“I’m so sorry!” He ignored my question, still on his hands and knees.
“Sleep it off, Demetri.” Alec moved to grab his brother, but Demetri jerked away then took an awkward swing at him, throwing himself off balance even more. He stumbled and rocked back on his heels.
“A promise is a promise,” Alec muttered before punching his brother directly in the eye.
Demetri cursed as he tumbled to the ground and promptly passed out.
I was frozen in place.
“Is he okay?”
Alec shrugged. “Besides having a headache and the black eye I promised, yeah, he’ll be fine.”
I nodded, still in shock.
“Come on.” Alec held out his hand. “Let’s go upstairs and get you into bed. I don’t care what you say. I’m sleeping on your floor just in case the drunk wakes up and decides to apologize again.”
“Okay.” I felt bad leaving Demetri on the floor. Alec noticed me staring and rolled his eyes, moved back to him, and lifted Demetri, depositing him on the couch.
“Happy?” he asked.
“Yes.” Alec’s mood had changed again, it wasn’t as lighthearted. More irritated and crazy protective.
I followed him down the dimly lit hall. There were at least ten doors that led into different rooms. He took me to the last room and opened the door, allowing me to go first.
I gulped.
It was his room. It had to be. I was almost alarmed at how clean it was. Didn’t boy rooms usually smell bad?
His windows were open, so the curtains were blowing in the slight breeze. It smelled like Alec and the ocean. I decided it was my favorite smell, even more so than his cologne by itself, because it was a mixture of him and home.
The room was huge and had a bathroom off the side of it. His large bed was near the windows and seemed menacing. “I’ll just grab you some sweats to sleep in, kay?” Alec scratched the back of his head then went to a walk-in closet and turned on the lights. His closet was bigger than my room.
He reached into a dresser and searched. Within seconds he was tossing me a t-shirt and sweats. “Will these work?”
“Yeah, they’re fine.” I grabbed them.
We stared silently at one another for a minute or two.
I shifted on my feet and Alec quickly looked down at the floor. “Do you want to shower?”
“Kind of, I mean, if that’s okay. If not, it’s totally fine. I can just go to sleep and—”
“Nat, stop talking so fast, you’re making me nervous.”
Right I’m making him nervous.
“I’ll just sit out here and read for a bit. There’s fresh towels hanging up, and you can use whatever’s in the shower.” He stretched his arms above his head, giving me a spectacular view of the lower part of his abs and the low slung jeans on the V of his hips.
I couldn’t really speak. I quickly turned around, and my face met the wall. I was an inch away from chipping my tooth.
“Careful.” I heard him chuckle behind me. Jerk.
I felt a blush spread from my face all the way down to my toes. I escaped into the bathroom and shut the door behind me.
Should I lock it?
No, he was a perfect gentleman, he wouldn’t do anything. Unlike his brother, who would probably find some silly excuse to be in the bathroom at the exact same time.
They were so different.
My original judgment of them had been way off base.
I thought Alec was the brooding weird one and Demetri the bad boy masquerading as an angel, though their looks proved otherwise.
Apparently just because a guy glares and has dark features, doesn’t make him the bad guy. Just like dimples and an easy smile don’t automatically make him an angel.
I sighed and turned on the water.
Chapter Nine
It was a rain shower. The type you see on TV and at expensive hotels. I stood underneath it and immediately felt the stress leave my body as I closed my eyes.
The shower was scary clean.
As in, there’s no way he actually showers in it.
But his body wash looked half used as well as his shampoo. I lathered my hair in the spicy scent and smiled. It smelled like him.
I was a girl obsessed.
The body wash was filled with tea tree oil. By the time I stepped out of the shower my skin was so soft I decided right then and there that I was going to go shopping and purchase everything I just used.
The bathroom was a little steamy so I couldn’t see my reflection in the mirror. I looked around for some sort of face wash and finally settled on some store bought brand that looked expensive.
It smelled like a boy too, but it felt good against my face.
I dried off, and threw on the sweats. They were huge on me, but at least I felt more comfortable than I had before in the tiny dress and high heels.
I opened the door just in time to see Alec take his shirt off. I told my mouth to close, but it was pointless.
His body was muscled in all the right places, not an ounce of fat on him. A large angel wing tattoo spread across his right shoulder and part of his collarbone, another one was on his stomach. His one arm had a half-sleeve of different markings. Curious, I stepped forward. He still hadn’t seen me.
I think I scared him as much as I scared myself when I reached out and touched his skin.
“Crap!” he yelled. “Sorry, Nat, I was lost in thought. Didn’t see you.” His breath smelled like peppermint.
I shook my head. “What does this mean?” I touched the foreign writing on his collarbone and traced it until it met another smaller tattoo near his stomach. It was a pair of hands holding a heart. He flinched as if my touch hurt him.
