Mister Bodyguard (The Morgan Brothers Book 4)

by Lauren Rowe

  Holy... fuck. I open my mouth and then close it, too overwhelmed to speak.

  Tears flood Aloha’s eyes. “It was a one-time slip-up that won’t happen again.” She swallows hard. “I used to scratch and cut myself all the time, but I hadn’t done it in years before this. It was just a blip, Zander. A brief moment of weakness that won’t happen again. That’s why I didn’t tell you—because that’s not me. Not anymore. And I didn’t want to have to explain my whole backstory to you and have you think I’m back in that same headspace again. Because I’m not.”

  I suddenly realize Aloha just used the word “cut.” She used to cut herself all the time. I’ve heard that term before... cutting. In relation to one of Zahara’s friends cutting her arms in middle school. But I’ve never personally known anyone who did it. And from what little I know about it, I thought people did it to their arms, like Zahara’s friend, not their hips. “You used to scratch your hips all the time?”

  “No, never. This was a first. When I was younger, as a teen, I used to cut and scratch my arms. I only did it to my hip this one time because I knew the tour was coming and I’d be wearing skimpy costumes and I didn’t want anyone to be able to see the mark. It wasn’t a cry for help. I didn’t want anyone to know. I just did it because... “ But she trails off and rubs her face.

  “Because...? Tell me. Please.”

  Aloha looks up. “To relieve stress. To get back at my mother. It’s really hard to explain.”

  “Try. Please.”

  She looks down again. She’s shaking. Clearly, she’s holding back a tidal wave of emotion.

  Oh, God, my heart is bleeding. I wanted the real Aloha? Well, clearly, I just got her. And she’s a wounded little animal that breaks my heart. I stroke her hair and coo softly at her, luring my wounded little animal out of the shadows toward the treat I’m holding in my palm. And, finally, after several minutes of gentle prodding and reassuring, Aloha looks up and threads her fingers in mine.

  She takes a deep breath. “It was three nights before opening night. And I was feeling especially stressed out about the tour. I knew it was gonna be my biggest one, ever. The biggest arenas. The highest production values and cost. The highest expectations. All of it riding on my teeny-tiny little shoulders.” She wipes her eyes. “So, like an idiot—a glutton for punishment—I called Satan to ask her to please, please, just this once, drop what she was doing and fly to LA to come to my first show. But she said no. She and her boyfriend were on a yacht in Greece—taking a vacation bank-rolled by all the money she’s ‘earned’ over the years as my ‘manager.’ A ‘manager’ who hasn’t done a fucking thing for me in three years, by the way, because I hired an actual manager but kept her on the payroll because she made me feel like doing otherwise would make me the worst daughter in the world.”

  “Didn’t you say your mom’s boyfriend is a billionaire?”

  “I lied. He’s just some twenty-five-year-old dude with washboard abs who’s trying to ‘break into modeling.’” She snorts through her tears. “My mother pays for everything for him, all of it bankrolled by the money I pay her and the millions she stole from me when I was a minor.” Her face turns hard. “I’ve actually never told anybody that part—that my mother stole millions from me. But she did. My lawyers have told me to sue her ass for embezzlement. But I’d never do that. She might be Satan, but she’s still my mother. Plus, I don’t need the whole world knowing my dirty laundry.”

  “Oh, Aloha.”

  “I’m sorry I lied to you about her boyfriend. I was just so embarrassed. I’ve always lied about my mother’s men my whole life. To everyone. Not just you. My mother’s always had what I’d call a defective picker.” She rolls her eyes. “So, anyway, that night when I scratched myself, I was sitting in my hotel room, crying about Satan not coming to my show. Crying about the fact that she’s my mother at all—about the years and years she’s made me feel like nothing but the Bank of Aloha. And, like I said, I was feeling stressed about the tour and...” She sighs. “So, I grabbed a wine opener off the bar and scratched my hip. And the minute I did it, I felt terrible about it. Ashamed. I felt no relief at all, only more pain. And that’s when I promised myself I was done forever and would never do it again. And I won’t, Zander. I really won’t.”

