During the short drive back to my apartment, I think of several different ways to approach the subject of Sam with Lucas. It’s so ridiculously easy to ruin my brother’s mood that I want to approach it carefully. Then I look at him. I study the way his shoulders sag and how his hazel eyes just seem tired.
And I realize there’s no way in hell I can ruin his day any worse than he already has.
“We’re a f**ked up pair,” I say quietly after he parks on the curb, and he releases a strangled laugh.
“Yeah, we are.” He leans his head back against his headrest, inhaling and exhaling. “I wanted to make things work with her so f**king bad,” he says, referring to Sienna, and I nod.
“You still can. But you’re going to have to let go of whatever it is Sam’s got on you. You know that, don’t you?”
“It’s not that f**king simple.”
“Then let me help you. Tell me what it is that she has on you so we can figure it out together,” I plead, but he shakes his head, refusing me. “I promise I’m not going to stop loving you.”
When he doesn’t reply, staring straight ahead at the windshield, my chest clenches. “Lucas, it’s not something that will make me stop loving you.” I say again, but it sounds more like a question than a statement.
He’s quiet for much longer than necessary, and when he answers me, my heart aches so much more for him. “No, it’s not. But only because it’s not in you to stop loving someone.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
For the next week, Wyatt calls my cell phone twice a day—once in the afternoon and once at night. He doesn’t leave messages, doesn’t send texts, but I’m sure he knows that I’m purposely missing his calls every time I send him straight to voicemail. And it’s so hard to do that to him because each time I hit the ignore button, it feels like there’s a hole being burned into my chest.
Nine days after saying goodbye to him, my brother calls me a little after noon. “You busy?” Lucas asks the moment I pick up. He sounds out of breath, like he’s been lifting weights. Before I can answer him, he continues, “I got an email this morning about some sponsorship thing you signed me up for. Want to check into it for me?”
Lucas has been trying to keep me as busy as possible since I returned to Los Angeles, and while I appreciate his concern, his hovering is starting to become slightly annoying. I press save on the letter that I’ve been writing to Sinjin. “I’m on it right now,” I promise as I pull up his Gmail account.
I find the message he’s talking about near the top of his inbox. According to the email, the organization—which provides sports equipment to disadvantaged kids—has left a message for his assistant. Wrinkling my forehead, I bite the inside of my lip because I haven’t received any calls from them. Grabbing a bottle of water from the kitchen, I sit back down to do a little more research.
It’s not until I find a thread of old correspondence with the group that I realize that I gave them the direct number to my apartment months ago instead of my cell phone number.
The only phone I keep in my place is located in my bedroom, and since I went the quirky, novelty route when I purchased it, it’s corded. I sit on my bed with my laptop in front of me to take notes as I check the message.
Sure enough, there’s a voicemail from the organization that’s dated back to a week ago. I listen to it twice, typing down all of the pertinent information I’ll need for Lucas to make a donation. I erase the message, and I’m about to hang up, but then the next voicemail automatically starts playing. The voice on the line sends chills through my body. It’s Wyatt. For ten minutes, I find myself listening to messages he left for me while we were in New Orleans before he realized he was calling the wrong number. It isn’t until I reach the sixth voicemail that I feel as if my lungs are failing me.
“Do you ever pick up your goddamn phone, beautiful?” Wyatt asks in a low, sexy voice, and my breath catches. “I need you to be there next week, Ky. I know that you’re pissed because of my last message, but I can’t help the past. I can’t change how f**ked up we’ve been to each other. I just want to make things right now.” There’s a muffled noise, and I hear Cal’s voice. Wyatt mutters something under his breath and then he clears his throat. “Call me when you’re ready. And Kylie? I love you, okay?”
It feels like butterflies are racing though my stomach as I wrap my fingers around the cord tightly, listening carefully as the automated voice speaks the time and date. He left the message the last week of January, a couple of weeks before he found me in New Orleans. My mouth goes dry, and I swallow several times.
Saving the voicemail, I start the next, which turns out to be a telemarketer. I go through two more spam calls before I find Wyatt’s other message.
“I f**ked up. I’ve f**ked up, and it’s something I don’t ever want to do again. I don’t want other women—I want you. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember and it’s going to stay that way. We need to make a decision, we’re either together or apart, but no more of this bullshit we’ve been doing to each other for the past few years. It’s destructive, and it’s time we stop pretending like we can just be friends with benefits or whatever the hell you’re calling it now.
“I love you, Kylie. You know I have a hard time saying that, but I do. Stop ignoring my calls, stop being so afraid of getting hurt, and let’s figure this out.”