Page 29 of Tattoos and Heartbreak
Maybe tonight I’d actually get to sleep. Although that depended on Rivers Shine not attacking me in the hallway, pinning me to the wall and letting me know exactly how much he wanted me... and then walking away and leaving me there. I didn’t know what that had been about—I didn’t know why he’d left the stage in a rush when we finished singing—but at some point I was going to make him tell me. The guy wasn’t great at communication, true, but he obviously knew enough to know how he was feeling. He’d gone from ignoring me to basically kidnapping me and making love to me to ignoring me again and then mauling me in the hallway.
The guy owed me an explanation. And an apology.
A knock on the door jerked me out of my thoughts and I heard Anna making her way to answer it. There was a pause and a sharp laugh.
“Lila,” she called. “Tattoos himself is here!”
I closed my eyes in horror. We’d taken to calling him that when we were alone, thinking it was the perfect nickname for him, but I couldn’t believe she’d have said it if he was actually at the door.
Of course I also hadn’t thought she’d drive awayin my carand leave me in a hotel room with him, cursed to finding our own way to the next town. She still hadn’t given me a satisfactory reason for her actions on that point. She’d said it had been Taylor’s idea, which I believed, and that Anna had only gone along with it when Taylor had promised her that if we didn’t find a ride by a specific point she’d send someone back for us.
I hadn’t sorted out how I felt about Anna going along with it.
Or how I felt about the time Rivers and I had spent together.
Because it had been one of the most wonderful afternoons of my life—and I hated that it had only happened because his agent had played a trick on him. I also didn’t know how much good it had done either of us. We’d both come back to the world before we could talk about what had changed, and that left me feeling both unsteady and out of sorts. I liked to know where I stood with people. I liked when people told me they cared about me.
I didn’t know what Rivers thought of me or if he cared at all, and given what he’d done last night, I was feeling even more confused.
I hated that.
“Lila!” Anna called again.
Shit. I’d been so lost in my thoughts that I’d forgotten about her.
And Rivers standing at the door waiting for me.
I rushed out of the bathroom and to the door, trying to figure out what he might want and what I might say to whatever it was he wanted. Of course I didn’t have a clue. I didn’t know what he was thinking or feeling, as I’d just realized, and that meant I didn’t know how I was going to react to it.
Ihatedbeing unprepared.
When I got to the door, passing a smirking Anna on my way, I found him leaning against the door frame, his hands in his pockets and his face looking unexpectedly ashamed.
“Hey,” I said.
“I owe you an apology,” he replied. “Can I take you to an apology breakfast?”
My heart stopped beating. “An apology breakfast? Is that an actual thing?”
He reached out, took my hand, and pulled me through the door and into the hall. “It is now. Let’s go.”
RIVERS
ididn’t know what an apology breakfast was. I didn’t know if it was even a thing. But I knew I owed Lila something after the way I’d been acting, and by God, I was going to give it to her. I was going to explain exactly why I’d done the things I’d done—besides agreeing to this stupid deal in the first place, because that part, I trusted was obvious—and I was going to tell her exactly who I was.
Or something.
She glanced over the menu and then looked up at me, her face full of questions. “Is this a full breakfast sort of apology or an orange-juice-only sort of thing?”
“Full breakfast, definitely,” I said quickly.
Partially because I wanted her to eat. Partially because if this was going to the the last time I got to see her, I wanted to keep her for as long as I could.
No, I didn’t know for sure that it would be the last time I was going to see her, but if I was going to tell her everything about how I’d been orphaned and then ended up in the music industry, and how I’d never had anyone I thought I could trust and how that had—maybe—led to a path where I’d never believed I could trust anyone—then it was going to take a while.
Okay, so that might have been too much for one breakfast.
But I wanted to give her something.
