And this is too much pain, too much pain… for nineteen…
Her twentieth birthday passed weeks ago, so whatever she wrote that song about happened sometime in the gap between now and when I last laid eyes on her. Much as I’d like to think it’s merely about our break up… about the aftermath of my arrest and the downward spiral that followed… I know her too well.
There are secrets she’s not sharing. Things she’s not yet telling.
But she will.
Before this tour is over, before she walks back out of my life… she will tell her truth and she will hear mine. No matter how hard she tries to push me away or keep her distance.
I shove my way into the dark apartment, not bothering to flip on the lights. The craving for a few fortifying gulps of whiskey is so strong it nearly cripples me, but I shut down the urge and light a cigarette instead. Walking out onto the terrace, I stare down seven stories at the strip below. Music drifts through the open window of the apartment next to mine — Aiden tuning his bass, from the sound of it. I hear a familiar laugh and wonder if Lincoln is in there with him.
I’d knock on their door, but given how pissed they were at me the last time I saw them, there’s an equal chance of getting a cold beer or a cold shoulder. They’ve never forgiven Felicity for bailing on the tour, or me for refusing to head out on the road without her, despite the label’s urging six months ago when I finally got out of rehab. A clean bill of health and a green light to get back on stage, if I wanted to.
But I didn’t — not without her.
The guys couldn’t understand that. Couldn’t fathom why I’d throw all our dreams away, just because she walked out on hers.
Fuck her, man. She’s gone. Let her go.
Linc got a punch to the face for that comment. And I got on a plane, flew to Hawaii, and haven’t seen either of them since. Which should make tomorrow’s rehearsal pretty damn interesting.
I’m not mad at Linc. Not anymore. But there was a long time — mostly during that blurry stretch after Felicity first left, before I’d crashed into rock bottom hard enough to shake some sense back into me — that I held him responsible for everything that went down at The Viper Room that fateful night we both got arrested. For being the catalyst in a chain of events that forced her to leave in the first place.
It was easier to blame him than to admit the truth.
But once the shit was out of my bloodstream, a surfboard in my hands instead of a pill bottle and a sea breeze in my head instead of a drugged haze… I knew the only person I could be pissed at was myself. Even if Linc pulled the trigger, I loaded the gun with my own shitty decisions.
And Felicity is the one who took the bullet.
What was it she said, earlier?
We have nothing to talk about. We have a job to do. Then we’ll go our separate ways.
I take a deep drag of my cigarette and blow twin tendrils of smoke through my nose in a snort.
The past can stay right where it is,she insisted, her delicate chin jerking in defiance.In the past.
If I were a better man, I’d let her go. If I were a stronger man, I’d let her keep hating me. Let her keep thinking I’m the asshole she believes me to be — the guy who broke every promise he ever made, who loved his addiction more than the woman at his side.
But I’m not.
I can’t.
She may think changing her hair color is the same as rewriting our history… She may believe she can make it through this tour pretending we’re nothing more than strangers… She may even be content acting like two years without talking is enough to erase the fact that I’ve held her soul in my hands while she traced her name across my heart in irreversible ink.
She’s never been more fucking wrong.
We’re not staying in the past. We are the present, the future, and every goddamned moment in between, whether she realizes it yet or not.
I’ve got four months before she disappears on me again. Four months to prove to her we weren’t a mistake. To show her I can be the man she used to believe I was.
Felicity Wilde is mine.
And she owns me in return.
All sales final, sweetheart.
My smirk is full of dark determination as I smile into the night.