“So what’re you going to do?” Jared asked.
“Right now I have no idea. Other than writing songs for the album, my only concern is the reason I came here originally.” And for the first time since coming to Northbridge, I told Jared the truth.
“I can’t leave until I know she’s safe,” I finished.
“And what if the cops can’t solve it before you’re due back here? Then what?”
“I’ll figure it out if it comes to that.”
“Fine. Just make sure that whatever’s going on down there, you don’t get caught up in it, okay?” Jared said. “And don’t do anything stupid…” He left the warning hanging, leaving me to fill in the blanks. Don’t get yourself into deeper trouble with the media than you’re already in.
Don’t get yourself killed.
Chapter 25
Hailey
The best part of doing something meaningful to you is that it steals you away from all your problems. Even for just a few minutes a day, it fills you with a joy that can’t be found anywhere else and gives you a passion to keep going when you feel like the world is conspiring against you.
Or, in my case, my feelings for Nolan were conspiring against me.
I walked out of the gym where I’d been helping the physical therapist with the kids with special needs. The more I worked with them, the more I knew this was the area I wanted to specialize in when I became a therapist. It might not mean the same as music meant to Nolan, but it came pretty darn close.
Dad had sent me a text to check if Nolan and I were okay now that the news about Tyler Erickson’s true identity was out. He’d been skillfully fielding questions at the hospital, where he worked as a surgeon, ever since Nolan had been spotted coming out of my room. In many ways, Dad had always been more of a father to Nolan than Nolan’s own father had been.
“Oh my God, isn’t that Tyler Erickson?” a female voice shrieked from behind me as I was about to respond to my father’s text, the sound rivaling that of a cat whose tail had been stepped on. Cringing, I glanced over my shoulder.
Everyone around us stopped walking, searching for their golden rock star. Once they spotted him, a handful of squealing college-age girls rushed him. A few other girls showed a little more restraint, but they too joined the small crowd fangirling over Nolan.
As I approached the group, Lindsey, who worked in the sports center part-time, looked at her phone and then over my shoulder. Her eyes narrowed.
I turned to see what she was looking at. A tall, good-looking man strode toward us, and for a moment I thought it was Nolan’s father. The similarities between the two were so overwhelming that I shuddered unexpectedly.
But this wasn’t Nolan’s father. He was dead.
“Who is that?” I asked her.
“My stepfather…I’ve gotta go.” She hurried over to him.
I watched them walk away. He said a few words and she laughed. I would be hard pressed to remember a time when Nolan had laughed at something his father said.
“How was work?” Nolan asked. His fans hung on his every word. I swore a couple even sighed. But none melted into a puddle like I tended to do whenever I heard his voice, their hearts not as screwed up as mine. Lucky them.
“Good,” I told him, and walked away from the group, not caring if Nolan followed me or not. I needed to get away from his fans. They had nothing to do with me.
Nolan reached for my hand and stopped me. “Hey, where’re you going?”
“Home.” I glanced back at his fans, some of whom still watched him, debating whether they should trail after him.
Nolan peered over his shoulder. “Do they bother you?”
I cringed that he knew me so well and how petty it would sound if I said yes. “No. Not really. Your fans are important to you.” Without them, Pushing Limits wouldn’t be as big as they were. Without them, the band wouldn’t have a chance of being bigger for the next album.
He brushed his thumb against my cheek. “But you’re important to me too.”
I gave him a small smile. “But you won’t always be here for me. You know that, right?”
“I know that. But while I am in Northbridge, I want to make sure you’re safe.”
“I can’t stop my life because of what happened. Just like you didn’t let what happened to you and your family stop you from going after what you wanted.”
He leaned into me, mere inches separating our mouths. His warm breath against my lips sent a delicious heat wave to my core. I barely kept from squirming against him.
“Except I did…” He didn’t finish the thought. His lips found mine.
The kiss wasn’t heated like last night. This kiss was something deeper. It was a part of us opening up and sharing a vulnerability inside us. But instead of making us weaker, it would ultimately make us stronger. Braver.
Or so I hoped.
Not that I understood what was going on between us. We were former best friends who were now fucking until he left. The advanced version of fuck buddies. As far as I could tell, Nolan didn’t do the girlfriend thing, other than in the eyes of the media.
He pulled away, breath heavy, and looked around us. “You and I need to talk.”
“I thought we were.”
He chuckled. “That’s not what I mean. I was referring to last night. About you and me. And—”
And then I got it. He meant about what happened last night. He was already regretting it. Except his arms were still around me. If his goal was to confuse me, he’d succeeded.
“And how you’ll be leaving soon.” I smiled even though it was the last thing I felt like doing. “Don’t worry, I get it. What happened between us was nothing more than a fling.” I almost said “meaningless fling,” but I couldn’t get the words out. It might’ve been meaningless for Nolan, but it was far from that for me.
He frowned. “A fling?”
“Okay, more like a…” A what? A one-night stand? A mistake? The best night of my life? Even though I wanted to, I couldn’t say the last one either.
