Missing Pieces - Chapter 13
Hailey
Monday
Shit, shit, shit. I quickly got dressed while Tyler was in the shower.
I didn't remember all of last night. But I did remember wanting him.
Really, really wanting him. I remembered singing with him on stage.
I remembered his fingers digging into my hips and the feeling of his erection pressed against me.
I clearly remembered him wanting me back.
But then I had kissed him. And he didn't kiss me back.
So I had told him off. I had told him to drive away without me.
Everything else was a blur. How I had ended up in this hotel room was a mystery to me. I tried to put the pieces together, but I couldn't remember. All I knew was that we definitely hadn't slept together. If we had, I wouldn't still be so horny that I could barely think straight.
I didn't know what happened when I walked away from him in the restaurant.
But it didn't matter. The only important thing about last night was that I had put myself out there and gotten rejected.
So that was that. We were just friends. Which was perfectly fine with me.
In a few days we'd be going our separate ways.
It's not like it could have been anything more anyway.
I'd just keep pretending like I didn't remember the whole night.
Then there wouldn't be anything awkward between us.
It was better that way. I shoved my dirty clothes into my duffel and zipped it closed.
There were four states between us and Pasadena.
All I needed to do was keep my legs closed and not get shitfaced around him again.
I had just wanted to forget for one night.
And it had just created more things I needed to forget about.
And even though the rejection stung, I was glad nothing had happened between us. I didn't want to be the girl he fucked to forget about what he really wanted. For once in my life, I wanted to be the one that someone actually wanted. Me. Not my slut of an ex best friend. I just wanted to be wanted.
I slung my bag over my shoulder when Tyler emerged from the bathroom. He was fully clothed, thank God. I didn't want to be distracted by his abs ever again. I quickly looked away from him. "Do you want me to drive some today?"
"Nope."
It was worth asking. I felt useless. He hadn't even let me help pay for gas yesterday. I was the worst hitchhiker in the history of hitchhiking. And the worst daughter.
He followed me silently out to the car. I got in the passenger's seat, folded my arms across my chest, and stared out the window.
Neither one of us spoke or bothered to turn on the radio. There wasn't really anything to say. I was sick of small talk, and it wasn't like I was going to flirt with him anymore. Silence seemed the most fitting.
Fields of grass blew by us in a blur. Eventually I saw the sign for Oklahoma. Neither one of us said anything about leaving Kansas behind in the dust.
"She got married last weekend," Tyler said, breaking the spell of silence.
I turned toward him. "Who?"
"The girl I..." he let his voice trail off. "I told her how I felt and she didn't feel the same way. She married him anyway."
Now I understood. I swallowed hard. "I'm sorry."
He shrugged. "It doesn't matter."
But I could tell it did. The love of his life had gotten married and he had fled the state.
"What does she look like?"
He kept his eyes on the road. "She's beautiful."
"You can give me more than that."
He shook his head and was quiet for a moment. "Red hair, blue eyes, petite, a smile that can light up a room. And she gets the cutest little line in her forehead whenever she's upset." His eyebrows lowered as he stared straight ahead.
So that was his type. No wonder he didn't want me. A tall, tan brunette with brown eyes was basically the opposite of what he was attracted to. "She sounds stunning."
"Yeah." He shrugged. "But it wasn't really about that. At first maybe. But she was just really sweet and fun to be with. Our personalities just meshed really well. She was one of my best friends."
"That must have been hard...losing a friend too."
He didn't say anything.
"How long were you in love with her?"
"Almost three years."
"Were you ever more than friends?"
He laughed. "For about a week a little after we first met. Pathetic, right?"
"No. I don't think so." I pulled my feet up onto the seat and sat cross-legged. "At least you tried. At least you got it off your chest before it was too late."
He glanced at me for a second. "Yeah. I guess. But it was a shot in the dark. She's never liked me as much as I liked her. She never looked at me the way she looked at him."
"But now you don't have to regret never trying."
"Yeah, I just have to regret losing one of my best friends."
"Maybe it's for the best. You needed to get away from her in order to move on. So, screw her."
He lowered his eyebrows again. "I still care about her. I want her to be happy."
"You deserve to be happy too."
"I'm working on that."
I stared at him as he drove on in silence.
Any girl that could turn him down must have been blind.
He was seriously hot. Like straight out of the pictures of a magazine.
And he had lips that were just begging to be kissed.
By someone else. Not me. Some redhead he hadn't met yet probably. I turned away from him.
He had just opened up to me. It seemed wrong to leave him the only vulnerable one. His heart was broken. I could see the devastation on his face. He loved and lost. That's why it was never really worth taking the risk to love in the first place. I knew that. I had been burned too.
I took a deep breath and turned back to him. "I'm not just low on cash. I'm in debt. Awful debt, actually. The bar is failing. The bank is taking it back at the end of next month."
"What about your dad? Can't he help?"
I looked away from him again. "He's done everything he could think of.
" Maybe I could open up to him about the bar and my financial problems. But I couldn't talk about my dad.
I couldn't say that he was dying out loud.
It made it too real. It made it an actual possibility. I couldn't deal with that.
"So, why the sudden urge to go to Pasadena then? Didn't want to stick around to say goodbye to your bar?"
"No. I'm not giving up that easily. There's someone there that can hopefully give me a loan." I didn't feel like answering any more questions. "What about you? Why are you heading to California? Did you just want to be on the opposite side of the country as her?"
"Something like that. Really I just wanted to go somewhere...sunnier."
"I get that."
We sped down the highway in silence again. Maybe we could both leave the darkness behind.