Trouble Brewing

by Selena Kitt

  Meeting Tyler had made all of that not matter anymore.

  “You were right.” I beamed at him, holding out my hand and admiring my completely bare hand. “It was totally fake. I’m surprised my finger didn’t turn green.”

  Tyler caught my hand in his and kissed it. “I’m gonna have to put a ring on it.”

  “One thing at a time.” I smirked, hopping off his lap and climbing back into my chair to eat the rest of my breakfast before it got too cold.

  “Oh, you don’t have to do things in order. Look at Rob and Sabrina.” He gave a snort, getting up and opening the sliding door. “Babies, puppies. Next thing you know, he’ll want her in the band.”

  I watched him reach into his room, and he brought out an acoustic guitar. I nibbled the crust off my toast as he sat beside me again, strumming and tuning.

  “She sang with us in Europe,” Tyler said with a shake of his head. “Did I tell you?”

  “Uh-huh.” I nodded.

  Tyler had told me, but so had Sabrina. She was so excited about performing with Trouble—and nervous. Sabrina had a beautiful voice. She’d pretty much been wasting it as an elementary school music teacher—I always told her she should pursue some sort of career singing for a living—but Sabrina was very practical. Teaching was a smart, safe profession with excellent job security in a time when that was pretty scarce.

  Meeting Rob had changed her. In so many ways. Sabrina was being forced to push her boundaries. Her relationship with Rob had made her almost as careless—and carefree—as I usually was. And Rob was really encouraging her to take big steps. Sabrina told me that Rob was already talking about her joining Trouble. He’d hinted as much to Tyler, who could clearly read between the lines.

  “And you know, Rob always gets what he wants…” Tyler strummed his guitar, humming. Tyler hadn’t objected to the idea of Sabrina joining the band, although he was a little skeptical about how the fans might take it. Not that I could blame him. If I was still just a Trouble fan—and not the girlfriend of the lead guitarist—I would be more than a little annoyed about the addition of some strange woman to my favorite band.

  “Well, what about what Tyler wants?” I asked, nudging him with my toe. I’d had a manicure and pedicure before we’d left Michigan.

  “You.” Tyler smiled, strumming idly, playing chords now.

  “You got me, baby.” I winked when he looked up at me, loving that smile that played at the corners of his mouth. It made me want to kiss that full, kissable mouth. I could have spent hours just kissing him. “What else?”

  “My hands back.” Tyler made a face and stopped playing for a moment, flexing his left hand before gripping the neck of the guitar again.

  “Are you due for more shots?” I asked, frowning at the slight look of pain that came over his face as he played. The pain in his hands had been so bad when we were on the road, he’d broken down and confessed his condition to me. Celeste had helped me find a doctor to help him, and the shots had worked.

  “I’ve got an appointment next week.” Tyler played, a real song now, a lilting melody that transfixed me.

  “God, that’s beautiful,” I murmured.

  “That’s for you.” He gave me a shy smile before he began to sing the words.

  * * *

  When you sleep, and I keep

  My vigilant gaze into the night

  Where the light can’t penetrate

  * * *

  In the cold, in the dark

  You are the star fire burning bright

  To where I navigate

  * * *

  Then the morning rise

  And I feel it

  In your waking eyes

  And I see it

  My eyes claiming yours

  And you feel it

  * * *

  There are stars, that never part

  Split halves that are fused into one whole heart

  That spin into infinity

  * * *

  How it burns, generates

  A force unmatched among the stars

  It’s a love like gravity

  * * *

  Then the morning rise

  And I feel it

  In your waking eyes

  And I see it

  My eyes claiming yours

  And you feel it

  * * *

  Put your hand, in my hand

  Our hearts surrendered to love’s demands

  The only bonds that make us free

  * * *

  In the dark, in the night

  What we are ignites a forever light

  Where we will always be

  * * *

  “Oh Ty…” I breathed, feeling my heart swell. There weren’t words to say how amazing it was to hear the man you loved singing a song he had written just for you.