The tattoo wasn’t in English. It spread across his chest and ran into the design on his right shoulder.
His eyes looked sad as he looked away. “It means my heart will be yours forever.”
“Why did you get it?”
He jerked away and looked down. “For my son.”
“You have a son?” I was so shocked I didn’t know what to do. How did I not know this? I hadn’t seen anything about it on the gossip sites.
“Had a son. I had a son, Nat. He died.” Alec stepped away from me and went into the bathroom slamming the door behind him.
I wanted to cry.
Cry for Alec and the hurt expression in his face, and for the child that no longer had life. I hadn’t lost anyone before. I couldn’t imagine the depth of despair it would be for a parent to lose a child, especially a teen parent. You would feel so helpless.
I sighed and climbed into his huge bed.
Within minutes Alec came out of the bathroom. He turned off the lights and grabbed some pillows and a blanket from the foot of the bed.
He didn’t say a word.
“Alec,” I whispered.
“Yeah?” His voice was hoarse.
“I’m sorry.”
He sighed. “Nat, you didn’t know. It’s fine.”
“Alec,” my voice cracked.
“Nat? Are you crying?”
It was too dark to see, but the bed heaved under the pressure of Alec sitting next to me. I could see the outline of his body from the moonlight as my eyes adjusted to the dark. He was wearing shorts, but no shirt.
“Maybe,” I answered. I couldn’t explain my behavior. I was crying over someone I didn’t even know.
“Why? Is something wrong? Tell me what’s wrong? Is this about Demetri?” His breath was hot on my face.
I shivered.
“Are you cold?” He grabbed a blanket and threw it over me. Great, now I was going to sweat to death.
“I don’t mean to cry, Alec. It’s just. I’ve never lost anyone before, and to think of losing a part of you, a child. I just. I don’t know. I’m just so sorry it makes my heart hurt to think about it.” I reached out and touched his arm. This time he didn’t flinch.
“Nobody’s ever said that to me.” His breathing was slow and calculated. “I mean, nobody knew but Demetri, and as you can see he deals with problems a little differently than I do.”
I nodded even though I knew he couldn’t see me. “What was his name?”
“Benjamin.”
“How did he die?”
Alec sighed then slowly lay down on the bed next to me on top of the covers. “It was my fault.”
“How was his death your fault?”
Alec laughed bitterly. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Nat. I haven’t always been so… boring.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” Alec repeated. “Let’s just say his mother was a one night stand, but the minute I found out she was pregnant I told her I would help out. We paid her off, to keep it out of the media. It was right when we started getting really big.”
“Ah, the infamous MTV concert.”
Alec laughed softly. “Yes, the MTV concert. We signed with a bigger record label and had to stay out of trouble. I was only sixteen.”
Ouch.
“So how was it your fault?”
Alec was silent for a few minutes. “Benjamin’s mom was in rehab, Nat. She was so messed up, but I was so busy and things were happening so fast for us, that I didn’t really pay attention to her when she got out. I told her I’d visit her, but had to keep canceling when they added more cities to our concert tour.”
The only sound in the room was that of my own breathing and his.
“The night we found out we were nominated for a few Grammys, Benjamin’s mom got in a car accident. Both her and Benjamin were killed on impact.”
Tears flowed freely down my cheeks. I blindly searched for his hand and held it.
He pulled me as close as he could with the blankets covering me and sighed. “Please Nat, please don’t tell anyone. You don’t understand. Nobody knows this. I don’t want my son’s picture thrown around TV. I don’t want him remembered as some bastard child by a punk rock star.”
“Nobody would think that.”
“Yes…” He sighed heavily. “They would. And I refuse to let that happen.”
His story explained a lot. Why he was so distant, so protective. So in control of everything in his world.
“Thanks for telling me,” I said.
“Well, it’s not every day a girl cries over a little boy she didn’t even know.”
“I’m crying for you too, Alec.”
He shuddered. “Thanks, Nat. That means more to me than you’ll ever know.” His lips found my forehead in a chaste kiss. “Now, get some sleep before my jerk of a brother wakes up and tries to break the door down.”
“Okay.” I wanted him to stay with me so badly. I wanted to fall asleep in his arms, his breath mingled with mine. He was like a drug, an addiction I was slowly needing more and more of.
Each of the brothers had their demons. Which left me to wonder where I fit in the picture. It made all my insecurities flare to life. What the heck were they doing even paying attention to me? I was nothing — nobody. My own parents seemed uninterested in me. It was nice to have people care about me, even if they were confused rock stars, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I was somehow stepping out onto a ledge without any way to escape except jumping.
The last picture in my head before my eyes grew heavy was of a little boy with bright blue eyes, a little boy who looked like Alec.