Down to My Soul (Soul Series Book 2) (7 page)

“PEP?”

The silence puddles over the phone between us like water, waiting for me to dive in. It’s a plunge I can’t un-take. Once I make contact with Rhyson, that chain linking our hearts, the one I’ve spent the last two months figuring out how to break, only tightens.

“Pep, you there?” It’s in his voice. The same ache, the same need, the same desperation that compelled me to answer his text today. To finally surrender to the pull I’ve resisted since I left LA. Since I left him. And just the sound of his voice reminds me of what we had, makes me want to find a way to save it, even though right now I’m not sure how.

“Yeah, I’m here.” I take a few steps away from the stage, putting some distance between this conversation and any possible eavesdroppers.

“So . . . I heard you’ve been sharing State secrets,” he says, forcing some humor into the conversation.

“What?” Panic overtakes me for just a moment. Irrationally, the word “secrets” sets off an alarm system all over my body. I immediately think of the sex tape and my blackmailer. “What secrets? What-what do you mean?”

“Relax.” Rhyson chuckles at the other end. “The radio show yesterday. Telling the whole world I love hummus. What’d you think I meant?”

Relief drains the tension away, and I slump against a wall backstage. Just the thought that someone got to Rhyson with that tape, that he saw me with Drex that way . . . I can’t even speak for a minute.

“Kai, you still there?” Uncharacteristic uncertainty colors Rhyson’s voice on the other end.

“Yeah, um yeah. Just came backstage to talk.”

“I can’t believe you called. I wish I’d known all it took was Tarantino.”

Despite the tension that has me gripping the phone like a lifeline, I have to smile just a bit. He sent one of my favorite lines from
Pulp Fiction
. It
would
be a film with grit and blood and Samuel Jackson that reconnected us.

“What made you finally call?” he asks.

Because I’m a fool. Because I miss you. Because . . .

“Because you asked me to.”

“And that’s it?” Tamped-down frustration creeps into his voice. “So me texting and calling for the last two months didn’t let you know I’d like to hear your voice?”

“I just . . . I guess it was time.”

“Past time, Pep. We need to talk. We’ve
needed
to talk.”

“Yeah. I know.” I notice a stagehand clearing some props away and I take a few more steps back. “Things are crazy right now, though. I’m in the middle of a rehearsal. We’re on break, so I can’t talk long. I picked a bad time to call.”

“You picked the perfect time to call, even if it’s for just a few minutes. I’ll take it.”

“Well, like I said, we’re in rehearsal.” I hesitate before plowing on, completely unsure of the words that will come out. “I know we have a lot to talk through, but things are hectic on the road.”

“I’ll come to you.” He keeps his voice soft, but I know Rhyson too well not to hear the steel determination behind it. He’s not dropping this. Me calling gave him an inch. He’s fully prepared to take a mile.

“Rhys, I’m all the way across the country.”

“Chicago is only halfway across the country.”

I’m not surprised he knows exactly where I am. There’s a trail of mistletoe dotting my tour schedule that says as much. There was mistletoe last night in New York. I’m sure there will be some waiting for me in my dressing room tonight.

“Thanks for the mistletoe, by the way.”

“Hey, it worked for your Pops with Grams.” He releases a laugh that on anyone else would sound nervous. “I figured . . .”

He trails off, and the silence between us remains uncertain. Neither of us knows where to step next. A real conversation between us could be a patch of briars and thorns. I’m certainly not going to be the one taking the next step. I’m not sure I should have taken this one.

“I fucked up,” he finally says. “I know that, Pep.”

A fresh wave of hurt and humiliation washes over me as I remember crying in his arms on his pool table after
Total Package
passed on me. As I remember standing in the wings watching Rhyson perform while John Malcolm told me how my boyfriend had betrayed me. I felt like a fool. As much as missing him compelled me to answer that text, hurt still holds parts of me back.

“Yeah, ya did.” I choke out. “That’s an understatement.”

