“Let it go, Slater. He isn’t worth it. You, though, are worth every minute of every day.”
She weakens me, but in a way I don’t mind.
After lowering my fist, I lock my eyes with Sonny over Kylie’s shoulder. “You’re lucky I have more pressing things to handle right now.” I nudge my head to the exit sign illuminated in the far right of the space. “Pack your shit. You’re fucking done.”
I throw Kylie over my shoulder before charging for my dressing room, taking a mental note to send Melanie Marcus for a week after crossing this one off.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kylie
“Stop it.”
I slap Slater’s arm, simmering his chuckles from Jacob getting busted teaching Noah’s daughter, Maddie, how to flip the bird. We’re gathered in Noah and Emily’s cabin for Maddison’s first birthday. The rest of the band traveled back to their hometown two days ago, but Slater and I stayed in Los Angeles so we could cross a few more items off my list. We flew in this morning and headed straight to the cabin.
My return to this side of the country was a stark contrast to my trip two years ago. When I traveled to Melanie’s condo, I caught the bus. It was an exhausting forty-eight-hour trip, but it was the only way I could afford to get to the other side of the country. I used a majority of my savings having the windows on Jenni’s BMW replaced after Nick took to them with Slater’s baseball bat. I felt incredibly guilty for the way I behaved the night before, but since I couldn’t offer my apologies in person, I had to get inventive. It was an expensive apology, but the relief it came with lightened my shoulders.
I arrived at the bus station preparing to buy a ticket to travel back to the ranch. I had nowhere else to go and figured my dad would welcome me home if I turned up with my tail firmly planted between my legs. Just as I strolled up to the ticket counter, Melanie called me. The odd hour of her call wasn’t unusual. Even now she forgets the time difference between our states. When I answered, she squealed so loud, even the homeless beggar outside the bus station heard her. She was drunk dialing me—again! She had done it at least a hundred times since our friendship started.
When I burst into tears, her happy slurs stopped. There’s nothing more sobering than the gut-wrenching sobs of a heartbroken woman. After telling her everything that had happened, minus the detail that I was leaving an up-and-coming rock god, Melanie invited me to stay with her.
I originally declined her invitation. “I can’t travel across the country on a whim.”
“Why not?” she asked.
I went silent for a few minutes, trying to think of a legitimate excuse.
“What have you got to lose?”
“Nothing—”
“Exactly!” she said.
And just like that, the decision was made. I turned up on her doorstep two days later wearing the same clothes I left the cabin in.
Melanie and I met on an online forum for people diagnosed with ALL. She was diagnosed just shy of her twenty-first birthday and went into remission two years later. We were in Seattle celebrating her remission, and it was our final hurrah before we had to reenter the daunting world known as “life.”
Even via an internet connection, Melanie and I had an instant bond—just like I did with Slater. When we met face to face for the first time, I realized why we clicked so well. Melanie is a female version of Slater down to the most minute details.
Slater tried to brush off my confession with a laugh when I told him about their similarities last week, but after hitting him with evidence after evidence after evidence, not even he could deny their likeness. I hate that Melanie became my crutch right at the time I had to leave Slater without a leg to stand on, but I’m also grateful. I honestly don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t offered me a place to stay and a shoulder to cry on.
My thoughts are pulled back into the present when Slater bands his arms around my waist and draws me close. “Do you wanna go for a swim?”
My eyes snap up to his. “Isn’t that the pool they got married on?” I keep my volume on the down low, praying Emily and Noah won’t overhear our conversation. How was I to know when we were christening a random pool, they’d buy the cabin and get married on it?
“It’s a bit late to be worried about that now, isn’t it?”
When Slater pulls me back so I can feel his erection straining against his zipper, I scan the room. Noah is talking to Jacob on the sofa; Emily and Lola are replenishing the snack tables, and Jenni and Nick are playing with Jasper on the ground. A handful of people are hanging around the large living area, but I only recognize Maggie, and she’s too busy taking photos to notice us slipping out the side entrance to relive memories that kept me warm two winters in a row.
“Five minutes.” After spinning in his arms the best I can since he’s holding on tight, I press a quick kiss on Slater’s smiling lips. “And I mean five minutes this time.”
His lips curl against mine before he jerks up his chin. After a final scan of the room, I slip outside unnoticed. Within seconds, Slater is on my tail.
He’s forever impatient.
“What?” When he drags his lips down my neck, goosebumps rise in their wake. “You have no idea how many times I’ve stroked my cock to this very memory.”
I groan. “I may have flicked the bean on an occasion or two.”
