It must be John’s house.
I reached over for Luce. For the smallest spilt second, I forgot about our fight from yesterday and about the way she’d physically ran away from me. I forgot she wasn’t with me; I forgot she wasn’t mine anymore. I forgot everything. Until my hand hit cold sheets, and the subsequent punch to my heart that remembering everything took my breath away. It felt like slowly dying.
Maybe this was karma.
I stared at the artwork, realizing the drawings all over the walls of this room were probably John’s creations. Because they reminded me of the art on Luce’s body, designs John had also created, and all of it was staring at me. Mocking me.
I got out of bed.
I couldn’t stay in this house. With these people. All of whom had ties to Luce.
As I sat up, I noticed that my shoes were already on my feet. My jacket—still on my body. I hadn’t undressed last night. Perfect. I left the room and started moving through this maze of a house only to bump into Dani and her coffee before I made it to the front door.
“You look like hell, Ollie.”
I rubbed at my eyes. There were tears there. But I guess it didn’t matter. It was only Dani seeing me at my worst. She was my cousin, but she gave me crap most days like only a big sister could.
“Luce dropped your car and keys off not long ago. Here.” She handed me my keys.
Shit. If this wasn’t a clear message, then I didn’t know what was. “Perfect. I can get the hell out of here now.” I tried to walk around Dani and her steaming cup of coffee. She moved with me, blocking me.
“I don’t think you should do that. Leave, I mean.”
I tightened my jaw. “Why?”
“I think you should take a moment. And a breath. And just hang out here for a few days. What’s waiting for you in Tennessee? Some stranger’s bed? Trust me on this one, okay?”
“Why? I waited for Luce to come back to me last night. She didn’t. She couldn’t even see me this morning to give me my keys herself. Why would I stick around?”
Dani touched my arm, pity on her face. I didn’t need her pity. “Just trust me. Please, trust me.”
I swatted her hand off my skin. I started walking, and I was about to keep walking when Dani blurted out, “Michelle called. The Coast Guard in the Bahamas found your boat. It was abandoned at some random dock or something. Looks a little trashed on the inside, most of your furniture and stuff on board was missing, but apparently, it’s running fine. I told Michelle to hire someone who can sail it here. So she’s making that happen. Should take about two or three days to get here. So you can’t leave. You have to wait for that.”
“I don’t give a fuck about my boat.” Or frankly where April was in this world anymore. She could have kept my boat if she wanted it.
I tried to walk away again when Dani latched onto my arm, spilling her hot coffee all over the floor and my feet. “Dammit, Dani. Just let me go.”
“No,” she whined. “Emma had a double mastectomy last year.”
I paused. “What is that? Like the breast cancer surgery?”
“Yeah. Double.” Dani pointed at her own breasts, both of them. “It’s preventative sometimes, too. So they can remove them, reconstruct them, before someone gets cancer, because sometimes that shit runs in families. So let that marinate for a few minutes. And if anyone asks, you didn’t learn it from me.”
Dani, with half a cup of coffee walked away, leaving me in the hall with all that new information. She’d said it ran in families—was she trying to tell me Luce had it? Did that explain the comment about her medical bills? Had she had this same surgery, too, and didn’t want me to know? I didn’t really care if her breasts were real or not. Doctors were incredible at what they could do. Half the women I’d been with over the years probably didn’t have real breasts. Why did having fake breasts have to be such a big secret? But then it occurred to me—Charlotte.
Maybe Luce hadn’t had this surgery yet.
Maybe she was going to.
Maybe she didn’t think I could handle that. I didn’t know. None of this helped me feel better. It hurt knowing that she couldn’t trust me with this secret of hers. Which apparently wasn’t a secret at all since Dani knew a lot more than me. I needed to go for a drive. So with my keys tight in my hand, I went for the front door. I needed out of this house. Maybe this town, too.
~ CHAPTER 46 ~
LUCE
“Tomorrow’s the day. Are you nervous?”
