Page 74 of Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit
The orphanage where women dumped their unwanted kids and probably never thought about them again. After they went back to their trailer park, where they probably still fucking lived.
I’d been willing to do the small towns leading up to Jonesboro. I wasn’t willing to do Jonesboro itself.
And just like that, my plans changed. I got up and made my way toward Taylor, who was sitting at the back of the bus. Dropping into the seat across from her, I reached over and grabbed her wrist.
She jerked and looked up at me like I’d just burned her, and maybe I had. I didn’t think I’d ever touched the woman before.
“I’m off the tour,” I told her bluntly.
She frowned. “You told me you’d do two more shows. We’ve been doing publicity based on that assumption.”
“And now I’ve changed my mind. I’m not playing Jonesboro. You’ll have to find someone else. As soon as we stop, I’ll find my own ride back to Nashville.”
I stood before she could answer and made my way back to my seat, popping in some earbuds and doing my best to telegraph to everyone that I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to lose myself in some music and forget about where we were going. Forget what had happened there—again and again and again.
And I didn’t need anyone else to try to try to pull me out of the slump I was heading for.
40
LILA
We got to Jonesboro quicker than we’d ever gotten to any other city, and though I thought that might be because Anna and I were on the official bus now, and therefore way more comfortable, one look at Rivers as he was leaving the bus told me that wasn’t true.
We got there so quickly because the universe was keeping me from working out a plan for what I was going to say to him.
I’d gotten onto said bus with one goal in mind: to come up with the right words for him. To maybe even approach him and try to draw him out in conversation. Ask him more about what had happened in Missouri. Find an opening for telling him what I’d figured out and getting him involved. By the time we stopped again I wanted to have my feet under me and know that I was doing the right thing when it came to Rivers.
Instead, the universe had sped time up to something that made no sense, and it had taken us about five minutes to get from one city to the next. And even if I’d had time to start a conversation with Rivers, his expression wouldn’t have encouraged it. He’d taken one look at the list of cities we were hitting next, his face darkening as quickly as a Tennessee skywhen a storm was coming in, and had practically run for Taylor at the back of the bus. Whatever he’d said to her had made her face just as angry as his, and he’d been back in his seat before I had time to make three guesses at what he might have told her. He’d spent the rest of the ride staring out the window like we were driving him right to his death.
It hadn’t been good for that whole brainstorming thing I was supposed to be doing. He looked furious and terrified at the same time, resigned and yet like he was waiting for someone to come save him from whatever was coming.
I mean, I knew where we were going, and I knew why it had him in such a mood. Or at least I thought I knew. Jonesboro was our next stop, and that city, according to Matt and my research, held not only the orphanage where Rivers and Matt (and Noah and Hudson) had been held, but also the foster families that had done Rivers so wrong.
It also, according to the email I received, held what was left of Rivers’ family.
Which of those things had him so upset, I wondered. Which was the worst piece of the puzzle? And why was he still dreading them so much when he was one of the biggest stars on the planet, renowned across the world for his husky voice and talent with a guitar? He was an adult now and didn’t have anything to fear from the city where he was born.
Why was it affecting him so deeply?
I’d hardly had the thought before we were pulling to a stop in the circle in front of a large hotel, the bus barely fitting under the overhanging roof. I put my feet down to the floor, getting ready to stand up, and was nearly knocked back by the body rushing past me.
Rivers, working to be the first off the bus. He had his guitar case in his hand and his eyes on the door, and I didn’t think heeven realized there were other people here. He certainly didn’t stop to apologize for knocking me backward.
Though one look at the stiffness of his shoulders and the way his knuckles had grown white around the handle of his guitar case told me that he had only one thing on his mind, and it had nothing to do with the rest of his band, the bus itself, or the tour.
Hell, at this moment I doubted he even remembered who I was or what we’d been doing together last night.
* * *
“What do you mean you’re going out? It’s almost midnight!”
I threw Anna’s hand off and headed for the door of our suite, wondering how big we had to get before we warranted our own rooms. Taylor was paying for the suite at this point based on the promised contract and the fact that we were performing almost nightly, but seriously, couldn’t she spring for two rooms rather than one?
Not that I was complaining. Anna was my best friend and had been ever since I could remember. She’d been a standing part of the band I created with my sisters, and I couldn’t imagine my life without her. I would have been lost if I was sleeping in a room on my own. Hell, I probably would have been sneaking into her room in the middle of the night just to see if she was still up and wanted to go down to the café for some late-night pie.
But still.
Right now, I didn’t want to have to answer her questions or deal with the judgement I knew was coming for me. I definitely didn’t want to deal with the idea that she might be right.
