Leaving Amarillo(9)

I watch Dallas, waiting for his response. He rakes a hand through his hair before huffing out a loud breath and looking from me to Gavin and back to me again.

“I’d really just rather work, to be honest.” He looks at each of us in turn again, frowning when he sees the disappointment on my face. “I know I’m being kind of slave driver lately, but I promise I have the band’s best interest at the heart of my madness. Does that make me any less of a pain in the ass?”

I give my brother a gentle shoulder nudge of understanding. I know he means well, and Gavin knows, too. “It’s okay, Dallas. We know that,” I tell him. “It’s just . . . sometimes—”

“Sometimes we throw darts at pictures of you for fun,” Gavin breaks in.

Gavin’s comment makes Dallas laugh out loud. The tension dissipates as if it never existed. This is why we work. Why Leaving Amarillo is still together. I love the music but hate the business side of it. Dallas lives for the business side of it. Meanwhile, Gavin keeps us from murdering each other with our instruments.

And this is why I’m afraid. If our dynamic changes, if I lose the thin white-knuckle hold I have on my feelings for Gavin, it will ruin everything. It will ruin us.

I don’t know who I am without Leaving Amarillo. What’s even more frightening is I don’t know who Dallas or Gav are without it, either. Maybe in another life I’m a bank teller and they’re construction workers or something. But in this life, we are this band. Each of us an integral part of something much bigger than us.

“Y’all go ahead,” Dallas begins as we leave the empty warehouse. “I’ll grab something at the hotel.”

I frown at him. “Dallas—”

“Seriously. I’ve got half a dozen ideas about how to make this song work. I need to get on it before I lose the lyrics in my head.” He opens the back of the van and puts his guitar inside, then reaches for my case. “Promise I’m good. I just want to get on this while it’s fresh.”

Gavin finishes loading his kit and slams the back door. “Dude, it’s fine. We can come on back with you. We’ll order pizza, like you said.”

I sigh, because I know my brother has won and it’s back to the room of doom we go. Between our luggage and equipment and the cot Gavin sleeps on, the overcrowded space is a cramped maze.

“Dixie looks like I just sentenced her to death,” Dallas says with an eye roll in my direction.

I toss him a dirty look. “Or a life sentence in room 306 at the Days Inn, which is pretty much a fate worse than.”

Just as Gavin turns to open the passenger door of the van for me, Dallas stops him. “Seriously. Go. Eat. I kind of need to be alone anyways. This song is kicking my ass and I’m sick and tired of it.”

Gavin arches a brow, but I don’t waste any time.

“You heard the man, Garrison. Let’s go. Feed me.”

“You sure?” Gavin asks, turning back to Dallas and prompting me to contemplate strangling him.

My brother reaches behind his head and rubs his neck. “Yeah, man. I’m sure. Just, uh, don’t be too long. We all need our rest for tomorrow.”

They exchange a look loaded with something I can’t read from where I’m standing. But I can make an educated guess. Typically the three of us stay together. Gavin and I grabbing dinner alone, without my brother, shouldn’t be a big deal. And yet, I see it. The warning in my brother’s eyes any time Gavin and I do something without him chaperoning us. It says “sit across the table, don’t let her have any alcohol, and keep your hands to your damn self.”

Gavin nods at the unspoken agreement and we both call out to my brother that we’ll see him later.

Walking the two blocks to the restaurant is an exercise in patience and restraint. Gavin walks close enough that I can feel the heat from his arm swinging next to mine. Just as I’m about to say to hell with it and link my arm with his like it’s 1926 and we’re strolling along the promenade instead of a cracked sidewalk on the run-down industrial side of town, a horn blows and we both jump. Glancing over my shoulder I see my brother drive by and throw his hand out the window.

All I can think is, the ass did that on purpose. Gavin tosses my brother a quick two-fingered wave as the van pulls away toward the hotel. I cut my eyes to his profile. He’s walking an extra foot away from me now and I already miss the warmth. The horn blast was a reminder: Keep your distance.





Chapter 4


GAVIN KEEPS AT LEAST AN ARM’S LENGTH BETWEEN US FOR THE rest of our walk to the restaurant. It leaves me more than slightly irritated with my brother.

Deep down I know that it’s not that Dallas wants to hurt me, or that he wants me to be unhappy. Just like I can feel his constant anxiety about the band’s future, I know that he hasn’t missed my burgeoning feelings for Gavin. And I suspect he knows what could happen if I act on my feelings and get them crushed under the heel of Gavin’s boot like so many other girls have.

My brother doesn’t subscribe to the same belief system about love that I do. He seems to have very little faith in the magic ability of it to make everything better, or at least bearable. His high school girlfriend, Robyn, left for college at the University of Texas the summer after graduation and they did the long-distance thing for two years before calling it quits. From the bits and pieces I caught of their final days together, Robyn wanted to make it work. But for reasons my brother won’t discuss, they broke it off. Robyn Breeland was gorgeous and funny and smart. And real. And most important, she was nice to me. Always. No matter what drama she and Dallas were dealing with, she was always there for me. She still checks in with me from time to time. She’s like the big sister I never had.