“I hate fighting with you,” I muttered as I set her on her feet. “I’m not sure I’d survive if I really pissed you off.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of her bee-stung lips. “Nah. You can handle it.”

I grinned. “Let’s not find out, okay?”

“I’ll do my best.” She rolled her whiskey colored eyes at me, and I smacked her on the ass as she turned into the living room. Her squeal was music to my ears. I picked her up and tossed her on the couch and then spent the next five minutes tickling her until she had tears running down her cheeks. I didn’t normally get so close to her, but my relief at making up with her after our fight was too overwhelming for me not to find a reason to touch her.

Our playing woke Lucy up, and I spent the rest of the day just hanging out with them. Around noon Lana started getting worried about Layla, and we went over to the main house to ask Emmie if she had heard from either Layla or Jesse. I figured that Jesse had been unable to contain his feelings the night before and the two were shacked up in a hotel room somewhere, but I didn’t dare speak my thoughts aloud.

After Emmie assured her that she would call Jesse and make sure they were okay, I talked Lana into a swim. It wasn’t hard to do, but after seeing her in her bikini for the first time, I was seriously regretting my decision to spend a few hours by the pool. What sick bastard invented bikinis anyway? Lucky for me Lucy made a great chaperone, and I was able to keep my reactions in check for the most part.

When I found myself drooling at the sight of Lana’s chest in the lemon yellow top barely containing her curves, I knew it was time to order some dinner. Anything to get some clothes on my angel so I wasn’t constantly in a state of pain from just looking at her.

A movie and some good Chinese rounded out the day. I didn’t want to go back to the main house, but I knew that staying wasn’t an option. Lana and Lucy both had school the next morning, and I had to go into the studio. I placed a kiss on top of Lucy’s dark, curly head and one on Lana’s cheek. “I’ll text you,” I promised.

“Okay.” She bit her lip and I saw the disappointment in her eyes. She was just as reluctant for me to leave as I was to be going. “Thanks for dinner.”

By the time I reached the house, my chest felt like I had an elephant sitting on it. I raced up to my room and found one of my fifths and swallowed a third of it in one go. I was used to the burn as it flooded my throat. The heat as it hit my stomach was a welcoming distraction from the pressure around my heart, and I dropped down on the edge of my bed before swallowing another third.

I didn’t want to be alone, so I ended up on the sectional, watching football with Nik and Shane. They didn’t say anything as I sat down between them and swallowed some more of my Jack. The bottle was nearly gone, and I was still feeling like I couldn’t breathe. Fuck! I hated this feeling. All because I couldn’t stand to be away from a girl I had no business having anything but brotherly feelings for!

Jesse came home sometime later. I wasn’t exactly sure what time it was. By then, I had found a second bottle of Jack Daniels and started chasing it with beer. I had no idea what was going on with the football game and no clue as to who was even playing. I was numb but still unable to breathe.

When the bottle was empty, Jesse helped me up to my room and I fell onto my bed. “So what happened?” he asked as he pulled off my shoes. “You and Lana have a fight?”

“Yesterday...” I told him about the shopping trip and the argument we had had. “But I ‘pologized to…day.”

“She didn’t forgive you?”

“Nah. She did. Spent rest…the day ‘er…and Wucy.” My words were getting slurred and I tried to concentrate on forming them. Not that it mattered, all my band brothers had spent so much time around me in a drunken state that they had picked up the language. “One of… best days of my wife,” I admitted.

“So why the fuck are you drinking?” Jesse demanded.

I glared at him. Was he crazy? How could he not know why I was drinking? Was he blind? “‘Cause I want ‘er so fuckin’ much! ‘Cause I feel like I need ‘er to breathe. ‘Cause she is seventeen fuckin’ years old!” I shouted.

The drummer dropped down on the edge of my bed. “Dray, she’s beautiful. A blind man could see how beautiful she is. And it isn’t just on the outside. She’s really sweet, man. Lana is special.”

I knew all of that. It made all my feelings that much more intense. Lana was my angel. And I couldn’t touch her. “I know that,” I whispered.

“And I think she has some strong feelings for you too.”

I knew that too, but for Lana it was just a crush. A girl her age couldn’t understand the feelings I had. I couldn’t imagine her feeling for me what I felt for her. No, I refused to even think about it. I was her friend. That was all.

“What are you going to do?” Jesse asked after a few minutes.

I scrubbed a hand over my wet eyes. “Nothin’.”

“Nothing? So you just go on being friends, but killing yourself with alcohol to numb your pain?”

I shrugged or at least thought I did. “I can’t touch ‘er. I won’t touch ‘er!”

“Have you at least talked to her about this?” Jesse demanded, sounding frustrated.

“No. She’s too young ter understand. I’m not going ter burden ‘er with it.” I didn’t want to put my nightmares in her head. That ugliness didn’t belong inside my angel’s mind. “Shanks for taking care of me, man…” I attempted to say as I let myself float off to sleep…

The dreams haunted my sleep. The fight, the gun shots… Emmie crawled into bed with me, holding me close and whispering things that I couldn’t make sense of through the drunken haze. My tears dried and the shaking in my limbs slowly faded. Her presence alone soothed some of my pain, her fingers stroking through my hair like a lifeline connecting me to the present.

As I drifted back off to sleep, the dream was still waiting to consume me, but it took a different turn than usual. Instead of a nine year old Emmie sitting on my couch, it was Lana. She smiled up at me in that mysterious angelic way of hers, but it didn’t calm me like it normally did.

The trailer was dark, the heat from the summer pressing in on us as Rusty came down the hall. He said something and I watched as Lana turned to me with a disgusted look on her face. Then she faded from the couch as if she had never been there…