Free Wicked Innocence by Missy Johnson

the front passenger is to keep the driver alert.”
    “Sorry, I guess I was tired.”
    “Uh-huh,” he nodded. “Late night?” he asked.
    “Not really. I just didn’t sleep well.”
    “Boyfriend keep you up?” he asked casually.
    I narrowed my eyes at him. Was he really interested whether or not I had a boyfriend? My heart raced as I shook my head.
    “Is that really any of your business?” I teased.
    “I’m asking strictly as your manager,” he assured me. “I mean, am I going to be fending off questions from a psycho jealous boyfriend? These are things I deserve to know ahead of time,” he replied earnestly.
    I giggled, loving his sense of humor. “Nope. The only person you need to worry about is my roomie, Nelson.”
    “Nelson?” he repeated, his tone suspicious.
    “Yeah. He’s harmless. Well, I’ve been living with him for nearly three years and he hasn’t killed me yet.”
    “Oh, that’s promising,” he said, his voice sour.
    I laughed. “I’d like to be able to say if you met him, you would see how harmless he is, but the opposite is probably true.”
    “This keeps getting better and better,” he muttered. “So, what you’re telling me is, if you suddenly don’t show up for rehearsals I should call the police?”
    “Ha ha.” I made a face. “I feel bad even talking about him like that. He’s been really easy to live with. I came to LA when I was so young…I shudder to think of some of the people I could’ve ended up rooming with.”
    “Right, you moved when you were eighteen? You got away from home pretty quickly.”
    I nodded. This was the part where I knew to tread carefully. The less I spoke about my past, the less chance I had of fucking up.
    “Why LA?” he asked.
    “Why not? It seemed as good a place as any.” And it was a big enough place for me to get lost in. Now, it didn’t matter so much, but being fourteen and on the run, the last thing I’d needed was to be discovered.
    “Fair enough,” he nodded.
    “I’ve answered your questions. Your turn.”
    He eyed me, his expression uneasy. “I’m dreading what you want to ask me,” he said dryly.
    “Nothing too painful, I promise,” I said with a smile. “Though I am curious…” My voice trailed off as I worked up the nerve to ask what was on my mind.
    “My exit from the public arena?” he guessed.
    I nodded, pressing my lips together. “I know how the media construes things…I was just curious as to what really happened. I was a huge fan, if you didn’t get that from our first meeting.”
    “I gathered,” he said. He raised his eyebrows, making me blush. “It was too much too soon. I was twenty-two with a shitload of cash/women/drugs…. I mean, do you remember what you were like three years ago? Are you the same person you were then?”
    No. Not by a long shot.
    “So what happened? You sort of just fell off the grid completely.”
    He looked down, an embarrassed smile on his lips. “I avoided jail, but I had to do a stint in rehab. Then after that, community service.”
    “Wow,” I murmured. “Harsh.”
    “Not really,” he shrugged. “I fucked up. My sister ended up in the hospital for three weeks with a ruptured spleen and a broken leg. Every day I think of how differently things could’ve ended up.”
    Shit. I’d known his sister had been in the car, but I’d never known she had actually gotten hurt. Wow. I couldn’t even imagine how that must have been for him.
    “Rehab. The community service. I hate to think where I’d be today if none of that had happened.”
    “Have you ever thought about singing again?” I asked softly.
    “I’ve thought about it,” he sighed, and rubbed his neck. “I guess part of me misses the music side of it all. That feeling of being on stage. The rest of me wants nothing to do with the spotlight. At least with the band I get to satisfy something.”
    He pulled into the parking lot behind an old looking motel, cutting our conversation short.
    “Is this