Consumed (22 page)

As I leave our bedroom and walk through Sinjin’s section of bunks, the sound of rustling bedspreads stops me in my tracks. Turning around, I flip on the light by the door. When I see a body beneath the covers in Sinjin’s bunk, I let out a snort. “Did you give up on Cal and Wyatt already?” I tease.

When the body rolls over, though, long black hair tumbles over the side of the bed and blue-green eyes stare up at me. 

“Is that where he is?” Cilla asks. She bats her eyes innocently. “Then you should go get him for me, Pepper. He and I need to talk.”

I stare at her without saying a word, taking in the sight of this drunken woman who’s made it clear how much she dislikes me. It’s not until my vision begins to blur that I glance away to the neatly tucked black comforter on the bunk right across from Sinjin’s. Once I manage to force a deep breath in through my nose, I look back down at Cilla. 

“What the hell are you doing in Sin’s bunk?” I demand. 

Planting her hands on the edge of the bunk, she pushes herself into a sitting position, flings her curtain of black hair over her bare shoulder, and glances up at me from under her sooty lashes. Even wasted she manages to make her every movement look sexy, and when the image of her waiting in Lucas’s bed instead of Sinjin’s wiggles its way into my mind, I jab the tip of my tongue into my cheek. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” She asks in her husky voice. “I’m waiting for him to come back. I’m thinking I’ll ride the bus with y’all to Atlanta.”

I shake my head incredulously. “Why would you put yourself through that?” 

So he can talk shit to you and reiterate how he wishes your band had never come on this tour? 

Though I don’t say those words directly, I know she must be thinking the same thing because she releases a little laugh that doesn’t reflect in her eyes or in the stiff way she rakes her hands through her hair. “Trust me, he doesn’t hold a grudge for very long.”

“I’m glad you’re so sure of yourself.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Don’t think that just because you’ve been around him for a few weeks you know anything.” She stumbles to her bare feet and leans in close to me. Her hair and halter-top reek of vodka and vomit, causing me to clamp my hand over my mouth. “You don’t know a thing about him. Or Lucas for that matter.”

I draw away from her, narrowing my eyes. “I know that Sin’s been over you for a while now. I know that he’s not some last resort. I know that you—”

She sneers. “Oh honey, you don’t know a thing about me.” 

“
You
have issues.” 

“And this is coming from Lucas’s doormat? Nice.” 

This isn’t the first time she’s said something like this to me—and if I’m going to have to be around her for the sake of Lucas’s music, it sure as hell won’t be the last—but that doesn’t make it any better. Between Cilla and Sam, I’m at the end of my rope. 

“Funny,” I say as I back out of the narrow space. Cilla follows behind me into the main lounge. I cross my arms over my chest. “That this is coming from the one who won’t take no for an answer.”

Cilla’s flinch echoes through her body. She turns away from me slightly and places her palms down flat on the lounge table to keep upright. Her shoulders begin to shake, and as I stand still, waiting for her to make her next move, I can’t tell whether she’s laughing or crying. When she finally straightens her back and faces me head on, I realize that she’s doing both. 

“Do you think I want to care about him?” She wipes at the corners of her eyes with the backs of her hands. Grabbing her strappy pumps from the leather couch, she slides past me in the direction of the exit. “Trust me, I don’t. And as of this morning, I lost all hope that he’ll just come around and get rid of you.”

This morning? Whirling around, I grab her upper arm before she can stumble off of the bus. “What the hell are you talking about?”

She looks surprised for a moment, but then her eyes narrow and a satisfied smirk lifts the corners of her lips. “Well, hell, maybe he has come around.” She jerks out of my grip, massaging her other hand over the spot my fingers held. “Goodnight, Pepper.”

Instead of heading back over to the other bus like I initially planned, I stay behind here. By the time Lucas wanders over to look for me, wearing that self-absorbed grin that always comes from hearing how amazing he is, I’m furious.

“Were you with Cilla this morning?” I ask, looking up at him from my spot on the edge of the bed as he comes into the back compartment. 

His shoulders bunch up with tension. “Did she tell you that?”

“Were you with her?”

Leaning against the doorway, he nods. “But not the way you’re thinking. I met up with Tyler after David and me finished what we were doing earlier. Cilla was with him.”

Dropping my forearms to my thighs, I bend my head forward. My hair sweeps across the floor but right now, I don’t care. “She made it seem like—” My words catch, and he comes forward, taking my face between his hands.

“You’re doing that thing again,” he growls. “What the hell did she say to you?”

“It was nothing. I was just flustered. And she was drunk, waiting for Sinjin to come in here.”

Lucas lets out a harsh laugh. “Then it’s good you came before he did. He’s not over that shit she pulled with Zoe on his birthday.”

“Didn’t think he was.” 

He slides down beside me on the edge of the full-size bed, his body warming mine. “They fixed the bus so we should be on the road soon,” he tells me.

“To your hometown.” And Samantha’s, but I don’t mention that as I face him.

The grin he’s wearing falters. “You said you needed to talk to me,” he says. “So let me in, Red.”

I release a shuddering sigh. “Lucas . . . Sam’s been in touch with me.”

At least a dozen emotions pass over his features—everything from confusion, to shock, to rage. “Today?” His voice is cold and flat, and when I shake my head, he growls, “When?”

“Since we started this tour.”

“And what the hell did she say?”

