Poison Rose (Sequel to "Good Love")

Seven

Later that afternoon, when Aerin headed upstairs with the twins for a nap, Duff couldn't bite back his Curiosity to save his Life any more than his wife and daughters could. While he might not know her nearly as well as her family, he'd like to think he knew Aerin well enough to realize she'd shown more Emotion while talking about her apparently-deceased grandfather and her mother than she normally did. He wanted to know why that was, and why she refused to say more than she had instead of letting someone else do it for her.

        "Did she say we could tell?" Zak asked, he and Zoe having long since arrived by this point.

        "She said that Ash could later, or no liquor bottle in the house was gonna be safe from her," the Silver Fox answered. He was looking a bit tired, but too curious not to sit in on this particular chat.

        "'Cuz she'd have started drinking like it was the anniversary of his Death, which was two months ago," Ash said, remembering the first Time he'd gotten to witness that particular carnage. "She might be a happy-go-lucky kinda drunk, but when she gets rip-roaring drunk–well, let's just say she tendsta wind up worshipping the Porcelain God for six hours straight the next Day."

        "Jeez, she's that much of a lightweight?" the blonde bassist asked with a wince.

        "Only when she goes beyond her limit," he answered. "If she sticksta her limit of three shots or less, she might wake up nauseous at worst."

        "Otherwise, it's pretty much like the Beginning of her pregnancy," Bobby mused.

        The others cocked their brows curiously, not quite getting what he meant since he and the youngest bassist'd been the onesta see the majority of that particular misery. Chuckling, he recounted how he'd turned up for a visit–and to show her the listing for this very house–only for them to find her clinging to the toilet bowl, her head on the seat like it was a pillow. Gross though it'd been, it'd spoken volumes about how sick she really was–not much grossed her out, but even Aerin usually wasn't daffy enough to use a toilet seat as a pillow.

        "So, what about her pappaw's Death'd make her wanna drink till she was sick like that for most of a Day?" Duff asked curiously.

        "Like me, her grampa was more like her daddy growing up," the youngest bassist answered. "Our grampas died different Deaths, but they still hit us pretty hard, all the same."

        "But my wife's not one to show Emotion unless she finally hits the kinda breaking point it'd take to deck Bret or Axl in the face, on- or offstage," Bobby continued. "She tendsta bottle a lotta shit up, almost like Water and Earth Witches're known for doing."

        "Unlike most people, though, she can keep herself on a pretty tight leash with alcohol," Ash Revealed. "She cuts herself off without me or Bobby having to tell her she's had enough when she getsta drinking. That being said, she uses her birthday, the anniversary of her grampa's Death, and the Day between those–which woulda been his birthday, according to her–as her purge Days."

        "She lets out whatever she's bottled up all Year, whether it pertainsta his Death or not, but she usually hasta get rip-roaring drunk to let down those walls enough to do it," the oldest bassist explained.

        "Okay, now that I can get to a certain extent, 'cuz she's not the first I've heard of needing a boost like that," Duff mused. "What I don't get is why she'd have started drinking like that today, if it's not the anniversary of his Death."

        "'Cuz apparently, the last Christmas that he was alive, she got totally excluded from the family celebration." The half-Irish, half-Cherokee man veritably growled at the Thought, his girlfriend rubbing his back to Calm him as much as she could.