Default Distraction played on and he continued to stare at me as I began to dance all over and around one of the male guests. I hadn’t a clue who I was dancing with, and I didn’t care. I knew nothing about the guy, other than he had smiled at me earlier. I knew that he wasn’t my type, but I also knew that I hadn’t seen him with another woman and that was enough. I needed a willing warm body and he seemed happy enough to be it.
Willing warm body looked pleased and the bastard formally known as Daniel looked bloody fuming. If inside my heart hadn’t been slowly severing into a million pieces, I would have been ecstatic. On the rare occasion I fleetingly looked his way, I could see that he was becoming angrier. He had developed his facial tic and he had almost growled out a few of the words he was singing.
It spurred me on.
The whiskey I had just flung down me in rapid succession began to travel around my system. I clung on to nameless man’s shoulders and rubbed my body over his. Finally, fuelled by the music and the alcohol in my system, I pressed my lips to his. The anger and alcohol that had been powering my actions suddenly abated at the contact and I pulled away from him like I’d been scorched. I moved quickly away, trying to smile an apology as I left. The crowds between me and my so-called friends parted gradually, and I pushed my way through.
Behind me, I heard the music stop and Raff saying they would all be back in a few minutes time. The DJ must have been waiting in the wings, as I heard his voice speak to the crowd on the dance floor as he got some tracks together.
I opened the door, hoping to leave it all behind and went out into the fresh air.
A decking area had been created outside the marquee, to create a balcony in Jack and Lily’s large garden. Even with gas heaters, twinkling lights and dark evergreen floral arrangements, it was empty and cold, but to me in my escape it looked welcoming. Luckily, even with the snow on the ground all around us, I managed to keep my shivering in check by wrapping my arms tightly around my body underneath one of the lit gas heaters. I stared out into the darkness just trying to compose myself as the last of the alcoholic buzz left my system. Eventually, I heard the footsteps behind me, but refused to turn around.
‘There you are.’ I heard Winter’s voice. ‘Amy?’
I spun around quickly. ‘You two… you let me make a complete fool of myself. You both knew, didn’t you?’ I pointed an accusing finger at them.
‘Yes, we both knew, but not initially,’ Lauren admitted, dropping her arms straight down to either side of her body and showing me her open palms. ‘We’re sorry you found out like that.’
‘I can’t believe either of you could do that to me, and you call yourself my best friends?’ I raised my voice at them as my emotions boiled up to the surface.
‘We are your best friends, friends that want you to have a life. You know very well if we’d had told you straight away who he was, you would never have even got to know him, he wouldn’t have stood a chance,’ Lauren replied.
‘YOU should have told me.’ I pointed my finger at them both again, driving my point home, still accusing them, but in truth my voice was beginning to falter.
‘Amy, we didn’t know at first, we never caught a good look at him. But after we spoke to you in the drawing room, I put it together,’ added Winter.
‘You should have said, the moment you thought it was a possibility, the moment you found out. As my friends, you owed me that.’
Tears were coursing their way down my cheeks, probably taking most of my carefully applied eye make-up with them. As they watched my pain, they in turn began to silently cry with me.
‘I talked to Raff about my suspicions and he confronted him. We were told that Brody had never lied to you, you’d heard Cade shouting out his surname when you dropped off the salmon at The Manor and jumped to conclusions. He was going to tell you who he was and we were asked to give him a couple of days to do it.’
So that was his name.
I was stood shaking my head at them and their pathetic excuses, when the lying bastard himself appeared behind them. He had come out into the freezing air of the night still only wearing what he had been wearing on stage. Steam rose off him and into the cold night air. His hands were pushed deep into his jeans pockets. My body felt his presence and started to rebel against what my brain was demanding of it. The way he made me feel when he was near me, was visceral. I was disgusted with myself when my breath hitched at the sight of him.
‘Don’t come near me,’ I shouted over at him. I sounded like a woman on the edge, probably because that’s exactly where I was precariously balanced. The emotions and anxiety running through my body were making me shake.
