Across the Miles (The Not So Bad Boys of Rock #1) Read online

  Across

  the Miles

  Part One of The Not So Bad Boys of Rock Series

  RHONDA L. JAMES

  Copyright © 2014 Rhonda L. James

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1507684002

  ISBN-13: 978-1507684009

  Cover Image: background and people © Shutterstock.com

  Cover layout design by Taylor Lynn James

  All lyrics are original and owned by Rhonda L. James

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  DEDICATION

  I would like to say a few words of thanks to the many who have supported me throughout the writing process. I know it hasn’t been easy.

  My husband, Dan, who is, not only the love of my life, but the only man I’d walk a thousand miles on my knees to kiss. His love and support have meant the world to me and this book wouldn’t have been the same without his model of what a loving and caring man should look like. My wonderful children, Taylor and David, whose support and enthusiasm for this project, not only spurred me on to keep writing, but made the book that much better. My talented daughter designed the cover of this book, and I couldn’t be happier with the finished product. My sister, Sandy, for her encouragement and faith in me. She knew, even before I did, that I could finish this book. Thank you for believing in me. I need to send a big shout of thanks my beta readers, Sandy, Theresa, Shelby, Shawn, Leslie, Sherri, Jodie, and Tracy. I couldn’t have done this without your cheerleading and feedback. My Facebook followers, your support and encouragement have helped me remain focused and full of hope. Aileen, thank you for always being the first to like my status, or leave an encouraging comment. And finally, thanks to everyone that takes the time to read this book. I hope you fall in love with the story and its characters as much as I did.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Epilogue

  PROLOGUE

  Sebastian~

  Every part of my body screams at me, and not just a slightly elevated scream, but a full-on screeching, not so unusual as of late, but annoying as hell just the same. I opened my eyes slowly, allowing my pupils to adjust to the light filtering into the room, even that bothers me. I sit up, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, hovering them in the air for a moment, before planting them firmly on the cold floor. Why is the floor cold? I paid good money for top-quality luxurious carpeting that’s normally soft under my feet. I stretched slowly, turning my head to look around the room, nothing looks familiar, in fact, I’ve never seen this room in my life. I looked down at my waist and saw that I was completely naked. My tired eyes quickly scanned the floor for my clothes, which appeared to be just past the foot of the bed, the bed that I currently occupied, a bed that isn’t mine. I felt a tightening in my chest as I twisted my body to the left. My eyes settled on the strange woman resting comfortably beside me, lying face down on the mattress. Auburn hair spilled over her shoulder, partially covering her pale face. A face that I don’t recognize. Then a sickening awareness washes over me, I’ve done it again.

  I scrambled furiously around the apartment, collecting all of my belongings, and made a mad dash out the door. I didn’t bother saying goodbye. I dug in my pocket for my car keys and peeled out of the drive as fast as my Shelby Mustang would go, which at this precise moment wasn’t nearly fast enough.

  Once I was home, I took a long shower, a vague attempt at washing away the remains of the previous night, and crawled into bed, pulling the covers over my head. This morning wasn’t the first time I’d found myself in bed with a woman I didn’t know. These past nine months had been a downward spiral into more drugs and alcohol than I had ever consumed. Before losing Charlotte, I barely drank alcohol, then one night, a car driving way too fast down a slick, winding road changed everything. I spent the next four months in a dark haze, withdrawn and racked with guilt. I returned home tired and lonely after our last tour overseas. The partying helped mask the emptiness I struggled through daily if. I was fairly good at hiding it, even managing to keep up my Sunday visits with my family in Manhattan Beach, when I’m in town. No one seemed to notice that I had fallen off the deep end. I had slipped further into a dark abyss than any of us had ever been, which said a lot, considering we’re one of the hottest rock bands in the world right now. Yeah, as far as I knew, no one had been the wiser.

  Little did I know how wrong I was.

  BAM! BAM! BAM! The sudden noise was unbelievably loud and intrusive; I had just drifted off.

  “Sebastian, open up! Now!” Another loud bang rattled the door. I groaned loudly before shuffling down the stairs, stumbling slightly along the way. When I swing it open, I’m staring face to face with Dek, my best friend and band mate, and he’s not smiling, not even remotely. I turn and move away from the door, not happy with what’s about to come my way.

  “We need to talk,” he started, following close behind me. “Dude, stop walking away from me.”

  “What do you want?” I turned on him, voice thick and slightly slurred, even hours later. I must have had more than I realized.

  “You can’t keep this up Sebastian. You’re destroying yourself and the band.”

  “The band is fine,” I turned away, rolling my tired eyes in frustration at hearing this lecture again. The guys have been trying to talk some sense into me, for months they have tried to do an intervention, but I don’t listen. After six months of talking and tears, even my brother Travis has given up on me, which is why Dek is the last one standing here in my living room having the same tiring conversation hoping for a different result. Insane, right?

