“It’s okay.” Tears pricked my eyes when I heard the thickness in his voice on my behalf. “I’m here now. With you.”
“It’s not okay,” he said, and I heard and felt his anger as his fingers flexed on my skin. “Nothing that hurts you is okay with me.”
“It’s in the past.” I swallowed hard.
“A past that affects you in the present is not completely past.” His voice dropped low. “It’s wrong that you’ve had so few people in your life worthy of your trust. I feel honored to be one of them, privileged that you’ve shared so many things with me.”
“Burden you with the horrible details, you mean.”
“That’s not the way I see it at all. You’ve had to protect that beautiful sensitive heart of yours from being crushed. But that’s over now. You don’t have to guard it from me. I’ll protect and defend it.”
“My heart is yours. All that I can give is yours.”
He gently turned me. “Your heart is mine. That’s true.” His eyes searched mine. “It’s your head that concerns me. You think long term is impossible because every bit of good you’ve ever had has been taken away from you, or manipulated and twisted.”
My eyes rounded. He was right.
“It’s terrible that even your talent on the piano, your mother tried to use to manipulate your father.”
“I shouldn’t have shared that,” I mumbled. It made me look weak.
“That’s your head talking. Not your heart.”
I frowned at him.
“It frustrates me sometimes to have to push you to share. Jarring sometimes to learn a truth so significant that you kept hidden, like your skill on the piano. But just because something is difficult or frustrating doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying, or that I’m going to stop loving you.
My lips parted. Maybe deep down, I acknowledged vulnerable thoughts like those.
“I will do everything in my power to make our love stronger. I will never abandon or neglect you like your parents did.”
“I know you wouldn’t.” I took one of his hands and kissed the back of it.
“I won’t give up, Jo. Not on us. Not on you.” His metallic eyes blazed at me when I lifted my head. “I won’t let anything you share with me fall away until we’ve sorted it all out and made sense of it together. Every little thing with you means something to me.”
We stood in the middle of the bridge on the Hoover Dam, people all around us, yet his declaration seemed to make the world stand still. In that moment, I believed that the bits and broken pieces inside me could be mended.
One day.
With him.
If we were given the time a repair job of that magnitude needed.
Josephine
“GRAB WHAT YOU WANT to take inside,” Gale said, putting his feet down on the pavement by the gas pump. The bossiness in his tone was unmistakable, even over the headset. “But make it quick, yeah?”
“Okay.” I released my hold on his waist and proceeded to climb off the motorcycle.
Sliding my hands across his shoulders, I savored the way his muscles seemed to leap to my touch. This wasn’t our first stop since the dam. I knew he loved me, but I also knew he was getting frustrated by my requests to stop. Gale was on a mission to get me to the Grand Canyon in time for the sunset, and he wasn’t going to let anything stand in his way. Even me.
Removing my helmet, I set it on the luggage compartment, and he dismounted too. But the show of him, his muscles flexing and him shaking out his hair, didn’t give me the excited rush it deserved.
With too many miles and too much quiet, I’d started to worry again, and worrying and turning over the problem in my head hadn’t brought about a solution.
“I’ll fill up the tank and come inside in just a minute.” He gave me a long look, his handsome face set in stern lines. “But don’t get distracted, messing around on your phone or talking to Dolly if there’s connectivity in there. And no more Red Bull. We can’t afford any more stops.”
“Do you think we’ll make it?” I glanced at the sky. The sun was past its zenith and on the way down. We were in a race against time to catch the sunset, and I worried that we had little time remaining together.
“We’ll make it,” he said. His words and the determined look he gave me told me he’d guessed my thoughts and meant more.
I nodded, wanting to believe him.
I headed for the building that resembled a Western trading post, the structure and its porch constructed from roughly hewn logs. Inside, it was a typical convenience store. I bypassed the snacks and made a beeline for the well-marked restrooms.
After taking care of business and washing my hands, I went to the candy aisle. If I couldn’t have Red Bull, I was at least going to get a pack of gum. My phone rang before I could choose which one.
Recognizing the ringtone, I answered the call immediately. “Hey, doll, is everything okay?” I’d checked in with Dolly not so long ago. Her calling so soon again made my heart race.
“Not hardly.” She blew out a breath.
“What is it?” An icy chill snaked down my spine.
“Where are you?” she asked, her tone ominous.
“A convenience store in the middle of nowhere in Arizona. Why does that matter? You’re scaring me.”
“I needed to know you’re somewhere safe. Somewhere you can sit down.”
“Nowhere to sit. But spill.” I held my breath.
“My mom called. Some people from Carter Besille’s talk show just left her hair salon. They were asking a lot of questions about you.”
“Oh no.” My eyes rounded. “What did she tell them?”
“Nothing. Surprisingly. But she said they were really interested in our stage names. They asked her why we changed our last names.”
“Fuck.”
The documentation on my name change would lead them straight to my real last name. From there, they would learn everything about me.
“I knew it would come out one way or another eventually,” I said calmly, as if I didn’t realize, which I certainly did, that the world I wanted to have was in that very moment slipping away from me.
“I’m sorry.” The empathy in her tone made me want to cry.
