by Lisa Cardiff
“Yes.” Even as she said the words, a little part of her wanted to fall back into his arms, but she wouldn’t. If she let him back in now, he’d only hurt her later because she could never compete for his attention once he walked back into a reality that was so far from her realm of comprehension, it might as well have been another galaxy. “I can’t do this. Who you are, what you did, changes everything.” She pushed the tangled strands of hair from her face. “You need to get out of my room, my house. I can’t look at you.”
He flinched as though her words mortally wounded him, and it took every ounce of willpower she could gather from every centimeter of her soul not to apologize and wrap her arms around him. She hated hurting him. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black jeans that perfectly molded the contours of his toned long legs. “No, I’m not leaving until you understand. I won’t let you push me away without trying to work this out.”
Another wave of anger mixed with agony rushed through her and she couldn’t take it. She needed to get away from him. Being around him confused her and twisted her around until she didn’t know who she was anymore. “I don’t want to work this out because when I look at you now, all I see is a liar. I could never trust you. I could never love you.”
Alec reeled back as though she’d shoved him and for a long, fragmented moment she wanted to take back the words, but she couldn’t because he was liar, no matter his intentions. She watched as his beautiful blue eyes clouded with hurt and a frigidity that she hadn’t seen in weeks.
“If you’re not going, I am,” she finally said when he didn’t make any move to leave.
She brushed by him before he could respond to what she said, but he didn’t try to stop her.
“Vi,” Ryder yelled from the living room as she half-stumbled, half-ran by him, tripping over the corner of the rug and catching herself on the back of the sofa.
“I need to go.” She looked over her shoulder, catching Alec out of her peripheral vision, leaning against the wall, his hands folded against his chest, his eyes arctic and stormy and so guarded she wanted to weep.
“Wait, what’s going on?” Ryder said, looking at Alec instead of her and she took advantage of the moment, swiping her keys and phone off the entry table.
“I’m going out.”
“Why?” Ryder said, his eyebrows lifted. “I just got home.”
“I can’t be here, right now…not with him.” She pointed at Alec. “When he’s gone, call me and I’ll come home.”
“Goodbye, Violet,” Alec choked out as she stepped out the front door.
The finality threaded through his simple words caused a cataclysm of tears to fall down her face, blurring her vision, but she refused to look back. She needed time, time away from him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Violet, what are you doing here?” Annette asked, flinging her door open. She’d been driving around town waiting for Annette to get home from work for hours.
“I can’t go home ever.” She walked in the door, not waiting for an invitation. She needed to talk to someone and it couldn’t be Alec or Ryder. While she and Ryder were close, spilling all the details of what happened with Alec over the last three weeks made her stomach turn. They weren’t the kind of things she could confide in her brother. “Or at least until Alec leaves. I never want to see him again.”
Annette walked over to her wine rack and pulled out a bottle of wine and two wine glasses, setting them on the coffee table. “What did he do this time?”
“He’s not who I thought he was,” she answered, dropping down onto the sofa.
Annette laughed. “Most men aren’t.” She opened the wine bottle and filled the two glasses with a dark red liquid.
“I can’t drink again. I tried that a couple weeks ago and I’m not interested in a repeat.” She shivered, remembering her headache.
“No, you have to.” Annette lifted one of the glasses and handed it to her. “Red wine is good for breakups and I’m assuming that’s what this visit is all about.”
“I’m not following your line of thinking, but yes…we’re definitely over.”
“You know the song written by Neil Diamond, but more famously covered by UB40 where he drowns himself in red wine to make him forget about some girl.”
“Right. That song.” She nodded. “Okay, I’ll have a glass or two.”
Annette tapped her glass against Violet’s before taking a sip. “So explain what you mean about Alec not being who you thought he was.”
Violet groaned. “He said he worked at some talent agency in LA, but when Ryder met him this morning, he flew into hero worship mode saying that Alec was the drummer for Chasing Ruin.”
Annette’s eyes narrowed. “I thought he looked familiar.”
“You did?” Violet said, leaning forward in her seat. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“I said I thought he looked familiar, not that I knew who he was.”
Violet chewed on her lower lip. “I feel so stupid and used,” she finally confessed, her voice shaky.
“So you don’t want him anymore?”
She rubbed her temples. “It’s complicated.”
“Did he tell you why he lied?”
She rolled her eyes, trying to be flippant, but she didn’t think she succeeded. “He wanted me to get to know him before he told me or something dumb like that.”
Annette didn’t say anything for a beat as she twirled the stem of her wine glass between her thumb and index finger. “That doesn’t sound completely unreasonable to me.”
“What?” Violet slammed her wine glass down on the coffee table, barely avoiding shattering the glass in her hand. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours. Always yours…even when you’re wrong.”
“Are you saying I’m wrong?”
“No. You should be mad. He lied and now you can’t trust him and you can’t have a relationship without trust. He totally blindsided you and that’s not fair.”
