Save Me (Rock Romance #4) (11 page)

Something’s off with her and I can feel it, as much as I want to deny it, I know what it is. She’s overthinking, looking for a meaning that isn’t there,
a meaning of us. Of what we are, of what she wants us to be. Something that will never be. Our show in Oklahoma went off without a hitch, Abagail is proving to be quite the tour manager.

I was aware that she lacked experience with more
well-known artists that she was used to musicians who had just started off, more of a mother hen when it came to introducing people to the road. She was used to taking care of everyone, with everything. She wasn’t used to not being so needed when it came to the band.

We’ve been doing this for years, and
we’ve all found a way to get on without succumbing to the perils of being on the road. Excessive drinking, drugs, sex without protection. We’re all found what works for us, and Abagail hasn’t adapted. At first I thought that was the only reason behind her acting so oddly. I would catch her staring at me for long periods of time, then staring out the window in a dreamlike state. I don’t know why I brought her on the bus, I probably shouldn’t have. Subconsciously it was my way of apologizing for being such a dick the first day she joined us, my apology for last night. For getting carried away, knowing that she had a weakness for me and using it to my advantage.

I didn’t make false promises, although if she had forced my hand, my lips would have moved promising whatever it is that she wanted, just to feel her. She doesn’t know of the power she holds over me, I may be her weakness but in turn she is mine. A weakness I have to
overcome that I have to deny. A relationship isn’t in the cards for us, not only because of my past, I know I would carry it with me, using it against her. But also because our careers, she doesn’t work for the band, she works for the label, meaning she won’t always be our tour manager. She could end up on the road more than I am, we wouldn’t be able to have a relationship, with my trust issues, I wouldn’t be able to allow her to go.

It just wouldn’t work.

I don’t want to come out and tell her, because what if I happen to be wrong. Maybe I’m overthinking and she’s not feeling that way at all, then I could be bringing up a conversation that she and I never needed to have.

Instead, I’ll have to keep my distance,
pretend that she and I have nothing between us. That I’m void of any feeling other than distaste for her.

“Jason did you see that woman last night?
The sexy brunette with our bands name tattooed on her chest?”

“Yeah, I saw her.” Jason mumbles.

Abagail stares at he and I in question.

So what do I do?

I lie.

It’s for the best, really.

She and I- not going to happen.

Can’t happen.

“You took off, but she propositioned me last night. Too bad you weren’t around, because I was game. She wanted the both of us, but I couldn’t find you. So she left.”

“Gage.” Jason warns.

Her lip quivers.

That quiver is almost my undoing. Almost.

“What? Usually you’d be into something like that, but you took off running. Not fair, cock block.”

Too far. I had to take it too far.

She shoots imaginary daggers at me with her eyes, all the while I can tell it hurts her. The nervous twitching of her hands, the biting her lip, her leaving the table to climb into her bunk. I accomplished what I set out to do.

Remind her that her and I are nothing.

Home, I’ve never had one of those. Don’t mistake my parents not being here for me as an example that I grew up unloved, or beaten, because I wasn’t. I was cherished, I was loved, I was cared for. I just wasn
’t their primary focus. Their careers were number one, we moved so many times in my life I never knew the feeling of home. It became the normal for me, to pack and unpack, I got used to not making friends, of not settling because I knew we’d always end up moving. It’s funny really, how life turns out. The issues I had with my parents growing up, about their dedication to their careers in the military, and I turn out to have the same drive as them with my own career.

They wanted me to follow in their footsteps, I couldn’t, military isn’t for me. I’m not that brave or courageous, I wouldn’t be able to handle it, but I respect the people that can, I appreciate what my parents and all others do. The reason they and I don’t talk right now, is because they didn’t want me to go. They’ll move past it, someday, and hopefully understand why this is my destiny.

Our
free time in Oklahoma City was spent shopping for baby items, diapers, finger foods, toys, clothing. Everywhere we went had the same theme, children. Not that I had a problem with it at all. It helped take my focus on Gage away, it distracted me from thinking and feeling. We’re now on our way to Denver, Colorado, Steele’s Army is performing at Red Rocks. An amazing venue, and something I should be concentrating on, but now that we’re back on the bus all I can think about it the man sitting adjacent from me at the small table on our bus.

I’m losing him, and with me being, myself, I cannot allow him to just drift away. He’s become something more than just
want now a desperate and aching need. He keeps making these sexual references about woman to Jason and Zepp, about sleeping with someone else. I know it’s because I’m here. He’s only doing it because he’s scared of what we could be. Still doesn’t change the fact that it hurts.

He’s scared to jump over the cliff with me, hand in hand. I can see it in his eyes, the way he holds himself, he’s on guard. Guarding
himself against me. I don’t know how to get in, how to get through to him. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to make myself vulnerable, open myself to his love, or even opening myself to him hurting me. He could be so scared that he’ll turn his back on me.

Regret isn’t something that I can allow myself to carry. I can’t do it. I refuse to let him as well.

“We really need to talk.” I rip his curtain open. What I see isn’t what I had expected.

“Rules, Abagail, fucking rules. Do you not know how to follow them?” His lips snarl, but his eyes hold lust, directed at me.

“I wasn’t aware of any rules Gage.” I draw his name out over my lips, while not taking my eyes away from his hand.

