Drive Me Crazy

CHAPTER Eighteen


For the second time in a week, Elise woke up in the hospital, a little groggy, a little sore, a lot confused. The room was dimly lit but she could see enough shapes to figure out where she was. Well, that and she could hear the monitors beeping, could feel the damn pulse ox monitor back on her finger.

Pushing herself up onto her elbows, she willed the room to stop spinning as nausea crashed through her. Someone—Quinn—was slumped in a chair next to the bed, head down and elbows resting on his knees. She couldn’t see his face, but his body language screamed that he was in a bad place and she couldn’t help herself. She reached out a hand to touch him.

He nearly jumped through the ceiling. Eyes huge, hands shaking, he leaned over her. “You’re awake. Oh, thank God.”

She nodded, licked her lips in a vain attempt to get some moisture. “What happened?”

His face darkened. “You don’t remember?”

She wracked her brain, tried to put the day’s events in order as best she could. She’d spent the morning out in the garage with the pink paint Jamison had brought her, but after lunch she’d gone into the studio to work on a song with the guys. And then…Micah. Of course. The band’s ex-bass player had shown up.


“Are you okay?” she asked, hands clutching at him as everything came flooding back. “Did he hurt you?”

“You’re asking me that?” Quinn’s voice sounded rusty, harsh, nothing like the deep, soothing timbre she was used to. “You’re in the hospital because of that bastard and you’re asking me if I’m okay?”

“He hit you.” She ran her uninjured hand over his stubbled cheek, trying to calm him. Trying to find him in the eyes of the man staring back at her.

“He knocked you out. He shoved you and I didn’t stop him. I didn’t—”

“How could you have?” She sat up, then abruptly wished she hadn’t when the room spun around her.

“Hey, none of that,” he scolded her, helping her lie back down. “No abrupt movements. You’ve got a concussion.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

He looked at her like she was crazy. “Why?”

“Always nice to have an explanation for why the room is spinning.” She pressed a hand to her eyes, tried to swallow back the nausea.

“I’m getting a nurse,” Quinn told her, reaching over to press the call button.

“I’m fine,” she told him, but the words sounded weak to her own ears. She hated it, hated being weak in front of Quinn when he’d never been anything but strong. But right now she couldn’t do anything about that, not when her head felt like it was going to roll right off of her shoulders. Not when she would probably welcome it if it meant the pain went away.

“Stop saying that!” Quinn all but yelled at her. “You always say you’re fine but you’re not. You’re not.”

As the nausea passed, she stared up at him, stunned by his outburst. By his clenched fists and harsh breathing and wild eyes.

“Quinn?” she asked tentatively. “Are you—”

“I swear to God, if you ask me if I’m okay one more time, I’m going to lose my shit.” He turned his back to her, shoved a hand through his hair. “I’m going to go get the nurse. I’ll be back.”

“You called her—”

“Yeah, well, she hasn’t come, has she? You need to be looked at.”

…

Those were the last words he’d said to her. Oh, he’d come back to the room minutes later, nurse in tow. Had stood there as he checked out Elise and assured them both that her vitals were fine and that she just needed to sleep. Then, after the nurse had left, Quinn had held her hand as she drifted to sleep.

She hadn’t seen him since. He hadn’t called, hadn’t stopped by, hadn’t so much as acknowledged her existence. She’d be devastated if she wasn’t so damn mad. Because she knew what he was doing, knew that he was running away just like he had in Paris.

The f*cking coward.

Part of her thought that she should walk away. That she should just grab a cab to the airport and catch the first flight out of there. It wasn’t like she even had a doctor’s appointment to wait around for—since she was in the hospital anyway, they’d run X-rays on her hand that morning, just to see how it was doing.

The good news was, it was healing exactly as expected. Of course, that was the bad news, too. And she was stupid, so stupid, because even though she’d known it was coming, the blow still devastated her. Still made her head spin and her stomach sink.

And Quinn wasn’t there. She’d wanted him to hold her, wanted him to press kisses to her hair like he did late at night when he thought she was asleep. Wanted him to tell her that everything was going to be okay, even if it felt like the whole damn world was caving in on her.

