and talk, but that anxious look in her eyes only turned mine up a few thousand notches. I’ve never been very empathetic, but how else could I explain leaving Xavier behind to manage the chaos and barking orders at Dani to arrange a last-minute flight?
I didn’t bother to think about the phone call we’d be getting when it got back to the label that we’d missed a show. I didn’t care. The refunded tickets would come out of our meager cut, though it wouldn’t be enough for slimy, fucking Carl Cole.
I sat back as we continued to make our way south and wondered how I got here. Seven, hell, three months ago, I would have never let Braxton pull the shit she did today.
I was addicted to controlling everything around me.
More so than her claim to be a sex addict.
Braxton hadn’t torn apart her own life and her friends as well just to feed it.
At this very moment, she wasn’t contemplating ruining a relationship still in its honeymoon stage, one that could eclipse all others, by ordering the plane around and heading back to Vancouver.
I was.
Feeling someone’s gaze, I looked away from the window I was staring through and found Loren watching me. The look in his raven eyes as he sat across from me was intense yet worried. Elbows braced on his strong thighs and hands clasped together at the set line of his mouth, he subtly shook his head.
He’d read my mind and was telling me it wasn’t worth it.
There would be other shows, but our chances with Braxton were limited. She was more important. Making sure she continued standing whenever life knocked her around was more important. Our mutual agreement to put her first always and never look back had been instinctual, so I knew my decision to keep moving forward well before I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.
A few hours later, we were climbing inside the rental we had Dani arrange to be waiting for us when we landed. It was a thirty-minute drive from the airport to the town where Braxton grew up, and the moment I looked around, I felt a crawling sensation on my skin.
Braxton hadn’t grown up with much.
The sign welcoming us to Faithful informed us of the nine hundred people residing here. It made me think of our first meeting and how innocent she’d looked. Eventually, I’d kicked myself for judging a book by its cover only for it to have been a clue all along. It’s not who she was now or even seven months ago, but once upon a time, it had been.
Is that why she’d fled to Los Angeles? Had she needed something more than the minuscule town could offer her? Braxton was larger than life, at least to my infatuated eyes, so I could see that being a real possibility.
The three of us stayed silent as Braxton directed Rich, who was driving, on where to go.
I almost snorted.
It’s not like he could get lost since the town couldn’t have had more than three streets. I bet the jail only had one cell, no one ever bothered to use a turn signal, teachers called students by their older sibling’s name, and all the high school parties were held at “the lake” or in a cornfield.
We rode for a couple of more minutes before I shook my head when we passed some teenagers racing down the street on a lawnmower.
It was just after one in the morning when we arrived at a small hospital. Rich parked, and after sending a quick text, Braxton climbed out, and we followed.
I expected her to rush inside, considering her urgency to get here, but she just stood on the sidewalk, staring at the entrance while she breathed in and out deeply through her nose.
Turning her toward me, I noticed how her lips trembled and tucked her against my chest while Loren and Rich hovered behind her.
“This was a mistake,” she whispered. “We should just go back.”
Loren chose that moment to yawn as wide as he could with a look that said he wasn’t going anywhere but to a bed anytime soon. As he looked around, I could hear him talking shit in his head about being dragged to the middle of nowhere for nothing but wisely kept his mouth shut. He was always his bitchiest when he was exhausted, but we all were, so he’d just have to deal.