  Dek sighed, choosing his next words carefully. “The guys are tired of your antics. You need to pull it together; we’re worried about you buddy.”

  “Yeah, well nobody asked you to worry. I can take care of myself.”

  “Come on Sebastian, you haven’t been yourself for the past year and a half, not since the accident.”

  I turned quickly, my face only inches from his. “Don’t you dare mention her! I don’t want to talk about that night ever again! Just stay the hell out of my business and everything will be fine.”

  “I’m afrai
d I can’t do that man. I’m here because I love you, you’re my best friend. We all love you, but we can’t keep sitting by while watching you fall apart, it’s not happening anymore.” His breathing hitched and I noticed how his hands kept balling into tight fists. “If you don’t pull yourself together and get some help…you’re out of the band.”

  “What?” I stepped back involuntarily. “Out of the band? Yeah right,” I sneer, “the band is nothing without me, and you know it. I’m the face and the voice. People pay to come see me. The rest of you are just a bonus.” My lip curled into a snarl just before I felt his fist make contact with my face. The blow stunned me, knocking me back a few feet, I reached out, grabbing the back of the armchair, to keep myself from hitting the floor.

  “What the hell was that for?” I groaned, blood pouring freely from my lip and nose.

  “I’m sick of your bloated up ego,” Dek huffed. “And I can’t stand by any longer and watch you try to kill yourself. She’s gone man. I’m sorry that loss has hurt you so deeply, but it’s been over a year, don’t you think it’s time to move on? You’ll never heal if you don’t allow yourself to face what happened.”

  I slumped to the floor, resting my elbows on my thighs, and hung my head. “I don’t know how. What am I supposed to do with myself? When I’m not playing music, or with you guys, it’s all I think about.” I ground the heel of my hands into my eyes, suddenly more alert than I recalled being in days, even weeks. “I miss her man. I miss having someone in my life. Do you know what it’s like to find out that the woman you cared about died because of your negligence?”

  “No,” he replied softly, “but I do know that you are a good man who deserves the chance to love again. Charlotte would want that for you. You’re better than this,” he waved a hand in front of me as if indicating the state that I am in. “You need some help. I’m taking you in for rehabilitation.” He stood up, pulling at my elbow.

  “Detox?” I grimaced. “Shit man, they’re going to kill me. You know that, right?”

  “They won’t kill you. You’ll go in defeated but come out stronger; you’ll be the man you were before all this mess started. We’re all here for you man, now is the right time to do this.” He pulled me in for a brotherly hug; we’ve been best friends since we were young kids. “Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.”

  I’m in hell. There’s no other way to put it. I’ve been here for six days, and I’m going through some pretty nasty withdrawals. When I checked in, they told me this was a ninety-day program. Now, one week into it, and I already want to go home and try this on my own. I don’t need this crap. I can’t have visitors, no cell phones, no phone calls of any kind for the first thirty days. I spend my days in a small furnished room that holds everything I need to survive at New Beginnings Ranch. Everything I need consists of very few things. Three pair of jeans, five T-shirts, a pair of tennis shoes, my iPod, and a thick, leather-bound journal, given to me by the staff upon checking in. The iPod is the one luxury they allowed on the premises, claiming that the music can help with healing and cleansing of toxins in the body. I meet with a counselor every day, and we discuss my feelings. I’m uncomfortable at first, but after the third visit I start to open up a little. He asked me to start journaling my feelings, I was hesitant to participate because I’m not good at focusing on my weaknesses, no man usually is. After a while it becomes easy to open up the journal and start writing about things that annoy me, things that make me happy, what I want to do with my life. If I feel it may be worth sharing, it makes it into the book.

  Before long, the days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and I begin making plans to return home. I feel great, better than I have in years. During my stay, the doctor encouraged me that exercise would help deal with the frustration and shame. So I started lifting weights, and before long, started running again, silently cursing myself for being so careless with my body.

  “So how are you feeling today Sebastian?” Barry, my counselor, asked, leaning back into the leather armchair. He asks me this every day, and every day for the first month I gave him the same answer. But today is different. Today marks my seventy-fifth day here. Seventy-five days of waking up in a bed that’s not my own, something I’ve long grown tired of, but today I woke up refreshed.

  “I’m feeling pretty good today,” I replied, leaning back into my chair. “I think I’m ready to talk about it.”

  “Okay, that’s good; I’m ready when you are. The last thing you told me was that you two had been on a drive, visiting wine country.”

  “Yeah, just a simple drive, at least that’s what it should have been.” I hadn’t been able to talk about this for nearly two years; that wasn’t because people hadn’t tried to get me to talk about it. I just hadn’t been ready to open up, until today.

