Addicted (The Addicted Series, #1)(106)

I was lucky that I didn't get robbed or killed. Miami International is not exactly in the best neighborhood of Miami, and I walked through even worst neighborhoods on my way to the beach. A white boy who looked like me walking through some of those neighborhoods after midnight was asking for it, but maybe it was something in my face or the way I was moving, nobody messed with me. Maybe it was just dumb luck, I wasn't really paying attention nor did I care.

I ended up on the beach about an hour before sunrise, just as the first of the few swimmers who wanted to use the Miami beaches were staking out their spots. The Florida coast is terrible for swimming, with waves that lap the beach like a puppy dog rather than crash, so it wasn't like much was going to happen there. I was staggering by that point, exhausted, and fell asleep or passed out in the shade of an overturned row boat on the beach, I couldn't be sure which.

That had been a day prior. Now, with three days growth of beard, a pretty wicked sunburn and having not eaten too much, I felt hollowed out. It reminded me of the stories I'd heard when I was a kid, and I'd gone to church with a friend for a few months. The Old Testament was full of prophets who just went off into the desert, usually for forty days and forty nights, coming back with some message from heaven, and a raging case of insanity as well. I could understand how they felt, and I'd only been on the beach for two days.

I was watching the waves and wondering how painful it would be to just walk into the waves and not stop, when I heard someone call my name. "Julian? Julian Castelbon?"

I turned my head, my neck creaking and my eyes blinking. It took me a few seconds to recognize the fit, well dressed man coming towards me across the early evening sand. "Dwayne?"

Dwayne Forrester came jogging up and squatted in front of me, looking intently into my face. "Yeah, it's me. Julian, how long have you been out here?"

I waved my hand airily, it was all the strength I had left. "I dunno. Two days? Three?"

Dwayne's face changed in expression, and he took my hands. "Come with me, man. I'm getting you off this beach and taking you to my place."

Part of me wanted to tell him just to leave me there, it didn't really matter if I died or not. But Dwayne had been an old friend, and I didn't want to disappoint anyone else. Besides, at that point I really didn't care. I tried to stand up, and was shocked to find out that I couldn't stand up at all. Falling back on my ass in the sand, I looked at him stupidly, my butt hurting from the thump and my pride hurting even more. Dwayne took a knee next to me and threw my arm around his shoulder. "Okay. On three. You might be dehydrated and heat exhausted, but you're still a big guy. Ready? One, two, three!"

Somehow, he got me to my feet, and the two of us made our way away from the waves to a parking lot, where Dwayne bundled me into a BMW SUV. I watched him start to go around to the driver's side, but before he opened his door, the world swam for me, and I passed out.

I woke up and it was still dark. I was on a white leather couch, and I'd been stripped out of the filthy clothes I'd been wearing and covered with a light cotton sheet to cover my nudity. My skin was bright red from my shoulders to my fingertips, and my face still felt like it was about five inches from a heater vent. My torso on the other hand, was goose bumped from the air conditioning, and I shivered under the sheet. I tried to speak, but only a dry rasp came out of my throat. Trying to move wasn't much more successful, and I had to just lay there in the darkness like a helpless baby.

Thankfully I didn't have to wait long, as the door to the room opened and Dwayne came in. He looked at me and knelt next to me, holding a cup in his hand. "Slow now. If you'd been out much longer I was going to call 911, regardless of if you'd ended up in the society pages again or not."

He wet my lips with a damp sponge, and I sucked water from it like a baby. It was glorious, the best thing I'd ever drunk in my life, and I nodded gratefully once he took it away. "How long?" I finally asked once the moisture hit my throat and I could form words again. "It's still dark, I can't have been out too long."

"It's dark because you've been out twenty-seven hours," Dwayne said quietly. "Just be glad Erica and Liz aren't around, you'd have woken up in the hospital either way. Now rest, have some more water, and we'll talk in the morning."

He gave me the cup, with a flexible straw sticking out of the top, and raised my head to put a cushion more comfortably underneath it. "Thank you Dwayne. But why?"

"Tomorrow, man. Relax, go back to sleep, and we'll talk then. Don't worry, I'll check on you during the night, you'll have plenty of water and anything else you need."

Considering I'd been unconscious for over a whole day, there should have been no reason I'd go back to sleep. But as soon as I finished the cup of water and closed my eyes, I slipped back to sleep, and although my dreams were of heartbreak and sadness, I still slept until the next morning.





* * *



Julian





"So what the hell were you doing going all Castaway on Miami Beach, man?" Dwayne asked the next day. He'd brought me a very simple breakfast of fruits and watery oatmeal, both because my body needed the fluids still, and because he was worried I'd vomit anything stronger. "Seriously, you looked like a homeless guy there, with your bag on the sand next to you, your eyes blinded almost, and as red as a lobster."