Mistake’s Melody: Unquiet Mind Book Four

by Malcom, Anne

  Her expression flickered so quickly Wyatt couldn’t quite trust himself to say that he’d seen it. Pain. Agony.

  “No, I’m driving down to Amber,” she said, voice sharp. “I’m going to see Ava, Lexie, and Mia and her hellions. Just came by to drop off caffeine since I knew you’d need it.” She gave Gina a smile, then a quick glance to the sleeping baby. “Call me when you’re sick of your husband.”

  Sam snatched her into his arms, kissing her soundly. “She’s never sick of me, she fucking adores me. I’m the love of her life.”

  Gina giggled. “Yeah, I’ll call you.”

  Emma smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. Her expression turned blank as she regarded Wyatt. “Good luck on the interview, try not to barf on anyone.”

  And she turned and walked away.

  Wyatt couldn’t help but think she took something with her when she left.

  Emma

  I didn’t even remember the drive to Amber, which didn’t mean good things since it was over two hours away from L.A. and it was a total miracle I made it without crashing.

  I didn’t spend the trip sobbing, blasting Adele songs or cursing Wyatt to have a perpetually limp dick or a bad case of crabs.

  I spent it in some kind of void of numbness where no thoughts existed. Where no pain existed. All it was was numbness and my basic human functions, like inhaling and exhaling. I didn’t even consciously make the decision to drive to Lexie’s, but I had nowhere else to go.

  Nowhere else was safe.

  The door opened, Lexie with a baby on her hip and surprise on her face. “Emma, I thought you were in—”

  “You didn’t tell me,” I interrupted.

  Her expression changed with the look I guessed I was wearing. The one that was likely as fractured and helpless as my tone.

  “Tell you what, sweetie?”

  “What it felt like. Losing him. Having your heart broken,” I choked. “You didn’t tell me that it’s like being trapped inside your own skin and you would claw your flesh off if it would only stop the pain. You didn’t tell me that it would be impossible to breathe around it. You didn’t tell me, and you went through that for fucking years.”

  I wasn’t numb anymore.

  “Oh no,” she whispered. She turned around. “Killian!” she yelled.

  He appeared what seemed like seconds later, immediately alert for some threat, some fucking bullet to throw himself in front of so it didn’t hit Lexie. He loved her that much.

  A sob escaped my chest as my void moved farther away and pain engulfed me.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, taking me in the same second he took his adorable child from Lexie’s arms.

  Lexie moved the second she could, yanking me into her embrace.

  And that’s where I fell apart.

  * * *

  “Why didn’t you tell me you loved him?” Lexie asked softly.

  We were now in her kickass kitchen—the one that Killian had built for her, right on top of the spot they had their first date when she was sixteen, he was so romantic it made me want to barf—after I’d cried on her shoulder for like thirty minutes straight.

  I’d never cried before in my life.

  Especially over a guy.

  There was a first time for everything, I guessed.

  I looked up from where I was pouring my tequila shot. “Because I didn’t know,” I croaked, slamming the shot, savoring the burn that wasn’t nearly strong enough and didn’t last long enough. Tequila was a weak imitation for the burn of love. But heartbreak went better with tequila than lemon and salt.

  “I didn’t fucking let myself realize or maybe I’m too emotionally crippled to even realize my own mind. My own heart.” I poured more, wondering if the only thing those white pills were doing were helping me sink into denial. “I didn’t think I even had a heart.”

  “You have a heart, Em,” Lexie said firmly. “And you’re not emotionally crippled.”

  I raised my brow at her. “Friends don’t lie, remember?”

  She sighed, grinning slightly, but her eyes glimmered with sadness. “We’re all emotionally crippled in our own way, that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve love.”

  “I don’t want to fucking deserve it if this is what it is,” I croaked, my voice raw from crying.

  Her normally soft face turned hard. “What did he do?” she demanded. We hadn’t really gotten to the specifics since I’d only been able to croak Wyatt’s name in between my sobbing.

  I sucked in a breath, trying to shoo away the events of this morning. It seemed like a lifetime ago and like it had happened moments before. The pain was that deep in me, and that fresh at the same time. “He didn’t do anything. He didn’t...” I trailed off. It was mortifying enough living the moment, recounting the event to Lexie required a lot more than a shot of tequila. It required me hooking the bottle up to an IV.

  “You’re not gonna write a song about this are you?” I asked, ripping my mouth from his to regard those blue eyes I’d never seen this close. They were clouded with all the whisky we’d both drank. But they were somehow clearer than they’d ever been. But my mind wasn’t exactly clear, so I could’ve been imagining it. I most certainly was imagining it.

  “I don’t write songs, words,” he rasped. “I’m the melody guy. But babe, you’re too chaotic to put into a melody.” Then he kissed me again.

  And I wasn’t imagining that.

  “It’s my fault,” I said finally.

  I was the one who decided to stay when it became apparent Wyatt was drinking to get shitfaced. I was the one who carried around all the little comments, all the small touches, those three days when Lexie was in the hospital, I was the one who carried around a collection of moments and let them turn into love without even knowing it.

