Everything You Are (Jukebox Heroes 3) Page 5

  I turned toward Chris, and he pressed a finger to my lips before I could protest.

  “Don’t argue. Just say ‘Thanks, Chris’,” he said.

  Right then, with his finger pressed to my lips and his eyes locked on mine, I was afraid to open my mouth to speak at all. I felt sparks dancing over my skin, and I took a couple of deep breaths as I tried my damnedest to ignore them.

  After a moment, I reached up and tugged Chris’s hand away from my mouth. “Thank you,” I said, my voice so low I wasn’t sure he’d even heard me.

  Chris turned his hand in mine so that we were holding hands and gave me a little smile. “You’re welcome.”

  Somehow we all ended up outside, and everyone hugged me goodbye before I crawled into my crappy subcompact to head back to my crappy apartment. The drive home went by in a blur, and I went through my getting-ready-for-bed routine on autopilot. My mind was still replaying that strange, electric moment back at the diner and trying in vain to not feel like I’d done something wrong.

  Chapter Nine

  Despite my lack of sleep, I breezed through work the next day. Having friends, a social life, and something besides work and missing London to concentrate on was a good thing.

  I got home from work just after eleven-thirty that night. My grand plan for the evening was to curl up with a cup of hot chocolate and some bad TV and then crawl into bed. But as Robert Burns pointed out a couple of centuries ago, planning doesn’t count for much.

  Just as I was curling up with that hot chocolate, my cell phone rang. It was London.

  “Hey beautiful,” I said by way of greeting.

  “Hey.”

  Just that one word was enough to tell me something was wrong. He sounded tired. Sad.

  “What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

  For a moment there was only silence. Then he said, “She’s real, Em.”

  I nearly dropped the phone in shock. “What?”

  “We found witnesses – reliable witnesses – who saw Julia with a little girl. I never really saw her face in the visions, but...from the witnesses’ description, it’s the same girl.”

  “Oh my God.” I didn’t know what else to say at first, and then questions flooded my mind. “Where is she? Is she okay?”

  “We don’t know,” London said, cutting me off. “They were seen together, Em. Almost a year ago. The trail’s cold.”

  I let the words sink in. “I’m sorry.”

  London sighed. “At least I know now. That we’re not wasting our time. I just hope....”

  He didn’t have to finish the thought. It was what had been driving his investigation, what we all hoped for – that the little girl was okay and would remain so until she was found.

  “Me, too,” I told him.

  “We do have a lead. Sort of. It’s not much, but we’re going to run it down this weekend.”

  “This weekend,” I repeated, trying to keep my voice level.

  “Yeah, we’ve got a couple of free days.”

  “I know you do,” I said. I took a couple of deep breaths.

  There was silence again and then London said, “I know we had plans....”

  “She needs you more than I do right now,” I told him. I wasn’t even sure I believed it, but it was what he needed to hear. And it might be true. She might be in danger.

  “Thank you. Thank you for understanding. For being so patient with me. I know I’ve been a shitty boyfriend.”

  “Nah, I’ve had shitty boyfriends. Believe me, you’re doing great compared to most of them.”

  I could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke again. “Doesn’t make me feel a whole lot better, Em. I’ve heard about your exes.”

  “Well, how about this, then: I knew what I was getting into. I’m glad we’re together. Nashville was awesome – and Shreveport and Lake Charles and Houston.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Things are good when we’re together.”

  “Better than good,” I said.

  “No regrets?”

  “No regrets. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  We talked for a little while longer, him telling me about the band’s escapades and me telling him about finally making friends in Austin. He said it made him feel better knowing that I had people to spend time with, especially since he was bailing on our Halloween plans. I assured him I’d be fine and that I’d send him pictures of my awesome costume, and I made him promise to keep me in the loop as far as the investigation was concerned. We exchanged goodbyes and I love yous and hung up.

