Olivia Cunning - Rock Hard

Trey’s hand came into her line of sight as he retrieved one of the bottles. “For prostate health,” he read off the bottle. “Either you’re the best transvestite I’ve ever seen or you’re spying on me, Jessica Chase. Did Sed put you up to this?”

She snatched the bottle out of his hand. “No, I was just… just looking for the… uh… iron supplements. I get sort of anemic this time of the month.” She glanced up at him and smiled. “Blood loss. You know how it is.”

He paled and cringed. “No, actually, I don’t. Thank God.” He stood and scanned the shelf. He quickly found the iron supplements, plucked a bottle off the shelf, and put it in her hand. “There you go. Now go find the rest of your girly stuff and head back to the bus.”

Jessica bought all the stuff she’d told Trey she needed. She tried to see what he was up to while she stood in the checkout line, but her line of sight was blocked by a display of cheap stuffed animals.

Sed was waiting for her outside the bus when she left the store. “Well? What did you find out?”

She sighed. “Not much. He had a new prescription slip and he didn’t have his insurance card with him so he paid cash. He somehow talked that poor girl into not calling his physician for verification. She’ll probably get fired.”

“He had a new prescription slip? He didn’t try to get a refill or trick them with that bullshit story about him spilling his pills down the sink?”

“Nope. He handed the pharmacy tech a new prescription slip.”

Sed looked thoughtful for a moment. “I wonder how many of those he has.”

“Sed, I feel sort of bad sneaking around trying to catch him doing something wrong. He’s been through a lot.”

“Yeah, I know. But if he’s using, I’m going to put him through a hell of a lot more.”

Sed dumped the little peach-colored pills from the prescription bottle into his palm and counted them. Thirty-six. Yesterday, there had been fifty-two. The label clearly said one to two tablets every six hours, not to exceed eight tablets per day. Though math wasn’t Sed’s thing, he knew Trey was taking more than double the proper dosage. Would this be enough evidence to get the rest of the band to make a stand against him? Sed didn’t want to waste any more time. He knew in his gut that Trey needed help and he wasn’t going to wait until they found him overdosed in his bunk as the final sign that they should do something.

Sed carefully returned the remaining pills to the bottle, secured the lid, and tucked the amber container into his pocket. He let himself out of the bathroom and settled on the sofa beside Trey. Trey had dozed off again, his head leaning at an odd angle against the back of the sofa. He never did much more than sleep these days.

“Tired, Trey?” Sed asked and nudged him in the side to wake him.

“Let him sleep,” said Brian, who sat on Trey’s other side watching TV. “The concerts are really wearing him out.”

Sed snorted. “Yeah, the concerts have really been knocking him on his ass lately.” Sed shook Trey’s shoulder. “Hey, sleepyhead, wake up.”

Trey groaned and covered his eyes with both hands. “Fuck, man, leave me alone.”

“Why don’t you just go to bed? You don’t look very comfortable sleeping like that.”

Trey sat there for a long moment as if he were physically incapable of lifting his head off the back of the couch. He finally hauled himself to his feet and headed directly for the bathroom. The bottle of pills in Sed’s pocket suddenly felt very conspicuous.

A lot of loud rattling and swearing came from the bathroom. Trey opened the bathroom door. “Has anyone seen my pills?”

“Did you check your bloodstream?” Sed asked, scratching behind his ear.

Trey was instantly in his face. “You took them, didn’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“Jesus, Sed, give him his pills. What is wrong with you?” Brian said.

“There’s nothing wrong with me.” He locked gazes with Trey. “Why don’t you tell Brian how many pills you took today?”

“Give me my fuckin’ pills, Sed.”

Sed lifted his hips off the sofa and pulled the bottle from his pocket. Trey tried to snatch it from his hand, but Sed held it firmly. “This label says you’re supposed to take four pills a day. A maximum of eight. How many have you taken since last night, Trey? Do you even know?”

Trey grabbed Sed’s wrist and tried to wrestle the bottle out of his hand. When that didn’t work, he took Sed’s little finger and bent it back viciously. “Ow, damn. Take the fuckin’ things then.” Sed released the bottle into Trey’s custody.

“That wasn’t funny.” Trey took several shuddering breaths through his nose as he tried to regain his composure. “You don’t understand my pain. You don’t understand.”

