He knew he might have imagined it, but her hands appeared to be shaking. He wanted to grab them and hold them more than anything. Hold her. Reassure her. Love the ever-loving hell out of her.
“Okay, Kylie Lou. We won’t go then.” He returned his attention to the fire. Without waiting for her response, he confessed his darkest secret. “But the truth is—even if you never set foot on that property again so long as you live—you’re always there.”
SHE WAs dead on her feet by the time they finished with their messy marshmallow roast. But he was pretty sure her stepmother’s bullshit excuse for a book was a distant memory.
He walked her to her room wondering if he lived a normal life, if this was what a date might be like. After his suggestion of friendship and everything that had happened the past few weeks, he knew better than to expect a goodnight kiss. Didn’t keep him from wanting one. Badly.
But when he wiped the sweet, sticky remnants of dessert from her lips, a hint of a smile played on them. He smiled back because, even though he wasn’t getting a kiss tonight, he’d accomplished his goal. He wanted to make her smile, help her forget, even if it was just for a little while.
His fingers ached to remain on her skin, but they’d turned a corner tonight. Sure, they’d mostly sat in peaceful silence. But there had been no anger and no blatant hatred rolling off her in his direction. And he was desperately hoping that damn wall she kept between them was coming down slowly but surely. So he removed his finger from her soft lips and took a step back.
“You don’t have to stay. Security team is in place. I’m fine, really.” At least that’s what her mouth said.
But Trace was catching on. Her mouth said, Go, I’m fine. Her eyes said, Stay, I don’t want to be alone.
He was also smart enough to know she would hate that he’d figured that out.
Doing his best to not lay it on too thick, he let a yawn out and stretched his arms over his head. Gripping the top of the doorframe at the entrance of her room, he leaned forward.
“Eh, I’m kinda beat. Too tired to be driving anyway. The crew will make their way back in the morning without me.”
“So you’re staying then? On the bus?”
There it was, that mix of hope and fear that tended to show in her eyes when she was trying so hard not to appear vulnerable.
“That okay with you? I’m just gonna crash in my room. I’ll try not to snore too loud or have any disruptive nightmares.”
Hope and fear turned to pity. Which he hated.
He scoffed. “It was a joke. It’s not a big deal. Unless it really does keep you up. I could sleep on the—”
“Trace,” was all she said.
It was enough to shut him up. She walked toward him with a determination that would’ve made a lesser man retreat. Or worship on his knees. The sight of her hips swaying gently made his entire body stand at attention.
“Thank you,” she said, catching him so off guard he couldn’t respond right away. “For tonight. For what you said and did. For…coming back.”
She was close enough that her sweet honey-vanilla scent surrounded him. Close enough to touch. Close enough to pick up and press against the wall. To tear her clothes off and sink himself inside her.
He blinked the images away and focused on the present. Or tried to at least.
“I’ll always come back.” He hadn’t meant for the truth to slip out like that, but he wasn’t sorry that it did. He didn’t even have time to wonder if she recognized them as her own. Her reaction was immediate.
Judging from the tears that sprang to her eyes and the way her entire body jolted, those words were an unwelcome reminder.
“Well, um, goodnight,” she said quietly, turning away, dismissing him and busying herself by searching for something in her dresser.
He sighed, certain that he’d screwed up his mission not to hurt her once again. “Goodnight, Kylie Lou.”
“YOU’RE SERIOUSLY telling me nothing happened?” Her best friend gaped at her in disbelief. “Like nothing as in no bow chicka wow wow, or nothing as in absolutely nothing? Not even a kiss or one of those damn spine-tingling, shiver-inducing, panty-combusting one-liners he’s so good at?”
“Nothing as in nothing, Lu. He tossed Darla’s book in the fire. We roasted marshmallows. We ate s’mores. We went to bed. Separately. The end.” Kylie kept her voice low as her friend did her makeup. She hoped the girl would take the cue and lower her voice as well before someone heard.
