Fast Lane - Kristen Ashley Page 0,84

ask, and maybe you already guessed, but in the days after Lyla took off, no one in the band, including me, manned up to try to reach him.

It’s no longer about the problems with the band.

This is Lyla and Preacher, or a Preacher without Lyla, and we already know he’s got something eating at him, without Lyla to balm that hurt…

[Draws a long breath into his nose]

And not one of us even attempted to make an approach.

He wasn’t inviting that but…

[Lengthy pause]

Still.

It took me two days to go see him after the tour was over, and I went because Tom had come to me and this was the “later” I keep mentioning.

This was when he told me all this shit was going down.

I was tweaked way the fuck out.

Lyla’s disappearance from the end of the tour had been noticed. People were whispering about it. Our PR folks were getting calls.

But it wasn’t that.

Lyla wasn’t there from the very beginning of the band.

But it felt like she was.

[Shakes head]

Straight up, those two were such a unit, there was a fade where one ended and the other started.

They came together.

They belonged together.

They were meant for each other.

So much so, I can goddamn conjure in my head the vision of her standing at his side, holding his hand and leaning into him as he stood beside Tim’s dad’s truck and told me I was a rock star.

I can conjure it as a memory, like it happened just like that.

We couldn’t be who we were without her.

And I do not hesitate in sharing, I didn’t think Preacher could exist without her.

So, I go see him at his place in LA, yeah?

[Drums fingers uneasily on arm of chair]

And I figure I first got the battle of him opening the door to me.

But he does.

Right off.

I then figure he’s gonna look like shit. Haggard. Sunken eyes.

[Scoffs]

It’d only been two days since the tour ended and this was Preacher McCade.

But I’d dramatized all this in my head, the band up in the air, Preacher removed from us, Lyla gone.

This is Armageddon, man.

The end of days.

[Tucks chin in his neck, then rights head]

He was not haggard with sunken eyes.

[Dips ear to shoulder, rights head]

His gaze was dead.

We’re not talking no one home, like he’s out of it or drowning his sorrows in booze or burying them in drugs.

He’s sober as a judge.

But he’s gone.

He opens the door right away, I come in.

He walks to the family room in the back without a word.

Lyla’s everywhere but she’s not.

There are pictures of her with Preacher that she’d framed and set around, but other pictures I remembered being there, with her mom and sisters, Audie and Lynie, Jen and Amber, the band, are gone.

This gives me a serious chill.

But she’d also decorated the place.

It’s comfortable and homey. Deep, rich colors. Total LA vibe. Kinda a mashup of mission and old-time Mexican, southwest and Native American. Interesting and a little bit edgy, not cluttered though.

Breezy.

Easy.

Lyla.

I’d spent a lot of time in that room and it wasn’t until then I realized how perfectly balanced it was between Lyla and Preacher.

He stands by the window that looks out at the pool and he’s still sayin’ nothing.

“Preacher—” I start to say.

“The band wants to go clean, the time for that is not in the middle of a tour,” he says to the window. “The time for that is when we’re home, we got time and space in our minds to see to ourselves and each other. You three goin’ through withdrawals while you’re rappin’ with DJs and journalists and havin’ your pictures taken every fuckin’ day is ludicrous. It’s dumb luck none of them cottoned on. We had a couple months left on the tour. Cut back along the way. Get your shit tight. Prepare. And, I don’t know, consider talkin’ to a doctor who could tell you how to do it right and do it healthy. Or if any one of you is that fucked up, we drop the tour and get you straight. Cold turkey was insanity.”

“That makes sense, Preach,” I tell him. “You think you coulda said that a coupla months ago?”

“I had things on my mind,” he tells me.

“You wanna share those?” I ask.

And I will admit, although he made sense, even telling you this now that I know all I know, everyone knows it, at that time, I’m beginning to get pissed.

That’s when he turns to look at me and he says, “We were the band.”

Now, I am not likin’