The Happy Ever After Playlist - Abby Jimenez Page 0,108

it knowing that Sloan would see this in the tabloids and it would add a final blow to the already-mortal wound I’d inflicted.

I remembered the fear in her eyes that day in Dad’s garage and how I’d vowed never to get on another motorcycle.

The last of my promises, broken.

I checked Lola into a private room, gave the rehab facility my credit card, and had Ernie send them an NDA. Then I stopped for a new phone, and when I got back to the hotel, I blocked Sloan’s number and deleted it. Erased all her messages, all her pictures. Deleted her on social media. All traces. I wouldn’t know where she lived now or have a one-click way to reach out to her in case I had a moment of weakness.

And then, with the final thread between us severed, I lost my fucking mind.

I destroyed my room. I threw a lamp, pushed over a table, and punched a hole in the wall. Then I got drunk. Blindingly, sloppy drunk.

When Zane showed up again, coming into my fog like an apparition, I sat with my back against the closet of my trashed hotel room, holding an empty bottle, with a washcloth wrapped around my bleeding knuckles.

She crouched down and peeled away the blood-soaked towel and I watched her dispassionately. She shook her head at me in that unfazed way she had. “Well, this looks pretty bad. Let’s go. Hospital time.”

When the doctor came into the ER with his clipboard, I couldn’t even remember how Zane had gotten me there.

The doctor pulled up an X-ray of my hand on the monitor, and I stared at it, bleary and shattered, from the edge of the paper-covered exam table, the smell of rubbing alcohol stinging my nostrils. “Well, it’s not broken. Pretty bruised, but not broken. Ice it, take some ibuprofen, and you should be able to use it in a few days.”

But Zane shook her head. “Naw, Doc. It looks broken to me. He probably needs at least a couple weeks to rest up that hand. I’m thinkin’ severe exhaustion and dehydration too. Maybe some other stuff you just missed.” She nodded at his clipboard. “We’ll need a medical report. Something to show his record label since he’ll have to cancel some tour dates.”

The doctor looked at her and they shared some sort of silent exchange. He glanced at me, and he must have seen the wear on my face, the despair behind my eyes. The crevasse across my heart.

“You know, you’re right. There does seem to be a break there, along the proximal phalanx. Funny I didn’t notice it before. I’ll uh, write something up.”

Zane packed my things. She made all the necessary phone calls and had all the needed conversations. My intoxication moved into a hangover, and then into grieving as I processed what I’d lost. And I vowed to feel every fucking second of it.

The plane ride was torture. Just me and my thoughts and a hangover. I couldn’t even put in my earbuds. Music chipped away at my soul, every song about her. Every lyric haunted me. The smell of coffee on the drink cart made tears squeeze from my eyes.

When I landed, Ernie called. I answered without saying hello.

He blew a deep breath into the phone. “Girlfriends on tour…”

I laughed a little, despite myself. “It must be hard to always be right.”

“This is one time, my friend, that I really wish I had been wrong.”

The ride from Duluth to Ely with Dad was the worst of all. Long and quiet, tense with judgment. When he pulled into the garage, he put the truck in park, but he didn’t get out. He held the wheel and looked over at my bandaged hand, his eyes sad.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I said with my forehead in my palm.

He looked at me, the pity on his face. And something else.

Loss.

He lost a daughter. I’d lost her for everyone.

My guilt and grief tripled, crushing me. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t look at anyone. How would I face Mom? Sloan was a member of this family now, and I’d ripped her from their lives. I put a hand over my face and felt the wave of nausea and sorrow surge again.

Once I got inside, Sloan was everywhere and nowhere to be seen. I felt her in every inch of that house. She was grocery lists in the kitchen, tiny creamers in the fridge, and a stray blond hair on the couch. She was an