My heart pounded painfully in my chest. Was it too late for us? It seemed like I was making everything worse for Jax, when all I ever wanted was to make things better. But even so, I didn't want to lie down without a fight. If I did, then Darrel would win—and that was an injustice that neither Jax or I should have to live with.
No matter what he said, I still felt like he wanted to be with me. Even if he'd never told me he loved me, I saw in his eyes how much he cared for me, every time he turned his dark gaze to mine. I could feel it in his tenderness every time we touched.
And I wanted to be with him. Mind, body, and soul. I couldn't give up on us, not now. We had come too far, fought too hard for what we shared—a trust, a desire, a comfort like no other.
In a daze, I went up to the Fortress of Solitude and sat down on the bed, my mind a jumble. If we could work together, and believe in our trust for each other, we might still have a chance.
Chapter Eighteen
BURNOUT
I woke up alone in Jax's bed. For a brief second, everything seemed fine. Then I remembered, and the realization that Jax and I were on the rocks hit me like a ton of bricks. Being awake physically hurt.
I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes, remembering my resolution from last night. I couldn't let us be defeated, not yet. There had to be some way I could help Jax with his PTSD. Even if I was his trigger. The first thing I could do to help him—and us—was to make sure he knew how deeply I was committed to him, no matter what.
I got out of bed and changed into jeans and a t-shirt before checking my phone. It was nine in the morning. People were surely up by now.
But when I went out in the living room, it was empty. I checked every room. Same deal. Somewhat surprised, I decided to head out of the bus and go to the performers area of the festival. It was kind of strange for the entire band to leave the bus so early in the morning, but if they were anywhere then the performers area was probably the place.
As I walked across the festival grounds toward the performers area, my stomach twisted in knots. Why had Jax left me on the tour bus? Why had the entire band left with him? The more I thought about it, the worse I felt. After the talk we'd had last night, being left alone on the tour bus without a word gave me the sinking feeling that Jax was pushing me away.
Sky and Chewie were standing outside and chatting as I approached the performers area. They saw me and waved. I waved back. They got me through security without issue and soon I was talking to Sky face to face while Chewie went to go find Kev.
"Where were you guys this morning?" I asked her, trying to keep my voice casual. "I know I slept in, but it wasn't that late!"
Sky rolled her eyes and jammed her hands in her pockets. "Sorry, Jax had it in his head that we needed to get here early for something, but when we got here it turned out he was wrong."
"Oh," I said, my heart sinking still further. So Jax had been the one that got them up and out the door without a thought for me at all. "What did he say it was?"
"Some interview thing," she said with a shrug, her eyes darting around. "After the fire yesterday, I guess. Who knows? Listen, why don't we go get a cup of coffee at the food area? It's still early."
I shook my head. "No, I want to talk to Jax first. Do you know where he is?"
Sky bit her lip. "No. Why don't we get that cup of coffee and you can find him later?"
I pressed my lips together and studied her face. Something was off. "No, I think I'll go to the performer's lounge and wait for him. It's important."
Her face twisted into a brief grimace. "You really don't want to do that. I mean it."
Her words made my mouth feel dry. What the hell was going on in there? Waving off Sky's protests, I walked briskly toward the makeshift performers hall, which was usually used for farmers markets. Temporary partitions with flimsy doors separated the individual band areas. After a few minutes, I found the one labelled "Hitchcocks," knocked once, and opened the door.
Jax sat in a chair facing the door. A platinum blonde groupie straddled him. His hands were by his sides. She had her fingers down by his belt buckle and her shirt off, though a black bra was still on.
Anger burned in my chest and made my cheeks flush. The groupie turned with a languid movement when I came in and eyed me curiously.
What was this girl doing with Jax? What was he doing with her? My lips curled and I took several shallow breaths. Even though I'd known that Jax and I were on the rocks, I hadn't expected this. I trusted him.