  “We’re getting ready to go into the studio,” he told me. “And I want to record it.”

  “You mean, with Trouble?” I blinked in surprise. Rob was the lead vocalist—none of the other band members had ever recorded a song on one of their albums.

  “With, without.” He shrugged, setting his guitar aside. “I don’t know.”

  My jaw dropped. “Are you saying you want to leave the band?”

  “I don’t know. I feel restless. I want something else. Something more.”

  “I think you should do it,” I said. “Record it. Why not?”

  His gaze swept over the water in the distance. “Trouble is Rob Burns, not Tyler Cook.”

  “I beg to differ,” I said, leaning over to poke him in the ribs. “You know, you don’t have to live in your brother’s shadow.”

  “Or his house?” He grinned over at me. “Or be in his band?”

  “Any of those things.” I nodded. “I mean, Ty… you are so good. So good.”

  “Maybe Sabrina can take my place,” he mused. “She will anyway, if Rob gets his way.”

  “She can’t play like you.”

  He grimaced, flexing his left hand. “I can’t play like me anymore.”

  “Ty, goddamnit.” I got up and grabbed his hand, pulling him out of his chair. “How can you say that about yourself?”

  “My hands hurt,” he confessed, but they reached around to grab my ass anyway. “And my joints ache. I feel fifty, and I’m not even close to that.”

  “So, go see a doctor.” My hands moved through his hair. “There has to be more we can do.”

  “Trust me, I’ve seen them. They all say the same thing.” He shook his head. “I’m just tired, I guess.”

  “Well, then I guess we should go back to bed.” I slid my thigh between his, giving him a coy little smile. “So you can… rest…”

  “Ya think?” His eyes lit up.

  “Race ya, old man.”

  I said I could have blamed Tyler for what happened—but really, it was my own fault we ended up sneaking off after lunch to have sex on the pool table. I told him I’d never done it on a pool table, and one thing led to another, and before we knew it, my legs were over his shoulders and I had felt-burns on my ass—and then my belly—and I swear I almost crushed the eight-ball in my fist when I climaxed.

  We both heard the sound of Rob and Sabrina coming home. Sarah squealed, and Daisy exclaimed, right about the time Tyler had his hand over my mouth to keep me from screaming when I orgasmed. We grinned at each other as Tyler tucked and straightened while I pulled my jeans back on and zipped them up, trying to regain both my balance and my composure.

  We snuck out of the game room together—the hallway was, thankfully, empty—holding hands and hurrying toward the front door. I heard Sabrina talking to Daisy, who was telling them she’d made pork roast for dinner. The whole house smelled like it, making my mouth water. I glimpsed Sabrina as I came down the hall, heard her laugh, and that made me smile. It had been a long time since we’d seen each other.

  “Where’s Katie?” Sabrina asked, glancing around.

  “Right here!” Then we were hugging and laughing, and I was
exclaiming over the size of her belly. She was huge! Tyler had shown me the tabloid photos but seeing it for myself was just shocking. Sabrina had way more curves than I did, but she was all soft and round now. Her face, her belly—and the girl had to have increased by at least one bra size, if not two, and she wasn’t small-chested to begin with.

  Rob was there, too, and he and Tyler did that one-armed guy-hug thing before Rob turned to me and I remembered what I’d forgotten.

  “Did you run that errand for me, Katie?”

  Crap.

  I met Tyler’s gaze, giving a one-shouldered shrug when he raised his eyebrows. He’d actually reminded me, before we ended up in the game room on the pool table, and I said I’d already asked Sarah if I could borrow her car, so I could go pick up the puppy. That much was true, anyway. Rob wasn’t happy that I hadn’t done it already, so I had Sarah give me her car keys right on the spot. I was kind of stoked to drive her car—it had been a gift from Rob, she told me, and it was a gorgeous, electric blue Mustang convertible.

