She rolled her eyes. “Well, I wouldn’t say that.” Tay took her drink from the attendant, continuing as she added in her fixings, “Look, that was like… ten… nine years ago; that’s a long time. Now, you are world famous. People would literally do anything to meet you—let alone go on tour with you—and I think that’s what you need to focus on: that you aren’t the only one benefitting here. Opening for you for Every. Single. Show. in the States is huge. Like career-making huge.”
I took a deep breath, sighing back into my seat as the plane began to lift off the ground.
“Yeah,” I agreed, “but he still has to pretend to fall in love with me. God, he couldn’t even pretend to like me when we were younger. And now, I haven’t seen him in so long—at least two years. Was this really the best plan you could come up with?” I groaned.
“B, trust me, I wouldn’t have dared to mention the Z-word if it wasn’t,” she paused as the captain announced, ‘Our flight time is two hours and forty minutes to touchdown in Nashville where it’s a brisk ten degrees outside.’
“But we are in damage control here,” she continued with a sigh, “and he’s the only person with the background and situation who is most likely able to pull this off. So, take off your rear-views, put on your big girl panties, and remember that you are offering him not only the opportunity of a lifetime, but also a chance to let the world think he’s hooked up with the hottest pop-star on the planet.”
“Oh, God,” I moaned, burying my face in my hands. This was such a bad idea.
“It’s simple. You ask Zach. Even if he says no, once you tell your brother, he won’t let Zach pass up the opportunity; it’s the break that will get ZPP launched and Ash will be all over that,” she said with such dramatic emphasis that I almost wanted to ask what she meant. “I hate to say it, but you’re really not giving him an option. So, just make it as business-like as possible and it won’t be that awkward.”
Tay didn’t know—she didn’t know what Zach did to me. Talking to him had always been a perpetual tongue-twister that I could never get right no matter how she coached me.
No, I could do this, I pep-talked myself, closing my eyes as Taylor went back to the latest Fifty Shades book on her Kindle.
It had been exactly two years since I’d seen him; I didn’t want Tay to know how exactly I remembered these things. My brother and Zach had come home for the holiday. They’d moved back after graduation—not back to Franklin, but into downtown Nashville. My brother, using his business degree, had been dabbling in several start-ups in the city as well as being the quasi-manager for Zach’s band, the Zach Parker Project. And Zach, well, he’d left football when he’d left Alabama and immersed himself in the music scene.
Two years ago, my mom called me after one of my recording sessions and told me that Ash was bringing Zach to the house for Christmas Eve dinner. After blaming my momentary shock on a poor cell connection, I brushed it off like it was going to be no big deal. It had been a long time. I should have known better.
I walked into my parents dining room for Christmas Eve dinner with the confidence of being famous and currently dating one of the stars of the TV show, Vampire Journals. (It also helped that I’d crimped my long blonde hair, done my makeup, and wore a tight, fancy number that had been a Grammy-option reject.) It was a confidence that faltered when I saw Zach for the first time since their college graduation. He was still as devastatingly gorgeous as the day he devastated me. Fueled by the need to rub my current fairytale in his face, I sat at the table and went on and on (and on) about Jake, only to have Ash snicker at me and ask why, if the guy was so great, hadn’t I written a song about him yet?
I was dumbstruck. He’d meant it lightly (because I did sometimes write songs about my boyfriends), but only after the words came out did he realize it sounded like he was bringing up their high school party—and my song to Zach—again. My face burned as my mouth opened and shut like I was a goldfish waiting to be fed something that would make the moment less humiliating.
After the long moment of silence to mourn the last shreds of my self-confidence, Ash mumbled an apology and started a conversation about how ZPP was really picking up popularity with a lot of larger venues in Nashville—and Zach jumped right in, just as eager to forget that moment. I barely spoke the rest of the meal, once again, humiliated about my feelings for Zach right in front of him.
That was my fear. That this request was going to be one more humiliation.
Closing my eyes, I immediately returned to the ending of that memory.
“Seriously, Ash? What the fuck man?” Zach’s tight and irritated voice rasped.
I’d walked back into the dining room to grab the rest of the plates and overheard Zach and my brother talking in the living room next door.
“Chill, bro. It was just a slip. It’s fine,” my brother said with a laugh.
“Yeah, well, when your little sister writes a goddamn love song about me, it’s not just a slip.”
“Christ, I would hope she’s fucking over that by now,” Ash grumbled, “the way she’s going on about what’s-his-name.”
“Another reason why we should go,” Zach said tightly.
“It’s all over the news. There’s no way she made up the damn boyfriend just to get your attention even though that’s sure as shit what it sounded like.”
I wanted to punch my brother—partially for throwing me under the bus but mostly because he was one-hundred-percent right. Not that I made Jake up. But that I brought him up for Zach’s attention.
“Let’s go,” Zach replied. “I can’t be around her anymore.”
I jerked back, the plates in my hands clattering against one another just as sure as if he’d struck me. My stomach rolled with the need to vomit and I just prayed I didn’t drop the plates as I ran back into the kitchen with black spots still clouding my vision.
That night, I jotted down the names of every song that ended up on the Lovestruck album, bits and pieces of verses and refrains flashing in front of my eyes.
He was the reason for them all. And he was the reason for the teardrops on my guitar.
I jerked my eyes to the window, hating how I went back to that December all the time…
Well, not all the time, but more than I should.
