“Excuse me?”
“I asked you what the fuck you were thinking playing that song. Where did you get it?”
“Hey, calm down man.” Gareth reappears beside me. He must not have made it far before hearing Dallas’ words. He takes a step forward, nearly coming between me and Dallas. “It’s just a song.”
“Gareth.” I tell him, pulling him back away from Dallas. “We’re fine.”
Dallas keeps his stare pinned on me but shakes his fists at his sides. His jaw ticks. “Stay the fuck out of this, Gareth. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“What is your problem?” I stare at Dallas wide-eyed, my stomach flipping.
There’s clear anger in his eyes, but there’s also pain hiding behind it.
I quickly glance over at Vada. She’s just as confused as I am. When I turn back to Dallas, it’s as if he hasn’t even noticed his sister. He’s only pinning his daggers on me, not even paying any more attention to Gareth.
My heart sinks into the bottom of my stomach and the blood drains from my face. “It’s a poem my mother wrote. I found hundreds of them in her house and thought it would be nice if I turned one into a song. I thought she would like it.”
Tears spring up in my eyes, not only because of Dallas’ anger but because I finally felt truly close to my mother tonight, and Dallas just tossed that moment down the drain.
“I, um, I don’t understand,” I say, stepping closer to him. “I don’t understand why you’re so upset. What did I do?”
“Those aren’t fucking poems, Sloan.” His top lip curls and his cheeks redden, seething with anger. “They’re songs—songs your mother wrote for me and my wife.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“What?” Sloan raises her hand and holds it against her chest in disbelief as she inhales a deep breath.
The better part of the past year has seemingly come crashing down on me in a matter of the past five minutes. I clench my fists at my sides and grind my teeth as I stare at Sloan. It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about Hailey out loud, much less said the word wife.
“You—” Sloan swallows, her lashes already lined with unshed tears. Liquid pools in her eyes. “You have a wife?”
Her dark blue eyes are two large glass orbs, wide and staring at me. She’s gorgeous under the golden lights above her, but I can’t help looking at her in a different light than before. Her expression shifts from one of confusion to hurt. Gareth is still standing beside her, and I resist the urge to punch him in his fucking smug face.
“Where did you find that song?” I ask Sloan, ignoring Gareth and dodging her question.
She shakes her head, confused by my questioning. I can tell she wants to talk about Hailey, but I need to know where she found the song she played. She hesitates before deciding to answer me. “I found it in my mother’s old desk when I cleaned it out before buying my new one. She had a ton of them shoved into her drawer. I thought they were poems. What does it matter?”
“I can’t fucking believe this.” It’s as if a giant hole has been carved out of my chest, leaving me feeling both hollow and heavy at the same time. I glance around the restaurant. People are surrounding us, and some turn their heads in our direction, watching us.
“What is wrong with you, Dallas?” Vada’s voice cuts through the endless chatter of the bar. Her arms are crossed over her chest, and she looks nearly as confused as Sloan is right now.
I stare at both women, wondering how in the hell we’ve gotten to this point. Vada doesn’t know about us, and I don’t know what kind of label I’d put on me and Sloan anyway. After listening to Sloan playing that particular song, it might not matter anymore.
I bite down on the inside of my cheek and look over Sloan’s shoulder at the stage, remembering everything it was supposed to be a year ago.
“I can’t.” I shake my head and shift my gaze back to Sloan. “We can’t do this. We’re done.”
A tear slips down Sloan’s cheek, and the hole in my chest only gets bigger.
I immediately leave the bar through the front door, shoving my way through the crowd. When I push through the large glass door, I breathe in the hot, humid air of summer. A drop of rain lands on my shoulder and I look down the street and up at the sky. There’s a storm rolling in. Large, puffy clouds start to cover the few stars that are shining despite the flood of neon lights of the city. The city swallows me whole, dragging me under to a depth I haven’t seen since I lost Hailey.
“Dallas.” Sloan’s hand stops me when I reach the sidewalk, on my way toward my motorcycle parked on the side of the building. Unlike inside, Sloan is now covered in a myriad of colors. Bright greens, pinks, and reds are cast down on her. Tears stream down her cheeks, the clear liquid capturing those colors. “You can’t just say something like that to me then walk away.”
I breathe out and pinch the bridge of my nose, releasing a hot breath. There’s no point in talking about Hailey because it won’t bring her back. All tonight did was make me realize why I’ve sworn off any kind of relationship that involves anything beyond sex. It doesn’t matter if Sloan and I used rules to put boundaries around our relationship. There are always going to be reminders of the husband I used to be and the life I used to lead.
“It doesn’t really matter,” I tell her, taking another step toward my motorcycle.
Sloan’s hand reaches out again, stopping me. “Of course it fucking matters. You came up to me after I got off stage demanding to know where I got the song from. So, I think I deserve to know.” Her voice quivers and she swipes her tongue across her lips, the same lips I claimed only an hour ago. Her eyebrows knit in confusion as another tear spills from her wounded eyes, and she inhales a sharp breath. “You have a wife?”
