Between Breaths (The Seattle Sound Series Book 2)

by Alexa Padgett

  I was headlining a huge worldwide tour—my biggest dream come true. And I couldn’t enjoy any of it.

  I clicked on a link that led to a new picture. She’d been photographed at the hospice center, visiting Rosie. Her jaw was set and her eyes were flat, lifeless. Briar, my Briar, no longer existed. Sure, her beautiful face still filled the screen—those soft, wide lips, her high cheekbones. The full lashes. But the light in her eyes was dimmed; they were vacant, even.

  I hated the tour that kept me from her nearly as much as I hated being the reason for the stillness in her eyes.

  “Better show tonight, mate.”

  “Glad to have Hayden Crewe back in Jackaroo.”

  My mates clapped me on the back as we exited the stage after our second encore. We walked through the back area. I scowled at Harry, who’d opened one of the rooms to reporters. They nearly fell over themselves to get to me.

  “Hayden, tell us about your relationship with Briar Moore.”

  “Were you and your mother estranged?”

  “Why weren’t you at her cremation?”

  “What do you plan to do with her ashes?”

  “Why did you really break up with Briar?”

  The last question stopped me. “Who asked that question?”

  “Which question?”

  “Is Briar meeting you on tour?”

  “The question about Briar,” I said.

  A hand shot up from the back of the crowd. Crikey, the reporters were four-deep at least. Never seen this many before.

  “One, my relationship with Briar Moore isn’t any of your business. I’d appreciate very much if you’d quit writing about her. You haven’t got it right yet. Two, Briar is the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. That’s it.”

  I turned, ignoring the escalating shouts, and walked into the green room.

  “Not a good idea to answer the wanker,” Flip said.

  “Oh? I was supposed to just let him print his speculative tripe about her?”

  Ets shrugged. “It’d die down faster if you didn’t feed them a trickle. You know that.” He used the bottom of his T-shirt to wipe his forehead. “Let’s go see who Harry stocked in the dressing room.”

  I ran my hands through my hair, scrubbing at the shorter bits in the back. Answering reporters wouldn’t get Briar talking to me again. With the time difference, it was dead of night in Seattle. Bill needed to answer me because I needed to hear Briar’s voice, to tell her the whole truth about my mum.

  What I really wanted was to tell her everything in person, but I didn’t have a spare second during the next month.

  “Just let it go. That Yank was fun, I’m sure, but there are tons of women around who’d be more than happy to get you off,” Ets said, his face serious. “Time will help with the heartache, mate. Trust me.” His dark hair hung in thick, sweaty ropes around his face, his thin black eyebrow ring stark against his pale skin. He was nearly as tall as me, and I knew women considered him a good-looking bloke. Until he opened his mouth. He led me into the room bursting with young, beautiful women. Long hair, perky tits. Gorgeous curves, mostly uncovered.

  A leggy blonde disengaged herself from the other women in her group and walked toward me, her hips rolling. A model, then.

  Ets groaned. “She’s a beaut.”

  She was. “Hi. I’m Mara.” Her hands slid up my arm, pale fingers locking around my neck. I let her tilt my head down, willing my body to do more than remain unresponsive, but my brain screamed I was cheating on Briar.

  “G’day, love,” I said. “Enjoy the show?”

  She nodded, biting her lip as she peeked up at me from under her lashes. “You were amazing.”

  “Glad you had a good time.”

  She kissed my jaw before standing on her tiptoes and pressing her large breasts into my chest. “We can have a better time now.”

  Ets clapped his hand on my shoulder. “Knew you wouldn’t let that Yank keep you down long. Have fun, tiger.”

  The slap was light but it might as well have been a knockout punch to the jaw. Mara rubbed against me with sinuous grace. Ets grinned at me like a loon. I staggered back.

  “What’s wrong?” Mara asked, concern pulling at her brows.

  “Nothing. Just a little woozy.”