“A one-night stand? Is that what you were going to say?” He pulled away. “Or was it just a pity fuck, Hailey? You felt bad for me and decided to fuck me to help me get over it?”
He might as well have slapped my face, except his accusation hurt worse.
I took a step back, needing to maintain distance between us. Fortunately, his fans had moved on. No one was listening to our conversation. “Is that all you think I’m capable of? That I’m nothing more than an empty shell who only does one-night stands?” I tried to sound pissed but sounded hurt instead.
I turned and stalked off. Last night’s storm had been nothing compared to how I felt after Nolan’s accusations.
I made it as far as the main entrance before Nolan grabbed my arm. A group of moms with young kids turned to see what was going on.
“I’m sorry, Forget-Me-Not. I didn’t mean for it to come out that way,” he said softly, doing his best to keep the conversation between us private. But it was a waste of time. Maybe if I was talking to someone who wasn’t a celebrity, no one would’ve paid attention to us. But at this point I was too angry to care either way.
“How did you plan for it to come out?” I asked.
He glanced away briefly. When he turned back to me, the battlefield of emotions was still etched on his otherwise perfect face. “I don’t want what happened last night to be nothing more than a meaningless one-night stand. I can get those anytime.”
“So you want us to be fuck buddies?” It spilled out harsher than I’d meant for it to sound, and I earned a few angry glares from the moms. I was too pissed to care.
“That’s not what I’m saying at all.” His face softened. “I want to be with you, Hailey. I want to go to sleep with you curled against me. I want to wake up and the first thing I see is you. I know I don’t have the right to say this because I’m leaving soon, but it’s how I feel.”
If ice had filled my insides, his words would have caused it to melt. What
he was offering wouldn’t last forever, but I was willing to take as much as he’d give me, while I could.
“I want that too,” I finally said, biting back the three words I yearned to say. The three words I couldn’t tell him because it would change everything. And right now what we had between us was too fragile for me to open up that way.
Chapter 26
Nolan
“So you want us to be fuck buddies?” Hailey said a little too loudly. I inwardly cringed at how she could’ve come to that erroneous conclusion. Our relationship so far hadn’t screamed, Hey, let’s have a normal dating relationship.
A few moms near us glared at Hailey and her colorful language. I ignored them. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. I want to be with you, Hailey. I want to go to sleep with you curled against me. I want to wake up and the first thing I see is you. I know I don’t have the right to say this because I’m leaving soon, but it’s how I feel.”
I meant every word. But what I didn’t say but meant was that I wanted this for the rest of my life. Only it wasn’t possible with the career I had signed up for. At least not for now.
“I want that too,” she said, the words almost a whisper.
Temporarily forgetting where we were standing, I closed the distance between us and kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, her lips.
She parted them, and I plunged my tongue into her mouth. I flicked it against hers, a tease of what was still to come, then pulled away. “Maybe we should continue this discussion at home.”
She grinned, understanding what I really meant. The only thing I planned to discuss when we got home was which room she wanted to fuck in.
I threaded my fingers with hers. Her smirk faded to a sad smile. “Have you been to their graves yet?” she asked.
I tugged on my hand, needing to get away from her and this question. But she only held on tighter.
“You should really go there, Nolan.”
“I can’t.” The words came out as a whisper, and I closed my eyes, squeezing the picture of their funeral from my brain.
“I know, but I’ll be there with you. It might help you deal with the nightmares.”
My eyelids flew open and I stared at her. “How did you…?”
“How did I know? I’ve heard you tossing and turning. I’ve heard you call out during the night.” She ran her thumb under my eye. “And it’s obvious you’re not sleeping much. You looked tired when I woke up from the coma, but that was nothing compared to now. Now you look exhausted half the time.” She swallowed. “You weren’t having nightmares in L.A., were you?” When I didn’t answer, she continued, “It’s why you need to either go back to L.A. or face your ghosts. You need to visit your mom and your sister.”
I wanted to make a joke, lighten things, change the direction of the conversation, but a nagging voice told me she was right. I owed it to them. I might have tried to move on with my life, but I’d never forgotten them.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go to the cemetery.” I tightened my hold on her hand. “But you promise you’ll come with me?” I looked into her warm brown eyes and saw my pain reflected back at me. “I don’t think I can do this on my own.”
“I promise. As long as you want me, Nolan, you won’t be alone.”
I didn’t know if she meant I wouldn’t be alone when it came to the cemetery or if she meant more than that. Fearing it was the former when I wished for the latter, I didn’t ask.
Despite the heat in the car, cold gripped my body as Hailey pulled into the cemetery parking lot and found a spot. With the engine still running, she wrapped her warm hand around my shaky fist.
“It’s going to be okay, Nolan. No matter what happens in there”—her gaze flicked to the cemetery entrance—“it will be okay.”
I took in the ornate black metal fence, the tall stone columns on either side of the entrance, and the thick blanket of white beyond that. The memory of my sister and mother being lowered into the ground flashed in my head, and it was like being kneed hard in the gut.
