Chapter 5 #2
I clamp my mouth shut, hand the mic to a stunned waitress, and shove through the crowd.
The air outside is thick with rain that was not here before.
My hair clings to my cheeks in seconds, and I don’t even care.
I breathe. I try not to sob. I fail. It’s easier to be furious than to fall to pieces, so I choose that.
Heavy boots thud behind me and seconds later Travis is there, staring at me, his face expressionless. “Why’d you run?”
I bite my lip, to stop the tears.
“Answer me, Violet.”
His voice is firm, steady.
“Because being in there with you, feeling that way, it’s killing me. You being back is killing me. Everything hurts, Travis. Because I don’t understand. I still don’t get why you left and refused to speak to me. Do you have any idea what you did to me?”
He goes silent. “No, I don’t.” Water streams off his hair and down the collar of his shirt. He stares at the street instead of me. “I could tell you why, or I could tell you what you want to hear. But neither of them will be enough. Sometimes a man just needs to disappear, Vi.”
That’s it. “That’s your answer?”
He nods, slow. “Yeah. I wish it were better, but it’s not.” He rubs a fist over his jaw. “I thought your life would be easier, lighter, without me. I was in a bad place. I don’t know what to tell you. I was drowning and nothing made sense except to run, so that’s what I did.
“Maybe it would have been better if you stayed gone.” A sob punches out before I can stop it. “You broke the only thing I had left.”
He steps close but not enough to touch. “I can’t fix it.
” His hand comes up, trembling a little, then lands at the base of my neck, heat burning through my skin as he pulls me forward just enough to be sure I’m listening.
“If I could, I would. I’d tear the whole world down if it meant you’d look at me like you used to. But I can’t.”
We stand like that, chests heaving in the rain, both of us shuddering on the edge of whatever comes next.
He drops his hand. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
“I—” I swallow, trying to clean up the tears with my palm. “Where?”
He grins, wolfish, alive again—just the way he can do so well. Turn everything off like it’s a switch. “You trust me?”
I shake my head. “Not even a little.”
“Good.” He takes a step back and motions to his bike. “Let’s go to the beach.”
“You’re crazy, have you seen the weather?”
He straddles the Harley, rain splaying off the chrome, and pats the seat. “Sometimes that’s the only thing that gets us through.”
The helmet waits for me, cracked and covered in old band stickers. I don’t want to, but I put it on anyway, because even now, I’d follow Travis Phoenix straight into hell.
WE TAKE THE COASTLINE with the wind flaying my thighs and Travis’s ice-cold hand forming a cage around mine at every red light.
The sky is that sucked-dry gray that means the rain has no plans of stopping.
Goosebumps ridge every inch of me, but it doesn’t matter.
There’s nothing to do but hold on and let the world blur.
I don’t ask where we’re headed. I don’t even try.
Let him drive. Let him steer. I had forgotten this part, the wild blind trust with no brakes.
He stops at the beach.
Of course he does.
Our place. It has always been our place.
The sand is a slush when we roll up, the waves crazed and roiling in the black moonless dark.
I hop off first, tossing my shoes. The rain is all over everything now, blurring the sea, the parking lot, the last memory I had of Travis before he left, shirtless and feral, grinning as he rolled a joint and brought it to my lips, letting me inhale.
God.
He had me in a chokehold.
He slings the helmet off and takes my hand. “Ever come down here in the rain?”
“I’m not a masochist,” I mutter.
“Come on, Mischief.” Like I have a choice.
He sits on the sand, legs kicked out, eyes locked on the horizon. I stand for a second, not sure if I am making a huge mistake, then fold next to him. Every inch of me is soaked. My teeth chatter, just a little. And yet, it’s insanely calming, in a strange kind of way.
We sit, drenched, the rain hammering over us. I wonder what we are now, what he wants, why it’s so easy to slide back into this gravity. The air is salty and it tastes like another life. God, I should have just stayed home, and yet I knew I’d never be able to say no.
Not to him.
He turns, voice low. “Did you think about it?”
“About what?”
His jaw ticks. “That kiss. On stage.” He says it like it’s the only thing in the world that matters.
I say nothing for a minute, watching the sand shift under the assault of the rain. Then, “Of course I do, Travis.” My voice is barely there. “You’re the only person I ever think about.”
“I know you don’t believe me,” he murmurs, “but I have dreamt of that moment for a long time.”