“Well, that’s…disappointing.”
Kylie snorted. “Sorry. Guess you’ll have to try and be satisfied with your own love life since I don’t actually have one. Speaking of which—”
“Nope. Not talking about it. Don’t even ask.”
Kylie leaned back out of her friend’s reach. “What the hell do you mean you’re not talking about it? I tell you everything!”
Lulu nodded. “Exactly. And I have this theory.”
“You and your theories,” Kylie grumbled under her breath.
“Yeah. And they’re usually right. This one I’m serious about.”
“The theory or the guy? ’Cause, Lu, I gotta tell you, Mike Brennen is a—”
Lulu put a blue glittery manicured hand up in front of Kylie’s mouth. “Nope. This is what you do. You overthink things, which is something I never thought I’d say about you. But ever since—”
“I got it. You think I’m being too careful.” Kylie knew her voice had taken on a harsher tone, but she didn’t care. Her heart pounded in her chest and she had to speak louder to hear herself over it.
“But when you fall for Mike Brennen, who, by the way, is an alcoholic known for nailing anything that doesn’t move out of the way fast enough, and he screws the next thing that comes along behind your back and you have to watch their entire relationship play out in front of the whole world, then you can come talk to me about being too careful.” She propelled herself out of the chair.
“Kylie, wait.” Her friend called after her. But she didn’t.
She fled her best friend’s tiny room without looking back.
As soon as she stepped off the bus and into the warm South Carolina sunshine, she was blocked by a solid wall of red and blue plaid.
“Okay, Gretch. Hate that you can’t make it tonight. We’ll catch up later then,” Trace said into his phone before lowering it and disconnecting the call.
Literally running into him when he was on the phone with her least favorite, or maybe her second least favorite—she hadn’t taken the time to weigh Gretchen Gibson against Darla yet—person in the whole world, set her nerves on edge. The peaceful truce they’d reached the night before felt like a distant memory.
“Jesus. Do you not own any other shirts?” She squinted up at him. His dark sunglasses hid his eyes, but his mouth quirked up in amusement.
“My bad, Joan Rivers. You have a complaint about my wardrobe?”
Kylie sighed and tried to move around him. “Too many to list. What are you doing over here anyways?”
“I was looking for my bass player. You seen him?”
“No. I haven’t. And can you do me a favor when you do?”
Trace folded his arms over his broad chest. She refused to let herself notice the enticing way his forearms rippled and flexed.
“What’s that?”
“Tell him to leave my friend alone? Seriously. I need her, and if he does something to hurt her and she leaves then—”
“Yeah, I hear what you’re saying. I do.” Trace adjusted his bright red trucker hat, lifting the bill just enough to scratch his head before lowering it back down. “But I tried telling him to back off before anything even happened between them. You saw how well he listened.”
“How well he listened to what?” Lulu inquired from behind her.
Kylie cringed. Shit.
“I’m gonna let you gals discuss this amongst yourselves. Either of you see Mike, tell him to get his ass to soundcheck, please.” With that, Trace beat it out of there.
Thanks for the support, Corbin.
Slowly, Kylie turned to face her friend. “Lu. I’m sorry. I know I’m being a control freak and paranoid—”
“And ridiculous.” Her friend shook her head as she came down off the bus. “Ky, I’m not you, and Mike’s not Trace. We’re not madly in love or starting some angst-filled, ill-fated, overly drawn-out romance. We’re hooking up for lack of anything better to do. It’s fun. We’re having a good time.”
Kylie frowned at her friend. “So you’ve said. Look, I know it’s totally none of my business but—”
“But you plan to stick your perfect little nose in it anyways.”
Kylie bit her lip and grinned. “Um, I might’ve told Trace to tell Mike to back off. Not that he’ll listen, obviously.”
