Sidewalk Flower (33 page)

“No.
 
No.
 
No.
 
Don’t screw me like this!
 
Don’t!
 
He said you loved me!”
 
She fisted
her hand up to the sky.
 
It was the best
she could do.
 

She was about to hyperventilate on her
frustration with men, in particular the Mason-James clan and the profound
feeling of uncertainty she had as she stood in the midst of Lucky’s
tracks.
 
What had he seen?
 
Why had he left his things?
 
Would he return her call?
 
The answers flashed for her like
three-by-five note cards being rehearsed for a speech.
 
One—the repeated kissing
between her and Jaxon, Two—extreme anger and disappointment, and Three—not very
likely.

Chapter
Twenty-One

“Still no word from him?”

“Don’t want to talk about it, Jaxon.
 
Do you have your passport?
 
Don’t forget it.”

“I’ve got it Trissy, for the sixth time.”

She rolled her eyes at Jaxon.
 
Stefan passed by behind them, noticing as he
strutted down the hall, flaunting his passport high enough in the air so she
could see it.
 
Will and Marion would meet
them at the hotel in New York City later that night since it was only a four
hour drive from their homes in Maryland.
 
All she had to do was get herself and the west side contingent of the
band on their plane and in the air on time.
 
Excitement danced down the hallways of the studio but passed by her
door.
 
It could have been that Jaxon was
standing there blocking it and irritating her to no end.

“Look, I’ll give him a call, talk to his
dad.
 
Explain things.”

“Your uncle?
 
The one you haven’t so much as sent a
Christmas card to or called to say Happy Birthday in the past twenty
years?
 
No thanks, Jaxon.
 
We should just let them be.”

“I’m sorry, Trissy.”

If she started a fund with money she’d
gain each time he’d apologized to her the past week, she’d have enough to wipe
out world hunger AND a little something leftover to buy his silence on the
subject.
  

It had been nine days since she’d lost
communication with Lucky.
 
He’d called
the one time to let her know he was back in Tennessee.
 
But that was it.
 
No hello, no goodbye.
 
His bag lay stuffed behind the passenger side
seat of her Jeep.
 
That hurt the
most.
 
He wouldn’t even leave her a
message with his home address so she could ship it to him.
 
She must disgust him.
 

He had gone back to his home.
 
Back to where things made sense in a
non-masochistic way.
 
Where intentions,
as good as they might be, didn’t strangle and suffocate the one they had tried
to set free.
 
He’s better off in Tennessee, on his land, at his shop, with his family
.
 
She’d never forgive Jaxon if he made the call
behind her back.

Ben popped his head in, which she nearly
chomped off until she realized who he was, and collected up the stack of fabric
samples he’d left with her the week before.
 
Only now they’d been sewn together into full length customized vests, each
with two bottom pockets long enough to fit his spindly fingers.
 

“Thanks, Trista.
 
I didn’t expect you to get to these, you
know.”

“Hey, it gave me something to keep my
mind off…”

Ben’s face contorted through several odd
expressions, settling on wide eyes and a tightly drawn smile.
 
“Yeah, so hey, about that,
um, I just got a request for the board that you might be interested in.”

“I’d love to do that with you Ben, but
that’s our thing when we’re not swamped in last minute confirmations or private
charter coordinating.
 
I really don’t
have the time right now.”

“All right, well I just got a request to
be added to our board from a female located in Bugscuffle, Tennessee, who wants
her username to be LuckyMe.”

“Ben, that doesn’t mean anything.
 
It’s probably just some high school girl who
happened to hear that Lonerby is opening up for us.”
 

Lonerby was a band that Vance had found
in Nashville, more rock and roll than what the Sin Pointe guys usually toured
with but they were eager to take the gig and would serve to bring new fans to
the shows.
 
She’d met them.
 
The girls were gonna go crazy over their
scruffy, boyish charm and good looks.
 
Not to mention their clever lyrics.
 
This was probably one of those girls.
 

“Really, I have about five things to get
done in the next two minutes. And when the first two involve making sure Jaxon
and Stefan are going to be able to board the plane that leaves in less than
three hours, I have to give that my priority.
 
I’m sorry, Ben; I just don’t have time for the message board right
now.”
 

Stefan was operating on an expired
driver’s license, hence the need for his passport to be in tip-top shape and
Jaxon, well, the accent always got him screened more closely.
 
That and a wry sense of
humor that most airport officials didn’t appreciate.
 
Private jet or not, everyone had to pass
through security.
 

Ben shrugged and left her but went right
back to his desk, presumably to approve LuckyMe as a registered user on the Sin
Pointe board.
 

* * * *

“Crap, no I’m not a female. How do I edit
that, wait…?
 
No, I don’t want to add a
picture.”
 

Lucky was on his fifth
go
round of trying to create his profile.
 
It was a dumb idea and made him feel even more ignorant the more he
tweaked it.
 
