CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR “Stay”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Stay”
Hurts
“What the fuck, MOM!” I heard Reid bark from his empty bedroom. “Tell him to stop fucking drinking.” A short pause. “And I’m paying for it.” I jumped as I heard his bathroom door slam. Still, I heard every venomous word. “I’m not talking about the money! I knew this would happen.”
His voice boomed in the hollow space while I stuffed my duffle.
Lexi was minutes away, and we were moving into our apartment.
Ben watched me in the living room as I jumped with his next explosion.
I heard a crack and looked over to Ben, who motioned to the open door he held. “Come on, you don’t need to hear this.”
Nerves firing off, I followed him to the porch.
It was littered with cigarette butts. Reid had come home from his shift the night before utterly unapproachable.
His dinner plate was still untouched. He spent our last night playing house chain-smoking and isolated.
He refused to talk about anything that morning after our bodies aligned and he’d burned through me like one of his cigarettes.
His eyes were empty and refused to meet mine as he filled me to the brink again and again, his face twisted.
The only time he spoke was when he asked me for my phone minutes before Lexi was supposed to show up.
I reluctantly gave it to him, knowing whatever conversation he had would only add fuel to his inner fire.
He was pissed in a way that scared me. And I had never been afraid of Reid.
“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked Ben.
He shrugged. “What’s always going on. His parents are infants.”
“I hate them already. I don’t ever want to know them,” I said as I thought of his lyrics, the torment in the lines of his songs. I knew enough to know that they hadn’t been there for him. They were selfish and undeserving.
Nervous, sick to my stomach, I stood and heard another loud crash.
“He’s just letting the steam off. He’s calmed down a lot.”
“This is calm?” I said, afraid to look in the apartment.
“Extremely,” Ben said smoothly. “That’s why he plays with so much fucking heart.”
“Right.” I swallowed just as Lexi’s SUV came into view, a small U-Haul hooked to the back of it.
“That’s Lexi,” I said with relief. She looked around the buildings, completely confused until I called her name and met her at the bottom of the stairs. A wicked grin covered her face as she ran toward me and squeezed the life out me.
“Jesus, I thought I would never get here!”
“I’ve missed you so much,” I said, a shake in my voice.
She pulled back and frowned. “What’s wrong?”
Her budding concern was cut short when she spotted Ben over my shoulder at the top of the steps. I let out a breath of relief I didn’t know I’d been holding and demanded her attention as I clutched her to me. She felt like home and was a much-needed comfort at that moment.
She pulled back and gave me a wink. “Finally, right?”
“Hi,” she said as she gave Ben a quick once-over.
“Stranger. Welcome home,” he said with a nod.
I looked between them and knew they were far more intimately acquainted than they were acting.
They’d been talking or texting every day.
Still, they played cool, and I couldn’t wait to see it unfold.
A minute later, Reid burst through the front door and tapped Ben on the shoulder.
“A minute, man.”
I could see Ben’s apprehension as he followed him in and shut the door behind him.
“What’s going on?” Lexi asked as she looked me over.
“I don’t know.”
“You look scared,” she said as she stood back and surveyed me.
She’d re-dyed the tips of her dark hair red and looked kissed by the sun.
Beautiful in a light-blue sundress and tied leather sandals.
Suddenly, it seemed like I’d spent an eternity without her.
It was amazing what could happen in a few months.
Everything. Everything could happen in a few months.
Half an hour later, with Lexi and I covered in the afternoon heat, both Reid and Ben came through the door. Ben looked pissed, and Reid avoided all eye contact.
“Let’s get you moved, ladies,” Ben said, as he carried my duffle down the stairs.
My eyes drifted up to Reid. “Reid?”
His jaw ticked. “I’ll catch up.” He walked back inside and slammed the door.
“Don’t,” Ben warned as he pulled at my wrist.
“He’s not coming?”
Still trying to get past, he gripped me tight. “Listen, babe, you don’t need to—”
I pushed past him and pounded up the stairs and into the apartment to see Reid gripping his hair in the middle of his living room, our mattress pushed up against the wall.
“Reid.”
His bite was instant. “Can never fucking follow directions, can you?”
