by Julia Kent
And now?
Now I’d failed her.
I was too fucking tired to do anything but let sleep take over.
Hours later I woke up in the dark. Maggie snored lightly next to me, her back facing my front. We weren’t exactly spooning. Some of her hair stuck to my mouth. We smelled like sweat and sex.
I liked that scent.
I loathed myself, though. I sat up slowly and rubbed my eyes. The morning light was that kind of eerie glow you get before sunrise. I climbed out of bed, peeling her arm off me, and quickly got dressed. No time for a shower.
But I had time to scribble a note.
Afterward, I sat in the greyish dark, staring at the changing light as it peeked out over the horizon. Maggie’s breath changed, then she rolled over, the air whooshing out of her, muscles going limp. Then regular breathing again, her face slack with sleep.
God, she was so fucking beautiful.
She deserved so much more than I could give her.
I grabbed Lena’s guitar, put $200 in her backpack on top of the note, and paused. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe I should stay.
But she’d given so much to me. If I got to the main road fast enough, I could hitch a ride with a trucker and get to L.A. on my own in the nick of time. Spare her the last leg of this fucked-up journey.
Spare her from me.
I could be more of a man for her in the future. A real man, with money and stability and a fucking driver’s license. Shit. I had nothing right now but the last hundred bucks, Lena’s borrowed guitar, my clothes, and a raging case of falling for the woman who was smiling in her sleep right now.
That smile nearly broke me. Nearly made me stay.
I closed my eyes and imagined that future me, coming back to her in St. Louis or Boston. Coming back with something to give.
I wasn’t enough for her now.
Which was why I needed to let her go. Make her go home. This wasn’t the end. But it was the end of me being so dependent on her.
I couldn’t bear it.
I couldn’t bear failing her again.
Chapter Twelve
Maggie
I woke up to an empty bed.
That, alone, wasn’t alarming. The little cots were tiny, and so maybe Tyler needed more space to sleep. I looked. Nope. No Tyler.
Okay.
So, maybe he was using the bathroom?
I looked around some more.
No guitar.
I sat up and muttered, “What the fuck?” under my breath, my hands gaining purchase on the hard, plastic-covered mattress under me.
And then I saw it on the floor.
A note.
I groaned before I even reached out for it, my eyes coordinating with my hands to get my fingers on it, the sound from my throat involuntary.
It read:
First of all, don’t panic. I’m not some asshole who sleeps with women and leaves them in the morning with just a note of thanks.
My eyes filled with tears. It made it hard to read the next part:
And this is more than a note of thanks, so bear with me. You know I suck at words. At least, the spoken ones. I’ve always been better with written ones, but not much better.
Maggie, I feel like a total jerk for everything I’ve put you through. I showed up on your doorstep with nothing but my clothes and a little money. You listened to my story and listened to Charlotte and Darla and came to my rescue. People don’t do that. No one rescues me. You did. I’m grateful. I’m so fucking grateful.
The tears spilled over as my heart squeezed down to half its normal size. Something about this note made me fear reading it all the way to the end. My inner thighs ached with an exquisite kind of pain, and the ache spread up through my belly, between my breasts, and into my throat as I slowly, painfully, read on:
I have nothing to give you but these words. And the $200 I left for you in your backpack. Before you freak out, that’s all I have to give to say thank you. And no, I don’t pay for sex, so stop thinking that shit.
I smiled in spite of myself, thinking about Darla’s story of waking up to an empty hotel room after she met Joe and Trevor and how those idiots left her a stack of twenties and a note. What the hell was it about these band members and their stupid weird abandonments?
Last night was amazing. This whole trip was even more amazing, though. I didn’t need the sex to know how real and gritty and fucking astoundingly beautiful you are. I knew that the first time I set eyes on you. You are a woman who sees into people and finds the marrow. You stole my soul the minute you came on to me, and you stole my heart when you kissed me out in the desert yesterday. You steal things from me, Maggie. You take everything good I have left and you capture it inside you and show it to me so I remember it’s there. The only way I can get it back is to be with you and show you the rest of me.
And last night was the first step.
I’m on my way to L.A. By the time you read this, I’ll—
I flipped the page over.
—be with some trucker and getting closer to the concert. Don’t follow me. Go home. I can’t help you drive anyhow, and this time you won’t have to stop every thirty minutes so more gummy bears can catapult out of our respective asses.
I snorted, sniffed, then cried a little more.
I’ll be back in St. Louis as soon as the concert’s over and I can get Darla to give me an advance. I’m coming to see you, Ms. Maggie, whether you like it or not. Now, go back to Lena and tell her she’s a very good packer.
“Ha,” I said aloud to no one.
And if I didn’t make myself clear: we still have a lot of ground to cover and a lot more learning to do about each other. I’ll be back for you. Just make sure you’re there.
Yours,
Tyler
p.s. You have a body carved by God.
“FUCK YOU!” I screamed, balling the paper and throwing it at the wall. It barely arced, sailing limply in the air and falling with an ineffectual sound. That felt symbolic; everything I thought, felt, and did in these seconds felt ineffectual.
