One More Time - Ali Parker Page 0,64
practice was held at the venue we were using for the last show in San Diego, and tomorrow’s would be as well. Then it was showtime. And then we could finally leave our damn hometown behind us once again.
Once again, I’d lost something here. Someone that I cared about. I wasn’t looking forward to ever coming back again. It wasn’t the place’s fault. I knew that much. But I wasn’t meant to be happy, not here.
Jared and I pushed through the doors to the cordoned-off section of the parking lot, stopping when we reached my truck. As soon as we’d stepped outside, we’d both slid our sunglasses over our eyes, and positioned as we were behind my vehicle, the few straggling members of the paparazzi hoping to get a shot as we came or went wouldn’t have a good angle.
I’d hoped that our being outside now would deter Jared from wanting to talk and make him want to take refuge behind his tinted windows in his ridiculously fancy sports car, but he crossed his arms and turned toward me. He wasn’t going anywhere until he got answers. Great.
“I didn’t do anything,” I repeated angrily. “We talked. I told her how things went with Elizabeth, and then bam, she’s asking me if we’re friends and telling me we should stop while we still are.”
“Still sounds strange,” Jared mumbled, seemingly staring at something behind my shoulder before turning his head toward mine again. “It doesn’t feel like something a chick would say. Not just like that. Maybe if she had some kind of precursor. What’d you say? You must’ve said something that triggered it.”
The irritation that had been building in me turned to anger. To fury. Red hot and coursing through me at frightening levels. Why was it that Jared always assumed I’d fucked something up? Why did I always have to be the one in the wrong?
“I didn’t do shit, and I didn’t say shit.” He opened his mouth to reply, but I held up my hand to stop him. I was done with his stupid questions. “I was completely honest with her. For the first time in fucking forever, it felt like things were good, like they would be good. I could finally, fucking finally, really put Liz and all that shit behind me. Then the chick who got it to happen and who also happens to be the chick that I think I’m falling in love with shows up and tells me that it’s over.”
I was breathing heavily, my chest heaving as I ranted, and I could keep going, spurred on by the confusion over why she’d done what she’d done and the anger that I’d let her slip through my fingers.
Jared let me spew my fury all over him, calmly waiting for me to say what I needed to say. When I didn’t carry on, one of his brows rose above the black frames of his sunglasses.
“You’re in love with her?”
I felt like he slapped me when he said the words, but I realized that I’d said them first. Out loud. To Jared. And they were true. I hadn’t let myself really think about it before. I hadn’t wanted to. I told myself that it was fun, sex, that maybe I had feelings for her, but love?
Fuck. I wasn’t prepared for that, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t true. Surprised and reluctant, I nodded as the full weight of that realization settled. “I think so. I think I’ve fallen for her.”
“Wow, man, that’s big.”
Both of my hands went to my hair, my fingers knotting on top of my head as I let it fall back, my eyes on the sky. “Yeah. Fuck. I know.”
“What’re you going to do about it?”
I focused on a particularly fluffy cloud and wished I could throw my newfound feelings for Kelly onto it and watch them drift away, just like the cloud was. Would’ve made my life a hell of a lot simpler.
“Nothing. She ended it, Jared. It’s a good thing, too. She obviously wasn’t as into me as I am into her. At least this time, unlike with Elizabeth, it ended before I got seriously hurt. I’ll get over this.” Tearing my eyes from the cloud, I dropped my chin and kept my eyes on my brother.
Sunglasses or no, I could see his brow was furrowed and his fists balled in the crooks of his elbows where his arms were still folded over his chest, the muscles in his arms suddenly