She nodded. Alec fucked up and she couldn’t be with him anymore. The logic and reasoning were clear-cut. Disappointingly, she didn’t think it’d be as easy to sever her feelings for him. “I can’t believe I didn’t Google him or look up any of his social media. Am I an idiot for not knowing or not bothering to look?”
“Why didn’t you look?”
Violet searched her mind for the answer, but she didn’t have one other than that Alec made her live in the moment. “At first, I wanted the help at the Foundation and he wanted to volunteer. He had references faxed to me and I didn’t do a background check because I was overwhelmed by my workload…and him,” she admitted. “He has this gravitational pull and from the minute I met him, he sucked me in.”
“And later?”
“It didn’t seem to matter. I felt like I knew him…like I had all the information I needed.”
Annette quirked one eyebrow. “And now you don’t?”
She sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know. I want to believe that I know everything I need to know, but Annette…he’s the drummer of a famous band and I’m just naïve enough to not even fully understand what that means except that it changes everything.”
“Maybe. You don’t know for sure, though.” Annette took a sip of her wine, watching Violet over the rim of her wineglass.
“It does. Can you imagine what his life is like?”
“No, I don’t have a clue, but that’s what Google is for.” Annette pointed to her computer sitting on her kitchen table.
Her stomach tilted as she envisioned the skanky looking groupies and model-like beauties pawing at him. “I’m not ready for that.”
“Okay, but think about this. Would you have given him a chance if you knew who he really was?”
“I don’t think so,” she whispered.
“Would you erase the last few weeks from your life if you had the chance?”
She didn’t even have to consider it. Even if she hated their ending, she loved their journey. She just hoped that didn’
t make her stupid. “No.” She looked down at her legs as she rubbed her hands over her knees. “I love him.”
“Then maybe you should give him another chance. That is, if he wants it.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “He does, or at least I think he does, but I’m not ready.”
“It doesn’t have to happen today, tomorrow, or even next month, but keep in mind that in his life things probably change faster than in ours.”
Violet thought about Alec moving on in a week, a month, or a year, and her heart momentarily seized in her chest. While she’d never admit it, she was irrationally jealous at the thought of him moving on and finding someone else. She wanted him to be happy, but she hated the thought of him being with someone else and eventually forgetting her altogether until even her name was a fuzzy memory. “There’s so much I need to figure out before I even consider letting him back into my life.”
“Like what?”
“I decided to go to law school.”
“For you or your parents?”
“For me.”
“Then that’s all that matters. I’m happy for you.”
“Do you mind if I stay here tonight?” Violet asked in a small voice. Alec planned to leave Montana tomorrow and she planned to spend the next to two weeks on her parents’ ranch studying for the LSAT and wrapping her mind around whatever had happened with Alec.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Alec, what the hell is going on?”
Alec’s drumstick froze in the air mid-stroke, colliding with Jax’s narrowed eyes and knitted brows. He stood up and slipped his drumsticks into his back pocket. “I need a break.”
“We just started an hour ago and you said the same thing yesterday and when you missed our Saturday band meeting.”
“I know and I’m not feeling it again today.”
Cam shook his head and Marcus’ dull eyes floated between Jax and Alec, but without judgment. Marcus never passed judgment on anyone and Cam knew he didn’t have the moral high ground to say anything. That left Jax, and Jax never fucked up unless stealing Cam’s girlfriend qualified as a fuck up, which it probably was, but that was old news.
“If we want to stay on schedule, we don’t have time for you to decide when you’re ready to feel it. You need to flip the switch and feel it.”
Alec rubbed the back of his neck, trying to dissipate some of the tension clawing at his shoulders. He hadn’t been able to concentrate since Violet walked away from him two weeks ago. Instead of leaving Friday morning like he promised Jax, he stayed until late Friday night, waiting for her to come home, but she never did. By the time he packed up his things, it was well past midnight and making the Saturday band meeting was impossible.
In the past week, he’d tried calling her and texting her at least ten times, but she still hadn’t responded. This morning, he broke down and researched her home number like a stalker. Ryder answered his call, but he didn’t offer any information other than saying Violet wouldn’t be home for another week. Now he understood why Marcus went to such lengths to avoid relationships. They screwed with your life.
“Fine, but let’s switch songs. I can’t stand another fucking love ballad written by you or Cam. When did Chasing Ruin become such a pansy, touchy-feely band?”
Marcus cleared his throat. “I’m with Alec. Let’s skip the love ballads today.”
“We had a couple on our last record and the fans liked them. We’re not dumping them,” Jax said.
“I’m not asking you to, but let’s start with something else. I can’t stomach listening to all this warm, fuzzy I worship you shit.”
“We’ll work on the love ballads last, but we need to be prepared to perform one of them for your charity event next month,” Jax said, picking up his microphone before turning around and eyeing Alec. “Or are you not feeling that, either? Do I need to retract the invitations?”
