1. Cain

1

Cain

Glass shatters on the wall. Seems like things never change. The only difference is that it was a bottle of Jim Beam ten years ago, and now it’s a five-hundred-dollar single malt.

“She’s not going on tour with us,” Lars growls. “I don’t give a fuck that she’s Vinyl’s best reporter. Find someone else. Wasn’t she supposed to become a do-gooder addiction counselor type of shit job?”

I turn to our manager. “Find someone else, Kaye.”

Kaye throws her hands in the air and paces the tour bus. “She’s interviewed the biggest musicians in the world. Her bylines get more hits than any other music journalist in the world. You want to fuck up your career because you had some puppy love bullshit when you were in your teens?” She stops moving and stares at us. “This is the big time. After the Grammys, everyone wants a piece. Besides, she doesn’t need to know who you are. Those gas masks you all wear give you anonymity.”

“She’ll catch on once she’s touring with us on the bus. We don’t sleep in masks,” Lars says. His hands shake as he grips a bottle of whiskey.

“I’ll get her on a separate tour bus,” Kaye says. “No one’s seen your face. The only people who know your identity are the band, some high-up label heads, the lawyers, and me. It’s all under lock and key.”

We’d been careful to hide the names and faces behind Gutless Void. Our old bassist and songwriter, Gunner Shaw, was the only person to come forward. We weren’t too impressed when his name hit the spotlight, especially since his wife is the biggest pop star in the world. The rest of us had to weave through a swarm of reporters and paparazzi, all desperate to uncover the identities of the current four band members.

“She’s got a tight ass that I wouldn’t mind tearing into,” Marley says.

“Touch her, and I’ll fuck your ass with a baseball bat and make you beg for your mommy,” Lars spits.

Marley leans back in his chair and takes a drag from his cigarette. “Damn, Lars. Didn’t know you were still feeling her. When she shows up, maybe you can take a piss by her feet.”

Lars growls. “Marley, I suggest you keep your mouth closed before I wire it shut for you.”

“I got one G on Marley,” Iggy says.

Leaning back, I take a hit from my joint. “Marley might be bigger, but Lars has taken more hits. I’ll take the fuckin’ bet.”

Kaye pounds her fist on the desk. “No one is fighting or betting. You’ve got a show tonight, and we don’t have time for these idiotic games.”

Ignoring Kaye, I put out my blunt and walk over to Lars, taking the liquor bottle from him. Grabbing the sides of his head, I bring my forehead to his, ensuring he can’t look anywhere but in my eyes. “It’s been ten years. She isn’t gonna start anything.”

“She’s always starting something, Cain. Don’t fucking delude yourself. She started something the minute she walked into that meeting, and Trevor claimed dibs.”

We’ve ignored the past for ten years, partying and getting lost in music. Anything to numb it away. But I’ve learned that the past is a ghost who haunts us. An anchor that tethers us and drowns us at the same time. Lars and I have built something for ourselves. We have money and fame. We could have any woman we wanted. But that nineteen-year-old girl still lingers in every breath we take. It’s her face we see in every riff we create, her voice with every lyric we write, and her body we long to touch.

Lars’ gaze locks with mine, pretty golden eyes that make everyone lose their mind. Eyes that burn into your soul even when he wears a mask. Eyes I’d chase to the ends of the earth with no questions asked.

“Give us the room,” I order.

Kaye and Marley get up and head to the door.

“You coming, Ig?” Marley asks.

Iggy chuckles and gets comfortable in his chair. “Nah, I’m staying. This is ‘bout to get good.”

“Move your ass, Iggy,” Kaye says, pulling him by the ear and forcing him from the room.

Once the door clicks behind them, I turn to Lars. “She can’t hurt us if we don’t let her.”

“Hurt?” Lars scoffs. “Billie never hurt me. You gotta give two shits about someone for them to hurt you. I just don’t want her coming back into my life now that it’s not a heaping pile of fuck ups and shit.”

“You want to prove you don’t give a fuck about her? We gotta do the interview.”

Lars glares at me. “I never want to see her again.”

He’s lied to himself for so long that sometimes I believe he means it. I shove Lars against the wall with a thud. “She’s not the reason he’s dead. We are. We created something that left him behind. It was our fault, and you know it.”

Lars’ body goes limp. His shoulders slump as he closes his eyes. “I don’t want to go back there.”

“You can’t go back when you never even left. Lars, you still have one foot back there, and so do I.”

Lars shoves me off him. “I left all that shit in the rearview, motherfucker.”

“Then you shouldn’t give a fuck if she’s following us like a pathetic little lapdog.”

Lars is angry. Shit, so am I. Trevor was our brother. It was the three of us against the world. When one of us needed something, the other two ensured we got it. Three kids from broken, fucked up homes somehow found each other and understood the concept of family for the first time. If it weren’t for Trevor and Lars, I’d be slinging drugs on the streets, eventually dead from a bullet. The only reason we made it was because of Trev and our promise to use our music to start something new and untainted by our parents’ bullshit. Fuck, if it weren’t for Trevor, we wouldn’t have met Billie.

“You guys ever heard of this thing called Nar-Anon?” Trevor asked as he busted into the garage.

Lars didn’t look up, fiddling with a new chord he’d been working on.

“No, what’s that?” I asked Trev as I tossed him a beer.

“You know how our fucked-up parents won’t go to meetings to get straight? Well, there’s an entire community who deals with the same shit. There’s a meeting tonight. I think we should go.”

I cracked open the beer and took a sip. “We have our own Nar-Anon meeting every night, right here.”

“Not really. We never talk about the shit we go through. We sit and listen to music or fiddle with these busted instruments.”

“How’d you even hear about this?” Lars asked.

“My friend, Billie. We were studying in the library, and I saw a pamphlet. I asked her what it was about. You know what’s wild? She had no problem talking about her mother’s pill addiction. No shame, no anger, nothing. It was as if she’d been dealt a shitty hand and just accepted it. Made me think about how much I hate my dad. How when he comes home in the early hours of the morning, barely able to walk with the stench of booze on his breath, I wish he’d die so I wouldn’t have to see him again. Billie loves her mom. Went on about how it’s a disease. She compared it to cancer. Can you believe that?”

I barked a laugh, wondering how delusional this girl was. “Don’t know about having cancer, but my parents sure as fuck are a cancer.”