Sidewalk Flower (51 page)

“You couldn’t have done that with your
clothes on?
 
How big of a fool do you
think I am?
 
I know you well enough,
Jaxon; I know you’re a guy, just like me.”
 
He couldn’t imagine lying next to Trista, after just having gone through
that kind of ordeal with her, and not wanting to soothe her.
 
To be the man she needed.
 

“Look, you have to take my word for it,
Lucky.
 
I mean…what the hell?
 
If I wanted sex with her, if I was some
perverted, disgusting asshole, I would have done it out there on the fucking
hood of the God damned car!”
 
Jaxon
exploded at him with a loud, punching voice he was sure the entire Ritz had
overheard.
 

He, on the other hand, was
speechless.
 
But Jaxon wasn’t done.

“She was shaking and cold, Lucky.
 
You try lying next to someone who’s just been
through what we had and ignore that shit.
 
If you can, then you’re a cold-hearted son of a bitch.
 
I’m a lot of things, but that’s not one of
them.”

He had his own retort. “It should have
been me.
 
Okay?
 
I thought I was giving you some time to talk
or—
I don’t know—but not that
.
 
I left on good faith that you weren’t going
to take advantage of her, again.”

Jaxon shook his head and tugged down at
the skin on either side of his battered face with his cut up hands.
 

“Lucky, don’t be a fool.
 
Trissy told me last night, before all this,
that you are the one.
 
And I believe
her.
 
If there’s one thing that girl
doesn’t do,
it’s
lie.
 
I don’t have to tell you
that,
do I?”

Lord, he had no idea how to reconcile the
two extreme ideas tugging at his heart.
 
But why would Jaxon tell him he was the one Trista wanted if it wasn’t
true?
 
What point would that serve?

“Look, Jaxon, I hear what you’re
saying.
 
But if Trista wants me, all she
has to do is
say
the word.
 
Instead she keeps ending up with you.
 
I’m not trying to be a dick about this, but
what would you think if you were me?
 
Even if you tell me you didn’t sleep with her and I believe you, I don’t
even know if that matters now.”
 
He
slugged it over to Jaxon’s sofa and fell down into its cushions.
 
Their tautness didn’t allow for the slouching
he sought out.

Jaxon followed him and stood just feet in
front of him, his hands now raking his hair.
 
“What do you mean?
 
Of course it
matters.”

“No.
 
None of that matters as long as you have your hold on her.
 
If she won’t let that go…then what can I do?”

Finally, he’d said something Jaxon seemed
to understand.
 
His cousin ground his
heel into the plush carpet and pivoted to sit himself down in a nearby
chair.
 
The deep breath Jaxon let out was
so forceful it made its way to his face.
 
He bowed his head and ran his fingers through his hair to extinguish the
moment but looked back up when Jaxon spoke.
 

 
“That’s not going to be a problem
anymore.
 
In two hours, I’ll be on the
plane with the guys heading to our next gig.
 
Trissy won’t be.”

“What do you mean?”
 

“She’s taking some time off.
 
I suggested she go to her
gramma’s—
or
with you.
 
Some place she feels safe.”

“I don’t know what to say, Jaxon.
 
On one hand, I hate you for what you’ve taken
from her.”

“It’s okay; I hate myself for that,
too.
 
That’s why she needs you,
Lucky.
  
I need you to be there for her.”

“And if Trista disagrees?”
 
That was a question they hadn’t thought of.

Chapter
Thirty-Three

Decided on trying to make this work the
best they could for now, Lucky made his way with Jaxon back down the classy
hallway of the hotel, to Trista’s room.
 
He still had her key and so he let them in after a few unanswered
knocks.
 

They stepped inside.
 

“Trista?”

“Trissy?”

They called her name so as not to startle
her if she was dressing or in the bathroom—with the lights off—for some
reason.
 
But there was no one in the
room.
 
The covers had been pulled up
loosely to the head of the bed.
 
The
chairs pushed back in to the table and the lights all turned off.
 
The heavy black-out curtains had been opened
about a foot’s width, and the sunlight seemed like a foreign new adornment to
what had been such a dark cave the past few hours.
 

Trista was gone.
 

He was the first to pull out his cell and
call her.
 
Jaxon picked up the room phone
to ring the front desk but then hung up muttering something about it being
strange that he’d be calling from the room he was inquiring about.
 
Lucky nodded in agreement.
 

He looked to Jaxon and shook his head in
a negating side to side motion.
 
“She
isn’t answering.
 
I’ll leave her a
message to check in.”
 
He walked to the
window and spoke into the phone, begging her to check in.

“All right.”
 
Jaxon paused for a moment while deciding what
to do.
 
“I’ll call Grace.
 
Maybe our girl has checked in with her.”

He frowned at the term as he did a once
over of the rest of the room, searching for any sign of his Trista.

Jaxon’s call to Gramma Grace seemed to be
getting them somewhere.
 
He listened
closely to Jaxon’s side of the conversation.

“So she’s on her way to you, that’s
good.
 
