Not Just Another Rock Star Romance

by Lisa Suzanne

  It’s not my first time on a tour bus, but it is my first time traveling on one with my own band. The front lounge has couches and televisions plus a little mini-kitchen. The bunks are in the middle, and the back lounge is set up as an office and storage space. Some buses I’ve seen have a bedroom in the back lounge, but we opted for a work space instead. There’s one large desk and one circular table back there, the perfect space to have a band meeting or to sit in privacy at the desk if any one of us needs it. There’s a bathroom connected to the back lounge, but one of my buddies warned me to only use the bus bathroom if it’s a complete emergency. I chuckled at the time, but looking around the small proximity of our home for the next two months tells me it was probably good advice.

  I’m sitting in the front lounge, sprawled on a couch and flipping the channels on the television, when the others board. Pete has started the bus, and it rumbles quietly beneath us. It’ll take a little time to get used to it. “Take the tour, pick your beds, and let’s meet in back,” I say, and everyone nods.

  I give them a few minutes to choose bunks and get settled as the bus starts to move, and then I head back to the office. On my way, I check out who took which bunks based on the shit they threw on them to claim them. Brody will be above me, with Adam above Pete. On the other side, it looks like Kane took the bunk on top across from me and Rascal took the top bunk in front of his. The bottom bunk beneath Rascal is empty, and the bottom bunk directly across from mine has a pink bag on it.

  So when I close my eyes at night, I’ll close them with Kylie three feet away from me instead of pressed up against me.

  I blow out a breath. I have to shake off these thoughts, because Kylie’s right. I’m not acting like myself. I just don’t know how to get the old me back.

  I walk into the office where we’ll hold our first band meeting ever on a tour bus. I force the depressing and lonely thoughts about Kylie to the back of my mind even though she’s sitting right next to me, and she’ll be sleeping beside me for the next two months, even though every time I see her it’s like a goddamn light illuminates the entire fucking room and I want to stab myself for being such a stupid idiot.

  “Hey,” I say quietly when I enter the room. They all get quiet and turn their attention toward me. “Did anyone tell you that you’re going on tour with fucking Vail?” I make devil horns with my fingers at my friends, and a round of excited laughter erupts in the room. Faces break out into grins, and I even hear a little whoop from Rascal’s direction. I feel like a heavy cloud is lifted a bit as I just tweak my attitude a little. This is a really exciting time in our lives, and I’m shifting the focus to that.

  I have to. It’s the only way I’ll survive this.

  I slide into the only open chair at the round table between Brody and Kylie, and her coconut smell wafts to my nose. I rub my nose absentmindedly to get rid of the smell, but it’s still there.

  “First stop, Chicago,” I announce. “Kylie, tell us the plan.”

  She pulls out a binder for each of us and passes them around the table. “These are your tour bibles. Keep them in a safe space, but if you lose them,” she glances at Rascal, clearly the least responsible of us all, “I can fill you in on what’s coming up.”

  “These are awesome,” Kane says as he flips through the pages. I take a look at my copy, too. The front says DAX in huge letters, and every single moment of my time for the next two months is spelled out in this binder.

  I almost make a snarky comment, but I refrain. On second thought, it’s just the kind of thing I’d have said to her a month ago.

  “Question,” I say.

  Kylie looks over at me.

  “What happens if I have to take a piss but it’s not on the schedule?”

  Kylie laughs and smacks me in the arm. “Then you hold it, asshole.”

  The rest of the guys laugh, too, and some of the ice is broken between us.

  “Flip to today,” Kylie says, and we all follow along dutifully. “Driving straight through to Chicago would take thirty hours, but we legally have to stop every ten hours so our driver can sleep. We’ll land in the middle of Utah for our first break ten hours from now. We’ll travel to Nebraska tomorrow afternoon before our next stop and wind up an hour or two away from the venue. One of Vail’s drivers will pick up our bus and get us to the venue. Barring any unforeseen circumstances—which I’ve accounted for in our travel anyway—we should arrive to the hotel a little before eleven in the morning. That gives us plenty of time to check in, shower, hold a band meeting over lunch, and get to the venue by two. Any questions?”