But no matter how much it hurt, no matter how much I’d rather be somewhere else, Hailey was right. I needed to do this.
I nodded, more to myself than to her, and opened the car door. A cold wind chilled me to the core. While I waited for Hailey to join me, I stood frozen, staring at the entrance. I closed my eyes against the memories of my last time here.
At the feel of Hailey’s fingers weaving with mine, I opened my eyes. No rays of sunlight streamed down from the heavens, guiding me to their final resting spot. No signs whispered to me that my mom and sister were happy I’d come back to visit. All that greeted me was the heavy gray sky. “I don’t even remember where they are.”
“I do,” she said.
Guilt wrapped around me tightly, squeezing the air out of me. Hailey had been here at least once since the funeral, while I’d stayed away like a coward.
She led the way to the two graves. My father wasn’t buried here. After what he had done, after all those years of abuse and secrets, I’d refused to have his remains anywhere near theirs. I had no idea where he was buried and I didn’t care. All I knew was that his parents had claimed his body. He wasn’t sharing the same sacred grounds with the people I loved.
A fresh bouquet of red and white flowers rested against a tombstone. Christmas colors. My sister’s favorite time of year.
My steps faltered. “I don’t even have flowers.”
“They won’t care about that.”
I nodded and let Hailey lead me to their final resting place.
In the days leading up to the funeral, I had been numb. Hailey’s parents stepped in to help with the arrangements. I didn’t even remember what Mom’s and Sarah’s gravestones looked like.
Releasing Hailey’s hand, I dropped to my knees in front of the two shiny black granite gravestones, sitting side by side. A million things that I wanted to say to Mom and Sarah jostled around in my head, but the boulder-sized lump in my throat blocked the heartfelt words.
Hailey knelt next to me. And for the first time in forever, I didn’t feel so alone. For the first time, the loneliness that had consumed me all these years curled up in the corner and gave me some space.
I could finally take a breath.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, looking between the two gravestones, doing my best to keep the memories at bay.
Chapter 27
Nolan
FIVE YEARS AGO
The cop car was sitting outside my house when we arrived, my sister in the back like a common criminal. Except she wasn’t the one who had done anything wrong. That honor went to my asshole father.
None of the street-facing windows were lit up. So unless my father was in another room not visible from the street or was in the dark, he wasn’t home. Relief rushed over me, both bitter and sweet.
A voice in the back of my head whispered for me to turn around and drive. Drive as far and as fast as possible and never look back. But I couldn’t leave my sister. I was fucking nineteen years old and had my whole life ahead of me, but I had to stay until I was better able to protect my family—or until my father kicked me out.
Doing my best to hide the anger hot inside me, I parked my car in the driveway and raced to the cop car. The storm had since passed, the last rays of the sun peering through the clouds. The officer opened the back door of his vehicle and Sarah hurled herself at me, knocking me back a step. I wrapped my arms around her, her clothes wet like my own.
“I was so scared, Nolan,” she said, her body shaking, and she started crying again. I couldn’t tell if it was because of what happened or because she was relieved to be home. More likely a combination of both.
“It’s gonna be okay.” I almost choked on the lie. “Thanks for bringing her home.”
The cop nodded. “Any word yet from your father?” He sounded concerned, which made my lie seem much worse. He didn’t care that my father had disappeared to get drunk. He was concerned that something bad had happened to him.<
br />
He was the only one to share that sentiment.
I shook my head, unwilling to add another layer to the lie. At least my reply was the truth.
I peered at the neighboring houses. Until now my family had never caused as much as a raised eyebrow. My father would shit bricks if he thought we were the cause of neighborhood gossip. But maybe he should have thought of that before ditching Sarah.
“Have you tried calling him?” the cop asked.
“Why don’t I take Sarah inside and get her warmed up?” Hailey broke in, handing my phone to me. I mouthed “thank you” before unlocking the front door and letting them in.
“No. I didn’t have a chance to,” I told the cop. “Other than when I called 911, I was on the phone with my sister the entire time. I mean, other than while I was driving or changing the flat tire, and then my best friend”—I gestured to the house—“was talking to Sarah.”
“Fair enough.”
I got the hint and called Dad’s number. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to answer or not. If he did answer, chances were good I’d have to lie to the cop about where my father was. He’d probably driven to the bar to pass time while Sarah was in her dance class and had lost track of the hours. It was too much to hope for that tragedy had struck him down and we’d be permanently free of his torment.
After several rings the phoned transferred to voicemail. “Hey, Dad, where are you?” There’s a cop here, and I’ve got to sound like I’m worried about you instead of ready to kill you. “If you’re looking for Sarah, I’ve got her.” You know, in case you forgot all about her and need a not-so-subtle reminder of your parenting responsibilities.
I ended the call. “He’s not answering.” I tried to sound worried. I’m sure I came a hundred miles short of it.
“What is your father’s name?” the cop asked. “I can check if he’s been involved in an accident.”
I told him, and he called in to see if any accidents had recently been reported.
“Do you want me to file a missing-person report?”
Did I? “Don’t you have to wait forty-eight hours?”
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