to hold, and be held by him.
Shoving the pain down deep inside of herself, she crossed the hall to Shaken Dirty’s dressing room. She’d come to find out if they wanted her to cook this afternoon or if they were just planning on eating the buffet that was currently being laid out in the green room.
Determined not to let what the hurt she felt affect the way she did her job—or anything else—Jamison shoved the dressing room door wide open. And walked straight into hell.
Chapter Eighteen
“Call 911!” Ryder yelled at Jared. “I don’t think he’s breathing.”
“Are you sure?” Jared was already dialing his cell phone as he raced across the room to where Wyatt was passed out on the couch.
“No, I’m not sure! But it doesn’t look like it.” He laid his head on Wyatt’s chest, listened for the beating of his heart and the telltale movement of his torso that foretold breathing. But there was nothing there. Goddammit.
Not again. Wyatt was not doing this shit to him again.
But he was, and this time he wasn’t just unresponsive. He was dead.
No. Goddammit, no. Ryder wouldn’t accept that. He didn’t have a fucking clue how long his drummer had been like this, but he was not going to lose one of his best friends on the dirty floor of a dressing room in Houston. It wasn’t going to fucking happen.
Grabbing Wyatt by the shirt, Ryder pulled him onto the floor. Covered Wyatt’s mouth with his own and delivered two rescue breaths. As he did he was reviewing his very rusty knowledge of CPR in his head. “Ask them how to do CPR,” he said to Jared, who was frantically explaining the situation to a 911 operator. “I can’t remember how many compressions I’m supposed to do in a row.”
“Thirty.” Suddenly Jamison was there, falling to her knees beside him. “Right here,” she said, putting her hands in the center of his chest and beginning rapid compressions.
“Okay, breathe for him,” she said. He did, twice, then she started compressions again.
“The ambulance is about seven minutes out,” Jared said.
“Stay on the line with the dispatcher,” Jamison told him, a little breathless as she continued the compressions. “But call security, see if they have a defibrillator they can get in here. If we get a pulse, we can use it. Plus, there should be EMS on scene for the concert tonight—see if they’ve arrived yet. And give security a heads up about the ambulance. They should have someone waiting to bring the paramedics back here.
“Breathe,” she told Ryder and he did, a little awed at how competent she was. How fast she’d taken over when fear had been a raging nightmare inside of him.
She started CPR again. “Jared, there’s water running in the bathroom. Someone’s taking a shower. Go in and find out what time they went in there. We should try to have an estimate for the paramedics for how long Wyatt’s been down.”
“Right.” Jared sprang into action, all but flying across the large room. Then a bunch of things happened at once.
She got a pulse.
Wyatt’s body started to shake, then to convulse. The dressing room door burst open and two security guards ran in, followed by three paramedics with a gurney.
And Jared fell over, landing on his ass just outside the bathroom door. He was sheet white.
“Let us take over now, ma’am.” The paramedics eased in beside Jamison, helped her roll Wyatt onto his side so he wouldn’t hurt himself. Then one began firing off questions as the other started an IV.
Ryder answered the first couple of questions, torn between terror that Wyatt would die, rage that he’d done this to himself—and all of them—again, and concern for Jared, who hadn’t moved from his spot on the carpet. He looked almost as bad as Wyatt did.
Jamison crossed to him just as Victoria stumbled out of the bathroom, a small towel wrapped around her dripping body.
Seconds later, Micah followed her out.
He was also wet and wearing only a towel, and for a second Ryder felt like his head was going to explode. Had he somehow fallen through a wormhole into an alternate reality where everything was fucked up beyond all recognition?
Because this couldn’t be happening. Wyatt couldn’t have overdosed again, couldn’t have been lying there— dead—in front of him while Micah was in the bathroom screwing Jared’s fiancee. It couldn’t be real because not even rock and roll was this fucked up.
Except apparently it was. Because even the paramedics, while working on Wyatt, were watching the scene play out with the kind of bug-eyed fascination people had only for celebrities and disasters of epic proportion. How nice that Shaken Dirty could provide both tonight.
“Jared, I’m sorry,” Victoria sobbed, throwing herself onto the ground beside him. He just stared at her numbly as she tried to climb onto his lap.
And into the middle of all of that walked Quinn, carrying three pizza boxes and whistling the melody for one of the new songs he and Ryder were working on. He’d barely made it two steps before he froze, the pizza boxes sliding onto the ground with a sickening squish.
It was the last straw. Ryder sprang up and headed straight for Jared, who hadn’t said a word even as Victoria and Micah piled ridiculous justification on top of ridiculous justification. He wasn’t sure either one of them had even noticed the paramedics across the room where they continued to work on Wyatt.
Ryder grabbed Victoria, pulled her kicking and screaming off of Jared and carried her back inside the bathroom. “Put some clothes on before you come back out here,” he barked at her.
After closing the bathroom door on her mid-rant, he turned to Micah and shoved him roughly toward the door. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“I’m not going any—”
“Now!” he roared, grabbing the bass player by the back of his neckand marching him straight out the door —and into the crowd of backstage crew from the various bands who had just begun to gather outside of their dressing room. With one glance, he spotted a dozen cell phones, but Ryder couldn’t bring himself to care. Not when Wyatt was dying and the rest of the band was ripping itself apart at the seams.
