Chapter 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

TAM

80 bobas left until they both die …

“That girl is here.”

Jacob startles me, appearing in the doorway to my bedroom and knocking me right out of the book that I was buried in. I had to get buried in a book because I’m having a hard time with the change of plans. Lake was supposed to come today and spend three nights here with me, Joules, and Kaycee.

Now, it’s just me that’s here, and I have no idea if Kaycee is coming at all. She told Joules not to bother showing up, and we both blocked the Frost siblings.

So … how is Lake here?

And then I realize that I made a horrible assumption.

Kaycee texted Joules to cancel, but did I text Lake to cancel?

No. I did not. And she’s here. Joules may not have told her, and—

“Shit.”

I take off for the windows at the front of my room and part the curtains, peering out to see Lakelynn on the driveway with several grocery bags on the ground around her, a couple in her hands, a big hot pink duffel bag at her feet.

Joules is nowhere to be seen. It’s just his little sister, the gravel driveway, and the woods.

I drop the curtain into place as my heart pounds roughly in my chest. My lungs feel constricted, making it hard to breathe.

“I’ll have Pat drive her back to town,” Jacob announces, but I shoot him such a nasty look that he pauses and actually waits to hear what I have to say. He lifts a single brow, but he must be able to tell from the look on my face that I’m not ready to do that just yet.

“Give me a minute,” I tell him, and when he curls his mouth at me, I wave him away. “You’re not supposed to be working today. Go take a nap. Watch a movie. Go back to town and use Tinder to find a date. Anything but worrying about Lakelynn, okay? I will worry about Lakelynn.”

“You’ll worry yourself right into a scandal that you can’t get out of.” Jacob scoffs at me, throws up his hands—iPad clutched tightly in one of them—and then he storms off, and I sigh with relief when I hear his feet on the stairs.

I move back to the curtain to watch Lake for a minute. She looks around in confusion, and then does her best to pick up as many bags as she can manage. She carries them across the circular gravel drive, and my heart aches to go out there and take the bags from her hands. They look heavy to me, the plastic stretching over her wrists and weighing her arms down.

But I don’t do that because I’m conflicted.

My girlfriend gave me an ultimatum. I either have to accept that ultimatum or … I have to break up with Kaycee. Break up with Kaycee because of Lake? I don’t even know Lake, really. She claims to be cursed. Who would ever make a decision like that?

My whole life I’ve fought for this dream. I gave up everything. I gave up my childhood. I gave up my youth. I gave up friends and outings and movie nights and food and free time and personal space and privacy. I gave it all up. I fought and bled and danced until I collapsed from exhaustion. I learned two new languages, and I traveled wherever I was told to travel, learned from whoever I could learn from. Strange surroundings, always. Opportunistic people, always.

I’ve always protected my dream over everything else.

I won’t let someone like Lakelynn Frost take any of that away from me.

If I break up with Kaycee because of her, we’re both in big trouble, me and Lake. My fans will never accept me dating her. They’ll riot. Just the brief flicker of her wearing my coat was nearly catastrophic.

I can’t. I won’t. It’s not even possible.

I exhale, and then I start to pace.

Lake has come up to the door, and she’s ringing the bell. Knocking. Ringing the bell.

I move downstairs and into a different room so that I can see what she’s doing on the porch. Hopefully, she’ll just call her brother, get in the car, and leave.

But look at all of those groceries. That’s right. She was going to cook me dinner.

I hurt in a way I’ve never hurt before. I hurt for Lake. I feel sick at the idea of her standing outside, confused and alone and struggling with a million bags.

“I’m here!” she calls out, banging her fist on the door again. “Tam! Are you asleep?” A pause. “Sir Tom?” A little more hesitant that time. And then, after several more minutes of waiting, of ringing the bell intermittently, she shatters my heart to pieces. “Thomas?”

Still, I don’t answer the door.

I don’t know this girl. I don’t. I’m always screwed over when I let people in, when I trust them too much. Everyone is always out to get me, always. I just had a meet and greet a few days ago where a girl told me seriously that she would kill to be with me. I had a woman cup my crotch before Daniel stepped in and fought her off. I’m told every single day by thousands and thousands of people that they will die if I don’t give them the time of day.

So I turn and put my back to the wall, close my eyes, try to block out the sound of Lake cursing outside. I hear gravel crunch, bags crinkle, and I peek past the curtain again to see that she’s tripped. Shit. What if she hurt herself again?

Jacob was convinced that she fell off that bench on purpose to get my attention, but what he doesn’t know is that I was watching Lake that entire time. As soon as she closed her eyes, I opened mine. I saw her head drop back, her lips part, heard her snore and grumble in her sleep. That was a real fall, and I couldn’t get up fast enough to catch her.

I’ve been berating myself for that.

Lake walks around the outside of the house, checking the other doors, tapping on the windows. I can hear her trying to talk to a member of my security team, but Daniel runs a tight ship. Nobody will tell her a thing. Not their job. They also won’t call me. And they won’t let her in.

This is a personal issue, and only I can take care of it.

“Please call Joules,” I whisper, but when Lake comes back around to the front of the house and just stands there looking up at it in confusion, I do it for her. I unblock her fuck-wit brother and call him immediately.

“What?” he answers with a violent snap.

“Get over here and pick up your sister. You knew that you’d been uninvited.”

Joules howls with laughter.

“You’re such a spineless cretin. If it weren’t for the curse, I would never let you date Lakelynn. You didn’t have the common decency to meet with her in person and explain. Even I would never break up with a girl over text, and I’m a bastard.” He says that last part with a salty hiss, and I wonder who it was that said that to him. Kaycee, probably.

“I can’t break up with Lake because I was never dating her, you psycho. Get back here and get your sister.” My teeth are clenched, and I’m getting mad fast.

“No.” Joules hangs up on me, and then blocks my number.

I start to pace from one window to the next, watching Lake through the glass. She sits on her duffel for a while, watching the road leading into the driveway like she’s waiting for me. I guess she doesn’t know that my SUV is safely locked away in the five-car garage behind the house.

When it starts to get dark, when it starts to rain … I can’t do it.

Something inside of me, something that I’ve held onto since the day I told my mom that this is the life I wanted, it breaks. It breaks into so many jagged, shattered pieces that I panic.

I sprint into the ensuite bathroom, tear my clothes off, and dip my head under the spray of the shower. Towel around the hips. I race back downstairs, and then I open the door.

Lake is standing right there, getting ready to knock again.

Her eyes, full of hurt and confusion, land on mine.

Those broken parts inside of me shift and begin to melt. I’m not sure that they were ever necessary parts to begin with, but I guess only time will tell that.

“Sorry,” I pant out, breathing way too hard, hands on either side of the doorjamb. Shirtless. Wearing a towel and nothing else. All I did was dip my head under the water. I could’ve just kept my clothes on and pretended to have gotten dressed first. I’m an idiot. “I was in the shower, and I didn’t hear you.”

Lakelynn … does not look like she believes me.

I don’t blame her.

I would never date an asshole like Tam Eyre—not even if he was famous.

But maybe … I would if I were cursed.