“And Josh could say whatever he wanted, and I could have flashbulbs popping and a thousand mics in my face and a hundred pundits discussing what I was saying about health to the girls of today that I had a big ass if I had you. And having you means having all of you so when you’re working with cops to get your brother justice and journalists are leaning on you to tell stories you don’t want told and you’re fighting with your brothers in the band, I need to be there for you. But you took that away. You got ugly to drive a wedge between us and you made a decision for the both of us and neither of those things are okay.”
“China,” he said, and he was not calling me by a nickname he’d never called me.
“Yes,” I agreed. “I could take anything if I had you, but I’d shatter if I did not and I know that because I did.”
“Lyla—”
“And you can’t come back from that, Preacher. You can’t show up, even looking hot and leaning against a truck and being all that’s you and come back from that. Once something’s shattered, it’s never the same. But in this instance, the Lyla I was, was so broken, I just threw the pieces away.”
When I got done talking, we stood there, in my living room, not a beach where I could walk away, in my living room where I had to look into his beautiful, warm brown eyes as they held mine, pain and regret in his, and there was no escape.
He broke the silence by saying, “That’s what I wanted when I first saw you.”
God, I needed this conversation to be over.
“That’s what I wanted,” he repeated. “That’s what drew me to you. That and thoughts of your ass in my hands and my fingers in your hair.”
I did not smile but he was not being funny.
He kept going.
“I wanted to cradle your fragility in my hands and keep it safe. I wanted that job. I wanted that honor.”
Oh God, I had to end this.
He spoke again before I could.
“But I was wrong, and your grandfather was wrong, and the boys are wrong, and,” he jabbed a pointed finger my way, “you are wrong. Look at this.” He again tossed both hands out to indicate my living room. “You’re not fuckin’ fragile. You never have been. So, there’s one thing I was right about. You needed me out of the way so you could find that, Lyla. And it was torture for us both, but I did one thing where I had to be stronger than you. I gave that to you.”
He then reached behind him and pulled out a CD in its sleeve that it was clear, all this time, he’d had tucked in the back waistband of his jeans.
“We got more shit to talk about, so listen to this, cher, get rid of the guy you’re seein’ and see you in Baton Rouge.”
He tossed the CD on my coffee table and I was hoping with that he’d walk out.
I was actually not hoping that, of course, but I was telling myself I was hoping that.
He didn’t walk out.
He came to me, took my head on either side in his hands, tipped it back, and laid a hard kiss on my lips that was not wet, but it still curled my toes, made my stomach flutter and wet rush between my legs because this was Preacher. I could smell him, feel those hands on me, and I knew I’d taste those lips when he took them away.
Only when he took them away did he walk away.
But this time, as I pivoted to watch him go, he looked back.
“Love you, baby,” he said. “From the second you held my hand in that motel room, always have and always will.”
This, before he turned the corner into my kitchen and disappeared.
And when he did, I licked my lips.
And tasted Preacher.
McCade:
[Muttering, eyes aimed to the shelves behind the bar]
See you in Baton Rouge.
Fuck, I was an arrogant ass.
[Shoves iced tea glass away and raps with knuckles on the bar before he lifts his chin. In short order, he’s served bourbon. Neat.]
Jesse:
Well, we can just say, Preacher driving down to Phoenix to personally deliver an advance of the album to Lyla was a match to a fuse.