But he couldn’t do that, could he? No, not Quinn Bradford. He was great in a crisis, great when things went to shit. But the second things started looking up, he was blaming himself. And then he was out the door.

The f*cking, f*cking, f*cking coward.

By the time the doctor discharged her, Elise had worked herself into a temper the likes of which she hadn’t had in years. Maybe ever. And when Jamison came to pick her up—Quinn thought of everything, that rat bastard—she demanded to be taken to Quinn’s house so that the two of them could have this out.

She knew he was upset with himself, knew he blamed himself for her getting hurt, but they’d been down this road before. She’d lived the last ten years of her life without him and she had no intention of living the next ten the same way. Not when she loved him. Not when she knew, under all the guilt, that he loved her, too.

“Elise, I’m sorry,” Jamison told her, looking just as pissed off as she felt. “Quinn’s not at home.”

“What do you mean he’s not at home?”

“He and Ryder left for L.A. this morning. Went to deal with the label face-to-face.”

“He went today? Even knowing I was getting out of the hospital?”

Jamison looked sick. “We told him it could wait, but he insisted. Said it had to be done now, while…”

“While Micah was still in jail. It gave him leverage.”

“Yeah.” Jamison reached over and squeezed her good hand. “But I’m supposed to take you back to his place and pamper you. Since Ryder’s gone, too, I’ll spend the next couple of days with you. There’s this great spa that does home treatments and I figured we’d call them up, get the works, and make Quinn pay for it all. It’s the least he can do—”

But Elise had stopped listening. How could she pay attention to talk of spa appointments when her heart was breaking wide open? Because Quinn hadn’t just freaked out. He hadn’t just lost his shit for a little while. No, he’d run away from her again. Had, in fact, run halfway across the country to get away from her.

And she was done. She was so done.

“I’m not going to Quinn’s house,” she told Jamison, as the other woman merged the car onto the freeway. “Take me to the W.”

Jamison sighed, her face falling like she’d been expecting her to say something along those lines. Which, of course, she probably had, Elise figured. Jamison had way too much self-respect to let Ryder treat her like this. So why should Elise put up with it from Quinn?

She shouldn’t. And she wasn’t going to. Not for one more second. If he wanted to man up and talk to her, fine. Otherwise, she was done putting up with him and his shit.

“Don’t go to a hotel,” Jamison said, resting a soft hand on her knee. “I get not wanting to go back to Quinn’s house when he’s got his head so far up his ass he’ll have to have it surgically removed. But don’t go to a hotel. Ryder and I have plenty of room. Come back with me—”

“No.” The word sounded harsh, even to her own ears, so she let out a sigh of her own and then said, “Look, I know you just want to help. But Quinn and I…we go back. This isn’t the first time he’s done this to me, and if I stick around, it’s probably not going to be the last.

“I know he’s got issues, I know how messed up they make him. But he can’t keep doing this to me, can’t keep pushing me away like this every time he freaks out. So I need you to take me to the W. Please. Because I can’t do this with him. I can’t play this game, not now when everything else in my life is such a mess.”

Jamison looked like she wanted to say something, like she wanted to contradict something Elise had said. But she didn’t. Because she couldn’t.

In the end, she did exactly what Elise asked.

And that was that.

…

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Quinn yelled when Jamison called to break the news. “I told you to take her to my house, to watch her—”

“Hey.” Ryder gave him a look. “Stop yelling at my girl. This isn’t her fault. You f*cked this up all on your own.”

He knew that. God, did he know that. “I’m not yelling at her. I’m just…yelling.”

“Yeah, well, don’t. You’re getting her upset and that’s not cool, man.”

Quinn nearly took his head off, probably would have except for the fact that he knew Ryder was right. Jamison had done nothing but help him out with Elise from the very beginning. He had no right to take his frustrations out on her.

Closing his eyes, he took a few deep breaths, tried to calm himself down. It might even have worked if the image of Elise pale and bleeding and unconscious wasn’t seared onto the back of his eyelids so that it was all he could see, all he could think about.

“You went to the W to drop her stuff off, and she was just gone? She’d never even checked in?”

