If he had, maybe I wouldn’t have still been so…
Destroyed.
Maybe if he’d reached out to me while I’d been going through pure hell watching my mom fade right before my eyes I could have been a little more forgiving. It wouldn’t have mattered so much that he’d left me for his band. I could even understand that—just a little. He’d had a chance to make something special with Tainted Knights and I never would have stood in his way where his dreams were concerned.
I loved him too much to stand in his way.
Had.
Had loved him too much to stand in his way.
I’d loved him so much it had scared my mom and Carter. I’d fallen fast and we’d moved even faster where our relationship was concerned. I’d thought he’d loved me just as much.
But there had been nothing from him. After he’d walked away, leaving me a broken mess of the Kin I’d once been, there had been no calls, or texts, or emails. The one person I’d ached to talk to most in the world. The one I’d trusted to have my back and love me as completely as I loved him. The one I’d ached to see. To have his arms around me. To just be there for me to unload my day onto.
I’d had Carter and the twins to support me, but I’d needed more. Needed Jace. He’d known how much I’d needed him.
And he’d turned his back and walked away without a second glance.
Those blue eyes were still on me and I felt more than a little exposed right then. Deciding to tune him out—which was easer said than done—I turned my attention back to Lucy who was now standing with Harris taking selfies and looking so flushed and happy I thought I was looking at a whole new Lucy.
Those two looked good together.
If any two people were meant to be with each other, it was these two. It was kind of adorable.
Right then, however, adorable only pissed me off.
I’d thought I was supposed to be with Jace and look where that had gotten me.
“So when does this open mike thing start?” I demanded as I picked up my glass of ginger ale and took a small sip. “I’d like to get this over with.” And go back to my father’s house so I could forget this day ever happened.
Hell, now I was actually looking forward to going back to that pit of vipers? I needed to get away from Jace St. Charles as quickly as I could.
Chapter 8
Jace
If I’d thought that Kin was pissed, I’d been wrong.
She wasn’t pissed. No, she was hurt and that made it twice as bad.
Fuck.
As she stood to get ready to take the stage for her first open mike, I ached to reach out and take her hand. To give it a squeeze and offer my support, but the look on her face—in those damn blue eyes—told me that touching her right then would be the last thing she needed or would accept. Her eyes were hard, but I could see what was deeper.
The vulnerability.
She seemed almost…defeated, in a way. That look was something I’d never seen from her before and it stabbed me straight to the soul. What was going on with her? I had no idea what had happened to her after I’d left Bristol all those months ago and right then I would have killed to know what was going on. Before I’d left her, I knew that all I would have had to do was pull her close and tell her I would make it all better and she would wrap her arms around my waist and unload everything that was bothering her.
Now…
Well, now I’d fucked all that up. I wasn’t going to get what was wrong with her out so easily. If at all.
Harris dropped down into his chair that he’d been in before having to get back to work and starting the open mike show, but he only had eyes for the beautiful chick I’d been left alone with the second Kin’s name had been called. I glanced at Lucy out of the corner of my eye.
There was no one in the music world who didn’t know who Lucy Thornton was. Her entire life story had been publicized from the moment Jesse Thornton had adopted her. The drummer for Demon’s Wing had married Lucy’s oldest sister and the two had adopted her. Two years after that, just when Layla Thornton had gone into labor with their twin sons, Lucy’s biological father had resurfaced and had snatched her. The media world had lost their shit trying to get pictures of Lucy after that little fiasco and one of them actually had.
Lucy had been one big bruise. No part of her face had been left untouched. Her eyes had been swollen and her nine-year-old little body had looked like someone had used it as a punching bag. The scar on her lip was the only lasting outward sign that still remained, but I couldn’t help but wonder if that part of her life had left some emotional scars as well.