her,” Nigel murmured. “All I know is that I’ve lost her, and I want her back…want her far away from that twisted prick.”
He swiped the tear sliding down his cheek as I hugged him tightly.
“It’ll be okay. We’ll figure this out. Do you want me to stay with you for a while?”
“No. I’ve stolen too many years from you as it is. Go start the life you should have had eons ago, love.”
“But I don’t want to leave you like this.”
“Bollocks. I’ll be fine. Just need to mourn the woman and get on with my own damn life. I’ve lost as many years to her as I stole from you.” Nigel forced a smile and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Come on. Let’s get you packed up so you and Ozzy can get back to Arizona.”
An hour and a half later, I realized estimating payloads was not in my wheelhouse. Turns out, I didn’t need a truck the size of Texas to haul a load of belongings smaller than Rhode Island. Thankfully, neither of the guys razzed me too much about the extra cargo room, and after saying a teary good-bye to Nigel, Ozzy and I were on our way.
As usual, traffic was a bitch on the I-10, and though I’d assured him I was more than capable of driving the fifteen-foot truck, Ozzy insisted on taking the wheel. If my mind hadn’t been spinning with worry about Nigel, I would have fought a little harder to hold on to the keys. Though Nigel and I had never been in love, he was my best friend. And I loved him dearly, just not in a romantic way.
Ozzy let me silently stew the two and a half hours it took us to reach Moreno Valley. Then he reached over, cupped my thigh with his warm hand, and sent me a sympathetic smile.
“He’ll be all right in a month or two.”
“Why? Is that how long it took you to get over me?”
I had no clue why I’d asked such a snarky question, but for some idiotic reason, I ripped the lid off Pandora’s box. Unfortunately, there was no tactful way for me to close it again. Ozzy tensed, lifted his hand off me, and gripped both of them around the steering wheel tightly.
“Forget it, I shouldn’t have said—”
“No.”
No, what? No, he didn’t mind me asking the stupid question? Or no, he was over me in a matter of days? While another woman was likely warming his bed, I’d been locked in my apartment, ugly crying my heart out, and forcing myself to stay awake to keep the nightmares away. An ominous chill slid through me. I slammed the door on those memories and forced myself to focus on something much safer, like Nigel’s heartbreak. But I wasn’t doing a very good job of that either with Ozzy’s firm no still hanging in the air between us.
Letting him talk his way into this trip was a massive mistake. We’d only been on the road a few hours and we were already failing his little litmus test…miserably.
“It took me years.”
Jerking my head his direction, I could tell by the furrow of his brow and the way his lips were pressed in a thin, tight line that giving voice to those words cost him every ounce of dignity.
For me, they were shocking and heartbreaking. I wanted to tell him how I felt but couldn’t find the courage to push the words past my tongue. Besides, it would only resurrect old wounds. I’d packed some bandages, but not near enough to stem the flow if I picked off those scabs. Some things were much better left unspoken.
“I hope it doesn’t take Nigel that long,” I said, purposely steering the conversation into shallow, safer waters.
Ozzy grunted and nodded as the lines slowly smoothed from his face.
“Did you really catch Gerry Huber fucking a young boy?”
I had no desire to revisit that nightmare either, so I simply nodded.
“Was he like full on…”
“Raping him? Yes. I walked in on the whole disgusting episode.”
“Damn. Who was the kid? Do you know?”
“It was the young man who presented you the Grammy for Best Rock Song of the Year.”
“Are you shitting me?”
“No.”
“He looked young, but I—”
“He’s eighteen now. He was only sixteen when I…walked in on everything.”
“What did you do when you saw what was happening?”
“I lost my shit. I started screaming at Gerry, who of course pulled out and tried to shove his dirty dick into his pants. Donovan, Donovan