“That’s what they told me, Quinn. I even drove out to the airport, hoping to catch her before she cleared security but I couldn’t find her. I’m sorry.”

“So you think she left Austin?”

“I don’t know what else to think. She was pretty upset when I told her you were in L.A. She didn’t want to go back to your house, didn’t want to come to Ryder’s and mine. They looked at her hand while she was in the hospital, gave her clearance to travel. And with things going to shit with you…I can’t see why she’d choose to stay in Austin.”

Yeah, neither could he. Which was fine. After all, that’s what he’d been angling for when he’d left her in the hospital alone. He’d wanted her to walk away, wanted her to leave him before he could do any more damage to her. But now that she had…now that she had, it felt like his whole f*cking chest was cracking wide open.


“Thanks, Jamison,” he said, “I appreciate everything.”

“It’s fine. I—” She was still talking when he decided he was done listening, so he handed the phone to Ryder and went to stand on their hotel suite balcony. It was a great view, overlooking the manicured grounds of the Beverly Hills Hotel, but he couldn’t see anything but Elise.

It was better this way, he told himself. Not for him, maybe, but for her. And she was the only thing that mattered. She had enough shit in her life to deal with right now. She didn’t need his, too.

And yet, he itched to call her. Probably would have, except—courtesy of his idiocy—she didn’t have a phone. It was just one more thing he’d taken from her.

He didn’t know how long he stayed out there, staring blankly into the sunset. But eventually, Ryder joined him, clapping a hand on his shoulder and handing him a drink before settling into one of the chairs, legs sprawled out in front of him.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Quinn told him without turning around.

“Talk about what?” Ryder said.

“Don’t patronize me.” Quinn took a hefty sip of his drink, grimaced as really good tequila burned its way down his throat. He should have known Ryder wouldn’t have handed him a civilized drink like whiskey.

“Why would I do that? Especially considering you’re doing a damn fine job of it yourself.”

Quinn rolled his eyes. “I don’t think it’s possible to patronize oneself.”

“Oooh, sorry, college boy. I guess we can’t all be as smart as you.”

“What the f*ck is your problem?”

He could practically hear the shrug in his voice when Ryder said, “You’re the one spoiling for a fight. I just figured I’d give it to you. Maybe speed along the whole process of you pulling your head out of your ass and going after Elise.”

“My head is not up my ass.” He lifted the glass of tequila to his lips, drained the thing. And barely resisted the urge to hurl it at Ryder’s head.

“You sure about that? ’Cause I’m the one looking at you and I’ve got to tell you, I think it is.”

“She’s better off without me.”

“Don’t play the f*cking martyr. It’s tiresome.”

He did turn on him then, kicking Ryder’s chair hard enough to have it scraping across the balcony. “What the f*ck do you know?”

It only took seconds for Ryder to be up and in his face. “If there’s anybody who knows what you’re going through right now, it’s me. I’ve been there. I’ve lived through a lot of the same shit you have. Yeah, maybe you had it worse with your old man than I did, but believe me, I know what’s going on in your head. I know you don’t want to hurt her. But you’re forgetting something.”

He didn’t want to ask, he really didn’t. But in the end, he couldn’t help himself. “What?”

“That you’re hurting her right now. That woman loves you.”

Quinn shook his head, started to tell Ryder that he was full of shit, but the lead singer wasn’t done yet.

He put a hand on Quinn’s shoulder, then waited patiently until Quinn turned his head to look into his eyes. “I saw her with you. I saw the way she looked at you, the way she smiled at you when you weren’t looking. She. Loves. You. F*ck, if she didn’t, she wouldn’t take nearly as much joy in tormenting you. Mayonnaise in your Twinkies, man. That’s serious commitment right there.”

Quinn chuckled at the memory, just like he knew Ryder had intended him to. But he grew serious, fast, when he thought about everything that had happened after. “Micah could have killed her, man. The doctor told me if she’d hit her head any harder we would have been dealing with a whole different ball game. You think I can forget that? You think I can just put that out of my head? She nearly died because of me. Because of decisions I made. That’s not okay with me.”

