Girl in Love(49)

So he did what he knew he should. He moved out of the way so Steven could sit next to her.

“Ohh, let’s make milkshakes,” her stylist friend suggested as he made his way off the bus.

“If there’s not a blender on this bus, you guys are up a creek. I’m not procuring a blender just because—”

He didn’t hear what else Hannah said. He couldn’t be a spectator in Kylie Ryans’s life.

After what had just happened in there, he was pretty sure he couldn’t be a part of her life at all.



TRACE WOKe up in the floor. The covers were wrapped around him as if he’d been wrestling them into submission. He was covered in sweat. He racked his brain and tried to remember if he’d had anything to drink earlier that night.

He hadn’t.

It was another nightmare then. They were back. Another highlight of sobriety.

Yanking himself out of his bed sheets, he stood and smoothed out the fitted sheet that had rolled off his mattress just as he had. He tossed his comforter back onto the bed. Just as he was about to step out into the kitchen for a glass of water, his door opened.

“Trace?” her soft voice whispered.

He froze. Kylie stood in his doorway, illuminated by the light behind her. Her legs were bare under her oversized T-shirt.

He swallowed hard and worked to locate his power of speech. “Yeah?”

“Um, you okay in here? I heard yelling and then a loud noise.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Fantastic. Just what he wanted. For her to know what a weak-ass baby he was. “I’m good. Must’ve been dreaming. Rolled out of bed.”

There. Hopefully she’d go on back to her room now.

“Another nightmare?” Her voice was soft, tentative and alluring. His dick threatened to go hard on him. But the shame of the situation kept his erection at bay.

He tried to swallow but couldn’t. Not easily anyways. “What do you mean, another one?”

“You have them sometimes. I hear…through the walls. You shout and moan and sometimes you cuss. Like you’re fighting with someone.”

Dammit. He knew exactly what she’d heard. His nightmares were always the same. Always had been. Well, sort of.

All his life he’d dreamt about his dad beating the hell out of his sisters and his being powerless to stop it. But after he’d left Kylie and gotten sober, sometimes the girl being hurt in his dreams was her. The shrink in rehab had himself a field day dissecting that one.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t realize you could hear.” He lowered himself onto the edge of his bed closest to her.

“You want to talk about it?” She took another step into the room.

Trace was torn. He wanted to pull her into his bed and bury himself deep inside her until he forgot everything else. His past, his present, his name. Everything. But he knew that wasn’t what she was offering. And he damn sure did not want to talk about it.

“Naw, I’m good. I’ll try to keep it down. You go back to bed and get some rest.”

The next words out of her mouth were the last ones he’d expected.

“Earlier tonight, I wasn’t upset about the article. I mean, it hurt that he called me a diva or whatever. But I was upset because my publicist had called me back about something that I thought was handled. Darla wrote a tell-all book. She found a way around the NDA you had her sign. Confessions of a Wicked Stepmother, she’s calling it.”

“No shit?” Well this was news. Even though he was surprised by this information, his body was one hundred percent aware that Kylie was coming closer to his bed. In his room. In the dark. In nothing more than a T-shirt. On the bus on which they were mostly alone as far as he knew.

“No shit. A small press picked it up and the demand for it has led to five thousand copies being printed.”

“Jesus. I’m so sorry, baby.” He almost clamped his hand over his mouth. He had no right to call her that. The darkness was fucking with his head. Confusing him and warping him back to a place in time where she was his.

It must’ve been confusing her too, because she didn’t correct him. Or yell at him. In fact, the only thing she did was come one step closer. Her legs were touching his bed. And for the first time in his life, he had no idea what to do with the woman in his bedroom.

So he remained as still as possible in an attempt not to break whatever spell the darkness had them both under.

“I never thanked you. Earlier…for the ice cream.”

“Well, I never technically said I was sorry for kissing you on stage in Detroit.”

“So we’re even then?” she asked quietly.

“Can we ever really be even, Kylie Lou?” He lowered his head into his hands briefly before looking up at her. “Can you ever really forgive me for all the pain I caused you?”