Jacked - The Complete Series Box Set (A Lumberjack Neighbor Romance) Read online

  "Uh-huh," she said, grinning at me. "You love this guy. What happened, was he an ass?"

  "We're not talking about Nate anymore," I said to her, changing the subject. "But if you have to know, we had a good time."

  "Did he like Keahiakawelo?"

  "He thought it was cool. Good call."

  "Was it busy?"

  "Just a few other people," I said.

  We had almost been completely alone. I didn't want to call it a date, though. Makani didn't know how close she was to hitting the nail on the head. The longer we were there together, the more relaxed and playful Nate had gotten, which had been the exact thing that I had wanted to happen. We weren’t going on dates. Perhaps taking him out on excursions was my job now, but he was still a person who needed help.

  If I could get him to forget, maybe he’d remember when he wasn’t like that and didn’t need drugs. Nate Stone of Remus fame wasn’t the guy in the Hulopoe suite. He was the guy that this Nate needed to be for his for his job, for the public.

  I liked him, but he didn’t need another person to like him. He needed someone to help him. I needed to remember that if I was going to be that person.

  Makani's commute from her place in the city to the hotel was about fifteen minutes by car, not that bad, but mine was a walk down to the beach for about the same amount of time. She had parked her car by my place that morning when she'd come in so we could walk up together.

  She was now on my bed, waiting for me to bring the food out. I felt like I hadn't really had that much time with her since I had been on tour guide duty with Nate.

  I had cobbled together a bunch of leftovers into what I hoped was a passable fried rice. I grabbed the two plates and joined her. Since we’d talked about Nate at work already, she hadn’t brought him up again. Not that I needed help not thinking about him, but I wished I could tell her about what I had seen him doing. It wasn’t my truth to tell, so I wasn’t going to, but it wasn’t looking forward to trying to keep the secret.

  "I had some eggs in the fridge, so I just threw them in there, too,” I said, handing her a plate.

  "Great. Can I ask you something?" she asked me.

  "Of course." I settled on the bed next to her.

  "Do you think I made a mistake leaving Keno?"

  "Did something happen?"

  She sighed, shoveling some food onto her fork and spilling it off. "This is so dumb. I saw him during the day; he had gone into the changing room to get another shirt or something. There was this woman, a guest who stopped him when he came back out. They were talking in the front lobby before they left together to go back to the bar. I know we aren't together anymore, and he can talk to whoever he wants, but I just thought as more time passed that it would get easier for me. Not worse."

  "You still have feelings for him," I said.

  "I think I just miss what we had: being with someone. It was nice. Comfortable," she said, deflecting. "We were together for a long time."

  "Are you sure it's the relationship and not the person you had it with?"

  "We can't get back together," she said dismissively. Was that what she was thinking about? I hadn't even mentioned it.

  "I think you're the only person on the island who thinks that," I said.

  "We broke up for a reason."

  "I know you did, but that doesn't mean it can't still hurt."

  "I just couldn't do what he was asking me," she said.

  "Yes, you could have, Makani," I said. She looked up at me.

  "What?"

  "Yes, you could."

  "He was talking marriage, a family. He couldn't ask me to give my life up to do that with him."

  "But he asked you. He wasn't trying to force you into something you didn't want," I said. "He wasn't chasing you. It wasn't like a deal breaker for him if you weren't in the same place as he was."

  "Have you talked to him about this?" she asked accusatorily.

  "No, but both of you still need closure."

  "I keep thinking that the next time I see him, I won't feel overwhelmed and he'll be just another guy to me," she said sadly.

  "Did you ever think about what he asked you?" I asked.

  "Of course, I thought about it. We talked about it. He would drop hints sometimes that he had been thinking about he and I together for the long term. Married with kids," she said, her face frowning slightly.

  "You couldn't see that, too?"

  "I could, but I can't do that, Abby. I'm twenty-two; he's had longer to think about this than I have. He's had longer to live his life and be independent than I have. It wasn't fair."