“Not your fault.” I lifted my chin. “You warned me.”
Marsha, Gale, Mary Timmons, everyone had warned me in their own way that being on the show would expose me. And it had, in its way. But being with Gale, letting my heart hope for what was never meant to be, had made me more vulnerable than the Rock Fuck Club ever could.
“I should have listened,” I muttered. “Not done the show.”
Not gotten on the bike with Gale in the first place. Heeded my own heart, which told me at the very beginning that he and I were just too different. Gale was then and would always be too good for me.
I sighed. “I excel at making bad decisions.”
“Accepting my friendship wasn’t a bad decision. Starting the band wasn’t a bad decision. The twins aren’t. Gale sure as hell isn’t.”
Dolly was right about all but one of those. Gale would have been better off if he’d never met me. Though selfishly, deep down, I was grateful, so grateful to have had the time I’d had with him.
“So, what do we do now?” she asked.
I swiveled my head toward the door as the shop bell rang, and followed Gale with my gaze as he entered. He didn’t see me in the candy aisle, but I saw him. He went straight to the restrooms, his handsome face set and his long strides sure. He was dedicated to his mission to get me to the sunset.
Well, I was on a mission now too. One I didn’t want. One without anything pretty at the end. Not for him, or for me.
Tears burned in my eyes as it all coalesced together in my mind. What I had to do, and how I had to do it.
“Nothing you can do, Dolly. This is on me. I have to fix this.” I had to do whatever it took to keep the truth from hurting the people I cared about.
“I’m with you, Jo. You’re not alone.�
�
“I need to tell the twins the truth before it breaks in the news.” I shouldn’t have kept it from them as long as I had. They were going to be mad. Another poor decision by me to add to the list.
“We’ll tell them together,” she said firmly. “As a family.”
I didn’t argue with her. We were a family, or at least we were for now. “This might negatively impact the band. Mary Timmons might withdraw her offer.”
“She knows about your past, Jo. If she cuts us loose, it’s her loss. We’ll worry about that when and if it happens.”
“Don’t deserve you, doll.” My lips quivered. My stomach rolled. My palms were clammy. She was as loyal as Gale. Both of them were too good for me.
“Gale will stick by you, no matter what. I know he will.”
“I can’t let him,” I said firmly, knowing he would try.
“I don’t think he’s going to let you make that decision for him.”
“If we’re not together, he doesn’t get to decide.”
“Jo, don’t—”
“I have to let him go, doll,” I said quickly. I would be cutting a huge chunk of my heart away losing Gale. Could a person live with half of their heart gone?
“You don’t have to do anything. Stop. Breathe. Think this through.”
“I should have done that way back in the beginning. Never gone off with him alone in the first place.” I was totally weak where he was concerned. I resolved then and there to be a whole fuck of a lot stronger.
“What are you planning to do?” she asked softly.
“End it.” Save him. Lose everything. “I’ll call you after it’s done,” I said, then hung up.
The irony wasn’t lost on me that once again, Gale and I would have another pivotal moment in our relationship at a gas station. Guessed that went along with having a man who lived to ride.
Had a man. He would continue to ride, leaving me behind. As he should have way back at the beginning.
“Ready?”
Gale suddenly appeared, making me jump. I’d been so absorbed in my conversation with Dolly that I hadn’t seen him exit the restroom or heard his approach.
My eyes drank him in as I gave myself one last longing look, taking in his tempting mane of brown hair. His earnest gaze. His beloved features. His wide shoulders. His chiseled everything. Even his resolve was as solid and strong as the rest of him.
I wanted to fall on that resolve, lean on it, let him tell me everything would be all right, when I knew it couldn’t be. My will to do what I needed to do faltered. I wasn’t ready for this yet, wasn’t prepared for the hate that would soon cloud his crystal-gray eyes.
As I gripped my cell tighter, my head started to throb. Damn. A migraine was coming, on top of everything else.
“Who were you talking to?” His eyes narrowed.
“Dolly,” I said, wondering how much he’d heard.
“Is she okay?” His brow creased, and his eyes flickered with concern for a friend. Dolly was his friend now too.
Friends and caring for them was a priority we shared. In so many ways, we thought along similar lines.
Gale’s soul and mine were nearly the same. Like Kathy and Heathcliff in my favorite story, only our roles were reversed. I was Heathcliff, the one with the fatal flaw.
“I think so. But I need to go to her. Be with the twins. Our road trip is at an end. You and I are at one too.”
“No, we’re not.” His eyes flashed to dark black clouds and lightning about to strike.
I welcomed it. Better for me to get struck now than him later.
“The truth is about to come out, Gale. It’s only a matter of time before the story breaks. I don’t want you near me when it does.”
“That’s not up to you, Jo. You don’t get to choose for me.”
He reached for me, but I backed away. I couldn’t let him touch me. I could be strong, but I wasn’t certain I could be that strong.
“We’re a couple, a team.” His expression sharpened. “It’s decided.”
“Not decided. You decided. Two halves when one part is as damaged as mine doesn’t make a whole.”
“Not true. Your focus is skewed.”
