Fighting Addiction

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  “Silent Love Song”

  More from BA Tortuga

  Readers love BA Tortuga

  About the Author

  By BA Tortuga

  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright

  Fighting Addiction

  By BA Tortuga

  Country hat act Markus Kane is skeptical when he’s asked to do a joint tour. He hasn’t seen Sebastian Longchamps since he gave up drinking—and since their compulsion for each other nearly cost them both their livelihoods. But Markus’s career is on the downhill slope, while the country-fried Cajun rocker’s star is still rising. His label thinks it’ll be a match made in ticket-sales heaven.

  Sebastian knows better. One wrong move and Markus will break his heart all over again. This time he has much more to lose.

  Time has changed both men, though, and while Markus and Sebastian try to fight their addictions, the big music industry machine has plans for them that don’t include a quiet retirement. Can Markus convince Sebastian that there are things in life more important than adrenaline and control? And can Sebastian make Markus understand that all he really wants is his music and his man?

  Dedicated to Tory, for understanding little books and Texans, but not to Miguel, because he was no technical help at all. Love y’all, this much.

  Prologue

  THE STACK of photographs that hit the table sounded like a slap, sharp and shocking and brutal for how quiet it was.

  Sebastian Longchamps sat there in the nondescript conference room at Markus’s label and stared at the pile. He wasn’t sure how anyone had taken the shots, but he sure as shit knew who they were and where they’d come from, didn’t he?

  That was him in the limo, heading out from one of the awards shows after celebrating his best male artist and Markus’s Entertainer of the Year award. He was clinging to Markus Kane, his lover, his best friend, his cowriter, and the man he was on tour with. They weren’t naked, not on the top image, but he knew by the end, he’d be on his knees, sucking Markus off enthusiastically, his head bobbing over those thick, muscled thighs.

  Shit.

  “What the fuck is this?” Markus sounded… strangled. More than that, the man sounded ashamed, and didn’t that burn some?

  “What does it look like, honey?” Tawny was Markus’s manager, and she was a damn sight less evil than Jack, who was staring at him like he was some piece of shit on a man’s boot. “Y’all weren’t very bright here. You know how much is at stake? Y’all’s careers? The bands? Hell, Markus, you just signed for a twenty-week tour….”

  “Not bright? Are you shitting me? Are you two the single biggest idiots on earth? What were you thinking?” Jack was fixin’ to blow a vein, Sebastian could tell.

  “We—”

  “How can we fix this?” Markus’s hands leaned on the table, the man going from lover to lizard-brain man in one fell swoop. “Who do I pay to get this to disappear?”

  The words surprised him, even though they shouldn’t have. They cut too, down in the soft part of his belly, digging deep and leaving a sharp swath behind them.

  “That’s what I need to hear.” Jack stood up, started pacing. “We’re going to go with bad Photoshop, threatening to sue, and how dare they? You two are going to get your heads out of your asses. No contact. No more accidents. Nothing.”

  Sebastian opened his mouth to argue, but Markus was already talking. Markus had always been quicker on the uptake, faster, leaner than him. “Good. Good. I can hook up with Ginger MacAllen. She just broke it off with Keith, and she’s looking for arm candy. Seb here can—”

  “I’m sure I can head to Mexico, get on a boat, do some writing.” No way. No way he was going to… no. No, he just couldn’t.

  “That sounds perfect. Get away. Shit, Tawny, I would never have done this if I had thought for a second that they’d catch us. You know that.”

  “I know, Markus, but you know that you have to be careful. You could lose everything. Everything. You have to rein it in.”

  Jack stared at him, and Sebastian knew that whatever conversation his manager was going to have with him, it wasn’t going to be so gentle.

  “All right. Someone throw those goddamn things away. Burn them. Shit. What was I thinking?” Markus scrubbed his face with one hand. “Someone get me a fucking drink. Now.”