“I know I said it in my text and on a dozen voice mails, but I’m sorry. Baby, you’ve gotta know how sorry I am.”

“I know, Rhys, I just . . . what you did, it was one of the most hurtful things anyone has
ever
done to me.”

“I thought I was doing what was best. I know now I should have handled it differently, but we’ve gotta get past this. I can’t undo it. It’s behind us, so there’s only forward. We have to figure out forward.”

“There’s a lot to figure out.” I shake my head even though he can’t see me. “It won’t be easy.”

“What are you saying, Pep?” His voice lowers and hardens, and I see how easily this could become a fight.

“I’m just saying the hurt doesn’t simply disappear. The issues behind what you did don’t just go away. Don’t make assumptions, Rhys.”

“What exactly do you think I’m assuming?” He doesn’t check his frustration before it leaks through. “That you’ll still love me even though I screwed up? ‘Cause, yeah. My bad. I did assume that.”

“Love’s not our problem. It takes more than love, Rhyson.”

“Since when?”

“Since always. There’s lots of people who love each other and don’t make it because it’s not enough.”

“Well, I feel sorry for those people. We’re not them.”

“We’re no different.”

“We’re no different? Oh, so their private arguments are put on blast for millions of people on TMZ? These people that we’re just like, they have to disguise themselves just to hang out with their girlfriends, too? They face the same pressures we do?”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“What I know is that I’m fine with not being these people who think love isn’t enough. Whatever it is that gives me the capacity to do what I do, to manage this impossible life I live, it makes me all kinds of not normal. And I’m fine with the fact that I love you in a way that isn’t normal. I love you so hard and so much that it makes me do dumb shit sometimes. I just need you to forgive me when that happens because I don’t know another way.”

He draws a quick, shallow breath.

“Baby, I don’t know another way, and I need you to tell me I can come to you. That we’ll work this out because the prospect of not having you . . .”

The very real possibility that we might not overcome it all thickens between us across the miles like quicksand, and I feel us sinking. Maybe he does, too.

“Shit, Pep.” His voice shakes a little and it unravels my resolve and my anger and anything that would hold me back from him. I want to comfort him even though I’m the one causing his pain. Even though he’s the one who caused mine. “Tell me what I have to do to make this right and I will. Just tell me when you come back, it’ll be to me. I
need
to know that.”

“Rhys, I . . . we . . .” The emotion soaking his voice short circuits my thoughts, and I can’t form words. It doesn’t help to have Dub barreling toward me from the stage, sporting a wide grin. As soon as he gets close enough he dips at my waist and hauls me up and over his shoulder. My legs dangle across his chest and I almost drop the phone.

“Dub, I’m on the phone,” I screech, banging lightly on his back. He always does this, but it’s the absolute worst time for his horseplay, as Aunt Ruthie used to call it.

He gently lowers me to the floor, the shock of platinum hair bright against the rich caramel of his skin.

“Sorry.” He grins and holds up two fingers. “We’re back in two minutes. Get that fine little ass of yours onstage so we can run through that last number.”

“Okay.” My answering smile is stiff and unnatural because I know as soon as he walks away, I’ve got a mess to clean up. “I’ll be right there.”

The silence on the other end of the phone weighs about two tons. So heavy I’m not sure how to move it, how to break it.

“Rhys, I—”

“What the fuck was that?” Anger powers Rhyson’s words across the distance, and I feel it like he’s standing right here, scowling at me.

“Um, well . . .”

“Don’t ‘um well’ me, Pep. What’s happening on the road? I will crush him. You know that, right? If he touches you, I’ll have his Irish ass on a boat back home before he knows what hit him. I didn’t believe the rumors about Dub because I know you wouldn’t do that to me, but if you’ve let that motherfucker touch you—”

“Then what?” I fire back, finding my own anger. “You’ll do what? You did this, Rhys. You’re the one who broke us, and we aren’t together. That’s what I’m telling you. We aren’t mended. We aren’t
fixed
, and we have things to work out.”

