Page 50 of Wild Obsession

“I promise you, I’m plenty proud of myself.” After Tim left, I definitely didn’t think I’d be the one to take that V-card, especially like this.

“Well, it barely seems like it, and that’s kind of weird. Everyone has noticed.”

“Everyone. You guys back there talking about my dick all day?”

The flush deepens. “No. Jeez, can we worry about you?”

I shrug a shoulder. “If you have to, but I’d prefer you didn’t. I’m fine.”

Jacob huffs. “Fine, but if you decide you want to admit that something happened, I’m here and I’ll listen…” Jacob mutters an addition under his breath: “Even if you’re kind of an ass.”

I snort a laugh as he slips out from under my legs and slinks off. The second he’s gone, the smirk drops off my lips, however. Did Tim tell someone? I don’t think he’d do that, but how does Jacob know otherwise? I can’t be that off. My leaving a bar to get laid shouldn’t have seemed unusual to him or the rest of the band, so what’s prompting him to come talk to me about it?

I groan and flop back on the couch, staring at the ugly ceiling of the bus. Did something happen? Yes, yes, it did. Tim happened. Tim fucking happened to my life — again — and it’s starting to hit me that this is a lot more than I bargained for. Somewhere along the way, it slipped out of my control. Maybe it was that time we snuck into this bus tomess around against this very couch. Maybe it was when I overheard that phone call between him and his parents and allowed myself to experience a moment of sympathy for the guy. Maybe it was that night in Chicago.

Maybe it was all of it.

Maybe this has been slipping away from me from the very start.

The truth stays lodged somewhere in my throat, and I’m too scared to pry it loose. I told him this wasn’t serious, and I meant it. How could this be serious? He’s the ex who left me high and dry without so much as a DM for eight years. He didn’t care back then, not at all, so why should I believe he cares now?

It’s been eight years.

Eight years. That’s not nothing. That’s a lot of time. Enough time for someone to change, even someone I’ve hated for all that time.

No. No way. I shake my head at myself. I can’t let down that protective barrier of resentment. I learned the hard way that that’s how you get hurt. If you keep up your walls, if you hold onto that anger instead of letting it go, no one can get close enough to hurt you ever again.

THE BUS LEAVES THE highway long after the sun has dipped below the perfectly flat horizon. We drive down thesingular other road and toward the only lights for miles.

The moment the bus parks, I leap up, eager to stretch my legs after two days of busing. This is our last break. After this, we make straight for Seattle.

Off the bus, I stretch in the cool night air. Black, bleak nothingness stretches on and on for miles around me. They really weren’t lying when they said the center of the country is mostly open space. I can’t tell the difference between the sky speckled with stars and the hard, dusty, flat land below it. They merge into a single sheet of gray off in the distance.

The motel is like an oasis among the sea of nothing. The lights on the sign and in some of the windows blaze defiantly. The place is way bigger than you might expect, which is the only thing that allows us to be here. Well, that and the fact we planned ahead so they knew a huge group was about to descend on them.

Everyone’s eager for a real shower and a real bed, and Daphne swiftly returns from the front office and starts handing out keys. I grab mine and Levi’s and beeline it for our room. We’re on the first floor, one of the rooms that’s facing the parking lot. Across from us sits a bar. It looks dreary as hell, the sign flickering and the wooden face unadorned, but it’s better than nothing, and after that conversation with Jacob, I could use a beer.

I head into the room first, claiming the shower before Levi gets a chance. I change into fresh clothes and towel off my hair, feeling fresh for the first time in two days. It’spossible to shower on the bus, but it’s definitely not as good as the real deal.

When Levi gets out of the shower, he catches me stuffing my things in my pockets.

“Are you going out?” he says.

“I was gonna grab a drink at the bar across the street. You wanna come?”

Levi scrunches up his face. “Hell no. That place looks like it’s going to fall down any minute.”

“Which means the beer is cheap.” I give him a wink.

Levi rolls his eyes. “Whatever works for you, man. You aren’t going to eat or anything first?”

“They probably have stuff.”

That should end the conversation. We’ve done the polite pleasantries. He can report to the rest of the guys that I’m once again being an antisocial jerk. But when I turn to leave, he calls out to stop me.

“Hey, are you okay going alone?” he says. “I can join just to keep you company.”

“Of course I’m fine going alone.” Where is this coming from? I go out by myself all the time. None of the guys have ever said anything about it before.

---