  My chest is heaving. I move my lips, but nothing comes out, so I clamp them shut.

  “Remember when you came to my room the other night?” she says. “That night I was crying and didn’t want to let you in? I was crying because I’d just had a horrible phone call with my mother. But guess what? Instead of turning the pain on myself like I’d done that prior time with the wine opener, this time, I handled my emotions the right way. The way my therapist taught me in treatment way back when. I poured the pain into my poetry. I talked to Barry. I took a hot bath and relaxed and went to bed. And when I woke up the next morning, I felt different. Stronger. I felt like I’d walked through fire and come out the other side. And that’s when I knew for a fact I won’t do it again, because if ever there was a time when I was going to slip up and do it again, it was after that horrible, disgusting conversation with my mother. And I didn’t do it.”

  “What was the conversation with your mother about that second time?”

  Aloha pauses.

  My stomach clenches. “Aloha, please.”

  She exhales. “You.”

  “Me?”

  “My mother thought when I called you my boy toy in that TMZ video, I was actually taking a coded swipe at her boyfriend—sending her a secret ‘fuck you’ for not coming to my LA show.” She scoffs. “Because she’s the center of the universe, apparently. I couldn’t possibly have just been drunk and stupid.” She shakes her head. “My mother said all kinds of horrible things to me. She said I’d acted like a ‘little whore.’ She said my fans would be ashamed of me and ditch me.” Her face hardens. “She said I’d committed career suicide by linking myself to a ‘nobody’ like you.”

  My heart falls into my toes. Well, there it is. A nobody like me. The pink elephant that dances through every room I’m in with Aloha, at one point or another, whether she realizes it or not. I’m a nobody fitness trainer from Seattle and she’s a huge star. And being linked to me—for real—would be positively unthinkable in her world. I clear my throat. “This from the woman traipsing around the world with some ‘nobody’ male model twenty years her junior?” But I’m bluffing. Fronting. In truth, Aloha’s mother’s words have leveled me.

  “Ah, but you see, my mother isn’t Aloha Carmichael. She doesn’t have a ‘brand’ to uphold. She isn’t a ‘role model’ to little girls who’s expected to ‘conduct herself at all times according to a higher standard of morality.’” She scoffs. “I got off that call with my mother and I was wrecked, Zander. I shouldn’t give a shit what she thinks of me, not by now, but hearing my own mother call me a little whore... It made me want to cut open my skin and let her DNA seep out of me. It made me want to cut my other hip to relieve the pain. But I resisted the urge to hurt myself because I knew doing it would only make me feel worse in the end. That’s what I’m telling you: I didn’t do it. I was able to think clearly and remember that hurting myself doesn’t actually hurt her, only me. I realized I’m done hurting myself. I want to be happy. She always wants to drag me down. She wants my very soul, but she can’t have it.” She flashes me a look of pure defiance... a look of heartbreaking vulnerability mixed with breathtaking badassery that cracks my heart wide open.

  And that’s it.

  Snap.

  The last dangling thread breaks.

  In a torrent, all the love I’ve been holding back and stuffing down and denying for weeks floods every nook and cranny and crevice of my body, heart, mind, and soul. I’m officially a goner. Toast. Done. For weeks, I’ve been telling myself what I was feeling for Aloha wasn’t real. That my emotions were situational. Temporary. A projection. A wish. But now, in this instant, looking at this beautiful, flawed, vulnerable, and yet tough-as-nails creature, I c
an’t hold back my feelings a second longer. I love her. My heart is hers to do with as she pleases—even if that means she’s going to put it into a wood chipper.

  A tear falls down Aloha’s cheek. “I’m sorry you’re finding out all this stuff about me. I like you thinking I’m perfect and have it all together. But the truth is I’m fucked-up and not worthy of being a role model for anybody.”

  I wipe her cheek with my thumb. “Thank you for telling me. If you’re seeing horror on my face, it’s not that I’m horrified by you. It’s that I’m struggling with how to process this. If anyone else had gouged your flesh with a wine opener, I’d hunt the bastard down and rip their fucking head off. But now that I’m finding out you’re the bastard who hurt my baby, my brain doesn’t know how to react to that news. How the hell do I protect you from you?”

