Jet (Marked Men #2)(85)

“Whoa, where did all that come from?”

“Coming on this tour was a great opportunity. We all needed to do it to see where we stood with the band. It isn’t what I want and it’s easy to see it’s not what you want, either. I love playing music and doing a festival here or there and playing at Cerberus is just fine for me, but it’s fine for me because I go home to Blain and the baby. They’re what I want, they’re where I want to be, and I see that in you now. Before, it was fear. You were scared for your mom, scared of what would happen if you just let go and did you, but now it’s different. You want to be where that girl is, even if she told you that it was over.”

I lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Last year, if we had been on this tour you would have had a different girl in your room every night. You would be drinking your weight in whiskey and acting as crazy as the guys in Artifice have been. Face it. You’ve changed.”

I rested my forehead on the window and watched mindlessly as the German countryside sped by.

“The only other person that has ever made me feel that bad is my mom.”

“We all have things we’re trying to handle and deal with. You have an outlet for all your crazy—you can get onstage and scream it out. Maybe your girl doesn’t have one of those things.”

I closed my eyes and let all the things of late float around in my mind. He had a valid point. I’d always thought of the anger that lived inside me as fire—heat and flame—and things that could burn down the world I live in. Well, if I was fire, Ayden was water. She was constantly shifting and moving, reflecting things back and changing form at will. She was cool, and she ebbed and flowed with whatever life handed her. We shouldn’t work together, but we did, and when you put us together everything got hot and steamy, which really was all I could ask for in someone who I wanted to keep with me forever.

“How am I supposed to fix this when we have a show tonight and one tomorrow night? How am I supposed to do anything when I’m here and she’s there? What am I supposed to do if she doesn’t even want me there, and Shaw was wrong and just reading more into it than there really ever was?”

“Stop being a pu**y and just do it. If Blain needed me, you bet your happy ass I would leave you jokers hanging.”

“Asshole.”

He laughed a little and stretched his legs out in front of him.

“You aren’t going to be able to get anything done today anyway, so you play the show tonight, figure your shit out tomorrow, and let me and the boys handle the next couple of shows until you get back. I can cover most of the vocals, and what I can’t do, Catcher can. We won’t be half as good without you, but who cares?”

I closed my eyes and turned it all over in my mind. I didn’t want to let the guys down; we were a team and this was a big deal, but I also knew I wasn’t going to do anyone any good when everything that made me so good onstage was wrapped up and focused on something else. Even if she ended up telling me to get lost for good, at least I tried. I dug out my phone and called Cora.

“Hey.”

“Hey, what’s going on?” She sounded sleepy and again I remembered the time change.

“I need to know where in Louisville Ayden is.”

“What?” The sleepiness was gone out of her voice now.

“Shaw called me and told me about Ayden’s brother. I’m going to her.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“Come on, Cora, help me out here.”

“I talked to her yesterday. They had to rush him in for some kind of emergency surgery. She sounds terrified and so sad. Shaw and I were about to draw straws to see who was going to ignore her and fly to Kentucky anyway. Her brother is at Baptist Hospital East or something like that. It’s right downtown. She needs someone, Jet. Don’t screw this up.”

I thought it was ironic, considering Ayden was the one who had left me hanging, that everyone was suddenly so concerned that I was going to mess everything with her up.

“I’m trying to fix it, which is pretty weird considering I don’t think I’m really the one that broke it.”

She snorted at me and I popped my knuckles and twirled the ring around my thumb absently.

“I have to play the show in Berlin tonight and I’ll work on getting to the States tomorrow, but it’s still going to be a while before I can get to Kentucky. You guys probably need to keep an eye on her until I can get to her if it’s as bad as Shaw said.”

“We have been. We love her, too, you know?”

I snorted. “I do know.”

“Are you going to tell her you’re coming?”

I was debating that myself. I wanted to shoot her a message, something to let her know she was on my mind, that she wasn’t alone no matter what happened. I knew if she ignored it, or told me not to bother her right now, there was a good chance I would scrap the entire idea and just keep on going forward with the band and the tour.

“No. I think it’ll be better just to show up. That way, if she doesn’t want me there she can just tell me, and it doesn’t have to be some long, drawn-out thing.”

“Jet, even if she tells you she doesn’t want you there, she’s lying. It’s your job to know that and stay anyway.”

Women were entirely too complicated.

“Thanks, Cora. I’ll shoot you a message later to let you know how everything works out.”