“Jesus, Sienna, don’t you—” he starts, but I hold up a hand to cut him off.
“If you start with your preaching, I will kick your ass. Let me take care of myself, okay?” When he starts to protest me again, I continue, “And besides, working for this band would be killer for my resume.”
I don’t add that it’s already on my resume from when I worked with them two and a half years ago.
“So you definitely haven’t said yes yet or signed any contract?”
I shiver, thinking of the last contract I signed for Lucas, and then I shake my head.
His brown eyes dart up in relief. “Good. I don’t want him screwing you over.”
Neither do I. Even after the amazing days I spent with Lucas, I won’t ever be able to forget all the crap that’s happened between us. Not completely, at least. To my brother, though, I smile brightly and say, “If I say I’ll go, I’ll be fine. I swear.”
“Will you tell Gram?”
I bite the inside of my lip. “Do I have a choice? If I leave home for two months I’m probably going to have to say something.” Besides, I’ve made it a point not to lie to her. My mother has done enough of that to last Gram a lifetime.
Seth’s lips twitch. “What about Tori?”
I flinch. Tori’s my former roommate and one of my closest friends. If Seth’s the vice-president of the “Castrate Lucas-Fucking-Wolfe” Fan Club, then Tori’s the president, thanks to how many times shit has hit the fan.
“Yeah,” I say. “I mean, it’s business, right? She’ll be alright.”
But that night, as I lay on the porch swing outside of my grandmother’s Nashville cabin—the same house that had brought Lucas back into my life when he bought it in a foreclosure sale—I glance at my phone. Tori’s number is pulled up and ready to dial, but I haven’t been able to hit send. When I’d told Gram about the tour this afternoon, she’d been cautiously optimistic. As much as I love Tori, I’m still too high from the last couple days spent with Lucas to deal with listening to any “what-ifs.”
I have enough of those running through my own brain without any of my friends’ help.
Before I know it, I find myself calling Kylie, Lucas’s sister.
She picks up almost immediately, and I swear I can hear the smile on her face. “So?”
“I’m guessing you knew about what he was going to do for awhile, huh?”
“Not that much longer than you,” she assures me. “And it was very unlike Lucas, which is why I agreed to ask you to watch it.”
“Thank you. Thank you for asking me to watch.” My voice is shaky, and there’s a moment of silence between us. I grip the swing’s chain, to steady myself, even though there’s no threat of falling. “Looks like we might be seeing each other soon.”
When she responds, she sounds surprised. “What?”
“The YTS tour . . .”
“Ah,” she murmurs, the single word drawn out.
“Lucas didn’t tell you he invited me?”
She lets out a low whistle. “No, it’s not that. I knew he was planning to try and convince you to go. The thing is . . . I’m not going to be going on tour with the guys this time.”
I sit up on the swing so fast it makes me dizzy. “Seriously?” Kylie has been Lucas’s personal assistant for years, so I expected her to be with the band every step of the way during their tour.
“I can’t be around Wyatt—not in that type of environment at least. Not if we’re going to keep making things work.”
Wyatt McCrae, Your Toxic Sequel’s bass guitarist.
Making things work.
This is definitely new.
“Did you dump the new guy?” For the past couple of months, every time I asked her about her love life, she’s vaguely mentioned some guy she met at a music awards show.
“Look, Sienna, I—” Kylie starts and then she groans. “Screw it, I guess I might as well tell you. Wyatt’s the guy I’ve been living in New Orleans with.”
And then she tells me everything. How Wyatt had shown up in New Orleans while she was on vacation several months ago. How he’d demanded a second chance. How he ultimately screwed up.
What was with the guys in Your Toxic Sequel with their massive screw-ups and showing up at women’s doorsteps unannounced?
Kylie continues her story, but while she tells me about the road trip she and Wyatt took back to Los Angles, my front door opens. “Hold on,” I say as Gram pokes her head outside. She mouths that dinner is ready, and I give her a thumbs up. “Just a second, Gram.”
“Tell her I said hello,” Kylie trills, and I comply. Once my grandmother goes back into the house, though, I reiterate to Kylie how confused I am. She takes a long pause before she answers. “We got back together a few weeks after I left New Orleans back in February.”
“And the guy at the awards show?”
“Well hell, I guess you and Lucas didn’t talk very much while you were in the mountains.” She releases a sound. “Sienna, that’s just the bullshit I’ve been telling almost everyone so Wyatt and I can have a chance to . . . adjust.”
Adjust? My breath hitches. “Kylie, are you pregnant?”
Kylie makes a noise in the back of her throat that sounds like a sob.
“Are you okay?”
“No,” she says, and this is when I realize that the sound she’s making isn’t crying but laughter. “I mean yes. I’m fine. The no was for the pregnancy question. I’m not knocked up. God, that’s the first thing people say.”
“Then you’re . . .?”
“Married. After an award show back in late April,” she explains. “Well, the morning after an award show. We’ve been pretty quiet about it because we want to make it work. Hell, I need this to work.”
I don’t know much about Wyatt McCrae—I haven’t spent enough time around the band to form solid opinions—but I do know that his history with Kylie is tumultuous. I know that the last time I saw him, back in February and right before he went after my friend, he was cozying up with an assistant at the studio where the band recorded tracks for their upcoming album.
And now—now he’s married to a woman I care about just as much as my own family.
I massage the bridge of my nose between my fingers. “Congratulations.”
Kylie releases a deep sigh. “Thanks, it means a lot to me that you’re not pissed that I kept it from—” I hear something buzzing loudly on her end, and she groans. She mumbles something about fire extinguisher and dinner and tells me she’ll be right back. When she returns to the phone nearly two minutes later, she’s out of breath.
“I blow at cooking,” she explains. “We’re just now getting around to telling most people that we’re married, so please don’t think I kept you in the dark for too long.”
I can only imagine the way she broke the news to her brother.
“Today you need to call the head of your record company. Go to a photo shoot at 2:30. Buy a wedding gift for Wyatt and me—oh, by the way, Lucas, I married him back in April.”
I bite my lip to keep from laughing. “Everyone taking it okay?”
The silence that immediately takes over the conversation is a good indicator that her answer is going to be no. I don’t nudge her to speak this time, but after thirty seconds of a quiet hum on her end, she laughs. “Just about. Lucas shocked the hell out of me because he’s been the most supportive. Sinjin, on the other hand . . .”
Just hearing the drummer’s name makes me uneasy. He had confronted me while he was high back in February. It ended badly, with Lucas furious and Sinjin going back to rehab.
“He’ll be fine,” I tell Kylie, my voice tight.
“He’s worried Wyatt is going to screw up and hurt me. I worry too—don’t get me wrong—but I want it to work. I don’t need the people closest to me making it worse.”
This I completely understand. The last thing I want is to decide to go on the road with Lucas and then have my family and friends tell me what an idiot I am.