  Ets raised his eyebrow, the ring there gleaming dully. “Get on with it, mate. Once you purge the Yank from your system, you’ll be ’right.”

  Briar’s eyes, so filled with tenderness as she held me when I told her my mum was dead, flashed before me. The way she tilted her head back when she laughed, spilling that rich mink cascade over her gleaming shoulders. The way she’d told me she loved me, just before she drifted off to sleep.

  “I don’t want another woman.” I enunciated each word carefully, like I would for someone who didn’t speak much English.

  Mara teetered back, eyes wide and filling with hurt. “Look, you’re beautiful,” I said to her. “But I can’t. I’m involved—”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Ets growled.

  “I’ll catch you later. Enjoy your party.” I nodded to Mara, tipped my head toward Ets. And turned, only to realize there was a camera pointed at me, documenting the entire tableau.

  Bloody hell. There’d be pictures tomorrow. Ones I couldn’t explain away easily. Ets or Harry, one of them, set this up. I was sure of it. I spun on my heel and stalked toward the door.

  In the hall, Ets grabbed me by my T-shirt, his pale eyes sharp under his dark brows. “You are acting like a complete wanker.”

  I brushed his hand off. “Thanks for the opinion I didn’t ask for.”

  “Either screw some other chick or suck up your fake heartbreak, Crewe. We both know you don’t actually care about the sheila.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.” I slammed the flat of my hand into the wall next to his head. Ets’s jaw tensed but his eyes never left mine. “I do care. And she does matter.”

  “Since when do you care about anyone?”

  That one hurt. Right between my ribs, straight in the heart. For years, my success was my sole focus. But I’d changed. Correction. Briar changed something fundamental in me.

  “Since now.”

  Ets scoffed.

  “Just because you’ve turned into a massive dickhead since Mila left—”

  “Don’t mention her name,” Ets snapped. His eyes darkened and his eyebrows tugged low. We glared at each other. “We’ve got another few months to go on this tour,” Ets said. “I don’t know what you’re messing around at—what your mum’s death did to your head—but you can’t go back to playing like shit.”

  “Are we done?” I asked. My cheeks were stiff, my fists balled tight. I stepped back, unwilling to punch Ets, no matter how much he deserved it.

  “Yeah, we are.” He spun on his heel, throwing his arms out to the gaggle of groupies standing in the doorway of the dressing room. I shook my head, disgusted by his shitty attitude toward women in general. I’d never thought about it, but Ets used and discarded women like most people would a tissue.

  “He’s been in a mood since you left. He knows you carry the band, which upsets him.”

  I dipped my head in acknowledgment of Flip’s words.

  I opened my phone and forced myself to look up the websites, finding the picture where Briar looked straight into the camera. Her cheekbones were more pronounced and her eyes were dazed, empty.

  Whether I wanted to admit it or not, my feelings for Briar weren’t going to go away. If anything, they were stronger now than they’d been even three days ago. Hell if I knew what to do with that. How to fix her empty eyes or my empty heart.

  Ets was right about one thing. I’d never cared before. But I cared about Briar. She’d told me she loved me.

  “Staring at the picture isn’t going to change anything,” Flip said, hand on my shoulder.

  He might get it. “I miss her.”

  “Right-o, mate. Got that one. Question is, can you do what you need to do to make everyone happ
y?”

  “Is that what you do?”

  Flip chuckled. “Hell to the no. If that were the case, I’d be at home, rubbing Cynthia’s belly, talking to my bub.”

  “So you’re saying it’s not possible?”

  Flip rubbed his chin, considering.

  “I think you have obligations. Same as I do. Those come first right now. Stardom and families don’t mix great.”

  “You miss Cynthia?”

  “Course, mate. Wish she was here now.”

  “But?” I asked.

  “Life’s a bitch. I get to see her in sixty-one days.”

  “When’s the bub due?”

  Flip raised his eyebrows. “Twenty days.”

  “Gonna miss the birth, then.”

