The Happy Ever After Playlist - Abby Jimenez Page 0,79
the celebrity gossip circuit?” I shook my head. “I’m not cut out for this life and I don’t think I really realized it until today.”
Kristen and Josh looked at me like they felt sorry for me and didn’t know what else to say.
“I’ve been able to compartmentalize this whole fame thing because I didn’t ever see the Jaxon side of him. And now all of a sudden it’s this enormous, glaring spotlight on everything,” I said, waving my paper towel around.
My chin started to quiver. “He’ll do nothing to protect me from the tabloid onslaught. He’ll keep doing things behind my back. I’ll get no warning, just like this time. Then when the inevitable happens and some story breaks, he’ll tell me I need a tougher skin. He’ll brush it off, justify hiding whatever it is from me, take no responsibility.”
I’d be a lunatic. I would be twitchy and worried, waiting for the other shoe to drop the whole time he was away.
Stuntman Mike peered up at me from my lap.
My eyes filled with tears again and I looked back and forth between Kristen and Josh. “I have to break up with him,” I breathed. “I have to do it now.”
The finality of it crushed me. Tears came again and I sobbed into my paper towel.
He’d given me no choice.
Chapter 29
Jason
♪ Mess Is Mine | Vance Joy
She sent my call to voicemail again.
I put my palms over my eyes and let out a ragged breath. It was almost midnight. I’d been calling and texting her all day.
“She still not talking to you?” Ernie stood in his kitchen and dropped ice into a tumbler behind the darkness of my eyelids.
“I fucked up,” I muttered.
“Yeah, you fucked up. Your first mistake was arguing with a pissed-off woman. You should have backed away slowly and agreed with everything she said. Pissed-Off Woman 101.”
I looked up at him as he set down the bourbon he’d poured me on the coffee table.
He plopped into the couch next to me and crossed his leg over his ankle, holding his own glass.
I felt haggard. The last two days had been hell. I was at the point that I’d apologize for being born if it meant she’d speak to me. I just wanted this to be over. She’d brought me to my damn knees on silence alone.
“I think she’s going to break up with me.” Even saying the words out loud made the lump bolt into my throat.
Ernie let out a long breath. “You guys were breaking up anyway.”
I shook my head. “No. Not like this. Not because she didn’t want me, not because I fucking disappointed her. And I would have never let it happen. I would have begged her to come with me.” I put my forehead into my hands. “It can’t end like this.”
Fuck, I should have told her everything. Why didn’t I tell her everything? I had no idea how to navigate any of this. Lola, my tour, my fame. All of it felt like some giant snowball, gathering momentum and destroying my life on its way down.
“You know, maybe she’s doing you both a favor,” Ernie said.
I took my forehead from my hands and glared at him.
He swayed his whiskey at me. “How fair was any of this gonna be for her anyway? Think about it. She stays behind and she’s alone for fourteen months while you travel the world. Or she goes on the road with you and she doesn’t see her friends or family the whole time, doesn’t sleep in the same bed for more than three nights in a row. She can’t work, can’t even fucking unpack. Either way, she’s doing nothing but living for you and you’re living for your career. You really want that for her?” He took a swallow of his drink, the ice clinking in the glass. “You’re getting famous, and what is she getting? It’s a little selfish.”
I looked away from him.
I was supposed to marry this woman. I’d known it the moment I thought I might lose her. She was it for me. The thought of being without her was as unacceptable to me as never seeing daylight again, never picking up another guitar.
If I’d fucked this up for good, I would suffer for it for the rest of my life. I’d never get over it. I needed to fix this and then put a ring on her hand and let every man who looked at her know there was already somebody hopelessly in