Leaving Amarillo(68)

I can’t even fight it or try to hide it like I have been. Even if this didn’t work and he doesn’t feel what I do, or believe himself to be capable of feeling it, I can’t pretend anymore. Not after this.

“I love you, Gavin,” I whisper against his chest. His breathing remains even, but his arm tightens around me. Glancing up I see his thick eyelashes flutter. I can’t help but wonder what he’s dreaming of, if he’s ever dreamt of me. “With my whole heart,” I add before drifting off to sleep against him. “Always.”





Chapter 24


“WAKE UP, SLEEPY GIRL,” A LOW VOICE SAYS FROM ABOVE ME. “Time to go.”

I stretch my legs, feeling the soreness down to my toes, before I open my eyes.

“Morning, Bluebird,” Gavin says with a smug grin. “How are you feeling?”

“Sore,” I admit honestly, eliciting an even wider grin from his mouth. “You?”

“Proud of myself mostly. Especially when that’s the answer to how you’re feeling.”

“I can tell.” I sit up and pull my towel around my still-naked body. “Mostly?”

He shrugs and glances down at his phone. “I told him I crashed with a friend last night and that I would come wake you up.”

There’s no need to clarify who him is, so I don’t ask. “How much time do we have?”

His eyes widen before landing on my bare chest when I let my towel drop.

“Not enough,” he practically growls at me.

I bite back an intrigued grin. “I meant how much time do I have to get myself together before we hit the road. But if there’s time for—”

“There’s not. Get dressed.” He hands me a pair of jeans from my suitcase and a white sleeveless shirt with Adele’s face on it. It’s pretty much the last clean one I have left. “Dallas is downstairs waiting in the lobby.”

And that’s that. Last night was last night and now we’re back to business as usual. Doing my best to ignore the lethal claws digging a jagged pit into my stomach, I pull my clothes over my body and watch him lace up his boots. Glancing at the clock, I see that he’s right. It’s seven already. Dallas wanted to leave at six thirty.

But I can’t make myself button my jeans, or slip on my shoes. I can’t imagine walking out of this room and back into a world where he doesn’t touch me. Where I can’t kiss him when I want to. Where the sun will glare its uninvited light onto us. I want to stay here, in this cocoon where the room is bathed in the safe blue hues that protect our secrets.

Time passed too quickly and I’m not ready to let go. I’m not prepared to lock our memory away yet.

Walking over to Gavin feels like a funeral march. My legs are heavy, weighed down with our goodbye.

He finishes lacing his second boot and looks up at me. My waist is level with his face.

“Baby . . .”

My voice comes out as a whisper, as if I’m giving away my biggest secret even though he already knows them all. “I’ll tell him I had to take a shower.”

Those are the last words I say before my lips return to Gavin’s, where they belong. Last night, or in the early hours of this morning, he f*cked me, had sex with me. Thoroughly and wonderfully. But this morning we make slow sweet love. Despite the time, we don’t hurry.

My clothes come off and end up on the floor along with his. He sits back down in the chair and I lower myself onto him without words. His hands welcome me like old friends wrapping me in their warmth as I move over him.

His mouth never leaves mine. There aren’t words, no banter, dirty or otherwise. No promises or declarations.

There is only us.

We’ll have to drive like hell since Dixie thought it was vital to wash her hair. If there’s traffic we’re screwed.” Dallas is still complaining about the delay I caused when we load into the van, but I’m still somewhere in the strange in-between where even he can’t touch me. But my brother has never been the type to just let it go.

“I mean, Christ, Dix. You think we can just show up when we feel like it? This is it, little sister. Our shot. This is it.”

“I’m sorry,” I answer, but I’m not really. I’m not sorry and I’m not really in this van on the way to Nashville. I’m still in a hotel room in Austin with Gavin.

Dallas slams on the horn when a maroon Acadia pulls out in front of us. “Damn it.”

“We’ll get there, D. I checked my GPS and it’s only—”

Dallas looks away from the windshield long enough to throw a pissed-off look of barely leashed fury at me.

“Oh, your GPS? Because your phone knows the traffic conditions on the interstate? Or it has an app for telling the future? That a new model? You get an upgrade I wasn’t aware of?”

I smirk at him in the rearview mirror, feeling bad that I put us behind. But if this is the price for my last time with Gavin, I’ll pay it happily.

“No,” I say, tucking my legs up on the bench seat beneath me. “I was just saying that—”

He huffs out an exasperated sigh. “Well don’t just say, okay? You saying we’ll get there on time doesn’t mean that we will.”

“Neither will your bitching about it,” Gavin breaks in, the fierce undercurrent of violence flowing in his words. “So give it a goddamn rest already.”