“Cece. It’s me. It’s Avery. I’m not going to hurt you...” He could speak in low tones, because of their close contact and he tried to smooth her worry, while her struggling, gorgeous terrified eyes found him. Really, truly, found him and stopped fighting him. The recollection ran through her eyes, and then turned to horror.
“Avery?” she breathed.
Thank God.
He loosened his grip everywhere but didn’t step back.
“What’s the matter? What happened?” he demanded right away. His eyes quickly darted to their surroundings, now having the opportunity to look for what scared her. There was nothing out of place and no one around. Avery looked back at her.
“I thought...” Her voice trailed away with her eyes, finding his hand snuggly around both of hers.
“You thought what?”
She stared at their hands for a long while, her face scrunched together in confusion. He could relate. He was damn confused. Then she wiped it clean off her face, leaving her expressionless, like she’d been the last couple months whenever they were in the same room.
“Let me go,” she said.
“What happened?” Avery demanded again.
“Avery, let me go.”
He released her hands and she took a step back. “Don’t sneak up on me like that,” she said, rubbing her wrists blaming his tiny touch on a full-blown...panic attack?
“I didn’t know I was sneaking.” Something was wrong or had happened and she wasn’t offering him an explanation. She was doing anything but telling him the truth. Avery felt like they were taking a hundred steps back to the earlier months.
“You scared the hell out of me,” she accused as if that was a reasonable explanation. It certainly wasn’t. “It’s empty and dark back here−”
Avery watched her turning this around on him and he didn’t like it. “And there’s security around the entire place,” he pointed out. “What happened that got you so worked up? What are you trying not to tell me?”
She folded her arms in front of her as though it was a barrier or warning to keep him away. “Is there something you wanted?” The chill in her voice iced between them.
Her. He wanted her and now he wanted to know what happened between the moment she left the merchandise tent to right now that caused her to...to...have a panic attack. She’d had a panic attack.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I was planning on taking a break.” Her detached voice from the last couple of months returned.
“That’s not what I’m talking about. You’re shutting me out.”
“You’re reading too much into this. God, Avery you scared me is all. Which you seem to do a lot. Outside the service station. Now. Why are you always sneaking up on me?” Is that really how she saw him or was she deflecting him again? This woman was aggravatingly perplexing.
“Why are you turning this around on me? Just answer the simple question.”
“I already did. You just don’t want to listen.”
“That answer is bullshit.”
Cece waved her hands at him, dismissing his words and turning away. If his bewilderment wasn’t running deep with annoyance, he would have appreciated the way her high, round rear moved in her skinnies as he followed her onto the bus.
She could walk away all she wanted, but Avery wasn’t finished.
“Cece, that reaction wasn’t a normal little fright.”
Sean and Drew were sitting along the couch and looked up as Avery and Cece stormed in stomping their feet and talking with raised voices.
Had they not heard Cece’s panic attack outside?
Cece’s eyes went from the guys then to Avery with a warning to drop it. He sure as hell wasn’t dropping it and if she didn’t want to do it privately then they were doing it right here.
Sean and Drew looked uncomfortably between each other, then from Cece to Avery. Everyone was silent. Everyone was uncomfortable.
Avery stopped his next words at the tip of his tongue and clamped his mouth shut. Whatever she wasn’t telling him, she certainly wouldn’t admit it in front of the guys.
“Cece, are you coming to supper with us? We were thinking the beer tent?” Sean cautiously asked.
“Ems is changing,” Drew added.
Cece didn’t look at them. Her stare met Avery’s, unwavering. He noticed she was still trembling and as frustrated as he felt, he still wanted to reach out and wrap his arms around her, caressing the worry away. From the isolation Cece situated around her, Avery kept his hands to himself.
“I have work to do tonight. But thanks for the invite.” Cece grabbed her iPad from the table breaking the contact. She moved to the front of the bus, her hideout, and without turning to look at Avery, slid the door shut. She shut him out.
Avery’s mood sunk, his appetite diminished, and his feeling that they could work through anything vanished. How could they work through situations if she didn’t open up to him, share them, and attempt to work through them? What did she want him to do? Ignore that something had really upset her and she wouldn’t tell him what it was? How would he protect her, watch her, and love her if she didn’t open up to him? Avery had known it would be hard with Cece. She was incredibly independent in a way he admired, but she had to let him in.
Avery turned and met two sets of patiently waiting, curious eyes and with no explanation for them. He shrugged and shook his head.
Ems emerged from the bathroom, changed into a long flowing floral dress with a leather jacket over top, smiling around the room. “Is everyone ready?”
There was no way Avery was leaving Cece when he was suspecting fear was the root of her panic. What was she afraid of? Whatever it was, he didn’t feel right leaving her alone. Hopefully, after time alone, she would find it in herself to talk to him. Talk to me Cece. Let me in. You don’t have to be alone. Being independent doesn’t mean doing every little thing yourself. Come on, babe...I love you.
***
WATCHING HER FINGERS still trembling in front of her, Cece closed her eyes. She had to calm down. Her mind was like cobwebs destroyed in the wind, tangled together in a mess she couldn’t sort through.
