So I put all the things I needed to do to the back of my mind for now and dropped down on the sectional with my band brothers. It was just the four of us doing nothing more than watching football and drinking beer. It felt good to relax with them.
Half time came and Shane got up to get us all more beers. Drake was tossing back Jack Daniels and chasing it with his beer. It was the first time I had actually seen him with a bottle in a week, and I had already gotten use to him being sober. I watched as he swallowed glass after glass and hated that I was witnessing the old Drake, not the new one that had laughed more in the past week than I had ever heard from him in the life time that I had known him.
When the bottle was empty I took it from his slackened fingers and pulled him up. “Let’s go, Drake,” I urged softly. “Time for bed.”
He sighed but didn’t resist. He stumbled a little as I helped him up the stairs. In his room, he just fell onto the bed, and I took off his shoes and jeans. But I wasn’t going to let him just pass out, not without an explanation. “So, what happened? You and Lana have a fight?”
“Yesterday,” he confirmed. “Crazy girl didn’t want me buying her things. Said that I was trying to buy her.” Drake laughed but it in no way held humor. “But I apologized today.”
“She didn’t forgive you?”
“Nope. She did. Spent the rest of the day with her and Lucy.” His words were getting a little slurred now, but I had years of experience learning how to understand drunk Drake. “One of the best days of my life,” he muttered so low that I almost didn’t hear him.
I frowned. “So why the fuck are you drinking?”
Drake’s eyes were about to close when they snapped open and he glared up at me. “Because I want her so fucking much! Because I feel like I need her to breathe. Because she’s seventeen fucking years old!” he shouted at me.
I dropped down on the edge of his bed, facing my friend who was so troubled with himself. “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.”
A tear leaked from the corner of his eye. “I know that,” he whispered.
“And I think she has some strong feelings for you too.” The few times I had actually seen them together I had witnessed the way Lana looked at Drake. I had worried about her feeling too much for my friend. That she would get in over her head with an infatuation that she would quickly outgrow. But after talking to Layla until the sun came up that morning, I also knew that the girl was more mature than most thirty-year-olds I knew. She was wise for her years.
But to Drake her age was a major problem. There was a reason why he always ended up with the cougars that followed us from city to city on our tours. He never looked twice at the younger girls that tried to get into our beds. He was scared to death of being labeled a pedophile. “What are you going to do?” I asked after we had both been quiet for a few minutes.
Drake scrubbed a hand across his damp eyes. “Nothing.”
I bit back a curse. “Nothing? So you just go on being friends, but slowly killing yourself with alcohol to numb your pain?”
He shrugged. “I can’t touch her. I won’t touch her!”
Frustrated I ran a hand over my head, hating the stubble that I felt under my fingers. “Have you at least talked to her about this?”
“No. She’s too young to understand. I’m not going to burden her with it all.” He closed his eyes, already drifting off to sleep. “Thanks for taking care of me man,” he muttered as he passed out.
I glared down at my friend. He looked at peace in sleep now, but soon the nightmares would invade that peace and I would hear his screams from my room. I was sure that the alcohol made the dreams that much worse, but there was no explaining that to Drake. Muttering curses under my breath, I tugged the comforter up around him and left the room.
There was nothing more I could do tonight, perhaps nothing more I could ever do. Drake refused to talk about his nightmares with any of us, especially Shane. And I wasn’t going to tell his secrets to Lana. If she was to ever truly understand him, then she would have to know all of it, but I wasn’t going to be that person.
Instead of going back downstairs, I went down the hall and fell onto my own bed. It was late, so I couldn’t call Layla. I ached to have her lying beside of me, and not just to soothe the ache in my dick. Thinking about Drake and his nightmares had put my cock into hiding. But I still ached to hold her, talk to her about all of this.
Would she understand and know what to do? Should I confide in her? I was at a loss. If I told her, she could possibly turn away, even refuse to let Lana see Drake again. That would only hurt Drake more, not to mention break a confidence that I had made almost thirteen years ago. But if I didn’t tell her…