“She nearly died in that car accident a week ago, too, and that had nothing to do with you. Shit happens, Quinn. Shit. Happens. That’s life. Yeah, we were stupid not to think that Micah would lash out, but we won’t make that mistake again. You can’t live your life worrying about what might happen or you’ll never do anything. You know that. I know you know that.”

Ryder was making sense, he was. But that didn’t seem to matter, not when all he could see was Elise’s expression as she started to fall. Her head when it cracked against the table. Her face, pale and tired, when she lay unconscious in that hospital bed.

“She’s better off without me,” he told Ryder, the words coming out a lot huskier than he’d planned.

“You don’t believe that.”

“I do. I end up hurting her every time I’m with her. That’s not okay.” He shook his head, tried to beat down all the voices in his head that told him he was just like his father, that he would always hurt the ones he was supposed to protect. “I need her to be safe. I need to let her go.”

He believed the words as he said them.

Believed them as he and Ryder finished their business in L.A.—which included getting the record label to drop their contract with Micah in light of current circumstances. Going to rehab like Wyatt did was one thing. But getting arrested for assaulting a woman…that was something else entirely, and not something the record label wanted themselves, or Shaken Dirty, associated with. Nice, wasn’t it, that all that had to happen for him to get what he wanted was for the woman he loved to be assaulted by his f*cking band mate.

He believed the words when he got on the plane, when he landed in Austin and drove by the W, when he pulled up to his big empty house that had never felt empty when Elise was there. And he kept right on believing them, right up until the moment he walked into his garage and saw his Harley.

His Harley.

She’d painted it hot pink, sprinkled it with silver glitter and bedazzled the entire thing with rhinestones. F*cking rhinestones. It was the most horrific thing he’d ever seen. And yet …

He should have been mad. Should have been furious. That was his bike, his pride and f*cking joy. It was the first thing he’d bought when Shaken Dirty started making money and it would be the last thing he got rid of if he ever went broke. And yet, as he stood there staring at his bike—which now looked like it belonged to Princess Barbie instead of a rock star—all he could think about was the fact that Elise would never again pull a prank on him. That she would never again look at him with those wide eyes and pursed lips as she scolded him for pulling a prank on her.

It was like losing her all over again.

He reached out for the bike, ran a trembling hand over one of the hearts she’d shaped out of rhinestones. Then fell to his knees beside it, head in his hands, tears leaking down his face.

For the first time, he thought that maybe Ryder had been right. Yes, he’d hurt Elise. Yes, Micah had f*cking hurt Elise. But so had her father, so had that car accident. So had life. And somehow, somehow, she’d managed to get back up. To move past the shit and try to build a life for herself.

He tried to imagine how he’d feel if he could never play piano again, never play keyboards in Shaken Dirty. He’d be a total basket case, a mess of epic proportions that no one could fix.

Elise had lost everything, and yet she’d somehow managed to forgive him for what he’d done to her in the past. And she hadn’t blamed him for Micah , no matter how much he blamed himself. She’d loved him and he’d walked away, too lost in his own fear—in his own self-pity—to understand what he was doing to her.

To understand that he was hurting her more than her father or Micah ever had, or ever could.

The thought cut like a knife, and it made him reexamine everything he’d done since that night in the recording studio. And everything he hadn’t done.

As he did, as he realized just how badly he’d let Elise down, guilt tore through him.

Shit. He’d made a hell of a mess. Too bad he didn’t have a clue how to fix it.

…

Elise ignored her brand new iPhone when it dinged with a text message. It was ten o’clock and she was still in her pajamas, still in bed if the truth was known. Not because she was tired, but because she was wallowing.

It had been ten days since she’d gotten out of the hospital. Ten days since she’d gotten on a plane bound for Vermont because she couldn’t stand the idea of going back to the empty mausoleum of a house she’d grown up in. in Chicago. Ten days since she’d walked away from Quinn for good. Or, more accurately, since he’d sent her away. But this was her wallow. She figured she could remember events whatever way she wanted to.

