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Pierre: I’m not signing anything until you agree to meet me.
Pierre: You always were a shitty lay. I was sorry for you.
Pierre: My lawyer and I will fight this and you’ll lose. You have no chance unless you talk to me.
Pierre: Call me by 3 p.m. or my offer to negotiate is off.
I watched the words appear on my phone, the messages coming one by one. It had been like this ever since I got here. Pierre hadn’t expected me to come back, to go after what he owed me. He refused to acknowledge that he owed me anything at all. He preferred to frame it as me coming after him to ruin him for revenge.
He didn’t have a legal leg to stand on, which only made him angrier. I knew Pierre—paying a lawyer’s bill would enrage him. He’d heard about me touring with the Road Kings, and he wouldn’t be able to stand the idea that I was doing something without him, something that wasn’t just wallowing in my own misery. Which Ihaddone, for far too long.
Never again.
The messages kept coming—part of his tactic was to wear me down—and I felt numbness creep over me. He was trying every trick in the book: insults, crude sexual images, offers to get back together, demands that I obey him or else. He’d used all of these at one point or another while we were together, so I recognized them. The difference now was that they had no effect on me except to make me feel sad for the time I’d lost, letting him get to me.
I should block him. Blocking Pierre would be easy, and at some point I would do it. But not yet. For some reason I didn’t quite understand, I needed to see these messages. In a dark way, they reassured me that what I went through with Pierre wasn’t imagined, that the sacrifice I’d made to get away from him was the right choice. They reminded me of how much I’d changed from the version of me that had been his girlfriend.
And I shared his texts with my lawyer.
All of his attempts at manipulation came back to one thing: he wanted to meet me in person. This, I knew, was another attempt to control me. He believed that if we were face-to-face, he’d be able to manipulate me more easily than he could by text. It also meant that he could hurt me if he wanted to, and as angry as he was, I think he wanted to.
I wasn’t going to meet with him.
I looked at Pierre’s ugly words, and through the numbness I remembered the feel of Axel’s hands on me, the slide of his palms over my skin, the way it felt to tuck my face into the crook of his neck and inhale him. The pleasant rumble of his voice. How he liked to drift to sleep with his arm flung around me. How he’d rubbed my shoulders and watched TV with me when I had cramps. How he’d gone so slowly with me, gently unfreezing my body and my heart, taking his time. How, from the moment he’d opened his door the and invited me out to lunch the day I knocked, he’d saved me from drowning.
I’d had that. I was worthy of it. Nothing Pierre could say to me now could change that.
Ignoring the texts yet again, I put my phone in my purse, pushed back my chair, and left the shop to go back to my hotel.
THIRTY-THREE
Brit
I was staying at a mid-level hotel, the kind that offers terrible coffee and a few runny eggs in the morning and calls it breakfast. There was an airport shuttle, a pool (probably not clean) and a tiny hotel gym (definitely not clean.) After ten weeks in hotels, I was used to it, and at the same time I was so tired of it I felt it in my bones.
I lifted my ponytail off my neck, feeling the sweat drying there as I walked down the hall to my room. With my key card in hand, I stopped.
He was sitting on the floor next to my door, his back to the wall, one knee up with a forearm draped over it and one long leg stretched out. Worn jeans with a rip in the knee, a snug black sleeveless shirt, black Converse. I took in the familiar ink on his arms, the silver rings on his fingers, the shine of his blond hair. Rock n’ roll, sitting right here in this drab hallway. I couldn’t breathe.
Axel looked up at me, his blue eyes wary. “Did I wait long enough?” he asked.
My heart turned over. I’d asked him to wait—I’d been really clear about that—but in this moment, I was so happy to see him I wanted to cry. The heat, this awful trip, the homesickness, the hateful messages on my phone, all of it weighed heavy on me, and then it went away. Because that’s what happened whenever he was around.
I cleared my throat. “Yes,” I managed. “Also, you’re pretty brave to sit on that carpet.”
He’d been worried. Worried that I’d tell him to turn around and leave. I could tell when the worry left his eyes and a hint of humor entered instead. “You’ve seen how it gets on the road. A bit of pukey carpet doesn’t scare me.”
I felt myself smiling back as Axel stood up. I wanted to touch him, but if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop, so instead I moved around him to swipe the keycard in my door. “Come in.”
He picked up a small overnight bag I hadn’t noticed before. “I don’t have to stay,” he said when he saw me glance at it. “That isn’t what this is. I can get my own room.”
He was being so careful, and I appreciated it, and at the same time I wanted him to stop being careful with me. I was ready for it. Axel didn’t have to treat me like I was fragile anymore. “You’re staying,” I said, a little forcefully.
“Yes, ma’am,” Axel said, following me into the room.
Oh, lord, I was going to jump him, hard. I had to orbit away from him just to try and keep some control. I crossed to the room’s fridge, kicking off my uncomfortable heeled sandals. “Want some water?” I asked, taking out a bottle. “It only costs fifty dollars.”
“I like that dress,” Axel said.
