“Uh, no thank you.” This time, I did smile.
She went on her way and I waited for the next cab. When it rolled to a stop, I climbed in and barked off my address. The guy had his music turned up, so it was hard to miss Drown blasting through the speakers. “Eyes so deep I fall and fall, can’t crawl out, and I can’t breathe. These feelings crash over me…”
Levi’s voice was like a punch to the stomach, and I smothered the sob racking through me.
I wouldn’t cry, not here, in the back of a stranger’s taxicab.
“That was Drown by the formidable Black Hearts Still Beat featuring Eva Walker, the hottest track in the country right now,” the radio host said. “And now we welcome Levi, Rafe, Hudson, and Damon onto the show. Welcome guys.”
“Thanks for having us.”
I was frozen, paralyzed on the cool leather seat. “Can you turn it up please?” I blurted out, needing to hear it word for word.
Less than twenty-four hours from when he walked away from me, Levi was live on national radio. I grabbed my cell phone to text Letty, when I realized I already had a message off her. I must have missed it in my haste to get off the phone to my dad.
Letty: He’s back and he’s okay... I just thought you should know.
Relief flooded me. Levi was okay. He was okay...
This was a good thing. The best news I could have hoped for given everything. But as the radio host interviewed them, their voices began to turn to white noise over the roar of blood in my ears.
Levi was okay.
And yet, I’d heard nothing from him.
Not a damn thing.
Levi didn’t call. He didn’t text or send a message through Letty. It was as if he’d disappeared from my life as quickly as he’d barreled into it.
It hurt.
It hurt so fucking much.
He’d cast me aside as if I was disposable. Insignificant. But maybe it was better this way. Our relationship had been intense, a whirlwind that had swept us up and devastated me in its wake.
He’d never been able to tell me he loved me... and I realized now, maybe there was a good reason for that.
Maybe, in the end, I hadn’t been enough for him.
I didn’t doubt he cared for me, that in his own way, Levi had fallen for me—or at least, the illusion of me—but perhaps, I’d been wrong.
Perhaps it had never been love for him.
It was no easy task, returning to the office. Everyone was excited about the weekend. The label was flying out everyone and anyone connected to the band for the tour wrap party. It was a big deal.
Of course, I’d been left off the guest list. But it didn’t matter.
I wouldn’t have gone anyway.
Levi
“You good?” Rafe eyed me carefully. I’d gotten used to his heavy stares over the last few days. Ever since Phoebe left.
I was... present.
That’s all I could offer them right now. I’d gotten through the last show. I hadn’t gone off the rails, despite how much I wanted to. And I’d made every one of our scheduled interviews.
By all accounts, I was excelling at not fucking up, but it didn’t mean on the inside I wasn’t slowly drowning in a pit of self-hatred and loathing.
I hadn’t drunken the vodka that first night without Phoebe. In the end, I’d traded it for my usual Jack and Coke. For whatever reason, I couldn’t lay my past to rest.
And it bothered me.
A lot of things bothered me.
Like how I couldn’t sleep at night without Phoebe beside me. Or the gaping hole I felt every time I watched Rafe and Eva together, kissing and laughing, lost in their own little world.
Everyone gave me space, but not too much space. It was Riley all over again, them waiting for me to snap, me resenting them for it.
“Levi,” Rafe’s voice cut through my thoughts.
“Huh, what?” I asked, blinking over at him.
“I asked you if you were good?”
“I’m fine.”
Fine.
I fucking hated that word
Not good, not bad... fine.
It was a nothing word, steeped in fake reassurance and forced platitudes.
But fine got people off your back, fine let them tell themselves everything was okay.
“Last show of the tour,” he added, as if I cared. As if those words were supposed to mean something to me.
Nothing meant anything without her here.
Phoebe.
My honeybee.
I hadn’t spoken to her in five days.
It felt like five fucking years. But I hadn’t known what to say. This was all new territory for me, and I wasn’t sure how to navigate these uncharted waters. All I knew was, every day that went by that I didn’t talk to her or see her, the gaping hole in my chest cracked that little bit wider.
Letty said she was working at the Nashville branch of Razorsharp. I knew they kept in touch, I was relieved. Phoebe didn’t have many people in her life she could turn to.
“This is probably for the best, you know,” Rafe said, as we watched Eva wrap up her set.
“How can you say that to me?” I shook my head, anger skating down my spine. “You got your girl. You got everything you ever wanted.”
“Levi, that’s not—”
“I love her,” I heaved the words, feeling their weight press down on my chest. “I’m ass over elbow in love with her and I couldn’t say the words when it mattered most. So don’t stand there and tell me that it’s for the best. I lost her, Rafe. I lost the one person who saw past all this bullshit.” My eyes flicked to the stage. “Phoebe saw me, and now she’s gone.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “It was a dumb thing to say. I just hate seeing you so numb.”
“I’ve spent the last ten years of my life numb, it’s nothing new.”
“You really love her?” He regarded me with a strange look.
“I do.” It had just taken losing her to make me finally be able to say the words. Talk about bittersweet irony.
“You should tell her.”
“What?” My brows knitted. “In case you didn’t notice, she left.”
“So? You’re Levi fucking Hunter. Figure out a way to get her back.”
His words echoed through me.
Get her back…
“Are we interrupting something?” Hudson and Damon joined us. Eva was on her final song, the crowd electric as she serenaded them with tales of friendship and first love.
“Levi’s in love,” Rafe said as if it was the simplest thing on earth.
“Well, duh, of course he is.” Hudson grinned at me. “The question is, what are you going to do about it?”
“Don’t look at me,” I grumbled, feel irritation zip through me. “I was hoping you’d have the answer.”
Phoebe was in Nashville. It was a four-hour ride. We had the after-party tomorrow night at The Riff Bar...
“What?” Damon asked as my eyes lit up.
“I have an idea,” I said, feeling a lick of anticipation, a tingle of Hunter magic I hadn’t felt in a really long time. “But I’m going to need your help.”
“Any sign of her?” I drummed my hand against my thigh as I kept my eyes trained on the door.