Drive(83)

“Crazy,” he said with a small smile before he looked at me point blank. “And it was you who changed every fucking thing.”

“Don’t. I just wrote about a band I believed in.” Reid took inventory of my apartment and shook his head. I knew exactly what he was thinking about: the day I moved in.

“You’ll be okay, you know that, right? Deep down you know exactly what you want, how you want this to play out. You don’t have to be a cliché. You don’t have to live that life. The music is what matters most. Your beautiful music, Reid. You can do this.”

“Yeah,” he said thoughtfully. “Another pep talk,” he said without a smirk, worry clear in his features.

“Yeah, yeah, look at me,” I said the same way I had months before. Jade clouds brewed between us. “Believe me.”

“I don’t believe anyone anymore, Stella, but you.” He moved toward me again, and I flinched, too afraid of myself. Of us.

“Reid, I can’t—”

“Here Without You” by 3 doors down sang out from the TV feet away as my brain scrambled for some semblance of the woman I was minutes before he showed up to my door.

“Okay,” he relented, frustration rolling off his shoulders.

“Nate’s a good man. You would really like him. He’s good to me. He doesn’t make me—”

“Doesn’t make you what?” he said softly as I counted his slow steps toward me.

“Reid, goddamn you,” I rasped out.

“I am damned,” he whispered between us. “Look at me.” I shook my head as he gripped the sides of my face. Hot tears pooled and slipped down my cheeks. I was burning up, on the verge of losing myself. The reinforced wall I’d built shook down to the foundation. Everything I felt for him came brimming up to the surface. My heart pounding wildly as he searched for and saw everything in my eyes. And then the warmth hit, the feeling of it spread from my chest throughout my limbs.

“Stella,” he whispered before his lips pressed to mine. The agony of missing him leaked from my every pore. I threw every ounce of pain into that kiss, all the love that I felt escaped in a sob he captured with his lips. Softly, he pressed in, and I wrapped my arms around his neck as he slid his arms around my body, pulling me tightly to him. He kept our mouths sealed while he held me, our lips pressed together, and I felt his hesitance to let go when I pulled my lips away. He dropped his forehead to mine.

“Happy New Year, Stella. I’m glad you’re happy. That’s all I came to see.”

“Happy?” I scoffed. “I guess now you can put that guilty conscience to rest,” I said in a ruined puddle under the weight of him.

“Hate me if you need to,” he said softly, as he let me go and stuffed his cap in his jeans.

I hated the way it felt, the distance. I scrambled for words.

“Reid?” I whispered. Shoulders slumped, his eyes found mine. “What in the hell kind of rehab let’s someone out on New Year’s Eve?”

We laughed. It was our special skill, one we created together when things couldn’t get any worse. Our smiles faded as he looked me over and opened the door.

“I’ll see you, Grenade,” he whispered before he closed it behind him. I went after him and stopped him on the sidewalk.

“I’ll be the one to watch it happen,” I shouted as his back.

Slowly, he turned to face me, his eyes closed with the memory of my words, his lips twisted. “Say it.”

I smiled through my free-falling tears. “I told you so.”

He gave me one last breath-stealing smile, got into his truck, and left me without his warmth, once again in the cold.





Ex-Factor

Ms. Lauryn Hill



Three Years Later



“Miss Emerson, I’d like to see you in my office,” Nate sounded through my newly installed phone in my newly gifted office. I pushed his extension as I searched my notes on my laptop. “Nate, everyone here knows we have sex on the regular. You can call me Stella,” I said with a tone that matched his.

“Miss Emerson, I have Roger Morris in my office for a meeting,” Nate snapped as laughter echoed out beside him.

I leapt from my desk and stared at the phone.

Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.

We would be fighting over this one later. Face flaming, my tail between my legs, I walked into his office, failing to meet Nate’s eyes and apologizing profusely to Roger Morris, who was one of the biggest agents in the music industry. He had a stellar reputation and carried some of the most sought-after talent under his management company. It took all my Latina courage to shoot an apologetic glance at Nate.

The scold, colored deep blue, told me it may be a nasty fight. Still, I couldn’t help the little high I got from knowing he still wanted to be inside me while simultaneously strangling me. I gave him a sly Love you, honey smile.

“I’m truly sorry,” I went on to Mr. Morris, a tall man with a New York complexion and red carpet attire. He had sharp eyes that let you know he held the secrets of many but a genuine smile that made him more approachable. “That was highly unprofessional, and it’s definitely not—”

“Stella, may I call you, Stella, though we’re not having sex on the regular?” He coughed out a laugh as Nate drilled holes into my skull. We were at that comfortable stage of our relationship where we bared all and had no issue arguing, and it wasn’t detrimental to our relationship. We lived together, worked together. In every aspect of our lives, we were together. And it was bliss, well, for the most part. Except for when I played my music too loud while he was writing, or that time I ran over his expensive golf clubs, or sometimes spoke—case in point, the situation I was attempting to charm my way out of. At twenty-four, I had finished my bachelor’s degree and enrolled for my master’s. I had a future at Austin Speak, not to mention a semi-successful podcast, something I started for myself despite my focus on the growing paper and the man who owned it.