  He shook his head. “Not by my choice. Harry set all the dates before we found out. But I’m not happy with the situ any more than you are. Just making the most of this moment.”

  “And enough money to live off of?” I asked, pocketing my phone.

  “Too right, Hayden. We’ve got that now.” He leveled me a look. “Most people are going to expect us to go right back into the studio to record another album. You’d need to be writing for that to happen.”

  “I haven’t written a song this whole tour. Not feeling it. My mum dropped some shit on me. I didn’t handle that well. I didn’t handle leaving Briar well either.”

  “We all know about that,” Flip said, his voice dry. “So now you have to figure out what’s more important—the past you can’t change, or the woman you clearly care about. What you want looking forward.”

  Chapter 28

  Briar

  The pictures of Hayden with another woman shouldn’t have hurt so much. But they did. His arm was curled around her waist, her lips on his jawline. I sat in Rosie’s room, holding her hand long after she fell asleep. Then, only then, the tears rolled down my raw cheeks. When she woke, she asked the night nurse to bring me water.

  “Me dying isn’t worth these tears, Briar Anne.”

  “You’re worth a lot more than tears, and you know it.” I managed to smile.

  “Oh, I’m going to miss you, lovely girl,” she said, her voice cracking. The oxygen machine hissed as it blasted another breath into her failing lungs.

  “I’ll miss you more, Rosie.”

  “You think your life’s all over. Being young is so stark. He’s a fool, but at least he isn’t also an ass like Kenneth.”

  I finished the water and sighed, closing my tired eyes.

  “Wash up and go home. Get some sleep, Briar.”

  “I’m not sleeping well.”

  “Then go home and lie down on something comfortable. I’ll be here tomorrow.”

  “What if you aren’t?” I asked, my voice breaking.

  “Then it’s finally my time,” she said. “And I’ll say a huge thank-you to the angels for giving me as many years with you as I got.”

  The next morning, and four days into living with constant paparazzi attention, I was too frazzled to even consider walking outside. Even in full makeup, dressed for a job interview or cocktail party, the comments on my body and fashion were brutal. There were so many ways I wasn’t good enough to date an international rock star, though clearly that was no longer happening, thanks to Hayden’s latest photos with the girl after his concert. She was young, blond, gorgeous. Everything I wasn’t, and if I hadn’t already been aware of that, the comments under the photos and each news story pointed out my lack.

  The worst were comments about things I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—change. My boobs were too small, my hips too wide. My eyes weren’t symmetrical, my hair was a boring, plain brown. My jeans were pedestrian and made my butt look flat.

  I’d finally turned off my Wi-Fi connection, the only way to break the cycle of scrolling through the comments and then feeling horrified by the cruelty people dished out.

  Why anyone would want celebrity status was beyond me.

  After the one day I went out to eat with Lia, Asher, and the kids, I’d spent the rest of my time holed up with Rosie at hospice, leaving only long enough to sleep and feed Princess. Yesterday, the doctor confirmed the tumors had spread into Rosie’s lungs. She was down to hours.

  Lia tried to talk me into moving in with her again, but I couldn’t. And not just because of Rosie’s failing health. Lia and Asher were so damn happy—each time they touched or even shared a look in my presence was like salt being rubbed in my bleeding heart. Not that I could tell Lia that. Instead, I used their impending move back to the Seattle area to my advantage.

  “I’ll see just as much of you if you’re here.”

  “Not for the next couple of weeks, Bri, and the story’s hot now. By then, the media will have moved on to something else. You know how it goes.”

  I did. And now that I’d been on the other side, I knew for certain I’d never work in the industry again.

  I’d never felt so adrift. I’d always known where I was going and how to get there, because financial security was so important to me. All those years ago, after my dad died, there’d been days when my stomach was so empty, I was sure my belly would cave in.