“I had a wife.” The word had spilling from my mouth feels like a knife twisting in my gut.
“Had?”
“Hailey was my wife.” I swallow, realizing this is the first time I’ve said her name in I can’t remember how long. “She died a year ago.”
“Um…” Sloan is still standing a considerable distance from me. She takes a step back, wrapping her arm around the middle of her stomach. “You’ve never mentioned Hailey before. No one has.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Quit saying that,” she says, raising her voice. “Because it does fucking matter. I’m sure you had your reasons for not telling me about Hailey, but that doesn’t change the fact that everything I thought I knew about you has been a complete lie. I feel like I don’t know you at all.”
Drops of rain start to pick up, falling all around us. The curls in Sloan’s hair start to sag as more rain falls, straightening the ends to stick to her shoulders. The street starts to empty out, the surrounding crowd seeking shelter inside the never-ending strip of restaurants and bars along the street. Suddenly, we’re standing on the sidewalk by ourselves.
“What do you want to know, Sloan?” I ask her, yelling over the pouring rain. Water drips down my face and soaks into my black shirt. “Hailey and I met our last year of college, and I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, so much so that I asked her to marry me three weeks after we started dating. We were married within a month.” I swallow, trying to remain calm, but any time I talk about Hailey’s death, it feels as if I’m reliving it all over again. “Everything was fine that first year. We bought the house. Colton and I started to get to work on building the bar. But then she went in for a routine checkup and they found a lump. They told her all she needed to do was take a test and she was going to be fine. They fucking lied because it came back positive for breast cancer, and she died nine months later. There. Does it make you feel better to know?”
“Look…” She clenches her fists at her sides. She’s completely soaked. “I’m so sorry for what happened to Hailey and that you lost her.” She looks straight into my eyes, letting me know she means it. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you lied. You lied about knowing my mother.”
It’s hard to tell if Sloan is still crying. Her tears have gotten lost in the rain streaming down her face.
“You said my mother wrote that song for you and Hailey, so you must have known her well enough for her to do that for you. Tell me how well you knew her.”
I swallow, knowing it’s time for me to tell her the truth. “Hailey and I used to travel around Austin, playing in bars and clubs. Sometimes we would go to the park or play at small festivals in the area. We weren’t famous and we didn’t have a record deal or anything like that, but we were well known in the city. Every song we played was written by Ellie. She was our lyricist.”
Her mouth pops open as she listens, stunned by my confession. “Wow.” She scoffs. “She must have meant a lot to you for you to cover up a relationship like that with a lie. There were hundreds of songs, Dallas. If my mother was so important to you, why did you lie?”
My words have wounded her even more, like a dagger to the heart. It’s as if I’m watching Sloan fall apart in front of me. She is a strong woman, but my truths have hurt her where it matters most—a mother she never knew, and me, the man she is seeing. Even if our relationship were strictly physical, there’s no way she wouldn’t still be hurt.
“I never thought I would see you again after that first day,” I admit. “You went on about how you had just moved in and how your mother used to live there, but in the time I knew Ellie, she never mentioned having a daughter.”
“That doesn’t exactly make me feel better, Dallas. Do you know what it felt like to find out my mother made absolutely no effort to get to know me when she was alive? That still doesn’t explain to me why you lied about it.”
I release a hot breath through my nose and press my lips together. I don’t want to give her an answer, because I know it will only make the situation worse. “Because I knew if I told you the truth, you would start asking questions about her.”
“So, you thought it was better to just lie and never say anything at all?” she yells, bringing her hand to her chest. “What about all the times since then? All the times we’ve slept together and spent the night with each other? You used your rules to keep me at a distance because you couldn’t deal with all your lies and secrets. What were you wanting from this?” She waves her hand between us.
My gaze meets hers, and I watch the tears continue to spill down her cheeks. I realize I want more than the physical with Sloan. I’m falling in love with her, but falling in love with Sloan is nearly impossible when you’ve experienced heartbreak like I have.
“Did I not mean anything to you at all?” she continues. “Was your suggestion to go to Minnesota with me a test that I failed?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” I push the words out through gritted teeth. The pressure builds inside my head, and I’m starting to question if I did the right thing by getting involved with Sloan. My chest pounds with a thunderous ache, reminding me of what it feels like when you care for someone, because the truth is, I care for Sloan, no matter how hard I try to avoid it.
“What was it supposed to be then? Because apparently I must be incredibly confused.”
I inhale a deep breath and chew on the inside of my cheek. Everything around me is suddenly falling apart, and I’m too slow to pick up the pieces. My mind reverts back to what I’ve been doing the past year: pushing away anything that might resemble happiness. I clench my jaw right along with my fists and narrow the remaining distance between us.
“You’re upset because I put rules between us,” I tell her, “but don’t act as though you weren’t using yours to keep me away either. If you’ve forgotten, you were the one who created rules of heartbreak for yourself first, and you never intended this to be more than what it is. Admit it.”