  “No,” Lexie snapped, her normally soft voice a whip. “You are not the woman who blames herself for the actions of some asshole. The fact that he’s made you think that is despicable. I’ll kill him.” She paused. “Better yet, I’ll get Killian to do it for me. I just had a manicure.”

  I glanced to her nails, they were light pink flecks of gold. “Pretty.”

  She looked down. “I know, right? I thought the gold was gonna be tacky, but it turned out just right.” She looked up. “I repeat, what did he do?”

  I laughed, the sound empty and ugly. “Me.”

  She froze, obviously not expecting that answer. She’d always prodded me about something happening between Wyatt and me, but I’d always assured her nothing had happened. And I never lied to my best friend.

  I just lied to myself.

  “I’m the asshole in this situation,” I continued. “I turned up to the beach house, he was drunk, I was drunk too, but not as bad as him—I have the best tolerance for spirits after all—so I’m the one that took advantage of him.”

  Lexie raised her brow. “No one takes advantage of Wyatt. That would require him to have some kind of willpower or set of standards.” She paused, wincing. “Fuck, I didn’t mean—”

  I waved off her apology. “I know that he has a revolving door leading in and out of his bedroom. Fuck, the whole world knows it since his latest conquests are splashed over the tabloids.” I thought of the Instagram model. “My sex life isn’t exactly modest either.” I took another shot, calling up the Wyatt from the night before. The one with his guards down, with a pain that I could compare to my own. “But this was different...he was upset. Drinking something away. And I joined him.” I looked to Lexie. “I’ve never seen him like that before. Maybe it invited me to act in ways I haven’t been like before. Dredged up demons that I only know how to fight by finding a guy to fuck. I thought at the start, that’s what it was gonna be with Wyatt. Both of us trying to fuck our pasts out of our present. I wasn’t exactly sober.” I thought about his lips on mine, his hands brushing over my bare skin. “But it cleared my head right up. The second it started. Not sober enough to stop when I realized what a big mistake it was of course. How painful it’d be.”
<
br />   That pain prodded at my chest, clawing at my rib cage.

  “And then it was too late. This morning...” I trailed off, remembering waking up, hungover but happy.

  Wyatt’s arms were fastened firmly around me, his scent clinging to me. The night was blurry and stark at the same time. Images of our bodies moving against each other, of him inside me assaulted my still half-asleep brain.

  I glanced over. Wyatt was still dead to the world. His hair was covering his face, sheets slung low on his hips, revealing muscles I’d only imagined touching. They were impressive up close.

  I considered waking him up by exploring those muscles with my tongue, but my tongue felt furry and swollen and hungover sex was so not cute. Instead, I crawled out of bed, brushed my teeth with his toothbrush, got dressed and went to get us coffees and food. I got a lot of both since I decided we’d need it.

  I knew what Wyatt liked since I knew Wyatt. It was strange, knowing the way a man I’d just fucked liked his coffee, knowing that he liked simple glazed donuts. It was somehow more intimate than the act of fucking itself.

  My hangover was annoying but manageable. It also helped to push away all the thoughts I’d normally have about waking up with Wyatt. Naked. After having drunk sex.

  I normally would’ve panicked. Ran.

  But as I balanced the coffees and opened the door to the beach house, I realized I didn’t want to run. All the moments between Wyatt and I had seemed insubstantial over the years, but collecting them up, and bringing them together in the way we had last night I realized what I’d been trying to avoid since I was seventeen.

  I’d fallen in love with him.

  Not at first sight.

  Slowly. Without even noticing it was happening, with phone calls, with texts, with moments sitting on the porch and getting high with him. Nothing to realize until I woke up with him this morning.

  Love wasn’t something I wanted. Or needed. But this was Wyatt. It might be different. He was different.

  But I got inside the beach house and life reminded me he wasn’t.

  And I definitely wasn’t different for him.

  Or special.

  Or even memorable.

  “Did it go away?” I whispered, yanking myself away from the memories of the morning, asking Lexie the question I needed to know. “The pain?”

  She was quiet for a long time. I wondered if she was lost in those years when she was Lexie but also...not. Because seeing them together, you knew there wasn’t a Lexie without Killian. And for me to admit something like that, it was big. I was a feminist. Independent. I never thought that a woman’s identity, a woman’s life should be built around a man.

  Well, not just a man...people in general.

  Family.

  Friends.

  Because as soon as you gave someone the access to the self-destruct button in your emotional health, they’d press it. Eventually. Humans were fascinated with their own destruction, one just needed to look at the sheer amount of apocalyptic movies that were created for the masses and devoured by that.

  Or just look at Britney’s meltdown circa 2007.

  Killian had pressed that button when Lexie and the band were on the cusp of making it big. When they were only eighteen and it shouldn’t have been what it was between them.

  I knew why he did it.

  Because he loved her.

  Because he knew that she loved him enough to press that button herself. To forgo the life her voice and her talent would make for her.

  I got why he did it, it didn’t mean I didn’t want to rip his fucking balls off for destroying my best friend—the only person I’d ever let close enough to me to even come within reaching distance of my button.