“Nothing that makes any sense. All I know is that ever since she’s gotten in touch with me, I’m the Yoko of fucking Your Toxic Sequel, one of my clients has given me the boot, and my mother has called me flipping out about a letter she received that I never wrote. And she contacted my grandmother.” The last word is shouted. I get off of the bed, dragging my hands through my hair. “I can take anything she has to throw at me, but to send a letter to Gram?”

Lucas stops my pacing, grabbing my wrist. “You never told me any of this.” His tone is soft and dangerous, but I shake my head.

“Why would I?” I shout. “I ask you over and over again what she has on you, and you shoot me down because she’s bad for your music. So why the hell would I just tell you?”

Letting go of me, Lucas scrubs his hands roughly over his face. When he stops, he’s breathing in short, forceful bursts. “I’m going to see her tomorrow.” 

“And then what? You decide to leave me because she clicks her fingers and holds something over your head?”

He’s on his feet, hovering above me before I have time to react. “No. Never again.” He shakes his head hard. “I can’t let you go, don’t you understand that? I used to laugh when I would hear that bullshit about someone being like air, but fuck, that’s what you are to me. You are everything I’ve ever needed.” Letting out a low, animalistic noise he throws his head back. “God, I was going to ask you to—”

“Ask me to what?”

“That’s why I left earlier.” He pulls something out of his pocket, and I squeeze my eyes closed, shaking my head as he presses it into my hand. Easing back down on the edge of the bed, I grip the tiny box until the square corners are jabbing into my skin. “After Sam, I told myself never again. I never wanted to do that to myself, but with you it’s all I can think about. I want you to marry me, Sienna.”

My chest tightens, like someone is pulling a drawstring taut, and I cross my arms over myself. “Lucas, tell me what she has on you.” I open my eyes, staring up at him. “Please. Just. Tell. Me.”

He’s trembling as he shakes his head. “I won’t have you looking at me like I’m a monster.”

Taking a deep breath, I stare down at my lap as the flood begins. The tears are warm and feel bitter against my dry skin. They land on the box in my lap, darkening the blue cardboard, drowning what could have been. “Then I can’t,” I whisper.

I’m by myself in the full-size bed Lucas and me have been sharing when I open my eyes the next morning. I roll over onto my back, staring up at the recessed lighting in the bus ceiling and wonder if the night before was nothing but a dream. No, correction: I pray that it was all a dream. But then my gaze lands on my Gibson guitar, which is standing upright beside of the nightstand. And sitting on top of that stand rests the little blue box Lucas had tried to give to me last night.  

He had asked me to marry him. 

And I had said no. 

I curl up on my side, bringing my knees to my chest. Closing my eyes to hold in the moisture threatening to spill out. I press the heel of my palm against my chest, but it doesn’t help the tight, painful churning going on inside of my ribcage, or the way I can’t seem to breathe just right. 

I said no.

I stay like this—with hundreds of thoughts spiraling through my brain—until I feel the bus lurch to a stop, and I know that we’ve finally arrived in Atlanta. There are voices filtering in from the front of the bus—Lucas and Sin and what sounds like Wyatt—and I know that eventually I’ll have to get up and face them all. Today is the day that I fly back home. And after I’m done with the job that I’ve been lucky enough to secure in Nashville, I have no idea what will happen.

Because I had told him no.

Finally, I climb out of bed and force myself to get dressed. My hands and legs are trembling violently as I smooth down the flouncy, vintage-looking halter dress I had bought because, at the time, wearing it had made me feel happy and vibrant. Today, none of those feelings hit me. Now, there’s an empty coldness circling around the pit of my stomach.

Instead of making me come to him, Lucas comes to the back of the bus as I finish packing my belongings. He stands in the doorway, looking beautiful in jeans and one of his signature black tee shirts. He gives me a nod, his dark hair falling into his eyes. I let the magnetism between us draw me to him, and when I push his hair back with the side of my hand, I feel like I’m dying. 

His hazel eyes are tortured. Haunted. Tortured and haunted and so full of regret.

“I’m going to make sure she leaves you alone,” he promises in a low voice.

I step backward. Bending my head, I stare down at a chip in my pale pink nail polish. “I just want her to stay away from my family. And from you.” Clenching my teeth, I pull in a rough inhale before looking up at him. “I’m worried about what she’s going to do to you.”

“She hasn’t done anything so far, Red.”

But that’s not true. She’s terrorized his life. She’s demanded his money and his time. She’s made it nearly impossible for him to move on, reminding him of . . .
whatever
it is that he did. “I love you. You know that, right?”

The bus floor creaks as he slowly walks across it. His hands are gentle as they run down the center of my back. “I know you do. And I know why you said no. But I know you’ll be back.”

I swallow down the tightness building up in my throat. “I can’t exactly do that if you don’t want me around.”

He bends his head to mind and whispers against my temple, “I’m not going to stop wanting you just because of last night. I’m not going to let go of you just because of this.”

I lift my face slightly, my nose skimming across his until our eyes touch. “I just don’t want there to be secrets.”

“And if the secret turned me into a monster?” It’s the same word he used to describe himself last night. Monster. It makes every bone, every muscle, in my body scream in fear. “What the fuck happens then?”

I’m at a loss for words for a moment as I study his expression. “You’re not a monster. You could never be that to me.”

His smile is sad, and it makes my heart ache more than the look in his eyes had. “We better get you to the airport before you miss your flight.”