“Good, but I wanted to tell you that we’ll stop for a quick lunch, so don’t get too far ahead of us. I’ll call you when it’s time.”
Nikki polished off the last bite of her granola bar, crinkled up the wrapper, and stuck it in Melanie’s hand. “See you at Waffle House.”
They always stopped at Waffle House on their way south. The restaurant didn’t have any locations in Topeka or even Wichita, so eating there was a rare treat for them.
“I’m not sure if Gabe likes Waffle House,” Melanie said, but Nikki was already backing out of her parking spot and waving out the window.
“Waffle House is fine,” Gabe said.
“I don’t think we should let her get her way. She’s testing her boundaries to see what she can get away with.”
“She’s a grown woman, not a new puppy.”
Melanie stuck the empty wrapper into his hand. “Are you sure about that?”
He grinned and kissed her. “The only thing I’m absolutely sure of is you.”
When he started to move away, she wrapped both arms around his neck and drew him down for a lengthier kiss. The wrapper crinkled as he moved his hands to her hips to draw her closer.
“Love you,” she murmured against his lips.
He’d never tire of that sentiment and was glad they said it freely to each other now. “Love you.”
She pulled away slowly, lips lingering on his, and opened her eyes. “Maybe we can fix up a pile of hay in the barn for her.”
Gabe chuckled. “Now there’s an idea.”
To pass the time they played a game of Google Feud on Melanie’s phone while they traveled south. Nikki was a few miles ahead of them, so they didn’t see her. She did call several times to complain that she was bored. Gabe could hear Sole Regret’s last release blaring in the background as she asked questions about his house and her would-be room and the nearest night club and his boat. It made Gabe sad that the album she was listening to might be Sole Regret’s last. Surely he could convince Adam to make amends with Jacob. They were giving up more than a career. Music was their life. He knew he wasn’t the only member of the band who felt that way.
“What’s bothering you?” Melanie asked when he didn’t respond to her next Google Feud search prompt.
“Just hoping I can talk some sense into Adam so he can talk sense into Jacob.”
“You miss them, don’t you?”
Gabe couldn’t deny that reality, so he nodded. “I know it sounds odd, but I spend most of the time on the tour bus reading, not goofing off with the guys. But even though I’m off in my own world, they’re there, you know. If I do decide to bullshit with them, they’re there. And now . . .” He shook his head. “They’re not there.” He couldn’t explain the tightness in his chest. He rubbed at it impatiently.
“You can bullshit with me,” she offered, her smile hopeful.
“I plan to,” he said, not wanting to hurt her feelings by pointing out that it wasn’t the same. He didn’t want to bullshit with her. He wanted to love her.
At brunch, Gabe tried to find something worth eating on the Waffle House menu. Both of his companions ordered waffles, but he feared he’d go into a carb coma and drive off the road if he attempted that kind of breakfast, so he opted for eggs and sausage instead.
Nikki continued with her string of questions about their destination. She was definitely a talker, while Melanie was more of an answerer and Gabe definitely a listener. The three of them got along well until Nikki broached the subject of Sole Regret’s breakup.
“So how do we go about getting the band back together?” she asked, dipping her bacon in maple syrup and taking a bite.
Gabe lifted a brow at her. “We?”
Nikki caught his eye and nodded. “I know Shade pretty well. Maybe he’ll listen to me.”
Gabe snorted. “You had a one-night stand with him. You don’t know him at all.”
“More of a one-night, one-morning stand, but I do know him. He does talk to the women he sleeps with, you know. He was worried that he was going to miss his daughter’s birthday. Said his ex-wife told him not to show up at their house unless it was one of his visitation days.”
“He saw her on her birthday,” Gabe said. At least he was pretty sure he had. Gabe had been in such a rush to spend time with Melanie that he hadn’t paid much attention to what was going on with Jacob that weekend. He knew for a fact that it was a visitation weekend, though, because their entire tour had been scheduled around having every other weekend off for that very reason. When he brought that up to Melanie and Nikki, they both looked heartbroken.
“Poor guy,” Melanie said. “Is there any way that Julie can go on tour with the band? He obviously doesn’t get to see her often enough.”
“He does now that he’s back together with his praying mantis of an ex-wife.”
“If he stays with her, Sole Regret is finished,” Nikki said.
“I think you’re right about that,” Gabe said, taking a sip of coffee and staring down at his nearly empty plate. “I really thought he and Amanda had a shot.”
“Who’s Amanda?” Nikki asked.
“His ex-wife’s sister,” Melanie said.
Nikki let out a low whistle. “Well, that would never work out.”
“Why not?” Gabe happened to think Amanda was perfect for Jacob.
“Can you imagine how awkward the holidays would be?”
Melanie laughed. “That would be awkward.”