  She glances at me first like I’m going to make another snarky remark, but instead, I say, “This is really well-organized, Kylie. Clearly we made the right choice when we chose you as our manager.”

  Her lips tip up and if I’m not mistaken, she preens a little at my compliment. “Thank you.”

  “Will we have time to sightsee in Chicago?” Rascal asks. “I’ve never been there and people keep telling me I have to see some bean.”

  Kylie laughs. “It’s a huge sculpture in Millennium Park. It’s about a forty-five minute drive from the Rosemont Horizon where you’ll be playing.”

  “Sunday, maybe?” he asks hopefully.

  “Probably,” she says. “We won’t be leaving Chicago until Sunday night, so we should have some time for sightseeing. I do need to warn you, though, that it’s December in the Windy City. Expect it to be freezing, especially for you warm-blooded San Diegans.”

  “San Diegans?” I ask. “Aren’t you one of them?”

  “Actually, I grew up in Iowa. I moved to California for college, so I’ve got the cold Midwestern blood in me.”

  My brows furrow. I’ve known the girl eight months and didn’t know she grew up in Iowa. As stupid as it sounds, I’m looking forward to getting to know her better over the next two months.

  * * *

  “I have two surprises,” Kylie says later that night. We’re parked at some rest stop in the middle of nowhere, Utah, after traveling for ten solid hours all day. I’m already itching to get off this goddamn bus, and it’s only the first day. I suppose I’ll get used to it, but it’s just a small space for six people and a driver. I can’t seem to turn around without bumping into someone.

  We’re sitting in the front lounge of the bus, all of us sprawled out on couches, and Kylie reaches into a huge bag. She pulls out Styrofoam containers and passes them around. I pop mine open and find three pancakes sitting inside.

  I glance up at her in wonder, and she just grins at me.

  “Surprise number one is dinner. I had to hide these in that mini-fridge all day. The microwave works, so help yourself to heating your food.”

  “This is awesome, Kylie,” Adam says. He stands and walks across the room to kiss her on the cheek. “Thank you. You’re like the band mother.”

  His assessment makes us all laugh, but it’s kind of true. She’s already taking care of us, and that’s not really part of her job description.

  “What’s the second surprise?” Rascal asks.

  She holds up a finger. “You’ll see. Get your dinners started and I’ll get it ready.”

  Kane uses the microwave first, and then Rascal, and then it’s my turn. I heat up my pancakes, grateful to have a hot meal and even more grateful that it’s pancakes.

  After I carefully pour the syrup and spread it out just the way I like it, I turn around and find the second surprise.

  The reunion episode of Take My Heart is pulled up on the television screens in the front lounge of the bus.

  Fuck.

  “On demand viewing!” Kylie squeals.

  Shit.

  I wrinkle my nose as I try to maintain my cool. “I don’t really want to watch it,” I say with hesitance. I’m not sure how I’m going to get out of this one.

  “Oh, come on, Dax,” Kylie says. “We’re all dying to see how it panned out with the women. Right, boys?”

  I shoot Brody a look since he’s the
most likely to decode what it means, but he ignores me. I try for Kane next, but he’s grinning up at Kylie like she hung the moon.

  “Right,” Kane says. “We have to see how you fixed everything and made the viewers fall in love with you.” His eyes edge over to me. “That’s what you said, isn’t it?”

  I heave out a breath. Yeah, it’s what I said...because I think the viewers will have sympathy that I’m in love with someone who doesn’t love me back. And I certainly regret telling Kane that I fixed everything since he’s using my own words against me.

  I’m about to protest some more, but she hits the play button and I’m out of arguments.

  There are two televisions on this bus. One hangs on the wall across from the couch where I’m sitting, right above Kane, Adam, and Kylie. The other hangs right above Brody, Rascal, and me. As soon as she hits the play button, Melanie Werther’s voice fills the front lounge of the bus.

  “Good evening everyone, I’m Melanie Werther and I’m excited to bring you the Take My Heart reunion show tonight! All ten ladies are here along with the four celebrity men, and we have so much action packed into the next hour that I can’t wait to get started!”

