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“He’s stable,” I replied, swallowing past the lump in my throat. “But he’ll probably be out of it for another few hours.”

Holls stepped up and placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t you take a break and go get something to eat. We’ll be here.”

I didn’t know what time it was, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had anything to eat or drink. But I didn’t want to leave Faise.

“I’m staying. Could one of you get me a sandwich and coffee?”

“I’ll get it,” Lennie offered. “Anyone else?”

“Just coffee. Thanks, Len,” Brodie replied as he walked to stand around the other side of the bed, Van by his side.

Brodie looked over at me, his hazel eyes welling up. He blinked and wiped his eyes, shaking his head. It wasn’t often that our frontman got teared up. And when Van placed his arm around Brodie, our lead singer didn’t hesitate to turn and bury his face in our manager’s shoulder.

Van’s worried blue gaze hit mine and I let out a shaky breath.

“He needs rehab,” Van whispered. “This has been going on for a while now, but it’s gotten out of control.”

I didn’t like the idea of being separated from Faise, but Van was right.

Faise needed help. Help that I couldn’t give.

Two days after his overdose, Faise admitted himself to a rehab center in California. For three long months, with no visitation. It was the first time he and I had been separated from each other in almost two decades. And the distance between us was so damn painful I was afraid I was going to head down the same path as him. I’d been hitting the alcohol hard to counter my state of depression, but it only made my sadness worse.

We should’ve been out on tour at this point, but we’d delayed it until Faise was ready. So, it was weird for me to have so much time on my hands. I hung out with Brodie and Holls. But with Faise gone, Wayward Lane was incomplete. Truthfully, I was incomplete. I still played and practiced but it was habit more than anything.

The need to keep busy, to keep my mind from swirling out of control about all the what ifs about my bestie. But the passion, the energy that I took for granted in my music, was missing.

I didn’t realize until Faise left that he was more than my BFF. He was my muse.

And something else I didn’t know how to define.

New questions and unexplained feelings about my relationship with my best friend were now staring at me in the face.

But, in typical rockstar fashion, I shoved that shit away and threw myself back into the party scene. I fucked my way through town, clubbing, drinking, trying anything and everything to forget the reality of the past few months.

The reality of life without Faise.

I was never alone, but I sure as fuck was lonely.

CHAPTER 10

FAISE

AGE 28

“Are you ready to talk about him?”

I ignored the question, or rather, I was mulling it over.

Sitting across from my therapist, Kenzie, I stared out the window at the dark clouds that hung over Nashville.

They suited my mood perfectly.

My inclination was to answer her question with a ‘no’. But after two stints in rehab and coming out a clearer, stronger version of myself, I knew that it was time for me deal with one of the issues that had brought me to the brink. The feelings that made me want to numb myself, to forget that I felt anything at all.

But I didn’t know if I could do it. I was brave in other ways, much more than when I was younger, but not in this.

“It’s just the strangest thing,” I replied, finally looking at her.

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