“Screw it, I’ll just be a
woman,” he mumbled.
 

What he hoped to accomplish by registering
with the band’s message board was not clear by any means.
 
Initially, he’d only intended to sign up for
the newsletter that would alert him of their tour dates.
 
But then he’d thought about somehow trying to
make amends with Trista.
 
If she hadn’t
run off with Jaxon already…yeah, it was childish.
 

The whole situation was juvenile.
 
The way he’d reacted without even approaching
her about it that night before leaving.
 
He was sure he still would’ve left.
 
The kissing had pissed him off, especially after remembering how
intimate they’d been that night on the beach, and then in the shower.
 
Jaxon would probably have won, but there
would have been a fight.
 
So maybe it
really was best that he’d left the way he did.

No, he knew it was wrong.
 
He’d heard the worry in her voicemail.
 
And he’d still waited two days to call.
 
It was prideful and he should be
ashamed.
 
And then the cold call he’d
made in his depression.
 
He hadn’t
allowed her to speak.

But what about her?
 

So she was worried about him?
 
What if that’s all it was?
 
Maybe Jaxon had won her over completely,
finally after the way he kept on with the kissing.
 
Kept on until she
submitted.
 
Those were the
thoughts that had kept him from calling for so long.
 
And that was why he was ready to give up on
the whole message board idea.

But then he received a confirmation email
from S.P. Admin.
 

That had to be Ben.
 

Maybe he could do the right thing and get
a message to Trista through Ben.
 
He
doubted she’d accept a phone call after the way he’d treated her.
 
He sat there thinking on what he should
do.
 
And then he remembered that he’d
left, not her.
 
And that she probably
could care less.
 
He didn’t bother with
it anymore that morning.
 

There was work to be done in the shop and
Uncle Bear was already ripe with him over the time he’d spent away.
 
Never mind that he was over thirty and a
vital part of the family business, he was still the young gun of the Masons and
of course it looked like he’d been foolin’ off to Uncle Bear.
 
There was also a bit of disappointment behind
their shorter than usual conversations.
 
Uncle Bear had hoped to hear more about Jaxon, but Lucky was ever more
tight-lipped whenever that name had come up the last week.
 

He grabbed the sandwich he’d made off his
kitchen counter and headed out to his truck.
 
He had to get to work.
 
The drive
from his house to the shop was quick.
 
He
wished he’d had more time to sit and think and be alone.
 

* * * *

Trista settled into her seat on the jet
plane.
 
She toyed with her cell phone,
flipping it over in her fingers a couple times.
 
She turned it off.
 
But as soon as
they were in the air, she powered it back up.
 
She had to know if Lucky was okay and she didn’t want to cart around his
bag forever.

Chapter
Twenty-Two

“When do we land?”
 
Stefan nudged her from across the aisle
way.
 
He was stretched out across two
white leather seats.
 
“Trista?
You’re ignoring me.
 
You know how I get
when I’m ignored.”
 
He pulled at one of
her straggler curls.

“Ouch, Stefan.
 
I’m not in the mood.”
 
She looked at the time on her cell phone,
glad to have some other reason to stare at it.
 
“Seven hours, thirty minutes.”
 

Stefan pierced her with his dark brown
eyes.
 
“Trista, it’s gonna be a long six
months, it’s all I’m sayin’.
 
You want me
to kick his ass for you?”
 
He grinned and
his eyes returned to their warm shade of chocolate.

Even though she loved him and he knew it,
she ignored him coldly.
 
Successfully.
 
Stefan
shrugged it off and closed his eyes to get some sleep but not before he leaned
all the way across the aisle and plunked a kiss on her forehead.
 

It would be a long night—the first gig of
the tour.
 
Jaxon and Stefan, along with
Vance, Ben, herself and the head of security—Big Mike, all lounged around the
private jet.
 
The pilot would be with
them for the duration of the tour and she was usually quick to
chat
them up.
 
But not this time.
 
She was bent.
 
She toyed with her
cell and decided she’d give it a shot.
 

It was his devastatingly sweet outgoing
message, again.
 
When it was her turn to
talk, she realized she hadn’t prepared what to say.
 
She was going to sound like a
cellphone-stalking idiot and almost hung up.
 
Maybe it was her southern roots, but some grit she’d been surprised to
come across kept her on the line.
 
She
turned her head away from the aisle for some privacy, her voice lowered.
 

“Lucky, it’s me, Trista.
 
I’m sorry.
 
I don’t know what else to say…I really just wanted to make sure you were
okay and also, I wanted to know if you want me to send you your bag. Because I
have it and you don’t…You might need it… If I don’t hear back from you, I
understand.
 
But anyway, um, we’re
landing in New York later tonight.
 
First show.
 
Anyhow
Lucky, I won’t bother you again, I’m really sor—.”
 
It cut her off.
 
Good thing too.
 
She’d rambled on desperately long
enough.
 
Some pushover I’m not
.