  Only after I’d dropped my phone on the couch beside me did I allow myself to give into the emotions that had been building. I grabbed a sofa pillow and held it against my face and screamed. Then I hurled the pillow across the room, not caring if it did any damage.

  I didn’t care if it was selfish or shallow or just plain wrong – I wanted my boyfriend to come and spend my favorite holiday with me. I wanted to come first. I wanted to know that if we planned to see each other, we actually would see each other. I wanted normal – or as close to normal as things could get with me and London.

  Yes, there was a little girl somewhere in the world who might be in trouble. Might. Maybe. Or maybe she was tucked into bed somewhere, curled up under Disney princess sheets with a teddy bear, tucked in by someone who loved her. And even if she was in danger, there was no proof or reason to believe that London had any responsibility toward her. Just because his psycho ex-girlfriend made him think that maybe the girl might be his daughter didn’t mean she was. Surely this was a matter that should be handled by the Agency who’d recruited Julia and then hunted her down after she’d gone rogue. Surely this was not London’s responsibility and shouldn’t impact my life to the degree that it did.

  It sounded childish even in my own head, but I didn’t care. I’d been hurt enough. I wanted my freakin’ happy ending.

  I decided to trade my hot chocolate for a rum and Coke, thinking the alcohol might help me relax. I couldn’t afford another night without sleep. A quick rummage through my fridge and cabinets shot that plan to hell, too; I didn’t have Coke or rum, having finished them off at some point. I settled for a couple of antihistamines and a hot bath.

  When I still hadn’t managed to fall asleep by one in the morning, I grabbed my cell phone. It was early enough still to call Dylan. I pulled up her number and hit the button to call her. And got her voicemail. I left a message after the tone and contemplated my next move.

  Alex would already be in bed, I knew. And really, he was the only other person I talked to about stuff like this. I had a few friends in Houston still, and there was Lydia, but they weren’t the kind of friends I confided in. For that, there was only Alex and Dylan.

  And Chris, I thought. And Joseph, Amy, and Michael, for that matter. I’d confided in them easily enough.

  If it weren’t already so late, I’d have headed down to Haven in hopes of finding Joseph. He’d commiserate and console and make me feel better, I was sure. But the club would be closed before I could get across town. So I looked up the number on the internet and called the club instead.

  “Haven,” Chris answered.

  To my surprise, there wasn’t a lot of background noise. I wondered if Chris was in his office, away from the crowd and the noise.

  “Hey, Chris,” I said. “It’s Elizabeth.”

  “Hey, girl. What’s up?”

  “I was hoping to talk to Joseph,” I said.

  “He’s off tonight. I don’t think he’d mind me giving you his cell number, but he’s probably either out somewhere or asleep.” There was another voice in the background, and then he said, “Hang on a second.”

  I sat there, listening to muffled voices and feeling like an idiot and turning my earlier conversation with London over in my head. The frustration and despair was only made worse by not having anyone to talk to. I curled up with Benny and cradled the phone, not sure what I’d say when Chris got back on the line.

 
“You still there?”

  “Yeah,” I all but whispered, my voice shaky.

  “Beth? What’s wrong?”

  The concern in his voice was my undoing. I started to cry, and I couldn’t stop.

  “Beth, don’t. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  I managed to choke out, “London called.”

  “Shit. Hold on.” Music and crowd noise filtered into the phone a moment later, and I heard Chris’s voice as he spoke to someone. A minute or so later, the noise died down again. I could hear a car alarm bleating somewhere, so I knew he’d stepped outside.

  “Beth, you still there?”

  “Ye-yes,” I stammered.

  “Where are you right now? Are you at home?”

  I nodded, then remembered I was on the phone and he couldn’t see me. “Yes.”

  “Okay, here’s what’s gonna happen: in just a minute, I’m gonna hang up and you’re gonna text me your address, okay? Can you do that?”

  “Chris, you don’t....”

  “Can you do that for me, Beth?”

  “Yes.”

  “You need my cell number?”