The doors shut behind the band an hour ago as they left for supper. She would have blissfully tagged along, enjoying her fingers laced through Avery’s, or his arm slung around her shoulder, or his hand on the small of her back, wherever he naturally decided to touch her...if she wasn’t hiding. Hiding. Now she was not only hiding from Rusty, but she was hiding from Avery too. She hated herself for putting distance between them to avoid the truth she couldn’t share. Not now. Not ever.
Sitting in her new found hiding place, the passenger’s seat of the bus, her arms were tightly wrapped around her legs, trying to settle down her nerves. They were still wild after her run-in with Rusty, and then with Avery...followed by the look.
Cece could pretend she was devising a plan to salvage her relationship with Avery and constructing a believable motive for her behavior, but the look he gave her was on repeat in her mind, leaving no room to make up a lie. That’s what it would be too. Whatever believable motive she came up with would simply be a lie. What kind of relationship did that leave them with? A dishonest one. Plus, the familiar look each person had given her the year Riley left was now plastered across Avery’s face, a blend of sympathy and pity that concluded they viewed her as pathetic and weak. Avery thought she was pathetic and weak.
Cece didn’t like the way that look twisted her independence into insecurity.
Avery had given you sympathy about your inability to have children, she pointed out, trying any reasonable tactic to forget the look. But her inner voice argued that there had been a difference between the types of sympathy.
Cece wanted to scream out her frustration.
Are you never going to tell him about Rusty? Why would she? She certainly didn’t have to. Rusty wasn’t going to say anything...was he? Why was he pulling her aside to apologize?
Cece stood up. She
couldn’t handle being locked in this small area anymore. It was the same argument going through her head, and in the end she was left with the decision not to tell Avery and unsure about where they stood and what she would tell him. In the end she was as confused as the beginning.
I’m a mess. Great, just great!
What man would ever want her? Compiled with years of baggage and a snappy attitude she used to protect herself from more pain, she flashed stop sign warnings all around her.
Cece pushed open the door, planning to avoid Avery until the morning...or the end of the AHJ.
She stopped short in the hallway.
Avery was sitting on the leather sofa with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together, staring at her. She’d assumed he’d left with the band.
Had he been here the whole time? Why was he waiting for her? She was a disaster. She would drag him down.
Slowly, she walked in front of him, unsure of what to say, but settling on avoidance. “I thought you went for supper,” she said, sitting down on the opposite side of the U shaped sofa.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Come up with something fast. “I’m fine.”
“You aren’t fine.” He pointed at the door. “That wasn’t fine.” He was still upset and now his body was stiff, his face rigid and his stare hard.
“No, it wasn’t.” Cece took a deep breath.
What do I tell you? What do you want to hear? What do you need to hear?
What good would come out of Avery knowing that Rusty raised a hand to her? Nothing. She would be embarrassed with the truth and he would be troubled by it. In the end it didn’t change a single thing and only added redundant emotions.
Avoidance it was.
“I’m not used to sharing my life with another person.” Half the truth was all she could offer him. The half that expressed her feelings and the true inner scars of her life, but leaving out the parts about Rusty. Bringing up her past, fresh and new, would put a weight on Avery’s shoulders to dwell on, after years of Cece trying to forget, was too painful to proceed with.
“I’m not even used to having another person care about me the way you do. Especially the way you do. You’re honest and straightforward. It comes to you so naturally and I’m used to hiding my life from people.”
Avery didn’t say anything, making it obvious her explanation wasn’t enough for him.
Cece moved beside him and continued down the path of her pain and sadness. “My parents died in a car crash when I was young.” Cece remembered the day like it was yesterday. They say time heals pain, but it was obvious by her reaction today that wasn’t true...and she wasn’t talking about her parents. She missed them and wished they’d been alive through every accomplishment and downfall of her life...especially her downfalls. Then maybe she wouldn’t be so quick to cower away from Rusty instead of facing him. Maybe she would have had the strength to do something the first day he hit her.
“They were going on a romantic vacation, just the two of them.” She smiled remembering her mother pack. “My mom had been talking about it for weeks. Planning each outfit she packed, making sure Riley and I were alright with them leaving. We were always first in our parent’s eyes. They left us with our neighbour, Eleanor. She was a tall, skinny, very active older lady. We had all been outside painting God’s beautiful earth, as she called it, waving her paintbrush in the air for dramatics. That’s was when the police cruiser pulled up her long winding laneway.” At the time, a cruiser had meant nothing to Cece. The little ten-year-old she had been was more excited with the layered mountains she was creating on the canvas, then the flashing lights. “They died in a car crash before they even made it to the airport. Suddenly my life was turned upside down. We went from a beautiful farm in the country, with parents who believed in love and discovering your own dreams, to my Uncle Jack. A wealthy, stern man, who expected A’s in school and a top of the line education.” Until her parent’s death, Cece hadn’t met Jack and his first impression made her quiver. Standing almost double her height, he wore his fancy designer suit, leather loafers and slicked-back hair, staring down at her with narrow black, and cold eyes. “He didn’t care about us at all. It was me and Riley against the world.”
