Letting myself lose my love for music had been almost as heartbreaking as allowing myself to disappear into a shitty existence without ever attempting to change my own fate. While Jace might have been waiting for me to run back to him, I’d had enough of my own pride that I’d never do that, but in the end I hadn’t really fared any better on my own.
I’d failed. In all fucking ways I’d failed.
Dropping the instrument on the bed, I had to breathe through tears because there was no way I was going to fall apart again. Nope. Not a chance. It might be volatile up in here with this forced proximity, but I had to keep it together. Just for a few more days.
Rhett and Jace weren’t back yet, so leaving the guitar on the bed, I continued my search through the cabinets. In a small set on the floor, I hit the jackpot, finding three heavy, cast iron cooking pots, along with some matches and fire starters. Amazing. We weren’t having cold beans from the can tonight.
We were having hot beans from a pot, and we’d think it was a fucking five-star meal.
Wanting to head outside and check on the boys anyway, I lifted one of the heavy pots and ferried it out to the cooking area set up a few meters from the trailer. The previous occupants had built a small circle of stones, leaving some cut-up firewood beside it. The timber was old and brittle now, and a little damp from the storm earlier, but I thought with the fire starters I could get it to burn, helped along with some dried leaves and grass and protected as it was from the elements by scrub and trees.
The boys weren’t in the clearing, but Rhett’s voice drifted to me every now and then, followed by the rumbles of Jace, so I knew they were okay, just talking it out. So I might as well make myself useful by preparing dinner.
A few more trips in and out of the trailer, while tending to the small fire, and soon I was ready to cook. The pot had a stand and hook to hang over the top, and I made sure nothing green was added to the fire to limit smoke, which could reveal our location. Unless someone was close by, they wouldn’t really see anything.
When I had the beans on and bubbling away, I grabbed the guitar and brought it out to the cooking area. The few chords I’d strummed before were still in my head, and I needed to keep bringing the music to life. It demanded to be released, and despite the emotional pain in making music once more, I felt like it was time.
The first steps to healing weren’t just letting go of the past, but in embracing the parts of it I’d already let go. The parts I loved more than life. The parts that made me Billie Bellerose.
thirty-one
JACE
Blind rage drove me from the Airstream. From the clearing. From her.
Fucking fuck. There was a reason I’d cut her toxicity from my life long ago: She was the one person in this goddamn world who was capable of destroying me. The one who could render me a broken, pitiful mess on the floor, while she stomped her shit-covered shoes all over me.
I was Billie’s doormat. And the moment she’d thrown us away so easily all those years ago, I’d known that I had to do the same. No matter what happened, what I heard about her, I had to close my fucking ears and eyes and pretend I didn’t give a fuck.
Her parents had died, that much I’d heard, but only years after the fact. Before that, any time my mom had tried to tell me about Billie, I’d cut her off.Not my fucking business,I’d snarl.
I knew Billie was alive, and that was all that mattered. I’d made sure to know she was alive and her rough geographic location—mainly to avoid her—but her day-to-day…
Yeah, if I’d known that too, I’d have gone after her.
Rhett might think he couldn’t make music without weed and booze, but his minor addictions had nothing… fucking nothing on Billie Bellerose. A fact he’d discovered himself not that damn long ago. The only way to be without her was to shut her from your mind and never think about her again, but it fucking killed me to know she’d suffered without me. The physical scars she bore spoke of a life I couldn’t understand, and when I thought about the scars I couldn’t see… I wanted to burn this fucking forest down.
Fuck.
Slamming my fist against a tree, the bark crumbled under my hit, and I relished the bite of pain in my knuckles. It helped me deal with the raging emotions inside. A large part of me hated her so much, while another part that was growing in strength wanted to storm back to the RV and bury my dick inside her. Twice in the past two days I’d felt her cunt pulse around my cock, and it was messing with my head. I’d thought our sex was intense back in the day, but we’d been kids compared to what had happened between us in the field.
Jesus. I was so fucked up.
“Bro.”
Rhett’s amused tone distracted me from trying to level a few more trees, and when I spun on him, he held both hands up, huge fucking smirk on his face. “Don’t kill the messenger. I’m just here to make sure you’re okay and let you know Billie is fine. No need to go all Chuck Norris on the forest.”
Screw this asshole for being funny and likable. I didn’t have to wonder what Billie saw in him—he was my best friend for a reason. Today, though, I’d have preferred Grayson. Someone to smash trees with.
“I can’t fucking do it,” I snarled, rubbing a hand across my face as I desperately sucked in air, needing to calm down.Right.
“Do what?”
Rhett didn’t step closer, instead he leaned back against the nearest tree like we were just two friends having a casual conversation. Not one friend trying to talk the other friend off a metaphorical cliff. “Stay in that RV with her. Be forced to fucking see her day in and out. Feel her damn presence.”
Touch her. Smell her. Bury my face in her puss—
Rhett laughed, and I wondered if I’d manage to get a hit in before he moved. Maybe if I really ran at him.
