Blessed Fate (24 page)

The good news for all of us was that Rain did listen to Jared. To hear him tell it, she had been debating whether or not she could hang around with everything that had happened between us. Not surprisingly, that meant nothing to me, other than the knowledge Jon wasn't going to be forced to kill me and we still had one of the best female singers out there leading us on stage.

Day after day, I had to put on my game face when it was time to play. I didn't realize until things went sour just how many of our lyrics stemmed from situations involving my feelings for Rain. To say it sucked to hear her singing my words, my emotions, in front of packed festivals grounds every day would be an understatement.

Once Rain finally calmed down enough that she was able to be on the same bus with me, I thought we had crossed a hurdle in finding our way back to friendship, if nothing else. Instead, we sat across the table from one another drinking our coffee without saying a word. I wasn't sleeping much anyway, so it wasn't a huge issue for me to get out of my bunk when I heard the bedroom door open in the morning. After a while, I felt like a desperate fool, hoping that each morning was the day she decided to talk to me.

The day we were set to roll into Comstock, I couldn't take the silence any longer. Not only that, but I knew she was planning to take a few days off and hoped to weasel my way in to starting to break down the walls she'd so carefully crafted to keep me from hurting her again.

My foot shook under the table as I tried to figure out how to start a dialogue between us that she wouldn't shoot down before I could finish a sentence. I bit my lip before saying anything, more unsure of myself than I had ever been before. If it wasn't for how much I loved her, I would have easily hated the person I had become in the wake of this latest series of events.

"How's your dad doing?" I glanced up from my mug of coffee to gauge the expression on her face. Her eyes seemed to soften a bit and I leaned back, waiting for her answer.

"He's okay." Her face tightened, showing me she wasn't so sure that was the truth. "They put him on some blood thinners, and he isn't great, but he's better."

"Are you heading over there when we get to Comstock?" I looked down at the plate of eggs in front of me. I didn't want her to think I was ungrateful since she had been nice enough to make breakfast for both of us, but my stomach was in knots and I wasn't sure I could eat anything.

"Planning on it, but I have to see when Mike can come and get me." While I was happy she and her brother were finally getting along, I hated knowing that she was asking him to drive six hours round trip to pick her up and then bring her back. There was a time when it would have been a welcome break for us to jump on the bike for a drive that length to clear our heads.

"We can grab the bike as soon as we get there." See, desperate fool. If she had wanted me to take her, she would have asked, but she didn't because I was a jealous ass who didn't deserve to be around her.

"No, that's okay. Mike already said he'd drive over, I just have to find out when." This was the first time she had flat-out refused a ride on the bike and I felt the knife in my heart twist one more time.

"Rain, that's ridiculous. It'll be cheaper on gas, and I'll find a hotel somewhere until you're ready to come back." I scrubbed my hands over my face. I wasn't sure who frustrated me more: Rain for being so stubborn or me for being such a lovesick fool that I couldn't just let her go.

"I don't know, Colt. I just can't..." She stared out the window of the bus as we raced down the highway. Volumes were spoken in her silence, and I knew it was unlikely I would ever change her mind about me.

"Fine, suit yourself. I'm really not the asshole you've conjured up in your mind." I tossed my plate into the sink as I stormed away from her. I couldn't keep banging my head on the wall hoping something would change.

I stayed at the front of the bus with my iPod, allowing Rain to do whatever she needed to do to get ready to leave. Sometime before we arrived, I finally drifted off to sleep. The bus door slamming shut woke me up, and I was able to watch Rain, once again, walking away from us to go home. This time, I couldn't help but wonder how much more she could take before she cracked and decided that small town living really wasn't that bad and dreams weren't always all they were cracked up to be.

"You going after her?" Travis asked me as we ate lunch. Jon was still giving me the silent treatment, and Jared was back to living in his own little bubble, leaving Trav as the only person for me to talk to.

"I don't know man," I once again shoved food around on my plate. Maybe everyone who said I would eventually grow a vagina was right; turning into a woman was the only thing that could explain the way I was reacting to everything. "I tried telling her I'd give her a ride out there, and she shot my ass down. Hard."

"You really are an idiot, aren't you?" Jared chimed in. Okay, so maybe the wall of his bubble was getting thinner as he grew more comfortable with his fluid status with the band.

Jon snorted, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back to enjoy his front row seat for what was about to go down. When Jared looked at him nervously, Jon motioned for him to continue.

"She loves you. You love her. You're just both too caught up in your shit to see it." Jared leaned in closer as if he was preparing to share the meaning of life with us. "You screwed up. You need to work at it to show her you're sorry, and you're not going to give up that easily."

I glared at Jared. What did he know about Rain and me? Sure, he had seen the fireworks over the past few months, but he didn't know shit about the past five years. "Thanks, kid, but I've already tried that. Didn't work."

Jared rolled his eyes. "Seriously? You call trying to talk to her when we are all stuck in this alternate reality showing her you're sorry? You need to do something out there," he pointed out the window, "in the real world."