  Aloha bites her lip. “I’m your baby?” She smiles through her tears. “I’m the bastard who hurt ‘your baby’?”

  How the hell did I let that slip out? Realizing I love this girl with all my heart and soul is one thing. Letting her know how I feel is another thing entirely. I press my lips together, hoping Aloha will fill the awkward silence by saying something like “You’re my baby, too!” Or “Hell yeah, I’m your baby, Zander Shaw!”

  But Aloha doesn’t say a word.

  I let out a long exhale of surrender and whisper, “You know you’re my baby.” But somehow, thank God, I manage to say nothing more.

  Aloha nods, ever so subtly, but doesn’t speak.

  “What did you use to cut your arms as a teenager?” I ask.

  “A razor blade.”

  I grimace.

  “But I barely broke the skin. I only made the shallowest little marks, each one an eighth of an inch apart. I didn’t really want to hurt myself. I just wanted my mother to see.”

  “You did this a lot?”

  She nods. “Watch any episode of It’s Aloha! from season six and I’m wearing long sleeves to hide the cuts.”

  I’m absolutely flabbergasted. “People from the show knew you were hurting yourself?”

  “Everyone knew.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Of course. But I was in every scene of the show and we had a tight shooting schedule. Sending the fucked-up star of a show about a perfect girl to a month-long in-patient treatment program was unthinkable until the entire season was in the can. And even then, it had to be a huge secret to protect the image of the show. But no biggie, right? Why stop production on a cash cow TV show and lose all that worldwide revenue when you can simply cover the annoying star’s pesky cuts with pretty hippie-shirts with flowing long sleeves?”

  I grab her forearms and turn them over, baring the insides of her forearms to me. Now that I know what I’m looking for, I think maybe I see the tiniest scars on her smooth flesh. Or am I imagining those nearly invisible lines?

  “I actually started a huge fashion trend that season. Little girls all over the world started wearing flower-child blouses with flowing long sleeves. Because who wouldn’t want to be just like Aloha Carmichael?”

  I release her arms, shaking my head. I feel physically ill.

  Aloha says, “I finally went to rehab when season six wrapped. And it was a Godsend for me. I had tons of therapy and got on meds. But, most importantly, I was encouraged to write poetry every day—to pour my pain onto the pages of my journal instead of turning it onto myself.”

  “Explain the pain to me, Aloha. And tell me why hurting yourself relieved it.”

  “I’m not sure I can explain it.”

  “Please, try.”

  She pauses for a long moment to gather herself and then says, “In my early teens, I started to feel this inexplicable pain inside me. I knew I had no right to feel it. I was on a hit TV show. I had money. Fame. ‘Everybody’ loved me. But, still, I felt it. I felt lonely. Abandoned. And worst of all, I felt like a fraud. It was hard to be an imperfect, pained teenager playing a perfect, happy one on TV. I felt like a liar every day of my life. And I had absolutely no one to talk to about any of it. So I’d sometimes secretly cut my arms at night. And, somehow, that gave me a tangible way to explain the pain to myself. I gave myself an actual reason for the pain—a hook where I could hang it.” She sighs. “When I was little, if I cried about going to an audition, or if I cried because I was too tired to learn my lines or because I wanted to play instead of go to work, my mother would grab my shoulders really, really hard and lean into my face and scream, ‘I’ll give you something to cry about!’ So, I guess, in a twisted sort of way, I gave myself something to cry about. Does that make sense?”

  “It does, actually.”

  “When I felt really stressed out or my heart felt particularly achy, hurting myself always helped. Briefly. When I opened my skin, I could imagine the pain bleeding out and leaving me. I could imagine the poison of my mother’s DNA seeping out. I could finally understand the pain, if only for a moment. But, of course, the relief didn’t last long, so I’d wind up doing it again.”

  “What about when you dragged that wine opener across your hip? Did that give you relief?”

  “No. It was the first time I felt worse immediately after doing it. All I felt was disappointment in myself. Shame. A lack of control. Like I’d let my mother win. I knew I’d fucked up and done something I could never do again. So I wrote a poem about it and fell asleep. And when I woke up, I felt like I’d made it through a sort of baptism. And I promised myself I’d never do it again—and I won’t.”