So I sat on the bed and sobbed. Sunlight peeked in through the window, around the faded pink curtains that must have once been bright red. Tyler had given me the most precious gift he could have ever offered me: sensuality. Mutual respect. A series of touches and strokes, kisses and murmurs, sighs and moans that etched into my memory, over-writing what had been corrupt and replacing it with breathtaking pleasure.
I rescued him?
He rescued me right back.
And he thought he could do this? Just send me on my merry way back home through twenty-two hours of driving, back to Lena, back to the empty house where I’d hang out for a week or two until I went to Massachusetts to manage girls at science summer camp?
No.
I jumped up, face hot from crying, and pulled on my clothes, not even bothering with my shoes as I shot out the door and ran to the campground office. Rosita was at her desk and looked up, alarmed.
“Maggie! What’s wrong?”
“Have you seen Tyler?”
“Oh, honey,” she said, her face tight with confusion. “He left earlier. Walked up to the road. Haven’t seen him since—”
“Did he have his guitar?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes, as if that would stop the truth from being true. “When is Andy coming?” I choked out.
“Not for another hour or so. He called. Said Bert got the part and was working on the car now.” She gave me a sympathetic look. “Maybe Tyler’s there?”
Yeah. Right. I made a noise that said about as much.
“How ’bout you take a shower and by the time you’re packed up, I’ll bet Andy will be here.”
A shower. She was right. I couldn’t actually do anything other than curse Tyler out in my head. Might as well wash away all the traces of him from my body. God knew there was more than enough of him on me.
I turned to do exactly what she suggested when she said, “I’ll brew y
ou some coffee. Come on back when you’re packed up.”
I nodded and murmured my thanks, then turned toward the cabin.
He had gutted me. That note. Last night. This morning. My stomach growled and twisted, groaned and gurgled. I needed food. I needed coffee. Most of all, I needed answers.
I needed Tyler.
By the time I stripped down and climbed into the shower, I was in the middle of an ugly cry. The worn wood of the shower door reminded me of him. My hands on the soap dish were the same hands that stroked and lathered his back yesterday. The tiny space felt like a warehouse with only one body in it. My hands felt like lead balloons as they reached up and shampooed my hair.
My tears mixed with the hot water and left me bathed in holy water of a sort.
When I stood in front of the mirror, which had tiny spider cracks around the edges, I was red-rimmed and hollow. The comb caught in my tangled hair and as I pulled, a new wave of tears hit me. It took me a moment to really get the fact that I wasn’t crying because I was sad.
I was just crying.
Emotions can overflow and pour out. Without Tyler there to crack wise, or a dilemma to figure out, the feelings just were.
A loud horn blast filled the air outside. I grabbed my backpack and raced to the office, wiping my face. Andy appeared, driving the chug-a-long tow truck like it was the greatest machine on earth.
“You ready? Bert’s got her done nice and early.”
“Is Tyler with you?” I asked, trying to keep the shake out of my voice.
“No,” Andy said, drawing out the word. “He supposed to be?”
I just snorted and climbed in. As we hit the main road, I realized I never did take Rosita up on that offer of coffee.
Tyler
I was an asshole.
But I was an asshole who wouldn’t be a burden to her any more.
If she was smart, she’d read my note, cry, scream a little, go run in the desert and call me names—and then do exactly what I asked her to do.
Maggie was a smart chick. She’d know I was right. And by the time she read that note, I was riding shotgun to this trucker, Bill, who wanted to tell me all about how Jesus Christ is his personal savior.
And as long as he got me to the concert on time, he could tell me all about it. There was no way I was going to walk very far—my quads were killing me from pushing that car out of the road in the middle of the desert last night, and it hadn’t been easy to even climb up into the cab of Bill’s old truck.
I just needed a ride.
I just needed to make it there on time.
And to stop needing her so much when I had nothing to give back.
Chapter Thirteen
Maggie
They say “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” but hell really hath no fury like a woman patronized. Andy got me to Bert’s garage. I used the $200 Tyler left me to pay the $197.10 bill. He left me enough extra for a cup of coffee and a bottle of water.
Perfect.
Twenty minutes out of town and bars appeared on my phone. As soon as it got reception, it began buzzing with the accumulation of notifications. Darla messaged me thirty-seven times. I called her.
“Oh, my fucking lord Jesus the dinosaur, you’re ALIVE!” she screamed. “Tyler needs to be here in seven hours. Where the fuck are you?”
“About six and a half hours away.”
“That’s too far! Tyler needs to get his ass here faster.”
“Yeah, about that. Um...he’s not with me.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“YOU DON’T KNOW? YOU LOST HIM? You don’t lose people, Maggie. He’s not your car keys or a cell phone you can’t find. He’s an entire human being and you lost him?”
I burst into tears.
