“What are you doing?” she asks. Her voice is full of hate.
It kinda turns me on.
I smirk. “You’re not getting rid of me that easy, sweetheart, so be as pissy as you want. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll leave,” she snips as she walks away into the kitchen.
I give Mark a look. “Has she always been this…diva?”
“No, but I think we helped with that.”
“Should I follow her?”
He shrugs. “Usually, I would say yes…”
I groan, and despite what my gut tells me, I follow her into the kitchen. There’s no time to let her cool down. She’s leaning against the island with her arms folded again. Thankfully, the island is nowhere near the knives.
“Shout at me, Tex. Get it all out, so we can move past this.”
“You think that’ll make it all better? Do you honestly think me telling you what a dick you were will take back every night I cried myself to sleep, every time I needed to speak to you and you weren’t there, every day I thought I was going to go crazy from not seeing you?”
“Tex,” I whisper.
Fucking hell, she’s killing me.
“Don’t,” she turns around, wiping her eyes. “I can’t go there with you again, Kitt.”
“What?” I feel like I’m free-falling. “You can’t give up.”
“Me?” She spins back around, and her tear-stained face rips me apart. “I’m not the one who gave up, Kitt. You are! You told me we’d be fine, and then you stopped calling. You promised you’d call, and you broke that promise. Do you have any idea how much that hurts?”
My God, she is impossible sometimes.
“I tried, Texas. This wasn’t like any other tour I’d done. This is our tour. It’s so much more involved. We’ve had appearances of some sort every day, performances at night, and travel in between. You know that.”
Her eyes pierce into mine. “You made me a promise.”
And there it is. Doesn’t matter what happened, what reasons I had for missing calls, because I broke something I’d vowed I never would. We’re not supposed to break promises, not with each other. She’s big on that. So am I.
“I love you,” I say numbly.
I’ve lost her.
You can’t lose her. You’ll lose yourself.
She looks up to the ceiling and takes a breath. “I love you, too, but it’s not enough. Not anymore.”
“Not anymore. What’s changed?”
“Me.”
“It’s only been a month, Texas.”
She laughs without humour. “Feels longer. A lot longer.”
“Well, it’s not. What happened to, as long as we love each other, we’ll be fine? Was that just me?”
“No, but I can’t do it again. Nothing is going to change. You’re back off on tour in a couple of weeks, and then where will we be?”
“You could be in Australia, too. You know that.”
“And what? Be a rock star’s girlfriend for the rest of my life? I can’t do that, Kitt. I have commitments now.”
“I don’t want you to do that. I want you to do whatever makes you happy, model if it’s what you want, but there’s no reason why you can’t do that with me.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t…”
“What? You don’t want to? Is that really what you’re telling me? After everything we’ve been through, you’re throwing it away because things are hard. I get that this isn’t the ideal situation, Texas, and we’ve both made mistakes—hell, we still will—but we can figure it all out together. Nothing is perfect. All relationships take work.”
“Yep, ours takes something beyond work though.”
“I don’t give a fuck what it takes! I love you, and I’m not letting go. You’re making things more complicated. I should’ve been prepared for that. Not sure why this is a surprise.”
“Excuse me?”
“Everything is always exaggerated with you. If you really wanted this, too, you’d be willing to try.”
I shouldn’t just blame her. We’re equally responsible for the intensity of our relationship and how we handle it. But I’m the only one fighting here. She’s all too willing to let go. Again.
She’s doing that self-preservation thing she’s perfected for her relationship with and expectations of her mum. “You really are a dick.”
With fire in my veins, I smirk. “That the best you’ve got, baby?” I’m goading her now. I need to get her to lower that fucking wall she’s built around herself. I step closer. “Give whatever reason you need to convince yourself that you’re making the right decision, but we both know this isn’t over. We’re not temporary, and you know it. Get on board soon, Texas, because I want my girl back.”
Turning around, I walk away.
For now.
KITT
MONDAY, AUGUST 3
NOTTING HILL, ENGLAND
I’m due back on tour in two weeks, and I have a bunch of promo shit to do. In that very short time, I need to remind Texas of who we were. I don’t know what’s happened with her, clearly a lot, but somehow she’s got lost.
She’s convinced we’re over.