Page 10 of Craving Oblivion

My breath left me in a rush. Cam? Married? I’d seen some reports about him and a pretty blonde, but marriage? I swallowed hard, hoping for his sake that he’d made the right choice.

“No, I… No, I wouldn’t have missed that.”

Unless I had. My mind spun out a lot these days. Maybe I’d forgotten. Didn’t that make me a shit person? I swallowed, wishing it was a drink. Whiskey would go down nice and smooth right about now.

“Congratulations,” I said.

He smiled. “Thanks. You’re gonna love her—Jenna. She builds guitars. Beautiful, perfect instruments.”

“Great.” I moved forward and settled on the sofa.

Cam’s smile widened, and contentment radiated off of him. He’d been so dead-set against love. My stomach soured as I realized he’d let go of his past.

Damn, I really needed a drink.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

His eyes twinkled. “To tell you about the love of my life.”

I failed to suppress my shiver of revulsion at the word love. Cam would pay for allowing himself to have that damned emotion. He’d probably sink into the same cycle of douchery Brad had. I didn’t want that for him.

I raised an eyebrow.

He sighed. “Fine. Are you still not willing to talk to your girl? It’s been years. I heard she made your mama’s funeral.”

I rose, legs wobbly. The one topic even more off-limits than Aya was my mother. Guilt clawed its way up my chest. “Cam, you have been the single person in my life I could count on, but right now, I need you to leave.”

He didn’t move. “Heard tell you refused to stay for the reading of your grandfather’s will.”

“I heard the important bits from Pop’s assistant, Cynthia.”

“Ah, yeah, she called me. Let me know about how Aya fit into your grandfather’s plans—”

“I don’t care.” I slashed through the air with my hand. Guilt, disappointment, and helplessness swirled through me. “Not my business anymore.”

“Well, I sent her some tickets to your show over there this summer,” Cam informed me. “Thought maybe the two of you could catch up, clear the air—”

At that, I walked out of the room. I closed the bedroom door, locked it, and leaned back against it, shaking. No way I was going to listen to Cam if he brought up that night.

I snagged the bottle of vodka from my suitcase as I headed into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

Sometime later I woke up on the shower floor. I pulled my stiff, aching limbs from the tiles and flipped off the water. I staggered out of the stall, teeth chattering as I dried off and managed to make my way to the bed, my entire body shaking.

The clock read four am. I’d been in the shower for three hours.

As I lay under the blankets, my body wracked with spasms, my mind, sluggish from the vodka, finally latched onto Cam’s words. Pop Syad’s will has something to do with Aya.

I shoved thoughts of her, of the hurt in her violet eyes, out of my mind. Wouldn’t do any good to dwell on her. Too much time had passed. She was the one in the wrong anyway.

But what had the cagey old bastard tried to push on me from the grave?

6

Six Months Later

Aya

I stared down at the tickets, caressing Nash’s name. My fingertips tingled as the hired car slid to a stop in front of the venue. I studied the façade of London’s most enormous outdoor stadium. Typically used for soccer matches, this place booked few musicians because it was no small feat to fill two hundred thousand seats.

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