  "Did you want it?" I asked.

  She shrugged her shoulders. "I feel like I've been on my own so long, doing that with Keno would be like I was packing it in. Settling."

  "It doesn't make you a weak person to want to be in a relationship. You can't be scared about what you feel for him."

  "I need to feel like I’m with somebody because I want to be. Not because I need to be or because they want me to be and I’m just trying to make them happy.”

  “Talk to the guy. He would listen to you. I can’t take any more of those awful conversations you two pretend to have while trying not to look at each other.”

  “Do you think I lost something good?”

  "I think staying away from Keno is making you miserable. Just get back together already," I said playfully. "You have so much time for me now, it's insane." She laughed.

  “He’s probably seeing someone else already,” she sighed. I knew for a fact that he was not. If I went to see him tonight, he’d probably being doing exactly what she was now.

  “Just promise me you’ll suck it up and at least talk to him.” She nodded, agreeing she would. We ate the rest of our dinner chatting. She always gave really good advice. I wondered what she would have said to me about Nate. I didn’t like keeping secrets from her.

  I asked her whether she wanted to stay over, but she said she’d just see me the next day. I cleaned up a little, washing dishes and tidying the kitchen before I got my laptop out. Fresh air and sunshine wasn’t all that was going to cure Nate. I had been thinking about what I was going to do to help him all day.

  I sat on my bed wondering where to start. I started slow, searching “drug addiction.” About an hour later, I had five pages of symptoms, withdrawal, risks, and treatment options that I could print out when I got to work the next day.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nate

  Housekeeping and I had an understanding. If I was asleep, they could just come in and do their thing, as long as they didn't wake me.

  They seemed to be professionals, just handling the rest of the suite while I was in the bedroom and then taking care of that later. They hadn't asked me once about why I had so many syringes in the trash, which was a good thing since I didn't want to tell them.

  I judged whether a day was going to be bad or good by whether or not I was hung-over, and I didn't have one today. I'd been a good boy. Heroin was great if you were the sort of person who didn't really like to leave the house. I checked the time and had a shower, ordering food that was here by the time I was out of the shower — breakfast food, although it was already past noon.

  I thought about what I was going to do today, remembering the day I had had with Abby yesterday. I had some questions. I hadn't gotten too much from her. She was playful and flirty, but was she interested? Like, if I invited her up to my suite, would she say yes?

  She seemed a little young to be married and didn't wear a ring, but that didn't mean anything. She hadn't said she was attached. If she was, then that was about to be a problem for whoever that guy was. Not me.

  I thought I had agreed to see her on Sunday, so maybe I'd find out then. I felt pretty good. I had actually had fun. Things started going a little left once we were back in the car, but up until that point, it had been great. I had to remember to send the pictures of the Garden of the Gods to my dad; he’d like to see them.

  My suite sud
denly felt too small. I wanted to leave. What else could I do now that I wasn’t spending the whole day inside? I could go talk to Abby, but she was working. Could I call my dad? No, he was probably working, too. I was the only person I knew who was on vacation. Maybe if I left the suite, I’d figure something out.

  I walked out, taking the elevator down. I got outside remembering how fast I had tried to find the bar my second day here. Keno worked at the bar, I thought, remembering. I hadn’t seen him in a little while. How was he?

  I didn’t have to try answer that question myself. I walked over to the bar. It was a reasonable time of day, so for once, I wasn’t the only person sitting there. I had to wait a little while he served some other people before getting to me.

  He came over, sliding me a vodka soda. “Is this still your drink? I know you don’t like the fruity stuff,” he said with a grin.

  “This is great. Thanks. How are you doing?”

  “Good. How are you? I didn’t see you at the luau again; did you leave early?”

  “Yeah. I wasn’t feeling too hot that night.”

  “Abby was worried about you.”

  “She was?” I asked. She had asked about me?

  “I heard her talking about you that night with her manager,” he said.

