“She’s staying at her hotel tonight getting the paperwork together for us. Said she’d catch up with us later.”
I take advantage of the privacy, still disturbed about what I overheard in the ladies’ room and what Afton told me. “And we’re sure about this? About signing with her?”
“What’s up, Dix? Something you want to tell me?”
I shrug. “Afton just mentioned that we might want to explore our options a little more.”
Dallas pulls a mockingly introspective face at me. “Ah. We’re consulting Afton for business advice now? This the same Afton who refuses to work with managers and labels?”
“Funny. You didn’t seemed concerned about that when you were all ‘she’d love to go’ and ‘Dix, this will be such a great opportunity for you to meet other people in the business.’”
My brother smirks at my mocking him and I feel like I’m fourteen again.
“Rain’s letting up,” Gavin announces suddenly. “We can probably go ahead and start setting up now.”
In other words, to your separate corners, kids.
Tamping down my annoyance, I step out into the rain and let it wash the exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours from my body. There’s something cleansing and renewing about just getting bone-drenched soaked by rain. I stretch my arms out and tilt my face skyward.
While the guys start carrying our equipment from inside the bar it’s been temporarily stored in, I open my mouth and let the drops fall on my tongue. Breathing the damp air in deep, I find things that have been so completely muddled becoming blindingly clear.
The rules I thought I could place on myself, on Gavin, on everything, they’re just me kidding myself. Gavin’s right, I can’t escape unscathed. Not from him, or this band, or this life. And I can’t force him to feel something for me that he doesn’t even believe himself to be capable of.
“Gavin?” I call out to his back as he walks toward the stage with my brother.
He stop and turns, watching me walk toward him. As soon as I reach him, I hand him something I knew I’d have to give him eventually. But the words accompanying it aren’t at all what I’d originally planned.
“Here,” I begin, placing the plastic key card in his hand. “I changed my mind about . . . about everything.”
He looks down at my room key then back at me. Confusion turns his eyes the color of the ocean sky clouding over before a storm.
“I can’t be just one more person making demands on you. You have enough to deal with. Dallas, your mom, your friends, whoever the hell else it was blowing your phone up all day.” I shake my head, knowing tonight I’ll lie in bed alone regretting every word I’m saying. “Forget what I said about one night, about expectations, about everything.”
His brows pull inward and he looks as me intently as if I’m one of those magic images where if you stare hard enough the jumbled mess of shapes will become one clear picture. “I’m not sure I’m following you, Bluebird. You hit your head really hard last night.”
I’d smile if my mouth would cooperate. I nod at the key still sitting patiently in his open palm. “If you want to come tonight, to my room, then do. But not for me. Not because I asked you to. Come because you want to.” I take in the deepest breath that I can. “And if you don’t want to, because of Dallas or the band or you’re tired or just not interested, then don’t. No hard feelings and nothing between us will change. I thought I needed something more from you . . . but I don’t.”
“You don’t?” he says slowly, as if still processing the words I’ve piled up between us like bricks.