But it had happened. Struggling to keep myself steady, I looked this groupie in the eye and pointed to the door. "Get out of here," I said, my voice shaking slightly. "Now."
She turned back to Jax, as if for confirmation. He sighed and pointed to the door himself. "That's my girlfriend," he said tiredly. "You need to go."
She paused for a moment then shrugged, got off of Jax, and retrieved her shirt from the floor. Soon she was gone.
Once the door was closed, I turned to face Jax. He sat and looked at me with his eyes glazed, as if the last bits of his life had been tugged out of him. The sight made me pity him for just a moment before I remembered what I had just seen.
"Jax," I asked quietly, trying to keep myself steady. "What the hell was that?"
He looked away, refusing to meet my eyes, and shook his head.
My jaw clenched. "Who is she?"
He shrugged, refusing to meet my eyes. My heart pounded in my chest as I waited for him to respond, but he wouldn't say a word.
Realization set in. He knew I'd come here. He'd wanted me to catch him. He wanted to push me away.
But why this way? I let out a short, dejected sigh as an unbearable weight settled on my chest. "Jax, what are you doing?"
He bit his lip, hard, and after a moment finally looked up at me. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice low as if he didn't have the strength to speak any louder. His dark eyes locked onto mine for a second before he shook his head and let his gaze fall back down to the floor.
I watched him and pressed my lips together, my throat closing tight. "You're sorry?" I choked out. "Is that all you have to say to me right now?"
He froze for several seconds, seemingly gathering himself. "It's done," he said finally, shaking his head. "There's nothing to talk about."
Pain shot through my entire body. I threw my hands up as tears blurred the corners of of my vision. "What's done?" I said through my teeth, struggling to fight back my frustration. "Are you breaking up with me? Because I'm not dumping you just because I caught you pulling some stupid stunt with a groupie."
He flinched, briefly, and rubbed his eyes for several seconds before looking away. I gave him time to get his words together, but after a while he looked back down at the floor.
His silence was killing me. I balled my fists up in frustration. "Damn it, Jax!" I snapped, unable to keep the hurt and bitterness out of my voice, and not caring. "Why are you doing this? Did you ever care about me at all?"
He started, as if snapped out of a trance, and looked up at the ceiling before finally bringing his gaze to meet mine. The shadows under his dark eyes told me he hadn't slept at all, and pain etched deep lines in his face. "Damn it, yes!" he said, his voice tortured. "That's why I'm doing this, Riley. Why are you dragging it out and making this worse for both of us?"
Stabbing hurt wracked my body. It was a moment before I could speak, while I weighed each word that I wanted to say to him. "Because I still think we can make it work. Just give us a chance, Jax. You just told me about this yesterday. We haven't had any time to even figure out a way past it."
He shook his head. His unfocused eyes gazed over my shoulder for a moment, then refocused on me. "No. You'll get hurt."
"What, that concert yesterday? Jax, we already—"
"No!" Jax shouted.
I flinched back at his sudden outburst. Finally, he had come to life.
"No," he continued, more quiet but no less intense,"It's not just the concert. It's the fucking nightmares. It's
stuff like the shit on the motorcycle. It's me living in terror that I am going to hurt you because of this fucking condition."
I shook my head, not willing to let him make that choice for me. "Jax, I'm not some fragile doll you need to protect. Let me make my own boundaries."
"No," he said firmly, shaking his head. "I can't let you get hurt."
I grimaced and tried to hold myself together. "If you're breaking up with me for my own safety, why can't you let me make that decision?"
He looked back down at the ground. "Because you won't," he said, his voice quiet.
The world seemed to stand still and I swallowed painfully.
He brought his gaze back to meet mine. "You won't leave me, Riley. You'll stick by me until the end. I don't know how it's going to happen, but if we stay together it will happen, and it's going to be ugly."
A shiver went down my spine. The hard intensity in his face scared me.
"I can't let that happen," Jax said, his voice nearly a whisper. His dark eyes looked haunted, as if the life had been sucked from him.
