Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance (52 page)

For almost a week, she had been on needles and pins. Sleeping was impossible. They hadn’t spoken or texted in a month, so wondering how he was going to handle them—their relationship or lack of one—had plagued her. Wondering how
she
was going to handle it had been another source of insomnia. When two days had gone by and her phone remained silent, she’d considered maybe he had gone straight to a vacation destination, but when checking with Logan, she’d discovered Gage was indeed home.

The buzz in her hand drew her attention. A voice message. Now she did wash her hands. Anything to prolong the inevitable. After drying each finger, she retrieved the phone and punched in her voicemail code.

“Call me. ASAP.”

At one time, she’d thought ‘I love you’ were three scary words. But these three, clipped in the super sexy smoky voice she loved were a new contender.

As her finger hovered over the call return icon, a rap on the door almost made her drop the phone. Fear buzzed every cell, and she eyed the keypad, her consideration now on nine-one-one rather than redial.

Silly
. She tried to calm herself. There were plenty of white Honda’s. The one she’d seen on her street earlier today hadn’t been the same as the one outside Gage’s house. No way.

Still. This house was a fortress protected by an outside security gate, as well as a secured courtyard, and a locked exterior door. She had buzzed no one through any of these layers.

Another hum, and her phone blinked with a text from Gage. Bringing it up as she padded cautiously to the front room, she read:

A press of her eye to the peephole revealed Gage’s presence in the hallway. Well, that confirmed her suspicions about the security of this dwelling being the doings of a Remington. Wrenching the deadbolt clockwise, she drew in a deep breath and then swung open the door.

Being face to face with Gage unleashed a torrent of conflicting emotions. Love. Regret. Anger. Many more. The feelings battled for supremacy. She had no control of any, least of all the winner of that war.

Flinging herself flat against his length, she buried her face in the comfortable spot against his shoulder, just below the crook of his neck, and inhaled his essence. His hand cupped the back of her head, and as he curled his fingers into the tresses of her hair, she banded her arms tightly around his chest until her fingers pressed into his back.

Time fell away. She had no idea how long they stood, swaying slightly, when his husky words again tickled her eardrums—this time bathing her outer ear with a warm breath. “Can I come in?” Although he had apparently authorized himself through both gates and the downstairs entry, he hadn’t so much as nudged her so he could cross the threshold into her home.

Silently acquiescing, she fell back and closed the door as he eyed her new digs.

“Nice.” He nodded as he made a round of the room. The musician in him wouldn’t let him pass up the Collings 360 she’d treated herself with shortly after her birthday. Kneeling before the stand, he ran his finger down the quilted maple tiger-eye finish, but possibly, because it was the guitar from the fateful video that had spurred their breakup, he didn’t comment. Instead, he straightened, resumed prowling, and paused before the fireplace where he seemed to scrutinize the safety of the flat-screen’s wall mount. “I guess being closer to the college is a plus.”

She didn’t know what to say, as they both knew proximity was not why she’d moved from the canyon. When she discovered her hands shaking, she clasped them behind her back. “Was Rascal crazy to see you?”

He leaned against the mantel and the corner of his mouth quirked up. “Yeah. He’s pretty happy. Doesn’t leave my side.” His dark eyes roamed from her face to her feet. “You look good.” And then he threw her when he added, “Happy.” Was he fishing?

I’m not
. She put on her brightest smile. “Thanks.” Her gaze slid down from his face in her own appraisal, but she froze before reaching his waist when a pang pierced her heart. Lifting her eyes back to his, she wrung her hands unseen. “You look good too.” She didn’t say happy. Because that would be as much a lie as the word had been to describe her.

Although in prime physical form, his lean physique now filled out and cut, he bore shadows beneath his bedroom eyes and stress lines at the corners of his sexy lips.

“Where do we go from here?” He moved a few paces in the other direction and then turned back. “You said you needed to think about things. And we never talked about it after that.”

Swallowing the aching clump in her throat, she parted her lips, but speech didn’t come, and he continued.

“You avoided my calls. Didn’t return messages.”

“It wasn’t like that!”

“It was exactly like that. Until that day, in the barn, you replied to every text. Answered every time on the first ring. Afterward, I was lucky if you got back to me every other time. And you know what? You never reached out to me first, ever again.”

“
You
killed us. Not me.” When his face went ashen, she realized what she’d said. There was his answer. They were going nowhere from here.

“I can say it a thousand times, and you’ll still never know how sorry I am. How fucking much I regret being an idiot.” His words were almost a whisper.

Thinking about the senselessness of all that had happened was infuriating. They had withstood with superhero strength the aftermath of a viral sex video, and yet, her stupid selfie video had been their kryptonite.

“I know you’re sorry. But apologies don’t change the truth. It happened. You thought that shit of me. That I would be alone with Colt and God knows what else with him. That’s insulting but understandable given the shitty stuff we’ve both seen and lived through. But you broke it off. Without asking me to explain. Without
wanting
me to tell you the truth. And that right there… I can’t get past that. I can’t get over that.” Her breath hitched dangerously. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be in tears in two seconds. “…that to you I was so easy to throw away…”

“You weren’t! Nothing about that—this—is easy!”