Riley had been older, braver and bolder than Cece and she’d always been able to lean on him...until he left. With that rebel bone in his body, it always steered him to do the opposite of what Jack asked or expected. Unlike Cece, who aimed to please, even if there was no pleasing Uncle Jack.
“Then Dani and Jenny died and Riley left and it was me. Alone. In a blink of the eye, Riley’s house was empty and the only sounds were my footsteps following me around. I shut everyone down. It was so much easier to shut the door then it was to tell people the truth. I was so sad and scared everyday of every hour. Riley was my only family and I looked for him, while learning his business. All alone and there was Rusty cheating on me. It was just too much.” She felt herself getting angry again. She didn’t want to explain this to him, she couldn’t. “You don’t understand how alone I was and how much it all accumulated. So, I got scared outside and it’s all I have to give you.” Why do you get scared?
Cece stood up quickly like she tried to knock the question out of her head.
Avery touched her hand.
Cece didn’t pull away. Was this him trying to work on them? She took a deep breath before looking down at him. “My first instinct is to shut down and not let people in, which is why I argued with you and pulled away instead of talking.” What was left for her to say? “I don’t know what you want from me, Avery.”
“I want the truth.”
The truth. Is sounded simple enough. If only it was.
“I’m not there Avery. It’s not easy for me to share like it is with you and as much as I want to, there are parts of my past I don’t want to talk about...I’m sorry.” Cece slipped her hand out of his and walked away.
She heard him stand up and his heated voice followed her, “Is that it? We’re finished? You get to decide just like that and walk away?”
Cece turned. “You want the truth. I can’t give it to you. What’s left?”
He walked to her and whispered, “Us.” Avery pushed a piece of her hair behind her ear, intensely watching her with his smouldering eyes. How she wished she could rewind and when he touched her, instead wrap her arms around him and feel the safe solitude as the night before. “I was scared,” he admitted. “You scared the shit out of me when I touched you. I’ve never seen anyone react like that and I can only assume that something horrific has happened to you.” Cece bit her bottom lip trying to hold back her tears. “Honestly, it sucks that you’re not ready to share it with me, but at the same time we’ve been together for two days, so how is it fair that I demand you do.”
Two days? Had it really only been two days?
“I’m scared that I’ve scared you away,” she admitted.
Avery took one of her shaking hands in his while the other hand touched the side of her throat. She didn’t feel threatened by his actions, his touch or his stare. He comforted her.
“I want to be here for you, Cece. I want to protect you, and listen when you are ready to talk. You don’t have to do it alone anymore.” That sounded wonderful. “And Cece...” he lifted her chin higher, so their eyes met straight on. “I promise you that I will never hurt you.”
The tears spilled down her cheeks and Avery pressed his lips hard against hers before pulling her into a hug. Her heart swelled for this man.
“I never thought you would,” she whispered against the side of his head.
***
WITHOUT ANOTHER WORD, Avery kissed the top of Cece’s head and pulled her down onto the couch and on his lap. He felt the weight of her exhaustion as she wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled against him. He held her in his arms until he felt the regular rhythm of her breathing letting him know that she’d fallen asleep.
He leaned his head back against the couch and c
losed his eyes. He didn’t realize how exhausted he was until she’d finally settled down and he knew she was okay. He sort of knew she was okay. He didn’t like that she wasn’t telling him what caused her to go wild outside, but like he told her, how could he push her when she wasn’t ready. He couldn’t. But that didn’t mean he liked it one bit.
Something happened to her and he had the feeling it was to do with her Uncle Jack. He sounded like an over-bearing asshole. If it was that man there was nothing Avery could do about it now, except wait until she was ready to talk about it. Did Riley know? Avery was almost tempted to ask him. He wouldn’t. Not when this topic was so touchy would he dare go behind her back. Still, it bothered him.
When an hour passed, he worried about the band and crew returning, so he gently picked Cece up and lay her in his bunk, climbing in beside her and pulling the bunk door shut. She stirred, but hardly moved and when he tucked the blankets around her, she cuddled against his side, just as she had done the night before. Avery fell into a deep sleep, looking forward to waking up beside this woman and then hitting the stage tomorrow afternoon. He was going to rock that stage for his fans.
Chapter Twenty-One
CECE’S EYES STIRRED awake to find Avery staring down at her, watching her sleep. She was tucked in the crook of his shoulder with his arm draped tightly around her back, securely holding the side of her body against him. The only difference this morning from the morning before, was they were both fully dressed.
There was no window in this bunk, so Cece didn’t know what time it was...was it five o’clock already? Earlier? Later? She wasn’t sure, but her refreshed body felt like she’d slept all night. The small, dim light beside them gave a nice glow to the bunk so Cece could see Avery...and he could see her.
She groaned lowly, remembering where they were and who could be aboard. She turned away from him, only imagining what her day old makeup face would look like.
Lakeshore Lyrics: The McAdams Sisters (By The Lake Series Book 5) Page 17
