Page 67 of A Way Out
“Tim?” she asked blankly, her brows furrowed.
“Your ex. When he called on Saturday. You told him you couldn’t go home. Now some guy named Tim calls, and you’re on the first flight out of town. The two conversations are obviously connected.”
“Yes. No. I’m not sure.” She rubbed at her forehead while striding over to the closet.
“When will you be back?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“What are you going to do?” Why was he pushing so damn hard? When had Maria given him any reason to act like the fool he was currently portraying?
“Oz, I really don’t want to get into it right now. We both have plenty to worry about without adding this burden.”
“It’s not a burden. I just want you to talk to me.”
“I know you do.” She sounded sad. “But I need to deal with this, and you need to focus on your career. Just kick butt at that concert tonight, okay?”
It was a clear dismissal. Made crystal when she lifted her suitcase out of the closet and began folding clothes into it.
Shit. She was really leaving. And she hadn’t given him a return date.
What the hell did that mean?
He couldn’t ask her sister, he realized a short time later, because Holly and Sam and Maria and Riley all left together to go to the airport.
Maria didn’t even say goodbye, not to him personally anyway, before she left.
“What’s wrong, Oz?” Lacey asked, dropping down next to him on the couch in the dressing room at the venue in Tulsa. “You seem tense.”
Why wasn’t she bothered that Maria wasn’t with them tonight?
“Did she tell you where she was going?” he asked.
“Who? Maria? She just said she had to deal with some family business.” Lacey canted her head and peered at him. “What are you worried about? That she’ll go back to her ex?”
Well, hell, that hadn’t even occurred to him.
And now he couldn’t stop thinking about it. About how much sense it made.
He was the guitarist for a lowly rock band that hadn’t yet made it big enough to be remotely in the same financial bracket as Maria’s ex. Besides this gig, he had three jobs and still couldn’t make ends meet.
He definitely didn’t have his shit together, and what little he’d gathered from bits and pieces Maria and Holly had let drop in conversation, Maria’s ex had had his shit together practically since birth.
She’d been attracted to that at one time. And maybe she’d thought that wasn’t really what she wanted, but how could she not? Hell, Oz wished he were more put together. He knew damn well he wasn’t the same caliber of catch as Vic Bernard.
These thoughts draped over his shoulders, whispered in his head as they played their set.
It showed. He was listless during “Why Can’t We Be,” and when Parker suggested they perform Panic Station’s “If Only” as their encore, Oz refused. No more love songs for him. Hell, he was ready to scrap “Desire,” despite what Travis had said about the song.
Christ, he was letting the woman fuck with his performance, and he didn’t even have a reason to do so. Only his gut. And his gut insisted something was wrong.
He carried this mantel all the way to the airport on Tuesday morning, all the way back to LA. On Thursday, they were driving out to Phoenix for the show on Friday, then up to Las Vegas for the Saturday concert.
Would Maria return by then?
Or was she about to ghost him? Hell, had she already? He hadn’t heard a word since she left the lodge Monday morning.
When he arrived at Sam and Holly’s house after that long-ass flight from Oklahoma, the kids and his mom were genuinely happy to see him. It should have been enough.