  “Are the two of you friends?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah. She’s a great girl,” he said fondly. Huh. How great was great? Had they dated? Was that how great? I felt a little jealous thinking that might have been what he was talking about.

  “You two used to be together?” I asked, trying to make it sound casual.

  “No. Just friends. I went out with Makani for a while, but we broke up. Abby works here every summer. This is her fourth one, I think. We used to be a lot closer, but since the breakup, she keeps her distance for Makani’s sake.”

  “You went out with her friend?”

  “Yeah, but she bailed. I don’t know what happened.” Keno was hitting that? Well done, I thought. Makani was hot.

  “Did she cheat or something?”

  “Nah. She just left. We weren’t fighting or drifting apart. Nothing. She just said she didn’t want to be in a relationship anymore, and that was that.”

  “That’s rough,” I said.

  “It’s awkward for Abby now being stuck in between the two of us, so I just back off.”

  “What about her? Abby? Is she seeing anybody?”

  “I’ve never seen her with anyone… No. She’s single. She’s been single since I met her, in fact.” Really, I thought. How? She was gorgeous. Nice, too. I was going to bet she wasn’t crazy, either.

  “She’s not from here, though, right? She’s from the mainland? Maybe she has a boyfriend there?”

  “If she does, he hasn’t seen her in almost four years,” Keno scoffed.

  He told me about himself as I finished my drink, just the one today; I wasn’t trying to get hammered. We got into Kirsten a little since he brought up Makani again. He sure talked about her a lot for someone who was no longer in a relationship with her. By the time I was leaving, I still felt pretty good.

  I wanted to keep it up. I spent my time sober more scared of when I was going to feel sick again than actually enjoying feeling normal. This was nice, but maybe checking into rehab would have been a better way to spend my money. Heroin wasn’t cigarettes; I didn’t think people could just quit without checking in somewhere.

  I wasn’t here to quit, really, but if I ended up being able to do it, then I wasn’t going to complain. If talking to Keno and Abby and going to places like the Garden of the Gods replaced heroin for me, at least half of my problems would disappear, just like that.

  I got back to my suite and sat at the piano. I was feeling inspired. It had become hard to feel that way anymore. It had been a weird, shitty, but also good few weeks since I’d landed in Lanai, and I felt sort of renewed. Like I’d gotten all that LA smog out of my lungs and was breathing clean air for the first time in years.

  I started playing through something I’d written years ago for Remus that we hadn’t ended up using. I had tons of stuff in the vault that I had written and never used for anything. Besides my housekeeper hearing me play when she happened to be in the house, nobody had heard it. I had a home studio, but that was something else that I had used less and less as my life fell apart.

  I’ve spent so much time being a loser, I thought. I’d gotten really great at heroin and booze, but had literally put the brakes on every other thing I used to do. Fuck that. That was the stuff that made me feel like myself. The drugs made me a zombie. Between the two of them, I had chosen the wrong thing. I wasn’t going to be able to make that choice forever. I had to wake up.

  My phone started vibrating in my pocket where it still was from my trip downstairs. I stopped playing to see who it was. Kirsten. I rolled my eyes and put the phone on the piano, ignoring it. It rang a couple more times until she finally went back to enjoying my money, or whatever the hell it was she did in her free time. I played a little while longer before I figured it was time to order something to eat.

  My phone was still sitting on the piano. I picked it up thinking I’d see a text from Kirsten or something. She wasn’t the type to let sleeping dogs lie. It wasn’t a text, but she had left another voicemail. I hesitated before listening to it.

  No, this was okay. I was in a much better headspace than I had been when I’d gotten that first message. I’d been away a little while, I wasn’t antsy and dope sick. Nothing she said could touch me. I played the message.

  “Nate, I wish you’d stop ignoring me, babe,” she started. I frowned. Why was she being so nice all of a sudden?

