AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Awesome. Just freaking awesome. “Alright. Thanks, Daisy. I’ll see you later at checkout?”
She nodded. “I’m sorry for being such a lightweight last night. I hope I wasn’t inappropriate or obnoxious. Some of the evening is a little fuzzy.”
I forced a smile. “Nah. You were all good.”
Rather than go back to my room, I went downstairs and got some coffee and fresh air. I was going to need to be more alert than I felt right now for my conversation with Lala. Searching my missed calls, I found that she’d called twice last night and then again this morning when Daisy had picked up. Given my history with women, I knew it wasn’t going to look good. But I hung onto the hope that she and I had built some trust over the last two months. Though that hope went in the toilet when she picked up and I heard her curt tone.
“Yes?”
“Hey, babe.”
“Seriously, Holden? You’re going to hey, babe me like nothing happened? Or did your groupie forget to tell you I called?”
I shut my eyes. “It wasn’t a groupie. It was Daisy, our manager.”
“Who was in your bed…”
“No, she wasn’t in my bed. She was in hers. And I was in mine—not sleeping because I couldn’t contact you. I accidentally took Daisy’s phone and left mine with her last night. She’d had too much to drink, and I walked her to her room, where she proceeded to drop her purse and spill everything inside all over the floor. I picked her stuff up, and I grabbed the wrong phone.”
“Oh? I see. So you’re a gentleman, then?”
I didn’t have to ask if she was being sarcastic. “I’m telling you the truth, Lala.”
“Whatever.”
“No, not whatever. I’m telling you the honest-to-God truth that nothing happened. And I think you should believe me. I’ve not done anything to make you doubt my loyalty to you.”
“You don’t have to. Your history tells the story, Holden.”
I didn’t have any right to get angry. I knew exactly how it looked. But for some reason, her blaming my history for her lack of trust in me pissed me off. “How about giving me some credit, Lala? I know you think I’m a big manwhore because I have more experience than you. But not once have I cheated on a girl I was in a committed relationship with. I slept around when I was single. I know you don’t like to hear that, but I can’t go back and change it.”
“No, you can’t,” she said.
“As long as we’re on the topic of sleeping around, where did you sleep last night? Last we talked, you were with Warren and were going to call me back. My phone didn’t ring all day. Have you gone back to him? Are you done with me already? Did you get what you needed and I’m dismissed?”
“I can’t do this right now.” Lala sniffled. “My mom is in the ICU, and I can’t take any more stress.”
Oh fuck. I made her cry. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just…I feel so frustrated that you don’t believe me. Trust me, if you understood how much I think about you, you would not have any questions about whether I could be with another woman. I’m freaking crazy about you, Lala.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
“Can we start this conversation over?”
“I can’t right now. I need to go back inside for rounds in a minute. They just started when my phone rang, so I stepped out.”
“Alright. But tell me how your mom is doing first.”
“They were able to clear the blockage, and she tolerated the surgery well. But it’s open heart, so they had to cut through her breastbone to get in. She’s in a lot of pain and groggy still. But her doctors think she’ll make a full recovery.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“Yeah.”
“I hate to let you go, but I know you need to get back in there. Are we good? I swear nothing happened, Lala. I would never do that to you.”
“Yeah, we’re good.” She didn’t sound too convincing.
“Will you call me later?” I asked.
“I will.”
“Alright. Bye, sweetheart.”
***
“Hey. Sorry to bother you all so early.”
Two days later, I’d texted the guys in the band at nine o’clock in the morning, asking if everyone could meet me in the lobby. We weren’t supposed to get on the road to San Francisco until checkout time, which was eleven. Today would be a lot of driving, and tomorrow night was the gig the record producer was scheduled to come to. I rubbed the back of my neck as I spoke to the group. “I need to leave for the day today. But I’d like you to all be okay with it.”
Everyone started to freak out.
“What do you mean leave?” Kevin said. “We have the producer coming tomorrow night. We can’t play without a drummer.”
