As soon as she says it, she drops my hand and steps back into the house, closing the door. The message is clear: You’re on your own, buddy. I spin around to face the shed across the lawn, which seems a thousand miles long now, and start walking.
By the time I get close to the shed door, my head’s swirling with so many thoughts, so many emotions, so many memories, that I can’t tell if the sound I’m hearing is real or imagined. It’s only when I get close enough to put a hand against the deeply-grained wood that I know it’s really her. She’s singing. Low and long, a sad song. She stops every few lines, then starts back up again, the same way she always does when she’s writing.
I listen for a while, taking deep breaths, and then brace myself once again. I glance back toward the house and see Wanda looking through the glass pane of the door. She offers me a gentle look of sympathy before turning away and heading back into the house.
I knock.
Haley calls out something that gets muffled through the wall, then gets back to playing. I knock again. This time I hear her stop, and the thud of what’s probably her guitar being put down. I take a step back from the door.
“What the fuck?” she snarls, her face twisting with uncontrolled anger as soon as she sees me. “No! Go away!”
As she screams this last word she puts her hand on my chest and shoves me as violently as she can. I stumble back, and she storms toward me.
“Just fucking leave already! Get out of my life!” she screams, her voice breaking up with how loud she’s screaming. She shoves me again, putting all of her strength into it.
“Don’t you fucking get it already? I don’t want anything to do with you!”
This time I grab her biceps and hold her before she can shove me again.
“Stop it!” I shout, my voice so loud it seems to swallow hers, to boom off the surrounding mountains. “For fuck’s sake, Haley! Stop.”
We glare at each other, chests heaving, jaws clenching. Two animals in a fight to the death.
“I’ll never forgive you for what you did,” Haley hisses, her voice as sharp as a blade.
“I’ve done a lot of dumb things, Haley. Made a lot of mistakes. But that wasn’t one of them.”
“Fuck you!” Haley says, shrugging my hands off her, rage pouring off her in waves.
Something in me snaps. “No, Haley. Fuck you! I didn’t come here to beg. I didn’t come here to apologize. I’m sick of fucking apologizing. This whole tour I’ve been twisting myself into knots over you. Praying you’d give me another chance. Wondering how fucking long you were going to stay mad at me. And then for a whole month before that I didn’t even leave the house. I felt like I’d give anything to see you again, and it still wasn’t enough.”
Haley glares at me even more fiercely.
“And for what, Haley? For what? A stupid bet that I didn't care about from the second I realized how good you really were. A stupid bet that I won, and still feel like I lost. A stupid bet that I'd make all over again, because it's the best damn thing that happened ever happened to me - and maybe to you, too. I'm not the one hung up on the bet, Haley, you are. You keep treating me like I’m an asshole – and maybe I am, but not for the reasons you think. The only mistake I made was feeling the way I do about you. But I’m done. I’m done being the nice guy. I didn’t come here to apologize. I didn’t come here to beg you for another chance. I came here to tell you.”
“Tell me what?” Haley spits, her voice even harder and tighter.
“That I fucking love you.”
The words seem to light a fire in her face, her eyes flickering over mine, her lips opening in an angry scowl, trembling with anger. Her cheeks go hot red like I just slapped her in the face.
She leaps at me again, even more aggressively, even more fueled by her hot-headed temper, even more out of control. Only this time it’s not to push me. It’s to kiss me.
Chapter 14
Haley
On the drive back to LA I have to struggle to stop myself from smiling. I hang my arm out of the window and watch Brando as he focuses on the road, feeling weird in a happy kind of way. He notices me watching and laughs.
“You look pretty happy to return to LA,” he says
“I’m just happy right now. Take the 1.”
“Why?” he says, frowning. “It’s longer.”
“Yeah. But I like the ocean view.”
I lean toward the window and let the wind caress my face, stroke my hair. When I open my eyes I see Brando, notice the lines of his arm muscles, the Italian nose in profile, the way he looks like he’s dreaming when his face is at rest.
He glances over at me and notices me staring again.
“I feel like I should be charging you when you look at me like that.”
“I hope I can afford it,” I giggle, as I lean over to turn on the radio.
We listen to the tail end of a half-decent song, both of us only half-listening, until the two DJs start talking.
“…an interesting story. Rex Bentley – you like Rex Bentley, Sara?”
“Who doesn’t? ‘Put on your red shoes…’”
“Well his daughter, apparently. Haley Grace Cooke: The girl who just supported Lexi Dark on her tour and is set up to be even bigger.”