Page 5 of Collide

Tommy lets me cry for several minutes, rubbing my back and speaking soothing words as he encourages me to let it all out. Once I do, I take a deep breath, wipe my cheeks, and sit up, releasing him from holding me.

“Feel better?” he asks. I do, and I don’t.

“I’m pregnant,” I blurt out as tears well in my eyes again. All the books tell me the first three months are the emotional stage, but I can’t seem to get past the period of crying. Slowly, I turn to look at my uncle whose mouth hangs open. Wide eyes stare back, and then he turns to his head to the side, looking out at the ocean as I did moments before.

“When?” He swallows, still unable to face me.

“I’m due in June.”

“No, I mean when did this happen?” His dark eyes turn on mine filled with a mixture of emotions—disappointment, anger, fear.

“A few months ago.”

“Who?” he chokes out. Fear clouds his already dark eyes while burning liquid fills mine once again.

“It no longer matters,” I whisper, hinting at the man who fathered my child. Tommy’s eyes widen before his head shakes.

“It can’t be,” he mutters in a voice so low I don’t think I’m meant to hear the venom in his voice. “He’s…”

I don’t answer.

With a lick of his lips, he nods once, leans forward to kiss my temple, and pushes himself up off the sand. I can’t process his reaction. It could be many things. Bitterness. Regret. Rage.

He’ll never forgive him, but then again, you can’t get an apology from a dead man.

+ + +

GAGE

I sit on the rooftop patio of the penthouse suite, drinking a beer under the midday Hawaiian heat. Jared and Petty have already headed to the beachside bar.

Our band needs this retreat, and I was honored when Lawson Colt offered this place. It’s been three months since our best friend and lead bassist, Cash Bennett, killed himself. Petty, Jared, and I didn’t know what to do with ourselves. While we knew our bandmate battled depression and hit the drugs a little heavy, we didn’t see this coming. Cash was the life of the party. He was the center of our band. A note was never found, but he phoned each of us hours before it happened. There was so much I could’ve said, but I didn’t. Then we received the fateful call.

The coroner’s voice still haunts me.

The media coverage afterward was insane.

Tommy thought we deserved a place to regroup. I am still getting used to calling him by this new name—Thomas Lawson Carrigan, aka Lawson Colt, now Tommy Carrigan. We’d been the opening act for Chrome Teardrops, on our way to our own fame, when Kit Carrigan, his sister, died of breast cancer about eighteen months back. She’d always been cordial to us but kept her distance. Most of our interactions were with her brother. After her death, our career shot off on its own.

Thinking of Kit reminds me of her daughter. Ivy. I eventually learned her name. I haven’t seen her yet, but I know she’s here with her uncle.

“The penthouse has plenty of room for all of us,” he said when he extended the invitation for a few weeks’ stay over the winter holidays.

Ivy. She typically ignores me whenever I’m near. While I’ve never forgotten slipping into her in a backstage closet, she obviously doesn’t want to remember me. We didn’t cross paths until she started dating Cash. My heart crashed when Cash told me about her.

Man, I’ve met the best piece of ass, and she’s familiar with the business, so she gets me.

I don’t know how often they saw one another or how long they were together, but I hated when he mentioned her. I hated how I thought he treated her.

A piece of ass? My ass.

Ivy appeared sweet as a spring day with her all-American blonde hair, blue-eyed looks. But I knew she ran hot as fuck from our moment in the closet, which I never shared with anyone other than Jared. Gotta keep something in the spank bank for myself. But even thinking of her like that made me angry. She was more than a piece of ass and a fantasy to whack off to. I’d never seen a sadder girl so desperately in need of love.

I take another pull of my beer, tipping my face up to the glorious midday sun. Jared and Petty went to the pool, but I wasn’t interested. I don’t do random hookups; I learned my lesson after Ivy. Of course, being on the road didn’t allow for a steady relationship with someone, so I didn’t do girlfriends. I tried to keep the one-and-done to a minimum.

Still, Ivy Carrigan never left my thoughts. She’d one-and-done me, and it never sat well when she walked away. She was so distant, but at the same time, she craved the connection. I saw it in her deep blue eyes and heard it in her pleading. She wanted the opposite of what she asked for. Faster. Harder. Maybe? But she needed slow, tender, gentle. She was a woman you took your time with, and I doubted Cash ever did.

“Gage.” Tommy’s rough voice startles me, and I sit upright, clutching at the beer in my hand as I prepare to see his niece. He went to the beach to find her, but she isn’t with him. Instead, he glares at me, but I can’t read his expression.