AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It just stopped. Thank God I was in the slow lane” I cock my head toward Sarge in the back seat. “Then he decided to chase something, and here we are.”
“Are you out of gas?”
“I would know if I’m out of gas,” I say defensively. “The engine just died. One second it was running, and the next, it… died. The engine won’t even turn.”
“That doesn’t sound good. You called Roadside Assistance?”
“Not yet.”
Todd looks up at the sky. “It’s getting late. If you want, we can have it towed to my buddy’s garage, and he can take a look at it. Carl takes care of my truck and Sawyer’s.”
Sawyer Villier is Todd’s younger brother, and around the time Todd and I lived together, Sawyer was deployed in Afghanistan. “How is he?”
“This will sting.” Todd ignores my grimaces and applies antibacterial ointment on my cuts, sticking a Band-Aid over each one. “Sawyer’s great. Married with kids, and they live next door to me. Alma’s a social media influencer when it comes to off-grid living.”
“That’s pretty cool.” I retrieve my phone from my back pocket. “Let me call Roadside Assistance so you can be on your merry way.”
“I don’t mind staying,” he says, putting away the First Aid Kit. “Do you know where you’ll be staying if your camper ’s going to need repairs?”
“I’ll call a few places.”
“Good luck with that,” he says. “There are hardly any vacancies in town because of the music festival. Even our rentals are all filled up.”
“You have rentals?”
Todd points to structures that look like spaceships in the distance, domed structures with polka dot-looking walls. “See those things over there? They’re called Earthships. Sawyer and I built seven of them in the last ten years. Two we sold, and two we live in. The remaining three we rent out.”
I’ve heard about sustainable homes called Earthships before. They’re made from old tires rammed with earth, glass bottles, and adobe, but I didn’t realize I knew someone who lives in one, much less built them. “So you rent them out like an Airbnb.”
“You could say that.”
“I’d never have thought you could leave the beach. What happened to the surfer I knew?”
“Oh, he’s still here. I still catch a few waves whenever I visit Cali, but this is home now,” he says, grinning. “Shortly after you and I split up, Sawyer got injured. He moved out here, and I followed right after. He turned me onto sustainable buildings, and the rest is history.”
As Todd steps away to call his friend, I’m grateful he leaves out a part of that history where I moved out of the apartment we shared in Venice so I could work with a man who promised me fame and fortune, the same man who got us winning major music awards, a house in the Hollywood Hills, and a tour schedule that took us to places I could only dream of.
Thathistory.
ChapterTwo
TODD
I’ve never been one to live in the past, but what happens when your past is gazing right back at you ten years after she left you for another man?
But I don’t blame Devyn. Asshole or not, Harrison Yorke made her a star, something her broke screenwriter boyfriend could never do.
And Devyn Rosario deserved the world.
The one thing I couldn’t give her.
Too bad it didn’t last.
I should have been happy that she left Harrison, but I hated how it came about. She should have been able to keep her songs. Instead, since he owned the rights to them, too, she couldn’t simply start over with them. That’s also the problem with a band comprising only two people. They had perfect harmony, yes, but not even the best harmony in the world could cover up Harrison’s lies. His cheating, most of all.
But Devyn’s here now, and that’s what matters. Already my heart is racing. My mouth is dry. And after calling for the tow truck and driving her and Sarge to Carl’s shop where he told her he’d start working on it first thing tomorrow morning, she’s agreed to stay over at my place until she can find a place that will take her and her dog.
What the hell happened to moving on?