She reached for her notebook, the one she’d been writing music in since she got here. If anything good had come from the last couple of weeks, it was that she’d discovered a new talent. She might have lost the ability to play piano on a professional level, but she’d gained so much more—like the knowledge that she could write a song.

She’d written six songs since she’d been here, all on her own. And they were good. Really good. She could tell. Which meant that while her concert pianist days were over, her life in the music industry could really just be beginning. There was so much she could still do, more than she’d ever imagined when she was on the road. And writing songs, composing music, put her behind the scenes. No more performing in front of crowds that made her nervous, no more stage fright at all. The thought brought her more peace—if not joy—than she’d ever thought she’d find again.


It wasn’t a life with Quinn, with the man she loved. But as a consolation prize, it wasn’t half bad.

The phone dinged again, this time three times in a row, and finally she reached for it with a roll of her eyes. She knew who it was—of course she did—because who else texted her besides Jamison?

She wasn’t in the mood to chat via text right now, and planned on telling Jamison just that. The last thing she wanted to interrupt her wallow with was news of Quinn and how well he was doing.

But when she swiped her phone open, Jamison’s messages weren’t trying to cheer her up. Instead, they said only, READ THIS, XOXO, followed by a link.

She’d sent the same message four times in a row. It wasn’t the first time Jamison had sent her a link—the woman had been bombarding Elise with messages and links and phone calls and funny stories pretty much from the moment she’d gotten off the plane in Vermont. Funny, all it had taken for her to gain a friend was for her to lose the only man she’d ever loved.

Clicking on the link—because she knew from experience that Jamison would just keep spamming her until she did what she was told—Elise nearly gasped when a full color picture of Quinn posing for Rolling Stone came up.

She started to close it—maybe one day she’d be able to see a picture of him without feeling like her insides were being ripped out, but today was not that day. In the end though, she couldn’t help staring at his face—all scruffy and scowly and hot, so hot. It should be illegal for any man to look that good, especially when she was a total and complete mess.

Again, she started to close it, but that’s when she noticed the headline on the side of the picture of the first time. “Shaken Dirty’s Quinn Bradford on love, music, and the proper way to grovel…(you won’t believe your eyes).”

She couldn’t not look. Even as she told herself to put the phone down, to close her eyes, to do something—anything—she had to scroll through. There was no article attached, as the pictures were from a photo shoot that was only a couple of days old, but according to the cover pic, these were supposed to run in the November issue.

The second picture had Quinn standing on the back porch at his house—she recognized the architecture and the view—looking out over his land. The third picture was him in his music room, sitting at the piano in nothing but a pair of those ripped jeans that looked so hot.

She might have whimpered a little—how could she not—when he was right there in front of her. Right there. His eyes looked a little sadder than usual, his hipbones a little more defined. But he still looked incredible. Sexy. Gorgeous. And it was killing her because she missed him and she loved him and she wanted nothing more than to snuggle up next to him and lick her way down those gorgeous abs of his. To take him on that piano bench the way he had taken her just two weeks before.

There were three pictures left, and though it was torture, she scrolled on to the next one. As it popped up on the screen, she nearly dropped the phone. Because it was Quinn, looking dark and brooding and hot as hell, kicked back on a motorcycle, with one foot up resting on the clutch lever. It wasn’t just any motorcycle, though. It was his Harley. His hot pink, silver glittered, rhinestone bedazzled Harley.

After staring at it in shock for a moment, she moved on to the next two pictures, which were also of him and the motorcycle. One of him getting ready to ride it and one of him standing next to it.

These were going in Rolling Stone? These pictures of Quinn Bradford, rock and roll sex god, were going in the premiere music magazine in the world? Him on a Barbie pink Harley?

Her mind boggled. It actually boggled.

She scrolled back to the cover, read the headline again. And suddenly it made so much more sense. Love, music, and the proper way to grovel… Were these pictures for her? Was he willing to totally tank his reputation, for her? And if so, what did it mean?

She sat there for a long time, scrolling through the pictures another time—or another dozen times, but who was counting—as she tried to figure out what he was telling her. What this meant.

And the only thing she could get out of it was that this was his way of apologizing. Of groveling, though she didn’t think it could actually be called groveling when he looked hotter than any man had a right to, ever.

