The barn was brightly lit as the sun reached toward the horizon. She could have gone back to the party, but I doubted it. She was as stubborn as ever. She wouldn’t want anyone to see her upset. Let alone to hurt her sister on her wedding day. But where the fuck would she have gone?
“Piper!”
I glanced up the hill and found her blue Jeep standing out bright in the parking lot. So, she hadn’t left, which meant one thing. My eyes landed on the fields. She had to have gone into the vineyard. It was her happy place in the same way it was mine. But if she was already inside, how the fuck was I going to find her?
I didn’t give it another thought. I pushed through the vines and into my fields. My heart raced as I called her name and raced down the rows. The fields were several acres big. She could be anywhere. Still, I jogged on the soft dirt in my stupid suit, ruining the fancy shoes Julian had convinced me to get for the occasion.
It wasn’t until the sun dipped completely behind the horizon and only the last dying rays still shone over the fields that I gave up. She was gone. She was just fucking gone. She was out there somewhere, thinking that I wanted Tori more than her. I’d been stupid enough to come when Tori called, and I didn’t even have a good enough reason for it all. It was…years of being fucked up that had driven me back into her stupidity. And I wanted out of it. I wanted it to be done and over.
I wished that I could explain it all to Piper. But what explanation would be good enough? She deserved better. That was for damn sure.
With a frustrated sigh, I left the vines, making it out into the open before I lost all the light. If Piper was out there still, I hoped she could find her way through the dark. I didn’t know what else to do. It wasn’t like I could get a search party out for her. How would I even explain?
“Fuck,” I said again as I trudged up to the barn once more.
I came in the back way and looked around for Campbell and Julian. I didn’t know if it was luck, but they were standing together, drinking whiskey and laughing. If my situation wasn’t entirely shit, I’d be happy to see them getting along like this. My two closest friends. But all I felt right now was despair.
They looked up as I approached them. Julian took in the wreck of my suit. Campbell’s eyes were on my face.
“What did you do to your suit?” Julian asked. Our little fashion guru.
“What happened?” he asked, always the intuitive one.
“Same problem,” I grumbled.
Campbell passed me his drink. “You look like you need this more than I do.”
I downed the entire contents in one long swallow. “Yeah.”
“Seriously,” Julian said. “Those are Dior.”
I snorted. “Remind me not to let you convince me to buy designer shoes again.”
“Remind me that you should only ever be in cowboy boots.”
“Yeah.” I snatched his drink out of his hand, too, and downed the contents. “So, I might have fucked up.”
“We can see that,” Campbell said.
“What did you do?” Julian asked.
With a final sigh, I explained the situation that had gone down. Both guys frowned as they listened. Julian crossed his arms over his chest. Campbell looked incredulous, at best.
The worst of it was that…neither of them even knew about Tori. Everyone I’d known during her years of misery had basically been purged from my life. I wasn’t still friends with anyone from that time, except maybe Zach, but we’d only become close afterward. I hadn’t exactly had friends when we were dating. She was the kind of possessive and jealous girl who didn’t like me to even talk to other people. My brother had been in LA. Nora had been in high school. Julian hadn’t moved here yet. The two closest people in my life, and neither of them had any idea.
“Fuck,” Campbell said when I finished. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I shrugged. “What would I have said?”
“That your girlfriend was abusing you,” Julian said flatly.
My mind immediately rejected that thought. It wasn’t a thing done to guys. Certainly not anyone else I knew. It was something you saw in TV and movies when the guy was beating his girlfriend. It wasn’t like what I had gone through. Was it?
“It wasn’t like that.”
“The fact that you can’t see it says you’re still fucked up,” Julian said, his voice laced with sympathy. “This happened to a friend of mine back in Vancouver. She fucking disappeared because her boyfriend went crazy anytime she talked to anyone else. He could do whatever he wanted without consequence, but he had her so warped that she didn’t even see it. She cut us all out because she said she loved him. It was only years later when she got her and her daughter out and was in loads of therapy that she came back to us. It’s emotional and psychological abuse, Hollin.”
I shuddered. It made me sound so…weak. That I’d let her rule my life for so long because of everything we’d gone through. That I still wasn’t over it. That she could still wind me up. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Campbell put a hand on my shoulder. “Which means, it isn’t your fault.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But hurting Piper was.”
“To an extent. Abuse fucks you up though, man,” Julian said. “I can’t defend what you did to Piper. I’m not saying what you did was smart. It wasn’t. It was fucking stupid, and Piper has every right to be mad at you. But you’re not coming at it from a good place to start.”
“And you definitely need therapy,” Campbell said. “It helps.”
“You’re in therapy?” I asked with raised eyebrows.
“If I wasn’t, do you think I’d have my anger in check the way it’s been on tour?” Campbell shot me a look. “I had a problem, and I got help. The only real triggers now are people hurting my family.”
“August,” I said.
He nodded.
“Jennifer has been in therapy for years, too,” Julian said. “I went once we started dating. She thought it would help me deal with my dad. Literally every person on the planet should be in therapy. We’re all fucking traumatized by our childhood.”
I snorted. “True.” It helped, hearing that the other guys were in therapy. That this kind of thing happened to other people. I wasn’t alone. It wasn’t just me. “I’ll…I’ll think about it.”
“Good,” Campbell said with a smile.
Julian clapped me on the back. “That’s what we like to hear.”
“But what do I do about Piper?”
Campbell and Julian exchanged a bleak look.
“Give her time,” Julian said. “She’s the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met. Do you think she’s going to forget that you abandoned her at her sister’s wedding to talk to your ex without telling her?”
I grimaced. “No, but I’m not going to stop fighting for her.”
“That’s my brother,” Campbell said, punching me on the arm. “May I recommend a bottle of Maker’s for your broken heart?”
The three of us commandeered a bottle or two, and I drowned in my own misery. They were there to try to pick me up. Jordan appeared at some point and tried to convince us to stop. The guys filled him in on the situation, and then Jordan took a seat across from me and poured us both another glass. I was that thoroughly screwed that even Jordan didn’t see another solution. I was well and truly fucked.