“But she already loves his daughter,” Gabe said, “so adjusting to being a nuclear family would be easier on the three of them. It would be everyone else that would have issues with it, not those three.”
“Well, his ex would definitely have an issue with it,” Melanie said. “Does she know that Jacob and Amanda were together?”
Gabe shrugged. “I hope not. She’d probably beat the snot out of him.” Which might explain the bruise on Jacob’s forehead when he’d had returned to the tour after his weekend with Julie. Gabe wished he’d been paying better attention to what had been going on with Jacob that day, but then he’d had his own worries to deal with that weekend. And all of his problems had centered around Nikki. He scrutinized her closely as she waved the waitress over for a refill on her glass of milk. She looked so perfectly harmless.
“If my ex-husband was sniffing around my sister, I’d definitely bust his balls,” Nikki said. “Not that I have an ex-husband. Or a sister.”
“I might be okay with it,” Melanie said, “if they genuinely cared about each other and my ex and I had parted under friendly terms.”
“If you’re friendly, why would you part?” Nikki asked.
“People grow apart. Maybe they shouldn’t be married anymore, but it’s possible to still get along.”
Gabe snorted. “Tina and Jacob are anything but friendly. That’s why his getting back together with her makes absolutely no sense. None.”
“I’ll talk to him about what’s going on,” Nikki said. “Maybe he’ll open up to me. I’m a good listener.”
“When you’re asleep,” Melanie said with a laugh. “Maybe. Sometimes you even talk then.”
Nikki stuck her tongue out at her.
After paying for brunch and gassing up both cars, Gabe called Adam to make sure he remembered that they were stopping by the hospital in Dallas for a quick visit.
“I’ll be here,” Adam said. “I don’t have anywhere better to be.”
“Have you heard from the other guys?” Gabe asked.
“Just Owen. He said once his brother is stable, they’re shipping him to an army hospital at Fort Hood. He wanted me to ask the doctors here if that would be in Chad’s best interest.”
“Does Owen know more about Chad’s injuries now?”
“Not much more. But he did say they take those with the most severe injuries to San Antonio, so maybe them sending him to Fort Hood is actually a good sign.”
“I hope you’re right.” Gabe wished he knew more about such things. It was no
wonder Owen had never returned his call about the stupid paternity test. The guy definitely had more important worries. Gabe wouldn’t bother him again. “I’ll see you in a few hours. Do you want to meet me down in the lob—”
“I’m not leaving Madison’s side,” Adam interrupted.
“Is she okay with company, then? We could come up to her room.”
Adam mumbled something, and then he laughed. “She says she’d like to see a new face about now. I guess she’s tired of looking at my ugly mug.”
Gabe could hear Madison’s protests in the background.
“I know you don’t think I’m ugly,” Adam said to her.
“I’ll see you in a few then,” Gabe said, wanting to get back on the road. Melanie was sending him questioning looks through the windshield as he stood in front of the car on his phone.
“See you.”
For the first time in his experience, the traffic around Dallas wasn’t bad, but finding parking at Baylor was a nightmare. Nikki had somehow snagged a prime spot near the entrance to the main hospital and waved at them as they drove past. By the time Gabe found a spot, she’d already found a new friend to talk to. Well, the guy was mostly talking at her boobs—which he was quite obviously ogling—but she didn’t seem to notice. Gabe moved to stand beside her, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and kissed the side of her head. “Hey, sweetie, sorry to make you wait. Is this guy bothering you?”
“No,” she said. “He’s a med student.”
Gabe offered the young man an unrelenting stare. “A future gynecologist, I presume, since he’s doing such a thorough examination of your breasts.”
The guy had the decency to blush and back away. Nikki giggled in delight. Melanie rolled her eyes and shook her head at them both.
“We’re trying to find a patient,” Gabe said to the endearingly awkward guy. “Where would we go for information?”
After pointing them in a general direction, the med student adjusted his wire-framed glasses and turned to go, but then he stopped and faced Nikki again.
“It was nice talking to you, Wilma. I wish you had told me you had a boyfriend.” He released a full-body sigh, looking as if he’d just said goodbye to his soul mate, and then walked away.
“Wilma?” Gabe asked before releasing his proprietary hold on Nikki and taking Melanie’s hand.
“He said his name was Fred,” Nikki explained. “I told him we must have been fated to meet because I was Wilma.”
Melanie snorted.
Gabe shook his head at the two of them. “You shouldn’t get a guy’s hopes up like that. Do you know how to flat out reject a guy? That whole let-him-down-easy thing you women do just makes it harder on us in the long run because then we have hope.”
“Do I know how to reject a guy?” Nikki asked. “Sure. Do I know how to reject a sweet, cute future doctor named Fred? Not so much.”
“Since you’re not supposed to hook up with anyone this month, you’re bound to find the man of your dreams,” Melanie said. “It’s poetic justice. Karma. Whatever you want to call it.”