‘I’m coming nearer, so you’d better prepare yourself. I need to hold you and from the way I can see you shaking, you need me to.’
‘DON’T TOUCH ME!’ My voice screeched through the cold night air.
His feet stopped moving and his shoulders slumped slightly in defeat. A long silent minute passed between us, then his eyes sparked alive in defiance. Once again, his feet moved forward until I found myself being spun around and engulfed in his arms. He held me tightly to him, his front to my back and together we stood staring out into the darkness. I wriggled around in his hold, until gradually I realised it wasn’t loosening. An anguished sob tore from my mouth. Reluctantly, I found myself melting into his strong, hard body and under my breath I swore at myself for being so weak.
‘What the hell do you think you were doing kissing that fucking asswipe?’ I felt his chin move as he spoke to me and warmth spread through my body as he kissed the top of my head after asking me the question.
‘Really? That’s what you want to say to me? You lied to me and now you stand here with your arms wrapped around me, questioning me.’
‘I never lied to you, Amy. But you’ve just deliberately tried to make me jealous, and it fucking worked. You’re mine, no other fucker gets to go anywhere near you. Tell me you understand that?’
I couldn’t form words in between my now more frequent sobs, so I just shook my head at him.
‘What the fuck are we doing to each other? Look, you need to listen to me.’
‘I NEED to listen to you? Who the hell do you think you are? Apart from some glorified rock God who thinks he can go around messing up people’s lives.’ My heart hammered in my chest as I allowed myself to pour all my hurt into anger.
‘I’m sorry. I’m SO fucking sorry. I was gonna tell you last night, remember I said I wanted to talk to you? I was going to tell you everything as I held you in my arms.’ He pulled me closer to him. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to and I’m sorry you found out like this.’
‘Of course you are,’ I accused, in between taking in much needed deep breaths of air.
‘Us playing here tonight was a last-minute thing, we were asked to step in for the band that had been booked for their wedding. They cancelled when the weather became so bad where they lived they couldn’t get here. I tried calling you, but you know what your phone’s like. Raff and Cade tried calling the girls too. My calls never went through to your phone and Lauren and Winter didn’t answer or check their messages.’
‘Yes, he’s right, they did. My phone has loads of missed calls and messages on it.’ Winter pushed into the fraught conversation. I suddenly remembered that my utter humiliation had an audience and I shook my head in despair. I could now see she had stepped closer to the side of us both, holding her phone out in front of her and waving it around in her hand. I turned my head and shot her a look, and she fell silent. I heard her feet on the boards as she hurriedly walked away.
How very dare she take his side?
‘We were dancing, our phones were nowhere near us.’
‘That figures.’ I felt his leg bend behind me as he kicked the floor with his right boot. I knew he was fidgeting because he felt uneasy.
Raff and the others had appeared out on the decking. Hearing their voices and the sound of their boots banging on the wooden floor as they ar
rived, made Brody spin us both around. He released his hold over me momentarily and I saw his arms open up either side of me as he splayed his arms wide and pleaded with our audience.
‘Goddamn it! Can you all give us some fucking privacy?’ His arms came back around me as he spoke.
Initially no one moved, they all stood there looking between the two of us, trying to decide if it was all right to leave us to it.
‘Come on, guys. This is hard enough,’ Brody pleaded.
‘Please leave,’ I managed to force out. ‘I need to hear all his excuses as to why he let me believe he was somebody else.’
I watched as one by one they filed back inside. The marquee doors closed behind them, but I knew they hadn’t gone any further as I could see the colours of their clothing behind the translucent plastic panes.
I swiped at my face, clearing my tears and probably smudging the black further over my face.
‘Go on then, you have five minutes.’ I wanted to stay with him forever, but I couldn’t handle any more pain.
‘Fuck, Amy! We have a lifetime together, remember what I said when we talked?’
I shook my head at him, hearing my hair rub against his T-shirt. Of course I remembered. I remembered every minute of the last week and knew that I would for the rest of my life. But, I was not going to help him explain.
