time. She missed it … maybe not the drugs so much, but everything else. Things were simpler back then. Seemed so long ago.
Over one-third of her life had been with those three guys who played music with her for a living. Fourteen of her thirty-six, almost thirty-seven years. They, along with Marc, had been with her through so much.
“I remember that song,” Marc said, sitting beside her, the one that had introduced her to them all.
“You should. You were there the night it was written.”
“We were fucking stoned out of our minds.”
She laughed heartily. Her memories from that night were spotty. She remembered getting high with the guys, jamming with Marty, Clark, and Todd, and waking up at Clark’s place, on his couch, in borrowed clothes. But the stuff in between was very hazy.
“I had to get you stoned or you would have been sleeping with a very bad guy.”
“Saving my non-existent honor?”
“Something like that.”
“You weren’t a bad guy, Marc. You’re one of my best friends. And if we’d slept together we could’ve just blamed Luke.”
“God, I had never seen you so mad!”
“I was so pissed at Luke.”
“Uh, excuse me,” Luke said, stopping in his tracks when he heard his name.
“Oh, hi, there, Luke!” she said, her voice all sugary-sweet.
“Why were you mad at me? When?”
“The night I wrote ‘Floating.’ You stood me up because Taylor wanted something. Blah, blah, blah, like always.” She hadn’t seen him in a few months and had missed him—a lot.
“You wrote that song that night?”
“Uh, yeah. Marc got me high because he didn’t want to sleep with me.”
“He did what?” Luke asked, outraged, glaring at Marc.
“Settle down. It wasn’t my first time. Far from it.”
“Something else happened that night too. Don’t you remember, Mia?” She whipped her head around and saw Marty standing in the doorway. Clark and Todd were behind him, nodding in remembrance.
“Remember what?” she asked, putting down her guitar. How bad could this be? She hated not remembering what she’d done while she was wasted. Stupid drugs. Never ever going to touch them again, she vowed. Mia had a great fondness for remembering all the shit she did.
Todd walked into the room and plopped down on one of the chairs, settling in to enjoy what was to come. “You may not have slept with Marc, but you did sleep with someone that night.”
Shit. This was very bad.
“I did not. I …” she faltered. She was about to say she didn’t do stuff like that. But then she remembered what Tom told her about the time she slept with him and not ever remembering it.
Who the hell had she slept with?
Luke had a huge grin on his face. He enjoyed seeing her under fire. Ass.
“I think there’s still video proof too,” Clark chipped in.
“What?” she exclaimed, standing up. She was getting very nervous now. “There’s a fucking tape?”
“Well, I don’t recall if the fucking was actually filmed …” Marty began. She turned on him and his face delighted in her predicament. What the hell was it with these men enjoying this? She swung around and faced Marc.
“Marc, do you remember what you recorded?”
A camera always seemed to be in Marc’s hand. He may have been a newspaper reporter at the time but he enjoyed the moving picture as well and was always recording everything for them, documenting their rise to fame.
At least he had the decency to look embarrassed. “Uh, no.”
“There’s seriously a tape?” she worried.
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure you’re the last to have it.”
How—
Down in the basement, she thought and bolted out of the room. Her eyes widened when she saw Ethan in the kitchen. How much of that had he heard?
“Why the rush, suga?” he asked, taking a step in her direction. Evading him, she swung open the basement door and flew down the stairs, a thunder of feet behind her as she approached her storage room. She keyed in the code and entered. This was where she kept all her old journals, videos, tapes, and anything music related. Copies of all the videos Marc took when they were together playing or jamming. All the video she took while on her tours.
Knowing exactly where those videos were, she stalked to the back of the room and on the top shelf, she found the box labeled, “Initial Song Videos.” She pulled down the box, took a seat on the floor, and flipped off the lid. So many memories in this box. In this room, she thought as she searched for the