Softer Than Steel (A Love & Steel Novel) by Jessica Topper

they talked nonstop for two days about their wedding plans.
    He tried to keep his breathing measured and deep.
Focus, man.
His eyes hit the ceiling, reeling in their sockets for a focal point.
    And there’s your wasted life, flashing before your ruddy eyes.
    Thoughts Rick relied upon to bring joy and comfort under normal circumstances—his children, his home, the ocean—cruelly magnified the panic. And now, faced with the time line of his career sloping down from above, he felt a double betrayal.
You quixotic tosser, still tilting at windmills, chasing cheap thrills, the meaningless attention, and at what cost? Your wife, your sons? What are you doing here? What were you thinking?
    Each and every photo mocked him, accused him.
    You never should have boarded that bus. You should be home.
    “Home” was as empty as the porcelain bowl Rick hung his head over, dry heaving, burping, gasping. The twins were newly graduated; coming home wasn’t on their agenda this year. Their older brother, Paul, hadn’t been back for an age, and rarely called.
    The band. It’s what matters now. You run the show. It’s your gig.
    Madison Square Garden.
    The other band they had challenged was unapologetically huge. The masses loved them. But Corroded Corpse had always owned Madison Square Garden on Halloween in their heyday. And it had been the date and place of their first reunion show as the Rotten Graves Project. It was territory worth pissing in.
    If they got the date, and Adrian refused to play it . . .
    You left him behind before.
    You left him in jail. And the band played on briefly before spiraling down in flames. Some bandleader you are.
    Thankfully, the pulse pounding behind his eardrums drowned out the voice in Rick’s head. He felt dizzy.
    Their agent would be calling tomorrow with the outcome.
    Rick wondered if he’d last that long.
    Far below him, he heard the bells begin to toll from Kat’s father’s clocks striking two, over and over, as unsynchronized as his thoughts.
    He needed air.
    Stealth and silent, he descended the steep steps, mindful that Abbey was sleeping in the room at the foot of them. Just the action of moving, doing, seeking out sanctuary, improved his condition. He slunk past the menagerie of ticking clocks.
    Perhaps a good Bo-Peep on the lanai will do the trick,
he thought. After more than twenty years of living on Kauai, Rick’s British tongue had become Hawaiianized. It wasn’t unusual to mix Cockney rhyming slang with something exotically Austronesian. His lingo certainly elevated the status of his hosts’ musty screened-in porch, which contained a few potted plants and a lopsided futon.
    “Hey.”
    To his surprise, Kat had already beaten him there.
    “Bugger, you scared me!” As if his heart needed any more reason to knock like the clock hammers against their chime rods. “What are you doing up?”
    Kat laughed softly, but Rick could see the balled-up tissues in her fist, the reddened eyes. “Stupid insomnia. It always hits me before he leaves again.” She swiped at her eyes. “Like my brain has decided to not miss a minute of his furlough.”
    She shimmied over to make room for him, but he couldn’t sit. Adrenaline was flooding through him, and suddenly even the lanai felt claustrophobic. He began to pace.
    “Maybe we shouldn’t have come . . . for the off-days,” he managed. “Spare you and Abbey . . .” He gulped. “The roller coaster.”
    Kat frowned. “You’re the one who looks like you’ve been through one too many loop-dee-loops. You okay?”
    “I think . . .”
I’m dying it’s a heart attack aneurysm stroke I need to get to the hospital something’s happening I can’t stop it I don’t know how to stop it and it feels like—
    He stopped and pressed his cheek against the old porch screen.
You’ve dealt with this before.
Now breathe.
“I’ll be okay,” he managed.
    “I think you’re having a panic attack.”
    Rick closed his eyes and turned the other