Page 59 of Wild and Bright

His brows pull together. “What?”

“Whenever things are good, you push people away. Things were good between us that night. The first time we had sex.” I shake my head slowly. “And then you slut-shamed me. Why did you do it?”

His eyes grow wide, almost fearful. In an instant, he’s standing. His spine is rigid as he walks out of the bathroom. “I need to shower,” he says. “Let me know when you’re done in here.”

As he disappears from sight, I clench my teeth to fight the rising tears. If he really cared about me, he would talk about it. He would explain himself.

My heart is breaking in two, but I can’t fall apart. I wipe, stand up from the toilet, and rush to the bedside table. After grabbing my phone, I walk right back to the bathroom and shut the door.

I pull up my contact list and press the name of the only person I know who can fully understand what I’m going through.

SIXTEEN

Camden

“What’s wrong?” Janie’s voice is soft, and when I glance to my right, I see that Hunter, Isaac, and Janie’s husband, Jeremiah, are still engrossed in conversation about a local Portland guitar maker. I exhale, relieved that she waited until this moment to ask.

I look down at my plate and rub my fork along the barely touched lobster omelet. Fuck, I don’t even like lobster. Or omelets.

“Lauren wants this to be more than it is. She wants a real relationship.”

She stares at me steadily. “And how do you feel?”

I lift a hand and run it through my hair. “I wish I had never done this thing with her in the first place.”

Janie’s quiet for a moment. “But you don’t really feel that way.”

I sigh heavily. She’s right, of course. I don’t regret it for a second, because it gave me what I’ve always wanted.

The problem is I might not be able to let go.

“No,” I finally say.

“Why don’t you just do it?”

“Because I can’t trust her.” It’s hard to keep the accusation out of my tone. Janie seems to be forgetting all my justified misgivings. “She’s impulsive and unpredictable even when things are good between us. What’s going to happen when they aren’t? What is she going to do the next time she’s angry with me, like really angry?” My jaw clenches. “We know what she did last time.”

“Yeah, but she was eighteen.”

“And she still does the same kind of shit she did back then. You saw her last night. She wore that dress because she was mad that I tried to give her rules on how to behave at the party. And I’m fucking paying her to go to parties with me.”

“I don’t think resisting your tight leash is the same thing as…” Janie doesn’t finish that sentence, because she understands better than anyone why it’s so hard for me to talk about that night.

The shame and regret are too overwhelming.

“I don’t keep her on a tight leash. She’s doing a job for me, and I’m paying her thousands of dollars at the end of this.”

Janie’s lips quirk. “Yeah, but do you only tell her what to do at parties?”

“Yes.” My answer comes so rapidly that it sounds insincere even to my own ears. I shut my eyes for a moment, not surprised when the sound of Janie’s laughter hits my ears.

“Okay, listen to me for a second,” she says. “I understand your situation a lot better than you think. I may be a people pleaser with the rest of the world, but with Jeremiah, I’m every bit as much of a control freak as you. I hate being away from him when we tour. It gives me so much anxiety. And I make him text me constantly throughout the day. I am not kidding when I tell you he is on a texting schedule with me, and if he ever forgets, I go out of my way to make him feel terrible. Like, I’ll bring up old stuff—times he messed up in the past—to make it really hit home.” She smiles faintly. “It’s not healthy at all, but he puts up with it because he knows where it comes from.”

I look away, apprehension rising at where I think her story is going.

“You care about Lauren. And you want to control her because you’re scared. You’re scared of losing her.”

My jaw clenches. “I have a lot of reason to fear what she might do.”

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