This thing between them—this love—was a force of nature beyond anyone’s control. An uncontainable living thing comparable only to the ocean as far as Kylie was concerned. Together they stood a chance. Separately it would crush them both. Fighting it alone had almost destroyed her. It was an exhilarating and terrifying realization.
“Hey, you look worried,” Trace said, brushing a hair from her face. “Rae’s going to be fine. She’s got to give her statement to the police and I’m going to try to not get arrested. But you should go on to the house. Shower, get some rest. I’m coming home tonight, too. I can smell myself.”
Kylie laughed. She wanted to tell him about her revelation, but she had a feeling he already knew. That she was the one who was late to the party.
“Well I love the way you smell. Showered or not, I still wouldn’t kick you out of bed.” She nipped at his bottom lip.
“Good to know, because I am going to wake you up when I get home tonight. Another reason you should get some rest while you can.”
A delicious shiver danced up her spine, and she almost felt guilty. They were in the hospital, Rae was injured and might be in serious trouble, and the label was probably drawing up the paperwork to drop them both like bad habits at that very moment. But somehow, because they had each other, it seemed like it would all turn out okay.
She didn’t know if Rae being awake was such a relief that it felt like she was floating, or if being in love had sent her endorphin and serotonin levels on a drug-like high, or if the sleep deprivation had her feeling light and strangely optimistic. But as she kissed him goodbye and promised him for the millionth time that she was okay driving to the farm alone, her entire world shifted.
She was practically bouncing out of the hospital as she left. She knew the grin on her face probably made a few of the hospital staff members wonder if she needed a psych eval, but she didn’t care. Nothing could take away what she and Trace had.
That much she knew for certain.
“It won’t last, you know,” a low, raspy voice said a moment after she’d passed through the automatic doors.
Maybe I do need a psych evaluation.
Kylie turned in the direction of the voice, hoping like hell it hadn’t come from inside her head.
Trace’s mom sat on a bench where the shuttle picked up riders. She took a long drag of her cigarette while Kylie stared at her in confusion.
“Excuse me?”
The woman sighed and gave her a look that bordered on apologetic. “He’s just like his father. Sure, it seems like a dream come true right now.” She shrugged and exhaled smoke between them. “But wait until his next album doesn’t do well or his fancy label lets him go.”
Kylie’s throat constricted, either from the smell of the smoke or the severity of the woman’s words.
“Mrs. Corbin, I can assure you that no matter—”
“It’s McClain. My last name isn’t Corbin. And if you have any sense in that pretty head of yours, yours won’t ever be either.”
She flinched back like she’d been slapped. What kind of mother spoke that way about her son? Especially a son like Trace. Her heart pumped harder. She felt that version of herself, the hotheaded one rising quickly to the surface. She wondered if that was what it felt like to be the Incredible Hulk.
“I can only hope that one day I’m lucky enough for my last name to be Corbin,” Kylie said evenly. She took a step toward the woman so the patients and visitors meandering past wouldn’t hear.
Trace’s mom eyed her as if she were a lab specimen to be examined and then coughed loudly. “You know, I was like you once. Young. Naïve. And then I married an alcoholic who turned my life into a living hell.”
The reminder of the picture Trace had painted of his childhood took shape in her mind and brought tears to her eyes for the second time.
“Your life? What about the lives of those kids who had to live in fear? Who grew up still blaming themselves for things that never should’ve happened?”
“It’s easy to judge me from where you stand. But I did the best I could.”
Kylie glared at the other woman. “Well, pardon me, but from what I hear, your best fucking sucked.”
She didn’t appear the least bit fazed by Kylie’s bluntness. She just shook her head and stamped out her cigarette on the concrete.
“I tried to stop him from taking this road, from following in his father’s footsteps. But he didn’t listen. And I see you and him and it’s like looking back in time.” Her eyes left Kylie’s and focused somewhere in the distance. “This little fairytale you’re living only ends one way. In the bottom of a bottle. Corbin men can’t handle disappointment without it.”