19. Laney
“Anyone home?”
The male voice calls from the trailer door, and I sit up. How many hours have I wasted just lying here? I have no idea. I’ve lost track of time, as I seem to do so often these days.
“It’s Sonny, from down the way.”
What’s he doing here? I wipe my face and drag my hand through my knotted hair. I probably look like a disaster, but I can’t bring myself to care.
I go to the door and open it. It’s bright sunlight outside, but I’ve had the blinds down and the drapes drawn, so none of it penetrates the trailer. That’s not so unusual—it helps to keep the heat out—but that’s not the reason I have the place closed up.
“Hi,” I say and wait for him to explain what he’s doing here.
“Some of us are having a cookout and a few beers. I wondered if you’d like to join us?”
“Oh, thanks, but I’m fine.”
“Really? You seem to be here all on your own.”
I think of my mother’s urn and shrug. “I’m not completely on my own.”
“Oh, sorry, you’re with someone?”
I glance over my shoulder. “Not exactly.”
He catches sight of the urn sitting on the table behind me and pales slightly. “Oh, shit. Is that your mom?”
“Yeah, what remains of her.”
“Are you going to do a funeral or something?”
“I don’t know yet. I need to scatter her ashes, but I can’t think of anywhere special enough to do it.”
Under the table of a nearby bar seems most appropriate, but I’m pretty sure the owner won’t agree.
“Well, if you need some help…” He leaves the offer hanging in the air.
I bristle at his assumption. “Why would I need help from you? I have people. I have a family.”
I’ve flustered him. “Shit, sorry. Those guys you were in the crash with, right? Your stepfather and stepbrothers? I just haven’t seen them round here much.”
“I wanted some space. We’ve been living in close quarters this past month. I needed some time to myself.”
Am I destined to be alone? It’s how I’ve always felt.
I want to believe what I had with Reed, Cade, and Dax was real, but now we’re back, and our old lives are intruding, I’m questioning everything.
It doesn’t help that our fear of the press finding out has created a barrier between us, emotionally and physically.
After being so close for so long, I’m finding it hard.
A part of me wants to break, to go running back into their arms, but where would that get us?
We’d be watching our backs every second.
There are still far too many press around, or even nosy passersby who might decide to take our pictures and sell them to the magazines.
My phone rings constantly with offers for me to sell my story.
It’s all anyone wants to hear—all the gory details of how it was to live out there all this time—but I don’t need money, and there’s no way I’m speaking to anyone.
The truth will ruin us all.
He shakes his head and glances at the ground, scraping his foot across it. “Shit. You need time to yourself, and here I am trying to get you to come and socialize. Talk about putting my foot in it.”
I find myself smiling at his demeanor. “It’s fine. You didn’t know. And I do appreciate being asked, even if I don’t want to go.”
He throws me a half-smile. “Maybe I’ll keep on asking, then, and one day you’ll say yes.”
I don’t want to lead him on, but it’s not like I can tell him I’m already taken. I can’t say ‘sorry, I can’t hang out with you ’cause I’m banging my two stepbrothers and stepfather.’
That night at the hotel feels like a very long time ago, however, even though it’s barely been a week. I’ve had Reed here, but that’s it.
I clear my throat. “I’m having a bit of a rough time adjusting, what with my mom, and everything that happened after the crash. I need to be by myself.”
He lifts a hand in a wave. “No problem. I get it. If you do change your mind, the offer’s always open.”
“Thanks, Sonny.”
He turns and walks away.
I close the door behind him and turn and press my back to it. Maybe it would be nice to have a ‘normal’ boyfriend, a regular relationship. To be able to hang out with someone without worrying if you accidentally hold their hand or kiss them in the wrong way.
But I know I can’t do it. When you’ve tasted a five-course meal, cooked by the world’s finest chefs, how can you go back to a boring, tasteless burger? Even when you know that five-course meal is going to ruin you, you’re always going to dream of it, crave it, fantasize about it.
No one else is ever going to live up.