Fade Into You (Shaken Dirty 3)

“Nothing.”

He pulled away a little, searched her face suspiciously. “I’ve tried to be patient, Soda Pop, but enough’s enough. What exactly happened in Austin that has you walking around like a zombie?”

“I’m not this messed up because of Austin,” she said, the lie sticking in her throat. She, who used to pride herself on her honesty, was becoming quite the storyteller lately. She could call it self-preservation, but that was just prettying up what it really was. And still she didn’t backtrack. Still she didn’t tell him the truth. Not when just thinking about Wyatt threatened to bring her to her knees.

“I’m messed up because my whole life is a disaster. I have no job, I have to move because I can’t afford my apartment, considering I don’t have a chance of ever getting another job in my chosen field with the gossip that’s running wild about Dad firing me. Whatever relationship I had with my father is pretty much over after my latest stunt and I just lost the only guy I’ve ever loved.”

Fuck. The last came out before she even knew she was going to say it, and the moment it was out, she wished desperately to take it back. But judging from the way Caleb’s eyes had widened to what had to be a painful degree, she figured that so wasn’t going to happen.

“Wow!” he said, when he finally managed to get his jaw unstuck from its wide open position. “So that’s what’s up with Wyatt.”

She looked at him sharply. “What’s up with Wyatt exactly?”

“If possible, he looks even worse than you do.”

“Don’t tell me that.” Her heart thumped painfully in her chest.

“Okay, I won’t.” Caleb reached out and pulled her close in a one-armed hug. “Can we talk about the other problems on your list, then? And how we’re going to solve them?”

“I didn’t complain to you because I need you to solve them. I was just blowing off steam.”

He rolled his eyes at her. “I’m a guy, Poppy. If you didn’t want my help, you shouldn’t have told me what was going on.”

It was her turn to roll her eyes. “So how do you propose to fix this?”

“Uh-uh. I’ll share with you after you share with me. Explain to me exactly what the hell happened in Austin?”

“I fucked up.” She moved away from him, went to look out her window at the bustling, crazy city below her. “I mean, I still don’t know how it happened, but I just…”

“Fell for Wyatt Jennings.”

“How did you know it was Wyatt?”

“I told you, he looks as bad as you do. Besides, who else would it be? Ryder and Quinn are taken, from what I understand, and Jared probably has bigger trust issues than you after what Micah pulled with his fiancée. Plus, I could tell when I was in the teleconference with the band that something had happened between you and Wyatt.”

She turned to frown at him. “So this whole thing was really a fact-finding mission about me and Wyatt?” she asked, gesturing to the coffee.

“Many birds, one stone.”

“Oh yeah, then what are the other birds? I’m done talking about this one.”

“Why? Did he hurt you? Or is this all about the fact that you lied to him?”

“I hurt him,” she said. “He told me stuff almost no one knows and I let him, despite the fact that I was working for the label.”

“So that’s what the fight’s about? You lying to him?”

“It’s about more than that. He was so quick to turn on me, you know? It reminded me of Dad, and instead of trying to explain myself more clearly, I just shut down because…”

“He hurt you.”

“Yeah, but I hurt him first.”

“Like that matters?” he snorted. “I’m still going down to Austin to kick his ass.”

“Don’t. This is my fault, not his.”

“And yet you’re just sitting here, licking your wounds instead of trying to make it right?”