I looked to Jon, dying to know what was going through his head. He simply smirked and shrugged. Travis was fighting back laughter at the fact that a twenty-one year old kid with stars in his eye schooled me on how to handle women problems.

Shoving my iPod in my pocket, I pulled on my shoes and left the bus, no longer up for listening to them telling me what I needed to do. Truth be told, I thought we were all in danger of turning into a bunch of old women if we kept talking about the fate of my fragile relationship.

The longer I walked around the still empty fields that would soon transform into one of the country's largest rock festivals, the more Jared's words made sense. But I still worried it wouldn't be enough. I had given up on apologizing to her for what I had done; she would either have to believe me or not on that because I couldn't keep re-hashing that shit. Now, I needed to figure out what to do next.

"Colt?" My sister's squeaky voice always made me laugh no matter what was going on in my life. I hoped she would have some good advice for me because the guys weren't helping as much as they thought they were.

"Hey, Emmer. How are you and the kids?" Even though I called her to talk about my problems, I wasn't about to launch right into that topic. I missed Emerson and her twins, Aidan and Alex. They had moved to Texas with her fiancé almost a year ago, and it hadn't worked for us to spend any time together since then.

"We're good. The kids are getting huge and asking about you. I've been busy with work and planning the wedding. You're not calling to tell me you're too big and famous to take off for your little sister's wedding, are you?" She was talking about a mile a minute, just as she had always done. I cringed at the fact that I had to think for a minute about when the wedding was. We had been so busy. It was a date in the calendar on my phone but not something I actually thought about.

"No, nothing like that. Maybe I just wanted to check up on you," I lied. She knew I was lying because I was a shit liar.

"Bull. What's going on?" Her muffled voice told me she had pulled the phone away from her head as she said something to the kids, so I took the opportunity to think about whether or not I was really going to talk to her about my love life.

The moment of truth came when she told me I had her attention again and the floodgates opened. I told her everything. And I mean everything. I told her how I'd crushed on Rain from the moment I met her, didn't date because I wanted to keep myself available in case she ever changed her mind, and how close I'd come to giving up a couple times in that time. She had nothing kind to say when I told her about the depth of the hole I had dug in regards to Tanya and the problems it was creating now that Rain and I had gotten together.

"Do you love her, Colton?" She asked when I finally finished.

"Like no one else before," I sighed.

"Then Jared was right. You need to go be with her. Get her dad and her brothers on your side. No girl wants to upset her brothers," she laughed, knowing full well that she had upset me plenty of times with her choice in boyfriends.

"Her family isn't like that."
And I'm pretty sure I'm their last choice if she's talked to them. They probably want her to get together with Garrett-the-Director.

"How so?" She asked. I hadn't gone into much detail about how traumatic her mom's death, her dad's illness and all of that had been. While it held some bearing on us as a couple, I didn't think it was the type of thing Rain would want anyone knowing, even those closest to me, and I respected that.

Knowing that Emerson wouldn't let it go, I had to say something. "Let's just say they didn't talk much for a while before her Ma died. Now, they're working on getting to know each other again."

"Even more reason," she said bluntly. "Look, if you love her, don't waste your time off a few hours away while she's hanging out with this band-geek buddy of hers. Go, show her you're there for her and see what happens."

It became apparent no one was going to let me wallow on the bus. "Fine, but if this backfires, I'm hiring a polka band for your wedding."

With every mile that passed as I traveled down the Interstate, I questioned whether or not I was crazy for following Rain to her hometown. The only thing that kept me from turning around and heading back to the bus was the fact that, regardless of whether or not the guys would give me bad advice when it came to women, I knew I could trust Emerson to give it to me straight. After all, she had twenty-two years of being a female and was a pretty amazing woman.

Thanks to one colossal dose of second thoughts that led to dinner in a truck stop, it was nearly ten at night when I finally rolled into Lexington. I managed to get lost in a town of fewer than ten thousand people because I wasn't about to stop and ask for directions, couldn't call her, and I'd only been there once before.

I shifted from foot to foot, shifting my duffel bag on my shoulder as I waited for someone to answer the front door. Hearing music coming from the backyard, I was just about to walk around the house when the front door swung open.

"Hey, Colton," Matt said, extending his hand to me enthusiastically.
Okay, apparently our problems haven't made their way to the brothers. This is good.
"Didn't know you were coming out this way." The way he kept looking from me and then towards the sliding door, I wondered if I was interrupting something. He seemed almost as nervous as I felt.

"Is it a bad time?" I asked, not wanting to cause a scene and regretting listening to everyone who told me a surprise trip was a good idea. "I can just..." I pointed to the front door as I inched my way back.

"No, let me go get Maddie for you." He left me standing in the dark foyer rather than inviting me to the deck where there was obviously some sort of party going on. That did nothing for the anxiety threatening to make me lose my dinner all over the marble floor.

"...I can be friends with whoever I want!" Rain's agitated voice snapped me out of my own thoughts. Who was she talking to? Who was she talking about? Was Matt pissed that I was here? Maybe he did know what was going on.

Even in the dark, I could see Rain's icy glare as she stomped through the house. "Did you need something?"