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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 f**k 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 relations.h.i.+p 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, “h.e.l.lo beautiful! I’m so p.i.s.sed 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 h.e.l.l 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 c.r.a.p 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 G.o.d,” 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. “G.o.d, 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 rea.s.sure 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.”
“Are you trying to get rid of me, Gram?” I tease.
Turning the corners of her mouth up, she motions her head in a negative motion. “No, I’m saying that I’m an 80 year old woman. You look like you could use a little company.”
Kicking off my pink flip-flops, I lie down on my side and smile over at her. “You’re 79, Gram. And I’m just fine staying right here.”
Keeping to her schedule, Gram goes to bed a couple of hours later. Alone, I watch TV until my brain begins to hurt. As I climb the steps to go upstairs, I reconsider my grandmother’s suggestion to go out. Pulling out my phone, I send Ashley a message asking what’s going on at her parents’ bar tonight. Twenty minutes late she messages to tell me about a Five Finger Death Punch cover band, and a few minutes after that, she sends another text.
10:39PM: I hope the silence means you’re getting dressed? I’m not working tonight, so I’m all yours.