My sister Bonnie sat across from me on my bed while I worked on packing a bag for the hospital. We’d be staying tonight in a hotel in Charlotte, so we could get to the hospital early, and the second night would be in the hospital while I recovered. I had an unconventional relationship with Bonnie. My mom died before I could remember. Bonnie was fifteen years older than me, so in every way that really mattered, on the day Mom died she became my mother. Emma came not long after. The product of the one and only time I think Bonnie ever let a man close to her.
“Yeah, I’m nervous.”
I didn’t have breast cancer. I mean, not yet. Not like Bonnie had it. When they took her breasts, they also had to take parts of her lymph nodes where the cancer had spread. My surgery would leave less scars. I should be appreciative of that. I shouldn’t be so scared of this. I should be thankful preventative surgery existed. Especially after seeing my sister go through chemo. After this was all over, my chances of ever getting breast cancer would be lowered significantly. Then on the day, when I could work up the courage for it, when I eventually got a hysterectomy too, then my chances would be practically non-existent. So just like Ollie, no kids for me. Only his decision was probably made in haste, for ridiculous reasons.
Shit. Thinking of Ollie did not feel good. I picked up my bag, hopped off the bed, and grabbed a few more things from my drawers, not paying attention to what I took. It’s not like it would matter who saw me in my Christmas pajamas. “Let’s go, I’m ready,” I decided.
I kept moving. Because if I stopped moving, I’d start thinking about Ollie again, and I hadn’t let myself stop and think about him since we parted ways in the middle of the street three days ago.
“Okay,” Bonnie said. “I’ll get Dad. Let’s do this.”
“I’m right behind you. I just need to find one more thing.”
She left my room, and I lingered behind. I went to my mirror, peeling up my shirt, peeking at my bare breasts one last time. They’d never look the same again. Fuckity-fuck. Because all the pain I’d been working hard at avoiding came crashing over me. I couldn’t help but feel Ollie’s hands on me and think of the way he’d flicked his tongue over my nipples when we’d made love. I was shaking, wishing he could be here, in this room right now, running his hands across my skin one last time before I did this. Could we just go back in time to the island? Because I’d give anything to be in our shed, despite the mosquitos and the hunger, and just be close to him. To hear his steady breaths as he slept and feel him reach for me in the night. To be away from reality in our own world.
Wow, I’d really screwed up this time. I had a good thing in front of me and I’d pushed him away. I pulled my shirt back down, taking a breath, and I slung my bag over my shoulder. Ollie wasn’t here now, and that was completely my fault. He was probably in some new girl’s bed right this moment, probably making her come, and doing his best to move on without a second thought of me.
~ CHAPTER 47 ~
OLIVER
“Nope! This exit,” I yelled at Caleb. I was navigating. He was driving—some old-ass Volkswagen Beetle. We’d taken Emma’s car only because I’d traded in my Mercedes. I’d purchased a Jeep in its place, actually, but that wasn’t due in for a couple more weeks. At the moment, I was regretting that decision, wishing I would have bought something off the lot instead of going with the fully loaded, upgraded option. Stupid. But, really, ‘off the lot’ wasn’t my style. I wanted what I wanted with certain things in life. And cars fell into that category.
/> Caleb ground the shifter into second, practically causing an accident as he took the exit ramp.
“Jesus,” I cried, hanging onto my seat.
“Are you sure about all of this, Ollie?” Emma called out from the backseat, perfect annoying timing. “I have a bad feeling about this. Sick to my stomach, actually.”
“That’s because your boyfriend can’t drive.”
I didn’t need her comments. I already felt like I was going to vomit myself. I knew there was a ninety-nine percent chance Luce wouldn’t want to see me today. I knew that, but I was banking on the one percent.
“Turn here,” I instructed to Caleb.
He listened and made this next turn smoothly. Or as smoothly as was possible in this tin-bucket.
“It’s just—Luce really hates surprises.”
