Page 110 of Without a Hitch
“I couldn’t hide from Lochlan. He wouldn’t let me. He—he saw me. All the time. Everywhere. He saw me.” An undignified wail escapes, and my words are a mucus-y, slobbery mess.
My bed shifts on either side, and arms wrap me in love. The sound of something scraping across the floor catches our attention, and we all lift our heads to find Mable dragging a chair and plastic bags full of food into the room.
“In my day, we sat in night dresses on the living room floor, but if y’all want to pile into a bed, to each their own. I’ll sit down here. I brought the tissues, the chocolate, the wine, and the food. We’re all set for a good long while, so you just go ahead and let it out. No judgment from me and Pussy.”
As if the cat already knows her name, Pussy waltzes into the room with an air of elegance.
Absurd and unconditional love surrounds me, and I finally break. I cry for not taking Lochlan’s words at face value. I cry for the pain that someone has caused him. I cry for being so stupid in love that I allowed my heart to get twisted up in such a short amount of time.
I cry as conversations carry on around me, and eventually I drift off into a fitful, heart-wrenching sleep filled with dreams of promises and happy ever afters that seem to avoid me like the plague.
CHAPTER35
LOCHLAN
Iwake with a start and promptly fall on my ass. The floating bed of doom tried to kill me. Again. There will be a mark on my hip after this fall for sure, but then I remember what woke me. That bloody song. Tilly’s text tone, because only Tilly would change the ring and text sounds to two different songs. I scramble to the grass beneath me, searching for my phone. When I finally find it, I stab at the screen, but there’s no text.
Lifting myself into a chair, I scroll through the messages, but there isn’t one.Fuck. Scrubbing the sleep from my eyes, I search my surroundings. I heard the song. I know I did. When continuing to scroll doesn’t turn up anything, I turn the phone over as if it will unlock all the mysteries. Eventually, I succumb to the realization that I’m hearing a phantom. The phantom of Tilly. She’s invading my days and nights now. With music.
My fingers twitch to the rhythm, and I watch them in shock. I hear the music. I feel the music. My thumb scrolls the screen again, this time searching for the settings.What is this song that’s playing on a loop in my head?Why am I still hearing it?
I hover over a thumbnail of a man I don’t recognize, and my phone comes to life. The name Thomas Rhett flashes, and the words “Things You Do For Love” scroll across my screen. Tapping the picture, the song begins to play, and my throat closes up at the realization that I not only know the words, but I feel them in my chest. My heart thrashes wildly in time with the happy beat.
What would I do? Not for love, but for Tilly? Is that the same thing? Does it matter if I’m doing it for Tilly or for love? Or for the love of Tilly? Can I be the man she needs? Bloody hell, I need a drink.
Images of our time together flood my vision. Tilly in the blue dress. Tilly in the purple dress. Tilly laughing with the security guard at the library. Tilly riding that bloody scooter. On the boat with absolutely no qualms about spearing the bait with an enormous hook. And Tilly in my bed. She’s everywhere. Branded on my life like she’ll never leave.
I tug on the ends of my hair until my scalp prickles. My ears ring like I’m learning how to hear for the first time, and I drop my phone to cover them, but it isn’t enough. It’s like Tilly’s the notes in the song of my life. I feel her viscerally as if she were here with every strum of the guitar.
The thirty-second snippet stops, and I press the button to play it again. It doesn’t last long enough for me to get it out of my system. Why is the damn song so short? Glancing at the time, I call Angie. It’s just after two p.m. here—hopefully, she’s still in the office.
“You’re alive,” she answers with a grin in her voice. I’m sure she was expecting me to check in multiple times a day, but it never even crossed my mind with Tilly here.
“How do I get a song on my phone?” I bark. The irony of calling my sixty-year-old assistant for help with technology is not lost on me, but I’m not thinking clearly.
“A song?”
“Yes, Angie. A song. How do I get it to play music? Is there an app or something?” I hear her shuffling papers in the background before it’s replaced with silence. “Angie? Do you know or not?”
“My brother—”
“Jesus Christ, Nono. What are you doing in my office?”
“Visiting Kitty. But I’m here to help. My brother, who is notoriously music-adverse, wants music on his phone?”
“Yes,” I all but growl.
“Any song in particular?” She’s having far too much fun with this.
“Yes.”
“Well, you have to tell me so I can help you.”
“Just tell me how to get it, and I’ll do it myself.”
“No can do, big bro! That’s not how it works. What song? I’ll forward you a playlist.” Is she fucking with me? She probably is. Perhaps I should have Googled it.
“‘Things You Do For Love,’” I mutter tersely, but the words don’t carry across the phone because she laughs.