  I told him I did, and he waited while I found something to scribble the number down with.

  “Okay, I’m hanging up now, and I’ll be there soon. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He disconnected the call, and I texted him my address along with a quick message telling him that he didn’t need to come, that I was all right. He texted back with an ETA. He didn’t even try to argue with me. The selfish part of me was glad.

  I curled up around Benny and cried until I couldn’t anymore. Then I got up and washed the tears from my face, blew my nose, made coffee. I curled up on the sofa with Benny and waited.

  Chris arrived ahead of schedule. At his knock, I set Benny on the coffee table and went to open the door, pausing to peek out the peephole just in case. I let Chris in along with a blast of cold night air.

  “You didn’t have to come,” I said. “I’m okay.”

  “You didn’t sound okay,” Chris replied. He stood by the door, looking around my tiny apartment. When his eyes landed on me again, he said, “So what happened?”

  I shrugged. “Just...everything, I guess.” I knew it wasn’t much of an answer. “You want some coffee?”

  He accepted and once we had our coffees the way we wanted them, we took our mugs and settled in on opposite ends of my second-hand sofa. Without his prompting me again, I spilled out an edited version of my conversation with London. Since I couldn’t tell Chris the real reason why London had cancelled his visit, I just said that he had unexpected last-minute obligations. It sounded contrived, and I hoped that Chris wouldn’t assume that London was making excuses to stay away.

  He couldn’t leave it alone, though. “What sort of ‘obligations’?” he wanted to know.

  I sighed and sipped at my coffee, trying to think of a plausible excuse. Nothing came to mind. “I can’t talk about it,” I said. That much was true. “It’s not my story to tell. It’s not that I think you’d tell anyone or sell it to the tabloids or anything. I just can’t talk about it.”

  Chris looked thoughtful for a moment. “Does he really have a good reason for cancelling?”

  I sighed again. “Yeah, he does. I feel pretty horrible about getting upset about this. I know he’s needed elsewhere. But....” I shrugged and took another drink.

  “You shouldn’t feel horrible. We both know it’s not just about this weekend. You’ve been let down a lot. You have every right to want better.”

  “Maybe.”

  I rubbed a hand over my face. I knew I looked like hell, and I didn’t feel much better. Having Chris with me helped some, though, and I was glad he’d come to my rescue.

  “Thank you,” I said. “You didn’t have to come all the way out here.”

  “You didn’t hear you on the phone,” he said, staring into the depths of his coffee cup. “I couldn’t not come out here.”

  “Did you think I was going to swan dive off a convenient bridge or something?”

  Chris looked up at me, his expression serious in spite of the fact that I’d been joking. “No, nothing like that. I just know what it’s like, feeling like you’re alone with nothing but your misery for company.”

  I didn’t know what to say so I just reached out and rested my hand on his arm. He sat his cup on the table, then took my hand and tugged a little. I set my own mug aside and scooted closer, and he wrapped his arm around me, guiding my head to his shoulder.

  “So how long until you get tired of rescuing me?” I asked. I felt his chest heave with a silent laugh.

  “I was just thinking that this is starting to become a regular thing for us.”

  “Yeah, I’m kind of a train wreck lately. I’m not always like this, I swear.”

  “I believe you,” Chris said.

  “I hate being like this,” I confessed.

  “Like what, exactly?”

  “Weak, I guess. Dependent.”

  Chris nudged me so that I leaned away from him a little, and then tipped my face up so our eyes met.

  “Leaning on someone when things get rough – that’s doesn’t mean you’re weak. It just means you’re human. We all need help sometimes, Beth. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  I just nodded, not trusting myself to speak since my throat was tight and tears were stinging my nose. I let Chris pull me back down against his side and snuggled into his warmth. I closed my eyes and let the feel of his hand on my hair brush away the fear and frustration and hurt. I leaned on him and trusted him to not let me fall.

