“Sure.” I stopped walking and waited for him to catch up.
“I’ll be waiting in the car.” Brady gave us a respectful nod and continued to the SUV.
“What’s up?” I asked, shoving my hands in my pockets.
“I’m sorry I didn’t clear the spa thing with you first,” Cash said. “It was a spur of the moment thing. Liv seems like she’s feeling really down, and I was talking about it with Antoni earlier. I remembered Ella took her to a spa for her birthday, so I thought maybe that might help cheer her up. Antoni wanted to go with her because he thought maybe she might need someone to talk to since Ella’s not around. You know he loves her to death. We all do.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for. I appreciate you doing that for her, and honestly, I wish I’d thought of it. I don’t know, man.” I shook my head and ground the toe of my Chuck Taylors into the pavement. “Something’s off. Maybe she realized the touring thing is too much for her?”
Cash folded his arms across his chest. “Something happened yesterday when we were in the greenroom, Jax. We were watching your interview back there, and she bolted.”
“Fuck.” I scrubbed my hands over my face. “Maybe she’s not ready for this… forus.”
“I don’t think that’s it.” Cash sighed. “I really don’t. I know she cares about you. Seeing the way she looks at you...” He trailed off, and his eyes fell to the ground. “It reminds me of the way Carrie used to look at me. It’s something special, Jax.”
I knew Cash deserved to know the real reason I hadn’t been able to write. He deserved to know the impact Carrie had on my life and everything leading up to now. “I need to tell you something, Cash.” I cleared my throat. “I didn’t tell you the truth about why I wasn’t able to write for so long.” I told him about the numerous conversations I’d had with Carrie leading up to her death. I filled him in on beginning the search for my mom and what Carrie told me.If I’d stayed angry, I would have missed out on so much love,she’d said. “But more than that, I realized if I kept living the way I was living, I may never get to have what you and Carrie had. I was so damn mad at the world. I was going through the motions, and now that I’ve found Liv…”
“You’re not angry anymore.” He squeezed my shoulder and gave me a faint smile.
I sucked in a deep breath. “Not even a little.”
“That’s love, man.” He ran his hand through his hair. “It has this weird way of driving all the anger out of your heart. It’s like it takes up so much space that there’s no room for it anymore.”
“But… how do you live without her?” I hated myself for asking the question because I knew it wasn’t the same. Carrie was gone, and even if I lost Liv, I’d still get to live in a world where she existed.
“I don’t know that I’d call what I’ve been doing living so much as existing,” he admitted. “I was so angry when Carrie died, or at least I thought I was. Really I just had all this love that had nowhere to go anymore. The truth is, I’ll never stop loving her. But listen, you’re not going to lose Liv. I truly believe that.”
“I hope you’re right.” I looked down at the asphalt and blinked back the tears that threatened to form in the corners of my eyes.
“And Jax?” I lifted my gaze to look at him. “Carrie would have loved her. She would have been so proud of you.”
“Fuck, man. I miss her.”
“I miss her too,” Cash confessed. “Every day of my life. Though I have to admit, things have felt… lighter since Liv came into our lives. And Ella and Grace. They’ve brought a lot of happiness to my life too.”
“I can’t lose her, Cash.” I shook my head adamantly. “I can’t.”
“I know.” He clapped me on the back. “I’ll see you back here this evening.”
“Thanks, man.” I nodded as he turned and started back toward the door. I steeled myself and walked to the car where Brady waited.
I wasn’t sure what was going on in Liv’s mind. I just knew I had to let her know, that no matter how much she tried to push me away, I wasn’t going anywhere.
Chapter 23
Liv
It turned out that aspa day with Antoni was exactly what I needed. We got massages and facials first, which gave me some time to decompress. I hadn’t been able to tell Ella about the interview or how I was feeling because there wasn’t much privacy on the bus. I was careful not to let her think anything was wrong. I knew how much she’d worry, but I longed for her advice.
Antoni and I drank champagne as we got manicures and pedicures, and the next thing I knew, I’d pretty much spilled not only all the details about how Jax and I got together but everything that happened in the seventeen years before that.
After a refill on our champagne, we were escorted to the sauna to wait until our stylists came to get us for our final stop of the day in the hair and makeup chairs.
“Okay, missy. What happened in the greenroom yesterday?” Antoni asked, his hand stroking the stubble on his face. “And you better not even try to give me that ‘I’m tired’ bullshit again, or I will smack you upside your unfairly beautiful face.”
I sighed and leaned my back against the wall, taking a sip of my champagne. “Remember when they asked Jax what his hopes were for the future? If he saw himself settling down and having a family?”
“Oh my God.” Antoni gasped, placing his hand on my shoulder. “You don’t know if you’ll ever want that?”
