“Abby!”
“What?” she asked like she actually didn’t understand.
Wasn’t it obvious? These were his sisters. His sisters. He didn’t need to hear about what another man was doing to them or when or where. It was awful.
“Anyway, that brings us back to you and Cece.”
Did it?
“So...”
“So...get your butt down here or wait until I get home to find out what is going on...if anything is going on.”
“I knew it!” she screeched. “I knew, knew, knew it! Sean was posting all these photos of the four of you yesterday and then boom there was you and Cece in a background shot and I thought that look was a little more than friendly. You guys have love eyes for each other. I guess that means you talked. Did you talk?”
“They have the best food here,” he said, changing the topic.
“Smooth direction change.”
“Crispy fries and corn dogs...” he continued.
“Fine I get it. Why don’t you write a song about it,” she sulked. He could picture her getting all huffy with her hands on her attitude-stance hips.
“Onion rings and deep fried mars bars...”
Abby loved her deep fried chocolate. Abby loved any sweet food.
“That’s just mean,” she said. “Anyway I better go and let you delve into sweets...and I wasn’t talking about chocolate.” Her mischievous laughter rang through his cell phone and he heard the crackle like she was throwing her head back as she did so often. She was referring to Cece.
“Bye Abby.”
“Love you Avery. I will call you tomorrow before the show.”
He really wished she was here instead of a phone call. “Okay talk to you then. Love you too.”
Avery hung the phone up as Sean waved him over. “We are going to get some supper at the beer tent. You want to come?”
“Sure.” He was starving. “I’m going to find Cece and see if she’s hungry.”
A round of excited teasing went between his friends. Not nearly as excited as Avery was to see her again. Ems wanted to change out of her merchandise clothes, so she called them, so they all walked back to the bus together.
Chapter Nineteen
AFTER THE LONG, scorching day, Cece had a quick, cool shower and changed out of her cut-off jean shorts and tank top into dark washed denim skinnies and a red chiffon sleeveless blouse. She quickly dried her hair, rushing. She’d gotten lost in her emails and before she knew it, the clock ticked past eight and the band was finished at the merchandise tent. Avery was finished.
Will he come look for me?
Her natural waves fell loose around her shoulders and she skipped the priming curling iron and squirted a dollop of hair care product in her hand, scrunching it to define the waves. She didn’t bother with half her makeup, it was nighttime, who would see? She walked away from the mirror with only powder, light eye shadow, mascara and a smile so wide her mouth hurt. It was worth it.
Jones and Rob caught her stepping out of the bus and their full muscle wall met her at the doorway, blocking any vision she had past them.
“Alright Cece,” Jones said in a serious tone, sending panic through Cece. She’d had a good day and was planning a good night, why did there have to be an, alright Cece.
Did Drew and Avery get into another scrap? Please not in front of fans! They needed a united front. When she told them to hash it out she meant in privacy, behind four walls where there were no camera’s recording. Did she need to spell that out for them too? A new band did not need negative publicity.
“What happened?” she asked, bracing herself for the worst. Really sometimes her job felt like babysitting...ungrateful little toddlers...until she was alone with Avery, who acted like anything but like a child. He was the most attentive and caring lover and at the same time wild and hot.
She had to focus on the now.
“We’ve been talking,” Jones started, and she instantly caught humor in his tone.
Oh thank goodness, there’s no emergency.
“Yeah,” Rob agreed. “We haven’t been on a road trip with you in over two years.”
Almost three to be exact. She didn’t correct them.
Jones hard set jaw, thin firm eyes and harsh tone would ruse anyone into thinking he was being stern with her, when this was indeed his softer side.
Cece folded her arms and curved her lips upwards as Jones continued. “We’ve watched you adapt into your brother’s shoes doing a fantastic job as CEO.” He paused for her to recognize the compliment with a, thank you, before continuing. “Now you are trying to transition back into an artists manager position. There are a couple things we’ve observed that you’ve forgotten, which is completely understandable considering you’ve been out of practice.”
“Completely understandable,” Rob agreed with a solid nod.
Oh no, was she doing that terrible of a job?
Jones moved his hand from behind him, a regular stance while he was on the clock, and held up a spoon. He even cracked a smirk that widened his narrowed eyes.
Cece couldn’t help but laugh, a full out, loud laugh that made her stomach hurt. It felt good.
Back in the day, when life seemed so much simpler, her first trip with Jones and Rob had been a learning experience for Cece. She hadn’t known much about festivals, but she knew Rob and Jones had been just too serious. Their job was to be alert and by no means should that change, but after the first day and smile from neither of them she’d dug into her mom’s old make-a-smile trick and as simple and silly as it had been, it had worked becoming a tradition whenever they boarded a bus together. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten. She loved that they remembered.
Sometimes living in the country, you needed a pick-me-up to make you smile...even if it was goofy.
Rob elbowed Jones. “See, she didn’t even need to do it and there’s that smile.”
Had she been hiding her smile? Not when Avery was around.
Jones held the spoon out to her. “We feel it’s our duty as employees of Cece Boyd, to bring that smile out and relax those tense shoulders.” He leaned in. “You’re at the AHJ,” he told her like she didn’t know.
