“She’s right,” Eliza said.
“I am not pining,” I said.
“You’re totally mooning over Tieg, and I don’t get why you don’t just do something about it.” Eliza sounded like she was going to launch into a lecture, but she stopped short. The music had come to an end. Willie and his band stopped playing, and the crowd erupted into applause as Tieg took the stage to join them.
“Wow,” Beth breathed beside me.
My mouth went dry. Wow, indeed. He looked good—I mean, he always looked hot, but on stage he had this presence. In a heartbeat I finally understood where the term rock god came from—standing up there, smirking in that cocky way of his, strutting across the stage—he seemed larger than life. Like some Ancient Greek myth come to life.
And then he sang and…oh. Oh my.
Oh my heart. Oh my body. Oh my soul.
I would have sworn on my mother’s grave that I felt his voice in every cell of my body. I’d heard him sing plenty over the years—at church, in my living room, out at our favorite campsite.
But it was nothing like this.
I’d never heard him sing his own songs before, and they were gorgeous. The first two he sang were filled with emotion. The words were lyrical and haunting, even when the music was loud and raucous.
The songs were him. They were a part of him, like he’d poured himself into the words and music.
I’d heard snippets here and there on the radio, but I hadn’t known. I’d had no idea.
He was magnificent.
And he was mine.
The second song came to an end to deafening applause. Tieg’s signature smirk turned to an outright grin as he waved a hand in acknowledgment, making the applause increase tenfold.
“Thank you,” he murmured into the microphone.
If only his parents could see him now, I found myself thinking. If only the foster parent who’d set him on this course were here to see what he’d become.
If only my mother were here to see what she’d helped to create because she’d believed in him.
“It’s great to be back here,” he said, his low voice soaring over the crowd, thanks to the speakers. “It’s great to be home.”
My heart was so full that I wasn’t sure I could hear whatever he was about to say. But then again, I couldn’t bring myself to turn away, either.
Eliza clasped my hand in hers as Beth snuggled up against my other side. We might’ve been sisters, and when it came to Eliza, we definitely had our fair share of fights…but at a time like this I was infinitely lucky to have them with me.
I thought he’d launch into his next song. Willie and the band seemed to think so too, but Tieg surprised us all when he kept talking. “So, I hear there are some questions going on about me…” He shifted the guitar. “Seems some of you are curious.”
“Who is Daisy Lou?” A voice shouted it from the crowd.
Eliza, Beth and everyone around us turned to stare at me. Most people standing nearby knew exactly who I was. In fact, thanks to social media, most people here probably knew that I was the girl responsible for the concert. So I guessed their real question was, who was I to Tieg?
Nobody. Not anymore.
Tieg surprised me by chuckling as more people started shouting out my name until I was sure my face was going to burst into flames.
“If you’ve ever listened to my music—the songs I wrote myself, then you all know an awful lot about Daisy Lou.”
Eliza frowned at me and Beth was staring up at me with an unspoken question. All I could manage was a quick shake of my head. I had no idea what he was talking about.
“In honor of all that curiosity, I’m playing my Daisy Lou mix,” he said with the sort of smug smile that made my belly do a backflip.
“I’m going to perform all the songs that I wrote for Daisy, about Daisy, to Daisy…”
Surely I was hearing things. I was dizzy, lightheaded. I think I’d forgotten how to breathe. Those songs he’d played…they were for me?
They were about me?
Some girl in the crowd made a screeching noise, apparently she was that overcome with the romanticness of it all, and that sound jarred me back to the present. I was dimly aware of the stares and the whispers of the people surrounding me, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I was too busy remembering the best lines of the last song.
I was too busy reveling in the fact that he’d never forgotten me.
I mean, I knew he’d said that, but it was hard to believe I was still front and center in his mind when he’d been going to premieres with hot actresses or being photographed with models.
His gaze was dark and intense as he looked into the crowd. I knew he couldn’t see me through the lights and the masses of people, but he was talking directly to me. “It’s always been you, Daisy Lou. It will always be you.”
I was dead. I was dying. The crowd went insane but that was nothing compared to the riot going on inside me. The next song was the sweetest love song I ever heard, even though the music was loud, the bass heavy. But his voice…oh, his voice said it all as he sang about losing his other half.
Tears welled up as I fought the urge to rush the stage. I didn’t realize I was squeezing Eliza’s hand so tightly until she complained. Loudly. “Jeez, Daisy, just stop being a dope already and go to him,” she said as she wrung out her hand.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Tieg even as I muttered an apology for crushing her hand. “It’s not that simple,” I added.
“Sure it is,” Beth said.
“Shh.” I didn’t feel like hashing this out with my sisters. Not now when Tieg was singing to me. Sure, he was singing to a crowd of thousands, but make no mistake…he was singing to me. I could feel it.
But Eliza ignored my shushing. Of course, she did. She was Eliza. “If you’re so in love with him why don’t you just cut the poor guy a break and be with him already?”
So in love with him…
Was I?
Yes. I think I’d always known that. That’s why it had been so hard to forgive or forget him after he left, and why it was so hard to walk away from him now. What I felt for Tieg had never gone away.
