Say It Strong (Say You Love Me Book 2) (22 page)

Maybe he was telling the truth, but things didn’t feel right.

Then, Tucker, sloppy and shirtless, whooshed next to me. “Hey, Abby.”

“Wow, you called me by my name. Maybe I finally have your respect?”

“You’ve always had my respect.” He smiled sheepishly, and in that one instant, I liked him a whole lot better than before. “I just joke around too much. Listen…” Tucker’s green eyes scanned the room then came back to me, trying intently to make me understand. I felt naïve. I felt like an innocent child. “Liam’s kind of…you know…figuring out what he needs right now.”

“What he needs?” I asked for lack of a better response. I was just stunned. Scared now.

“What he wants, Abby…out of life.”

“Out of life.” I stared ahead. Robbie, managers, agents, and roadies all milled about, drinks in hands, some ignoring the multitude of women walking around, some groping them in the seedy dark corners of the room. Was this the life I wanted to be a part of?

“You only just started seeing each other.” Tucker’s voice echoed in my ear. “He needs his space today.” His eyes tried impressing his warning on me, that I should go away, that I didn’t belong here. It didn’t matter that I’d dressed to impress Liam, and fine, maybe all of them. The hard fact was, I didn’t, and never would, fit in with them.

“Needs some space. I understand.” There was nothing else to say, and everyone in the room seemed to know what we were talking about, here in the corner, Tucker prattling at me like a boxing coach to his protégée, getting me ready to go. At the far end of the room, a closed door called to me.

Suddenly, Nathan was back, charging toward us with a tentative smile, hand outstretched as if to placate a frightened deer. “Miss Chan, can you come with me? There’s some nice drinks and snacks in the other room waiting for you and Miss Bourré.”

I knew it. I knew he shouldn’t have let me in here. It was a mistake. I could tell from the moment I walked in, as though silent “Danger! Danger!” sirens were blaring in the minds of all of Liam’s friends. “I don’t want any fucking snacks,” I heard myself say.

“Oh, shit,” Corbin muttered, putting down the drink he’d been bringing me.

“He’s in that room, isn’t he?” I stared at the closed door. I didn’t need to hear the answer. I already knew. And the worst feeling of all? I knew that I had no right to him. I had none. Zero. So I had slept with him twice, three times this week, that was it. So we had talked about having feelings for each other. So we had intimate conversations and times involving balconies and bathtubs. Big deal.

I was still nobody to him, apparently.

It was why I’d spent the day alone. While he did whatever he wanted, because he could—he was the star of the show, my boss, his own man. He didn’t have to answer to anyone, least of all a girlfriend. Of course not.

So it wasn’t because of any feelings of possession on my part that I cleaved the room in two, charging for the closed door, dressed to kill and ready to expose. It was because I’d been stupid. I was furious, yes, but with myself. I’d been so incredibly naïve, so clueless and gullible to believe that Liam might actually keep his promise to tell me
first
if he had no plans to be true to me. And to think we could have had anything worthwhile together after only a week.

So. Incredibly. Stupid.

I only wanted him to know that I knew. And yet, a part of me hoped I’d be wrong. That I’d find him inside that room sleeping, feeling sick, playing charades, anything. I would much rather take the embarrassment of making a fool out of myself than proving myself right. Liam said I knew it all—it was one of the reasons he liked me.

“Let’s see if I’m right,” I muttered.

“Abby…Abby…” Someone called after me. I felt strong hands wrapping around my upper arms. “You don’t want to do that.” It was Wes, the only person here who truly cared about me, warning me, trying to protect me. Of all these rock stars, Wes was the only one who actually rocked. “Abby, it’s not worth it.”

I reached the door as Tucker and Corbin tried to fend me off, but Wes put out a hand to placate them. “Guys, it’s not our problem. Leave her be.” He turned a worried expression on me and backed away.

“Whatever, bro,” Tucker said, throwing his hands up.

