Page 2 of Rock Bottom

“I am sober,” I lied, picking up another vodka bottle and shaking it to see if there was any left.

Jake arched an eyebrow and crossed his arms.

“Okay, sober-ish,” I relented and tossed the empty bottle aside. “Have you seen my lighter? The one that looks like a grenade.” I started pulling up couch cushions, looking for the lighter.

Remi sighed and closed his eyes. “Dante, if you don’t get your shit together, we’re going to have to let you go.”

I stared at him, expecting him to start laughing. That had to be a joke, right?

“Bullshit,” I spat when he didn’t laugh. “You can’t fire me! Without me, there is no After Atom.”

“Remi can sing,” Trevor pointed out. “And I already write half the songs.”

“Yeah, because that worked out so well for you before,” I said, crossing my arms. “Let me guess. This whole thing was your idea, Remi?”

Remi looked away. He was just jealous that it was my voice that sent After Atom to the top, and not his. He’d always resented getting bumped to doing the backup vocals, always pissed that I’d become the face of the band. Well, fuck him. I put After Atom on the map, not him.

“It wasn’t Remi’s idea.” Jake rubbed the back of his neck. “It was mine.”

I stared at him, my jaw hanging open. How could he? Jake was my best friend, my only friend some days. He knew how much I hated rehab, and how hard it was for me to cope with all the shit that came with being famous. He was the one who’d passed me the bottle in the first place. My fists clenched, fingernails leaving sharp half-moons in my palms.

Jake lowered his hand. “Listen, Dante, I know this is hard for you to hear, but—”

I scooped up the mirror and dumped the powder in the trash. “That what you want? How about this?” I pitched a near full bottle of imported vodka into the trash, followed by several beers and the whiskey. “How much do I have to throw away before it’s good enough for you?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a child, Dante.”

“I don’t have time for rehab!” I shouted, throwing my hands up. “The tour kicks off in six weeks. I’m no mathematician, but fuck, man. Don’t come at me with this bullshit now. It doesn’t help, anyway. If rehab was going to cure me, they’d have succeeded by now.”

“Dante…” Jake put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed.

I threaded my fingers together behind my head and turned my back on everyone. “They can’t help me. No one can.”

“You can,” Jake said. “But you have to want it, Dante, and if you don’t want it for yourself, I need you to want it for the band.”

I lowered my hands and turned back to find my friend looking up at me with glassy eyes.

“Please, Dante. I don’t like seeing you like this.”

“I’ll do it after the tour, okay?” I fished the vodka bottle out of the trash and dusted some coke off the cap. “Promise.”

Remi seized the bottle away from me before I even got the cap off. “You’re starting today. Right now.”

“What the fuck?”

“There isn’t a secure rehab facility in California or Nevada that’ll take him after the last time,” Sam scoffed.

I sighed and folded my arms over my chest. It wasn’t my fault I was famous. Okay, so it kinda was, but with the number of celebs who needed rehab every year, it was surprising how few secure facilities there were. And they needed to be secure. Otherwise, the fucking paparazzi would be hiding in the bushes trying to get pictures of pop singers and movie stars, which was exactly what had happened last time. My face had been plastered all over the news everywhere, and legions of well-meaning fans surrounded the facility. They made a shrine outside the building and held vigils like I was already dead. It was a fucking disaster.

“He needs to go somewhere more off the grid,” Jake suggested.

I huffed. As if such a place existed. What was his plan? Hide me with the Amish? They were probably the only people in the world who didn’t know my face or my music. Even people who hated rock music knew who I was.

“Okay,” I said, mostly to humor him. “I’ll bite. Where did you have in mind? The Australian Outback? The Saharan Desert? The South Pole? Because those are the only places I can think of that wouldn’t have hookers, blow, and booze.”

“What about the cabins?” Gabe offered.

Sam frowned. “What cabins?”

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