I hold my breath, my body buzzing with so much I don’t understand.
He is so close.
As he turns toward me, I can’t stop him, even if I wanted to.
He smells like rain and cigarettes and every bad decision I ever wanted to make.
He nudges my chin up with his thumb and before I can remember why I’m angry, his lips crush mine.
No mercy, no slow burn—just the kind of greedy, desperate, hungry that made me fall in love with him in the first place.
My back slams to the ground, cold water flooding my dress, sand scraping my scalp.
I don’t care. It feels right. He’s kissing me like he can’t stop, like he’ll die if he has to, like he’s punishing me for every minute we lost. I yank his hair and he pins my wrists, holding them flat above my head until I buck my hips up, needing him to hurt a little too.
The rain is relentless, soaking us through.
Every inch of me sparks and aches and I don’t know if I want to cry or scream.
I gasp his name and he groans, the sound vibrating down my throat.
Then his hands slide under my dress, rough and freezing.
He palms my breasts, his fingers soft, yet hungry, and the sensation is so sharp it makes me whimper.
“God, you’re so beautiful,” he mutters. His mouth finds my neck, jawline, ear. He bites, hard, right at the base of my throat. I clench my thighs, desperately. I want him to keep going. I want him to never stop.
I shove his hand down, guiding him, showing him exactly what I want.
He’s inside my panties in seconds, fingers cold but his touch setting me on fire.
He curses softly, like he can’t believe I’m real.
I rock against his hand, desperate, shameless, and when he slides a finger inside me I nearly black out.
I claw at his back, pull him down to kiss me, to swallow the sound.
He pumps in time with the crashing waves, relentless, driving, and I’m so close, so close—
I arch, then shatter, clutching his hand like a lifeline while I come apart under him, every muscle a live wire. It takes me a minute to even breathe again.
God damn.
When I open my eyes, he’s watching me, hungry, his entire body tense. I pull him in and kiss him again, slow this time, softer. He tastes like salt and longing and something I can’t even name. He rolls away, lying flat in the sand, the rain pelting down.
I shouldn’t, I know I shouldn’t, but I crawl next to him, nestle my head on his chest, hand resting over his heart. We don’t speak. We just listen to the rain, both of us raw, both of us ruined, both of us needing this like air.
I trace a finger along his collarbone. "Trav?"
"Hmmmm?"
"Sing something."
He hesitates. "Like what?"
"Anything."
He pauses a moment, then his voice breaks through the sound of the waves—low, rough at the edges, but pure in the middle.
The notes vibrate through his chest and into my palm.
It's that Ed Sheeran song, the one about love, and something inside me splinters.
Before I can stop them, tears mix with the rainwater on my face.
"Shit," he whispers, pulling me closer. "Didn't mean to wreck you."
"It's not—" I press my face against his neck, breathing him in. The weight of how much I've missed him crushes my lungs.
When I can speak again, I look up. "Do you truly believe in love?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"The kind that needs an answer."
"I believe in this. Whatever the hell this is. Do you?"
I take a deep breath. I want to believe him, every inch of me does, but I don’t know if I can anymore. "No. Love breaks people, Travis."
"So do cars. Doesn't stop us from driving." His fingers slide into my hair. "You stopped living because you were afraid of the crash."
I look away, his words cutting too close. Then he shifts, voice casual in a way that makes my stomach drop.
"Been meaning to ask—where's Lil these days? Haven't seen her around. You two were thick as thieves."
My body goes cold. I pull away, suddenly needing air. "Can we go?"
He frowns. "What? Did I—"
"Travis," I cut him off, standing. "Are you honestly telling me you don’t know?”
He sits up, staring at me. I can’t read his expression in the dark, but the shadows of his face tell me he looks confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Chief never told you?”
“Chief doesn’t say anything about anything.”
The rain feels heavier now, each drop like a small stone. "Lillian is dead."
The air around us goes thick. “What?”
His voice is a low hiss.
“I...I need to go home.”
I stand, so suddenly I feel a little dizzy. It’s bad enough I’m soaked, that he is riding after a few drinks and that I let him fuck me with his fingers, but now this.
“Violet,” he yells as I charge up the beach.
“Let’s just go.”
“What happened to her?”
I pause, my entire body freezing. “I don’t know.”
But I do know.
I do.
And it ruined my life.