Cece leaned closer and hit each of their shoulders with her hands. “You two have the tense shoulders,” she teased.
“This is all muscle to protect you, sweetheart.” Jones held the spoon between their faces. “Balance boss,” he said.
“Technically, I’m not your boss anymore,” she reminded them in a low whisper, snatching the spoon. How the tables had turned.
Cece enlightened the men, who had always treated her like the family she and Riley didn’t have, and balanced the spoon on her tip of her nose. She hated to brag...a little...but she kind of mastered this game after years of playing with her mother. Even after years of not putting the metal against her nose, she balanced the spoon on the first try. Then to show off a little bit, in good humor, she touched her chin with the dangling end and against her throat. The spoon stayed put. Cece gloated by popping it off her nose with a shake of her head and catching it in her hands. She smiled proudly.
“Show off,” Jones teased, turning and walking away.
“Couldn’t have just let it fall this one time,” Rob continued the banter, following Jones.
Cece laughed. “Come on guys,” she called after them. “You asked for it.”
They waved her off with good humour.
Cece looked down at the spoon. She missed this. It was way better than being holed up in an office making every single tough decision that knocked on the door. Cece didn’t know what her brother found so exhilarating about being CEO. She would much rather work with the band and crew than every aspect of a band’s record deal. Luckily, she was on her way to doing exactly that, again.
Slipping the spoon in her back pocket, she walked around the bus, toward the gate, taking the scenic route. Walking straight to the gate, she went right by Rusty’s bus. She was purposely avoiding him. She knew
coming to the AHJ, she chanced running into him, but avoiding him was best for both of them. Mostly for her.
Night had fallen over the camping area, now inching more toward nine. The bands performing on the stages vibrated the airwaves around her. However, out of respect for band members and crew sleeping on the tour buses, the area was quiet and people were scarce. The growing anxiety in her wished she’d asked Jones and Rob to walk her to the gate.
Growing anxiety? I’m over this.
As quickly as the thought came swiftly giving her confidence back, a hand covered her arm, stopping her hasty feet. She pushed away the unnecessary anxiety, and turned eager to see Avery. He came looking for her.
That was quickly extinguished.
Long, lanky fingers tugged her behind a bus and Cece was facing the very man she’d been avoiding: Rusty.
She attempted to yank her arm free, but his clamp didn’t waver and she had to swallow the sickening feeling rising up in her chest.
“Cece, I just want to talk to you.”
Cece hardly distinguished the words. She could only hear Rusty’s voice and feel his fingers gripping her. The darkness and seclusion wrapped around his presence was rapidly switching her anxiety to fear. Her fear.
Standing in the dark shadows behind the bus, it felt like she was dropped in a dry desert and her reaction was uncontrollable. Running into him at the Oakston Corner Grill, with her bother only a scream away and Marlow just behind the bar was comforting in a way that didn’t exist right now. Right here, right now, they were alone. It was just the two of them, just like that night. Only, this time she knew what kind of man hid behind the facade that was Rusty Towns and she needed to protect herself.
With her free hand, Cece pulled the spoon out of her pocket and held the sharp end toward him.
He released her immediately. “Cece...” His voice wasn’t angry, mad or threatening like she remembered from the top of the staircase all those years ago, but instantly felt like it was only yesterday. He shocked her with a low and sad tone that trickled into the memory of who Rusty had been before that night.
Cece mentally shook her head commanding herself not to fall prey to his voice. That hadn’t been the first time his hand made contact with her body, but it had been the last. The man she’d thought he was combined with his sweet voice had let the first slap across her face slide into absolution. Never again would she fall prey to him. Never.
Cece focused her flaring eyes on Rusty. His body wasn’t towering above her in a demeaning stance and his stare wasn’t challenging her to make him angry. She still didn’t allow her guard down.
“Don’t touch me,” she warned.
“That’s fair. I’m sorry. I won’t touch you. I only want to talk.” He put his hands behind his back. “Please.”
Cece didn’t want to talk to him. As far as she was concerned she’d seen enough of Rusty for a lifetime, and that was before the last two run-ins.
“Rusty there’s nothing left for us to talk about. I thought I made this clear already.”
Where was Avery? Why wasn’t he walking past to find her? Because you took the scenic route trying to avoid this very confrontation.
Cece felt herself slipping away from her independence, wanting Avery at her side to protect her. I don’t need Avery to protect me. Need and want were two entirely different things. Right now, she wanted Avery at her side, standing between her and the man who had bruised her confidence, independence, and heart. She wanted him to protect her, whether she could do it herself or not. She’d failed years ago, what made her think now would be any different?
“I saw the way you looked at Jess and the baby in Oakston and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head,” Rusty continued, as though her silence had been permission to talk.
Cece didn’t give a damn about his conscience.
“You deserve an apology from me. You didn’t get one that night. I sure wasn’t offering it, but I’m not the same guy I was that last month with you.” He’d been a monster consumed by drugs and alcohol, sitting on a pedestal he built for himself. “I dropped by Oakston hoping to run into you. Once I saw you,” he paused taking a deep breath. “It was too hard.”