“The hell we aren’t together. Even when we’re apart we’re together,” he says. “I’m all for mending and fixing and whatever shit you think it takes to get us back, but in the meantime he
does not touch you
.”

I don’t answer. Not because I want to deliberately torture him the way the thought of him with Petra or some groupie has tortured me for the last two months, but because I don’t know what to say. Our first conversation has blown up in my face, and I’ll be picking shrapnel out of my heart for the next two days. Somehow I thought just hearing his voice would make it better. Would make it right, but it won’t happen that way. And I’m so afraid the next thing I say will only make things more wrong between us that I don’t say anything at all.

“Pep, have you and Dub . . .” Rhyson draws and releases a stuttering breath. “Has he . . . did you let him?”

How could I when all I’ve thought about is Rhyson? Can I forgive him? Who’s blackmailing me? How will I resolve this without Rhyson ever finding out? Will it even matter if we can’t fix what’s broken between us? It’s a never-ending equation of x’s and y’s, and nothing adds up, but I know I don’t want anyone else.

“No.”

Relieved air rushes at me across the line, and I envision Rhyson, eyes closed, hand wandering over his face and through his wild hair.

“I’m coming to Chicago.”

“We’re leaving Chicago tonight after the show.” I nod at Dub who waves me over to the circle of back-up dancers assembled center stage. “I gotta go.”

“You’re in Cincinnati tomorrow and Detroit the next night. Should I go on? I’m coming to wherever you are.”

“Don’t.” The dancers line up for Dub’s run-through. “I really have to go. I have a show tonight, and I need to focus.”

“And what? We just go back to not talking? To not resolving this?”

“Rhys, I think we—”

“I’m coming so we can hash this out.”

“No, you’re not.” I turn my back on the stage, holding my hand over my ear to block out the music that just started. “Can I just have this? Can I just do my job and prove to everyone that I’m more than just Rhyson Gray’s ex-girlfriend from that viral video?”

“You’re not my ex. You’re my always.”

Damn him for saying things like that when I need to hold on to this anger long enough to get me through this tour and to the bottom of why he did what he did. Long enough to make sure he never does it again.

“I’ll be home for a few days next week, but I’m sure you know that.” I don’t wait for him to confirm or deny. “I’ll see you at Grady’s wedding. It worked out perfectly that it fell during my break.”

“You actually think that was a coincidence?” His voice lightens.

“You didn’t make him have his wedding when I’d be home, did you?”

“No, but he did ask me when you had a break.” I can almost see him shrugging those broad shoulders of his. “I told him. He and Em wanted you there, so it was an easy call.”

“It was quick. They weren’t even engaged when I left and already a wedding.”

“I guess when you know you know.” Rhyson pauses. “Will we talk before the wedding?”

“I think it’s best if we don’t.”

Please don’t push. Please don’t push. Please don’t push.

Between Rhyson’s dogged determination and my weakness for him, if he pushes, he’ll be in my bed tomorrow night in Cincinnati. And all the issues we need to settle will bow to the power of the pull that breathes between us.

“Okay.” That one word sounds like it’s wrung from his lips, and I know it’s taking everything in him to let me have my way. “If that’s how you want it. I’ll see you at the wedding.”

“Kai!
Now
, sweetheart,” Dub yells from stage, his slight frown telling me he’s feeling less playful the closer we get to show time.

“Sweetheart?” Rhyson says it like a curse from the other end.

“I gotta go.”

“Remember what I said about that overgrown breakdancer keeping his hands to himself.”

“Rhys, I really have to go.”

“You’re not leaving that wedding without talking to me.”

“I know. Gotta go.”

“Pep, wait.”

I clutch the phone, knowing I should just hang up, but feeling tethered to his voice as long as it’s on the other end.

“I live you.” His voice is a deliberate caress over the three words.