URGENT (Book 2 of the Soundcrush Series)

Chapter 21: Nice Guys Ride

So I think the Hallelujah is a really appropriate song for the conversation Mac and Adam have at the end of the chapter. They are really struggling to find some honesty and truth and the right way forward. Like the song says, "Love is not a victory march. It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah."

Adam

As Leed walks out, there a million things running through my mind.

The overriding thing is this:

I never saw what happened last year to Mac in the green room for what is was.

Since Mac and I have been back together, I've thought of what happened to her  a lot. I'm careful not to touch her throat. I'm sorry she got "hurt." But I still wasn't seeing it right.

Now, I see it plainly. What happened to Mac—it wasn't a "betrayal", or an "incident", or an "accident" or a stupid thing that Mac did that went too far.

It was an assault. A terrible brutalization. She might have consented to rough sex, but she didn't consent to have the life nearly choked out of her. She must have been terrified she was dying. That guy violated her, as surely as if he had raped her, beaten her, whatever.

The woman I love was hurt in a way that I can never fully understand, and in a way she will never forget. She might possibly be carrying my child, but what she carries with her everyday—the anger and hurt from that sense of violation—is the thing that drives her.

And I have no idea what to do about it.

And right this second, as we are staring at each other across the room of this trashed hotel suite, I'm looking at her like she's a hollow shell of glass filled with nitroglycerin, and she's looking at me like she wants to run.

Fuck. If she wants to run, there's only one thing to do.

Run with her.

I gesture around this rubble. "So let's get out of here."

She blinks. "What?"

I rub my beard. "Do you really want to talk about it right now?"

"Fuck no," she whispers.

"I didn't think so. Can you sleep on it?"

"Not if my life depended on it," she assures me.

I don't even consider sex. Leed is usually eerily wise, but he's wrong this time. The way she's reacted every time I've tried to touch her tonight tells me that.

"So let's ride," I say.

She blinks. "What?"

"Let's just go. Now. We'll beat the crew to Jacksonville."

I know I've made the right move when a look of relief spreads across her face. "Ok," she pushes the word out eagerly. She's already on her way to the bedroom to get dressed. "Put on some jeans...and boots?" I suggest.

I pace the suite grabbing the essentials. My favorite leather jacket is hanging on a chair. When Mac returns a minute later, I pick it up and hold it out for her.

She asks no questions, she just slips into the jacket and to my surprise, slips her hand in mine. I thread my fingers lightly in hers and we ride the elevator down. I lead her out the back of the lobby to the large back parking area, where several large trailer-trucks and three touring buses are parked.

We're doing so many shows in Florida, the Carolina's, Virginia and Tennessee, that we will be bussing for the next month instead of flying. All the transport is here in preparation for this leg of the tour.