Leaving Amarillo(14)
“What if I wasn’t finished?”
The deep timbre of his voice comes from directly behind me. Close enough to cause me to freeze for an entire second before turning around.
“Then you should’ve gotten them yourself.” I shoot a quick glare at him before sticking my arm out and hailing a cab.
“I wasn’t talking about the food. I think you know that.”
My fists clench at my sides. “You know what, Gav? If you weren’t finished with your little cherry-haired dessert item, then you’re free to take your happy ass right on back in there. Don’t let me stop you. You never have before.”
Gavin’s hands fly up in exasperation. He so rarely loses his composure it rattles me even more than his yelling.
“What do you want from me? Tell me what I’m supposed to do, because for the life of me, I can’t seem to stop pushing your buttons.” His forehead is creased and he’s looking at me like I’m a puzzle with missing pieces.
Oh, he pushes my buttons all right.
All my resolve to let this go evaporates instantly. I may never be able to have him, but I want him to know. I need him to know how I feel. And even more than that, I need to know whether or not he feels the same way I do, if he feels the pull, the connection between us. If I haunt his dreams the way he owns mine.
Mustering every once of courage I have, I take a step closer to him. When I open my mouth, my heart falls out.
“I want you to touch me. To take me, to own and possess me like you know you already do. I want you—all of you. The good, the bad, and that secret darkness inside that you never show anyone else. I want to be the one you spend your nights with, the one you wake up with, and the one you can’t stop thinking about.”
Everything about him suddenly seems harder. His eyes, his jaw, the set of his shoulders. “You’re playing with fire, little Bluebird.”
“I know,” I say softly. “But I can’t stop. I don’t want to.”
For a moment we are just two still beings, breathing and existing together in the same space on a busy street in the middle of the night.
A cab pulls up next to us and Gavin reaches around me to jerk the door open. “Get in,” is all he says.
But I see the panic and determination swirling in his eyes and I’m afraid of which will win out. Afraid that if I get in, he’ll slam the door and send me on my way.
“You go first,” I barely manage to whisper.
“Get in the damn cab, Dixie. Now.”
“Not until you promise me you’re coming with me.”
He scrubs a hand roughly over his face. “Get in the cab and go back to the hotel before I call your brother to come get you.”
My eyes begin to sting. I told him how I felt, ripped back my carefully crafted exterior and bared my soul, and his grand response is to get me the hell away from him?
“Threatening me, Gav? You can’t handle what I have to say so you’re going to run and tell on me? I’m a big girl now. A simple ‘thanks, but no thanks’ would’ve sufficed.” A choked sob reaches my throat and somehow finds its escape.
“Bluebi—”
“No. You know what? I’m going.” I step forward, into where his arm is holding the cab door open. Turning, I tilt my face so it’s only a hair’s breadth from his. “But tonight, when you’re with your random waitress, another one that you won’t feel anything with, won’t remember, and won’t ever care if you ever see again, deep down we both know you’ll be thinking of me. Good night, Gavin.”
With that, I lower myself into the cab. I flinch when he slams the door shut. I don’t miss that he does it much harder than necessary. It takes every single ounce of my self-control not to turn and look back at him as the cab pulls away.
Dallas isn’t in the room when I get back, but just walking through the door strings me tight enough to snap. Gavin is everywhere I look. One of his vintage T-shirts is slung over a chair and his drum sticks are on the table. Dallas’s cot is blocking the path to my suitcase. I stub my toe on it and it becomes the stupid f*cking cot and all I can see is Gavin looking at that damn waitress.
Even blinking is infuriating me because every time I do, a flash of him flirting with her, his hands on her, that damn grin, every heart-battering touch—appears behind my eyes in a torturous montage.
My brother is going to have to get over the whole starving artists thing. We aren’t rolling in cash by any means, and there have been times we’ve had to survive on week-old pizza, but enough is enough. From now on, I need my own room if we stay in a hotel overnight. I’ll happily risk starvation for the sake of my sanity. But living in close quarters with Gavin is not going to work for me. I yank my suitcase up onto the bed and begin throwing my things into it. Once I’ve packed all my belongings, I grab the nearest pen and flip past Dallas’s scribbled lyrics to an unused page of hotel stationery.
I scrawl out a quick note telling them, well, mostly telling Dallas because I’m pretty sure Gavin couldn’t care less and won’t be back to the room tonight, that I needed my own space and am getting a separate room. On my way down to the lobby, I take out my phone and text my brother in case he doesn’t see my note.
Don’t freak. I’m getting my own room. Need some space from all the testosterone.
By the time I’ve spoken with the front desk clerk and explained that I need a room as far from my previous one as possible, my phone chimes with a text notification. After I’ve been given the credit-card-style key to my sixty-five-dollar-a-night sanctuary, I read my brother’s message.