Well, I was going to be there either way. “There. That’s it.” A huge building loomed in front of us. Fuck, if I missed being there for Luce before her surgery started I’d never forgive myself. “Just drop me here.”
I hopped from the car just as Caleb came to a stop in the valet parking loop. I ran inside, without a clue as to where I was going.
I followed signs that looked correct, dodging a few people along the way in the clean, open halls.
Emma had given me directions earlier because she knew the building well. I’d made a mental map in my mind, and I surprised myself when I came into a waiting room that looked semi-correct.
An older man who I knew was Luce’s dad and Emma’s grandfather sat in a chair close to the windows. The waiting room had a floor-to-ceiling view of the surrounding North Carolina trees and the parking lot below. He stared absently at the scenery.
“Sir,” I said to the man as I approached. We’d never officially met. But Caleb had been dating Emma a few months now. I’d seen him in a picture or two. Because, let’s be honest, I’d been following Emma’s accounts, hoping for tiny glimpses of Luce. “I’m Ollie Mills.”
“I know who you are.”
“Oh?” I took a breath, caught off guard. Him knowing who I was couldn’t be a good thing.
“Sit down,” he commanded.
My hands were shaking. Sitting wasn’t what I wanted right now. But I sat in a seat in the chairs across from his. I took a breath, prepared for the worst.
“I can tell Luce is more frightened than she’s ever been. And my daughter doesn’t frighten easily. She was the type of kid who would fall off her bike and not shed a single tear.” He cleared his throat. “The type in high school who never once cried over any boy. The type who would go to work each day and never complain. I don’t want you to go in there and upset her more than she already is before her surgery.”
“I’m really not here to upset her.” My heart beat like a single hammer pounding the wall in an empty building, each beat vibrating through me like an echo in empty halls. I was using that feeling as fuel. “If nothing else, I’m here as her friend. I was her friend first, I’ll be her friend last—if that’s all she wants from me, then so be it. But if I can, I want to see her before the surgery. I need her to know I’m here. And if it’s the stupid surgery separating us, I need her to know it doesn’t matter to me.”
He stared at me for a minute. The longest minute of my entire life. I really did feel like I was going to vomit.
“Okay then,” he finally said. “Follow me.”
I didn’t know what I did to convince him. Because my words hardly sounded convincing to me. Maybe it was the desperate look on my face. Because right now it felt like the world was closing in around me, and he had to see that pain on my face.
I followed him to the reception desk. He said a few quick words to the woman working. “I have a visitor for Luce Winchester,” he told the woman.
“It’s almost time.”
“This will only take a minute. The boy wants to see her before it starts.”
I was hardly a boy. But I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t even try to use my Rockstar status to get what I wanted this time in life. I just let Luce’s father do the talking. It worked because the woman led us past a set of double doors, down a sterile-looking hallway, to a room with a number beside it.
Her room.
Holy shit, I couldn’t breathe.
“Let me go in first. Tell her you’re here. See if she even wants to see you.”
Well, fuck. “Yes, sir.”
“I mean it. Stay.”
He disappeared through the door, while I waited alone in the open hallway.
~ CHAPTER 48 ~
LUCE
“Luce, there’s a boy here to see you.”
Dad surprised me by entering my surgery prep room. It was more of a waiting room; the place I’d changed out of my clothes and into the hospital gown, and where they’d started my IV and prepped me for the hours that were coming. Any second now, I’d be moved to the operating room. Dad had already told me goodbye. He shouldn’t be back.
“Is it Noah or Nate who came?” I asked, assuming it couldn’t be anyone else.
My friends from town told me they were coming by later this afternoon after it ended. But not before. Maybe one of them got the time wrong. Noah was always extra early to everything he did. So maybe it was him.
“No. It’s Oliver.”
Oh, Jesus.
My heart jumped at his name. On the drive here yesterday, I’d broken down and told Bonnie and Dad everything I could about Ollie. I’d poured my guts, kind of in a ‘what if I die on the operating table’ kind of a moment and ‘no one will know about what we shared on the island’ kind of a thing. Now, because of that, who knows what Dad had to be thinking. Not good things, I assumed.