“It’s not like he invited her here,” I heard Corbin say as my hand turned the doorknob. “That was your doing, dickhead.”

“Me?” Tucker and Corbin argued over whose fault this was, but I couldn’t pay attention. I turned the knob, hearing the collective silent gasps around the room. Maybe she was just visiting. Maybe they would just be talking, sorting things out. Still I had to know. I had the right to be there. We’d made love repeatedly. It
did
mean something.

I let the door fly.

Nightmares do come true, but I had to say, this wasn’t my worst nightmare. My worst nightmare would’ve been my husband doing this to me one day. Luckily, Liam wasn’t my husband. Just a mistake that would haunt me for a while. Giselle Vici, lingerie model and Liam’s last summer fling, was doing what she did best—straddling Liam, holding his head in her hands, pushing her naked breasts against him, kissing him while his hands sat loosely on her waist.

Kissing
my
Liam.

I wiped my eyes and told myself to shut up. He was never, not now, not ever mine.

This is your own fault, Abby. You didn’t listen to your own warnings.

I hated him at that moment. Hated myself more for not listening, for letting my heart and body dictate my life.

“Nice,” I said. One word, that was it.

He didn’t seem to be too into it—I’d give him that much—but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter, because this was over. I would never let anyone into my heart or bed ever again.

He looked up, the worst case of “oh, shit” disgracing his face. His jaw dropped open, and he moved his mouth to speak. The hands came off Giselle’s waist.

“Don’t…” I held back the stream of curse words dying to be released.

Liam stood, pushing Giselle aside, her long legs teetering from his force. She pouted her lip-gloss-less lips.

“Nothing’s happened, Abby.” The lip gloss was all over his mouth and cheeks.

“Yes, I see how absolutely nothing is happening.” I turned and fled the room to
oh’s
and
ugh’s
from Liam’s brotherhood. I never belonged here in the first place. I would call my mom and tell her I was coming home. I would find another way to make a buck that didn’t involve heartbreak and humiliation.

I ran through the room, blind rage building inside of me. If just one more of those assholes got in my way and tried to stop me, I would use the few martial arts moves I knew and give them reason to perpetuate the Asian Persuasion stereotype.

“Abby, come back, please,” Liam called. “Let’s talk about this.”

“Fuck you!” I screamed, turning the corner where all the equipment was lined up, ready to pack and load onto the buses. I grabbed the first guitar I saw, a red bass propped up next to a row of amplifiers, and lifted it high into the air.

“No! Not that one!” someone cried from somewhere behind me—Corbin—but I couldn’t stop, couldn’t control the fury in my heart. They were rock stars. They had money. They could buy a new one.
Fuck them.

Wielding the bass high in the air, I slammed it down with such force, the guitar cracked down the middle, but it wasn’t enough. I picked it up again and slammed it into the wall, splitting it in half, pieces of wood splintering through the strings.

“Fuck!” Corbin shouted. “That’s my best Gibson. Liam, you asswipe, bro!”

“Nice one, Abster!” Tucker cried, lifting his hand to high-five Corbin only to meet with empty silence. “Yeah, baby!”

“Shut up, fucktard,” Corbin muttered.

“Sorry, bro.”

Throwing the guitar on the ground, I fought the urge to care, to apologize, righted my purse on my shoulder, and strolled back down the hallway in the direction from which I’d come. What I should have done from the beginning.

Liam

I tried not to think about it, but of course I did. So when I did, I tried focusing not on how devastated Abby had looked when she’d seen me with Giselle, but on how fierce she’d looked when she’d smashed Corbin’s guitar.

Abby’s grand exit had been kickass. I had to give her mad props for going all Pete Townsend. Acted like a true rock star…
fuck yeah, bitches!

But I could never stay focused on that moment more than a few seconds before I pictured the hurt on her face again. And felt the pain of my own actions like a dozen Ginsu knives penetrating my chest.

