The Singles (49 page)

“You shouldn’t do that.”

“Believe me, beautiful, I know. It’s been hell not climbing back there with you after the shit you started this morning.” He drops my hand and begins to help me out of the Suburban.

“How long are we stopping—” I start, but I’m unable to finish as I step around him. Instead of a convenience store, I’m facing the front door of a crappy motel room. I clench my fists, digging my nails into my palms so deep that pain shoots up my wrists, as I take a hesitant step forward. When I speak, my voice is strained. “Where are Heidi and Cal?”

Wyatt comes up beside me, and I feel the lines of his body press against my side. I stiffen and turn my face away from him a little. “Where are they?” I repeat.

“At the convenience store across the street. We need to talk.” Despite my cold shoulder, he grabs my hand and leads me to the front of the Suburban. He leans against the grill, but I stand with my back straight, glaring at the door to the motel room as if it’ll fly open at any second and slap me across my face.

In a way, it already has. 

“Why would we stop here?” I demand. “Why would you want to talk
here
?”

“You remember this place?”

How the hell could I forget?
This is the same motel where we first made love. It’s the place where he found me after my four-month marriage to Brad came to an end. While I was asleep, our trip had taken a detour, and now, we’re in Livingston.

“Do you remember?” he asks again.

I nod slowly, and each tiny movement of my head makes me feel like I’m going under. “I stayed in that room down there the first time.” I point my finger to the left toward the room at the end of the row of identical doors. “And in this one the last time.” I incline my head to the door in front of us, room number 32. It’s sad that I still remember both rooms. “You play so fucking dirty.”

“I told you I was going to remind you why you fell, Kylie.”

My breath hitches. “By bringing me back here? Do you think it was worth adding extra time to your trip?”

“I have so much to say to you. It seemed like this would be the best place to do it.”

“We’ve already said enough here.”

He’s quiet, and I know he’s thinking about the room at the end of the row. He’s thinking about how I told him everything about myself, how I showed him each tiny scar, five of them in all, and how I tried my best to explain why I did it. That same night, he told me how he aspired to be a better man than his father, a womanizing drunk who hadn’t made it as a guitarist, who flaunted women in front of Wyatt’s mother until she took off.

“I didn’t even mind him beating the shit out of me,” Wyatt says, pulling me closer to him in the hotel bed. He inhales my scent, Ralph Lauren’s Romance.

He’s quiet after that, and the only sound in the room is Chevelle’s “The Red.” He waits until the song is finished, and then he says, “But the way she left without even giving me a second thought...it still fucks me up, Kylie. She didn’t give a shit about me.”

“I’m so sorry.” Tears are forming in my eyes because I feel selfish. I feel like the most selfish bitch in the world for complaining to him earlier about not meeting anyone’s expectations and retaliating by punishing myself. I cried about disappointing my parents when his had let him down too many times.

He pulls away from me, cupping my chin. “Don’t be sorry, beautiful. I’ve got you, don’t I?”

“Yeah, you do.”

His chest rises heavily, and he makes a noise that sounds nothing like Wyatt McCrae. This is the first time in all the years I’ve known him that I’ve seen him nervous, and it sends a wave of anxiety through me. I pull the sheets up to my chin. “Is everything okay?” I ask hesitantly.

He snorts. “Yeah and fuck no. Lucas will fucking kill me for going here with you.” I start to respond, but he shakes his head. “It’ll be alright.”

“Alright,” I whisper despite the pain in my throat. Wyatt’s right about Lucas, and it’s impossible for me not to dart my gaze at the door as if my brother will barge in at any moment.

“Relax,” Wyatt orders. He brings my hand up to his lips and turns it slightly to kiss my wrist. “I meant what I said in the car, Kylie. Don’t ever hurt yourself again. You want to get rid of the pressure? You take it out on me. Hit me, scratch me, do whatever the fuck you want, but don’t do that shit to yourself again.”

“Alright, then don’t lie to me,” I counter, staring at him hard.

If he were honest about his home life before tonight, I wouldn’t ask. Instead, he lied to me and to Lucas for years. He led us to believe that his relationship with his father was perfect, instead of a heartbreaking tangle of deteriorating knots. The man lying next to me has felt abandoned and beaten and unwanted. I refuse to let him feel any of those emotions again, especially after tonight.

