“If a zoom in of my dick ends up on YouTube, your ass is mine, Kylie.”
“Didn’t you already claim it as yours anyway?” I challenge, and he nods slowly. “Ugh, just drive.”
I sit back in my seat and press my forehead to the cold window, watching New Orleans fade away as Wyatt speeds the Suburban onto I-10, toward Houston. I don’t know if he planned the road trip like this on purpose, but if he wanted me to remember everything, he’s succeeded.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse at him. His eyes are glued to the road, and one of his hands grips the steering wheel so tight I swear I’ll hear the leather split apart at any moment. Unlike a few minutes ago, his expression is unreadable. I wish like hell I knew why.
Silently, he reaches past the center console and creeps his hand across my lap, not stopping until his fingertips brush the inside of my left wrist. Gasping, I jerk away as if he’s scorched my skin with fire. I close my eyes, and I can practically feel the way his hand had closed around my wrist as we left New Orleans all those years ago. I can hear the words he whispered to me.
“Does Lucas know?”
It had been before Your Toxic Sequel—Falling Anarchy at the time—made it big, and I was huddled up to him in the backseat of Sinjin’s Ford Expedition. “God, no.”
He’d let go of my arm and moved his hand to my thigh, squeezing just a touch too hard. The pressure made my heart race. “Don’t ever f**king do it again.”
I had swallowed hard, fallen hard. And I never looked back. “I promise I won’t.”
I had kept that promise, only wavering once since then.
Now, I open my eyes and make myself a new vow: To stay away from all these memories and make it back to L.A. without dredging up more of our history.
He rests his palm on my thigh, and I lower my brown eyes to it, relieved that I had the good sense to wear sunglasses. Dragging in a harsh breath of air, I cover his hand with mine.
***
Because Heidi absolutely refuses to stay with Cal another night, and because I’m virtually broke until I return to Los Angeles and can get a new license and replacement credit cards, I agree to share a room with her when we reach the Onyx Hotel in Houston five hours later. With an atrium lobby and floor to ceiling windows, the place is far more luxurious than the hotel we stayed at in New Orleans. The Onyx also comes at a luxurious price, and Heidi has no problem letting us know during check in.
“Could you have picked anything more expensive?” she asks Wyatt as the front desk clerk slides her Master Card. “I mean, I realize you make a gazillion dollars a year, and I think that’s good for you and all, but some of us aren’t famous.”
Rolling his dark eyes, Cal grabs his bag and guitar from the floor. As he walks past us, he says in a voice loud enough for the clerk to hear, “Guess you’ll be pulling a double shift on the phone-fuck line, huh?”
Heidi takes her card from the clerk’s outstretched hand, ignoring the look of mortification on the poor man’s face, and gives Cal a tight smile. “You’ve got my number, ass**le. Just make sure there’s enough money on your credit card.”
“Please just bone it out of your system already,” Wyatt growls under his breath, taking the words right out of my mouth. He works his way between them and grabs my bag and Heidi’s. When none of us race to follow him, he glances back. “You coming?” I don’t miss the double entendre—his blue eyes linger on me for far too long when he says coming.
I linger behind to walk beside of Heidi. “I’ll pay you back when we get home, or I can get Lucas to Western Union you the money.” If I can even get in touch with him. My brother has been missing in action ever since Wyatt showed up in New Orleans, and I don’t know if it’s because he doesn’t want to talk about Sin or if he’s simply busy with Sienna.
Sienna, on the other hand, has no problem answering my messages, and she sent me multiple texts while we were on the way here.
Heidi waves her hand in the air, dismissing my offer to pay her for the hotel. “I can’t take money from you.”
“You just whined about the cost of the hotel.”
“I whine about a lot of shit, doesn’t mean it actually bothers me.” I should have expected her to say this, but I still make a mental note to pay her back. I won’t be able to sleep worth a damn at night knowing I owe my closest friend.
Wyatt drops our bags in front of our door, which is thankfully on the first floor this time. He takes the keycard when Heidi holds it out to him, pops the door open, and then scoots the luggage inside. Reaching out in her direction, he begins to place the card back into her hands, but then he pauses. He widens his stance and holds it over her head, earning a pissed-off glare from Heidi.
I c**k an eyebrow and fall back onto the bed closest to the door. “She’s on heels, McCrae, so please don’t make her jump and break her neck.”
She taps her foot impatiently, but he stares in my direction, drinking in the sight of me on the bed, as he tells her, “Please don’t lose it this time.”
She jerks the key out of his hand, rolling her light blue eyes. “What time are you and Cal playing tonight?” It’s the first time I’ve heard her address Cal by his actual name. Wyatt must realize it too because he grins.
“I’ll text Ky.”
As soon as he leaves, she crawls onto my bed and collapses next to me. “You were so quiet the whole trip.”
“You were asleep most of the time, and besides, I was tired.” I slept half the time on the way here and the other half was spent texting back and forth with Sienna. She and Lucas are meeting my parents today, and she’s worried my mom and dad won’t like her. I told her the truth: If my parents accept and love Lucas and me, with all of our problems, then they’ll love her too. “I’ll be better after I get some sleep.”