17. Lilah
LILAH
If the shoe fits, strut your stuff, Cinderella.
—Lilah’s Secret Thoughts
L ennox snuggles her sweet-smelling head into the crook of my neck and yawns.
Me too, baby girl. Me too.
Meanwhile, her momma’s eyes might as well be drilling a hole into the side of my head from the other end of my couch as she waits for an answer I don’t know if I’m ready to give.
“Can you repeat the question?” I stall, and Addie just shakes her head.
“Lilah Belle Ryan,” she calls me out.
“Okay, first, you’ve been around the family way too much if you’re using my full name.” I lower my voice and pat Lennox’s tiny tush when she startles against me. “Fine...” I whisper-hiss. “No. I haven’t spoken to Noah. I met with my manager and the label last week and lost my mind when they told me everything that has been sent by ‘ With all my love.’ That’s how this sicko has been signing everything.”
“Creepy much? My God, Lilah. How long has it been going on?”
“I’ve gotten weird things before, but they think this one started early last year. But they only started escalating and signing their messages two-ish months ago.” A chill rips down my back, and I close my eyes, hating how vulnerable this makes me feel.
Addie looks distraught, and I wonder how it’s been just a few months since I met her when it feels like years. “Has Noah known the whole time?”
I shake my head, and my heart sinks. “He found out recently. But it doesn’t matter. He still kept it from me. God, Addie. I’m so mad at him... I’ve never been this mad at him before.”
“Have you talked to him?”
I shrug. “Sort of, but not really.” I try to push away the hurt, but it doesn’t work. “We’ve texted. He’s checked in to see if I’m okay. If I’m safe. But we haven’t really talked, and we haven’t discussed the tour. Not yet. I know we need to, but I think about it, and I just get so freaking upset all over again.”
“Did you tell the label you fired him?” She looks at me over the top of her coffee cup, and I think if she could have backed away as she asked the question, she would have. I get the feeling everyone in my life is bracing for the impact that Noah and I fighting will have on everything. Like they know the blast zone will be enormous.
“No, I didn’t tell them I fired him. I just told them I wouldn’t start the tour until after Killian’s fight. That gives me a few more weeks to either calm down or not. It’s not like I can fire my entire team, and I’m under contract with the label. So, I’m basically stuck surrounded by people I can no longer trust, and I just don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do with that.”
“Oh, babe, I’m so sorry.” She pulls a cookie from the pink Sweet Temptations bag between us and offers it to me. “You could use this more than me.”
“I will never turn down a chocolate chip cookie.” With zero hesitation, I snatch that sucker out of her hand. “I swear these are better than sex.”
Addie chokes on her coffee as I pop the rest in my mouth.
“I’m sorry, but you must be doing it wrong, if that’s true.”
I think about Killian.
His weight on my body.
His hands on my hips.
His lips on mine.
Him... Why the hell is it always him?
“Or maybe you do know what you’re doing.” She points at my face, and I bite down on my lip as my cheeks flame red.
“It’s complicated,” I offer, not sure I want to open Pandora’s box. Not when Pandora and I have barely spoken in the week since we blew up.
“Dumb it down for me and take your time. I’ve got four hours before I have to pick up Izzy.”
“Dumb it down... I’m not sure how to do that.” Even as I admit that, I know it’ll never appease Addie.
She tilts her head and drops it to the hand cocked against the back of the couch. “Listen to me, okay? Your drama couldn’t be worse than mine, could it? Your cousin spent a night in jail for me.”
“Ours is different,” I muse softly, and she yawns. “Fine. Point taken, but if you turn this into a book, we’re no longer friends.”
Her warm smile stretches across her face, and I sip my tea, not sure I’m ready to go back there. How much drama can one person handle in a week?
“We were kids. Kids playing at being adults. Sixteen years old when it went to hell in a perfectly wrapped package. But that’s not how it started. We were inseparable growing up.”
“But you didn’t grow up in Kroydon Hills, did you?”