Sed’s heart twisted. He knew Trey was hurting, but it wasn’t the kind of pain that Percocet would help. “How many pills have you taken today, Trey?”

“I don’t know,” he yelled, “six or seven.”

“Six?” Sed shook his head. “Try sixteen.”

Trey scowled. “How would you know?”

“I counted them last night and again just a moment ago.”

“I dropped some. I can’t… I can’t hold on to things… and I… they…”

He spun on his heel and headed to the bedroom. He slammed the door, but it did nothing to buffer the sound of his frustrated scream.

“Jesus Christ, Sed, you are such an ass.” Brian stood from the sofa and walked to the end of the hall. Myrna watched her husband pass the dining table, obviously dumbfounded by the entire scene. Jessica sat across from Myrna, wiping stray tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

Brian knocked on the bedroom door.

“Go away!” Trey yelled.

“Trey, it’s Brian. Let me in.” He waited patiently for several minutes. Eventually, the door opened and Brian slipped inside.

“Why are you so hard on him, Sed?” Myrna asked. “Don’t you think he’s suffering enough?”

Sed took a deep breath. Did they think he liked having to always be the asshole of the group? He’d love to turn a blind eye and pretend like everything was just fine, but he simply didn’t have it in him. Not when someone he cared about was on a path of self-destruction.

Lounging on the bed in the back bedroom, Sed trailed his fingertips up and down Jessica’s bare shoulder. After a concert, he usually satisfied his lust and fell directly asleep, but tonight his mind was too full. They’d played ten consecutive shows in a little less than three weeks, each one better than the last. Sed’s throat still bothered him (he sang through the pain), but Trey’s improvement was nothing short of miraculous. Sed was convinced that was the reason the rest of the band refused to see what was going on right under their noses. But Sed saw it and he couldn’t let it go.

“We’ve got to figure out how he’s getting new prescriptions,” Sed said. “He should have run out of slips by now. How many of the damned things did his dad give him, anyway?”

“He keeps them in his wallet,” Jessica said drowsily.

Sed shifted her from his chest and sat up.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I’m going to get to the bottom of this tonight.”

He climbed from the bed and slipped into a pair of shorts. He let himself out of the bedroom and crept to Trey’s bunk. Ordinarily, Trey would be partying with the roadies or fucking some lucky groupie on the other bus, but now he slept too much to participate in his usual fun. Sed slid the curtain back as quietly as possible. As he’d expected, Trey was out cold and still fully dressed. Sed eased Trey onto his side and retrieved the wallet from his back pocket. He opened Trey’s wallet, feeling like a total ass until he saw the sheer number of prescription slips nestled inside. They were blank, except for his father’s signature at the bottom.

Rage boiled through Sed’s veins. How could Dr. Mills just give him a free pass to the world’s prescription medicine cabinet? Trey’s parents had always given him everything his heart desired, but this was going too far.

“That stupid bastard.”

Trey rolled over and opened his eyes. “What are you doing?”

“I found your secret stash of prescription slips.” Sed pulled one offending slip from Trey’s wallet and tossed it at him, then another and another. “I wondered how you kept getting more of that shit. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Trey’s eyes narrowed. “Get the fuck out of my business, Sed.”

“I’m in your business, Trey. I’m so far in your business, your grandchildren will call me partner.”

Trey growled and flung himself from his bunk, tackling Sed to the floor. Sed let Trey punch him several times, hoping that releasing some of his pain and anger would let him admit he needed help.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone? Why?” Trey punched Sed again. And again. “Why? Why?”

Sed wrestled him face down on the floor and leaned his weight into his back until he stopped struggling. “Why? Because you’re the only Trey Mills I have and I’m not going to let you follow the same path Jon took. I’m not going to let drugs destroy you the way they destroyed him.”

“I’m not taking any drugs,” he squeaked, panting heavily.

“You are, Trey. It doesn’t matter that they’re prescription. You’re addicted to them. You have to admit it to yourself before I can help you.”

“I’m not addicted. I need them to play. Without them… I can’t… I just can’t…”

“How do you know if you can play without them? Have you tried?”

Trey’s body began to shake. Even though the bus’s corridor was dimly lit, Sed knew he was crying. Sed moved to sit on the floor beside him, giving Trey a moment to collect himself.