  “I’m surprised you cut your arms as a teen—a place on your body that was so visible. You were the star of a hit TV show. The whole world was watching. Obviously, you wanted the world to see.”

  “Oh, absolutely. It was a plea for someone to notice and help me. My mother. The people who worked on my show. The people watching at home. I just wanted someone to please notice the marks and save me. But all that happened is my mother had the costume designer cover the marks with long sleeves and we went on like business as usual.” She wipes her cheeks. “I should probably mention another piece of this: I took great pleasure in messing up my appearance in a visible way. Because I knew it would piss off my mother to no end. Growing up, I always had to look perfect. If I gained a little weight, my mother put me on diet pills and forbade me to have so much as a cookie. If I had a zit, my mother instantly whisked me off to the dermatologist for an injection. So, clearly, part of it was me wanting to fuck up my body to hit my mother where it counted to her the most—in her money-maker. Honestly, I’m surprised I didn’t cut my face and pretend I’d been attacked or maybe shave my head like Britney. I had the urge to do both more than a couple times.” She sighs. “But, like I said, when I cut my hip, I realized I’d taken things too far and could never do it again. That I didn’t even want to do it again. I can’t let her win anymore. I shouldn’t have let her get to me during that horrible ‘boy toy’ conversation the other day. Her opinion doesn’t matter.”

  My heart is suddenly clanging. “There’s more to that conversation than you’ve told me, isn’t there? She said something else about me, specifically, didn’t she?”

  Aloha smashes her lips together, confirming my suspicion.

  “She’s a racist?” I choke out.

  Aloha scoffs. “Oh, God, no. It’s not that. You could be green with three heads and she’d adore you, just as long as you’re someone who can advance my career and therefore pad her bank account.” She rolls her eyes. “In my mother’s world, I can only be linked to someone with more money and power than me. Someone with more platinum records and fans than me. Someone with whom I can merge Instagram and Twitter followers and take over the world.”

  Aloha chuckles, but I don’t join her. Because even if Aloha doesn’t realize it, she’s just confirmed she’s been brainwashed her entire life to believe normal, non-celebrity guys like me can never be relationship material to her. She might think she doesn’t give a shit what her mother says, but that deep scratch on her hip made only a month ago te
lls a different story.

  “You want to read the poem I wrote the night I scratched my hip?” she whispers.

  My heart lurches into my throat. “Of course.”

  Her chest visibly heaving, she rolls onto her side toward the nightstand and grabs a pink journal out of a drawer. She flips through the book for a moment, stops at a specific page, and hands it to me. “You said you want the real Aloha. Careful what you wish for. The ‘Pretty Girl’ ain’t so fucking pretty.”

  I take the journal from her, adrenaline surging inside me. “Thank you for trusting me with this.” My heart clanging wildly and my body visibly quaking, I look down at Aloha’s handwritten words.

  The Money Tree

  Oh, glorious pain

  Engravings made in fractions of inches

  Bleeding crimson and glitter and

  Shining a floodlight on what’s hiding

  Beneath this flesh in plain sight.

  This marking made is a quiet rebellion,

  A silent confession that the blinding lights

  Of this rarified life so often feel more like

  A sniper’s munitions than evidence

  Of the world’s collective adoration.

  This cut a slicing reminder that this spotlight

  Was neither designed nor invited by me

  But supposed and imposed upon me

  Unilaterally at the tender age of three.

  How could a child who desired nothing more

  Than to please be acclimatized to self-realize

  When the Woman Who Named Her Destiny

  Spied the green in her eyes and surmised

  Nothing more than the fertile seeds

  Of a Hello and Goodbye Money Tree?

  I was a three-year-old seedling

  Bred to bloom Benjamins,

  A sapling adorned with leaves of dollar bills.

  My roots were fertilized not by sunshine and love

  But by Instagram followers, greed, and diet pills.

  And now this tree that is me blooms vigorously,

  My branches wild and touching the sky,