  Tawny stood and headed to the little minibar, while Jack leaned across the table. “Do I have your understanding? If someone asks about the pictures, you don’t know a goddamn thing. Someone asks you about Kane here, you don’t know a goddamn thing. In fact, unless it’s to do with music—”

  “I don’t know a goddamn thing.” Sebastian glanced over at Markus, but he had turned away, was reaching for a cut crystal glass. “Markus, I—”

  “Drop it. There ain’t nothing to say. Nothing.” Markus wouldn’t even look at him, and that broad back was ramrod straight. It wasn’t just them. They were both big machines now, with hundreds of folks depending on them for a living.

  “Right. I’m gone.” That was the best thing for him, the only thing.

  He had to run, because otherwise he wasn’t ever going to be able to breathe again.

  Chapter One

  THE PHONE woke him up early, maybe seven thirty, and Markus Kane rolled over, giving the sleek black thing a baleful glare. He was half retired, right? That earned him the right to sleep in when he wasn’t on the road.

  Sighing, he grabbed it, looking at the display. Unknown number, huh? Well, good. He could vent his spleen against some random wrong number.

  “Hello?”

  “Candy? That you, man? It’s Sebastian. Seb.”

  He blinked. Seb? Sebastian Longchamps? Had to be the only person who called him Candy. What did the crazy little Cajun want?

  “What the hell is up, man? I haven’t heard from you in—” Had it been years? If it had, it made him a pretty shitty friend. They’d toured together for three years back in the early days.

  “Eight years. Well, we shared a stage in Vegas two years ago, but that doesn’t count. How the hell are you?”

  “Good.” It was the truth. He felt better than he had in years, and he was in fighting trim. “What are you up to?”

  “Working. Got a business proposition for you, actually.”

  Huh. What the fuck did the current Entertainer of the Year and the biggest fucking tour draw in country music want with semiretired him? Maybe Seb needed someone to ghostwrite some songs. That was still one of Markus’s strong suits, no matter what genre.

  He heard splashing, laughing in the background, right before Seb snarled, “Y’all, hush. Bev! I told you to clear everyone out!”

  He could hear a murmured apology, and Seb cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

  “No worries.” Looked like that temper was still in place. “What is this thing you’re asking, buddy?”

  “I’m thinking of an EP, five, six songs, a tour. You and me, old friends on the road.”
>
  If he hadn’t already been lying down, he’d have fallen on his ass in shock. What the hell? Him? Riding on Seb’s wagon? Hadn’t they decided years ago that couldn’t happen again? Oh, he wanted to jump right at it, but he had to think, not react.

  “Why?”

  “I saw the spread you did in Southern Music. You look great, not puffy anymore. And the last album had some kickass cuts. You’re back into the music, off the whole ‘I’m a rock star’ lifestyle thing.” Brutal and honest and lacking anything that could distantly be considered a filter, that was Seb. Hell, that was one of the reasons they had parted ways as much as they had.

  “Thanks.” If he followed protocol, he would have to call his people and see what they thought and go through legal for the contracts and all. Thing was, Markus was from Texas. He liked to do music his way. “When would I have to be in the studio?”

  “Eight weeks, give or take? I’m in… New Zealand? Somewhere. I’ll be back in the States by mid-January, can be in the studio February.”

  That would give him plenty of time to get the rest of his team on it and write some songs. They would have to do some writing time together, come up with an anthem.

  He pondered on it awhile, long enough for Seb to speak again. “So, give it some thought, talk to Tawny. If you’re into it, have them nudge Jack, and he’ll set shit up. If you’re not, we’ll all pretend that I never called. I got to run, man. I have an appointment with a scuba tank.”

  “Hey.” Whoa. God, he wasn’t even awake yet. “Hold up. Can I call this number?”

  “Absolutely, man. Hell, you get a wild hair, fly out. Water’s fucking fabulous.”

  “Yeah?” He could so do that. “Give me someone’s number so I can set it up.” Seb had one foot out the door. Markus knew that distracted voice well.

