Page 32 of Tattoos and Heartbreak
Unfortunately, to get out of this fucking hotel, I had to walk right through the show he was currently performing. Whoever had built this place had thought it was a good idea to make the whole bottom floor the performance venue, which meant the reception was on the second floor and the only exit onto the street required one to walk through the audience of whatever show was going on.
I leaned my forehead against the door and breathed out, feeling the beat of the music through the floor and hearing the echo of Rivers’ voice as he sang some stupid ballad to the audience.
I snorted. The guy had told me he didn’t write love songs and yet they’d been playing them nonstop ever since. Or… Well, ‘nonstop’ was probably an exaggeration. They’d added one love song to the lineup at the shows. And he’d been singing it to me.
I guessed after today, he’d be singing it to someone else.
And good luck to him. I didn’t care. I didn’t want anything else to do with that. Because I was finished dating—or fake dating—rock stars.
I pushed the door open, stepped through it, and then walked quickly into the crowd, intentionally not looking at the stage or the man on it. I didn’t need to see him and I didn’t need him to see me. I wanted to get through the audience and out of this room as quickly as possible. I already had a taxi waiting for me outside and a ticket on the next bus out of town. Everything was set up and ready, and my only job was to get out of the building without being discovered.
Of course at that minute, the music died suddenly, leaving a deathly silence in its wake.
I tried to keep walking. Tried to pretend I hadn’t noticed that the music had stopped. I prayed no one had noticed me—although that was probably difficult, as I was the only person shoving her way through an audience that was all standing still.
“Lila Potter,” a voice suddenly said into the silence. “You running?”
Well, shit.
I stopped in my tracks and stood still for a moment, trying to figure out what to do. Turn and look at him? Or keep going?
The problem was, I didn’t run from a challenge. Even when that challenge came in the form of a guy who’d stolen my heart right out of my chest and then proceeded to stomp all over it.
I turned and looked up at him, but didn’t answer. When the spotlight spun from the stage to highlight me instead—stupid, complacent crew!—I shielded my eyes. I couldn’t see Rivers anymore and that wasn’t okay. I wanted to know where he was and what he was doing. I wanted to know what to expect from this.
Or what not to expect.
Why had he even stopped me? From what I saw this morning, he didn’t even care about me.
I saw the people in front of me moving around, shuffling like they were trying to get out of the way of something, and tensed myself. What was going on? Was I about to be thrown up to the front of the crowd or something?
No one grabbed me, though, and moments later I saw someone making their way toward me. Someone tall, in jeans and a white t-shirt, his arms covered in tattoos. The light spun off me and my eyes adjusted to show me that the guy in front of me also had dark hair and eyes, his cheekbones wide and his mouth held firm and flat.
“Are you running away?” he asked hoarsely.
I shrugged. “Not running, no. Leaving, yes.”
His eyes shut in pain but opened a moment later, his hand reaching out for mine like he was looking for some sort of lifeline. “Don’t go. Don’t leave.”
I almost pulled my hand away. Almost. “Why not? Looked to me like you already found someone else to warm your bed.”
He huffed a breath that could have been a laugh but definitely wasn’t. “Lila, I don’t even know that girl’s name. She was drunk. Wanted an autograph. That was it. She was nothing. Nothing.”
I tipped my chin up, not ready to believe a word of it. “Really? And what am I? Because the last time I checked, Rivers Shine, this whole thing was fake to start with.”
He pulled me against him, his shirt damp with sweat and his skin like molten lava. “Not to me.”
I stared into his eyes, trying to decide whether that was true or not. Trying to figure out whether he actually meant it or if it was just another mask he was putting on.
Trying to figure out howIfelt about the whole thing.
I’d spent the last week pretending to be this guy’s girlfriend. Bailing him out in front of the press—and onstage—and doing my damnedest to make it believable. And in between those bailouts...
I’d seen who he really was. Started getting to know the broken boy who had grown up into this heartbreaker of a man.
And I’d thought I had a good handle on him. I’d thought I knew who he was, deep down. I’d thought he might care about me as much as I was starting to care about him. Only to walk out of that diner this morning and find him all over some other girl like he’d never even heard my name.
He’d undone most of the work we’d accomplished over the last week, but that wasn’t even all of it. He’d broken the trust I was building with him and slashed right through the feelings that had been growing in my heart.
