Tears streaked down my face, and I didn’t hold them back like I normally would. I just didn’t have it in me right now. I sniffed, my heart literally aching as I stepped back onto the stool with the intention of returning the guitar to its hanger.
All it took was one solemn nod, and a swift mental kick in the ass to remember this wasn’t who I was. Regardless of how I had turned out, those people did not raise me. I was able to honestly admit I was happy to have spent twelve years of my life with my dad. He taught me how to be tough and not take anyone’s bullshit. With that, my mind was made up. I wasn’t leaving without this guitar.
I rested the neck of the guitar against the black and silver Peavey stool, lifting my middle fingers in the air even though no one was here to see me do it. Fuck the consequences, and, most importantly, fuck Skip Turner. I didn’t care how much money he had given for this. This guitar wasn’t just some shitty little memorabilia that should hang on a wall and be forgotten. It was the only piece of my mom I had. I did the only thing any rational person would do in my position. For the second time, I ran toward the exit, only this time, I carried love with me.
7/
skip
“I know,Maryland, you don’t have to remind me again.” I blew out a long puff of air, giving it my best shot to convince her I wasn’t a complete imbecile. I had eyes, and they could read a calendar as well as hers, probably better considering I was a good thirty years younger than her. I wasn’t trying to be a dick, but it came naturally to me, so it was a challenge being around her.
“I’m only trying to help you, dear. There’s no ring on that finger, and you seem alive and well enough to me. You’ll be breaking countless hearts again this season. What about that gorgeous woman who ran out of here the other day? Maybe she could be your secret valentine. If you’re off the market, it would throw the others off your trail.”
“One, I don’t know her name, and two, how do you even know she was here?” I asked cocking my head to the side, noticing the shop door open wide. I didn’t bother adding I had no intentions of breaking my tradition of not participating in everyone else’s traditions.
“Fiona Dupree, and she’s staying at the bed and breakfast.”
“How?” I asked, giving the shop a once over and flipped on the overhead lights.
“It’s Cupid’s Cove, Skip. There’s no secrets in this town, or have you forgotten?”
I shook my head in response, holding my hand up when Maryland tried to follow me into the shop. She had been the last to leave here earlier, and the sanest explanation was she hadn’t closed the door, but it wasn’t the only possibility. Someone could be waiting for us inside, and I refused to put her in harms way. “I have work to do, Maryland. Thank you for the coffee.” I nodded.
“Skip, you do realize you have to actually allow someone in the door to kick them out of it, right?”
“Technicalities.” I forced my voice to remain calm as not to alarm her when my eyes shot to the empty spot in the back of the store. Feather’s guitar was gone. The normal thing to do would be call the Sherriff, but this was personal. I’d spent a small fortune getting it back into my hands after Angel passed, and I swore to myself it would never fall into ungrateful hands again. The inscription that laid inside was the first of my lyrics Feather ever sang on stage, so it was as much a part of my history as it was his family’s. They didn’t care about it as much as they let on they did; otherwise, they would have never let me buy it.
“Think about what I said, Skip.”
“Will do,” I absentmindedly answered her, closing and locking the door as soon as I was certain it wouldn’t hit her.
“Move to Cupid’s Cove they said. Nothing bad ever happens in Cupid’s Cove. Idiots! Everything bad happens here,” I said, roughly dragging my fingers through my hair out of irritation, taking the stairs to my office two at a time. The one time I’d forgotten my phone on my desk was the time this happened. Whatever the odds of that happening was it had to be extremely small.
Whoever stole from me must have gigantic set of cojones between their legs, accompanied by a peanut sized brain. Unlike them, any person with at least half a brain would never dreamof leaving such expensive things unattended. The camera’s feed would soon tell me who the dipshit was.
After angerly tapping my passcode into my phone, my fingertips swiped across the screen until I got to my security app. My eyes widened in bewilderment as I watched the last person in the world I would have expected to reenter my shop, much less be my big-balled thief. I couldn’t make sense of what I was watching.
“Why the fuck didn’t you look for me?” her perfect lips said in a voice barely above a whisper, and then she read my lyrics out loud,“Angel, may love always live in your heart and guide your soul back to heaven when you lose your way.”I could admit, after she ran away from me the other day, I never expected to see her again and almost felt sorry for the way I treated her.Almost. All of those remorseful feelings were obliterated when she put all but two of her fingers down and spun in place, making sure she flipped off every inch of the store before sprinting off with my guitar.
The woman was delusional, downright certifiable. When we met, I went out of my way to be a dick to her, but she was no ray of fucking sunshine herself. She warned me that she wasn’t someone to mess with, and I’d assured her nothing good would come from her smart mouth. Hell, I almost flopped my cock out in broad daylight, giving her the ultimatum to suck it or get the fuck out. To say I lost my mind was an understatement.
I was fuming. My mind raced as a blur of how to handle this raced through my mind. To think, I had started feeling guilty about how I treated her. One thing was for sure, I had zero remorse for my behavior now.
I rewound and paused the video feed to find a clear shot of her face.Conveniently, the only time she looked directly at the camera was while she flipped me off. This left no lingering questions. She not only knew about the cameras but hadintentionally waited until that precise moment to stare at me through the camera.
“Checkmate, pretty little monster. The devil is coming for you,” I promised her, taking a screenshot of her while staring at her smug face.
8/
skip
Even though thebed and breakfast wasn’t all that far from my store, I hadn’t actually been inside it a day of my life. I didn’t see a point staying there since I had my own place with a perfectly good bed I could sleep on. Why would I pay to sleep in a bed when mine was in the same town?
With each step that brought me closer to where she was with my guitar, I lost more and more of my sanity and my ability to remain calm. My teeth ground against each other so hard my jaws ached from the pressure. About halfway there, I stopped. Nothing good would come from me losing my shit in front of everyone at the front desk. I needed to find out which room she was in and get her alone before I went off on someone else. Making it further than that was a fucking absurd expectation that I would never meet.
My breaths came in an erratic pattern as the hate for this woman eroded inside my body, and fire scorched my soul, leaving me to deal with the aftermath. I refused to be held responsible for what I was about to do.
Regardless of how this day started, it would end with my revenge. When I reached the door, I stopped. I needed a minute. Nix that, I could stand here the rest of the damned day tryingto level my breathing, while figuring out how this should be handled, and still would come up without an answer. I wasn’t able to form logical thoughts at this point. I was unstable, and it was her. Fucking. Fault.