What I didn’t do was talk about what happened. If I talked about it, if I demanded that Tucker and the guys tell me why they’d felt the need to trap me in a room with Giselle like that, I would wail on them, then someone would end up hurt. How great would it have been for publicity and ticket sales to not have one or more of the band onstage because I’d beaten them to a bloody pulp?

No bueno. No bueno at all.

Plus, it was my own damned fault I was caught in a lip-lock with the very person Abby feared most. God, I was a fucking moron.

Immediately after it had happened, I took Robbie’s advice and cooled the fuck down. Only talked to Tucker and Corbin when needed, did my thing onstage, and chilled the rest of the time. In fact, I took the time to work on a song that had started brewing in my head. The lyrics haunted me daily and nightly:
a vision flowing in red, she’ll demand respect, bring you to your knees, boy, she’ll make you bleed…

Where it was going, I had no idea.

Same as my life.

The hardest part about the last several days was missing Abby onstage in Denver and Salt Lake City. Her auditory absence was like a sinkhole in my heart. Robbie hired some cello dude as a standin, but he didn’t play with the same finesse and soul as Abby did. He butchered the solo—literally chopping it to death with his bow, which he wielded like a fucking samurai sword.

I wouldn’t sit here and say,
Poor me, Giselle jumped on top of me and forced me to make out with her—what was I supposed to do?
That was a bullshit excuse, and I knew it. Abby would never put up with that. The honest-to-God truth was I’d needed to see what I felt. It was an experiment. Giselle’s body was the Garden of Eden and the snake and heaven and hell all rolled into one, but I could have resisted her. I didn’t, though. In part, because of Abby’s text to Rosemary—I admitted that had thrown my confidence off a bit—but mostly because I needed to see. After years of sleeping with demons, could an angel save my life?

Hell, yeah, an angel could save my life. But I’d just fucked her over in one of the shittiest ways possible.

Someone knocked on my hotel room suite door. I went to open it and found Tucker standing there, holding out a vanilla cupcake. “I come in peace.”

“Shove it up your ass.” I left the door open and walked back to the sofa. Lounging around was becoming my favorite hobby next to Googling Abby Chan and reading her Juilliard bio over and over again. That is, when I wasn’t staring at the pictures and video I’d taken of her. The selfie we’d taken together in Seattle before we’d left my grandparents’ house—fuck, I felt like I was dying every time I looked at it. Dying, with my only chance of being saved a woman who’d probably spit on me before she’d raise a finger to help me. And rightly so.

“I did, which is why it tastes so damn good.” Tucker spoke with his mouth full, clearly having taken a bite of his peace offering. “I’m sorry I threw you into the lion’s cage,” he said.

“You knew I was with Abby,” I grumbled.

“You didn’t exactly resist her,” he countered, talking about Giselle.

“Did you call her? Or did she come on her own?”

“Helen told her to come.” Tucker sat on the edge of the sofa to peer down at me like a sick man in a hospital bed. I guess that wasn’t too far from the truth. “Giselle was planning on staying away, but Helen told her that you missed her and really wanted to see her.”

I sat up halfway. “Wha…? Why would she do that?” Lying back down, I covered my face with a cushion. “I’m sick and tired of women and their stupid head games.”

“And yet you want a new one to complicate matters further.” He inspected his cuticles, happy to give me a dose of his reality.

“Abby would never play games like that,” I said. It was true. She was way too mature, and suddenly, I missed her more than ever. She made me
want
to be a better man. She made me
want
to get off of the crazy train. She didn’t tame the wild man in me. She made me
want
to tame myself.

For her.

“You’re right. She’d only destroy Point Break property. Are you going to sue her for that?” He laughed under his breath, headed toward the window, and pulled apart the curtains.

“Don’t be an idiot. I deserved it. She had every right to do what she did. I’ll buy Corbin a new bass.”

“A Gibson ES-Les Paul semi-hollow, gold top. Actually.” Tucker whirled around, banging out a rhythm on the wall, the coffee table, then the couch as he made his way back to where I was.