Page 74 of Goode to Be Bad

I buckled up and silence descended on the hushed interior of the luxury SUV. The security guards were split between the front seat of this SUV and an identical one behind us.

He wasn’t looking at me.

I didn’t know what to say.

“Smart thinking, getting that girl to post that video.” He finally looked at me, and I could tell he was hurt, angry, and at a loss for words.

“She saw me sitting on a bench and wanted a selfie with me.” I laughed. “I was about to say how weird and awkward it was, but then I just watched you do it for an hour straight.”

He gave a sort of half laugh. “First taste of fame, huh? Get used to it. Before long, you’ll be doing that,” he said, gesturing behind us.

I didn’t want to argue, so I said nothing in response to that. “Thank you for coming to get me. I’m so sorry to have put you through that.”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

Finally, after forty-five minutes through brutal traffic, we arrived at the hotel.

That had been the worst, most uncomfortable silence of my life.

The silence continued aswe took a private elevator up to the suite .

We arrived directly into a massive penthouse with a multi-million-dollar view of Tokyo spread out below. Ultramodern, all stark lines and contrasting black and white and chrome with pops of color and muted shades of gray.

There was food waiting—a huge spread of food. Seeing it made me realize how hungry I was.

Myles made up plates for us and we ate…in silence.

I had no clue what to say, or how to break the silence without bringing up questions and creating more arguments. Myles didn’t deserve that. So I kept silent and Myles seemed content to let it be, as well.

For the first time since I met him, we went to bed without sex.

Awkward, tense. The knowledge of so much unspoken between us.

So much he wanted that I had no clue how to give.

So much he deserved to know that I couldn’t tell him.

So, he went to bed, and I sat in the bed beside him, exhausted and utterly unable to sleep.

I heard him snoring, and hated myself for everything.

14

Myles

Iwoke somewhere near dawn, for reasons unknown. I didn’t have to pee, I wasn’t thirsty, wasn’t hungover. Just…awake.

At 5:01 a.m. local time.

Jet lag, maybe, but I was used to that, and I could generally fall asleep whenever I needed to. And god knew after the show, the hours of hunting Tokyo for Lexie, and then signing autographs and posing, the awkward silent drive, the tense silence in the penthouse here—I should have been dead beat. But I was wide awake.

And that’s when I heard it.

Lexie—singing, playing a guitar.

I saw her, on the balcony off the master suite. Sitting in a chair, leaning back on two legs with the chair back resting against the corner and her feet on the railing. Guitar across her thigh. City light bathed her in a dozen shades of glowing shadow. She was nude, under the guitar, from my angle, I could see the swell of her breast pressed against the guitar, the curve of her thigh as it rounded under on the chair. Her eyes were closed, her head tipped back, and she was singing the saddest song I’d ever heard.