“He said something about being your friend no matter what, and that he really wanted to see you before your surgery.” Dad scratched at the white stubble on his face. “I could tell he was serious. But if you want me to tell him to wait until after, or just to go home, I can. He’s waiting outside the door now, though.”
“I’ll tell him to go,” Bonnie pipped in to add. “Dad’s too nice. He should have already told him to go. He shouldn’t have mentioned this to you two seconds before your surgery.” She scolded Dad, wiggling anxiously in her chair next to my hospital bed, just waiting for me to say the words and unleash her.
“No. It’s okay,” I decided.
Now that I knew Ollie was just on the other side of the door, I had to see him. If I weren’t attached to the tubes and IV already, I would have gotten out of bed myself to go open the door. But I was a little stuck. “Can you let him in? And give us a quick moment.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I want to see him.”
“Fine.” Bonnie got up with an eye roll. She didn’t seem pleased about it. But I knew she was just worried and anxious about my surgery that was about to start. Me too. Which was exactly why I suddenly was desperate to see Ollie.
I didn’t care about anything we’d said to each other. Or any of the consequences seeing him might later cause my heart. I just needed to see him.
I froze as the door opened, as he walked around Dad and Bonnie, letting them move out the door as he came in. He was nicely dressed in jeans and a long sleeve black t-shirt. His brown hair looked styled and like he’d had a hair cut in the days since I saw him last. He was just as handsome as ever. Just as completely out of my league as ever. And nothing could have prepared for the way my heart slammed the second his eyes met my eyes.
“Hi,” he said, a little hesitantly.
“Hi, Oliver,” I responded.
He shoved his hands in his pockets, staying close to his side of the room. There was another patient in another bed who was also waiting for surgery. A nurse was checking on her at the moment. Both of them paused and stared at us.
“I wanted to see you before,” he told me. “I needed you to know I was here. You know, as your friend.”
“Okay. That’s nice.” My voice came out a little shaky. Friend? He said the word friend and it felt so shitty. I didn�
�t need another friend. I had plenty of friends.
“You know, I mean... I’m here as your friend if... if that’s what you want me to be,” he repeated, stumbling on the words a bit. This wasn’t the articulate Ollie Mills I’d seen at the Grammy’s last year, the first time I ever saw him, when Emma used to crush on him like she did. In front of me was the raw and real Oliver. He had me trembling inside. “I mean, if you want me to be here as more. That, too. I’m here as whatever you want me to be.” He shifted on his feet, taking his hands from his pockets and locking them behind his head. “I’m yours, Luce. However you want me... all yours.”
Tears swelled in my eyes.
He was too damn adorable, standing in the light from the windows, looking better than a slice of cheesecake on Christmas, nervous as he said the words I’d only ever hoped to hear from Rhett for so many years. The doctors told me not to wear makeup, so I had nothing on my face. But the way he looked at me—I felt more beautiful than ever. He’d looked at me like this so many times before. Like he genuinely cared so much. It was hard not to believe in him. To fall for the man over nothing but that single look. I think I’d been wrong. I don’t think it mattered to him. None of this, my surgery, my breasts—none of it mattered to him. I couldn’t help the tears on my cheeks knowing that, knowing that he was here for no other reason but for me.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t come to upset you.” He saw my tears. “I can go and send your sister back in.”
“No!” I caught my breath. “No. Can you just come a little bit closer?” God, he was still stuck on the other side of the room. The other two women who were listening to our every word were closer to him than I was.
He stepped over. He sat down on the edge of my bed, close to my feet, which were covered in the world’s ugliest socks. The nurse had given them to me, the ‘one-size-fits-all, would-fit-a-man-twice-my-size’ kind of socks. They gave them to me to keep my feet warm during surgery.
Never Leave a Rockstar (Never Trust Book 4) Page 16