After tucking Lucy into her bed, I showered and sat on my bed flipping through channels. Before long, I was yawning and unable to keep my eyes open…

A noise startled me awake. At first I didn’t know where the noise had come from. A glance over at the other bed told me that it hadn’t been Lucy because she was still fast asleep. The television was turned down low, so it hadn’t come from there…

A thumping against the wall made me jump, and I tossed back the covers. It had come from Drake’s room next door, and I was scared something had happened to him. But when I raised my hand to knock on the connecting door, a moan caught my attention.

The moan hadn’t come from Drake. It wasn’t deep and rough, but high and feminine. I held my breath as I leaned in closer, trying to hear better even as my stomach rolled. When the moan came again, louder this time, I knew that they were just on the other side of the door. Another thump and the door vibrated as if someone was pushed up against it.

Tears burned my eyes and bile rose in the back of my throat as I heard the woman moan again and then…Drake’s hoarse growl! I knew what was happening. The only thing that separated me from Drake fucking some random girl was a door three inches thick.

A sob escaped me and I ran for the bathroom, unable to listen a second longer as the woman’s moans grew louder as her ecstasy increased with each passing second. I shut the door and turned on the shower, trying to drown out the sounds coming from the connecting hotel room.

I wasn’t sure how long I sat there on the edge of the bathtub. All I was wearing was a pair of boy shorts and a tee shirt—ironically enough the same one I had slept in the night before because I had needed something of Drake’s touching me while I slept. Now I was cold, the steam from the shower not providing enough heat to warm the coldness that had invaded my very soul.

My back began to ache from sitting like that for so long, and I slipped onto the floor, using the tub for support as I pulled my legs to my chest and rested my forehead on my knees as the tears continued to fall.

Sometime much, much later, my tears finally started to dry and the cold that had numbed me started to thaw enough to make me realize that I should be mad. I was in love with Drake, and after Friday night, I was sure that he was in love with me too, or that he at least cared about me as more than a friend… Now, with him fucking some other girl in his hotel room, unconcerned that I would hear him, I knew that I had been wrong.

All I would ever be to him was his friend, and I would have to accept that. But there was no way I could carry on the way we had been the last few months. I wasn’t that good of an actress. I sucked at pretending, especially when my feelings were involved. And they didn’t get any more involved than they were right now.

It would kill me to have to see him day after day, knowing that he had gone from lying in bed with me one night to screwing some other chick the next. Maybe that was how it worked in the rocker world—okay, so I knew that that was how it worked in the rocker world, but I couldn’t deal with that kind of messed up shit.

As the night dragged on, I realized what I had to do. It was going to be hard. It meant doing things I had promised never to do, but sometimes you had to do what was best for you, not what was best for someone else.

With that thought firmly in mind, I stood and turned off the shower. When I entered the bedroom all I could hear was the voices coming from the television and sank down on the edge of my bed. Sleep eluded me. There was no way I could sleep now. Not without the sounds of the couple in the next room haunting me.

Chapter 7

Drake

There was a pounding in my head. I blinked open my eyes and frowned at the ceiling, unsure of where I was for a moment. When it came to me, I groaned and turned over in bed, determined to get a few more hours of much needed sleep.

“Drake!” Shane’s voice called from the hallway as he pounded on my hotel room door. “Emmie said to get up, bro. We leave in half an hour.”

I muttered a curse and scrubbed a hand over my stubble roughened jaw. “Dude, you drove. Why can’t we wait until later?”

“Because I’m leaving the car for Jesse,” Shane yelled through the door. “Now get your ass up!”

Still muttering curses, I stumbled into the bathroom and turned the shower on full blast. I smelled like smoke and booze and perfume. Damn Shane, wanting to go clubbing! I was pretty sure that I had brought a girl back with me last night, but couldn’t remember her name or even what she looked like. She was already gone which told me all I really needed to know. She had been a groupie looking for a night in a rock star’s bed.

Disgusted with myself, I scrubbed until my skin ached and then got dressed. I only had to toss a few things into my case and I was ready to roll.

Downstairs, I found everyone already loaded up. Jesse and Layla were staying for a week as a kind of honeymoon and would drive Shane’s car back. So of course we all had to get into the Escalade. The only seat not taken already was the front passenger seat. Lucy and Lana had taken the smaller back seat with Emmie, Mia, and Shane in the middle one. I glanced back to check on Lana, but she had her head leaned against the window and her eyes were closed.

“Did you get everything?” Emmie asked as she tucked Mia into her car seat.

“Yeah, I made sure I packed everything.” She was such a mother hen sometimes, but I didn’t know what I would do without her.

“Then let’s go.” Emmie grimaced. “I have things to do when we get home.”

Lana

How I made it through saying goodbye to my sister I will never truly know. Somehow, I was able to put on a smile and keep it on while she hugged me and Lucy. To my surprise, it was Jesse that saw through my façade and took me aside for a private talk.

“What’s up?” he asked, his unusual eyes scanning my face. “You have circles under your eyes, and you’re as pale as a ghost.”

I avoided his eyes, trying to push my emotions down when they threatened to surface. “I’m fine. I stayed up all night watching television when I should have been sleeping.”

“Liar,” he accused.

I glared up at my new brother-in-law. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it. Especially now. I don’t want Layla to worry when she should be having a good time with you on your honeymoon.”

He clenched his jaw, wanting to argue with me but unable to do so. He didn’t want to upset Layla anymore than I did. “We are going to talk about it as soon as I get home. Understand?” I nodded. “Good. Until then, if you need anything let Emmie know…And make sure you take care of the college issue this week, Lana. I expect your decision when we get home.”