  “I’ll text you Bev’s number. Beverly Chacon. She’s my right hand; she’ll get you what you need. You come, you bring a guitar.”

  “Will do, buddy.”

  The line went dead, but sure enough, he got a text five seconds later. He stared at the phone, completely floored. A little tickled.

  Okay, a lot.

  This kind of tour could be an enormous shot in the arm for a semiretired fool like him.

  Markus grinned, dialing not Seb’s assistant, but his longtime manager, Tawny. She was a sharp old broad. She’d get it all fixed up.

  “Hello? Markus, what’s wrong?” Tawny sounded like hell. He’d forgotten it wasn’t quite eight in the morning.

  Markus settled his butt more firmly on the bed, digging in for the negotiations. This would take some talking. Him and Seb, they had history, and it wasn’t all sparkly spotlight shit.

  “Hey, Tawny. You ain’t gonna believe who called….”

  Chapter Two

  NINETY-FOUR. NINETY-FIVE. Ninety-six. Ninety-seven.

  Sebastian moved in time with the metronome app on his phone. Three more push-ups and then it was back to crunches.

  Music filled the room as he worked, sweat pouring off him as he moved. Candy’s plane had come in yesterday at some point, the man and his entourage supposedly in one of the huge condos close by, maybe even next door—Bev hadn’t been clear.

  The man would call after sleeping off the jet lag. Candy—which he always teased Markus about, thanks to the last name Kane—was worse about the jet lag than anyone Sebastian knew. He didn’t get his beauty sleep, the beautiful fucker got downright grumpy.

  Grinning, Sebastian rolled to his back. He couldn’t wait to hear that slow Texas twang.

  Two hundred crunches into his set of three hundred, Bev knocked, perfectly coiffed, her platinum-blonde hair up in a tight bun deal, eyes like chips of ice behind her horn-rimmed glasses. It was unnatural how she was always put together. They were in the middle of southern hemisphere summer, living on the beach, and she was in a fucking pantsuit and clacking heels. “I have your protein shake, boss.”

  “Thanks, doll. What’s on for today?” He couldn’t function without her—evil woman.

  Two ten. Two eleven. Two twelve.

  “Pretty much you meeting with Mr. Kane. He’s ready when you’ve showered.” Her nose wrinkled, and he was incredibly fucking tempted to throw a sweaty towel at her.

  “Cool. What time is it?” Like he didn’t know.

  “Eight forty. You have twenty minutes.”

  “Cool.” He could handle that. Ten more minutes of work, ten to clean up. That was perfect. He liked a schedule.

  “Don’t forget to drink your shake.”

  “I won’t.” They kept him going—nasty, thick things. Bev was obsessed with them. “Offer Kane some coffee, and make sure, if you feed him pastries, they’re gone before I—”

  “Get in there,” she finished for him. “Yeah, boss. I know. You don’t like the smell of food before noon. He’s already eaten, and he’s bright-eyed and chipper.” She paused, grinning a little. “Nothing like what I read about in Country News. He’s not a puffy has-been. The man is stacked to the ceiling. I mean, Jesus, boss.”

  “No?” He chuckled. Like he hadn’t seen his share of that body—top to bottom. “He’s gone the rehab route. Looks good too. Got his shit together. Booze fucks with you, makes you veiny and fat.”

  Two fifty-four. Two fifty-five. Two fifty-six.

  “Yeah, yeah. Whatever it is, it’s working. Eighteen minutes, hardbody. Don’t forget your shake.” She slid out the door, leaving him to finish up.

  “Nag.”

  He busted out his last thirty crunches and jumped in the shower, the water pouring off his newly waxed body in beads. He let himself enjoy the only five or so minutes he had to himself most of the day that he did absolutely nothing, his mind buzzing with words and music.

  Then he dried off, got dressed, and headed off to see Candy for the first time in an amazing amount of years.

