Fast Lane - Kristen Ashley Page 0,83

aunt was up from Georgia.

She picked me up and she drove me back down south.

My family was having an expensive week, seeing as I’d barely driven away with my aunt when Sonia and Julia were off to the airport to fly to LA to get my stuff.

And I’ll note they got my stuff.

My high school yearbooks and the plastic talcum powder box Mom used to keep her jewelry in, pictures, scrapbooks.

The clothes, the shoes, the handbags, even stuff I came into the relationship with, they left behind.

They boxed it all up, posted it home and got back on a plane.

I was unsurprised that Preacher and the band finished out the tour.

Tommy wouldn’t allow it to happen any other way.

Jesse:

I don’t think I gotta tell you, we were all freaked way the fuck out that Lyla was gone.

The band slid straight into a détente the minute we realized she’d vanished.

And I’ll tell you what, the minute Preach gave the slightest inkling he was open to a reconciliation, we all woulda been there.

The problem with that was, Preacher had no idea we were in a détente.

And if he did, he wouldn’t care.

Because he had other things on his mind, seeing as he was in hell.

Tommy told me later that when whatever went down between Preach and Lyla went down, and Preacher got back to his room, he had no clue she was gone.

She’d left all her stuff.

As in all her stuff.

Even her purse.

He thought she was off somewhere, cooling off after whatever went down.

It was when he grabbed his wallet and saw his money gone that he went to her purse and saw that everything was in it but her wallet.

She’d taken her wallet, but then he noticed her credit cards were on the nightstand with her room key.

That was when shit got real.

I probably should not have told him that Lyla was worried about him.

But I did.

Tommy told me later that he did too.

We both knew Preacher wouldn’t like that she came to us about him, but what the fuck?

I mean seriously.

Everything is disintegrating because one guy’s got something up his ass?

And he’s not talking to anyone about it?

Not even Lyla?

I thought he’d hate the idea that Lyla was worried about him, worried enough to come to us, and he’d do something about it.

I needed him to do something about something.

And I guess [shrugs, mouth going tight] he did.

[Off tape]

The band were all completely unaware of what was happening?

Yes.

Including Mancosa?

[Nods]

Him too.

And I know, that’s a surprise.

The thing was, Lyla’s dad had reared his ugly head again, so with the band acting up, us deciding to go cold turkey after years of self-medication, Preacher being how he was being, Tom had his hands full.

But in the end, it was just that Preach hadn’t ever told anybody.

Except me.

And Lyla.

We finished out our dates, the last two gigs in LA.

Except onstage, it was the arctic if we were around Preacher, and that was coming from him.

He didn’t even ride on the plane with us. He rented a car and drove from Portland to San Fran. He flew commercial to San Diego. And he took a limo back to LA.

Yeah, I remember all of that.

I remember the minutia of that time.

Five years of recording and touring is a blur.

When we’re young and hot and the world is laid out before us, ours for the taking, I gotta work hard to recall the goodness.

But that time and what came after.

Fuck, man.

Crystal-clear focus.

Do you know in this time if he ever tried to reconcile with Lyla?

I didn’t know it at the time.

Tommy told me later.

Preacher thought she went home to LA.

Tom himself took a day and flew down to go talk to her, take her pulse and set her up for Preacher’s return or make the call that Preacher needed to go down himself and sort shit out.

But she wasn’t there.

There was nothing disturbed, that he knew or could see.

It was a fluke that he saw Lyla’s house keys and car keys sitting on the kitchen counter.

I guess Tommy went back and told Preacher and Preacher told him to find her, and it took a bit, but he did.

She was staying with one of her aunts in Georgia.

I’m not a betting man, I worked too hard for my money.

[Smiles weakly]

But if I’d known what was happening, I would have put money on him walking offstage after our last gig in LA and going direct to Georgia.

He didn’t.

He went home.

That being to his and Lyla’s pad.

In LA.

You didn’t