Page 42 of Guitars and Mistakes
I’d had to drive Anna and Matt back to the hotel, of course, but that was easy when it was just twenty minutes away. Rivers, I’d left where he was. He’d told me not to bother with him, more or less, and for once I was taking him at his word. I’d spent weeks now thinking that he couldn’t be serious when he said he was no good and that I had to leave him alone. I’d intentionally ignored the times when he walked out on me or didn’t show up. Pushed me away like I was someone he didn’t really want or need.
I’d built such a thick skin that at this point I was basically a turtle. Or some other slightly more sexy reptile.
But right now…
I’d looked into his eyes and seen that he was serious about not wanting me around, and I was woman enough to admit when I’d been defeated. I couldn’t get through to him no matter how much sunshine and love I lobbed at him, and it was time I admitted that.
Time I start taking care of myself rather than trying to take care of him.
I left Anna and Matt at the hotel, both of them still asking questions I didn’t answer, told Anna to gather my things and bring them home with her when she could manage it, and then took off down the highway for Nashville, my heart wanting only one thing: my home and my family. The safety I’d always found there. And my childhood bed, where I hoped I could stay for several days, to let my heart recover. I needed space to breathe and build myself back up, and there was only place to do that sort of thing safely.
So that was where I was going.
And as far as Rivers went?
He wasn’t my problem anymore. I had to stop making him my problem. Because he wasn’t ready or willing to be saved.
The drive took me several hours, and I spent most of it singing my heart out to songs on the radio. The noise and lyrics let me turn my brain off and that was the most welcome relief in the world. When I flew into the driveway and hit the brakes my mother came running out, took one look at my face, and pulled me in for the hug I so desperately needed… then ushered me into the room I’d always had in the house—and always would have—and told me to lay down and sleep. She’d make me breakfast—or lunch, or dinner—when I got up.
I fell into bed, closed my eyes, and willed myself into a Rivers-free sleep for the first time in three weeks.
* * *
I was upand eating breakfast—even though it was 4 in the afternoon—when the ruckus started.
It began with several cars screeching around the turn two blocks down, one after the other. They were making enough noise that my mother and I both looked up and frowned. We lived in a quiet residential neighborhood where no one drove quickly or honked their horns.No onehad ever turned that corner going fast enough for their tires to squeal on the pavement. When two more cars turned the corner in the same way, my mother and I glanced at each other and got up from the table. We made our way quickly to the door and threw it open, our eyes on the driveway.
I’d barely taken my first step out onto the front stoop when the first car came to a jerking stop in the street outside our gate. Another one appeared, and then another one, and in moments there were ten cars stopped right in front of our house, the tires of one or two of them smoking with how quickly they’d stopped.
What in the hell was going on here? Our neighbors were going to kill us!
I was getting ready to look right and left to see whether old Mrs. Oleander had come out of her house to lecture us yet when the first person stepped out of the car right in front of us.
Rivers Shine.
Followed by Matt and Anna, who was looking at me like she thought I might rush right down the walkway and strangle her.
People started climbing out of the other cars then, all of them looking way more excited, and it took me about ten seconds to realize they were all carrying cameras. Cameras that started flashing a moment later.
Pictures.
Rivers had brought the press. To my house. Where my family lived.
That was out of bounds. His deal was with me, not my family, and I was pretty sure that deal had ended the moment I left the tour, which meant he was breaking the rules just by being here. With the press.
How the hell did he even know where I lived?
My eyes snapped back to Anna, who looked even more guilty.
Right. Anna had told him.
Why?
I turned my gaze finally to the man in question, feeling like I’d been punched in the gut, and found him rushing up the walkway, an actual bouquet of sunflowers in his hand. That was…
Okay that was weird.
But it also snapped me right out of my stupor and into something that felt a whole lot more like floating. Or flying. Or something. Because no matter how much I told it not to, no matter how much of a mistake I knew it was, the sight of Rivers coming up my walkway holding flowers, with eyes only for me, had my heart blowing up like a god-damned balloon. It was so big it was about to pop—and I knew exactly what that felt like—but I couldn’t stop it. The man I loved, the man I’d worked so hard to save and then walked away from, was here, and I suddenly didn’t care why. I didn’t care who’d told him that I lived here—I was going to kill her later—or why he’d come or what had changed his mind.