I took a deep, shaky breath, trying to calm myself. "If it's really over," I said, my lips trembling despite my attempts to hold it together. "Then say it to my face, Jax. Say you're breaking up with me."
He looked up, squinting, his jaw working slowly. After a deep breath, he looked me right in the eyes, his mouth trembling for a moment before holding firm. "I'm breaking up with you. I'm sorry, Riley. I wish there was another way."
My stomach felt sick as tears rolled messily down my cheeks. This was really happening. After weeks of struggling to figure out what was wrong with Jax, it was over.
I knew Jax was trouble the first time I set eyes on him. What I hadn't counted on was what a sweet, sensitive, romantic man lay beneath that mask. And that I would fall in love with him. Now, the man I fell in love with sat with his shoulders slumped as if he'd been broken. Defeated.
I took a deep, tortured breath and looked at him, my vision blurry with tears. Even if it was over, I needed to make sure he knew I cherished what we'd had. "Well, I still love you," I said shakily, fighting back a sob. "More than anyone I've ever met. Whatever it is you're going through and whatever you do to recover, maybe that will help—that you'll know that I'm out there somewhere, still in love with you."
His head dropped for a moment and he ran his hands through his hair before he looked back up at me. "Riley, I—"
His voice broke, then he was mute, and his head fell lifelessly down. The thought of hugging him one last time crossed my mind, but he hadn't made any movement toward me from his seat, so I didn't. I walked back to the door and turned to say goodbye.
A sob shook me as I opened my mouth to say the word. I couldn't. Tears flowing, I put my hand up lamely to signal I was leaving and stepped out of the room. Then I stormed down the hall quickly and from there away from the performers area to the bus. The vision of him sitting there like a cracked statue haunted me as I left.
We were done. What now?
As I walked, I thought about my friends. Kristen, Jen, even my mom. They were the ones I wanted to talk to. But they were all in New York.
That was where I needed to be.
After stopping by the tour bus to grab my work bag, I called a cab and headed to the nearest main street to be picked up. When the cabbie came, I got in and told him to take me to LAX. I would figure out a flight home to New York when I got there. Then I looked out the window and cried for what Jax and I had lost. I was shattered.
Chapter Nineteen
MOVING ON
Manhattan. My island. My home.
I'd been in town for two weeks now, trying to adjust. The skyscraper canyons were a stark contrast to the spacious, palm tree lined California boulevards I'd left behind.
It'd been two weeks without Jax. At first I found myself bursting into tears at random times in the night, my heart hurt so much. But I couldn't go on that way forever. After one too many sleepless nights, I made a plan to get my shit together. I had a life I enjoyed before Jax came into it—I just needed to work on getting back there again.
The first step in getting better was to carefully avoid any websites, magazines, or radio stations where I might see or hear anything about Jax. The less I thought about him, the better.
Despite my precautions, I had a bad moment when a large cardboard box arrived from LA. With my stomach tied up in knots, I'd shoved it in my hall closet, unopened. I guessed that inside Jax had packed all my stuff that I'd left behind on the bus.
I didn't even want to open that box of hurt.
But I'd been through breakups before, and survived. I knew what to do, and that the first few weeks were always the hardest. In a month, I'd forget all about what a fool I'd been over some damn rock star. Hell, I'd probably laugh about it.
Now, though, I would pretend my best that nothing had ever happened between us. And with each day, the hurt would grow less. At least, that was the theory.
Kristen called every couple days, seemingly worried about me. Finally, she wanted me to come over for dinner, but somehow that seemed like too much effort. Just trying to make conversation over the phone had been hard, so I begged off.
I had too much work to do anyway. I'd gotten my twenty thousand dollar bonus for a job well done, but somehow, it seemed like every day I kept falling further and further behind on my assignments. The kudos for my good work as a tour accountant had been short-lived, and just that morning Palmer had chewed me out about a couple of errors on an expense analysis report. It hadn't been pretty.
