Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Rhett
Present Day
I was buried under a blanket with a full glass of whiskey in one hand and a lit joint in the other, the smoke hotboxing my bed, just the way I’d dreamed about when I was at the strip club earlier tonight.
Except so much shit had happened between then and now.
And not a goddamn thing I was sucking down—not the liquor or the weed—was helping.
I couldn’t get Lainey out of my head.
Her voice.
Her scent.
The way her face had looked once she shook me awake.
Being back in her presence wasn’t something I had been prepared for. Neither were the feelings it’d triggered inside me.
But she’d made it clear she didn’t feel the same way. She didn’t want me around her. She didn’t want me waiting for her.
She wanted me gone.
That didn’t mean I listened.
Once I retraced my steps down the sidewalk and over the small hills, I hid behind a tree in the back of the parking lot. Not my proudest moment. I just wanted to make sure she got to her car safely.
Shit, that was what I told myself anyway.
But I also wanted to see more of her, and I’d take whatever I could get even if that meant a few seconds of watching her walk through the parking lot and climb into a Jeep and drive away.
I wondered if that vehicle was hers or if it was her parents’.
One of the many questions I had, adding to an endless list.
Once I watched her disappear, I took a rideshare home, and I’d been in this spot ever since.
It was one thing to go all those years without seeing her in person. Without hearing her voice. Without experiencing her touch.
But tonight, all three had happened.
Seeing the taillights turn to small specks of red had left me grieving in a way that consumed every ounce of me. I was empty. Lost. Desperate for something I hadn’t had in a long time.
I couldn’t numb the feeling.
I couldn’t fill the holes that had been left behind.
I couldn’t get out of my fucking head.
Every time I swallowed, every time I put my lips around the end of the damn wet paper, every time I closed my eyes—she was there.
She was looking at me.
Talking to me.
Touching me.
I couldn’t stop my hands from clutching, squeezing what was in them, wishing it were her face.
This bed felt like a fucking prison, and mentally, I’d been in one for too long. I needed out. I needed to piece together why Lainey had been there tonight.
I wouldn’t get that information by wasting away in this hellhole.
Since I wasn’t sober enough to drive, I’d called my assistant a little bit ago, woken her out of a dead sleep, and told her to come pick me up. I could have asked Ridge or Rowan to do the same. I just wasn’t ready to go there with them. I didn’t want to tackle the questions that would pour from their mouths. In fact, I didn’t really feel like talking at all.
Trista was the safest option. She didn’t know my past—at least I didn’t think she did—and she would do what she was told.
Trista
I’m outside.
My phone glowed as I read her message, and I kicked off the blanket, stubbed out the joint in an ashtray, and stumbled toward the door. I heard it close behind me before I climbed into her passenger seat.
“You reek,” she said softly.
“Of fucking misery, I know.” I took a drink from the glass I’d brought with me.
“What if I get pulled over?” She nodded toward the mostly full cup.
“It’ll be gone before you even get out of the Hollywood Hills.”
“And what if there’s a cop waiting outside your driveway?”
The only cops in this area were the ones hired by my celebrity neighbors, and they weren’t there to pull someone over for a goddamn open container.
“I’ll pay the ticket,” I barked. “Drive.”
“Do you want to tell me where I’m going?”
I held out my hand. “Unlock your phone and give it to me.”
When she set her cell on my palm, I opened the Maps app and typed in the address, hitting Go. As the spoken directions started to play through her speakers, she pulled out of my driveway and followed the next set of instructions.
She wasn’t more than fifteen yards from my house when she said, “You don’t have to tell me why you called me in the middle of the night or why you’re drinking straight booze in my car at this hour, smelling like you just woke up from the floor of a bar, but I need to know if you’re okay.”
I held the glass to my lips and swallowed until it fucking burned. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
She gripped the steering wheel with both hands, stealing quick glances at me. “It’s part of my job.”
“It’s not.”
“Then, consider it a friendly gesture from a person who cares about you.”
I sighed as I stared out the window. “I’m all right.”
Because today, I had seen the woman I was so fucking in love with.
The woman I’d been dreaming about for the last fifteen years.
