Her voice had grown tighter, and he thought she didn’t leave the sentence unfinished on purpose. He moved to stand behind her and slid his hands over her shoulders. “I’m not pretendin’. I just need…” What did he need? Say something, he thought. He needed to get away from her before he broke her heart and violated the bonds of his family. It had been easier before, when he only saw her on holidays, and only for a couple of days at a time. He could keep his hands off her for a couple of days at a time.
But now that they’d…this was unbearable. And just when he’d decided to give up, be with her and damn the consequences, his manager had given him a way out.
He thought all those things in the space of a heartbeat. Aloud he only said, “I need to do this. That’s all.”
“Why are you so sure being with me would end so bad it would tear up your family, Ethan? What is it about me that makes you?—”
“Nothin’! Nothin’ about you.” He spun her around and immediately knew what a huge mistake it was, because now he was face-to-face with her, falling into her huge blue eyes, right through the tears shimmering on their surface. “But I know it couldn’t work with us, not for long. I’m not…”
“Not what? Don’t stop, Ethan, please. That’s the longest sentence you’ve said to me since…ever. You’re not what?”
He lowered his head. “I’m not good enough for you. And believe me, Lily Ellen, I wish the hell I was.” He kissed her then, because he couldn’t help himself, and the fact that he couldn’t help himself solidified his decision.
She softened in his arms, melting against him, kissing him back, and that was his signal to let go. He gazed into her eyes only briefly when they flicked open. “I’m real sorry I’m hurtin’ you like this, Lily Ellen. But just think how much worse it would’a been later.” Then he turned and walked into the house, straight up the stairs into his bedroom, and closed the door.
He hadn’t even taken his guitar.
Lily had dropped Ethan’s abandoned guitar on the sofa on her way inside. Then she’d stopped by Chelsea’s liquor cabinet and taken a bottle of wine and a glass to her room. She drank most of it before crying herself to sleep.
So when she opened her eyes to the irritating and persistent birdsong right outside her open bedroom window, the room was blurry and her mouth felt like swamp muck. Her head ached. Her eyes were all sticky.
Smacking her lips repeatedly and grimacing at the bad taste in her mouth, she flung back the covers and slid to her feet, but as soon as her head was upright, the room began spinning. She grabbed onto the bedpost to keep from falling over. Catching sight of the near-empty wine bottle, she groaned.
Dragging herself to her feet, she shuffled to the bathroom and stood beneath a cool shower to try to rinse the alcohol from her brain. Eventually, she got out and brushed her teeth, gagged on the toothbrush, dragged a comb through her hair, pulled it into a ponytail, and finally, put on her most comfortable pair of sweats and a baggy tee with a sports bra, though she’d have preferred no bra at all. Everything that touched her skin hurt.
Stupid man, making her feel so miserable. Well, now that she’d had time to think, she had an earful for him. Just wait until she saw him this morning. She pulled on her thickest, softest socks. As she scuffed out of the room and down the hall, she passed Ethan’s bedroom.
The door was open. The bed was made.
She kept going down the stairs. He’d taken his guitar off the sofa, so he must’ve been up before her. The smell of coffee beckoned so strongly that it overcame the nerves rioting in her stomach at the thought of seeing him at the breakfast table.
Only, she didn’t. Nobody was at the table, and it had been cleared, except for some flowers in the middle—bluebonnets and black-eyed Susans—and a fat brown accordion file. How late had she slept?
Chelsea came in from the kitchen, two big mugs in her hands. “Heard you coming down the stairs,” she said, then saw Lily’s face and blinked. “My goodness.”
“I owe you a bottle of wine,” she said by way of explanation.
“Then you need this more than I realized.” She put a mug in front of Lily, then took a seat.
Lily sank into the chair, not entirely on purpose. “Ethan’s leaving.”
Chelsea reached across the table to cover her hand with one of her own. “He’s already left, hon.”
“What?” Lily looked up fast, blurting the word in a knee-jerk reaction, despite that she’d heard Chelsea perfectly well.
“He said he had to get an early start. He left that for you.” She nodded at the thick folder. “Said to tell you he’d be in touch.”
“Huh.” She couldn’t meet Chelsea’s eyes. This was too much, and she was going to burst into tears in front of her at any moment.
“Listen to me, Lily. I’m gonna talk to you like I would if you were my own daughter.” Chelsea clasped her hand tighter. “This is not over. He’s scared. I can see that. I think this has more to do with his own issues about who he is and who his father was, and my sister’s death, and now this brother coming out of the woodwork.”
“He doesn’t see me,” she said.
“How could anybody not see you, Lily? You beam.”
She didn’t, though. Why did everyone keep saying that?
She took a deep, nasal breath. “He says he’s not good enough for me. Thinks I’m some kind of angel.”
