Fast Lane - Kristen Ashley Page 0,60

about any of that.

I learned very quickly none of that mattered.

It was about losing my mother, which is something you never get over.

And since Mom moved us in with them when I was eight, my grandparents were really my parents too, so losing them was the same.

They all went so fast, it felt like it was one after the other, and with everything else going on, I couldn’t cope.

I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t have Preacher and the band.

My family was dying.

And there I was, with a new family.

I’m in school. I’m graduating from school. I’m trying to find a job. Discover who I am, what I’m about.

And the only thing I’m sure of in all of that, the only thing that’s solid, is Preacher.

I mean, think about this. Think about any twenty-something kid who’s starting their life.

You get to an age you look back and think, “I wish I was that young again.”

Well, I don’t.

Because we wish we were that young again because we’re not, we’ve lived life and we’ve learned, and we want to go back because we know things we didn’t then.

But going back is going back to not knowing those things.

And we lay gild on those years because we were young, and we have our full life ahead of us but figuring out who you are and what you want out of life is tough work.

We forget that part.

We forget that really, there were chunks of it that just plain sucked.

It’s the ones who figure out that they have to be in their now.

That’s the meaning of life.

Not only do we have no other choice, but where we are, we earned. We’ve lived that life and we’ve learned those lessons and we can take all those gifts and tragedies and build on them to have more.

There’s always more.

Every next second you’re breathing is more.

Until you’re not breathing.

And something I learned with my mother dying at age forty-three is to pack everything I got into every breath I take.

I did that then without even knowing it.

And I do it now.

Lyla:

[Off tape]

Would you talk about the Young and Beautiful List?

[For a moment, says nothing, then begins laughing before, suddenly, she stops]

I was staring out my window in the back of the limousine when I felt Preacher, sitting beside me, move.

I looked to him and saw he had his hand in his inside jacket pocket.

He pulled out the vial and murmured, “Want a bump, baby?”

I turned his way, scooted closer and said, “Set me up.”

He filled the little spoon, held it out. I pressed one nostril, leaned into it and breathed the white powder in.

Repeat with the other nostril.

I tasted the bitter in the back of my throat.

And I liked it.

Preacher took his own, replaced the vial in his jacket, did a long sniff, set his head back on seat, closed his eyes and lifted his hand to pinch his nose.

I watched him, falling in love with him that little bit more.

So handsome, my man.

I reached out and ran my fingers through the side of his hair to the ends that now curled around his ear.

He dropped his hand, opened his eyes but didn’t lift his head when he turned to me.

“You miss it,” he said.

“It looks good shorter.”

His lips twitched and he murmured, “You miss it.”

I didn’t.

And I did.

I slid my finger along his smooth-shaven jaw, doing it wondering why he’d hidden that for so long.

Angled perfectly, square, strong.

“You miss the beard too.”

I didn’t.

And I did.

My gaze lifted from my fingers at his jaw to his eyes.

“I love you however you come.”

His expression changed and then I was glad there was a deep slit in the front of my gown because he caught my hips and pulled me to straddling his lap.

This as he slouched down in his seat.

The coke was taking hold, but that wasn’t the only reason I felt the spike in my body.

“You know, I’m quite pleased with myself,” I told him. “Being solely responsible for the band’s new look.”

It was a joke on a variety of levels seeing as I was not.

I’d like to see someone try to tell Dave what to wear, and Tim how to cut his hair.

Actually, I wouldn’t because that wouldn’t be pretty.

Though Dave could be blamed for my pierced ears.

He got his way, somewhere in Canada, and I let him.

Preacher did too, in the sense that it was him that held the ice and the needle.

Dave’s idea—and so Preacher—he took over.

Dave didn’t mind, he