  “I don’t know if I can go the whole summer without hearing from you. I want us to talk. After you come back, I want us to talk about things. About us. We’ve both said a lot of things in the past to hurt each other, but I love you, Nate, and I think we should give it another shot. Please call me back when you get this. I need to know that you aren’t shutting me out. You shouldn’t be alone right now, honey. Just call me if you need anything.”

  The message ended.

  I shut my eyes and sighed. I was in a better headspace, but something about Kirsten and everything she said to me these days just rubbed me the wrong way. She wanted to get back together now? Why? So she could file for divorce again?

  I stood up, making the piano bench fall over. Fuck her. Fuck that bitch and whatever scam she was trying to pull. There was no way she’d had a come to Jesus moment since the last message she’d sent me telling me I could die and it wouldn’t make a difference to her.

  It hadn’t been long enough. It was still too fresh. Hawai’i wasn’t far enough. All the people I hated were still in LA, but all the shit had followed me here. I paced around the room, mad, frustrated, and angry that this was my fucking life. I grabbed a lamp sitting on the table near the piano and launched it at the deck. The doors were open, so it smashed against the banister.

  I knocked the dining room chairs aside, flipping the table. It cracked as it landed heavily on its side. I launched one of the chairs right into a framed picture of waves breaking on a beach. Then I stormed into the bedroom and dug my kit out of the closet. I walked over to the bed and opened it, looking at my solution.

  All it took was one little dose, and I could forget. All this could fade into nothing and I’d feel great. It had worked for so long; why couldn’t I just continue? I looked at my stuff for a long while before walking back out of the bedroom. I had a better idea. I searched the drawers in the living room for hotel stationary and a pen. I sat at the piano and started writing.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Abby

  I took a deep breath, raising my fist to knock on the door. The first time I had done this, it had been a disaster. This time, I had food.

  It was Sunday; we were going out. It was only eight, but hey, I'd never said what time we were going to leave. I had been thinking about where to take him all weekend. I was excited. Another day with N
ate? It had taken restraint just to wait this long before going to see him. I couldn't hear anything behind the door. I knocked again.

  He finally came to open it. I felt myself hold my breath as the doorknob dropped and the door swung open. Oh God. What had he done to himself last night? He looked sleepy, and he was frowning. He didn't have a shirt on, but was still in his jeans.

  "Oh good, you're up," I said brightly. "I thought you were still asleep." I walked past him into the room and was stopped in my tracks. Guess he had had a big night. The suite was trashed. "Oh. Did you lose something?" I asked.

  I looked for somewhere to put the bag down, but the dining table was turned on its side in the middle of the room. Times like this, I was glad I wasn't part of housekeeping. I looked back at him and noticed he looked a little embarrassed. He ran a hand through his hair.

  "Just charge the damage to the room. I'll pay for it," he said. Damn right, he would. Joseph could not hear about this. I turned and looked at him.

  "Never mind," I said. "I brought breakfast. Have you ever had musubi?" I asked walking up to him with the bag. I reached in and pulled one out handing it to him. "Go on," I urged. He took it and looked at me like he couldn't see me, squinting. It was kind of cute. He was so sleepy.

  "What time is it?" he grumbled.

  "Breakfast time. Eat." He sighed and took a bite out of the musubi.

  "I swear to God the sun hasn't come up yet. Why are you here so early?"

  "It's already eight. Why are you still asleep?"

  "It’s eight in the morning. Nothing happens at eight in the morning," he complained. I smirked. Makani hated mornings, too.

  "How would you know that if you've never been awake early enough to find out?" I asked. He frowned at me, eating his breakfast.

  "I'm going back to bed," he announced, walking back to the bedroom. Now how did he expect to have a full day when he kept starting them in the middle? I walked to his refreshment center and quickly brewed some coffee.

  The suite wasn't a big deal. The furniture could be replaced, and it could be tidied up. What if his problems were deeper than just his addiction? I'd read that when a person was addicted, that put strain on the other parts of their life, too. Was that it? What else had gone wrong for him? I knew that he and the band were on bad terms, but maybe he was having family trouble, too; financial maybe?