“Open this door right now, Braxton!”
I heard Rich’s throaty chuckle, followed by a muffled curse, and then someone’s teeth sucking and tasted cherries on my tongue. Oh, God. Fuck off, vagina.
“I guess you have to go now?” he asked me.
“Yup. Sorry. Mom isn’t letting me talk to boys until I learn how to spot one who’s obviously taken.”
Cheap shot, but the asshole deserved it.
Rich was quiet again and back to feeling ashamed, which was how it should be. We shouldn’t have been flirting.
“Tell me how to fix this,” he begged as Griffin continued to pound and shout obscenities through the door. She was quite possibly the most cynical person alive. Even if I forgave them, rest assured she never would.
God speed, Maeko.
“I’m not sure you can.” The weight of that truth settled on my shoulders, and I was just glad I was already sitting down. Roses. I smelled roses. “I didn’t think I ever could, but I’ve already forgiven you,” I told him honestly. “But I don’t know if I can ever trust you again.”
He was quiet again and then… “You forgive me?” he whispered. There was relief in his tone and surprise too.
“You have a child that you haven’t been allowed to know—a child made in a union that you obviously still cared enough to keep after all this time. I know why you hesitated, and I understand. It’s why I can’t ask you to turn your back on that. I can’t be responsible for anyone else not being who they truly are. Including myself.”
“Braxton—”
“You freed me.” Closing my eyes, I felt like I could fly right now. “Houston? Loren? I know you’re listening.” I heard movement in the background and imagined them leaning in closer. “You freed me too,” I whispered to them. “But trusting you means asking me to bear that weight again, and…I can’t.”
I felt the apology on my lips, and I swallowed it.
I wouldn’t be sorry.
For a few blissful weeks, they could have asked me to lasso the moon, and I would have told them to hand me the rope.
But they didn’t fight for me with the truth.
They chose to lose me with a lie.
There was shuffling in the background as the phone switched hands and then heavy breathing coming through the phone.
Loren.
I knew it was him before he even spoke. I didn’t know how. I just knew.
“We hear what you’re saying, and I’m telling you it won’t be enough,” he warned. I could feel him seething even through the phone and clawed the sheets until they were gripped in my fist. “You want to finish the tour? Fine. But know this. It’s not over until it’s over. You staked your claim with an arrow through our hearts, and now you’re going to let us bleed.”
He hung up.So that was how she wanted to play it.
She was huddled around her friends so that we couldn’t get too close. They never left her side. Not once since the moment the three of them showed up at the airport. We assumed her friends had come to see her off until we noticed the luggage. Enough to last them a couple of weeks.
The roaring in my head didn’t dull until I started to rationalize.
They’d have to leave Braxton eventually.
It was going to take us over three months to get through Europe alone, and we’d still have four more continents. Each time Braxton’s gaze found ours during the twelve-hour flight, I wondered if she’d considered that too.
She couldn’t avoid us forever.
And if she wanted us to believe that we didn’t stand a chance, she was sending some crazy mixed messages. She was here for no other reason than because she still cared.
Someone should have warned her that if she gave us an inch, we’d take the whole goddamn mile. Maybe her friends had, and that was why they were here.
The only flaw in their plan was that they couldn’t stay. We all knew it, but no one dared say a word.
By the time we landed in Berlin around noon, we were all tired and jet-lagged, so we headed straight for the hotel. I knew no one would be sleeping, though.
Houston, Loren, and I were plotting, but so were they.
Tomorrow night we took the stage in front of seventy thousand people at the Olympiastadion, so there would be plenty of time for mischief.
“Wow,” Griffin remarked as she looked around the hotel lobby and all its splendor.
“I’ve never stayed in a place this fancy before,” Maeko gushed.
I looked around too as our security escorted the six of us to the elevators, and I tried to see it through the girls’ eyes. You’d think an orphan who grew up with nothing, missed a few meals, and wore holes in his clothes until he was twenty-two would never get used to sitting in the lap of luxury.