In the distance, I could hear Eric Clapton singing Wonderful Tonight. Brody obviously heard it too as almost unconsciously he started moving us both gently to the music. Reluctantly, I gave in to what I needed and held on to his bare forearms.
‘When I first saw you, Amy. It was like being knocked over by a fucking freight train. I’ve told you already that I don’t have relationships. But when I saw you, I wanted everything with you, children, the white fucking picket fence, hell I wanted the whole goddamn nine yards. We hadn’t even had a proper conversation, but in my head you were already mine, are mine.’
‘Were,’ I corrected him and momentarily felt him flinch at my statement.
‘I saw you and you saw me.’ I was shaking my head at him, but he carried on anyway. ‘Shout at me, scream, swear if you have to.’ I knew he was saying the same words to me that I had spoken to him only a few days before. Although it felt like I’d lived a lifetime in those few days. ‘Do whatever you need to do, because I’m not letting you walk away from me, from us.’
‘That is not your decision to make,’ I replied, sick to the back teeth of letting other people control my life.
He released me suddenly and spun me around to face him. His knees bent so he could get to my level and his eyes immediately found mine. Now I was stood without his warmth surrounding me, the shivers in my body started to get stronger. I could see the pain etched in his beautiful features, but I was more concerned with my own pain. I had hit self-preservation mode.
‘Fuck! Amy, tell me what the hell I can do to put this right?’
I shrugged my shoulders at him and shook my head.
‘I’m gonna try by saying what I should have said at the beginning.’ He stood straight, pushed his hands back into his jeans pockets and momentarily looked down. Then his eyes came back up to find mine. ‘Hi… it’s really great to meet you, my name’s Brody Daniels and... I’m an alcoholic. I’m in recovery, but I’ll always be an alcoholic. I’m also in a band that you might have heard of.’
Momentarily, I was stunned by his honesty. I looked deep into his pain-filled eyes and I shook my head at him. My synapses started firing as things fell into place. ‘That’s why you wouldn’t take me out for a drink.’
He nodded at me. ‘Yeah, that’s exactly why.’ His hands came out of his pockets and my eyes watched as one by one he began to click his knuckles as he spoke to me. ‘If I was a normal guy meeting you for the first time, believe me I would have fucking jumped at the chance. But I’m not, I’m far from normal.’ His eyes pleaded with me to understand.
‘Us taking over The Manor is down to them inside.’ He threw one arm to the side of him to gesticulate Raff and the others. ‘Even after all the years we’ve been together, unlike many in the same industry, we still genuinely care for each other. After I nearly drunk myself to death and various other things had happened to us, we came here in the hope we could all turn a corner. I love music, I love performing. But I hate the fucking life it brings with it. It’s not real, it doesn’t allow you to have anything tangible. When you didn’t recognise me, it was like a breath of fresh air. You heard Cade call out my surname and just assumed that was me and I’m guilty of letting you believe it. For the first time in a long fucking time I could just be myself with someone new. It was honest and refreshing and you saw me, for me, when normally all people see is some fucking rock God.’
He stopped momentarily, letting me absorb what he was trying to tell me and took a deep breath to start again. ‘People only want Brody Daniels, lead singer of Default Distraction, and all the things I can buy them with my money. Women open their legs for me because they want me on their arm, to open doors for them. What they don’t want is the broken, damaged man I am and all the fucking baggage I carry, but you accepted me for me. You saw through my outer shell. It was fucking unbelievable when your heart opened and you invited me in.’
A loud sigh left his mouth, he shoved both of his hands through his hair and carried on. ‘If being a former addict wasn’t enough, I’m a member of a band, and in that band we’ve all learnt the hard way how much people want to be with us for what they can get out of it. Then I came across you. You’re the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on. Added to all of that, I could feel a chemistry between us that felt like it was off the charts. The fact you hadn’t a clue who the hell I was and you still wanted to be with me, was the best fucking high I had ever experienced. You saw me, not my addictions, not what I could buy you or the money you could make by selling your story to the highest bidder and not all the mistakes I’d made… you just saw me. Can you understand why I wanted you to get to know me first?’