  MARKUS WIPED his hands on his jeans. The place was an island paradise, and he felt seriously overdressed, but this was a business meeting first, right? He’d chosen jeans, boots, and a white shirt, no starch. That was his concession to the tropical location.

  Later, when he was sure he and Seb could still see eye to eye on anything, he’d bust out the board shorts and flip-flops.

  Jesus, why was he suddenly so fucking nervous? This was Seb. There wasn’t much Markus hadn’t known about the man, once upon a time. From the way Seb whistled in his sleep to the way those muscled shoulders looked when the hot little son of a bitch was on his knees sucking cock.

  Oh. Bad image.

  No remembering that, not in these jeans.

  Seb came in the door, the tiny, bald fucker wearing a pair of gauzy pants that hung so low Markus could see the hip bones holding them up, an LSU T-shirt, and a pair of dark sunglasses. “Candy! Damn, man!”

  “Hey, Seb!” He shook the man’s hand, not sure if anything else was appropriate.

  “You look great, dude. Happy, healthy. You get some sleep?” Seb tugged him in, gave him a solid man hug, hand slapping his back.

  “I did.” Seb smelled like coconut and musk. God, that was yummy.

  “Excellent.” Seb stepped back, grinned. “So fucking glad you showed. Have a seat. Did Bev take care of you?”

  “She’s been great.” Hell, he’d had everything he could ever want. Seb’s assistant had even taken the wet bar out completely, just leaving juices and sparkling water. The woman was inhumanly efficient.

  “She’s a champ.” Seb settled in a chair across from him, muscles rippling under the thin T-shirt. “So, Jack says you have demands. Demand away.”

  Markus blinked, trying to remember what all he’d wanted to talk on. “Well, Tawny has dealt with all the advertising equality and all that bullshit.”

  Seb waved one hand. “If the suits had a problem with that shit, we wouldn’t be here. I know that. I’m not looking to fuck you over, man. I just want to make some music and some money.”

  “I know that.” He rolled his eyes. Blunt little fuck. “I also know you’re a cont
rol freak. We write the EP together. We do at least one duet. And I can’t tell your boys what to do on tour and all, but I need to know there won’t be booze backstage or on my buses.”

  There. That was the hard part, right out in the open.

  “Works for me. I don’t drink, and my boys are family men now. They may have a beer on their bus, but that’s their issue.” Seb stretched. “Your people are taking care of your buses; mine, mine. I want my boys to play on the recording, at least on half the songs.”

  “Sure.” Half of Markus’s band had actually retired last year. He’d made them a pretty good living over the years. “I want Kyle on fiddle, but other than that I’m easy.”

  “Kyle still with you? Even after rehab? I’m impressed.”

  “Dude, Kyle is on Weight Watchers. He’s way more scary on sugar detox than I was on withdrawal.” It could be hell to get old. Markus knew from experience.

  “Oh, man. I mean, I get it. I know what I eat. I’m careful.” Shit, careful. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on Seb that Markus could see. It was a good look, but he had to admit it was a little unnerving.

  “You know me. I get off the sauce and I can eat a lot.” He could still devour the Waffle House as long as he hit the gym.

  “Rock on.” One near-white eyebrow lifted, rising above Seb’s dark glasses. “So, you want to do a couple of rocking cuts, one ballad, one cover, and something… patriotic?”

  “Something summertime, maybe?” He could think of a thousand song choices that wouldn’t offend anyone…. Yeah. Something they could base a tour on.

  “You know me, I’m a sun baby.” Yeah, Seb’d made a career on being the wild child—hang gliding, snowboarding, motorcycles, airplanes. Anything and everything. Extreme sports events vied for the man to do shows like rodeos begged for Markus.

  “Good.” What else was there? He knew he’d had a list.

  “So, studio in February, first release in April, tour starts in May?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, that works. I’ve got some award shows in May, so we’ll have to schedule it.”