“I spent a few months here every year. Every spring and summer before football season started. You know my dad and Jamie’s dad both played football for Baltimore, so that lasted until they retired.” I warm, remembering how much I looked forward to coming back here each year. Wanting Dad to make the playoffs but also desperate for the season to end because the kids here were different from the ones we knew there. “Once he retired, that was it. We were back full-time, and everything changed. Uncle Murphy retired the next year, and by sixth grade, Noah, Jamie, Maverick, Killian, and I were all in the same grade, and we were our own little impenetrable clique. The girls in my class either hated me because I was friends with the guys or tried to be my friend just so they could get close to them. They’d ditch me when they realized the guys weren’t interested. At least, not until high school.”
“Okay... I can see that. Little bitches. I’m dreading when my girls are old enough to deal with the mean girls.”
“Yeah, it sucked. But I had the guys, and I had my music, and that was all I needed.” I think back to the innocence of those few years when the worst thing in the world was having your cell phone taken away as punishment or being grounded for a weekend. As we got older, innocence and freedom started to give way to hormones and other interests, like music and sports. “All I needed until I wanted more.”
“Okay.” She tucks her legs up under herself. “Now we’re getting somewhere. I want to hear about the hormones and waning innocence.”
“Oh, good grief, you little romance writer. Always down for the drama,” I poke, and she smiles.
“Yup. Now stop stalling . Again.”
“You’ve got to understand... by the time I was sixteen, I felt like I was twenty-six. My parents were the absolute opposite of stage parents. But they supported my dreams and helped me achieve them. But doing that meant working hard. Performing. Practicing. Writing songs. I felt like school was a part-time job before I officially dropped out for my first tour.”
“Did whatever the hell happened happen before or after you left for your tour?”
“Before,” I whisper.
The weekend before.
“ W hy don’t you want to go to Gia’s party tonight?” Seventeen-year-old Killian asks me from behind a heavy bag hanging in Crucible. Seventeen. How does he possibly look like this at seventeen? Even Jamie and Maverick don’t have the muscles Killian has, and they’re both looking at D1 football scholarships for college. The gym is basically a dead zone because of the snowstorm raging outside. Meanwhile, I’m a hot mess from the emotions I’ve got raging inside.
Maybe that’s why I don’t feel like going to a house party overflowing with beer, sports bros, and bitchy girls. Okay, and maybe I just wanted to soak up as much alone time with Killian as I can before I leave for the tour.
“I don’t know.” I shrug and go back to doodling on the dotted page in front of me. “I guess I don’t want to spend one of my last nights home with all the catty girls from high school staring at me with daggers in their eyes because they think I’m the reason you won’t date them.”
“Listen, if they can’t handle the truth, that’s on them.” He throws a punch against the bag, and I feel it in my chest.
“What?” I close my favorite pink notebook with the tiny white strawberry blossoms on the cover and tuck my pen inside so I can give him my full attention while my mind runs rampant with possibilities. “What—what truth?”
Killian stops the momentum of the bag with his hands, then moves until he’s standing in front of me, his toes touching mine as he looks down at me. Knees bent and back against the wall, I tilt my face all the way up to him and smile. “What are you talking about, champ?”
He reaches a hand out to me and waits for me to take it.
So damn confident because he’s pulled me up from this floor a million times.
So many hours of writing while he spars.
So it’s no surprise when I slide my hand in his and let him pull me to my feet. But the look on his face is different this time. It’s confusing and exciting and makes it hard to breathe.
“The truth, princess. The one they all know but you don’t.” His rough thumb traces circles on my wrist, and I want to squirm under his touch, but I don’t. This is Killian. The boy who carried my books for me for weeks when I was stuck in an air boot freshman year. The one who never misses a performance. The one who gave me my lucky necklace.
“Help me out then. It’s not nice that I’m the only one left in the dark.” I smile and hold my ground.
This moment feels important.
Or maybe that’s just my inner romantic running wild.
“The one where they know they can’t hold a candle to you, Lilah Belle.”
Oh . . . that.
“Right. Because I’m your best friend and all...”
Not like I haven’t heard that before.
Broken. Record.
Killian wraps a big hand around the back of my head in a way he’s never touched me before, and I think my heart skips a beat. “No, Lilah. Because it’s you... And you’re—you’re different.”
He tilts my head back, so I’m looking right into his bright green eyes, and I realize I only have a few days left before I leave. That’s the only reason I grow the lady balls I suddenly have. “Are you ever going to kiss me, Killian?”
“Lilah...” He swallows, and I think my heart sinks down to the floor with that one movement.
