The first leg of our trip is the same route that we took eight years ago when I realized that I loved him. It’s the same route where I went from the girl who coped with her insecurities by physically hurting herself to the woman who’s spent the last several years carving deeper emotional wounds into her body.
Wyatt’s breath on my neck separates me from my thoughts. I face him with a forced smile on my face.
“Ready?” he asks.
I tip my head back before I answer him, glaring up at the overcast sky through my sunglasses. “Yeah, I am.” Taking a small step toward the car, I say, “But fair warning—if you end up asking me to chauffeur you around, I might break that pretty blue Kramer of yours over your head.”
He inclines his head toward the back compartment of the SUV where his Kramer guitar is safely stored. “I’m not Lucas, beautiful.” He grabs my waist firmly between his hands, and lifts me off the ground, placing me into the Suburban.
“I’m capable of lifting my leg high enough to use the step rail.”
“Trust me, I know exactly how high those legs will go.” Before he closes my door, he winks and says, “By the way, Ky, you couldn’t hurt that pretty blue Kramer even if you tried.”
Using the rearview mirror, I catch Cal and Heidi stifling laughter from their respective rows. “Stop encouraging his bull,” I say a little too sharply. But at least they’ve found common ground. It just blows that it’s in the form of the tension crackling between Wyatt and me.
Wyatt slams down into the driver’s seat, pops open the biggest Monster Energy drink I’ve ever seen, and starts the ignition. He glances over at me, wearing a grin that’s far too sexy. “Let’s do this shit.”
“Let’s,” I agree sarcastically.
I’m silent as he pulls out of the hotel parking lot. Because he hates GPS, he has to turn around at a gas station a quarter of a mile up the road.
“Babe, you do know that Garmin isn’t actually watching every move you make, don’t you? It doesn’t have a camera recording every messed-up thing you say. So, trust me, if you use the damn GPS, I swear everything will be alright.”
He rubs his tongue up and down the labret in his lower lip as if deep in thought before gesturing to the folded piece of paper lodged into one of the cup holders. “If you insist, Ky.”
My nose wrinkles up when he gives in so easily, but I say nothing as I unfold the paper, which turns out to be the location of the Houston hotel. I alternate between punching the address into the GPS and glancing at him. “Done.”
“If a close-up of my dick ends up on YouTube, your ass is mine, Kylie.”
“Didn’t you already claim it as yours anyway?” I challenge in a voice quiet enough for only him to hear, and he nods slowly. “Ugh, just drive.”
I sit back in my seat and press my forehead against the cold window, watching New Orleans fade away, as Wyatt speeds the Suburban onto I-10 toward Houston. I don’t know if he planned the road trip like this on purpose, but if he wanted me to remember everything, he’s succeeded.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse at him. His blue eyes are glued on the road, and one of his hands is gripping the steering wheel so tight that I swear I’ll hear the leather split apart at any moment. His expression is suddenly unreadable, and I wish like hell I knew why.
Silently, he reaches past the center console and creeps his hand across my lap, not stopping until his fingertips brush the inside of my left wrist. Gasping, I jerk away as if he’s scorched my skin with fire. I close my eyes, and I can practically feel the way his hand closed around my wrist when we left New Orleans all those years ago. It was before Your Toxic Sequel— at the time, Falling Anarchy—made it big, and I was huddled up against him in the backseat of Sinjin’s Ford Expedition. I can hear the words he whispered to me, just as clear and startling as ever.
“Does Lucas know?”
“God, no.”
He let go of my arm and moves his hand to my thigh, squeezing just a touch too hard. The pressure makes my heart race, but in a good way. This isn’t the first time Wyatt McCrae has touched me, but I know from this moment on, I’ll consider it the beginning. It’s not an accidental brush or an awkward hug from my brother’s best friend. This is something else entirely, and it’s both confusing and intoxicating.
“So why the fuck do you do it?” he demands, catching me off guard.
