This One Moment (Pushing Limits, #1)(9)

“But next time he pulls that stunt, I’ll remind him we’re a group, not a solo act.” The last thing I wanted was unfounded resentment among the guys. We were friends. I wanted it to stay that way.

I told Jared I’d talk to him soon, and ended the call.

I tracked down the flight’s assigned baggage carousel. Brandon had beaten me to it and was waiting for me, a weak smile on his face. I gave him a one-armed hug.

“Sorry, dude. No news yet,” he said, already knowing what my first question would be.

“How could this have happened?”

“I don’t know. The police interviewed me this morning. They’re trying to figure out why she was in Westgate. That’s all I know.”

“Westgate? Why the hell would she be there?” The only people who hung out in that part of town were drug dealers and prostitutes. The last I’d heard, Hailey was neither of those.

“Hell if I know. It’s not like Hailey keeps me updated on her life. I haven’t talked to her much in the past five years. Not after she figured out I was keeping things about you from her.” He shot me a look to remind me how much he’d hated lying to her.

I ignored it and grabbed my guitar off the conveyor belt. Now I was almost complete. As complete as I would ever be.

“Was she…?” I swallowed hard, unable to say the next part but needing to know all the same.

Brandon shook his head. “According to my mom, there were no signs of sexual assault or rape.”

I let out a long breath, and for the first time since Brandon had told me the news about Hailey, a small amount of tension unknotted from my muscles.

We didn’t say much else as Brandon drove me to the hospital, mostly because I was exhausted from the combination of touring, last night’s show, and then traveling hard since I boarded the plane in L.A. Not once had I slept during the two flights, my mind constantly on Hailey.

“Just so you know,” Brandon said, “you can only stay at my place for three days.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “What, I’m cramping your style?”

He snorted. “Hardly. It’s my roommate.” Ah, the roommate from Nerdsville. “He’s a real stickler for rules, and my apartment will only let us have guests for up to three days. If he wasn’t coming back on Wednesday, it wouldn’t be an issue. They’d never know.”

“That’s okay. I’ll find somewhere else to stay.”

“You still have…” His words fizzled at my glare.

“I’m not staying there, so don’t even suggest it.”

“You haven’t even tried to sell it.”

I shrugged. End of discussion.

Brandon pulled into the hospital parking lot thirty minutes later and took me to the ER, where his mom worked as a nurse. Hailey was in neurology, but he figured my best shot at seeing her would be through his mom. He didn’t know if Hailey’s parents were at the hospital to grant me permission to see her, and we didn’t want to bug them if they weren’t. I loved her parents and they had always treated me like a son, but I didn’t know what they thought about me after my father had exchanged his engineering career for the title of mass murderer. Maybe they wondered if I would turn out like him.

Fuck knows I’d frequently wondered that myself.

With my hat and sunglasses on, I sat on a plastic chair away from the crowd. Either way, no one paid attention to me, not even to glance in my direction. Everybody there was caught up in the frustration of having to wait so long—caught up in their own private hell.

After I talked to Brandon’s mom for a few minutes, she sent me upstairs to neurology.

Pushing on the door to Hailey’s room, I removed my hat and sunglasses. A colorful display of flowers, taking up every available surface, greeted me, along with the nose-twitching combination of disinfectant and roses. The people who sent them couldn’t have known Hailey very well. The Hailey I remembered thought roses were a cliché.

Hailey’s mom glanced up from the seat next to the bed. Her eyes were red from either crying or lack of sleep, or maybe both.

“I’m so glad you came, Nolan.” She stood and threw her arms around me in the way I always remembered her doing, and a pain I hadn’t experienced in five years sliced through me. It had been a long time since someone had hugged me this way, this sincerely. Girls were always trying to hug me once they recognized me. But that was because of who I was. Hailey’s mom didn’t care about any of that. “How did you know?” she asked, pulling away.

“Brandon called me last night. I came as soon as I could get a flight here.”

I looked down at the girl I loved, and my heart almost broke in two. Whoever had attacked her had done a number on her, but behind the bruised, puffy face and the thin oxygen tube attached under her nose, she was the same beautiful girl I remembered. The same beautiful girl I had known, deep down, I would return to when the time was right. Once my life was less complicated with the band and touring. Once I no longer feared reliving the memories from the night I’d lost my family.

Her long brown hair was still shiny and inviting. I itched to stroke my fingers through it to see if it was as silky as it had been five years ago. I longed to lean close to her and see if she still smelled like my favorite sugar cookies, sweet with a hint of vanilla.

“What do you want to make?” she had asked me just before our last Christmas together. We’d been standing hip to hip in her parents’ kitchen, poring over a recipe book while she took a break from her studies. “Gingersnaps or chocolate chip cookies?”