  Tyler wanted to come with me, but Rob said he needed to talk to him. Ty grumbled about it, but when Rob said he wanted to talk to Sarah, too, Tyler’s expression and attitude changed. I knew something was up, but whatever it was had to be “family business,” so I didn’t say anything.

  I knew I was on my own, then, a woman on a mission.

  The first thing I did, once I got into Sarah’s Mustang, was call the number of the breeder Rob had given me. He said she’d be expecting me this afternoon, just to give her house a call before I left.

  “Hello?” A woman’s voice answered, and she sounded rather annoyed. Was that my fault? I was a little late.

  “Hi, Vanessa?” I asked. “I’m sorry, this is Katie. Rob asked me to come pick up the puppy. I’m on my way. Sorry I’m late!”

  “Vanessa isn’t here.” The woman sighed, sounding even more annoyed than she had just a moment ago. “This is… her friend, Jennifer. She left the puppy here for Rob. He’s not coming to get it?”

  “Uhhh…” I cleared my throat. “He’s kind of busy. He asked me to do it.”

  Another sigh. “You’re coming to get it now?”

  “Yes.” I worried my lower lip between my teeth. If I couldn’t pick up Sabrina’s surprise puppy, I knew Rob was going to be mad. And no one wanted that. “Is it okay? Is now good?”

  “I… yes. It’s fine.” The woman sighed again, sounding very put out. “How long?”

  “Oh, uh…” I pulled my iPhone away from my cheek and checked the address I’d mapped. It said it would take me twenty-two minutes. “About half an hour?”

  “Ring the buzzer when you get here.”

  The line went dead.

  I knew I had to hurry. I put the top down on Sarah’s Mustang convertible, of course, and let my GPS voice guide the way. It felt so good to have Sabrina and Rob back, even if our little private oasis was kind of disrupted by their presence. I knew Sabrina was going to just die when she saw Rob’s surprise.

  She’d always wanted a big dog, but her parents had never wanted to be bothered. Kind of like my mother. Pets required too much time and work. That was probably true. Now that I was an adult, I’d never even bothered to get a cat or even a fish, because I had a hard enough time remembering to take care of myself, let alone another living thing.

  But when you had a house and staff like Rob’s, and a seemingly endless supply of money, taking care of a dog wasn’t such a daunting prospect. I’d discovered, just spending time on tour with Trouble, that money might not buy happiness, but it sure made life a hell of a lot easier.

  I had time to wonder, on the drive in L.A. afternoon traffic, what Rob had pulled Sarah and Tyler aside to talk to them about. Something obviously sibling-related, I thought. I wondered if Tyler would tell me about it later. Since he’d confessed his big secret, he hadn’t seemed to hesitate to tell or show me things, which made me feel better about us.

  It had to be better, not having something unsaid like that between us, even if it meant that I, too, had to learn to keep a secret. Already, I was checking myself, making sure I didn’t act differently around Sarah or Rob. Knowing who they really were to Tyler made me look and think of them differently, I had to admit.

  The house was a lot further out than I expected, far up in the hills—my ears were actually popping—and I stopped at the address, double-checking. They had a gate similar to Rob’s and I had to push a button to be let in. Did everyone out here live behind gates?

  The lawn was lush and green, and the house was big, although not as big as Rob’s. The woman who greeted me at the door was dressed like a model, a tight black dress and strappy heels, her dark hair cut into a short bob.

  “Hi.” She offered me a smile, which was more than I expected, after the way she’d sounded on the phone. “Are you here for the puppy?”

  “Yes, thanks.” I checked the time on my phone, wanting to hurry back.

  “Come on in.” She swung the door wider. “Vanessa told me to apologize. I know she wanted to be here, but she had a meeting with Michael Kors. She just couldn’t miss it.”

  “Oh.” I blinked at her. “Michael Kors… as in, the Michael Kors?”

  “Vanessa’s a model.” The woman smiled at my stunned expression. “Could be a big break for her. Here’s the puppy.”

  She pointed at a plastic crate with the handle on top and my heart melted when I saw that little puppy face looking up at me through the screen.