His hand that is currently holding a newly favorite body part that belongs to him.

Wide girth, and extended length, solid as a rock. His cock.

Luckily Jason and Zepp are still asleep in their bunks, so they aren’t witnesses to what I’m about to do.

Every time I think about addressing my concerns with him, something happens to change my mind.

This is defiantly
something.

I pause there, watching him touch himself. He squeezes the base of his cock tightly, my lips part on a gasp. I grip the edges of his bed with my hands, preventing myself from touching him.

His eyes dart from my breasts to my lips to my eyes all the while he shifts his hand over his cock, up and down. Pre-cum beads at the tip, slowly flowing down over his hand.

I reach my finger out to touch the liquid, wetting my finger, I swirl the cum around the head of his cock, he keeps his hand thrusting up and down at the base. His other hand massaging his balls gently.

I suck his flavor off my finger teasingly. He watches intently, moaning lightly while speeding up his thrusts. I can feel my juices coating my lips below. My clitoris sensitive and in need of his touch, but I don’t speak, I don’t ask, I only watch.

I watch him find his release, his eyes meeting mine intensely as he cums all over his abdomen while he moans my name, “Abby…”

I reclose his curtain and walk away.

He goes to the bathroom to clean himself I presume then goes back to his bunk, ignoring what just happened between he and I. Once we hit Denver and arrive at the hotel we’ll be staying at for the next week he takes off. He gets his own room, yet again so he doesn’t have to share. This time though, I’m not letting him just walk away, I’m not allowing him to put on the preface that he isn’t interested in
me and that he doesn’t want me. I’m going to confront him this conversation needs to be had.

“I
want to be with you, not as friends, but as your partner. Your lover, your girlfriend, we can take it one day at a time. Step by step, deal with things as they come up, you and I can do this. I love you.” The words slip out of my mouth as soon as he shuts his room door behind me. I don’t know what I expected his reaction to be, I didn’t expect him to claim that he loved me as well. He’s been fighting whatever it is between us for a couple weeks now. I just want it to be over, the fighting that is.

I hoped he would say something in reply to my unintended confession.

Only, he’s silent.

Defiantly silent.

Breathe in, breathe out.

“I don’t know what to say Abagail. What did you expect me to say?”

I wasn’t expecting him to return my feelings on love, some people hold the love inside of themselves until they can’t any longer, some take longer to love, people who’ve never truly been loved, people like Gage. So no, I didn’t expect him to proclaim his love for me, but I did expect him to want to take that jump, with me.

The risk, the same risk that I’m willing to take.
Just hold it together, get through to him.

“Fuck Abby, what am I supposed to say to that?”

“I don’t know Gage, I thought that maybe you’d say you felt something for me, even if it’s not love yet, that you cared, that you
wanted
to love me that you wanted to try.”

“I don’t want to try anything with you. I haven’t led you on, you know that a relationship isn’t something I wanted, you knew going into this that wouldn’t be the end game for us. The only end was for us to go our separate ways.”

“She really fucked you up, you know that? Do you realize what power you still allow her to wield over you? Are you going to carry her with you forever?”

“You know nothing. You shouldn’t talk about things you have no knowledge on.”

“I don’t know because you won’t tell me. If you told me, maybe then I could find a way to understand.”

“I don’t need you to understand, what part of anything I’ve said have you not understood? I. Do. Not. Want. You. We were, were being the key word, nothing but consensual sexual partners. We were never anything more than that. I don’t know what else I can say to make you see that, we are nothing. We will never be anything more than nothing.”

“All I wanted was to save you, to love you.”

“Save Me?” He yells. “Fucking save me Abby? What am I a wounded puppy? You don’t save people Abagail
. I’m not in need of saving, so please find another charity case.”

“That’s not what I meant, stop turning this around on me like I’m
a bad person for caring about you, for loving you. Like my love is something detestable. I know we never talked about our relationship, I just had hopes that it turned into something more for you as it did me. I see now that I really was wrong about you. I’ve never been a person to give up Gage, but I can’t do this anymore. I’m tired of fighting for something that clearly isn’t there for you.” I move over to his side, my hand cupping his face. “I love you.” I leave him to himself.

I’ll give him a chance, but the window for making up won’t be open for long. What he said tonight, was hurtful, I felt it deep in my bones. As reality was someone carving a knife into my heart. The stitch I require to heal lies within his hands, it’s up to him to use it.

This relationship, friendship whatever the fuck he wants to label it, has been tiring. I’m exhausted with emotion overload, from happiness and love to heartbreaking hurt. He doesn’t want to share his past with me right now, and that’s okay. I’m can live with that for now, but to make me pay for what she did, it isn’t fair.

Blindly I walk, somehow finding myself outside Jason’s door. I lift my hand up to knock, when he opens the door.

“I’m sorry Abby.” He says before he catches my fall.

When I wake up
I’m in my bed, tucked in, by Jason I presume. What happened last night hits me, deep in my gut, in my soul but I persevere because I have to.

If Gage believes the story he’s spinning, there’s nothing left for me to do. Nothing I can say or do that will change how he feels, but I’m not going to hightail it. I’ll continue on with the tour as long as I have to, as long as my job requires it and I’ll be okay. I have to be.