WILDER: A Rockstar Romance Read Online Free Page A

mom stored there. But the closet was standing wide open, the blankets spilled out across the floor.
    And there were no suitcases.
    My heart sank even further.
    Scarlett's mother finally turned and noticed me standing there. The statue-like blankness of her face dissolved.
    Seeing me gave her someone to hate. And that gave her life again.
    Her mouth was already twisting into the shape of words before she finally spoke. "What did you do with her?" she snarled at me, lunging to the window.
    My father always raised us to look adults in the eye, but I feared if I peered at her directly, she would turn me into stone.
    Instead, I focused on a small patch of peeling paint on the window pane. It was odd, a rare taint of ugliness on the Sawyers’ house, but I guess it didn't matter to them because Scarlett's window didn't face the street.
    Everything that faced the street was polished and perfect.
    I stared down that peeling paint, wanting to get ahold of it and rip it upward. Tear an open wound across the window the way one was tearing across my heart. "I could ask you the same question," I said instead.
    She stood back up again, surprised that I was standing my ground. "I should call the police, you know." Mrs. Sawyer's voice was colder than anything I had ever heard. There was no concern for where Scarlett actually was. Only the worry that she was gone from her clutches. "You're a grown man, she's a child; it's disgusting."
    My fist clenched even now, as if I could shield the ring from my memory. Just as they did back then. "Scarlett and I are adults," I told her calmly. "And we've done nothing wrong." Then my calm broke. "Where the fuck is she?"
    "Don't you dare swear at me!" she hissed, shoving Scarlett's blankets off her bed like she would find her daughter hiding underneath. "You Wilders, bunch of trash strewn across our street." She slammed the closet open wider and kicked the blankets over. "If I find out you did anything to my daughter…" She whirled and lunged to the doorway again. "You'd better tell me where she is!"
    But I was already walking away. "Even if I knew," I called behind me, "I would never tell you."
    It was the truth. I didn't know.
    I waited to hear from her. Hung around the library. Called her cell phone close to a thousand times until her voicemail was filled and I could no longer hear her bright voice saying, "This is Scarlett! You know what to do!"
    I didn't know what to do. Except hope I'd hear from her, hope I'd see her again. Hope I'd be able to fix things between us so we could go back to the way things were before.
    Over the years, hope gave way to despair. Despair then gave way to terrible, terrible anger. 
    And after that came...now.
    Wherever the fuck I was in this grieving process, the wound still felt as fresh as it had that afternoon on Wallace Street.
    As I held the ring in my hands, my mind slipped back to her picture in Grip . Confident. Smiling. Beautiful. It was clear she was not broken. It was clear she had moved on.
    Maybe it was time I did the same.
    Tilting my hand was such a small thing. Just the slightest movement and the ring slid from where it nestled in my palm and landed in the trashcan. It glinted a little in the sunlight, like a wink farewell.
    I walked away to get ready for tonight's show.

Chapter 4
    Scarlett
     
    "Hey, shush, we're late," I warned Zoe.
    "So what?" She flung the back door open with a dramatic bang. "We're losing our jobs. We're entitled to boozy lunches that run wildly late."
    She wavered a little as we made our way back to our row. I tried to slide unobtrusively back into my chair, but she banged her bag down on her desk and stretched her arms over her head with a yawn. "I think I'll take a nap," she slurred, and promptly plopped down and buried her head in her arms.
    One thing I was trying to learn from my friendship with Zoe Chandler was how not to worry about what others thought of me. It was slow progress, and it came to a grinding halt whenever I put