Lulu made a big show of tossing her hair over her shoulder. Even though it was too short to really toss. “Well of course not. Who could resist this?” She gestured with mock confidence at her body.
Kylie laughed at her friend’s lighthearted take on the whole thing, but the tinges of worry remained as the two of them headed over toward the stage where Trace and his band were warming up. Kylie heard the unmistakable thrum of Mike’s bass guitar, so apparently he’d been located.
It was still a few hours until showtime so the arena was sparsely populated. They sat in front-row seats. When Mike winked down at Lulu, Kylie looked over at her. The expression her friend wore was hard to read, but she was pretty sure it said more than “hooking up for lack of anything better to do.”
“Hey, Lu?” She waited until she’d reluctantly dragged her eyes from the stage before she continued. “Just, um, be careful, okay? I know you’re a big girl and can make your own decisions, but I also know how fast hooking up can turn into a whole lot more. And the next thing you know, you’re face down in a vat of mint chocolate chip.” She attempted a smile. It wasn’t easy with the object of her own heartbreak strutting his ass up and down the stage right in front of her face.
“I appreciate the concern. Really, I do.” Her friend nudged her shoulder. “And I get where you’re coming from. But I promise, it’s not anything to stress over. Just two people enjoying each other’s company while it lasts.”
For a few minutes neither of them said anything. They just watched the private show as Trace and his band worked to get the sound equipment and their earpieces working correctly.
“So…we never got to finish our talk the other day.”
Kylie had to work to pull herself out of the song Trace was singing. It was a warm day and she was beginning to feel kind of strange. Like she was in a fog and was having delayed reactions to pretty much everything.
“Huh?”
“When we got tacos. Hannah called about the Darla thing and we kind of got off track.”
She turned and gave her friend her full attention. “That’s right. Remind me what exactly we were talking about?”
Lulu’s eyes darted toward the stage and then back to her.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. So anyways, I was talking to Mike about everything that happened last year and I wanted to tell you what he said.”
Every organ in her body had a reaction to Lulu’s words. Her heart began the out-of-rhythm-beat-skipping thing it did whenever someone wanted to discuss the part of her life she tried so hard not to.
Kylie pulled as much air into her lungs as she could manage. Letting it out slowly, she forced a grin for her friend’s piece of mind.
“It’s fine, Lu. I know he went into rehab with Gretchen. I know they’re together or whatever. I’ve dealt with it.”
She knew it was a half-truth, and it sucked telling it to the one person she’d always been able to tell everything to. But she was trying her best to make it the truth. Her hope was that, if she said it enough times, eventually it would be. One day in the very distant future probably, but the only thing she could really do was try.
Lulu’s face scrunched in either pain or concern. Kylie couldn’t tell for sure.
“See, that’s the thing. Mike’s version is a little, uh, different from the mass media version.”
Kylie’s eyes had drifted back toward the stage. She could feel Trace watching her as he sang. Her inner fangirl threatened to come out and sing along. She stuffed a gag in that chick’s mouth and returned her attention to Lulu.
“I’m sorry. I’m kind of out of it today. You were saying?”
“Kylie, I need you to focus, okay? And not on his ass in those damn jeans.”
She scoffed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Her friend grinned. “No. No you don’t have any idea what I’m talking about. Because you’re paying more attention to him than me. Wonder why that is, Miss I’m-So-Over-It?”
Heat filled her cheeks and she glanced down at her hands in shame. She was tired, and not just because she hadn’t slept a freaking wink last night. She was tired of holding up the heavy-as-hell billboard sign full of lies about how over him she was. So she dropped the damn thing and let it smash into a million pieces.
“I’m not over it, Lu. I’m a freaking mess. Last night he wiped some marshmallow goo off my face and I swear…I nearly melted into a puddle on the floor. From his hand. On my face. I hate that he still has this effect on me. What is wrong with me?”
Surprisingly, Lulu laughed.
Kylie narrowed her eyes at her. “Thanks. That’s really helpful. Some bestie you are.”
