"Yeah, lets go," he said, and headed for the Harley parked near the table.
Page 17
Woods
She hadnt left me anything but a note. Shed taken all her things. I held the pillow shed slept on last night and pressed my face to it. It smelled like her. The sexy sweet scent that was Della.
How was I supposed to let her go? She didnt want me to find her . . . she wanted to live. This wasnt living for her. She had started out on a journey to see the world and shed met me. Now she wanted more.
Id hovered over her. I had tried to keep her safe and not let her do things she wanted. Id controlled her job and what she did. She wanted to spread her wings and Id clipped them. So shed found another way to fly.
My chest was so tight that each breath I took was painful. I hadnt called anyone. I hadnt left my house for hours. I held the pillow closer and glanced over at the clock. It was after nine. Id been home for five hours. How long had she been gone? Had she known last night that she was leaving me?
The look in her eyes as shed made love to me had been different. There had been something in them that bothered me. But she had been so passionate and needy that Id forgotten about everything other than the pleasure. If I had just looked deeper and talked to her . . . Instead, it had been about sex. When she had fallen to her knees in the kitchen, I was lost to whatever she wanted.
If Id only looked deeper.
How had she left me?
Slowly, a realization came to me and I stood up, still holding her pillow. The phone call from Tripp. He hadnt made sense but hed been trying to tell me. Motherfucker! Shed left with Tripp. She had called him and he had come for her.
The pain slowly started heating up as anger---no, fury---consumed me. She had left with Tripp. He had taken her from me. His call wouldnt have made sense to anyone. It had been his way of being able to say he had warned me when he knew I wouldnt understand him.
I reached for the lamp on the bedside table and threw it against the wall. Then I threw the sheets and shoved over the nightstand. I grabbed the mirror off the wall and smashed it, but the anger was still there. I punched the wall until my fist went through the Sheetrock and my voice seemed so far away, even though I was yelling. I had stepped outside of myself as my body went mad. Then I threw the pillow in my hand and everything stopped. That was all I had. Her pillow. I walked over to the pile of broken glass and furniture and picked the pillow back up. I held it reverently to my chest.
Her scent filled my senses and for a moment the fury eased. For a moment I wasnt a hysterical madman bent on demolishing everything in my house. I had her. I could hold this. I had her.
"Holy shit. " Jaces voice came from the doorway. I snapped my head up to see him looking into my room. The horrified look on his face as he lifted his eyes to me only made me angry again.
"Dude," he said, holding up both his hands. "You gotta calm down. "
He didnt understand. He hadnt just lost his reason for fucking living. She hadnt just walked away from him. Left him nothing but a note and a pillow. The note . . . shit.
I stalked to the door and shoved past Jace. I had to get the note. I had the note, too. It was something of hers. I had that. I wanted it. Even if the words in it tore me wide open, I wanted it.
The torn paper lay on the floor and I scrambled to pick it up. I couldnt read the words again. Not right now. I folded it carefully and tucked it into my pocket. Id keep it on me. This was her handwriting. Her words.
"Youre scaring me, man. " Jace had followed me to the kitchen.
"I need to be alone," I said without turning to look at him.
"I dont think you need to be alone. "
"Leave my motherfucking house," I snarled.
"Ive called Rush and Thad. Theyre on their way. Im not leaving you alone. "
I didnt want them here. I wanted to yell and break things. I wanted to find a way to ease the pain. "No! Why are you even here?"
"Tripp called me," he said slowly. Just hearing his name and knowing that he was the one who had Della made the monster inside of me snap. I reached for the glass in the sink and threw it across the room, shattering a picture.
"He took her!" I roared as I grabbed a plate and hurled it across the room. "He fucking took her from me!"
"She called him. She wanted to go with him, Woods. You gotta calm down. She left of her own free will. " I could hear the fear in Jaces voice but I didnt care. I grabbed a bar stool and began smashing it against the counter until the wood shattered into pieces in a heap on the floor.
"Holy hell. " Rushs voice registered in my brain but I couldnt think. I didnt want them there.
"Dude! Stop him. Hes gone fucking mad," Thad said.