“Then you’ve got to tell me the truth, too, beautiful.” 

I nod. “No matter what we are after this tour ends, don’t ever treat me like I’m fragile.”

He nods. “I won’t,” he says. Before he closes the space between our mouths, he adds, “But I’ve never thought for one moment that you’re fragile, Ky.”

Eight years later and judging by the strained, distant look on his face, he’s thinking about all that. When his nostrils flare and his gaze darts to the door directly in front of us, my mind goes to our second time at this motel—when we talked about Brenna in room number 37.

“Fuck, I’ve taken you for granted, Ky,” he whispers harshly.

I stare down at a crack in the asphalt. “Yeah, you have.”

He reaches out to me, and maybe it’s the effect of being back at this hotel, but I step toward him, closing my eyes when his rough fingertips knead into the nape of my neck. “This is the last time I’ll try to remind you, Ky...if that’s what you want.” His forehead touches mine. “But, God, I had to show you.”

“Show me what?”

“That when I think about the happiest times of my life, I think of this shithole right here.”

Me, too.
I dip my head, too afraid to try to manage words right now.

“I want you with me the rest of this trip. Sleeping in my bed. Waking up next to me. My girl, just this last time.”

Like the memories of our past, I can almost clearly see our future—a future where we’re not together, where other people will give us exactly what we’ve been looking for with each other.

And I loathe it.

I loathe it so goddamn much that I speak without thinking.

“I’ll stay with you until we get back to L.A.,” I whisper.

He lowers his lips to my temple, blowing strands of blue-and-black away from my face. “And if I’m what you want by the time we get back, if we can finally fix ourselves, what the fuck then?”

I can hear Cal and Heidi coming across the parking lot, arguing loudly about the original lead guitarist of some band, and I swallow hard. “I...I don’t know.” Once again, the words tumble out before I have an opportunity to consider them, and his face cracks into a smile.

Damn it.

He backs away, slow to take his hands away from me. “It’s not what I wanted to hear, Ky,” he says just before Heidi and Cal come within earshot. “But that’s so much fucking better than hearing never.”

B
ecause of the detour and then the long dinner break we take six hours into the trip, we don’t arrive in Albuquerque until close to two the next morning. Though I’ve tried several times, I haven’t slept a wink since we left the crappy hotel in Livingston. That place brought out so many memories—both good and bad—and I’m still restless as we check into the hotel.

When Wyatt opens the door to our room, I brush past him and step inside, my eyes scanning around the place we’ll be staying at for the next couple of days.

The room is beautifully decorated in shades of royal blue and turquoise, but it’s small compared to the last hotel. There’s a mini-fridge, a flat screen television on a massive cherry wood cabinet, and a matching dresser and nightstand. The bed itself takes up the majority of the room’s limited amount of space.

As Wyatt adjusts the thermostat to freezing, I sprawl out on the king-size mattress and close my eyes in pleasure as the memory foam hugs the curves of my body. “I swear you’re trying to freeze me.”

“Are you fucking with me?” He snorts and cocks his head to the side. “It’s unbearable in here right now.”

From where I’m lying, I can easily see the current temperature on the thermostat, and seventy degrees is anything but unbearable. “Maybe I should go sleep with Heidi and Cal,” I tease. He comes to stand at the edge of the bed, smirking. “At least then, I won’t wake up shivering.”

“You’ll wake up shivering but not because of the AC,” he says, dragging his T-shirt over his head. He tosses it to the far side of the room, and it hits the balcony door.

He’s about to climb onto the bed with me, but then his cell phone vibrates. Releasing an irritated sigh, he takes it out of his pocket. As he studies the message, pacing the narrow space between the end of the bed and the dresser, I prop myself up on my elbows.

After several seconds of silence, I blurt out exactly what I’m thinking. “Who’s that?” I shouldn’t ask—
god, I know I shouldn’t ask
—but curiosity will keep me awake all night for all the wrong reasons. “Well?”

Digging his fingertips into his short blond hair, he shrugs. “Terra.” He places his phone on the TV stand without replying to Hazard Anthem’s gorgeous manager.

