Love Deserved

Chapter 1-2

~Ayden~

An icy sensation covered my body as I jerked into a sitting position. Each labored breath I took did little to clear my mind. I focused on my surroundings, my eyes finally landing on a familiar face.

“Dude, what the hell?” Bentley’s brows drew together as he studied me. “You having a nightmare again?”

Nodding, I turned my back to him and sat on the edge of the hotel bed. “Where the hell are we?”

“Kansas City. We got in late. You were out of it when we walked upstairs. I told Jason you wouldn’t remember us helping you into this room.”

“Then stop feeding me alcohol after each show.”

“It wasn’t me.” Bentley tapped his chest when I turned to look at him. “Ryan’s the one who keeps refilling our drinks. If you sipped them, he wouldn’t be able to refill them as fast.”

“Maybe I want to be drunk and not remember.”

Bentley mumbled something incoherent while he dug through his suitcase. Water ran in the bathroom as steam filtered from behind the door. The clock on the nightstand said it was noon. I’d slept most of the day away again. It was becoming a habit, but it was better than dealing with the constant pang in my chest.

The sheet and comforter fell away from my legs as I adjusted my boxers and walked toward the fridge. After grabbing a bottle of water, I looked at Bentley. “You have anything for a headache?”

He nodded. Shoving his hand back into his suitcase, he dug around before he removed a bottle of pills. Then he grabbed his clothes, tucked them under his arm, tossing the bottle to me on his way past. “Just throw them back in the suitcase when you’re finished.”

“You heading somewhere before the show tonight?”

“Yeah.” Bentley set his clothes on the bathroom counter then faced me once more. “Jimmy and Alex from Dark Souls invited us for wings and beer. They want to take us to a local pub they visited the last time they were in Kansas City.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

Rubbing his face, Bentley shook his head and looked at me again. “Dude, I tried to get your a*s out of bed for three hours. You missed our rehearsal earlier, but I covered for you. I told Doug his shitty take-out last night f****d up your gut. You can’t keep this s**t up.”

I raised my hands to my side. “What?”

“You know what. I knew before we left for this tour that you’d be impossible. You’ve proven me right.”

I lowered my hands until they slapped against my legs. “Excuse the f**k out of me for getting my heart ripped out before we left. You still have a girlfriend. Mine doesn’t want anything to do with me, and worse, she’s sick.”

The muscles in Bentley’s face twitched. Then his nostrils flared. “Andi said it’s nothing for you to worry about because Mia will be okay, and everything will work out.”

“I can’t trust that when everything in me is screaming that something is wrong. Reverse the roles, man. What if you were in my position and this was Andi we were talking about?”

His shoulders slumped a second later. “You’re the reason Mia asked for a break. You brought this on yourself, Ayden. Now you have to deal with it.”

“Kinda hard when I keep having all these f****d up dreams.” Storming back toward the bed, I pivoted and went to the window instead. I stared at the city, doing my best to push the dream from my thoughts.

Footsteps signaled Bentley’s approach, but I didn’t face him. “What the hell are you dreaming about anyway? You still haven’t told me.”

Nor did I want to now. Still, maybe talking about it would help. Since we left for our tour two months ago, I did my best to keep what happened with Mia to myself. It was my problem, and I was dealing with it the best way I could.

“I keep having this dream that I’m in this room, and I hear a baby crying. When I find it, I try to get to it, but Mia always shows up. She blocks me from the crib and says it’s too late for us and she’s with someone else. Just before the dream ends, a guy walks out and takes the baby out of the crib. Then he pulls Mia to him, and I see his face.”

“Who is it?” The tension on Bentley’s face was evident as his forehead scrunched together. The longer he stared at me, the more pressure I felt to answer his question. I didn’t want to tell him anything.

“It isn’t just the dream that’s messing with me. It’s the fact that something was wrong with Mia before we left. She could have cancer, man, and I’m not buying Andi’s story. She knows something is wrong.”

“Ayden . . .”

“What?” The words came out in a growl.

“Who was the guy in your dream?”

Avoiding him as long as I could, there was nowhere else to turn to escape his question. I finally exhaled. Saying it would make it feel like it was true, but I did anyway and I hated every syllable that passed over my lips.

“It was Darius Stone.”