“’Bout ten minutes outside of Nashville.” Dallas gives Gavin a strange look and mumbles something under his breath that I can’t make out.
“No shit,” Gavin responds. My gaze travels over him. He’s shifting uncomfortably, drumming his thumbs on his right knee.
“Why the quick change? You got warrants out, Garrison?” I’m kidding, but when he glances over his shoulder at me his expression is wary.
“Something like that.”
I’m about to demand that they both tell me what the hell is going on when the cop returns.
Dallas gets a speeding ticket for going ten over the limit. Both the guys grumble about the guy being a dick as we pull back onto the highway.
“What do you mean, ‘something like that’?”
“Nothing,” Gavin says without looking at me.
“Nothing wouldn’t have sent the two of you sprawling across each other to switch seats.”
“Now’s not the time,” Dallas says, giving me a warning glance.
“I’m not moving from this van until one of you tells me what is going on.” This combined with Gavin’s weird-out when the officer stopped to check on us on our way to Potter County has me convinced that what happened while I was in Houston was much more significant an event than the two of them have made it out to be.
My body feels like it’s made of wet cement anyhow. But whatever they’re hiding is big if they’ve kept it from me. My time in Houston has become a window of time that they’ve both turned into a black hole I know very little about.
I watch from behind as the two of them exchange a look. Gavin’s shoulders go stiff for a second before he angles around to look at me.
“I got into a little trouble after you left for school last year. Started screwing around with stuff I should not have been screwing around with and some unpleasant shit went down. It’s over with and I’m handling it.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Which is it? Is it over with or are you handling it?”
“We’re here,” my brother announces loudly, cutting off my inquisition.
Great. My eyelids are swollen and heavy and my mouth tastes like the inside of a Dumpster. Minus the blinding neon lights lighting up the street, it’s growing dark already. A day in a van will seriously mess with a girl’s concept of time.
Dallas continues on, giving our marching orders as he parks the van. “We have less than an hour to get cleaned up and get to the venue where the showcase is being held. Mandy booked us a room here at her hotel.”
Knowing that tonight I’ll be sharing a room with Gavin and my brother has my head spinning as I crack my neck. I stretch my legs and groan a little at the ache unfurling inside them.
Dallas gets out to start unloading our equipment and Gavin twists in his seat to glare at me.
“You have to stop that.”
My arms freeze mid-stretch and I glance down at my protruding chest. “Stretching?” I frown and lower my arms when he doesn’t answer. “I’m going to have to stretch every now and then.”
“Not that,” he says, his eyes darkening in a way that I feel down to my stomach. “The noises. Don’t make those fucking noises around me. Ever.”
A tiny snort of amusement escapes me before I rein it in. He looks like he might want to hurt someone. “Don’t call them fucking noises if you don’t want me to laugh.”
He shuts me out by closing his eyes. I reach a hand out and touch his jaw, which has hardened to granite with his anger. His eyes open and I am paralyzed by what I see in them. If I thought there was heat in his gaze before, I was wrong. Every look he has ever given me is like lukewarm bathwater compared to the molten white-hot lava burning into me now.
“I can still smell you, can still taste you. It’s fucking killing me, Bluebird.” My stomach twists at the obviously excruciating agony he’s experiencing trying to articulate our situation. “What we did, it’s not just something—”
Gavin doesn’t get to finish because Dallas yanks open the back doors.