Arms wrapped around me from behind and I fought against them, but they held me tighter. "Chill the fuck out. Breathe, man. Fucking take a breath. She isnt dead. She left. Shes out there and it aint over. So calm the fuck down," Rush said in a stern, loud voice as he held my arms back.
I took several deep breaths. He was right. She was alive. She had just left. She had left. "She left me," I said, and my voice broke.
"Yeah, she did. But you cant beat the hell out of your house. It wont bring her back and youre getting out of control. Get it together. I know what this feels like. Ive been there. Losing your shit doesnt make her come back to you. "
Rush had been here. He knew. Blaire had left him once. But shed been betrayed. Shed had a reason to. I hadnt hurt Della. I had only loved her.
"I didnt let her live," I said, lifting my eyes to look straight ahead at Jace and Thad, who were keeping their distance from me.
"She needs some space. Let her have it," Rush said.
"How do I keep going? With her gone? What do I do?"
Rush let out a sigh and slowly let his hold on me go. "You wake up each morning and you go to work. You smile when you think youre supposed to. You spend your free time thinking about her. Thinking about what youll say when you see her again. Then you go to bed and hope you get some sleep. Then you wake up and do that same shit over again. "
I leaned against the wall and hung my head. "What if she never comes back?" He didnt say anything at first. We stood there in silence among the destruction.
"Then you find a way to keep living," Rush finally said, and I realized that was my biggest fear. That Id be left needing to find a way, because Della might never come back.
"She was my go-all-in," I said as I stared down at the smashed-up bar stool.
"Your what?" Jace asked.
"Della was my go-all-in. She was my winning hand. You cant play when you go all in and lose. Im out. "
"No, youre not. This hand aint over yet," Rush said.
I hoped he was right.
Page 18
Two weeks later . . .
Della
"Where are we now?" I asked Tripp as I got off the back of his bike---without his help this time.
"What have you been doing back there? Sleeping? Weve passed several signs announcing our arrival at the home of the King," Tripp said as he grabbed our bags and headed for the hotel to get us a room.
"The King?" I asked, following him.
"Yeah, you know . . . hunka hunka burnin love," Tripp said.
"Elvis? "You mean were in Memphis?"
"Yep," Tripp said as he pushed open the door to the hotel and held it for me so I could go inside. Our first night I h
ad tried to stay in my own room, but the night terrors had come fast and hard. Since then, we got rooms with two beds and Tripp helped me when the dreams came, which was every night so far. We were both so tired this week that most nights we ended up falling asleep in the same bed once the terror was over, sleeping that way through the rest of the night.
"One room, two beds," Tripp told the lady, and she glanced over at me, then back at Tripp and flashed him a flirty smile. He got that a lot. When females realized we werent together they started throwing themselves at him. He ignored it for the most part. Sometimes there would be a girl he couldnt ignore. He would flirt back and take her number, which I thought was pointless since we werent coming back. But he said he might just come back one day.
Tripp got the key to our room and we headed to the elevator. I didnt feel like talking much. I had called Braden earlier and shed told me that Woods still hadnt called her. That bothered me. I should have been relieved. But I wasnt. The longer I was away from him without his calling Tripp or Braden, the more I realized this was what he wanted. Deep down, Id given him his out. I didnt want to think about his being in pain. It made it easier to function each day knowing that the never-ending ache in my heart was something I suffered alone.
"Youre quiet today," Tripp said as the elevator door opened and we stepped out onto the second floor. That was as high as Tripp would go. He had a thing about being too high up in a hotel. He said that if the place caught on fire he wanted to know he didnt have too many flights of stairs to take to get the hell out. I hadnt really thought about it but he had, apparently.
"Just not in the mood to talk," I told him.
"Your talk with Braden go okay?" he asked.
Sure. It had gone fine. She hadnt brought up Woods. She had only asked me where we had gone and what we were doing. Nothing more. "Yeah, it was fine. "
Tripp opened the door to our room and glanced back at me. "You okay if I go out and get a drink tonight?"
This was code for "You okay if I go out and get laid tonight?" He didnt know that I had this figured out and I preferred that we keep it that way.
Every night he went out for a drink he came back around two in the morning smelling like perfume. He would have made a horrible cheating husband.
"I want to order a pizza and watch cable. Go, do what you want," I told him as I walked into the room.