I sat at my desk, staring at my computer. Numbers swam before my eyes, and I put my head in my hands. If I could just finish up this report, I would go home—and maybe go straight to bed.
The time on my computer said five thirty. I sighed. The day had been hard, but at least I'd managed to get through most of it without thinking about Jax. See? Progress.
I heard footsteps behind me, and I hunched over my keyboard, hoping Palmer hadn't caught me slacking.
"Hey, Riley."
I started, and swiveled my head around.
Jen stood there, her purse slung over one shoulder.
"A few of us are going to Mickey's Pub. Want to come?"
I exhaled slowly, trying to soothe my frayed nerves. "Nah. I'm just going to finish up here and go home."
Jen frowned. "When you took a pass on happy hour last Friday, I thought, gee, she must be tired from her trip. But two weeks in a row? That's unheard of."
I looked up at her and then glanced away, fighting down a growing uneasiness. I hadn't lied to Jen about what had happened between me and Jax—but I hadn't told her the whole truth either. The thought of hearing her say "I told you so" was absolutely the last humiliation I wanted to face, so I'd smoothed out the details some, leaving out the heartbreak and passing the whole affair off as some crazy, short-lived fling.
Jen grabbed a chair from the cubicle next to mine and sat down in it. Rolling a little closer, she leaned forward with a suspicious look on her face. "I mean, this is ironic. Here I am, begging you to go out with me. Usually it's the other way around."
I shrugged and gave her a weak smile that felt all wrong on my face. "Maybe I'm just finally getting my priorities straight. There's more to life than just the weekend."
Jen whistled. "Words I never thought I'd hear. I don't think you mean it."
My face grew hot. "Well, I do. If there's one thing I learned from being out on the road, it's that I don't want to live on the edge. Not anymore."
Her eyes widened. "Who are you, and what have you done with my friend Riley? Living on the edge is your MO."
"The longer you stay on the edge," I replied, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice, "The more likely you are to get hurt."
"I don't know what happened to you out there," Jen said, her face solemn, "But it sounds like you got hurt already."
My heart wrenched, and I struggled to keep my face composed. From her serious face, I could tell I n
o longer had her fooled. But I was getting better now. I should be able to talk about it, no big deal.
I sighed deeply and shook my head. "You were right. About Jax. But it's nothing I can't handle."
Jen gave me a penetrating look. "I'm not going to stand around telling you 'I told you so.' I think you're doing a good enough job of that on your own."
My face flushed red. She seemed to know exactly the reason why I had kept my time with Jax so secret. "It was too embarrassing to talk about at first. But I'm doing okay now, so what the hell."
She leaned forward. "But honey, are you handling it okay? All the concealer in the world can't hide those dark circles under your eyes. Your butt has been parked in that chair all day, so I know you didn't go get lunch." Her eyes suddenly grew worried. "Have you even eaten at all today?"
I jutted out my chin and glared at her. "Cereal this morning."
"That's it?" Jen exclaimed. "Look, I know the symptoms of a broken heart. And you've got all of them."
I frowned, but her words cut me to the core. My heart might have been broken, but couldn't she see I was moving on? I exhaled a shaky breath. "No I don't. I'm way better off without him. Actually, I'm glad we broke up, because my life is complicated enough without all his drama."
Jen gave me a critical look and stood up. "Uh huh. Right. There's only one remedy for heartbreak. Let's ditch the other girls and you and I will go get dinner. You can talk all you want. Or not. Whatever you want to do is fine. But it's never good to just sit and stew over some asshole who doesn't appreciate a good thing when he sees it."
Her words sent an unexpected shiver of hurt down my spine. Jax appreciates me. It's just too hard for him to fight for me.
"It's not like that," I protested. "He cares about me." A lump rose in my throat. "And I care about him too."
"Then why did you break up?" Jen asked, her voice soft.