A sunbeam of warmth spread throughout my body, a reflection of the elation in my heart as I pressed forward, ignoring the mob, overflowing, consumed. Tears multiplied as he repeatedly asked who was going to take care of me, touch me, console me. Question after question of who would be there for me, who would hold me accountable for myself, for my dreams. It was all there, in every lyric. The questions for him to ask as he confronted me with his heart and demanded my truth, his truth, the truth of us. His voice flowed like whiskey through the club, drawing me further and further into him, his soul cracking under the weight of our loss. Rye transitioned the song and ran away with the guitar solo while Reid rocked back and forth on his beat, his head shaking subtly from side to side, eyes closed, sticks blurring, immersed in the beats that rocked my soul. His voice was like an angry moan that hooked and swept me to the edge of the stage. Bass and rhythm, melody and words that rang truer than any I’d ever known. Seized without warning, I closed my eyes and streamlined into the past. The first lingering glance he gave me in the back of Paige’s car, the slow lift of his lips the first time he smiled at me. I relived the explosion of our first kiss, and the night we clutched each other lifeless on his mattress after giving our heart away to the other. His voice echoed in a rapid demand as the bass dropped and the stage went dark in pause, right before they picked back up and the crowd exploded behind me. Reid ignored their recognition, diving deeper, pushing his voice, asking me, begging me to answer before he brought me back to a slow descent into reality with the last note. The club was in an uproar of praise while the drummer pressed his lips together and let out a pained breath, his eyes cast down. I hiccupped a sob as I watched him hurt, for me.
“Santeria in the house,” Ben said as he spotted me at his feet. Jerked back into the noise, I realized I was sobbing next to the stage, when Reid’s eyes shot up at that moment and found mine. My face twisted as I broke for him the way he had for me. I let him see the twenty-year-old girl who surrounded herself in the dark because he refused to let her into his own abyss. His face twisted with emotion as he leapt from his chair and I raced past the curtain at the side of the stage and hit him in a collision. We were arms and exasperated words, and then his lips took mine. His kiss shattered me as I dove for all I could take, clutching the T-shirt at his back in an attempt to tear through it. We were fire and warmth as his tongue tasted and seized, burning through the years between us. Reid owned me with his kiss. Only when we were breathless did he pull away.
“Baby, are you really here?”
“Reid,” I sobbed into his mouth as he clutched me like he was never letting go. And I didn’t want him to.
“Reid,” was all I managed as I crumbled in his arms, in his hold while the crowd roared and chanted behind us, demanding their drummer. But he wasn’t theirs. He was mine and had done everything in his power to prove to me what I had already known.
“Stella, baby, don’t cry.” Ignoring him, I pulled him tighter to me. He held me back just as hard as he whispered to my temple. “I never forgot you. I can’t. You know this thing between us won’t just fade away. Don’t cry. I’m right here,” he whispered. “I always will be,” he promised.
“That was so beautiful,” I said tearfully, as he pulled my face from his chest and looked down at me. My cheeks in his hands, my hands on his, he murmured, “You’re beautiful. God, every time I see you—”
And then his smile was gone, replaced with a flash of something I’d never seen. I followed his eyes to the ring on my finger.
And then reality came crashing down around us.
He ripped his hands away from me, accusation clear in his features, all the warmth leaving him. Incredulous, he stared at me before he shook his head. “I should have known.” His voice cut me a thousand times over when he spoke again. “The funny thing is, I never felt you leave me,” he said with a voice full of irony. “I never felt you leave me, Stella.”
I was gasping at the loss of him, grasping again for the man I missed as he slipped through my fingers. “Reid—”
“Reid,” Ben repeated behind me. “Hey, Stella.” I looked to see Ben eye me wearily. Apparently, I was a sore subject when it came to the Sergeants. “They’re rioting man,” he said, looking between us and reading the tension before he shook his head and walked away.
I couldn’t say anything. I was too far gone. Doused in gasoline with no match in sight, the aching, the longing, and the burning all there. I looked to Reid, who took a retreating step back from me. “Maybe you were never there.”
“Oh, I was there,” I assured him, taking a step forward as he put up his hand, a wall between us. “I was there, Reid. And I felt every goddamned thing.”
“You sure?” he said, eyeing me spitefully as he glanced at my hand like it disgusted him. “Because I’m pretty sure the girl I fell in love with is lost.”