And maybe it never would.
“Is this about that acceptance letter?” Eliza said.
I tore my eyes away from Tieg as I whipped my head around to face her. “What?”
Beth scrunched her nose up at me. “What was it doing in the garbage, anyway? I thought you were keeping it as a souvenir or something.”
“What?” My voice got super high-pitched and Beth winced.
“Why else would you be keeping it in your dresser drawer?”
They knew? They’d seen it? Guilt roiled through me fast and fierce. I should have set it on fire the moment it arrived.
Eliza’s tone was sheer exasperation. “We’ve been waiting for you to tell us the good news.”
“The good—” I stopped short as I realized she thought I’d said yes to NYU. I looked from her to Beth, the family’s worst secret keeper. If she knew, they all did.
Which meant they all were waiting for me to abandon them.
Wrapping my arm around Beth’s shoulders, I squeezed her tight. “I didn’t tell you guys because I’m not going.”
“What?!”
“Why not?” Beth pulled away from my grip to face me with arms crossed.
“Because…” I looked from one irate face to the other, Tieg’s voice trying to distract me with words of love and longing in the background. “Well, because I can’t.”
That came out all wrong. I wet my lips and tried to find the right words—words that weren’t steeped in guilt or resentment or grudging obligation.
I loved my family. I’d always do what was best for them.
Eliza had turned away from me, and I saw her gesturing to the boys. Soon I was surrounded by Brady, Keith, and the twins and Eliza was filling them in on what I’d just said.
“What do you mean you’re not going?” Keith sounded just
as angry as my sisters. “You’ve always wanted to live in a big city.”
“I know, but—”
“Is that why you won’t say yes to poor Tieg?” Eliza said.
I opened my mouth and ended up gaping at her. Since when had he become ‘poor Tieg’ to my siblings? I shook my head. Not important. “I can’t go. You guys—I mean, Dad needs me.”
Keith scoffed. “Dad’s been planning a party for the day you finally tell us your big news.”
Now it was Keith’s turn to be gawked at by me.
I noticed Brady was watching me with an annoyingly knowing smile. “You knew too?”
He grinned, cutting a meaningful look toward Beth. Of course she’d told him. I appealed to Brady because he’d always been better with words than me. “Explain to them why I can’t go.”
He scratched the back of his neck and gave me a regretful grimace. “First you’d have to explain it to me.”
I widened my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. Could no one else see that it wasn’t in the cards for me? I started ticking points off on my finger. “We can’t afford it—”
“You got a full scholarship,” Keith said. With a shrug he added, “Get a part-time job to cover the dorm or whatever and you’re fine.”
I scoffed. Yeah, right. Because it would be that simple.
“My dad would help you out,” Brady added.
I glared at him. “There’s no way I’m taking charity from your dad.”
Eliza groaned. “Get over yourself already.”
I spun around to face her. Another one of Tieg’s beautiful songs ended, and I needed this conversation over as well. This was my one chance to hear him sing…to hear him sing to me. And now my annoying family was making me miss it.
Eliza gestured to the crowd. “You’re hosting a charity event for our town but you’re too proud to accept some help yourself?” Again with the eye rolls. She was seriously embodying the worst of the teen years these days.
I huffed. “It’s not the same.”
“Sure it is,” Beth said, her voice filled with all Eliza’s certainty but none of her angst.
I turned to the others. “Fine, say I went. Who would take care of you guys? Who would make sure laundry is clean and homework is done and—”
“Mrs. Doherty,” Keith interrupted.
I blinked. “Who?” Of course I knew who Mrs. Doherty was—she was my kindergarten teacher before she retired. Now she was a widow and living in town.
“Dad already talked to her about helping out.”
“But we can’t afford—”
“Dad says we can,” Eliza said.
I’d seen so little of my dad lately, I had no idea if that was true or not. I stared at them, temporarily stumped.
“Besides,” Eliza said in the annoyingly snooty tone I knew so well of late. “Do you seriously think you’re the only one who can get things done around here?”
I opened my mouth and closed it. I wanted to point out to her that she and Keith were still kids…but they were around the same age I’d been when Mom had passed and I’d taken over most of the household duties.
“Keith and I can make mac-n-cheese just as well as you can,” Eliza said.
“I don’t just make mac-n-cheese,” I muttered. But okay, yeah. Point taken. It wasn’t like I was some domestic goddess in our home.
“With Mom gone—”
“Oh spare me,” Eliza said. “We all miss having Mom around but that doesn’t mean that we need you to take her place.”
Beth looked up at me and her gaze was way too old for her years. “I don’t think Mom would be happy if you gave up on your dreams.”
“I—” I had nothing to say to that. No, of course she wouldn’t be happy to know that I was giving up on my dreams for the future.
I glanced up at Tieg who’d launched into another song, this one faster and it had the entire crowd moving to the beat.
He was holding this crowd in his sway, and my mom would have loved to see it.
But she wouldn’t have loved seeing me shut him out when all I wanted to do was hold him close.
When I looked back to my family, Brady was giving me a weird look.
