One Real Thing Read Free Page B

recently, but now he had only himself to blame.
    “Yes, Mr. Welles, you were on the access list for Mrs. Welles, but Mrs. Welles was discharged on February nineteenth of this year. I’m afraid we have no transfer documents. She came to us from Brownbriar—have you considered trying there? Sometimes we do have patients return there for further care.”
    “We’re sorry, Mr. Welles, but Mrs. Welles is no longer with us here at Brownbriar.”
    “Mrs. Welles hasn’t been here at Summerlee for some years, Mr. Welles. Have you tried Brownbriar?”
    Holly ran out of rum about the same time he ran out of phone numbers and nerve. Wherever she was, he’d lost her. No one had called him to let him know. Or if anyone had, he didn’t remember.
    He didn’t deserve to know.
    He had a bit more money. Enough to turn into more than enough if he played his cards right. He’d pull himself together and find a poker game somewhere. If it was something he shouldn’t be doing, Holly was damn good at doing it. As soon as he found his clothes, he could get back to the business of getting everything he deserved.
    ***
    to:[email protected]
    from:[email protected]
    You know, sometimes things stop being funny. Do you think he knows what he’s doing?
    http://www.outoutout.com/entertainment/sierras-ex-downward-spiral
    http://www.gossipfly.com/entertainment/sierra-i-left-him-because
    http://www.stargazer.com/gossip/sierra-worried-about-ex
    Rich
     
    The photos in these links were harder to look at. Holly had obviously taken his breakup as a sign he hadn’t been partying hard enough before, because he’d redoubled his efforts. He was looking worse for wear too, pale and gaunt, like a ghost of the vibrant person he used to be.
    Nick hated that he could name most of the pills in a bowl on the table in one photo—propranolol, speed, oxy, sleeping pills, benzos, random antidepressants—and he’d eat his keyboard if the ones he didn’t recognize weren’t MDMA and DXM. He hated more that he could guess which ones Holly was taking. God knew they weren’t the ones he needed.
    Some of the pictures claimed to be of Holly buying drugs; an article suggested he’d been an addict for years, with quotes from Sierra about how she worried Holly might die of an overdose. Nick was right there with her. The photos and articles were overblown, but Nick could pick out the grains of truth, things the drama-mongering writers couldn’t manufacture. He could see them because, even now, he knew Holly like he knew the face in his mirror every morning. Another photo showed the front of the motel where Holly was staying, complete with the name emblazoned on a bright neon sign, and before Nick realized what he was doing, he’d booked a flight to L.A.
    Staring at the confirmation email, Nick surrendered to the reality that he couldn’t let it go. Holly needed someone, and obviously Nick was the only one who gave enough of a damn to rein him in. He arranged for a rental car and told Max he’d be traveling to find another of Senator Ingalls’s former interns. The idea of another story on the scandal was appealing enough that Max didn’t ask too many questions. On his way home to pack, he called Caroline. Her phone clicked over to voice mail, and he left a message.
    “I’m so sorry. I know I said I’d have a normal schedule for a while, but something’s come up and I have to go out of town. I’ll be back by the end of the week.”

Chapter Three
    The five-hour flight gave Nick plenty of time to use the in-flight Wi-Fi to email Rich a scathing thank-you. Fucker. If he’d kept his damned tabloid habit to himself, Nick would’ve been able to go on at least pretending to ignore Holly’s fuckups on the basis he was too far away to do anything about them. Nick had known— known —if Holly really hit rock bottom, he wouldn’t be able to leave it alone. Wouldn’t be able to leave Holly alone. Rich knew it too, which was why he kept sending Nick those