“Seriously?” Her eyebrows arch across her forehead and she steps back. “You’re fucking unbelievable, Dallas. My rules were not being used as a coverup for how I feel about you. At least I was honest about Cole and why I didn’t want to be in a relationship when I first moved here. I may have had rules to prevent being blindsided again, but at least I didn’t use mine as an excuse to lie, and at least I was willing to put them aside because I was falling for you.”
“You were falling for me?” I ask, stunned by her confession. It seemed to pour out of her without her even realizing it.
Her blue eyes widen, and she closes her mouth, hardening her expression.
“I don’t think it matters now anyway.” She steals my words from earlier, throwing them back at me. They hit me in the gut, twisting and pulling until it’s painful. She’s hitting me right where it hurts.
“You show off your rules as if they’re something to be proud of,” she spits out, “but all you do is hide behind them to keep your lies and secrets. If you didn’t want to tell me about Hailey, fine. That I understand, but there was no reason to lie to me about my mother.”
“Sloan…” I inhale a deep breath, feeling myself beginning to crack. Sloan’s stare breaks me in the worst way imaginable. “I don’t—”
“No.” She raises her hands, stopping me. The rain continues to pound down on us, soaking us from head to toe. Her eyes size me up, moving from the top of my head down to my black boots. “Actually, I don’t think I need to hear any more of your lies, your excuses, or reasons. Nor do I want to. How would I even know if you were telling the truth? How do I know if you ever felt anything for me at all?” Tears continue to fall down her face. “For all I know, ever since we met, this entire time has been one giant, fat lie.”
I roll my head and run my hand down the side of my face, exhausted and hurt by this conversation. Every part of me is screaming out to wrap Sloan up in my arms, but my brain holds me back, wondering how we can ever move past this. Maybe our hearts are too broken to be mended. “I haven’t lied to you this entire time. Other than not telling you about Hailey and your mother, everything else I told you is the truth.”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore.” She presses her lips together with saddened eyes. I’ve never seen them this fragile before. She’s on the verge of shattering while I’m on the edge of falling. “You’re right.” She quivers, moving a step back. “We are done. We never should have started this in the first place.” She takes another step back toward my restaurant, her eyes never moving from mine. “Consider our rules officially broken, Dallas. You’re off the hook.”
Rule #5
Whatever you do, under any circumstances, DON’T fall in love again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dallas’ motorcycle roars out of the parking lot as I make my way back into his restaurant. The rumbling sound of the engine fades as the seconds pass. I try not to look back, knowing if I do, I might change my mind about letting Dallas go.
When I step back into the bar, it’s just as packed as when Gareth and I were performing, only this time Dallas isn’t working behind the bar, and I’m left standing near the front door, soaked from head to toe. The crowds of people surrounding me are lost in their conversations, oblivious to the storm waging outside. Some are dry and some are soaked, having just come inside. They have drinks in their hands as they tip their heads back, smiling and laughing with one another, having a good time. Country music booms overhead as I stare at them.
“Oh, shit, Sloan—you’re soaking wet. What the hell was that all about?”
Vada’s voice snaps me out of the trance I’ve caught myself in. She’s standing in front of me near the entrance to the bar, holding her hand out to the street. Her long brown curls are pulled back into a high bun sitting on top of her head, displaying her large green eyes. They’re open wide, and her eyebrows are arched across he
r forehead.
“What?” I whisper. My chest is hollow, my beating heart echoing within the empty cage. My lashes are dotted with raindrops. They soak into my skin with every blink.
“Why did you both storm out of here?” She crosses her arms over her chest.
“It’s nothing. I didn’t want him to think I’d chosen that song on purpose. I didn’t know about Hailey.”
Vada frowns and steps closer to me. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her. Dallas hasn’t exactly handled the past year very well after losing her, and—”
“No, I get it. It wasn’t your place to tell me.”
“Right.”
“You didn’t know he knew my mother?” I ask, unsure if I want to know the answer. It’s hard enough knowing Dallas knew her, but I don’t think I can take knowing Vada was in on the secret too. “You didn’t know she was the one who wrote all of their songs?”
“No.” She quickly shakes her head. “I didn’t. I was too busy with school and the newspaper so I never met your mother. Colton was around for them in those days more than I was.”
“Okay.” I nod, a tiny, minuscule part of me relieved to know Vada didn’t lie the same way Dallas did. The relief I feel does nothing to fill the immense emptiness still buried deep inside.
“Um, I was thinking about something.” She twists her mouth as she looks down at her feet with her eyebrows drawn together. After a few seconds, she lifts her eyes back to me. “What did Dallas mean when he said you two are done?”
“What?” I play her question off as if I have no idea what she's talking about, but I know exactly what she means.
“When Dallas came up to you and told you about your mom writing that song for them, he said you two were done. What did he mean by that?”
“Oh.” I bite down on my bottom lip, staring at my best friend. I consider the alternative. I could lie to Vada, keeping up with the way I’ve been since Dallas and I started seeing each other. Or, I could tell her the truth for once.
The Rules of Heartbreak: An Enemies-to-Lovers/Next-Door Neighbor Romance (The Heartbreak Series Book 1) Page 22