“What?”
“Is that why you’ve been turning Tieg down?”
As one, we all shifted our attention to the stage, and he was there, looking amazing, being amazing, sounding amazing.
He was amazing.
I’d always known it.
Just like I’d always known he was mine. He was my person, and I was his.
“Is that why?” Eliza asked, her tone far less gentle and patient. “Because you think you have to stick around and take care of us for the rest of our lives?”
Well, when she put it like that… But it was the truth, and I finally gave a jerky nod.
“Idiot,” Eliza muttered on a sigh.
Tieg’s voice drowned out any other lovely comments she had to make on the matter. “We’re coming to the end of the set—”
Shouts filled the air as the crowd asked for more. He laughed softly and ducked his head, this beautiful blend of cocky and humble. This perfectly layered, complicated boy who’d given me his heart when I was too young to know what that meant.
I was too young to understand that he’d stolen mine in return.
All I knew for certain now was that he’d never given it back.
Beth tugged at my sleeve. “Don’t let him leave again.”
She sounded just like my mom in that moment. At some point she’d adopted her voice along with her hair color and her eyes.
I swallowed hard against an overwhelming surge of emotion.
Hope.
“I have one more song in my Daisy Lou collection.” He wore the sort of self-deprecating smile that made my heart melt, and I was almost certain it was making every female in this crowd swoon. He moved closer to the mic and dropped his voice. “But I’m not going to sing it.”
Why not?
“Why not?” The shout came from a handful of people in the crowd.
“Glad you asked,” he said, making me smile and the crowd rumble with laughter. “It’s one of the few songs that I wrote, perfected…and never recorded.”
The silence in the crowd was deafening as they waited for him to continue.
I found myself leaning forward like that would help ease the anticipation.
“It was my goodbye song,” he said. “You see, three years ago I left Daisy in the worst way possible and without even a proper goodbye.” He shrugged. “So I wrote everything I’d felt that day, and in the weeks and months after I left. I poured it all into a song.”
“Sing it!” someone shouted.
“I’m not going to sing it tonight,” he said, his gaze searching the crowd again, seeking me out. “I’m never going to sing that song, because I’m not ready to say goodbye to Daisy Lou. Not now, not ever.”
My heart tried to leap from my chest, my whole body tensed to launch itself toward him.
I was pretty sure the entire audience let out a collective sigh.
“What are you stupid?” Eliza hissed next to me. “Go to him!”
She gave me a little shove, and that was all I needed. I launched into action the way I’d wanted to for hours…for years. I pushed my way through the crowd until they started to part for me, turning with whispers as my name seemed to float through the crowd.
I didn’t look at any of them, I was too busy trying to catch Tieg’s attention. Trying to get him to see me so I could tell him.
Tell him what?
Tell him everything. That I loved him, that I wanted to be with him, that this wasn’t goodbye. Not now, and hopefully not ever.
He didn’t see me, and I watched in frustration as he adjusted his guitar, ready to launch into a song that was not my goodbye song. Somebody ahead of me in the crowd shouted something, and it caught his attention.
I saw him freeze and then more people were shouting my name, telling him to wait…telling him I was coming. Towar
d the end it felt like I was riding a wave of people as the crowd pulled me toward the stage, ushering me forward like I was part of the show.
And then I was part of the show. Literally. I was hauled up on stage, and I looked up to see that it was Tieg who’d pulled me up, it was his beautiful face smiling down at me, it was his eyes peering into mine, and despite the harsh lights, I could read his echoing hope, his fears, his overwhelming love.
“Hi,” I said breathlessly.
He grinned. “Hi.”
I had no idea what to say, but I had to say something. “Don’t play that song,” I said. “Don’t ever play that song.”
He crushed me to him, his face buried in my hair, his hard body pressed against mine from head to toe. “I won’t,” he said, his voice filled with laughter and his chest shaking with it. “I promise I won’t.”
I pulled back because there was more to say, but I didn’t get the chance. Not right then, at least. Because in front of Brady and my siblings and possibly every resident in the state of Montana—he kissed me.
Tieg Larson kissed me.
And let me tell you, his kiss? It said even more than his songs.
When he pulled back, we were both breathless and laughing, and maybe I was crying just a little. “I love you,” he said. “You know that, right?”
“I do.” I smiled up at him. “What happened to taking it slow?”
He pretended to mull it over as the crowd cheered like crazy in front of us. “Slow is overrated.”
I went up on tiptoe for another kiss. “My thoughts exactly.”
Epilogue
One Year Later
Tieg
Here’s the thing about being famous. It’s almost impossible to sneak up on your girlfriend. Not that I was trying to scare her or anything, I just wanted to surprise her.
“Just one more picture,” a bubbly college student said.
I forced a smile. “Sure, one more.”
But my eyes were on the door to the dorms. In the seconds it took me to pose for a selfie, I missed my opportunity. I glanced up from the blonde with the camera phone to see my girl walking toward me, shaking her head in amused exasperation and the most gorgeous smile in the world hovering over her lips.
The Man, The Myth, The Nerd: High School Billionaires #3 Page 13