  Lia and I never talked about that month—ever—and now that I was older, I was sure that time was scarier and harder for her than it was for me. One night, she’d made me a sandwich and then went to the window to stare out while I ate it. Now I realized why she hadn’t sat with me, looked at me while I ate. It had been the last of the food we’d had in the house, the last we’d get until our mom finally picked us up three days later. I’d never felt hunger the way I’d felt it then.

  Now, money in my bank account meant I never had to worry about where my next meal came from. While I’d saved enough to live on for the next few months—thanks to my hoarding skills and my current rent-free living arrangement—I’d have to figure something out. Soon. I swallowed the stitch of panic that built in my throat.

  “You holding up okay?” Lia asked. Lost in my thoughts, I’d nearly forgotten she was still on the phone. I shifted so I could stare at the ceiling.

  “I don’t know. Visiting Rosie’s keeping me going.”

  Lia remained quiet, which probably meant she had something to tell me but wasn’t sure how I’d react. Princess jumped into my lap and I ran my hand over her sleek flank. She turned twice and settled against my belly, her favorite spot.

  The cat and I had come to an understanding, for which I was grateful. After I’d explained her mommy wasn’t coming back, Princess accepted me . . . in a temporary surrogate role. Last night, she curled onto the bed, her warm body a lifeline during the dark hours when I couldn’t sleep. Wide awake in bed, I relived my short affair with Hayden, wondering how I’d managed to so quickly fall in love with a man who’d told me he wasn’t looking for love.

  “Hayden called Asher today.”

  “Okay.”

  “He wants to talk to you.”

  “Asher?” I asked.

  “C’mon, Bri, don’t do that.”

  I smoothed Princess’s soft fur, letting my fingers burrow in close enough to feel the heat from her skin. She turned those big eyes toward me, as though sensing my falling mood.

  “I don’t want to talk to Hayden.”

  “I see where you’re coming from.”

  I sighed. “But?”

  “No but, Bri. He hurt you. The way he handled the situation was pretty terrible. And then there are the pictures of him with that girl.”

  “But.” Dammit. The tears stung as they hit my nose. “I still love him.”

  “I know.” I pictured Lia pulling on her hair—a nervous habit she’d done for years. “He told Asher he’s sorry he hurt you. That he never meant to. And he didn’t sleep with the girl.”

  “Well”—I sniffled—“he did hurt me. Because he left and because of the blonde. Whether he had sex with her or not.”

  “Before you jump down my throat, I know what I’m asking. I also know that one day you’ll regret not getting the closure.”
>
  I huffed. “I hate when I can’t argue with your logic.”

  “It’s the curse of being the younger sister. I’m always going to be wiser.”

  “I’m not sure four and a half years matter that much,” I said, my tone dry.

  “They matter enough to make me smarter than you. Just think, if I hadn’t listened to Asher when he came here to explain his reasons for staying away during his divorce proceedings, I might still be depressed and wearing the same pajamas.”

  “You do like to wallow.”

  “Everyone deserves a good wallow, Bri. You’ve just never been patient enough with yourself to grieve.”

  Princess’s big, wide eyes remained trained on me. She licked her thin kitty lips. “This hurts. So bad. And . . . and . . . Rosie’s almost gone. I can’t stop and let the rest hit me.” The lump in my chest expanded. “I can’t talk to him. No way.”

  The silence dragged out. I pulled the phone away to make sure we were still connected. She started talking again just as I put the phone to my ear. “You can’t hide from your feelings, Briar. They’ll come out, eventually. And it’s worse if you try to suppress them. I wish I was there with you.”

  “No you don’t. I’m depressed and bitchy.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, Hayden’s desperate.”

  “I think he just wants to apologize. For the continued press maybe.”

  Lia hummed. “He texted Bill. He’s called Asher twice. That’s too much effort for just an apology.”

  I scratched Princess under her chin, wincing when her claws dug into my bruised hip. “The girl then. That was bad form. Even for a rock star.”

  “They aren’t rock stars for their good behavior, Bri.”

  I digested that. “Doesn’t matter. He was wrong.”

  “True.”

  “Then why do you want me to talk to him?”