“Oh my goodness... I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean—” I pull back, but Killian’s hold on me tightens.
“Just wait, princess. Not all of us have the same way with words you do. It takes some of us longer to put our thoughts together.” His lips tug up, and I want to cry.
I don’t want to leave him.
Everything is going to be different when I come back.
But I have to go.
This is my dream.
“Lilah... I’m not going to kiss you tonight because you leave in five days, twelve hours, and”—he looks over at the clock then back to me and blows out his breath—“and about forty-five minutes.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” My defenses go up, and my confusion settles in for another round of ping-pong.
“Because when I kiss you, Lilah, it’s going to be the beginning of everything, not the end. It’s not going to be goodbye. It’s going to be welcome home, I missed you.” I gasp, and Killian takes a step impossibly closer, sucking every last little bit of oxygen from the gym, making it hard to breathe.
“When I kiss you, you’re going to be the last girl I kiss for the rest of my life. It was always going to be you. You’re it. You’re going to be my girl. And I’m not ready for that with you leaving. Your life is about to explode, and I can’t wait to watch it all happen for you, but I’m not going to be the asshole who makes you wish you were here instead of doing your thing. The whole world is going to fall in love with you, Lilah, and I’m a greedy asshole who wishes he didn’t have to share you already.”
“Killian...” I whisper as the first tear falls.
“No tears, princess. I’m going to need you to remember that I loved you first, and when you’re done, I’m going to love you last. Can you do that for me?”
“What if I don’t want to wait?” I ask so softly, I’m surprised he can even hear me.
The way he runs his hand over my head sends tingles through my entire body.
“Guess you’re going to have to trust me.” He pulls me against his chest, and I wrap my arms around his waist. “Do you trust me, Lilah?”
“With my life, Killian.”
“Then trust that we don’t have to rush the start when the good stuff is going to last us till we’re old and gray and pissing off your brother with the way I still can’t keep my hands off you. Trust us to know when it’s right. You’re on tour for ten months...”
My heart is breaking in my chest.
Cracking in half and shattering.
“I could come home between cities ? —”
“No, you can’t. That’s exactly what you can’t do. Give this tour everything it deserves. You’ve worked your perfect ass off for this forever. Find me when you come home. I’ll still be right here.”
“And you’ll be mine?” I breathe out, terrified that we’re never going to get this moment back.
“I’ve always been yours.”
“ O h. My. God. How did you go from that to hating him?” Addie asks through a sniffle, pulling me out of the memory, and I wipe my tear-stained cheeks.
Damn it. This is why I don’t go back there. I can’t.
I push it all back down into that little box and shove it to the deepest recesses of my brain. “And then he showered, and we went to Gia Petrillo’s party where I caught Killian and Gia fucking against the pool house.”
“Shut up,” she all but screams, and Lennox whines and shifts.
“Nope.” I shake my head slowly, forcing myself not to relive the pain. “I saw it and left, and the next day, we got into a huge fight.” I stand with the baby in my arms and sway, hoping it will calm both of us down. “It went downhill from there.”
“Well hell, Lilah. You guys have never talked about it since?”
I shake my head, wishing there was a different answer. Hell, she watches me like she’s expecting a different answer. Like there’s going to be some misunderstanding that’s going to make it all better. But there’s not. “I cried every day for a month, but it didn’t change anything.”
I wish it had.
Scottie
Iris confirmed the tour dates.
Lilah
And?
Scottie
First stop is the Wednesday after the fight.
Lilah
How long will I be gone?
Scottie
Seven weeks. With breaks in-between. You could fly home a few times if you want to.
Lilah
Okay.
Scottie
You gonna tell me we need a new band leader?
Lilah
Why? What did you hear and from who?
Scottie
A lady never reveals her sources.
Lilah
Good thing I’m not talking to a lady then.
Scottie
Hey!
Lilah
You’re a shark, and you know it. And I haven’t decided on the band leader yet. It’s still to be determined.
Scottie
Seven weeks isn’t a ton of time to find a replacement.
Lilah
I know.
Scottie
I’ll put feelers out without making too much noise.
Lilah
Thanks.
Scottie
He was trying to protect you, Lilah.
Lilah
Yeah. So were you, and I haven’t forgiven you yet either. I have to love him. I don’t even have to like you. So drop it.