17. Reed
I drive Laney home.
That didn’t go to plan at all. I’m fucking furious at that woman for ruining things, and for her friends for laughing and taking photographs. Will those images pop up online soon? Will she tell her story with it?
Cade and Darius can handle it—after all, they’re the ones with that past—but Laney is more vulnerable. I’m worried this experience is going to make her retreat farther into herself.
We arrive back at her trailer, and she climbs out, her mother’s urn in her arms.
“Shit,” I say, “we forgot to spread her ashes.”
Her gaze doesn’t meet mine. “Another time. It’s not as though she’s going anywhere.”
I walk her to the door of her trailer. Cade and Dax remain in the car. I wait for her to open the door, and we pause on the step.
“I’m sorry things went to shit,” I tell her.
“You don’t need to be sorry. It’s not your fault.”
“You didn’t tell me how it went with the therapist the other day.”
A hint of a smile touches her lips. “Actually, it went surprisingly well. Thank you for arranging it for me.”
“You’ll be seeing her again then?”
“Maybe.”
I hesitate there, not wanting to leave her. “Laney, why don’t you come back with us? To the house. No one is going to bother us there. I know Darius and Cade want you there, too.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t. Not yet. Not until everything has died down.”
I think of something else. “Darius has a performance in the same concert hall as the one we went to. I’m sure he’d love you to be there.”
Her face drains of color. “I can’t. It’s too much.”
I touch her upper arm. “It’s okay. I thought it would be. I only wanted to ask. I didn’t want you to think you hadn’t been invited.”
I want to make her feel better, and I know I can do that with my mouth, my hands, my cock.
But I glance back at the car where Cade and Darius are waiting.
There’s no way Laney is going to let all three of us into the trailer when it’s broad daylight and her neighbors are around, too.
Especially not after what that woman implied about how Laney had kept us all busy in the wilderness.
If I go in there with Laney by myself, I doubt Dax will ever speak to me again.