  But they got their shit together. And they were right. Lexie was her beautiful, vibrant, hippy, rock star and awesome self. And Killian had a lot to do with that.

  They were the exception to my rule about independence. Because when you were around them, you saw it. Something different. Something out of this world. A connection that others could only witness.

  It was hard enough watching that and knowing I’d never have it.

  But having it, and losing it?

  Yeah, it ruined Lexie.

  And even though Killian would chop his own arm off rather than leave her and Ava, I knew Lexie feared for it to be lost once more.

  That’s why I let her contemplate my question.

  It was cruel even asking it, but I was selfish, and I needed to know how long I’d feel like this.

  “No,” she said finally, looking at me. “It doesn’t get better. It will still hurt the same. And I don’t think people are right when they say it hurts the same, but you get stronger.”

  She glanced to the living room, where the sounds of Ava’s laughter trickled through the kitchen. She smiled before looking back to me.

  “I think you just get more adept at pretending. Pretending you’re strong. You’re not falling apart. But it doesn’t get better. Easier. With me, time made it harder. Because every day that went by was a day I lost a little proximity to what I had with Kill. Every day was another twenty-four hours since I was in his arms, since I looked at him. And time created a distance to something I thought I’d never have again. And it was worse because there was a quota for you to be outwardly miserable after heartbreak. People were only sympathetic for so long. Then they expect you to get over it. But the truth is, you never do. And if I hadn’t gotten him back, I know I never would have. I wouldn’t have gotten over him. I wouldn’t have gotten stronger. I’d just get excellent at pretending.”

  She gave me a sad smile. “That’s not what you wanted to hear, was it?”

  “No, it fucking wasn’t,” I muttered.

  “Want me to kill him?” Killian offered, making me jump. He was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, glaring. Not at me, I knew. Killian and I were solid since I punched him in the face. But he was obviously glaring at what he’d heard.

  The reminder of what he’d done to Lexie.

  Obviously it wasn’t enough for him to handle without her in his arms because he strode through the room and snatched her into his arms, kissing her head.

  “How long have you been listening?” Lexie demanded, relaxing into his grip.

  “Long enough.” He looked at her for a long time after he spoke, saying nothing and everything with his look. He did that with Lexie often. Since he wasn’t the most articulate of men. Not that he needed to be. I’d never seen a man say so much with a look at the woman he loved as I did with him. His hard gaze went to me, softening at the edges. “I repeat, want me to kill him?”

  That was Killian’s way of asking me if I was okay.

  “No,” I said. “I’ll be okay.”

  I wouldn’t.

  But as Lexie said, I’d get much better at pretending.

  Chapter Five

  One Month Later

  It had almost been five weeks since...the event.

  The event being—having drunken sex with Wyatt, realizing I was in love with him, and then also realizing that he had no memory of the sex and he was definitely not in love with me.

  Event was a light word for it.

  Apocalypse seemed better if I was one for dramatics.

  I was not one for dramatics.

  So I did what I did best, I kept going. I threw myself into work, making sure to take every assignment that took me out of the country, no matter where the assignment was. That meant I was almost never in my apartment in L.A. That meant I was almost never in the same city as Wyatt.

  They were gearing up for another domestic tour and recording a new album—one Sam co-wrote with Lexie—so the band was busy as ever, as Lexie told me in her frequent phone calls.

  We talked a lot, normally. But now I’d had my breakdown in her kitchen, she was checking on me every five seconds.

  As was Mia.

  “Lexie told me, don’t be mad at her, mostly because she’s got your best interests and heart and also because I
hear she’s getting a private jet soon and at least use her for that until you get mad at her,” she’d blurted on the first phone call.

  I’d laughed. And I was not at all mad. Because I knew Mia and Lexie kept few secrets from each other. And because Mia’s support, in the way of different punishments we could dole out to Wyatt and suggestions for different kinds of shoes I could buy to ‘make me feel better’ was comforting. As comforting as it could be at least.

  Though both Lexie and Mia wanted to shout at Wyatt and hire a voodoo woman to curse him with male pattern baldness, I had sworn them to secrecy. For them to be mad at him, he’d first have to find out what they were mad about. And no way was I going to let him find out about the fact we had sex.

  I was going to quietly repair my broken heart, I was going to avoid him for as long as I could, screen every one of his calls until I was strong enough to pretend it never happened.

  So in about ten years.

  But sitting in my bathroom, having just arrived home from India, tired, heartbroken and shocked, I realized that my emotional scars were not the only thing that would be permanent from that night.

  I took the test to put my mind at ease more than anything else. I was on the pill, which was why I hadn’t been worried about not using protection...on the night. Other than STDs, of course. But I didn’t worry about that, not with Wyatt. Even as drunk as he was, I believed him when he’d told me he’d never taken anyone else without a condom but me.

  “I don’t want anything between us, baby,” he growled. “I’ve always protected myself with everyone else, but not with you.”

  The pure memory of it hit me with enough force to make me flinch. He’d seemed so lucid when he said it, so alert. I convinced myself he was drunk enough to tell the truth, that otherwise he couldn’t have been able to string words together like that. But then again, he’d played stadiums after a bottle of whisky and a large joint, so what did I know.