‘Sort of,’ I reluctantly admitted. ‘I did see you, I saw more than you’ll ever know. You rescued me, not just from the accidents I appear to frequently have, but mentally. But to find out you only let me in so far and that you refused to trust me, when I let you into my very existence wholeheartedly, is painful.’
‘You thought I was rescuing you?’ He spun away and his arms opened wide showing me his empty palms, emphasising what he was trying to get me to understand. Then he stepped quickly back. ‘You literally saved me! I was so fucking empty inside before we met. I have so much fucking guilt and remorse inside me over my family, and how I wasn’t able to help any of them. I used drink to numb the pain. I used drink to make me forget. I used drink, because most fucking days I don’t even like me. I used drink just to get me through. But when I’m with you, I don’t need alcohol, I only crave you. You’re the only thing I’m now dependant on. But, I just needed to know that you wanted to be with me for me, that’s all I’m guilty of this time.’ He sighed loudly ‘I know I was wrong, not putting you right as soon as I could and its fucking killing me that the pain we’re both feeling here is on me. Before you make an impulsive decision about us, I need to tell you.’ His eyes left mine for a second and then returned. His teal eyes implored mine. ‘I’ve fallen in love with you.’
I absorbed every sentiment he had offered and closed my eyes momentarily as I sighed at the unfairness of it all.
‘But I’ve fallen in love with Daniel. So, it appears we have nowhere else to go with this conversation.’
His head tipped back and he looked at the sky. I saw a tear roll down his cheek as he heard my words. He sniffed but made no effort to wipe it away. The teal eyes that I had always found so much beauty and depth in before, were even more stunning as they shone through the layer of liquid he forced himself to hold in.
I was an emotional creature, I couldn’t help it. I felt for him standing in front of me. He looked as wrecked as I felt at the situation we were now in. God knows, I had w
anted him to come up with some fantastic excuse as to why he hadn’t told me who he was, so I could fall into his arms and everything would be okay, but it wasn’t. He had done the one thing that I couldn’t forgive him for. He hadn’t been truthful.
‘I opened up to you and you should have opened up to me. You could and should have told me everything when we were at Lake View.’
‘I know and I’m so fucking sorry. I never wanted to hurt you, believe me.’ Finally, his palm swiped across his face as he began to compose himself.
‘The trouble is, Brody, I don’t know what to believe and my heart can’t take any more pain. I took a chance on you and I’ve had it thrown back into my face. I have no more chances left in me, my past has taught me not to open myself up for more hurt.’
‘Amy, please let me prove to you, that I am the guy you saw in me. I’ve been more real with you than anybody in years. It’s just a name, it doesn’t change who I am inside here.’ His closed fist hit his chest over his heart.
‘I can’t, because it does change everything. Deep down inside I never really expected you to stay with me, because I don’t have that expectation of anyone. My dad didn’t want me and my mum left me because the call of stardom was too strong for her to stay. I was a young girl constantly trying to be a better child, just hoping she might then be able to love me unconditionally. I wanted to be enough for her. Look at you, Brody you’re a twenty out of ten, and I’m lucky if I’m a six, I could never be enough for you. It was a wonderful moment of illusion, dreaming that I’d found my soulmate, the man who would always be there for me. The man who would always rescue me. But all I’m left with now are doubts. What on earth would a rock star want with me? When he can have anyone.’
‘You’re not listening to what I’m saying. A great man once wrote that fame and fortune was only a passing thing, and he was dead on right, that’s the rock ‘n’ roll life. I want real life and I want it with you. What a load of shit that is, all that “out of ten” crap. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I’m not your mum, I’m not leaving you. You’re more than enough for me. That dream we both want is right there, Amy, in between us, it’s not an illusion. All we have to do is reach out and grab it.’
Brody (Default Distraction Book 1) Page 21