Page 8 of Finding Storm

Groaning, I run my tongue over my teeth.

Feels like something up and died in my mouth.

Blindly, I reach out to my nightstand in the hope I had the forethought to bring a bottle of water.

My hand collides with a lamp.

I don’t have a lamp on my nightstand.

I force open one eye.

Yep, definitely not my nightstand. Or wall.

I’m not in my bedroom.

Where the hell am I?

I force open the other eye and slightly turn my head to survey my surroundings.

Hotel room. Well, suite by the looks of the size of it.

Guess I was feeling generous last night.

Not like you can’t afford it, Slater.

Yeah, and it’s also Jonny’s money.

Was Jonny’s money.

Money that went to my grandpa when Jonny died, and when Grandpa found out about my existence, he had the money put in a trust for me, which I got when I turned twenty-one.

Grandpa and I used to disagree on it all the time. I’d tell him I didn’t want the money. He’d say it was mine by right. I’d say it was his. He was Jonny’s dad after all. Jonny might have been my father by blood, but I never knew him.

Grandpa would always say to me, “Well, I ain’t taking it to the grave with me. So, it’s yours whether you want it or not.”

I stare at the wall, my head pounding.

I don’t even remember checking into the hotel. I’m guessing making it home must have been out of the question for me.

At least I’m not in some strange chick’s house. Always a plus. Because leaving a woman’s house is always awkward as hell.

I’m always up-front that I’m only in it for the night, but not all women listen, and that makes the morning after not worth the night before.

On a few occasions, I have encountered some women who are basically using me as much as I’m using them. Which is awesome. Whether it’s just for sex or so they can tell their friends that they fucked the guitarist from Slater Raze.

Although, that one time, there was a woman—a lot older than me, but fit as fuck—who only had sex with me because she was obsessed with Jonny.

I know; it was creep factor one hundred.

Waking up in a room covered in pictures of Jonny Creed after a night of screwing someone was quite possibly the creepiest thing that has ever happened to me.

And there I’d been, thinking she didn’t want to turn on the bedroom light because she was shy.

No, it was because my biological father was plastered all over her fucking walls.

A feminine sigh from behind me has me turning my head all the way around.

Seems I didn’t come here alone.