I ignored him because he didn’t mean it. Even with his desperate and angry fucking, I felt him with me. “Please, just tell me what’s going on.”
Hazel eyes stared through me as I stood with my heart in my throat. A long, wordless exchange took place, and for a second, I saw the man I love come back, his eyes focused, his hesitance speaking volumes. And then I knew. “No.”
His voice was full of residual anger and defeat. “I have to.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I get it. Okay? I get it. You’ve had a rough couple of months, but you’re so close to something. Can’t you see it?”
“No.”
“Then believe me,” I said, taking a step toward him.
“Stop. This isn’t a fucking fairytale, Stella. Life doesn’t magically start happening for anyone. Things don’t just begin to go your way because you try. I’m living proof. I tried, Stella. I tried so hard.”
“It happens! It happens and you know it.” I clung to hope. “You only see the success of others, Reid. You have to dig deeper to find out how long it took them to get there. It takes years!”
“I don’t have years, Stella.”
“Reid—”
“I can’t fucking afford to believe anymore!”
He’d never yelled at me before. And I could see his regret the minute he did. He flinched as I moved toward him. I was no longer scared of him; I was terrified for him. Shoulders slumped, his chin to his chest, I felt his thread snap.
“One minute past desperation,” I whispered.
“You have to wait one minute past desperation, Reid. That’s when it happens.
You’ll get a break. You will. It’s coming,” I assured him as he looked at me with disbelieving eyes.
“Come on, let’s get out of here. Help me unpack my place and then we’ll go have some fun.
You need to be inspired. I know just the place. ”
Glaring at me, he dug into his pocket and slammed five dollars and change on his counter. “I can’t go anywhere! I can’t afford to buy my woman a goddamned meal!”
“And you know I don’t care about that. We don’t need money. I don’t need anything.” But you.
He scoffed. “You’re so na?ve.”
“Stop. I’m in this with you. You know that, Reid. Let’s go to The Garage. Playing always makes you feel better.”
“There is no more Garage. I’m out of the band. I sold my drums to Jason last night. I’m leaving.”
“Last night?” The blood drained from my face and I felt faint. “Why, why, why would you do that?”
“I’m going back to Nacogdoches to live with my parents. My mom needs my help with my dad.”
“You knew last night?”
“I knew a month ago,” he said with a gravelly voice. “And then you happened. I tried, Stella. I just got another job to start graveyard next week, and with the gigs, I thought I could swing it. But it’s too late. I got evicted yesterday.”
He had tried to keep from leaving before he ever touched me. He had stayed for me. It felt beautiful and horrible at the same time. Tears slipped out one by one as I realized the gravity of it all.
“That’s why you let Lia take everything?”
He gave a sharp nod. And my fight kicked back in.
“I’ll help. I’ll do whatever I can—”
“Like what? Shoving tips into my books? Your sister told me about that, Stella.”
I would never speak to her again.
“I can’t make it here and keep sending everything to my mother. I can’t fucking make it. I have to go.”
“You can stay with me. I want you to stay with me.”
“I want you to stop trying to take care of me! Goddammit, Stella, stop!”
My heart plummeted as he looked around his living room and then made a beeline for his bedroom.
Following him with a flat-lining heart, I watched him pull out a large duffle and begin loading his clothes.
“I can’t stay with you, Stella. I just can’t.
I don’t want to screw things up for you. And my mom needs me.”
“She doesn’t deserve your help! They got themselves into their own mess. She doesn’t deserve you as a son!”
“Stop,” he said softly. “She’s my mother. And I’ve explained this to you.”
“And I’m the only woman that’s behind you. ME!”
“And I never asked you for that.”
It was a sledgehammer to the stomach. “I’m going to forget you said that.”
“Fuck,” he said through a ragged breath as he ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I don’t regret a single thing that happened between you and me. But I can’t stay here. I just can’t stay.”
“We can—”
“Stella, I want to go.”
“You want to go?” My voice cracked. “Reid,” I said breathlessly, “what about us?”
He began ripping T-shirts from hangers, then kicked the cheap plastic sock drawer he had against the wall.
When he didn’t answer, my angry heart began to speak for me.
“Me, too. I gotta go, huh? It’s not enough to leave the band, everyone else goes, too.”