“I need some coffee.” Alec left the room before Jax or anyone else could question him. He didn’t know what to do about the fundraiser for the Foundation. It didn’t look like Violet would ever call him back and holding a fundraiser without the support of the Foundation seemed desperate. In order to finish planning the fundraiser, he needed Violet’s help, or at least someone who worked at the Foundation, and he knew a couple people worked there on a regular basis now because he tried to call Violet there, too.
Alec poured a cup of coffee and sat down in the break room. Fleetingly, he wished he had some whiskey to add to the coffee to dull his thoughts of Violet and his guilt-ridden conscience. He should have told Violet who he was the minute he filled out the application and if not then, at least before he touched her, but he hadn’t because he liked that she wanted to be with him without all the crap related to his band.
“Do you want some?” Marcus said, holding out a silver flask.
“No,” he answered, despite his craving. Drinking away his problems made him like his mom and he’d do almost anything not to be like her. Just as the thought penetrated his mind, his stomach rolled with disgust. Lying to Violet about his identity was just like his mom. Fucking awesome. Like mother, like son. His mother lied to keep the man she wanted and he lied to get Violet.
Marcus sat down in the chair across from him and took a swig from the flask before slipping it back into the inside pocket of his jacket. That explained why he hadn’t bothered taking it off the entire morning. “So what’s really going on?”
Alec didn’t do the sharing thing and neither did Marcus. That’s why they gravitated to each other. “What’s going on with you?” Alec shot back at him. Marcus hadn’t been acting normal since a month before the tour ended, and judging from the flask inside his jacket, things had gotten worse rather than better.
Marcus laughed, his gray-blue eyes flinty and bouncing with an anger so unlike Marcus, Alec leaned back in his chair. “I have a son, that’s what’s wrong with me.”
Alec’s mouth fell open. “Are congratulations in order?”
“Apparently, your congratulations are eight years overdue, but what the fuck…better late than never, or least that’s what my fucking ex-girlfriend told me three months ago.” His voice was scornful and filled with so much emotion, good, bad, ugly and everything in between.
“What are you going to do?”
“I haven’t figured it out yet and that’s all I want to share today.” Marcus propped his feet on the white table, crossing his legs at this ankles. “It’s your turn. I’m sure your problems don’t have anything on mine.”
“I met this woman in Montana and I fucked it all up. She won’t answer my calls.”
Marcus laughed and his gray eyes brightened for a second before turning hard and cynical again. “I’m not surprised. What’d you do?”
“I lied to her about my identity.”
Marcus whistled. “How’d she find out?”
“Her brother came home from vacation and he recognized me.”
“That sucks.”
“That’s it. That’s all you have to say?”
“Don’t expect me to give you advice. My ex pissed me off and I ran away to join a band. Now I have a son I don’t know.” Marcus shrugged. “You might want to talk to Jax or Cam. They have a better track record.”
“I love her,” Alec blurted out before he could stop himself.
“You love who?” Taylor asked, walking into the room, her blue eyes shocked. He hadn’t seen her since he came home, but she looked happy and softer even though she now had red streaks in the front of her hair. The last time he saw her, it was purple. He liked that she hadn’t changed herself for Cam unlike when she was with her ex-boyfriend.
“What are you doing here?” Alec asked.
“Cam called and said you weren’t acting like yourself,” Taylor’s eyes never left his.
“I’m leaving,” Marcus said.
“Thanks, man,” Alec called after him. “Let me know if you want to talk about the stuff with your ex.”
Marcus halted but didn
’t turn around. “Thanks for the offer, but it sounds like you have enough going on without adding my problems.”
“The more the merrier,” Alec said.
“What was that about?” Taylor asked.
Alec shook his head. “You don’t want to know.”
Taylor smiled and held up her hand. “Oh, come on.”
“You won’t get it out of me. It’s his story.”
“Fine.” Taylor chewed on her lower lip. “So who do you love?”
Alec groaned. He’d hoped Taylor would ignore that. “It’s a long story.”
Taylor sat in the chair next to him. “Well, start talking. You have thirty minutes until Jax comes in to get you.”
“I met someone in Montana. She runs the Foundation.”
Taylor’s eyes lit up and he shifted in his chair. “So that’s what this fundraising thing is about.”
“Yes and no.” He groaned. ”She doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“Change her mind.”
“That would be easier if she’d answer my phone calls or one of my texts.” Alec slid her his phone. “Look, I’ve been trying to contact her for a week.”
Taylor scanned his phone. “Then go see her.”
“I can’t, or at least not until we’re done recording.”
“Then, she’ll have to come see you.”
“Great idea, sis,” he mocked. “But I don’t think that’s happening anytime in the near future.”
“Don’t worry, big brother. I’ll get her here, but you’re in charge of changing her mind.” Taylor stood up. “Ready?”
Alec drank the rest of his coffee before pushing his chair back. “Yep. I don’t want to keep Jax and Cam and those sissy ballads waiting.”
“You love them,” she said, slapping him on the back.
“No. I really don’t,” he answered, his lips twitching, because even in his depressed anti-everything state; he knew they were good…really good.
“Cam wrote one of them for me, so you better like it.”