Page 50 of Drum Me Away
“No,” she said, lifting her hand to cut me off. “Stop.” She deliberately turned away from me to face her mother. Her arm slipped back around Maria’s waist, and said to the woman who, in my opinion, hadn’t done them any favors other than give birth to them, “Let’s go pay our respects. The way we are supposed to.”
With zero hesitation, Mrs. Hearsy twisted on her heel and strode toward the room where her mother was laid out in an elegantly appointed casket.
Ava followed in her footsteps. Faith started forward, guiding Maria.
“Faith,” I called out.
Her step hitched, and she paused for the briefest moment but then continued forward.
Without looking at or acknowledging me.
I stared after her, willing her to turn around. Give me something, anything to let me know she wasn’t blowing me off. That she wasn’t choosing this life she supposedly hated over the band.
Over me.
“If there’s one piece of advice I can give you, son, it’s not to let a woman destroy you.”
I’d not heeded my dad’s warning, and look where I was. Standing by myself in the middle of a viewing for a dead person I didn’t even know. A family I didn’t like.
A woman who didn’t love me back.
A woman I was now convinced didn’t have the capacity to love. Hell, I’d feared that long before this day, and yet I’d still let myself believe…let myself fall.
Fuck this.
I pulled the band out of my hair, tugged on my tie until I could get it over my head, and then I dropped it on the carpet. Unlatching the buttons at my throat, I was fully aware that a couple of strokes of my Darkheaven tattoo were now visible on what was exposed of my chest.
I had to get out of here. If I didn’t, I’d surely suffocate. I needed to put distance between myself and Faith. I needed to make sure she couldn’t inflict any more damage on my heart.
Glancing around the lobby, I spotted Dahlia standing off to the side, looking down at her phone. She’d obviously found Maria’s purse, judging by the giant bag hanging, along with her own purse, from her arm. She looked so confident, like it was perfectly normal for a woman to carry around two purses.
If only Faith had that sort of confidence. Maybe our short-lived love affair would have had a different ending.Oh wait, let me take the word love out of that thought.
Striding over to Dahlia, I said, “Where is everyone?”
She glanced up, her gaze zoned in on my hair, then my chest, and then shot up to my eyes. I saw the concern in her own. This woman was paid to take care of us, yet she was more emotionally involved than Faith ever would be.
“I’m fine,” I said before she could ask. “I just need to get out of here.”
“Shit,” she said, but then she shook her head and added, “Angel and Matt have their own rental car, and I’m sure they’d be happy to help you escape.”
I snorted. No need for escape. Faith wouldn’t even realize I was gone. She was too busy trying to fit into the mold she swore she left behind all those years ago.
Dahlia nodded at the arched doorway leading into the room where the body was laid out. “They’re in there. I think the rest of them might have already headed downstairs to the reception room to break into the food. I’ll go round them up. Do you want us to meet at your Airbnb?”
I shook my head. “No. If we’re meeting anywhere, let’s go to your hotel or house or whatever y’all rented. But honestly, I’d rather just get on a plane and go home.”
CHAPTER18
Faith
Well,that went as well as it could have.
If my mother realized Maria was drunk, she didn’t let on—of course, what else would I expect from the woman whose name was probably in the dictionary under “ice queen”?
As soon as we’d paid our respects, appearing as the perfect, tight-knit family—even my father managed to make a brief appearance before muttering something about a report being due and slipping out a side entrance—I turned Maria over to her husband with the strong recommendation that he take her home immediately. He’d figure out soon enough that she was inebriated, but there was nothing I could do about that. Hell, maybe her drunken state would help her to talk to him, to work through the issues they were clearly having.
I hoped they worked everything out. I didn’t want my sister to be unhappy.