Good.
 
I was worried.

“Yes, but then I had to leave and I just
hadn’t expected her to be gone so quickly.

“Yes, ma’am.
 
He’s here with me.”
 
Jaxon tilted his chin up at him.

He continued to listen intently as Jaxon
attempted to explain parts of the situation but it didn’t seem to be going
well.
 
The phone probably wasn’t the best
way.
 
Just then, Jaxon became instantly
rigid in his stance and grimaced.
 
What
had Gramma Grace asked?

“Well, the three of us had a
misunderstanding this morning.
 
It was my
fault and I made a bit of a mess of things.
 
When you hear from her again, will you please have her call Lucky?
 
What happened, it wasn’t his fault
Grace.
 
It was mine.

“Yes, ma’am.
Me, too.
 
Thank
you.”
 
The phone flipped closed.

Jaxon turned to him and said, “She’s left
and has a flight to Tennessee.”

“Should I go after her or do you think
she needs some time?”
 
He didn’t know why
he was asking Jaxon for advice, especially when it concerned Trista.
 
But Jaxon had just manned up on the phone
with Gramma Grace in a huge way.
 
And he
respected that.

“Honestly?
 
I think she needs some time to herself.
 
But yeah, if it was me, I’d be doing my best
to catch up with her right now.”

He nodded his head and bit in on his
lower lip.
 
He had to decide if he was
going to follow in his cousin’s footsteps or try a different route.
 
If Trista needed time away, it was
conceivable that he would be included in that package of people she needed a
break from.
 
He had left her and then
come back and then scared her off.
 
She
would probably need some time to sort through all that.
 

Trista had to contend with being attacked
and losing, at least temporarily, her life’s work and her best friend.
 
It wasn’t even clear what his expectations
would be if he was the one dealing with that amount of pressure.
 
But one thing he did know was that he wanted
to be there for her.
 
He wanted to be her
friend.
 
And he wanted her to know he
still loved her.
 
He wasn’t Jaxon.
 
Never had been and never would be.

Chapter
Thirty-Four

It had been three months since Trista had
last seen Lucky.
 
The image of his face,
hurt and dejected as he watched her unsuccessfully try to hide the fact that
she was in bed, naked, with Jaxon, had haunted her ad nauseam.
 
Even from where she sat now, alone in the
quiet room, surrounded by stoic wooden seats, vases of fresh lilies and the
exquisitely formed stained glass window panes, she couldn’t escape her guilt at
how she’d treated the good and sweet Lucky.
 

Her last words to him—asking that he not
leave—hadn’t been enough and she knew it.
   
She realized the stupidity of her plea in light of what he saw as clear
as day and as badly as she’d wanted to explain everything that had happened
that night, she just couldn’t force her brain to form the words, to say it out
loud.
 
Without any explanation, there
really was only one sane choice for Lucky to make, and how could it have been
one to stay as she’d so weakly asked?

A few days later, she’d mustered up the
humility to call him, just once.
 
And she
understood the feeling he must have had when he’d initially decided not to
contact her when he had been the one to leave.
 
The worst of it centered on the unknown but surmised fact that this man
she’d let go probably wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her.
 
The only reason she’d gone through with it
was that she remembered the sick feeling of not knowing if he was okay.
 
She refused to have Lucky worry about her in
that way.

As soon as he’d answered, she began her
rehearsed speech, not allowing him to even say hello.
 
“Lucky,
it’s me.
 
I just wanted to let you know
that I’m okay and you don’t need to worry about me.
 
I know you must hate me and I’m sorry for
everything.
 
I hope one day you can
understand.
 
That’s all.
 
I just wanted to let you know that.”

She’d hung up before he’d had a chance to
respond.
 
And the five successive calls
he’d made to her phone after that went straight to her voicemail.
 
The first four were simply his attempts to
get her to answer.
 
The fifth one was a
heart-breaking message.
 
“Trista, I don’t hate you.
 
I couldn’t.
 
I understand, more than you know.
 
I know you need some time.
 
When
you’re ready, darlin’, please call me.”

And that was it.
 

Three months had now passed and she
hadn’t called him and he hadn’t called her.

She was terribly saddened to have left
things so shredded and raw.
 
No closure
to be had.
 
She remembered the beautiful
song he’d sung to her and the way he’d asked her to leave and start a new life
with him, at his home, not so far from where she was now.
 

The bible that Gramma kept on the
nightstand in her room, the one she’d never cared to open before, now held the
pressed remains of a wilted dandelion she’d found in her hotel room the morning
she left.
 

She missed Lucky so badly.
 
But what was done was done.
 
It was best this way.
 
It would most likely take her a lifetime to
sort everything out.
 
And she didn’t want
to present herself as anything less than healthy in mind, body and soul to
whoever might love her next.
 
Lucky had
asked her to be sure of that once.
 
She
would never forget the way he’d held her in such high regards.
 
Ones she hadn’t deserved.
 
But now she was trying so hard to be
worthy.
 
And he would never know.