Once she’d sobered, Lulu pinned Kylie with a serious glare. “Okay, first of all, never call me that. In fact, if you even say that stupid-ass word around me, I might accidentally judo chop you in the throat. Purely as a reflex.” She shrugged as if to say consider yourself warned, and continued her speech. “Second of all, nothing is wrong with you. You have unresolved feelings for someone you still care a lot about. Honestly, you want to know what the weirdest and most awkward part of this entire past year has been for everyone around you?”
Kylie opened her mouth to say something but Lulu rushed on.
“You pretending not to care about him.”
“I guess acting is out as a career choice then?”
Her friend nodded. “Most definitely. Thank God you can sing.”
Kylie sighed. She ignored the urge to look back up at the stage. Even though she knew there was no way Trace could hear her conversation, she felt as if she’d shouted her confession from the rooftops.
“So you were going to give me the expert opinion of Mike Brennen?”
Lulu shook her head. “No, I was going to tell you what he told me sort of by accident.”
“Jesus. If you start telling me y’all talk about Trace in the throes of passion, I’m going to—”
“No. God, no. Nothing like that. I was going to tell you that Gretchen called Mike the other day. They share an addiction specialist dude or something.” Lulu waved her hand as if the details were inconsequential. “Anyways, when they hung up, I made a snide comment about why she didn’t just call her boyfriend to get whatever info she needed to know about the AA dude.”
Kylie couldn’t help it. She winced when Lulu referred to Trace that way. Her friend offered her a sympathetic smile and continued.
“And um, here’s the weird part. Mike was totally lost. His exact response was ‘I didn’t even know Gretchen had a boyfriend.’”
Before Kylie had time to register the full impact of what her friend was saying—or the oddly disturbing fact that her face had gone strangely numb and prickly—Lulu put her hands up.
“Ky, I’m not saying you should take him back or run back to him with open arms or whatever. I’m just telling you what Mike said. According to him, Trace and Gretchen weren’t together—um aren’t together. They went to rehab together as friends…like a moral support buddy system thing or something.”
“Oh.” Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t get any more words to come out of it. She licked her lips and snuck a glance to where he stood on stage talking with his drummer.
Her brain said that this was good news. Maybe he hadn’t chosen someone else over her after all. But her heart said that she should keep that steel wall around it firmly in place and run like hell.
Because if this were true, if he really had just gone to get help so he could be better and then he’d come out only to see her with Steven—which she was pretty certain had sent him right back into rehab—then she wasn’t just a wounded ex-girlfriend who’d been dumped for someone else.
She was a complete idiot who’d basically cheated on the only man she’d ever loved.
But to her, it didn’t necessarily matter what the official status of Trace and Gretchen’s relationship was. They definitely had an intense—and likely very complex—one.
The words he’d said when she called him out for walking away from what they had still plagued her.
It was for the best. It was what was best for you, for both of us, and if I had to, I’d do it again.
Those words rang out in her head like a tornado siren screaming a warning to keep her heart safe in its bunker. Especially that last part.
Because the truth was, dating or not, he’d told Gretchen about his drinking when he couldn’t tell her. He’d gone into rehab most likely at Gretchen’s prompting. She wondered if it was that same prompting that led him to break things off with her before he left. She knew Gretchen didn’t like her, would probably never like her, and Trace clearly valued her friendship and her opinion.
It was an equation for disaster, one she couldn’t sort all of the factors to. Or even begin to process with him singing on stage a few feet away and the humidity making her sweaty and confused.
Everything she thought she knew, the clearly defined details of the situation and the images of him and Gretchen in her head, began to blur and fade. Because if Mike was telling the truth, her whole world had just become a strange and unfamiliar place. An alternate universe where everything was suddenly the exact opposite of the way it had once been. She was jaded and closed off and Trace was admitting his feelings and sober.
Girl in Love Page 20
