You Rock My World (The Blackwells of Crystal Lake 3)

“I’ll walk you out to the truck.” Wyatt got up and followed Travis down the path that led around the house.

“Tell Hudson I’ll call him later this week.”

“Will do.” Wyatt kicked the tires on his truck. “This your last stop?”

“Yeah. I want to be back in the city before dark.”

Wyatt nodded, an odd expression on his face. “What happened, Trav? You and Ruby seemed good last night. Real good.”

Travis sighed and ran his hands along the back of his head. He was too proud to tell his brother what he’d overheard and too angry at the pain her words had caused to do anything other than shrug it off.

“Easy come, easy go, bro.”

But Wyatt wasn’t fooled. “That’s lame.” He shook Travis’s hand and pulled him close to tap his shoulder. “Call me if you want to talk or have a beer.”

Travis’s eyebrow rose. “Detroit’s a long way to come for a beer.”

“I know,” Wyatt said. “But you’re my brother, so distance doesn’t matter.”

The two men stared at each other for several moments, and then Travis backed away. “I gotta go.”

“Send me a text message when you get in. The old man wants to make sure you get there safe but didn’t want to make a fuss.”

“Will do.”

Travis slid into his truck and before long was headed toward Crystal Lake. He needed to cross the bridge and catch the highway on the other side of town. Then he’d hop on the interstate, and Crystal Lake would be in his rearview.

He rolled down main street and caught a red at the downtown core. His palms drummed an aggressive rhythm on the steering wheel, and when the light turned green, his tires squealed as he accelerated. He passed familiar storefronts, the old movie house where he’d gone to second base with Melanie way back when, and the coffee shop he and Ruby would spend hours in.

He frowned darkly and hung a left, deviating from the path he should be taking and not really knowing why until he drove up a small hill and spotted the park. He pulled in behind a metallic blue Honda and stared out his windshield, face grim. He did have one more stop after all.

Travis slid from his truck and, shoulders hunched against the wind, headed for the cemetery. By the time he reached his destination, the skies opened up, and the rain that promised to fall all afternoon came down in a steady stream.

He didn’t feel any of it. He stood in front of his son’s gravestone, hands clenched at his sides, face dark and grim. He thought of everything he’d lost. Of everything he’d never have. He thought of Ruby’s words.

“I don’t love Travis. I loved the sex. I loved having someone in my bed. Someone to do the damn gardening.”

And he nearly choked on the anger.

Chapter 24

Ruby sat on the sofa, her legs curled underneath her body, a heavy blanket pulled up to her chin. A half-eaten carton of peanut-butter-chunk-chocolate ice cream was melting on the coffee table, which Tasha was asleep under. Gone was the summer sun. It had been replaced with dark, angry clouds threatening to spill rain at any moment.

Her eyes were swollen from crying. And the sad thing was, she was still trying to figure out what exactly she was crying about. There was the obvious. That she had, in fact, lied this morning. She loved Travis. She probably had never stopped. But it was more than that. It was more than A = B. That was actually the easy part to figure out. Love equates heartache. And she’d shed so many tears over that particular equation, it was a no-brainer.

She sniffled and picked at the corner of her blanket. She and Travis were over. No way were they coming back from what had happened this morning. She’d handled things badly and winced as she thought of him walking in on her conversation with her brother. He’d left without saying a word, and that made things worse. So much worse, because fighting was their thing. He’d slammed the door shut behind him, and that harsh sound spelled it out. There was nothing left for him to fight for.

One solitary tear seeped from the corner of her eye, and she wiped at it angrily. She never meant to hurt him. She never meant for things to go this far. God, this was supposed to have been strictly physical. Sex without the strings.

How dumb was that. As if she could turn off that part of her brain. She knew there was no way a future existed for them. Aside from the logistics, there was the other stuff, the history, her family ties, the things he didn’t know. But that didn’t mean she didn’t want it. Didn’t mean she didn’t think about it or dream about it.

Her thoughts swirled faster and faster, and her head hurt because she was so confused. Was she crazy? Had she just thrown away the only relationship she was ever going to have? Because what she shared with Chance or the few who’d come before him had been biding time. She’d been waiting. Waiting for Travis to come back, to her.

“What does it matter,” she whispered to the voice in her head. It was too late. She’d screwed things up. And Travis didn’t even know why.

You should tell him.

Tell him what?