“Aw, fuck.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. There’s obviously a long story here, and I love you for everything you’ve done to get him here, but I’m breathing into a paper bag right now and ready to crush Xanax and shove the powder under my eyelids because this tour operator dude keeps telling me how they’ll lose six figures or more and Random Acts of Crazy won’t have a contract and—”
I began wailing.
“Fuck. Maggie, is Tyler...okay? He’s not in the hospital or dead, is he?”
“Nooooooooooo.”
“So he’s on his way here?”
“Yesssssssss.” An armadillo came into sight way ahead of me. I swerved gently into the other lane. No way I was letting another one of those fuckers stop me.
“What happened?” she asked with a sigh. “Go on and tell me all about it.”
And so I did, maintaining an eighty-two mile per hour speed on the highway, hoping those fucking armadillos stayed in line.
When I was done, I felt like a salt lick had taken up residence on my face, but I felt so much better for talking about it.
“What a dumbass,” Darla said. “That man...”
“Yeah.”
“He’s coming back to you, though.”
How do you know? I wondered, but didn’t say.
“He doesn’t have a choice,” I said instead.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m on my way to L.A. right now.”
“Attagirl.”
“I’m hunting that fucker down and making him talk to me.”
“After the concert, though—right?”
“Darla!”
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I kinda have a one-track mind right now.”
“I noticed.”
“If you find him, just get him here in one piece. I got enough to worry about right now. Trevor, Liam and Sam’s flight is delayed.”
“What?”
“Yeah,” she said, her breath coming out in a ragged wave, like the sound a piece of paper makes when it’s torn in half. “So, no stress or anything, but I need someone who can play music to get their ass here in time for the opening act at eight. Because if no one shows up, I’m going out there with a pot and a wooden spoon, which is pushing my music skills.”
“Maybe you could find a chicken, a snake, and a blow up doll—”
She laughed. “Been there. Done that. Have the video to prove my boyfriend is in love with a chicken who is running for president.”
“How’s Mavis doing?”
“So far she’s beating Ted Cruz in the polls.”
“Is that good?”
“Depends on whose asking.”
Our connection began to waver. “Darla, you’re breaking up.”
“Okay. Just—here—now...”
And out. Bars disappeared.
I punched the accelerator to eighty-five.
And turned off my brain.
Too bad my heart didn’t have an Off button, too.
Tyler
Whatever words I didn’t have, Trucker Bill did. By the time he dropped me off at the corner of routes 40 and 15 in Barstow, I knew Jesus’ middle name (the Lord), his favorite food (manna) and the little-known fact that Vikings were directly descended from Jesus. Trucker Bill Jorgenson was a fountain of information about Jesus.
“Sorry I can’t get you closer, but good luck!” he called out, leaving me at 5 p.m., telling me I was about two hours from the concert venue.
A guy with just a guitar and a ton of tats isn’t a rarity in Los Angeles, but out here in good old Barstow, I might as well have been wearing a sign that said “Serial Killer” on it. Twenty minutes passed by and no one even glanced twice at me. I made it a mile down the road and just kept walking. What choice did I have? I was close. So fucking close. The concert started at 8 p.m. and forget sound checks and needing a bass. If my ass was there at 7:59 p.m., that still counted.
Images of last night, of Maggie in my arms, her body curled against mine in pleasure and release, tormented me. Maybe I should have stayed. Maybe I should have asked her to drive me this last leg. Maybe I—
Oh, shit.
A car in the distance started honking and speeding up
. I looked back and holy fuck.
Maggie?
I darted behind a giant sign with overgrown, dried out grass under it. Instinct kicked in and I hid.
The car came to a screeching halt, sliding on gravel and fishtailing from the force of decelerating so fast. It swerved and I thought it was about to slide off the road and into the sign. It stopped a few feet from me and the driver’s side door opened.
“TYLER! DON’T YOU HIDE FROM ME, YOU ASSHOLE!”
Huh. Wonder who that could be.
She tackled me, her body flying through the pale beige brush, her elbow slamming into my ribs and the weight of her ass banging into my knee. I was on the ground with her on top of me, punching me.
Punching me.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I muttered, trying to catch my breath and not laugh. Her fists were about as powerful as being whipped by the long strands of dry grass we were rolling around in.
“You think you can leave me like that?” Her streaks of hair caught in her mouth and she spat it out, eyes wild and furious. “You think you can just wake up and decide, three-quarters of the way into this journey, that you can send me home? That I’ll be a good little girl who will listen and wait patiently for you? What the fuck, Tyler? It’s not like I’ll just go home and do needlepoint until you come back for me!”
She sucker punched me in the kidney. Okay. That one hurt.
“Why are you hitting me?”
“Because I had six hours to think about how pissed I am at you!”
“It’s not my fault you chose to waste six hours thinking about me.”
Punch.
“Jesus, Maggie, ow!” I rolled her off me and stood, guarded. Those little fists had some power to them, but I knew from experience it was her feet I really had to watch.
“Tyler Gilvrey, how the fuck dare you sleep with me and then dump me like that!”
“I didn’t dump you! I said in the note I’d be back, and—”