I stare at him, open-mouthed, for what seems like an eternity. His midnight blue eyes study me with care, and he waits impatiently for me to give him a response. Sliding a strand of my hair behind my ear, I flick my gaze to the front of the vehicle, where my brother is deep in conversation with Sinjin. When I face Wyatt directly, I’m as honest as I can be.
“Because I’m not good enough. Because my parents have Lucas, and I can barely manage to—”
“You’re everything. Don’t believe for one second he’s any better than you or that you don’t deserve just as much love.”
I start to speak, but he cuts me off. “Kylie, the cutting?” His voice is soft and dangerous, possessive and sexy, and I lean closer to him. “Don’t ever fucking do it again.”
I swallow hard. Fall hard. And I never look back.
“I promise. I won’t.”
I kept that promise, only wavering once since then.
Now, I open my eyes and make myself a new vow—to stay away from all these memories and make it back to L.A., without dredging up more of our history.
He rests his palm on my thigh, and I lower my brown eyes to it, relieved that I had the good sense to wear sunglasses. Dragging in a harsh breath of air, I cover his hand with mine.
***
Heidi absolutely refuses to stay with Cal another night, and because I’m virtually broke and without an ID until I return to L.A., I agree to share a room with her when we reach the Onyx Hotel in Houston five hours later. With an atrium lobby and floor-to-ceiling windows, the place is far more luxurious than the hotel we stayed at in New Orleans. The Onyx also comes at an extravagant price, and Heidi has no problem letting us know during check-in.
“Could you have picked anything more expensive?” she asks Wyatt as she slides the front desk clerk her MasterCard. “I mean, I realize you make a gazillion dollars a year, and I think that’s good for you and all, but some of us aren’t famous.”
Rolling his dark eyes, Cal grabs his bag and guitar from the floor. As he walks past us, he says in a voice loud enough for even the clerk to hear, “Guess you’ll be pulling a double shift on the phone-fuck line, huh?”
Heidi takes her card from the clerk’s outstretched hand, ignoring the look of mortification on the poor man’s face, and she gives Cal a tight smile. “You’ve got my number, asshole. Just make sure there’s enough money on your credit card.”
“Please just bone it out of your system already,” Wyatt growls under his breath, taking the words right out of my mouth. He works his way between them and grabs my bag and Heidi’s. When none of us race to follow him, he glances back. “You coming?” His blue eyes linger on me for far too long when he says coming, and I don’t miss the double entendre.
I fall back to walk beside Heidi. “I’ll pay you back when we get home, or I can get Lucas to Western Union you the money.” If I can even get in touch with him.
My brother has been missing in action ever since Wyatt showed up in New Orleans, and I don’t know if it’s because he doesn’t want to talk about Sin or if he’s simply busy with Sienna. Sienna, on the other hand, has no problem answering my messages. She sent me multiple texts while we were on the way here. While I’ve left messages for Lucas about the crap that went down back in New Orleans, I haven’t mentioned it to Sienna because the last thing I want to do is bring her into my drama.
Heidi waves her hand in the air, dismissing my offer to pay her for the hotel. “I refuse to take money from you.”
“You just whined about the cost of the hotel.”
“I whine about a lot of shit. It doesn’t mean it actually bothers me
.”
I should have expected her to say this, but I still make a mental note to pay her back. I won’t be able to sleep worth a damn at night, knowing I owe my closest friend.
Wyatt drops our bags in front of our door, which is thankfully on the first floor this time. He takes the key card from Heidi, pops open the door, and then scoots the luggage inside. Reaching out in her direction, he begins to place the card back into her hands, but then he pauses. He widens his stance and holds it over her head, earning a pissed-off glare from Heidi.
I cock an eyebrow and fall back onto the bed closest to the door. “She’s on heels, McCrae, so please don’t make her jump and break her neck.”
While she’s tapping her foot impatiently, he stares in my direction, drinking in the sight of me on the bed, as he tells her, “Please don’t lose it this time.”
Jerking the key out of his hand, she rolls her light blue eyes. “What time are you and Cal playing tonight?”