“It is around you. I should have said no at the beginning. It’s my fault. I take full blame for where this went. It’s on me that I let it continue so long. If I could go back and undo my mistake, I would. But I’m undoing it now before it goes any further.”
“You think we’re a mistake?” Thunder rolled in his voice.
“I’m the mistake.” I pointed at my chest with my cell in my hand, and braced for the lightning. “Me.”
Gale’s nostrils flared. “Just like that. You decide unilaterally. After all we went through to get here.”
I could only bob my head. If I gave him words, he would use them to trip me up. He knew me too well after unraveling me layer by layer.
“No, Jo!” he roared. “No fucking way!”
I wanted to retreat, but I couldn’t move backward anymore. A rack of candy blocked me. I wanted to laugh that it took a rack of candy for me to finally grow a spine and do what I needed to do. But mostly, I just wanted to cry.
My cell phone rang again, and since it remained in my hand, it was only a matter of answering it. The number was a Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex area code. I swiped it open, not really caring who it was. I was desperate for anything that delayed me sending Gale away.
“Hello,” I said, my grip tight, my temples pounding harder.
“Josey, baby,” a familiar voice said.
“Mom.” I stiffened instantly. “Who gave you this number?”
“Never you mind.” She clucked her tongue.
Countless times over the years, she’d employed that grating tone and made that sound. But the last one had been at the sentencing. I’d asked her to speak up for me, and she refused. After that, I’d severed her from my life and vanquished all thoughts of her.
But some memories with her included Joey. It somehow made her betrayal hurt worse, that I could never think about or talk again to the only person in the world who shared the same memories of him that I did.
“Who, Mom?” I asked again as my head pounded harder, annoyed that she wouldn’t even give me a name.
“One of the ladies who works at the salon. She said you’re a big deal now, Josey. That you’re going to be on a television show.”
“Don’t call me that,” I hissed. “That’s Joey’s name for me. Not yours.” The ones she called me didn’t bear repeating.
I sensed Gale moving protectively closer, but I dropped my gaze to my boots and kept it there. I couldn’t look at him. The sound of my mother’s voice dragged me back into that vortex of spitefulness and poison, and I didn’t want him tainted by her. And anyway, I wasn’t a broken little girl anymore. My mother couldn’t affect me.
“Don’t clam up on me.” She used her wheedling tone. “Be sweet to your dear momma.”
“You’re not my anything,” I said firmly. “You never were.”
“You think because you’re a big deal now that your shit doesn’t stink.” Her voice rose to a shrill level. “That you don’t have to acknowledge me anymore. That’s okay. I can talk to Carter Besille. I have his card. His people are passing them out all over the place. But I thought I’d call you first.”
“Why?” I swallowed. She wasn’t looking out for me; I knew that for certain. “Why call me first?”
“On account of your father, of course. We don’t want to dig up the past again, sweetie. It was bad enough for him the first time you got into all that trouble.”
“You want to protect him.” I squeezed my eyes shut, but the ugly truth remained. I meant nothing to her.
“You did a terrible thing, Josey, baby.”
“You lost a son.” I didn’t argue with her about the other. “But all you remember is how it affected Peter Belle. I’m hanging up now. Don’t ever call or contact me again.”
“Wait, baby!”
“Wh
at?” I snapped.
“You have money now. From that television show, right? Can’t you share some with your momma?”
“No. No, I can’t.” I hung up, acid sloshing in my stomach, and I was shaking badly.
“Was that your mother?” Gale’s voice was soft, his eyes pools of empathy.
“Don’t feel sorry for me.”
“I don’t.” He shook his head. “I’m thinking it’s a miracle a woman like you came from someone like that.”
“It was a miracle. It was my brother. I told you he was the good one.”
“You had each other, and then there was only one of you. Oh, Jo.” Gale’s gaze brightened.
I shook my head. I couldn’t allow myself to be dazzled. “It’s over, Gale. You and me. It’s done.” I lifted my chin, meeting his gaze while resisting the compulsion to throw myself at him.
“Just like that?” His expression hardened. “You suddenly don’t love me anymore.”
“I love you.”
The truth was, I would always love Gale. Even when he eventually moved on, I would love him, though just the idea of him with anyone else made it difficult for me to breathe.
“But love isn’t enough,” I said softly. “If it were, my brother would still be here, and so would your wife and your son.”
Gale staggered back a step at my words, and I reeled too. What hurt him, hurt me. Sliced me right through the center of my body like a blade.
Stubbornly, he recovered first and tried again. “You’re doing this to protect me, but I don’t need protection. We can weather this storm together. Why won’t you believe me? Believe in us?”
He did need protection. He needed it from me.
“Get on your motorcycle.” My teeth clenched, I pointed to the door. “Get on it and ride away. But don’t look back. The future you want is out there, but it’s a future that doesn’t include me.” I folded my arms over my chest, attempting to staunch the wound I’d inflicted on myself.
“Jo, you’re being unreasonable. Upset because of a couple of phone calls.” His moonlight gaze glowed with compassion, but time was up. That glow wasn’t mine to bask in anymore.
“I am upset, but that doesn’t change the facts.”
ROCK F*CK CLUB (Girls Ranking the Rock Stars Book 6) Page 12