  “Charlotte wanted to drive to Sonoma Valley; she said it would be a romantic getaway. I remember wanting to spend time with her, but the idea of being trapped in the car for six hours wasn’t exactly the kind of quality time I had in mind. The band had been on the road for five months, and we were young, being apart like that was hard. I just wanted to hang out at my apartment, maybe lie on the beach. But since it was important to her, I caved. The first three hours weren’t too bad, between catching up on all that we had missed and listening to the radio, we managed to get along pretty well. After a while, the conversation shifted to a more serious nature, she wanted to talk about our future and what I saw happening between us. Charlotte made it clear that she wanted to get married, settle down, and have at least two kids. I was only twenty-three, my band had just taken off, I wasn’t thinking about marriage, let alone kids. I was thinking about where my next concert was and how many songs I could pen before the next show. So, instead of telling her what she wanted to hear, I told her the truth, and it led to an argument.” I closed my eyes and leaned further into the chair, allowing the cushion to pull me in deeper. I could picture that day like it was only yesterday.

  “She was naturally hurt because we had been dating for a year, and she was older and had already graduated college. She was ready to plan out her life and mine had only just begun. I’m not a planner; I fly by the seat of my pants most of the time. I was far too young to consider fathering a child. I have a great father, so I know what it takes to make a good one, and I knew that I didn’t possess those qualities. I was very selfish, hell I still am today, aren’t most of us though? I told her that I loved her, but I didn’t see any of that in my near future. She freaked out and started hitting me, punching me in the arm and swinging at my head. I managed to avoid most of her blows, but each time she would swing again I would get madder and madder. I knew I should have stopped the car, just pulled over and talked with her rationally, but in the heat of that argument rational thinking went right out the window. I caught one of her wrists as she swung it through the air, and I held on tight, trying to talk her down. She screamed at me, telling me that I was hurting her, and I shouted back ‘good’ and then she cried and said she hated me.” I ground the heel of my hand into my eyes, trying to wipe out the visual that wouldn’t stop playing on the back of my eyelids. “I called her a liar and told her to calm down. That only intensified her anger. She unbuckled her seatbelt and grabbed the steering wheel, we fought some more, and during that struggle I crossed over the centerline. I tried to correct it, but I must have jerked too hard on the wheel because the car spun around, flipping two times. We were broadsided by an oncoming car that never had a chance to slow down; everything happened so fast. I remember seeing her, out of the corner of my eye, as her body went through the windshield. I tried to reach out and grab her, but my arm wouldn’t move, my shoulder had been dislocated.” I felt hot tears on my cheeks before I could stop them from falling. Never before had I allowed myself to give in to the grief, having fought so long to smother it.

  “If only I had told her I wanted those same things…” I cried softly.

  “Sebastian, telling her a lie would have only prolonged th
e inevitable. You can’t blame yourself just because you told her something she didn’t want to hear. You told her the truth. Did you love her?”

  “I don’t know. I thought I did back then, but now, on this side of it, I’m not sure. I know that I cared for her, very deeply, but I was too young and immature to think about being in love or starting a family. But if I had only waited until we weren’t driving, if I had held off my honesty until we reached Sonoma, maybe she would be alive. She would be off somewhere living her dream with someone that deserved her. I didn’t deserve her.”

  “Why do you say that?” Barry leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.

  “I didn’t appreciate her. I didn’t value her needs, put her needs before my own. That’s what killed her, my selfishness.” I gave in, finally allowing the grief to wash over me. The tears that poured out felt almost as if they were cleansing me, ridding me of all the shame I had carried since that fateful night.

  “I’m proud of you Sebastian, I know that wasn’t easy for you. I think that you need to learn to start putting others needs before your own. I’m not saying you should do that every time, just be aware that it’s okay to put someone else before yourself for a change.” Never before had that concept entered my mind, now that it was out there, served up as a form of healing, it felt like a lifeline. I wanted to grab hold of it and never let go.

  I woke up this morning with a renewed energy. I’m stronger, and healthier, and my mind is clearer than its ever been. My confidence has been restored. I’m able to talk about what happened, even though it hurts. I’m still lonely, and have a hole in my heart, but I’m healing.

  Travis is picking me up this afternoon, and I’m filled with hope at the thought of seeing him again, it’s been far too long. Travis and I have always been close; he’s only three years older than me so growing up we shared everything. We used to run around the neighborhood and hang out in Dek’s garage playing music and dreaming what it would be like to start a real band. Even when he started dating Natalie, became a married man, and then a father, Travis always made time for me. Maybe that’s why it had hurt so much when he didn’t want to see me these past three months. I understood why, I truly did, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. Watching me fall apart had been more than he and Natalie could stand. That final day, when Dek had shown up at my house to take me to rehab, I recalled wondering why Travis hadn’t joined him. In my heart, I had known why, that memory was what helped me get through my stay at the ranch. I didn’t only want to get well for myself; I wanted to get my act together for the sake of my family. They loved me, and I never wanted to hurt them again.