It’s the first time I’ve heard her address Cal by his actual name.
Wyatt must also realize it because he grins. “I’ll text Kylie with the time.”
As soon as he leaves, she crawls onto my bed and collapses next to me. “You were so quiet the whole trip.”
“You were asleep most of the time, and besides, I was tired.”
I slept half the time on the way here, and the other half was spent texting back and forth with Sienna. She and Lucas are heading to my parents today as part of a documentary Lucas is taking part in, and she’s worried my mom and dad won’t like her. I told her the truth—if my parents accept and love Lucas and me with all our problems, then they’ll love her, too. Of course, Sienna’s messages also tell me that she and Lucas have obviously gone beyond the boundaries of professionalism.
“I’ll be better after I get some sleep.”
“But are you okay?” Heidi asks.
I hate the way she says okay.
My face is numb as I shake my head. “I’m a wishy-washy mess.” I close my eyes and take a calming breath. When I glance at her again, Heidi’s lips are curled down into a frown. She places her head on my shoulder, and we both stare up at the ceiling. “So, no, I guess I’m not okay.”
“You will be.”
I know that I will eventually, and it’s for this reason that I bob my head slowly. “Thank you for coming with me.” I smile tentatively. “Even if the reason for my vacation showed up, and things went to shit.”
She grabs her chest theatrically and blinks back mock tears. “Thank you for still loving me after my douche bag one-night stand broke into our room and stole most of our crap.”
My shoulders relax, and a couple seconds later, I’m laughing, and so is she.
“At least, I still have my iPod. I can play good music while I starve.” As if on cue, my belly rolls. I skipped breakfast this morning, and I didn’t pick up anything at the convenience stores along the way.
“And apparently you are starving.” Heidi rolls onto her flat stomach and grabs a tall brochure off the nightstand. “Room service, it is.” She knows me like the back of her hand because she orders me a cheesesteak and fries, my favorite. When she’s done, she leaves my bed in favor of her own. As we wait for room service, she checks her voice mail to see if anyone from New Orleans has called about Shiner Bock.
They haven’t, and after she hangs up I clear my throat, getting her attention. “Can I ask you a question?”
“You can ask me anything.”
I bite my lip, hesitating, but when she nods her head to encourage me, I start, “You and Cal…have you ever—” My words are cut short when her face flushes bright red. My conflict with Wyatt is temporarily forgotten as I scramble into a sitting position. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”
She lets her head loll off the bed. “Rock Fest, two years ago.”
“And?”
“Your Toxic Sequel’s show in Seattle last March.”
“And last night?”
Snorting, she gives me a look. “Um, no. I was staying with him because the guy I slept with the night before broke into our room. Hooking up with Cal so soon after that would have been awkward not to mention an open invitation for all kinds of drama.”
Good point. Still, with their outrageous bickering, I should have already known what was going on between them, and I mentally kick myself in the kneecap for failing to notice. “And you’re just now telling me?”
She shrugs. “You never asked.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
* * *
It’s eight thirty in the evening on the dot, and I’m dragging a striped, nautical print T-shirt over my head when my iPhone starts ringing from its spot on the dresser. “Shit,” I snap as I shimmy the close-fitting top down my torso and over my belly button. Stepping over a small pile of Heidi’s shoes, I snatch up the phone just before my ringtone, Chevelle’s “I Get It,” moves to my favorite part of the song, the line about living in an imaginary life.
I flip the phone right side up and mutter a soft curse when I see that it’s my brother calling. After sliding my finger across the screen to accept the call, I tuck the phone between my ear and shoulder. “About damn time.”
“I’ve been fucking busy, Ky. Sorry I haven’t called you back.” His voice is so strained that I immediately feel for him. “Besides, you said you wanted to be left alone while you were gone.”
Before I left Nashville to go to New Orleans, I told him that I would quit if he so much as bothered me while I was away. I made a few more threats, but of course, he merely brushed them off.