  “She’s going to be big,” the woman informed me. “Mastiffs always are.”

  “Do you know a lot about dogs?” I knelt by the crate, putting my fingers through so the puppy could lick them.

  “Oh yes, I train all of Vanessa’s dogs,” she replied. “I’m Jennifer, by the way. You’re… Katie?”

  “Oh right.” Embarrassed, I stood, wiping puppy-spit on my jeans before holding out my hand to shake hers. “Yes, I’m Katie.”

  “And… who are you to Rob?” She cocked her head, looking puzzled.

  “I’m…” Jeez, that was complicated. “Uh… he’s buying the puppy for my friend, Sabrina.”

  “Oh, so you’re Sabrina’s friend?”

  “Uh-huh.” I glanced down at the puppy, whose whole back end wagged with her tail in the little crate. “He wants to surprise her.”

  “A puppy is a big responsibility.” Jennifer looked at me with narrowed eyes. “They know that, right?”

  “Well sure,” I agreed, reaching for the handle on the crate. “I really should go…”

  I didn’t want to get into a discussion with her about the care and feeding of puppies, especially since he wasn’t my responsibility. People who trained and bred animals could get kind of weird and protective about them.

  “Oh, you don’t have a crate?” Jennifer asked, sounding surprised. “That’s Vanessa’s.”

  “Uhhh.” I frowned from her to the puppy. I had nothing to take the puppy home in, and I had a sudden vision of the lively little puppy running all over Sarah’s brand-new Mustang convertible. It would be impossible to drive with a puppy loose in the car, I thought. Not to mention any accidents the animal might have on the upholstery along the way.

  “Tell you what. Mastiffs require quite a bit of training right away,” Jennifer said, reaching for a purse sitting on a table in the foyer. “I should probably come with you, just so I can give them some pointers. Then I can bring the crate back with me.”

  I considered this and decided it seemed like a pretty reasonable solution. “Okay.”

  It was probably the biggest mistake I’d ever made in my whole life. Including the first time I took heroin. But I didn’t know that. Not then. Maybe I should have. I told myself, later, that I should have known. I spent twenty-five minutes in the car with the woman, and considering how many magazines I’d seen her face on, why didn’t it register, who she really was?

  But it didn’t.

  Maybe I was just too distracted by the puppy in the backseat. Or maybe I was worried by t
he fact that I’d put off this errand in the first place, and Rob wasn’t happy about it.

  I wanted to get back, to show up with Sabrina’s surprise, to see her face when I arrived with her new puppy. There would be nothing but smiles all around, and we would all gather around the table to eat Daisy’s pork roast, talking and laughing and catching up.

  And Tyler’s hand would be on my knee all through dinner.

  And after dinner, we’d go back upstairs…

  “You really should put the top up,” Jennifer told me, sinking lower in her seat, hands protecting her dark bob as I got on the freeway. “It’ll be too much wind for the puppy.”

  I glanced back at the mastiff puppy, who looked happy enough, chin on her paws, but I put the top up anyway. I wasn’t going to argue. I just wanted to get back. But if I’d known what was going to happen when we arrived, I probably would have just driven us off the edge of the 101.

  I played the what-if game in my head for months afterward. What if Tyler or Sarah had come with me? What if I had recognized her, in spite of her disguise, which now included a pair of big, dark sunglasses and a scarf tied over her head. I thought, at the time, it was just because of the sun and the wind—both of which I enjoyed immensely—but the reality was, she didn’t want anyone to know who she was.

  And it worked. It worked beautifully. I had no idea she was Rob’s ex-wife. The Catherine I’d seen in magazines and tabloids had long, blonde hair. If she looked slightly familiar to me at first, I mentally dismissed it, too distracted by the new puppy, by the thought of getting back to Tyler.

  And when I pressed the button for security clearance, the guard looked at Sarah’s car, he looked at me, at the puppy in the backseat, and accepted my reasonable explanation that the dark-haired, well-dressed woman next to me was “Jennifer,” the dog trainer.