Born Into Trouble (Occupy Yourself Book 1) by MariaLisa deMora

Author:MariaLisa deMora [deMora, MariaLisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: MLK Publishing
Published: 2016-06-19T21:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

“Are you fucking kidding me, Ben? What the fuck?” The frustrated shout woke him, and Benny lifted his head, looking with bleary eyes towards the stairs. Shit.

The pounding in his head was sickeningly familiar. So was the sight greeting him. A disappointed face. Andy’s. “Shit.” He muttered this, but his voice was loud enough for Andy to catch it.

“Yes, shit. Shit again. Mighta shit on yourself, from the smell of it.” Andy—Slate, he tried to remind himself to call his brother Slate. He likes that. “What the fuck did you do last night?”

He’d played. Gotten onstage and played, pushing through the terror-driven shakes threatening to derail the performance even before they’d started. Bear and Chase took the stage with him—Bear’s presence promising to help make it easy, Chase’s making it better because Benny was able to focus on giving the kid his own brand of reassurances. Lucia in the audience, front and center, sitting at a table near the stage so he could see her every time he looked up from his hands. Belief and love so clear on her face he nearly froze at first, from the full knowledge of what she was giving him.

While Bear had been recovering at home, they hadn’t been able to take much time for themselves. Quick lunches in the family kitchen instead of leisurely dinners out, stolen moments on the phone. With Luce out of the picture a lot of the time, he’d dialed in on Chase, working with the boy every day, bringing him along faster than he’d believed possible. Vic and Chase formed the other two legs of his musical tripod at the moment, and he let them balance him as often as they could all be in the same room. So they played, and the music flowed from his fingers, if not his head. Lyrics were still a scarce commodity, but when they did come, they were good. The kind of curl-your-toes, make-you-shiver, raise-the-hair good.

Last night had been good, too. The last half of the set was rocking, the bar filled to capacity in a party for DeeDee’s man, Jase. A music lover, if not a musician, Jase had sat in with them one night at Bear’s place. Proving while he could carry a tune, he couldn’t be trusted with an instrument, he had broken four strings on one of Bear’s guitars before the guys could wrestle it away from him.

The gig had been so good, Benny let it go to his head. Thinking to himself, If I can get back on stage, then I can handle anything. Right?

Wrong. So fucking wrong.

After they finished playing, he was only three swallows into the first beer and had already been thinking how he could get another without anyone seeing. Three beers and he was in the alley out behind the bar with a different gang of bikers passing a joint around, accepting the jug of moonshine when it made it to him, hooking a finger through the handle and lifting it to his lips as if he did it every day.

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