  Chapter Ten

  I woke the next afternoon to the ringing of my phone. For a moment, I was disoriented; I couldn’t remember why I was sleeping on the sofa. Then I realized that I must have fallen asleep curled up against Chris.

  Bleary eyed from lack of sleep, I groped around on the coffee table until I found my cell. The caller ID told me it was Dylan.

  “What the hell are you doing awake this early?” I asked.

  “Wow. Hello to you, too.”

  “Awake and cheerful. Pretty sure I don’t want to know why.”

  “Awake because I had to drive Brian to physical therapy this morning. Cheerful because I just devoured a port and stilton burger.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Sorry I didn’t call you back last night, but we were over at Seth’s and my phone was dead. What’s up?”

  I gave her the 30-second version of my conversation with London and admitted that I’d called her looking for sympathy.

  “Well, that explains that,” she said. “Brian’s on the phone with London right now. He looked agitated. Now I know why.”

  “Yeah, this is....” I couldn’t think of the right word to describe the situation. There were many that told a part of it: scary, dangerous, unexpected. “Big,” I said.

  “It’s not good news, exactly,” Dylan agreed. “Brian has been trying to convince London to take a less active role in the investigation. He’s worried that London’s stretching himself too thin, what with the tour and Ashe and you. There’s no way he’s going to back down now.”

  “No, there isn’t. And really, can you blame him?”

  “No. But it doesn’t mean we can’t worry. And it doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck for you.”

  “I’ll survive.”

  “Still...I’m sorry he cancelled on you. I know you were looking forward to this weekend.”

  “I still am,” I said, struggling to sit up and kick the afghan off my legs. “I hate that he’s not going to be here, but I’ll be damned if I let that ruin my favorite freakin’ holiday.”

  “I wish you could come out here, Em. Seth’s having a big party. You’d love it.”

  “Next year,” I promised. I stood and stretched. “If I survive that long.”

  “You’d better.” I was saved from having to come up with a witty retort when she added, “Brian’s off the phone. I’m going to go talk to him
.”

  “Okay. I need to go anyway. I’ll talk to you later.”

  We exchanged goodbyes and hung up and I made my way to the bathroom. I was still splashing water on my face, trying to feel human, when I heard my phone ringing again. I dashed into the living room and scooped up my phone. The caller ID said ‘Chris,’ and I smiled. He must have added himself to my contact list after I fell asleep.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself. How are you?”

  I curled up on one end of the sofa and pulled the afghan over my legs. “Better. Much better, actually. Still pretty disappointed that London’s not coming down, but like I just told Dylan, I am not going to let it ruin my favorite holiday. I’m done with being a victim.”

  “Halloween is your favorite holiday?” he asked, sticking to the safest topic.

  “Yup.” I grinned to myself, realizing I’d picked up one of London’s favorite words at some point. “It’s the costumes,” I confessed. “I love playing dress-up.”

  I could hear the grin in Chris’s voice when he replied, “You sound like Seth.”

  “Yeah, I know he loves Halloween, too. He emailed me the other day to tell me to send him pictures of my costume. Well, what he actually said was to email him pictures if my costume was as hot as last year’s, but whatever.”

  Chris laughed. “That’s Seth.” He paused for a moment, and then asked, “So is it?”

  “Is it what?”

  “Hot.”

  It was my turn to laugh. “This year’s is not quite as revealing as last year’s, but I think Seth will like it anyway.”

  “Revealing, huh?”

  “Yes. I got the bright idea to run around half-naked last Halloween. I think my wings and boots covered more of me than my clothes did.”

  “Wing and boots.... Oh, wow. I think I’ve seen pictures.”

  “That wouldn’t surprise me. Seth has them up on Facebook. Me and him, Brian and Dylan.”

  “From what I remember, it’d be hard to compete with that costume.”

  “Don’t start,” I warned. I didn’t feel sexy, at the moment, but more importantly, I didn’t want to encourage whatever attraction I’d sensed between us.