“Look, Sienna, I—” Kylie starts and then she groans. “Screw it, I guess I might as well tell you. Wyatt’s the guy I’ve been living in New Orleans with.”
And then she tells me everything. How Wyatt had shown up in New Orleans while she was on vacation several months ago. How he’d demanded a second chance. How he ultimately screwed up.
What was with the guys in Your Toxic Sequel with their massive screw-ups and showing up at women’s doorsteps unannounced?
Kylie continues her story, but while she tells me about the road trip she and Wyatt took back to Los Angles, my front door opens. “Hold on,” I say as Gram pokes her head outside. She mouths that dinner is ready, and I give her a thumbs up. “Just a second, Gram.”
“Tell her I said hello,” Kylie trills, and I comply. Once my grandmother goes back into the house, though, I reiterate to Kylie how confused I am. She takes a long pause before she answers. “We got back together a few weeks after I left New Orleans back in February.”
“And the guy at the awards show?”
“Well hell, I guess you and Lucas didn’t talk very much while you were in the mountains.” She releases a sound. “Sienna, that’s just the bullshit I’ve been telling almost everyone so Wyatt and I can have a chance to . . . adjust.”
Adjust? My breath hitches. “Kylie, are you pregnant?”
Chapter 4
Kylie makes a noise in the back of her throat that sounds like a sob.
“Are you okay?”
“No,” she says, and this is when I realize that the sound she’s making isn’t crying but laughter. “I mean yes. I’m fine. The no was for the pregnancy question. I’m not knocked up. God, that’s the first thing people say.”
“Then you’re . . .?”
“Married. After an award show back in late April,” she explains. “Well, the morning after an award show. We’ve been pretty quiet about it because we want to make it work. Hell, I need this to work.”
I don’t know much about Wyatt McCrae—I haven’t spent enough time around the band to form solid opinions—but I do know that his history with Kylie is tumultuous. I know that the last time I saw him, back in February and right before he went after my friend, he was cozying up with an assistant at the studio where the band recorded tracks for their upcoming album.
And now—now he’s married to a woman I care about just as much as my own family.
I massage the bridge of my nose between my fingers. “Congratulations.”
Kylie releases a deep sigh. “Thanks, it means a lot to me that you’re not pissed that I kept it from—” I hear something buzzing loudly on her end, and she groans. She mumbles something about fire extinguisher and dinner and tells me she’ll be right back. When she returns to the phone nearly two minutes later, she’s out of breath.
“I blow at cooking,” she explains. “We’re just now getting around to telling most people that we’re married, so please don’t think I kept you in the dark for too long.”
I can only imagine the way she broke the news to her brother.
“Today you need to call the head of your record company. Go to a photo shoot at 2:30. Buy a wedding gift for Wyatt and me—oh, by the way, Lucas, I married him back in April.”
I bite my lip to keep from laughing. “Everyone taking it okay?”
The silence that immediately takes over the conversation is a good indicator that her answer is going to be no. I don’t nudge her to speak this time, but after thirty seconds of a quiet hum on her end, she laughs. “Just about. Lucas shocked the hell out of me because he’s been the most supportive. Sinjin, on the other hand . . .”
Just hearing the drummer’s name makes me uneasy. He had confronted me while he was high back in February. It ended badly, with Lucas furious and Sinjin going back to rehab.
“He’ll be fine,” I tell Kylie, my voice tight.
“He’s worried Wyatt is going to screw up and hurt me. I worry too—don’t get me wrong—but I want it to work. I don’t need the people closest to me making it worse.”
This I completely understand. The last thing I want is to decide to go on the road with Lucas and then have my family and friends tell me what an idiot I am.
“What matters is you’re happy.” I dig my heel in between two of the porch’s wooden floorboards and rock the swing back. “Sinjin will get over it.”
“He will,” she agrees. “Thanks for listening. And I know it still doesn’t make sense why I won’t go on tour with you guys, but I just can’t. It’ll cause too many problems and jealousy issues. It’s just best if I sit this one out.”
“You’re making it sound like I’ve already decided to go.” And after this conversation with Kylie, I wonder if I should step a foot on that tour bus.
When I say as much to her, she pulls in a breath. “Shit, babe. Please just ignore everything I just said.”
“I’m still shocked he showed up. I don’t even know what we are yet, but I know I don’t want to backtrack just because I have to see him around a bunch of horny groupies.”
“Lucas isn’t like that at all, I swear it. Not when he’s in a relationship, and that’s what you are to him now. You don’t have a damn thing to worry about.”
There’s another awkward pause in our conversation, and once again, she’s the one who breaks it by saying she has to go. For the first time since I began talking to Kylie on a regular basis a few months ago, I’m actually eager to get off the phone. She’s given me a lot to think about in a fifteen minute phone conversation, and there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll be up late tonight, gazing up at my ceiling with a hundred and one thoughts hurtling through my head.