The woman I compared everyone else to and not a single one measured up.
“For someone who’s all right, you sure don’t look it. Or sound it.” She paused. “Or smell it. I’m on the verge of dry-heaving over here.”
I downed the rest of the booze and put the glass in one of the cupholders. “Better?”
She laughed. “Definitely not.” She went quiet again. “If you feel like talking about it, I’m a great listener.”
“I don’t.”
“That’s fair. I just want you to know you can.”
Our eyes connected at the red light, and I said nothing.
I’d talked enough.
Conversation, at this point, was just getting in the way of my thoughts, and right now, I had a shit ton to think about.
I reclined the seat back a few inches and watched the view through the windshield. The drive wasn’t far, no more than a few miles. A trip I could do in my sleep. But the moment Trista turned down the Taylors’ street, I wasn’t prepared for the memories.
They came flooding right into me.
Images of us kissing in the driveway.
The times I’d gotten her naked in her bed.
And then there were the bad ones.
The ones that made me fucking shake, like all the tears that had been shed inside those walls and the words that had been screamed and the pain that had been inflicted.
There was anguish.
Resentment.
Hatred.
All of it had been caused by me.
“Go slow,” I warned.
Trista drove at a walking pace, and as she got deeper down the street, nearing the cul-de-sac where their house was situated, there was a buildup inside my chest and a fucking knot wedged in my throat.
As soon as their home came into view, I saw the Jeep in the driveway. The same one Lainey had driven tonight.
My pulse hammered away. “Turn off your lights.”
“But I’m still driving?—”
“Turn them off!”
It was the middle of the night. I was sure most, if not all, of these homes had exterior cameras. I didn’t want her headlights to cause any alarm or bring unwanted attention.
“It’s the white one.” I pointed at the house even though her app was telling her how much farther to drive and when to stop. “Park here.” My finger shifted to the house directly before theirs.
She pulled over along the grass, the angle not only showing the front, but also the side.
While I was memorizing the Jeep’s license plate, Trista said, “Are you going to get out?”
“No.”
“Then, why are we here?”
I hadn’t told her where we were going or why I was having her pick me up in the first place, so I could understand how this could seem a bit odd.
But that didn’t mean she deserved an accurate answer.
“Because I need to be here.”
She turned off the car. “Okay.”
I moved the seat up, forcing my back to straighten, and I took in the exterior of the two-story house. I didn’t know what I was looking for. What I expected to find. Why I’d thought coming here would settle anything in my mind.
The only thing I got was, the presence of the Jeep told me that Lainey was staying with her parents.
But for how long?
And when had she gotten back?
I certainly wouldn’t find those answers in the flower beds on each side of the front door or the stucco exterior, but as my gaze rose to the second floor, something caught my attention. A light had just turned on. Since I knew the whole layout of the home, I knew the room was Penelope’s.
But the person appearing in front of the window wasn’t her.
It was her twin sister.
Lainey.
She stood in front of the glass, looking outside.
“Shit, I don’t want her to see me.” I ducked, hiding as much of myself as I could behind the dashboard.
“Don’t worry, she’s gone, and I don’t think she saw either of us.”
I first looked at Trista and then out the windshield, confirming the first part of what she’d said. The light stayed on, and within a few seconds, Lainey reappeared. But rather than standing in front of the window again, she was pacing by it, giving me a glimpse of her face and then her back.
She didn’t stop; she just kept going.
“You know … she looks as torn up as you,” Trista whispered.
How did she know that?
We were too far away to see the details of Lainey’s face. What we could see was the placement of her hands, how they dug through her hair and how they gripped the back of her neck and how they rested flat on the top of her head, constantly moving, as though she couldn’t find a comfortable position.
There was only one reason you paced in the middle of the night with hands that couldn’t stay still.
She was as fucked up as me.
“Do you want to go?” Trista asked. “Or do you want to wait until she turns the light off and then head out?”
I didn’t look at Trista. There was only one place my eyes needed to be, and that was on Lainey. “We’re not going anywhere. Light on or off—we’ll be here for a while.”
“I had a feeling you were going to say that.”