“If he’s the man of her dreams, he can wait,” Gabe declared. “In fact, any man worth your time and affection can wait until the time is right for you, no matter how hard he tries to convince you otherwise.”
“Oh, Gabe,” Nikki said, poking him in the ribs. “You’re such a romantic.”
It took them a while to find their way to Madison’s room. They stopped and picked up some flowers at the gift shop, and Nikki insisted on a Get Well Soon balloon to go along with the bouquet of cheerfully bright daisies. As they walked down a long sterile hallway, Gabe noticed how Nikki began to cling to Melanie. He wondered if it would be better for Nikki to talk about her obvious fear, or if that would make her feel worse.
He opted for middle ground to give her the opportunity to speak freely if she felt like it. “You okay, Nik?”
She looked up at him and nodded with a slight smile on her lips. Melanie lifted Nikki’s hand and pressed it to her chest.
“Hospitals remind her of all the reasons she’s been in one,” Melanie said. “None of them good.”
“A few of them good,” Nikki corrected. “Like when my cousin’s baby was born.”
“I apologize. I shouldn’t have spoken for you,” Melanie said.
“That’s okay.”
“You just looked a little nervous,” Gabe said. “I was worried about you.”
At his declaration, Nikki beamed. “I am nervous. We’re going to see Adam Taylor. I wonder if he’ll even remember me. Did you see the sketch he drew of me? Pretty cool, huh?”
Gabe chuckled. “Very cool. And I’m sure he’ll remember you.”
He had seen the drawing Adam had done, and recalled that Jacob had been upset that half of Nikki’s beautiful face had been depicted as decayed to bone in Adam’s artwork. Jacob tended to take things a bit too literally, while Adam was pathologically artistic. They never saw eye to eye on anything, and that was exactly why Sole Regret needed them both. Having a band made up of like-minded individuals would have made for some uninspired, passionless music.
Which was why he was there. To remind Adam—and himself—that no matter what obstacles appeared in their path, their friendship, their band, their music was worth fighting for.
When they reached Madison’s room, Gabe knocked on the open door and called loudly, “Are you decent in there?”
“I wouldn’t call myself decent,” Adam replied, “but you can come in anyway.”
Gabe was surprised that while Madison had been the one injured and had recently undergone surgery, she looked a hell of a lot better than Adam did.
“When was the last time you slept?” Gabe asked him while the women crowded around Madison to give her flowers and to hear her story about a rattlesnake spooking her horse.
“Can’t remember,” Adam said, swaying slightly in Gabe’s direction.
Gabe caught him by both shoulders. “You won’t be able to help her if you collapse from exhaustion.”
“I keep telling him that,” Madison said. “That he should get some rest while I’m stuck in here, because when I get out and he goes back on tour, he’s going to be too tired to perform. If he thinks Jacob is mad at him now . . .”
Gabe winced, but before he could open his mouth to comment, Adam grabbed him by the arm and tugged him toward the hall.
“Be right back, babe,” Adam called to Madison. “You ladies take good care of her while I’m gone.”
Adam closed the door softly and turned to face Gabe. Adam couldn’t meet his gaze, however, standing there hands on hips, eyes focused downward.
“You haven’t told her?” Gabe asked. “About the band breaking up?”
Adam shook his head. “She’ll feel like it’s her fault. I don’t want her to feel that way. It’s my fault.”
Gabe licked his lips. He wasn’t going to give Adam an out. The band’s breakup was at least partially his fault, and Adam had never been the type to claim responsibility for anything. So to hear him say that he was taking the blame gave Gabe hope. Gabe knew that was what Jacob had always wanted out of Adam, for him to claim responsibility for something—for anything. This was a big step in the right direction. But would it be enough?
“So what are you going to do to fix it?” Gabe asked.
Adam finally met his eyes. He really did look like hell—wrinkled clothes, a scruffy growth of beard, dark circles under both eyes, and his messy-by-design hair was extra-disheveled. He was even missing a few of the chains he usually wore.
“There’s no fixing this. I fucked up too big this time.”
“You did fuck up big,” Gabe said.
“Sorry.”
God, Jacob should be here witnessing this change in Adam. Though it might not matter. Whenever the two of them were in a room together, their alpha supremacy bullshit began.
“But we can fix this,” Gabe said.
“How?”
“Oh my God!” Madison squealed insid
e the room.
Before Gabe could blink, Adam had bashed open the door and was at her bedside. “What is it? Where does it hurt?”
“I’m fine, sweetheart,” Madison said. “It’s just . . . Melanie and Gabe got engaged too!”, She held up her left hand next to Melanie’s to show they both had sparkly new engagement rings.
Adam covered his chest with one hand. “You scared the hell out