Cece held her hand up to stop him. “Rusty, I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this. I have moved on, past you and that time in my life. I am over it.”
Rusty glanced at her hand. “You’re not over it if you’re holding a dull spoon at me to protect yourself...from me.”
Cece looked down at the dull spoon, just as he pointed out, clenched between her trembling fingers that he couldn’t have missed.
Shit. What was she planning on doing with a dull spoon?
She dropped her hand to her side with her arm ready to lift it back up if he made a move.
“Don’t be creeping around in the dark yanking people into even more darkness,” she spat, hating that it came out with a wave of tremors.
He sighed. “That’s not why you’re pointing at me and we both know it.”
Cece shook her head. What was with people laying truths of the past on this ground surrounded by buses? First Avery and Ems dipped into their past and now Rusty wanted to do the same. Cece was not participating.
“Stop. I’m not the same woman I was then.”
“I can see that.” At least he was able to see it because, with her swirling emotions of destruction, she was feeling like the same woman tip-toeing around the house avoiding him that month. “The woman you were back then wasn’t bad.”
Cece didn’t need Rusty to tell her so. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to say sorry.”
“You’ve said it. We’re done here.” She turned.
“Please Cece.” He stepped in front of her. “I’m a different man.”
“I don’t care.”
“I want you to know.”
Cece worked up her courage and faced him straight to tell him exactly how she felt. “Nothing you can say can convince me that you’ve changed. Nothing you say or do can take that night back. Nothing. You’ve apologized. I heard it. But I will always see you as the monster that choked me that night. The monster that hit me days before. A monster. That’s what you are to me. I don’t care if you’ve grown a conscious and you feel guilty or you’re scared it will happen with Jess. That’s on you. Not me. Do you get it?” She gave him less than a second to take her words in then said, “We are done here.”
Cece turned away, walking back toward the bus, praying he wasn’t following her, praying he didn’t touch her, praying the familiar emotions that had distanced her from people since that night would rush away with her hurried feet and stay behind with Rusty and her past.
Scenarios had once played in Cece’s mind if she’d ever run into Rusty again. But they’d only been scenarios made up in the safety of her office or the security of her apartment. Now, facing him alone, her confidence departed, leaving weakness. She rushed to get away, terrified her trembling legs might not make it. Her fingers gripped the spoon like it was her lifeline.
Everything in her world had been so perfect ten minutes ago. More perfect then it had in years and now...now...she needed to get to the bus, lock the door, and...what? There was no plan, only panic, and it felt an awful lot like the hiding she had been doing the last two years behind her brother’s office door or sitting awake in the darkness on her couch staring at the front door. How many nights had she cried herself to sleep? How many long lonely nights? Why did she think she was able to handle the AHJ with Rusty here? Why did she think she was over this? Why wasn’t she over this?
Cece was angry with herself for running away and planning on cowering away in the bus for the rest of the trip. Her first instinct was to go home instead of fighting her fear. No, I will fight my fear.
Cece saw the bus.
I am done running away. I am done hiding. I am−
A hand grabbed Cece.
Rusty? He followed me!
It came out of nowhere, bringing back all h
er fear and stealing her strength to stand up to him in a rush of terror.
I can’t fight him. I will lose. I lost that night. I lost everything that night.
Her surroundings vanished as she was dragged back to that day...to the days leading up to that day. To everything.
He wasn’t sorry. Rusty would never be sorry. This time she wasn’t going to be the one in the hospital bed.
Chapter Twenty
AVERY TOUCHED CECE’S hand, just like he had a dozen times, and she flew into a fluster, catching him off guard. Her hands jerked away from the lightest touch he’d placed against her balmy skin and flailed in his direction, all at the same time. His hands flew up in defense, protecting his face from her tiny, angry, but surprisingly strong, fists pounding down against him.
“Whoa! Hey!” A strew of objections dashed out of his mouth to halt her actions, while his feet were attempting to stay grounded.
“Cece!” he yelled, between her fists landing on his arm, his chest, his shoulder, anywhere they met. She had terrible aim, but excellent strength. It still wasn’t strong enough to deflect him.
What the hell was she doing? What was the matter with her? Didn’t she hear him?
There was no time to answer his questions, not time to even think them. She was going to end up hurting herself. Avery tried to step away and break their contact, but she followed, swinging her arms wildly. He ducked, she was there. He side-stepped, she was there. She was lost somewhere and it wasn’t with him. Without another option, Avery caught her wrists in his hands and pulled them against their middle.
Avery recalled the night she was drunk and she’d pulled away from him in the games room. He’d seen a flash of what he’d thought was fear, the same look as now, only today it was multiplied.
What was this?
It all happened in a flash, when nothing was working to calm her down, Avery grasped both hands in one, as he’d done at the Oakston Grill, and his free hand cupped her chin, pulling her face close to his. Her eyes weren’t focusing on him. She was too focused on tearing her hands out of his grasp. Her ears weren’t listening to him and if she kept it up they were going to alert every single bus and create a scene. The last thing Cece would want was a scene.
Lakeshore Lyrics: The McAdams Sisters (By The Lake Series Book 5) Page 16