And still, she wasn’t sure. Still, she didn’t know if she was reading too much into the photos simply because she wanted to. Simply because she loved him.

But she’d never know if she didn’t ask, right? If she ignored these, if she didn’t respond, she could mess up everything.

Or she could end up looking like a fool, with her barely pieced together heart shattered all over again. It was a daunting thought, a painful one, but as she stared at Quinn on the back of that bike, she knew she was going to take the risk. Because she loved him. And because she had to try, one more time.

Without giving herself time to think, she sprang out of bed. Yanked on the first clothes she could find—a pair of jeans and a black tank top—then grabbed her phone and purse and ran for the door of the small cottage she was renting. It might make more sense to call, but she needed to see him. Needed to look in his eyes so that she could be sure. So that she could know.

She threw open the door, planning on making a mad dash to her car, but she never got past the threshold. Because he was there, sitting on his bike and staring at the door—at her—like he’d willed her to come to him.

“What—” Her voice broke and she had to start again. “What are you doing here?”

His grin was lopsided and a little sad, but his eyes were intense and determined and filled with…love? “Trying to work up the nerve to knock on your door.”

“How’d you know where to find me?”

“Jamison.”

“Of course. Jamison, the double crosser.”

“She didn’t want to tell me. I begged her until she finally took pity on me.”

Her heart beat a little faster at his words. “Why did you care?”

He climbed off the motorcycle then, climbed the porch steps three at a time until he was just there, in front of her. He looked tired and worn down and a little thinner than she remembered, but as he stood there in front of her, face open and hands clenched at his side, he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

“Because I love you. Because I f*cked up. Because I need you to be safe and I was terrified that being with me would only hurt you. Because—”

She reached out then, put two fingers on his mouth to stop the flow of words.

His eyes fluttered closed at the touch and for long seconds, they just stood there, so close that their bodies were brushing together and yet still so far away.

Elise waited impatiently for him to open his eyes and when he did…when he did they were filled with so much love and pain and hope and fear that it nearly ripped her heart in two. Because she knew those feelings. She understood them. They were the same ones that were currently tearing through her as well.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so so—”

She stopped him with a kiss. And not just any kiss. It was a kiss filled with ten days—and ten years—of hurt and love and angst and pent up emotion. A kiss that had her knees knocking together and her breath coming in short, uneven gasps as his lips devoured hers, his tongue thrusting inside of her mouth to claim her as she so desperately wanted to claim him.

“It’s okay,” she said when she finally found the strength to pull back.

“It’s not,” he told her even as he continued to press kisses to her cheeks, her jaw, the spot behind her neck that drove her crazy. “I f*cked up bad and I hurt you, again. That’s the last thing I wanted to do.”

She turned her head so that her lips met his again, and this time she lingered for long minutes, letting her tongue trace along the full curve of his lower lip and the cold metal of his piercing before sucking it between her teeth and biting softly.

He groaned, his hands going to her hips, as he kissed her back.

When she pulled away, he asked, “Are you going to let me apologize properly? And tell you how much I love you?”

“It looks to me like you already did.” She looked down at the hot pink Harley he must have ridden all the way from Texas and decided apologies were highly overrated. As was hanging on to hurts from the past when the man she loved was standing here, humbling himself before her. How could she dwell on a dismal past when he was offering her a hot pink Harley future? “Besides, you have the rest of your life to apologize. Right now, I just want to ride off into the sunset with the man I love.”

He laughed then, a full-bodied sound that rolled through her, filling all the sad and scared and empty spots that had been left behind when he’d walked away from her. She basked in the warmth, basked in his love, and knew it was enough. More than enough.

“You know, sweetheart, I’ve performed a lot of crazy ass stunts since I’ve met you. But even I can’t make the sun set ten hours early. Though I am happy to keep riding until I find you that sunset.”

And then he was picking her up, carrying her down the steps and depositing her on the back of his Harley. As he climbed on in front of her, she couldn’t help admiring how the glitter sparkled in the sunshine. Then again, everything seemed to be sparkling right now.


Love could do that.