Page 70 of Worlds Collide

“’Cause Wolf is sober,” he tells me absentmindedly while he looks at his phone.

“What? You know?”

“Ah, yes,” he says with a silent ‘duh’ in there. “You didn’t?” he asks, finally looking up at me.

“Yes, he told me, but how the hell do you know?”

“Everyone knows?”

“What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t know before he told me.”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs. “We all just knew he had a problem from the few times we met him last year, and at Derek’s birthday, you remember?”

“I couldn’t go to that,” I tell him through clenched teeth.

“Well, he partied hard. And the same last February when he played at the Super Bowl show in New Orleans and Derek brought them to celebrate George’s win after. He drank a lot there too. And then this year at the Super Bowl he didn’t drink at all, same at all the weddings. So everyone just figured...” He trails off when he finally focuses back on my face.

I’m pretty sure my jaw is about to hit the floor.

“Everyone? Who’s everyone?” I demand.

“Adam, Sebas, Mike, Theo... oh, Glenn and George too.”

“Why didn’t I know anything about it?” I ask, not really sure why I’m asking. I don’t know if I would’ve liked to gossip about Wolf like this. I don’t like thatanyonegossiped about him to be perfectly honest.

“CJ,” he says like he’s talking to a little kid. “You’re working all the time. You haven’t been to a lot of events over the years because of med school and then this year because of your residency. And it’s not like we talked about it all the damn time. We just talked about it one time after Mike’s wedding.”

I’m still not happy about all of them knowing when it wasn’t Wolf himself who told them. It seems like such a private thing.

“It’s no big deal, mate. He’s the best big brother ever to Hawk and one of the best musicians alive. We all know that it doesn’t mean anything.”

“This is probably why Adam was being such an asshole,” I realize as I say it.

“What do you mean?” Carter asks, clearly curious as he sits next to me.

“Since Derek’s wedding, Adam has been short and like, aggressive to Wolf.”

“He has?” Carter sounds dubious and looks away. “I honestly don’t remember because I took advantage of all the weddings to let loose this year.”

“Yeah, I remember,” I mumble. The memory of carrying Carter through the sand then up the stairs to the room he was supposed to share with Wolf isn’t one I’m likely to forget soon.

“Anyway, drinking away your pain which was caused by a sober guy leaving you high and dry just seems wrong, so we’re going to have to take care of this in a healthier way.”

“What way is that?” I ask, already tired of so much talking.

“Talking it through.”

I groan and fall sideways on the couch to lie down. I really don’t want to do that, but Wolf did tell me to bitch about him to anyone I wanted, and with Carter’s confession I feel like I might not betray Wolf if I do speak about everything that’s happened between us.

Why I should be concerned about betraying him, I really don’t know, but I am. And with all the things I’m going to have to force myself to do—forget about Wolf, stop waiting for him to call me, stop wanting to call him—I think I should get some leeway on this one and just give myself a break.

“All right,” I say and let out a big sigh. “You can call Adam.”

“He’s almost here, mate,” Carter tells me like the smartass he is. “Thank God his game is on Monday this week.”

“Without a word?”Adam shouts. “He just wasn’t there when you woke up?” He’s mad. He’s really, really mad. Maybe I shouldbe as mad as he is, but I’m not. It’s what I should’ve known Wolf was going to do.

“I should’ve realized we were never going to work,” I tell them, like Adam isn’t about to burst a blood vessel in his brain any second. “Why would it ever work when I?—”

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