Page 133 of Drive
In a sea full of strangers, Reid sang tome.
Myfavorite song, covered byhisfavorite band, Deftones.
“Drive”.
A sunbeam of warmth spread throughout my body, a reflection of the elation in my heart as I pressed forward, ignoring the mob, overflowing, consumed. Tears multiplied as he repeatedly asked who was going to take care of me, touch me, console me. Question after question of who would be there for me, who would hold me accountable for myself, for my dreams. It was all there, in every lyric. The questions for him to ask as he confronted me with his heart and demanded my truth, his truth, the truth of us. His voice flowed like whiskey through the club, drawing me further and further into him, his soul cracking under the weight of our loss. Rye transitioned the song and ran away with the guitar solo while Reid rocked back and forth on his beat, his head shaking subtly from side to side, eyes closed, sticks blurring, immersed in the beats that rocked my soul. His voice was like an angry moan that hooked and swept me to the edge of the stage. Bass and rhythm, melody and words that rang truer than any I’d ever known. Seized without warning, I closed my eyes and streamlined into the past. The first lingering glance he gave me in the back of Paige’s car, the slow lift of his lips the first time he smiled at me. I relived the explosion of our first kiss, and the night we clutched each other lifeless on his mattress after giving our heart away to the other. His voice echoed in a rapid demand as the bass dropped and the stage went dark in pause, right before they picked back up and the crowd exploded behind me. Reid ignored their recognition, diving deeper, pushing his voice, asking me, begging me to answer before he brought me back to a slow descent into reality with the last note. The club was in an uproar of praise while the drummer pressed his lips together and let out a pained breath, his eyes cast down. I hiccupped a sob as I watched him hurt,for me.
“Santeria in the house,” Ben said as he spotted me at his feet. Jerked back into the noise, I realized I was sobbing next to the stage, when Reid’s eyes shot up at that moment and found mine. My face twisted as I broke for him the way he had for me. I let him see the twenty-year-old girl who surrounded herself in the dark because he refused to let her into his own abyss. His face twisted with emotion as he leapt from his chair and I raced past the curtain at the side of the stage and hit him in a collision. We were arms and exasperated words, and then his lips took mine. His kiss shattered me as I dove for all I could take, clutching the T-shirt at his back in an attempt to tear through it. We were fire and warmth as his tongue tasted and seized, burning through the years between us. Reid owned me with his kiss. Only when we were breathless did he pull away.
“Baby, are you really here?”
“Reid,” I sobbed into his mouth as he clutched me like he was never letting go. And I didn’t want him to.
“Reid,” was all I managed as I crumbled in his arms, in his hold while the crowd roared and chanted behind us, demanding their drummer. But he wasn’t theirs. He wasmineand had done everything in his power to prove to me what I had already known.
“Stella, baby, don’t cry.” Ignoring him, I pulled him tighter to me. He held me back just as hard as he whispered to my temple. “I never forgot you. I can’t. You know this thing between us won’t just fade away. Don’t cry. I’m right here,” he whispered. “I always will be,” he promised.
“That was so beautiful,” I said tearfully, as he pulled my face from his chest and looked down at me. My cheeks in his hands, my hands on his, he murmured, “You’re beautiful. God, every time I see you—”
And then his smile was gone, replaced with a flash of something I’d never seen. I followed his eyes to the ring on my finger.
And then reality came crashing down around us.
He ripped his hands away from me, accusation clear in his features, all the warmth leaving him. Incredulous, he stared at me before he shook his head. “I should have known.” His voice cut me a thousand times over when he spoke again. “The funny thing is, I neverfeltyou leave me,” he said with a voice full of irony. “I never felt you leave me, Stella.”
I was gasping at the loss of him, grasping again for the man I missed as he slipped through my fingers. “Reid—”
“Reid,” Ben repeated behind me. “Hey, Stella.” I looked to see him eye me wearily. Apparently, I was a sore subject when it came to the Sergeants. “They’re rioting man,” he said, looking between us and reading the tension before he shook his head and walked away.
I couldn’t say anything. I was too far gone. Doused in gasoline with no match in sight, the aching, the longing, and the burning all there. I looked to Reid, who took a retreating step back from me. “Maybe you were never there.”
“Oh, I was there,” I assured him, taking a step forward as he put up his hand, a wall between us. “I was there, Reid. And I felteverygoddamned thing.”
“You sure?” he said, eyeing me spitefully as he glanced at my hand like it disgusted him. “Because I’m pretty sure the girl I fell in love with is lost.”
“Reid—”
“Better get on home now, Stella,” he said, his eyes glowing green and piercing me. “Your future husband awaits.”
Nate.I hung my head as I thought of the man waiting out in the bar for me with my promise of forever. I wiped my face of the debris and looked up at Reid, who was as inconsolable in his anger as I was in my aching.
One song. One fucking song.
Dread coursed through me as I realized within the seconds of that song I had lost them both.
As I stared at the man in front of me, all I could do was wait for the inevitable.
“I wish we would have never happened.”
I gasped at his cruelty.
“I swear to God I do. Because at least broke and alone I wouldn’t know what it felt like to lose this,” he muttered before he began to brush past me and stopped when we were a shoulder-width apart. I managed to look him in the eyes. There I saw his decision before he spoke it. “I’m done waiting.”
CHAPTER FORTY
“Poison & Wine”
The Civil Wars