  The camera pans across the ten ladies in the order they were eliminated. Melanie’s voice continues. “Please welcome Chantelle, Amanda, Charlotte, Amber, Kristy, Talia, Poppy, Nicole, Lexy, and Eden!”

  Melanie takes her seat behind the big desk and looks into the camera. “We’ll start by chatting with the ladies tonight.”

  She proceeds to ask them each a few questions, and I want to relax and enjoy my pancakes as I watch, but I just know what’s coming and my chest is suddenly a tight mass of tangled nerves. All I can do is hope that somehow they left the part where I confessed I’m in love with someone else on the editing room floor.

  The men are introduced, and I watch as I walk out onto the stage. Even I can see the difference in the way I’m walking from the first episode to this one. I started out with my confident charm, and I ended feeling completely defeated—and not just because I didn’t win in the end.

  Danny has the swagger and the confidence, and I look like the sad little sidekick.

  I notice right away that some of our conversation is cut down. I’m not surprised that they left in the part where Amber asks if Melanie and I slept together. Of course it’ll help ratings—of course people want to know what really happened between us. But they cut out a huge part of my response.

  “A lot of rumors abound, and I’d like to clear the air,” Melanie says on the screen. “It’s true that Dax and I shared some intimate moments.”

  The part where I say it was all done as a ratings boost because the network owns Melanie is gone. The part where I admit Mel paid off my driver is also gone. Instead, they splice my words together. “I wasn’t expecting to end up there, but she’s a beautiful woman.”

  The part where I say it was a mistake that I regret was also cut.

  “What the fuck?” I say. I feel everyone’s eyes on me, and Kylie pauses the show so I can talk. “I said it was a mistake that I regret. They cut that part.”

  My eyes edge over to Kylie to gauge her reaction. Her lips are pressed together in a thin line and I wish she was sitting next to me. She clears her throat and presses play, and we watch as Amber asks if I regret what happened with Poppy.

  When I watch back my response to that question, I come off looking like a cocky asshole the way they edited my response. “I don’t regret it. An important part of a relationship is sexual compatibility, and since Poppy and I were dating, there was nothing wrong with what we did.” They cut the part about how I would’ve chosen somewhere nicer if I had the chance to do it over again.

  I blow out a frustrated breath as I watch, and a sudden feeling of relief courses through me. With everything they’ve cut tonight to make me look like even more of an asshole, I seriously doubt they’ll show the part where I confess my love for the woman sitting across the bus from me. For whatever reason, they don’t want me to look like a good guy, and that’s the part that I think would most endear me to the viewers.

  But that relief freezes right there in my veins as I listen to the words that spill out of my mouth when Melanie asks me why it was so hard for me to open up to the women.

  I watch my earnest face as I say, “I have feelings for someone not on the show. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, which made it difficult to open up to anyone here.”

  I watch as Melanie asks me why I even came on the show if I had feelings for someone else.

  My eyes are glued to the screen as I shrug and say, “The feelings aren’t reciprocated,” and as Melanie says, “And you know this because...”

  I hold my breath. It feels like an out of body experience as I watch myself say, “Because she’s the one who signed me up for this show.” A collective gasp sounds on the bus around me. Everyone here knows it was Kylie who did that, and my heart is racing. My eyes fall down to Kylie, who’s watching the television above me with tears in her eyes, as if she doesn’t know where to look or what to do. I listen as my words come from the speaker above us. “That made it pretty obvious she’d never see me the way I see her.”

  I hear Melanie’s voice, but my eyes are still on Kylie. “See? As in still see, even after all this?”

  I hear myself say, “Still see, yes. I think I’m in love with her. I came here hoping I’d be able to get over her. I tried to get past my feelings for her. I tried to tuck them away and pretend they don’t matter, but the more I pretended, the stronger my feelings for her became.” I can’t watch. I can’t tear my eyes from Kylie, who can’t tear her eyes from the screen above me.

  As Melanie tells me the lady is very lucky, Kylie’s eyes finally move from the screen and they fall slowly to mine. She swipes at a tear that tipped over her lid and started tracking down her cheek.