“You know what, Gage? If that had happened the other way around… If I’d seen a video of you and that girl at your rehab, and my mind got all twisted up, I would have asked you—begged you to tell me something other than what I was thinking. And then no matter how outlandish and no matter whether or not it was the truth, I would’ve believed you. That’s how much I loved you. And I thought you loved me back that much.”

Looking as if he might cry too, he moved in, reaching out.

In her haste to back up, she tripped. Nothing new. Emotions and motion were not compatible in her body.

He dropped to his knees beside her, tenderness and regret brimming in the brown of his eyes. When his fingers curled gently around her wrist, she snatched it back. “Go. Just go. Please!”

He was slow to rise, but when he did, he pulled her up with him and inclined his chin in a nod of acceptance. Drifting toward the door, he forked his fingers through his hair. His lips parted, his words barely audible. “That’s why I didn’t ask. Exactly what you said. I knew I would believe anything. And that scared the fuck outta me.” He looked as if he wanted to say more. But without a word, he twisted open the door, and disappeared into the hallway when he pulled it closed behind him.

R
andomly grabbing a guitar, he dropped onto the studio couch. But he didn’t play. The silence of the house pulsated inside his skull.

This was how it was supposed to be. He’d always known. Deep in the back of his brain. That he’d lose her. And even if he didn’t, he should. He wanted better for her than him. She had lived a life of mental adversity too. She deserved to fly through life from this point on with no checked baggage—i.e.
his
baggage.

But it hurt. Fuck, how it hurt
.

Rascal climbed into the couch and propped his head across the hem of his jeans.

Without thinking, he strummed the Taylor, and eventually he hummed along with the chords of each mournful key.

A process of elimination. Mentally, he went through the possibilities. A chemical fix was out. Alcohol? No. Drinking while he was like this would only lead to a drunken binge, which would lead to God knew what else. So what? What would blur the sharp edges of pain?

A-minor, he switched, plucking out an even more somber tune, continuing to modulate the humming hurt from his throat to harmonize.

He shouldn’t have come home. Should have gone straight from Scar’s to… To where? Where did he have to go? He had been a loner so long that he had no one.

Along with chemicals, women had once filled this chasm in his soul, but he had no desire for companionship of the opposite sex—unless it was Scar.

The person besides Scar he was closest with? Colt, who had evolved into a brother from another mother. Except the new lineup of Fire Flight had changed everything between them. Colt was Fire Flight’s new frontman, just as he had threatened. Although he’d tried not to, he felt betrayed. In their few texts and calls, Colt had never mentioned the new guitarist. However, when he had searched this new addition to Fire Flight on the internet, the pictures he found that included Colt showed the two looking pretty chummy.

The night he’d perused these pics, he’d wanted to call Scarlette. But she’d already distanced herself at the time and he’d resisted the impulse. Just like now, as weird as it was, he wanted to lean on Scar for support of their own breakup! How fucked up was that?

Rascal began licking at his jeans. Intently, as if he’d spilled steak drippings on his knee. The action was so weird, his fingers tapered off. Only when the guitar went silent did he hear himself and immediately hushed his keening cries.

Bringing a hand up, he was startled to find his face wet. In a panic, he wiped at his eyes and cheeks.
Crying?
He was fuckin’ crying. And wailing aloud!
Un-fucking acceptable
.

Leaping up, he traded the acoustic for an electric and powered up a laptop. Work was the only thing that would get him through the night. No matter that for the first time since he was a teenager he had no band. He’d block that part out of his head and create.

Once the night was over, he would figure something out to get him through the day.

“S
carlette! Hey, beautiful, how are you today?” The greetings rang out around her, and she slowed her pace to smile, taking in a few familiar faces behind camera snouts. “Who’s with you today? Can you comment on the video?”

The last question snapped her last nerve, but she held her smiling countenance until she was safe behind the tinted windows of her ride. As she powered the engine to life, the passenger door closed and Derrick turned astounded eyes to her.

“Damn. That’s crazy. Is it like that everywhere you go?”

“Just the usual paparazzi hangouts.”
And my hangouts once they figure them out. And my house if they’re bored
. Keeping her inner replies silent, she curved a smile. “And LAX is one of those hangouts.”

“I could have taken a cab.”

“It would have been a fortune. Besides, I couldn’t wait to see you.” When he remained contemplative, she asked, “What?”

“It’s just weird. Seeing you like this. I still can’t believe you never told any of us. Who you are.”

“You know who I am.
That
, making nice for the cameras is who they want me to be.”

“So where are you taking me first?”

“You know those lobster tacos we were addicted to back home?” The moment she said home, it felt weird on her tongue. Her mother still lived in Belize. But it was no longer home. Even now that she and Gage were apart, L.A. felt like home. “Wait until you taste the fish tacos here.”

“I like your priorities,” he mumbled between bites a half hour later. “You’re totally right about these tacos!”

Wadding up the empty paper wrap now that her last taco was digesting, she fisted it as she thought of the last time she and Gage had been to this food truck. There had been no contact with him for almost two months, and it had been the longest two months of her life.