He’s trembling as he shakes his head. “I won’t have you looking at me like I’m a monster.”
Taking a deep breath, I stare down at my lap as the flood begins. The tears are warm and feel bitter against my dry skin. They land on the box in my lap, darkening the blue cardboard, drowning what could have been. “Then I can’t,” I whisper.
I’m by myself in the full-size bed Lucas and me have been sharing when I open my eyes the next morning. I roll over onto my back, staring up at the recessed lighting in the bus ceiling and wonder if the night before was nothing but a dream. No, correction: I pray that it was all a dream. But then my gaze lands on my Gibson guitar, which is standing upright beside of the nightstand. And sitting on top of that stand rests the little blue box Lucas had tried to give to me last night.
He had asked me to marry him.
And I had said no.
I curl up on my side, bringing my knees to my chest. Closing my eyes to hold in the moisture threatening to spill out. I press the heel of my palm against my chest, but it doesn’t help the tight, painful churning going on inside of my ribcage, or the way I can’t seem to breathe just right.
I said no.
I stay like this—with hundreds of thoughts spiraling through my brain—until I feel the bus lurch to a stop, and I know that we’ve finally arrived in Atlanta. There are voices filtering in from the front of the bus—Lucas and Sin and what sounds like Wyatt—and I know that eventually I’ll have to get up and face them all. Today is the day that I fly back home. And after I’m done with the job that I’ve been lucky enough to secure in Nashville, I have no idea what will happen.
Because I had told him no.
Finally, I climb out of bed and force myself to get dressed. My hands and legs are trembling violently as I smooth down the flouncy, vintage-looking halter dress I had bought because, at the time, wearing it had made me feel happy and vibrant. Today, none of those feelings hit me. Now, there’s an empty coldness circling around the pit of my stomach.
Instead of making me come to him, Lucas comes to the back of the bus as I finish packing my belongings. He stands in the doorway, looking beautiful in jeans and one of his signature black tee shirts. He gives me a nod, his dark hair falling into his eyes. I let the magnetism between us draw me to him, and when I push his hair back with the side of my hand, I feel like I’m dying.
His hazel eyes are tortured. Haunted. Tortured and haunted and so full of regret.
“I’m going to make sure she leaves you alone,” he promises in a low voice.
I step backward. Bending my head, I stare down at a chip in my pale pink nail polish. “I just want her to stay away from my family. And from you.” Clenching my teeth, I pull in a rough inhale before looking up at him. “I’m worried about what she’s going to do to you.”
“She hasn’t done anything so far, Red.”
But that’s not true. She’s terrorized his life. She’s demanded his money and his time. She’s made it nearly impossible for him to move on, reminding him of . . . whatever it is that he did. “I love you. You know that, right?”
The bus floor creaks as he slowly walks across it. His hands are gentle as they run down the center of my back. “I know you do. And I know why you said no. But I know you’ll be back.”
I swallow down the tightness building up in my throat. “I can’t exactly do that if you don’t want me around.”
He bends his head to mind and whispers against my temple, “I’m not going to stop wanting you just because of last night. I’m not going to let go of you just because of this.”
I lift my face slightly, my nose skimming across his until our eyes touch. “I just don’t want there to be secrets.”
“And if the secret turned me into a monster?” It’s the same word he used to describe himself last night. Monster. It makes every bone, every muscle, in my body scream in fear. “What the fuck happens then?”
I’m at a loss for words for a moment as I study his expression. “You’re not a monster. You could never be that to me.”
His smile is sad, and it makes my heart ache more than the look in his eyes had. “We better get you to the airport before you miss your flight.”
Like the last time I flew from Atlanta to Nashville, this flight is depressing, and I’m sick to my stomach by the time I step off the plane. The nausea only gets worse as I check my text messages while Gram drives home. There’s one from Tori and two from Ashley. Tori’s message is upbeat, letting me know that she can’t wait for me to come to Los Angeles soon, but when I read what Ashley wrote, my heart freezes mid-beat.
9:52AM: Please tell me the band isn’t really breaking up?
9:54AM: Because if they are, I still love you but that SUCKS!
I’m shaking as I Google Your Toxic Sequel, and it takes me several tries to type coherently enough for the search to yield something worthwhile. Once it does, I scan the newest gossip articles. Sleaze Cop, Buzz Online, and Alternative Entertainment—they all say the same thing: Your Toxic Sequel is calling it quits. And it’s all because of one of the member’s relationship with a certain redhead from Music City.
This can’t be happening.
As soon as Gram and I get home, I quietly turn down her offer of eating lunch in the kitchen and race upstairs to my bedroom. Clutching my phone, I call the first person I can think of to confirm the news. Kylie answers happily, speaking theatrically into her phone, “Hello beautiful! I’m so pissed that I missed you this morning, and—”
“Is the band breaking up?” I blurt out.
Kylie quiet for a few seconds but then she releases a laugh. “Why the hell would you think that?”
“I—” I grip the edge of my computer desk and ease down into the rolling chair behind it. “It was on a gossip website, and one of my friends asked me about it.”
Kylie sighs. “Babe,” she says in a serious voice, “I thought I warned you about this a long time ago. Never, ever read the crap they write online. It’s almost always wrong, and you’ll drive yourself crazy worrying over it. But to answer your question, no, the band is absolutely not breaking up.”
“Thank god,” I say in a rushed breath.
I hear Wyatt whispering something to her in the background, but after she tells him to give her a few minutes, she comes back on the line. “Alright, tell me what’s going on.”
Once I start talking, it’s almost like it’s impossible for me to stop. I walk back and forth across the hardwood floor of my bedroom, telling Kylie everything from the issues with Sam to the YTS fan forums. The only thing that I leave out is Lucas’s proposal. It seems wrong to bring that up when the wounds from last night are still so fresh.
“I’m so sorry, babe,” Kylie murmurs once I’m done talking. “God, why didn’t you say anything?”
A painful cry rips from the back of my throat and I realize that I’m crying. “I—I didn’t want to screw with Lucas’s music.”
Kylie makes a disgusted noise. “Screw Lucas’s music. You—you’re what’s important. Music will never be more important than you.”
Even after Kylie has to go five minutes later, those words are what stick with me.
After I send Ashley several messages to reassure her that YTS is definitely not breaking up, I spend the rest of the day doing laundry and helping my grandmother clean the cabin. Because she’s so observant, I make an extra effort, so she won’t notice how torn I am. But following dinner—which Seth comes over to help eat just to leave in favor of a frat party afterward—she tells me in the politest way possible to go out.
I cast a sideways glance to where she’s sitting in her recliner, her feet propped up as she watches an episode of one of her favorite reality shows—the one with roses and ridiculously gorgeous people “looking for true love.”