  The show is still playing, Danny might be proposing—but I’m not sure because my head is buzzing as I try to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do next.

  I finally stand and hold a hand out to help Kylie up. I clear my throat that’s suddenly raspy and dry. “Can we talk?” I ask quietly. I feel everyone’s eyes on me, but my eyes are on her.

  She takes my hand and stands, her eyes never leaving mine. I turn to pull her with me to the office so we can have a moment of privacy, but she tugs my hand. I turn back toward her, and to my utter shock, she takes my cheeks between her palms and presses her lips to mine.

  A cheer rises up from the men around us, but I hardly hear it over the rush between my ears and the focus of my mouth on hers. I’m about to open my mouth to deepen out connection when I think twice about it. I let her guide this kiss, soft and gentle, lip to lip. It’s nothing the guys haven’t seen me do before...they’ve seen far more, in fact, but somehow I want the important moments between the two of us to remain private. It seems important that the first time my tongue tastes hers, we’re not center stage in front of an audience. Considering we’re the opening act for Vail and I just finished a reality television show, we’ll have plenty of time in the spotlight.

  But these moments when I confess to her how I feel in person and not on some television show will forever be only ours to cherish. I stop the kiss and lean my forehead to hers for a beat, and then I draw in a breath. I pull her along with me toward the office. Once we’re inside, I shut the door behind us. I lock it for good measure—sometimes the guys can be real immature ass clowns.

  It’s time to admit the truth.

  28

  When I turn to face Kylie, she stands in the middle of the room wringing her hands nervously.

  “What you heard me say to Melanie—” I begin, and I stop myself. I want to be very clear with my words. “I don’t think I’m in love with you, Kylie. I know I am. I don’t know when it happened or how, but going on that show forced me to look inside myself, and when I looked in there, I realized you were there the whole time. I wanted to tell you, but there was too much standing in our way and I
was a fucking coward.”

  I realize I’m rambling, and she’s just standing there wringing her hands and I have no idea what she’s thinking.

  “I want to be with you,” I say. “Only you. I want to kiss you and hold your hand and tell you how much I love you and need you. I want you to be my first good morning and my last goodnight. But if you don’t want that, too, then I’ll push these feelings away and forget about them and keep everything between us strictly professional.”

  “Shut up,” she finally says. She sets her hands on her hips, and it’s such a fucking Kylie thing to do. Instead of responding to me after I fucking bared my soul to her, she challenges me. “If you are so in love with me, why didn’t you just tell me?”

  Her words send the first frisson of fear down my spine that maybe she doesn’t want this. When she kissed me in front of the guys immediately after hearing my words come through the television, I was certain she felt it, too. But now I’m not so sure. “You pushed me into going on a reality show to find love. I just thought if you felt about me the way I felt about you, you wouldn’t have wanted me to find love with someone else.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “Did you ever stop to think why I might’ve done that?”

  I stare at her, completely dumbfounded. I realize this is new territory for me, but I feel like I’m so far in over my head I can’t even see the ceiling anymore. “No,” I admit.

  She blows out a breath. “Like you, I’m scared about what this could mean for our professional relationship. I have never loved a job more than this one, and I don’t want to mess it up because I have some stupid crush on the lead singer.”

  I pause for a beat and stare at her in surprise. “You have a crush on me?”

  “Uh, yeah. Have you looked in a mirror recently?” She rolls her eyes. “Let me finish.”

  I laugh and walk over to the desk to lean against it.

  She crosses her arms. “As long as I’ve known you, you’ve been this dreamy heartthrob, and I’ve watched you go through women like water. I didn’t just want to be another notch in your bedpost. When I first talked to Shayna about Take My Heart, I knew you had the potential to make it on and I knew what that sort of publicity could do for the band. That’s entirely why I pushed you into signing up. I forced myself to separate my feelings for you and put my job as your manager first. I knew you wouldn’t go into it to find love because you weren’t in a place where you wanted to find it, and I knew you’d inevitably sleep with someone on the show because that’s just what you do.”