“Terra,” I repeat, only it sounds like
terror
. I lie back down and whip the edge of the neatly tucked comforter over myself, but it only covers half my body. “She knows it’s ridiculously late...or fuck, early, right?”

Wyatt yanks the blanket off me and joins me on the bed. He straddles my hips, and I stare up at him, keeping my gaze neutral. It’s hard, considering he’s moving his fingertip up and down the top of my thigh.

“She’s having a party at her place and wants us to come by,” he explains. “Nate’s there.” I don’t miss the vicious way he says the front man’s name.

I know that Wyatt has been to Albuquerque recently. I don’t know the reason why because, technically, it’s none of my business since he and I have never officially been a couple. I know I shouldn’t ask him what he came here for, but now that I know Terra has a place in this city, only one thought is rolling through my head.

“Have you fucked her?” I demand.

“Are you serious, Kylie?”

I scoot up and slide my back against the headboard. This just causes him to move closer to me. He keeps his face level with mine, so I can smell the Mentos he chewed while we checked in. I touch his chin. He didn’t shave this morning, and it’s obvious.

“Have you and Terra ever had sex?” Each word is forced out, like seven single-worded questions.

If there’s one thing I can say about Wyatt, it’s that ever since I asked him never to lie to me eight years ago, he’s been honest with me—heartbreakingly truthful at that. His blue eyes are hard as he shakes his head from side to side. “No.”

Bowing my head briefly, I’m relieved that I’m sitting down, so he can’t see how wobbly my knees are.
How would I have reacted if he told me that they have been together? What would I have said? Would I have walked out if he said yes?

“Sorry I asked,” I reply. When he strokes the right side of my face, I tilt my head slightly, welcoming his touch, moaning as his fingertips brush over the sensitive spot behind my ear.

“Terra’s just with the band, Ky. After we’re done here, you’ll never have to see her again.”

In this business, there’s a slim chance of that happening, especially if Hazard Anthem goes mainstream. As long as I work for my brother, there’s pretty much no chance in hell I’ll be able to avoid Terra in the future. I narrow my eyes at Wyatt. “Why are you telling me this?”

He releases a rough sound, dragging his large hands over the strong features of his face. “Because you looked like you wanted to choke the shit out of her when you said her name.”

Based on the way he reacted last night, if Nate—or any other man—texted me well after midnight, he’d wear the exact same look. Still, I suck my cheeks in, and I deny that crap. “I don’t know Terra well enough to want to choke her, babe.”

Wyatt’s eyes challenge mine, but I glare back until he rises from the bed. “If you say so.” When my eyebrows crease together, he takes my hands in his, pulling me roughly to my feet. “Come on. Shower.”

As I search through my bag for body wash, he claims to have left one of his bags inside the Suburban. When he returns five minutes later, I’m already standing beneath the showerhead, washing my hair and softly humming “Crazy on You.” He sets something on the outside of the tub before stripping down.

“Find what you were looking for?” I ask when he parts the curtain. I glance around him to see what he brought into the bathroom, but he jerks the fabric closed, his blue eyes dancing with amusement and desire.

“Looks like I have.” Pressing his hands into the small of my back, he yanks me flush against his naked body. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous, Ky.” He lowers his mouth to my nipple, tugging it between his straight teeth, gently at first and then a little harder.

“My boobs weren’t in the Suburban,” I point out between gasps. Dragging my hands across his chest, I squeeze one of his nipples and then the other. He curses in surprise and catches my hands, linking our fingers.

“Smartass.” He kisses my fingers before releasing them. “Close your eyes.”

Sinking my teeth into my bottom lip, I shake my head. “Absolutely not, not until you—”

He spins me around, so I’m facing away from the showerhead. He covers my eyes with his hand. “Can you just listen for once?”

Pressing his body up against my back, he traces his tongue along each of my shoulder blades, sending all my senses into a chaotic frenzy, before kissing the spot in between. My muscles go taut as his mouth continues to move against my damp skin.

“I wouldn’t be nearly as fun if I followed orders,” I say despite my shallow breathing.

“So fucking true.” Lowering his fingers from my eyes for a second, he leans over to grab whatever it is on the other side of the tub. He’s back behind me, blindfolding me with his hand, before I can sneak a quick glimpse.