When I open the door to the parking garage, Heidi stops me, flattening her hand against the metal, as she slams it shut. “Ugh, the look on your face right now.” She shakes her head, pressing her lips together, as if what she’s looking at is the most pitiful thing she’s ever seen.

Maybe, just maybe, it is.

“Heidi,” I warn. “I’m not doing this with you today.”

She ignores me. “You do realize that I can get a rental car, right? I’m perfectly capable of driving us back to L.A., so you can get away from McCrae right here and right now.”

“You don’t have to do that.” Then, I pause. Despite what Heidi has said about wanting to take this trip with me, maybe she’s ready to go home. “Do you want to go back right now?”

She takes her hand off the door and holds it open for me. “I do phone sex, Kylie. My customers aren’t going anywhere, and besides, I really do want to see my folks. But I’m offering to take you home. I don’t want to see you hurt, and now, you’ve got me all worried.”

We walk side by side through the muggy carport, and in the distance, I can hear Cal and Wyatt’s voices as they load their luggage and guitars into the back of the Suburban. I stop Heidi when we’re several feet away from the SUV, clamping my hand down on her wrist. “Don’t.” My voice is hushed and more pleading than I intend for it to be. “Don’t worry. I want to do this.”

She drags her hand through her long brown hair, exhaling. “I know you do, but for the first time since you told me what your plan is, I actually believe that you just might go through with it, that you’re done with him.”

What she’s saying is so similar to what Wyatt said this morning that I feel a cold pain spread across the inside of my chest.

“I hate when you don’t get enough sleep because you’re way too emo.”

She pushes her shoulders back. “I’m worried because you’re drawing this out, and it’s going to be hell to walk away. I’m worried because, in the end, you’ll hurt so much worse.”

She’s right. I am prolonging my time with Wyatt. I’m savoring him, feeding my addiction until the very end. It’s twisted and unhealthy, but it’s also something that I need. I drop my hand away from her arm. “Heidi, I’m good.”

Instead of arguing with me or giving me her typical “I’m right because my last name is Wright” line, she only blinks and nods. A dangerous moisture is building up at the corners of her blue eyes, and I have to look away from them.

“Let’s go to Albuquerque then,” she says.

***

After we grab breakfast at a restaurant Heidi swears she has to try because she saw it on the Food Network, we get on the interstate toward New Mexico. Cal drives this time, but instead of sitting in the back with me, Wyatt opts for the passenger seat to keep him company.

Thanks to all the pancakes she ate at breakfast and her lack of sleep, Heidi immediately passes out in the back of the SUV in a carb-induced coma. I stretch out in the second row, placing my feet against the door, and slide my earbuds in. A moment after I put The Kills playlist on shuffle, the powerful beat of “Future Starts Slow” pumps into my eardrums. Closing my eyes, I softly hum along while tapping my fingers on my thighs in time with the rhythm.

I’m not sure when I fell asleep, but the next thing I know, Wyatt’s touching my shoulder, shaking me awake. He’s standing with the door opened wide, leaning back, as his eyes skim over me.

“Cal needed a Red Bull. You want anything?”

I blink up at him a few times until my dark brown eyes adjust to the light. Groaning, I shake my head and pull my earbuds out. “I’m good. I’m just going to go back to—”

He reaches into the car for my hand, brushing against my breast in the process. It’s an innocent touch, but it’s still enough to make me shiver. “It’s a long drive, beautiful. Come out for a few minutes.”

“There’ll be another stop.” I yawn, and then I realize that I don’t hear Heidi’s soft snoring from the backseat. I sit up and see that she’s gone. If Heidi figured it was a good idea to get out of the Suburban for a break, it must mean Cal’s not planning on making another stop for several hours, so it’s probably a good idea for me to get out too. “What time is it?”

“Noon.”

Reaching around on the floor for my aviator sunglasses, I glimpse up at him and lift an eyebrow. “Cal couldn’t even last two hours without having to stop?” Wyatt’s lips quirk up, and I laugh as I scoot to the end of the bench seat. “God, maybe I should drive.”

“We’ll probably get there faster.” Holding my knees between his legs, he slides his fingers down my forearm until they find my hand. I swallow hard as he lifts my fingers to his mouth, rubbing his lip ring along my knuckles.

“You shouldn’t do that.”

“Believe me, beautiful, I know. It’s been hell not climbing back there with you after the shit you started this morning.” He drops my hand and begins to help me out of the Suburban.

“How long are we stopping—” I start, but I’m unable to finish as I step around him. Instead of a convenience store, I’m facing the front door of a crappy motel room. I clench my fists, digging my nails into my palms so deep that pain shoots up my wrists, as I take a hesitant step forward. When I speak, my voice is strained. “Where are Heidi and Cal?”

Wyatt comes up beside me, and I feel the lines of his body press against my side. I stiffen and turn my face away from him a little. “Where are they?” I repeat.

“At the convenience store across the street. We need to talk.” Despite my cold shoulder, he grabs my hand and leads me to the front of the Suburban. He leans against the grill, but I stand with my back straight, glaring at the door to the motel room as if it’ll fly open at any second and slap me across my face.

In a way, it already has.

“Why would we stop here?” I demand. “Why would you want to talk here?”

“You remember this place?”

How the hell could I forget? This is the same motel where we first made love. It’s the place where he found me after my four-month marriage to Brad came to an end. While I was asleep, our trip had taken a detour, and now, we’re in Livingston.

“Do you remember?” he asks again.

I nod slowly, and each tiny movement of my head makes me feel like I’m going under. “I stayed in that room down there the first time.” I point my finger to the left toward the room at the end of the row of identical doors. “And in this one the last time.” I incline my head to the door in front of us, room number 32. It’s sad that I still remember both rooms. “You play so fucking dirty.”

“I told you I was going to remind you why you fell, Kylie.”

My breath hitches. “By bringing me back here? Do you think it was worth adding extra time to your trip?”

“I have so much to say to you. It seemed like this would be the best place to do it.”

“We’ve already said enough here.”

He’s quiet, and I know he’s thinking about the room at the end of the row. He’s thinking about how I told him everything about myself, how I showed him each tiny scar, five of them in all, and how I tried my best to explain why I did it. That same night, he told me how he aspired to be a better man than his father, a womanizing drunk who hadn’t made it as a guitarist, who flaunted women in front of Wyatt’s mother until she took off.

“I didn’t even mind him beating the shit out of me,” Wyatt says, pulling me closer to him in the hotel bed. He inhales my scent, Ralph Lauren’s Romance.

He’s quiet after that, and the only sound in the room is Chevelle’s “The Red.” He waits until the song is finished, and then he says, “But the way she left without even giving me a second thought...it still fucks me up, Kylie. She didn’t give a shit about me.”

“I’m so sorry.” Tears are forming in my eyes because I feel selfish. I feel like the most selfish bitch in the world for complaining to him earlier about not meeting anyone’s expectations and retaliating by punishing myself. I cried about disappointing my parents when his had let him down too many times.