His phone rang and he glanced at the screen. It was Sam. Leaning forward to grab his beer, he let it go to voice mail. He didn’t really want to talk to anybody right now.
Words started to form in his head and Dred grabbed his lyrics book and pen from his bag. The song he’d started to write for Pixie was taking shape, but he added a new line to end the bridge. When you reach rock bottom, I’ll be the savior that you need.
When his phone vibrated, he was of two minds whether to check the message. Likely from Sam, and not from Snowf—Sarah-Jane. He checked it anyway.
Wondered if you’d seen this.
It was a People magazine link. DRED—ING THE BREAKUP.
Out of curiosity, he clicked, even though he knew it was a media trick to lure readers in. He read the subheading. It’s over! Dred Zander’s girlfriend seen with new man.
The first photograph was of Pixie with her arms wrapped tightly around an attractive older guy. In the second, her head rested on his shoulder, but she looked upset about something. In the third, he was kissing her good-bye.
As much as he wanted to blame the paparazzi for grabbing the photos, there wouldn’t have been anything to snap if Pixie hadn’t been so affectionate with another man.
For once it appeared the gossip rag had gotten it right.
They were most definitely over.
Chapter Thirteen
She’d done the one thing she’d sworn she was never going to do. She’d lied to her best friends.
Pixie ran a hand through her hair and let it swing by her shoulders. Through thick and thin, Cujo and Trent had stood by her, yet she’d been unable to tell them the truth. A mixture of guilt, fear, and disappointment had eroded her appetite and turned her into a shell.
She’d most definitely lied to Trent and Cujo when they’d found her crying, ironically, in the rear doorway to Second Circle. At first, she’d justified the partial truths she’d told them, that he was her stepdad who had shown up and demanded money to keep her drug addiction secret. But it had turned into outright lies when Cujo asked if she had paid him anything. Unable to admit to her humiliation, she couldn’t tell him the truth.
The confrontation several days before had made one thing resolutely clear. Arnie was never going to give up. She was his meal ticket. He lacked any kind of moral compass, and would expect her to beg, borrow, and steal whatever she needed to give him what he wanted.
No. If he came back again, she was going to tell him to do his worst. Hell, she was considering going to the police anyway. He’d already cost her Dred. The worst that could happen was that she couldn’t convince a jury it had been self-defense.
“You know how much I love you, right?” Cujo stepped into the office. He’d been hovering around her like an overprotective parent for days.
Pixie nodded.
“Well,” he said, closing the office door, “it’s killing me right now to see you hurting like this. But you know what pains me most? That you aren’t being honest with me. You in trouble, Pix?”
Pixie closed her notebook quickly. She wanted to continue the lie, to be capable of looking Cujo in the eye and telling him she was fine. The words wavered on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t. And omitting the truth was just as bad.
Tears pricked her eyes and she shook her head, unable to speak over the lump in her throat.
“Oh, Pix.” Cujo walked over to kneel on the floor next to the chair she was sitting on. “Come here.” He tugged her into his arms.
She dropped her head to his shoulder and wept. Cujo stroked her back as she cried. The guilt she’d been carrying for killing Brewster, the pain that she’d carried from all those years of abuse, and the ache she felt from Dred’s absence flooded out.
A box of tissues appeared on the table, and she grabbed one. Doing her best to clean up her face, which she was certain was an unholy mess of tears and streaked mascara, she tried to breathe.
Cujo got off his knees and pulled up a chair to sit next to her. He gripped her hands and they had familial warmth. Unable to look him in the eye yet, she studied the colorful sugar skull on the back of his hand.
“Do you remember my promise to you?” he asked. “That day you went to treatment the first time?”
“You said, ‘I’ll replace every single shit-head adult that let you down.’”
“I did. And I meant every word. I don’t care what you did. I don’t care what you took. In the last six years, you’ve become the little sister I never had. You’ve stayed clean. You’ve worked hard. You’ve been there for us as much as we have for you. Whatever’s going on, I want you to know you can talk to me.”
Pixie looked up at him. “I lied. I did give Arnie money.”
Cujo didn’t flinch; his clear blue eyes were focused. “So he was blackmailing you?”
Pixie nodded.
“We need to go to the police with this, Pix. You know you can’t let him get away with it.”
“I know,” she nodded sadly. “But if we go to the police and tell them why he was blackmailing me, I think they’ll arrest me too.”