“Reid—”
“Better get on home now, Stella,” he said, his eyes glowing green and piercing me. “Your future husband awaits.”
Nate. I hung my head as I thought of the man waiting out in the bar for me with my promise of forever. I wiped my face of the debris and looked up at Reid, who was as inconsolable in his anger as I was in my aching.
One song. One fucking song.
Dread coursed through me as I realized within the seconds of that song I had lost them both.
As I stared at the man in front of me, all I could do was wait for the inevitable.
“I wish we would have never happened.”
I gasped at his cruelty.
“I swear to God I do. Because at least broke and alone I wouldn’t know what it felt like to lose this,” he muttered before he began to brush past me and stopped when we were a shoulder-width apart. I managed to look him in the eyes. There I saw his decision before he spoke it. “I’m done waiting.”
Poison & Wine
The Civil Wars
I walked through our condo door, both relieved and terrified to see Nate’s Tahoe in the drive. He left me at the club, and I had no idea what he saw, but I knew I was headed into a second living hell. I noted the eerie quiet of the house. And then I heard his voice. Reid’s voice.
Pulse racing, I walked into the living room to see the interview I’d done with the Sergeants months ago playing on Nate’s laptop on the coffee table. He was hunched over in front of it and turned the volume up when I directed some questions to Reid.
“For the most part, you’ve stayed tight-lipped about your personal life. Is there anything you want your fans to know?”
Reid looked directly at me. “I like to keep my private life, private.”
I could see my fake smile on the screen from the edge of the living room.
“You do realize that makes you more of a mystery, and some women find that appealing.”
“I don’t think about it, or the attention,” he said, blowing out smoke, his eyes intent on mine. He was so obvious.
“Any addictions, skeletons, Reid Crowne?”
“I kicked all my bad habits a few years ago. I still dance with my skeletons and tuck them in bed at night. They don’t talk much,” he said with a straight face.
I remembered sitting in that room, tension swirling in the air between us. As an afterthought, Reid pulled on his cigarette. “Addictions are dangerous,” he said pointedly, his eyes covering me in want. “I know what’s good for me.”
Nate paused the interview and sat back, his head in his hands, rubbing furiously.
“I always wondered why you didn’t air that podcast. I’m such a fucking idiot. I pushed you right into him, didn’t I?
“No,” I choked out.
“I was so intent on the story, I didn’t read between the lines. You were scared that day. You didn’t want to do it, and I pushed you. I fed you to him.”
“Nate.”
His eyes met mine. They were bloodshot. He’d been drinking. “You let go of my hand. The minute he started to sing, you let go of my hand.” I felt the rip in his heart. The betrayal.
“I’m sorry. Nate, please believe I didn’t realize I would react like that. I love you.”
“Give it up, Stella! He knows you love him. Fuck, I feel sick,” he said as he paled. “He’s a goddamn rock star and you didn’t think to tell me anything?”
“He wasn’t when I met him.”
“God, it just dawned on me. He’s the waiter. Isn’t he? The one with the broken arm. You were with Reid fucking Crowne before me. It was him.” His voice was filled with dread.
I nodded slowly.
He stood and walked over to me. “So, did you go with him tonight? Is it my turn now?” His eyes glittered with anger and disgust. “No thanks.” He pushed past me to our bedroom.
“Nate, please don’t do this.”
He whirled on me in the hallway. “I saw it. I saw you! You love him! You fucking love him!”
I felt my heart sink. “I love you.”
“I know,” he snapped as he turned toward the bedroom. “I know, Stella.”
He grabbed a suitcase from the closet and flashed a look my way. “Did you fuck him?”
“No. I kissed him. I got swept up in the moment, and there’s no excuse, so I won’t give you one. I can’t explain it.” Desperation leaked out of me as I watched him pack. “Don’t leave.”
The anger in his eyes told me I didn’t have a chance in hell of winning this fight. I crumbled then, and he caught me. “Stella, stop it. You can’t get upset like that.”
“Fuck it,” I said with conviction. “If you leave, I’ll be ruined anyway,” I said, my heart bared. “I said yes because I wanted to marry you, Nate. You are acting like I slept with him, like I had some sort of affair.”
“It’s the same damn thing if you’re in love with him!”
I knew he was right. I knew he was, but it didn’t stop me from fighting.