Page 35 of Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit
But that was because no other girl had ever mattered this much. I certainly hadn’t cared about their reputations, and I hadn’t given a single fuck about their feelings or how they might react to being used in a hotel hallway and then deserted.
Lila was different. She’d been different from the start, and she deserved better.
Fuck.
I put her down and moved backward, my mouth dry and my mind reeling. She stared up at me, her brow creased in confusion and her lips still swollen from my kisses. I watched the flush of mortification start upward, from her chest to her neck, and hated myself for what I was doing. For the hurt I was causing her right now.
But it was for the best. I couldn’t just fuck her in a hallway. Iwouldn’t. Because she wasn’t a throw-away sort of girl, and I’d never treat her like she was.
I opened my mouth to try to tell her so—to say anything, really, to take that look of betrayal off her face—but realized I didn’t have any words available to me. Nothing I could say would make this any better, and it would probably make it worse, in the end. Better for her to think I was just too drunk to know any better and running away from her the way I had in the past.
That way she could hate me instead of hating herself for doing something she shouldn’t have done.
I turned and stumbled into my room, my phone out and the reception desk’s phone ringing. When they picked up, I gave them Lila’s room number and told them she’d been locked out and to please send someone up with a key.
And then I closed the door behind me, knowing that someone far more responsible than me was on their way to take care of her.
I needed to get sober and get my head in order. I felt way too much for the girl, and I needed to get a handle on that before someone got hurt.
I was no hero. And I’d be a fool to pretend I could ever save her from anything when I’d never been able to save anyone before. Lila Potter might be the most amazing girl I’d ever met, all sunshine and rainbows, but that didn’t change the fact that I had never been any good to anyone else.
She needed someone who could match her energy. Not a damaged rock star on his way toward rock bottom.
18
LILA
Istared into the mirror, wondering whether I had enough makeup in my bag to fix the problem. I hadn’t slept all night, and I definitely looked like it. Dark circles ringed my eyes and I was paler than usual, my freckles standing out against my skin as the only source of color. So concealer and maybe some blush. Plus plenty of mascara to try to make myself look more awake.
Unfortunately none of that would do anything for the haunted look inside my eyes. That had more to do with the thoughts I’d spent the night with. And Rivers’ sudden disappearance from the hallway last night.
I didn’t think mascara was going to fix that. Maybe some sunglasses, though.
“You don’t look good,” a voice suddenly said from the doorway.
I closed my eyes for a moment before I turned toward Anna. I’d been really, really hoping she wouldn’t be up yet. Or that she’d be up and out doing something useful, like having breakfast and talking to Taylor about why we couldn’t actuallystay on this tour because I was going to have to back out of my deal with her.
A useless wish, considering Anna didn’t know about that yet.
“Didn’t sleep well,” I said, hoping I sounded more casual than I felt.
She lifted a very elegant, very serious eyebrow, looking like someone who hadn’t been up all night questioning her life choices, and didn’t answer.
“No need to look so judgmental,” I snapped, whirling back toward the mirror and grabbing for my mascara.
That brought a snort, and I met her glance in the mirror. “If you have something to say, I wish you’d just say it.”
She shrugged. “What would I say? That I told you it was a bad idea to get involved with him? That he was trouble, and not the good kind? Or that you should have talked to me before you signed on to that deal with Taylor James? Because I’m pretty sure you already know all of that.”
I wanted to argue with her and tell her she was wrong about all of it, but I couldn’t. And she didn’t even know the half of it. I hadn’t told her that he’d found me in the hallway last night, barely dressed and desperate, and had proceed to pin me to the wall and let me know exactly how much he wanted me. She didn’t know about the drive yesterday, or what we’d shared in the meadow.
And I wasn’t about to tell her that he’d ravaged me last night and had me wrapped around him, only to turn and walk away before anything could happen. I didn’t know what that had been about—I didn’t know why he’d left the stage in a rush when we finished singing—and I damn sure wasn’t going to tell Anna about it.
She’d flat out kill him, and though I was furious and confused, I didn’t exactly want him dead.
Yet.
At some point, I was going to pin him down and make him tell me what was going on, and as far as I was concerned, Anna didn’t need to know anything until I understand what was happening. The guy wasn’t great at communication, true, but he obviously knew enough to know how he was feeling. He’d gone from ignoring me to basically kidnapping me and making love to me to ignoring me again and then mauling me in the hallway.
