“Hey. Y’okay?”
I glanced up, my vision blurry for half a second, and found Rafe strolling toward me with a coffee cup in his hand. On either side of the portico, rain sluiced down like a curtain, slapping the ground, making it feel like we were cut off from the whole world, but Rafe glanced around in all directions anyway, like he wanted to find the source of my distress and maybe beat it up.
Sadly, the source of my distress wasme.
“Yeah. I’m… yes. Fine.”
“Okay.” He lifted an eyebrow like he wanted to question me, then shrugged awkwardly like he’d thought better of it. “Anyway. I got you a coffee. Black, three sugars, since milk’s bad for your throat. And I got you Doritos, Cool Ranch, obviously, and a Diet Coke, too—” Rafe shook the bag that dangled from his wrist, and his eyes didn’t quite meet mine. “—since I remembered you used to mainline them before your metabolism got all fancy. This way we won’t have to stop until Kansas City, which… why are you looking at me like that?”
Because I’ve gotten all twisted up today, and I’m overthinking every-damn-thing. My sister. My music career. You.
Because I loved you so damn much before I told myself I hated you, Rafael. And I regret that I never told you.
Because I’m pretty sure I still love you. And I don’t want to blow this second chance.
Because I know it’s ridiculous to think I love you when I don’t know the person you are now and you don’t know me—especially since you fucking lied to me, and you’restillnot telling me the whole truth—but I’m almost positive I do because I feel it in my bones, the same way I know I’ve written something good and true.
Because I miss you trusting me, and I keep thinking of what Oak said, about how if I’m not an asshole to other people, they won’t be an asshole to me.
Because you said my name while you fucked him. And you didn’t lie about it when you could have.
Because maybe I need to trust you. Maybe I need to apologize for my part in this stupid misunderstanding and see where that leaves us.
Because I’m fucking terrified.
“Because I need to pee?” I cleared my throat and gestured toward the building. “So can you?” I waved toward the pump, which had long ago stopped pumping. “Then we can.” I nodded toward the highway. “Okey doke.”
I didn’t wait to see if he could interpret my gibberish but scurried inside. I washed my hands in the bathroom sink and splashed my face with ice-cold water, trying to control the flush on my cheeks. Then I looked at myself in the mirror, sorta like Rafe had at the airport, except I wasn’t trying to give myself a pep talk. No, what I needed was a Come to Jesus.
What thehellwas I doing?
Was I actually contemplating the possibility of… of…anythingwith Rafe Goodman? Good God.
Even if he’d wanted me in the past, there was no sign that he did anymore! Besides which, I had a career to salvage somehow, and an apartment in New York, and a phone call from my agent to return. Not to mention, I had a sister who wassick, who’d been keeping secrets from me, and whose doctor called herbabe.
I needed to focus on the right things. Theimportantthings.
Maybe the second chance here was just a chance to walk away calmly. With no animosity.
I nodded firmly to myself, decision made. I wasn’t going to say anything to Rafe about Aimee’s revelations, or about my feelings.
We would keep on as we had been. Quasi-friends. Trip-mates.
I popped a honey drop in my mouth and took a deep breath.
I found Rafe and Chet squatting down by the front passenger’s-side tire of the van. Chet gestured animatedly, no doubt pointing out the many benefits of triple treads, and Rafe nodded along, seeming totally absorbed, but the second I got close, Rafe’s entire attention swung to me, and his eyes raked me from head to toe like he needed to reassure himself I hadn’t been mauled by lions in the five minutes I’d been gone.
That was all it took to make my heartbeat go all syncopated and my resolve crumble to dust. One. Freakin’. Look.
There was no way I could get back in that car with Rafe Goodman. Nope. I’d look at him, and he’d ask me what was wrong, and then… I’d tell him. I’d just vomit it all over him in a way no amount of perfume could cover.
God. I legit didn’t know what would happen then. I wasn’t sure I could handle the consequences, no matter which way things went.
“Hey, friend! Gotcha that CD!” Chet straightened as I got closer and held out a plastic jewel case, the kind I hadn’t seen in a hot minute. “Don’t listen to it without supervision.” He winked and mimed an explosion in his brain.
I smiled half-heartedly. Little did Chet know, I’d already experienced a brain explosion this afternoon without even listening to… I glanced down at the CD in my hand.
“Cosmic Star Patterns?” I read the words off a cover that looked very,verymuch like the cover ofConstellations, but not quite. “This is your album?”