“Since when do you give a crap whether or not I want to be left alone?”
“Since I decided I don’t want to be bothered either.”
Well played, big brother.
“Right…Sienna.” I lean close to the mirror to determine if I want to spring for makeup tonight. One look at the dark smudges under my brown eyes is all the convincing I need. “How’s that going?”
“She’s good.”
Leave it to Lucas to tiptoe around my question. He knows that I have a soft spot for her. There are few people I want to see at the receiving end of his bullshit, but Sienna’s one of the people that I would actually step in front of to protect from my brother. I told Lucas as much when he first realized that he had a potential second chance with her.
“She’s got everything taken care of here,” he assures me.
I bet she does. “Don’t fuck things up with her,” I warn.
He sucks in a breath. “Jesus, Kylie, stop that shit.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I know. Stay out of your personal life. I get it.”
When I hear a shuffling noise across the room, I look up to see Heidi in a giant robe, padding out of the bathroom. As she wraps a towel around her wet hair, her eyes find mine in the dresser mirror. She shifts one of her eyebrows curiously.
I turn my head around to face her. “It’s my brother.”
“Finally.” She grabs her underwear and a bundle of clothes from her bed before returning to the restroom.
Focusing my attention back on Lucas, I ask, “How was the thing with Mom and Dad today?” While I wait for him to respond, I put my phone on speaker and leave it on the dresser, so I can finish getting ready. It’s eight thirty-five now, and Wyatt and Cal’s set with the band is supposed to start in twenty-five minutes. If I’m going to make it on time, I’ll have to rush.
“It was alright, I guess. I mean, it’s a fucking documentary about music. I don’t really know why they wanted to talk to Mom and Dad, but I guess they were happy to see me.”
Of course, our parents were happy to see him. Neither of us returns home to Atlanta enough, so my mother and father roll out the red carpet each time we decide to make an appearance. Compared to Wyatt, who rarely mentions his childhood or his parents, Lucas and I are fortunate. I didn’t realize that for years because I had spent so long feeling like I was the kid my parents never wanted. I’d forced myself to believe that until I made myself ph
ysically sick.
But I’m lucky.
And I haven’t smothered myself with that type of poison for a long time.
I clear my throat a few times, hoping it will relieve the tightness in the back of my mouth. “I’m so glad it went okay.”
“Remind me why you wanted to let a film crew follow me around again,” Lucas complains.
I can easily imagine the look on his face right now, with his jaw clenched and lips pressed thin.
“Because it’ll be good for your career.” This isn’t the first time I’ve told him that Rock on the Road, the documentary he’s being featured in, would do nothing but help him, especially since Your Toxic Sequel is going on tour at the end of this coming summer.
“My career is fine.”
I hear the squeak of his guitar followed by his sharp exhale. I tighten my grip on the pair of red skinny jeans that I plucked from my bag, bracing myself for whatever it is he’s about to say.
“Mom wants to know what’s going on with you.”
“What? I’m fine.” I sit on the edge of my bed and slide my pants up my legs. They’re so tight that I have no other choice but to lie back to button them. “I’m really, really good in fact.”
Lucas is always the first to pick up on my bullshit. It’s an unnerving ability that he shares with Wyatt. They’re both able to peel away my layers, go past the convincing smile, and figure me out. “What the fuck ever. She says you’ve been rescheduling trips back home since before Christmas.”
Pushing myself up into a sitting position, I freeze, staring at the phone in horror at the thought of Lucas—who has a shitload of his own problems—and our mom having a lengthy conversation about me. “Did you tell her what I said? About coming to Atlanta for Easter?”
He snorts. “Yes, I told them both exactly what you asked me to.”
“Well, then drop it. I keep my promises.”
Maybe Lucas can hear the irritation in my voice, or he’s just ready to get our conversation moving, so he can end the call. Either way, he changes the subject, transitioning easily to my vacation in New Orleans. “How was your flight back to L.A.?”
Rock Star Romance Ultimate: Volume 1 Page 142