Page 52 of Just Wait

“I want you to let me go,” I say.

Literally and figuratively.

This has to be over now.

“Why come all the way to Charleston if you were just going to break up with me?” he asks, sounding baffled.

“What did you expect me to do at one in the morning in an unfamiliar city? Huh, Theo?” I spin in his hold and slam my free hand against his chest. “You know how dangerous the world is for women during the daylight. Was I supposed to walk out of the venue with my bags and no plan? You know how much money I have in my checking account!”

“I sent you a thousand dollars last night.” He frowns. “I told you through text and in the voicemails I left. I wanted to make sure you could get a nice hotel or whatever. You didn’t even listen to them? Wait, what are you saying?”

“I don’t know what she’s saying, but I’m telling you to let her go.” The voice is low and serious, and my head whips up.

Riser.

He comes closer but stops a solid five feet away. He’s in a long-sleeve Henley, tight, ripped jeans, and combat boots.

“How did you get to Charleston?” Theo takes a step back, releasing my forearm. His head swivels, glancing between me and Riser.

The look of betrayal on his face as he turns back to me should make me feel vindicated. I want him to hurt and ache as badly as I did when I saw him with that woman, but my stomach churns like I might vomit on my shoes.

I’m not a person who enjoys making others suffer.

“All I did was sleep on their bus,” I tell him, staring straight into his eyes. “They offered to let me ride with them to give me a few days to figure everything out.”

“Okay,” Theo says slowly. “I get that. I’ll be the first to thank them for looking out for you when I couldn’t, but, Lu, enough. We can work through this.”

I wish he’d been more of an unapologetic asshole. It would be easier to hate him.

“We can’t.” My head shakes, and the tears that have been stinging the edges of my eyes fall. “This is just the beginning of your career. You’re always going to wonder if there’s something better out there, and I’m never going to be the woman who settles for second best.” I can’t be. I saw what that did to my mom, and I won’t let anyone emotionally destroy me the way my dad did to her. “We should have called it before you left to come on tour.”

It takes everything in me to turn away from him.

My feet are heavy like my boots are filled with lead, but I put one foot in front of the other, forcing myself to walk away.

If I’m not careful, we’ll go back and forth for hours, and this will never end. I have to stop it now.

“None of that is true,” Theo says. “I love the hell out of you. You make me happy. You can be pissed and give me hell, but you can’t break up with me over one mistake! I didn’t even fuck her!”

“If you put your hands on her, I’m going to have to put my hands on you,” Riser says, sounding deathly serious. “None of us want to deal with that kind of bullshit today.”

I can’t see what happens as I make it to the door of the bus, pulling the lever to open it.

“Look, man, you need to back off,” Theo growls. “That’s my girlfriend.”

“She was,” Riser says as I climb the stairs. “But you seem to have missed the part where she broke up with you. Anyone can choose to end a relationship at any time. Yeah, it sucks, but you know what you did. It’s time for you to man up, accept that actions have consequences, and give her some time to breathe.”

It’s tempting not to close the door, so I can hear what happens next, but I yank it shut as my chest heaves.

My heart physically aches, and I feel like I’m about to be sick. That stupid, sentimental side of my brain screams to go out there and apologize.

I know Theo is hurting, but I am too.

I didn’t do anything wrong.

If I don’t hold my ground now, I’ll be in this situation all over again, except worse, when he finds his scent match. He might love me, but nothing tops the pull between compatible alphas and omegas. One way or another, I was always going to break my own heart by falling for him.

“You okay?” Parish asks from behind me.