Limitless (Journey Series) by C.A. Williams Page B

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when I hopped in my truck to leave for the day. I grinned when I saw it was
Teddy. I hadn’t heard from him and Mark much since they had left for their
tour, but when I did, they sounded like they were having an awesome time out on
the road.
    “Hey dude, what’s going on?”
    “O’Neil!” he yelled into the phone
over what sounded like instruments being tuned. I couldn’t lie, I missed
holding a guitar in my hands almost every day, and I was definitely jealous of
the guys. If I was still into songwriting, I would have an album by now with
the shit that had been going on in my life lately.  
    “Hey Teddy, haven’t heard from you
in a while. Everything going good out there?”
    “Yup, more than good. Fantastic.
Amazing. Awesome. Indescribable.” Okay, if I had to label how Teddy sounded
right then, he almost sounded…gleeful? Definitely strange. Normally, he was
more of a laid-back type of guy. Not much excited him.
     “But listen, I only have a minute
before rehearsal. I was wondering if you could make it out to Vegas in a couple
of weeks. We have a concert coming up and I figured it would be sweet if you
could come out. What do you think?”
    “I don’t know bud, you know I would
love to, but Leah…Leah’s still not herself. I haven’t even been able to get her
to leave the house. Do you think she would really agree to go cross country?”
    He blew out a breath through the
phone. “Sorry that I haven’t been there bud, you know I would if I could. I’m
sure it’s hard that you had to go through this mostly alone. At least you have
your mom around to help out; she’s such a great lady.” I pulled the phone away
from ear, checking the caller id to make sure I was really talking to Teddy
Sampson. The same Teddy Sampson who had a tally for how many women he had
‘banged’ on his headboard.
    “Maybe you just need to kidnap her
ass. Drug her coffee or something and drag that wife of yours onto a plane. She
just needs a reality check, dude. Whatever you need to do, I want you here.”
And there was the Teddy I was looking for.
    “I’ll see what I can do Ted, I’ll
let you know.” We hung up after a couple more minutes of catching up. I pulled
into the driveway, preparing myself to have a talk with Leah tonight. We
couldn’t keep living this way. Caleb was staying at my mom’s house for the
night, so he wouldn’t have to be around to hear it.
    “Leah,” I called out as soon as I
walked through the front door, but of course I didn’t get a response. The house
was dark and quiet, like usual when Caleb wasn’t around. I pushed open the door
to our bedroom and found her curled up in her usual spot.
    Even depressed as hell, she was
still the most beautiful girl I had ever laid eyes on. Her messy curls peeked
out from the covers that were pulled up to her chin and her dark lashes fanned
against her smooth dark skin.
    Her eyes popped open the second I
slid on the bed next to her. She stared at me for one second, like she wanted
to say something, but quickly looked away. Her wide gray eyes were what had
changed most. Instead of being bright and alive, they were cold and lifeless,
devoid of any emotions.
    “We need to talk.” I rubbed a hand
down her back through the thick comforter and she shivered slightly. At least I
knew I still had some kind of effect on her.
    “Chase, I’m really not in the mood.
Can’t it wait till tomorrow?”
    “No, it can’t, Leah. Because I know
exactly what will happen, when I bring it up tomorrow you’ll just push it off
again and the next day you’ll do the same thing. Do you really like being like
this?” I waved my hands around the dark room that depressed me after a minute
of being in the room. She probably hadn’t left it all day.
    “I know what you went through, what
you’re going through, is hard, but I think you need help. We both need help on
how to deal with this in a healthy way and you know damn well this isn’t
healthy.”
    “Chase, I just