Her hand slides over mine again. “Pick me up later,” she murmurs. “We’ll go together.”
“Emma…” It’s half protest, half plea.
“I’m not asking you to fix everything inoneday,” she says. “I’m just asking you to show up. This is part of the healing process. If you haveanyhope to get better...you need to face this.”
I know she’s right, and that she’s trying to stitch together every broken place she can reach. My voice comes out low. “Okay.” A beat. “Yeah. Okay.”
Her smile is small, sad, and hopeful. “Good.”
And even though my skin crawls with discomfort, something inside me loosens, as if a door I welded shut is creaking open at last. She touches my cheek, and my entire body responds. I turn into her palm without thinking, eyes closing for half a second.
“I’m glad you came,” she whispers.
I open my eyes, throat tight. “I’d come running every time you called.”
Her smile trembles. A single tear slips free, but it isn’t the painful kind.
The restaurant Nolan picked in Portland is really fucking bright. My skin is already itching from the comedown by the time Micah and I step inside. The clink of dishes, conversation, and the scrape of silverware are so loud and annoying.
Micah runs a hand through his hair, jaw tight. He’s crashing, too. I almost had another bump in the car before we came in. Honestly, I should have. Fuck me.
We spot Nolan and Adriana at a corner booth. Nolan looks like he’s been waiting long enough to be pissed about it. Adriana looks like she’s wildly pleased to see me.
Great.
“We’re on time,” I mutter as we approach, even though we’re absolutely not.
Nolan doesn’t bother standing. “You sure? Because I’ve been sitting here long enough to memorize the wine list.”
I grit my teeth but slide into the booth. “Traffic.”
Adriana leans forward, smiling that slow, venomous smile. “I’ve missed you, Jude. My hotel room here is lonely.”
Her hand casually lands on my forearm.
My stomach flips in that way it does when rage gets tangled up with revulsion. I fight the urge to rip it away from her.
Micah kicks my ankle under the table.
A quietdon’t start.
I pull my arm back more casually and reach for the glass of water in front of me. My fingertips tremble just enough to piss me off. The crash is making me hot under my skin, prickly, restless. It feels like my heart is punching my ribs from the inside.
Nolan slides a printed itinerary onto the table. “NYC in two weeks. Friday afternoon flight. Check into the hotel. Saturday morning interview with Rowan Hart. Saturday night, you’ll meet up with Finnick and Kami to perform three songs at a private event. They’ll be happy to see you boys.” He pauses, eyes flicking up to mine. “And the label dinner afterward. Obviously.”
Obviously. Have to show them that we’re making progress since I broke some fucker’s nose last month.
I nod once because if I speak, I might say something that’ll get Micah and me in deeper shit. Adriana folds her hands like she’s some fancy bitch. I know better, though. We’ve shared hotel rooms before where we’d do drugs and fuck for days. I’ve beenaround her enough to know her more intimately than most, and she is definitely trash.
She grins. “You’ll need to look...stable on camera this time.”
I blink slowly and give a slight nod.
Micah jumps in before I can snap. “We’re good. We’ve been good. Lying pretty low, enjoying being by the beach.”
Adriana’s eyes slide to mine, dripping with amusement. “Have you?”
I feel my pulse spike. I press my palms against my thighs under the table, nails biting through denim. I can still taste thebitterness of the coke drip at the back of my throat, and the crash is turning everything into static.