Page 38 of Lies and Lullabies
“I’m not going away, you know,” I said suddenly.
“Of course you are.” Her voice was soft. “You’re on tour for ten weeks.”
Fuck. It was true. Summer touring was our bread and butter. “How do you know that, anyway?”
“Hush Note dot-com.”
I gave her a bitter chuckle. “If you were as easy to track as I am, I might have known I had a daughter about to turn four.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You said that already.” I looked away from her, because it pained me to look into her pretty face. She’d let me down so badly today that I almost couldn’t breathe. But that didn’t mean I wanted to hit back.
“Jonas, I’m sorry to say that you can’t be here when my father comes home from the store.”
“Why? Am I starring in a Spaghetti Western? Is he going to get out the shotgun?” I could see the storm I was causing in her face, and I wasn’t proud of it. I had to get a grip. “Kira, I can take whatever your dad throws at me. Hiding from him isn’t something I’d do.” And she should know that already.Fuck.
But her frown only deepened. “You need to go, okay? Not because of what he’ll say to you. Because of what he’ll say tome. I don’t have it in me to go ten rounds with him tonight. This is hard enough as it is.”
Oh, hell. I wish I could just scoop her up, along with Vivi, and take them somewhere quiet for as long as it took for the shock to wear off, and for the pounding in my head to stop.
But reality didn’t give a fuck about what I wanted. It never had. “All right. I’ll go. But only if you promise me you won’t leave town before we talk again.”
Her eyes widened. “I wouldn’t do that.”
I bit back the obvious retort.Why should I believe you?“Okay,” I said instead. “Do you have a cell phone?”
She nodded.
“Can I have it, please?”
She pulled it out of her pocket and handed it to me, and I got to work. First, I called my phone with hers and then added a couple things to her Contacts list. “I’m adding Ethan’s phone number as well as mine. He’s my emergency contact, okay?” I saved her number and one more to my phone. “I’m taking Adam’s number, too.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
When I was finished, I handed her phone back. “Call me, Kira,” I said, my voice low. “Any hour of the day. We’re leaving tomorrow at eleven. I need to see you before that.”
She nodded solemnly. Her troubled eyes broke my heart.
I took one step forward and pressed my lips to her forehead. I kissed her gently, inhaling the citrus scent of her shampoo. Feeling an unwelcome sting behind my eyes, I backed away. “Hey. Don’t worry, okay? I’m sorry I was a dick earlier.”
“You weren’t,” she whispered. “I had it coming.”
The bike I’d ridden here was still lying in the grass. I stood it up. “Call me.”
“I will,” she said.
There was no more left to say for the moment, and I was beat. Just utterly spent. So I mounted the bike and rode away.
The half-mile ride was a blur. In front of the lodge, I ditched the bike. I ducked inside and threw myself at my unmade bed. Five minutes later, the weight of the day was too much, and I fell into a long and dreamless sleep.
Eight
Jonas
Several hours passed before I felt the side of the bed compress under someone’s considerable bulk.
“Wakey, wakey,” Ethan’s voice prodded.