A small patch of turbulence shook me back to the present and I chewed nervously on the now flavorless piece of gum.
Remember, Blake, you have two more Grammys under your belt since then. Another platinum album. A star on the Boulevard. You are better than this stupid crush. Stop letting it cripple you.
Grabbing my iPad from my bag, I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and out of my face. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Tay was already napping. Popping in my earbuds, I threw on some classical music to focus my thoughts on what exactly I was going to say. There was no winging this one; there was no way he could say no.
‘Hey, Zach. Here’s the deal… I’ll make you famous if you save my reputation.’
Or maybe: ‘Hey, Zach. So, I was wondering if you would consider being my fake boyfriend while I’m on tour? In exchange, I’ll let your band open every show. By the way, you know how I wrote that song for you one time? Yeah, well, this whole album may or may not be about you…’
‘Hey, Zach. If I bribe you with everything that you’ve ever wanted, do you think you could love me then?’
I was pathetic.
“We’re all so excited that you’re ending your tour in Nashville,” my mom, Alison Tyler, gushed as we checked on the lasagna that was heating up in the oven. I’d confined myself and my anxiety to the kitchen leaving Taylor to set the table while we waited for my brother and Zach to get here.
“Yeah, it was originally shoved in the middle of the schedule, but then we bumped it to the end,” I replied, grating some parmesan cheese into a bowl and sneaking a few bites for myself. Cheese and Christmas cookies were my weaknesses.
“And everything’s been going ok?” she asked, concern seeping into her wa
rm, caring voice, and I immediately knew where this was going—as if I needed one more reminder about my failing love life.
I loved my parents—and my brother—more than anything. I’d never played up the ‘small-town girl’ or ‘all-American family’ catch-phrases; they were just the truth.
My mom always called me before every performance (no matter what time it meant she had to wake up) and my dad always made sure that I took time off between touring and recording to come home, regroup, and eat a whole pot of his famous chili. This place was my rock, my safe space, no matter where in the world I was or what I was doing. They brought me back from the lights and the fame and the all-too-real and all-too-fake dichotomy of the entertainment scene.
“I know better than to believe the tabloids, but I thought you really liked that DJ,” she said quietly. I’d called her from Europe to tell her about the breakup but I hadn’t really told her why, too frustrated with myself—yet again—for picking another dud.
“He was a jerk,” I mumbled, softly, setting the grater in the sink before I couldn’t help but add, “They all are.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” she empathized, putting an arm around my shoulder. “You’ll find somebody. I know you will.” Yeah, ok. “Maybe finding him on tour isn’t the best thing. I know how much you love tours and performances and meeting all your fans, but I also know how much it takes out of you and sometimes I think you forget that you are only twenty-five. And human. You don’t have to always be what they want; it’s ok to just be you.”
I bit back a groan as she pulled me close. If only she knew what I had to do tonight. And no, I hadn’t forgotten that I was only human—it was the world who apparently did—who thought I’d become this heartless black widow, eating up boyfriends like they were Grammys.
My head jerked with a nod as I picked up the bowl of cheese and headed for the dining room, needing Tay and a change of topic.
Instead, I walked through the swinging door to find myself face-to-face with that god who’d created a fire inside of my soul and burned my heart to the ground.
I’d stood on stage in front of tens of thousands of people. I’d walked up and accepted Grammys after being told that I was too young to deserve them. I sang my heart out for millions of people all over the world and yet, I’d never felt nervousness like this moment. I was standing there naked about to sing the sappiest love song in the entire world to the one boy who never wanted me—at least that’s what it felt like.
Where the hell did Taylor go? She was supposed to warn me.
Max and Muffin, my parents two cocker spaniels, came tearing into the room yapping and jumping up on Zach’s legs and mine. I heard his chuckle just before he saw me. After all this time, he had become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anytime, anywhere.
“Zach… hey,” I greeted him a little too breathlessly. But I was a little too surprised—and he was a little too gorgeous.
Ripped jeans and a shirt that clung to him like it was painted on brought back memories of summertime when even Mother Nature herself got all hot and bothered admiring a topless Zach Parker. He hadn’t lost the solid build from his football days. If anything, his frame matured into smoother, wider expanses of male that I wanted to lick like he was ice cream about to melt away.
His whole body tensed at my greeting. Lean, sculpted muscles outlined by the washed denim and a plaid button-up made him look like Hercules masquerading as a farmer.
Eyes that were still the color of honey and molasses stuck to me, leaving a sticky sweet trail of goosebumps over everything that they touched. I hadn’t gone all-out when getting dressed after showering the plane off of me because I knew that would have been taken the wrong way. Instead, I settled for a comfortable, stretchy pair of jeans and a bulky, dark red sweater that laced up the back.
Perfect for keeping in all the heat he’d just ignited in me. With a frustrated and shadowed stare, no less.
It was probably a good thing for my ovaries that he didn’t want me; they might explode if he looked at me like he actually did.
“Blake,” he said with a low, gruff voice. The edge in his tone was almost as chiseled as his jawline. Greek god. Definitely. I hoped that my sweater could hide my shiver.
“How are you?” I asked with a nervous smile. “How’s your family?”
His hands shoved into his pockets as he replied, “Fine,” glancing around as though he were waiting for back-up.
Ass.
“Blake!” Taylor’s sing-song voice preceded her around the corner. “Your brother is—” she broke off as she walked into the room and saw Zach and I locked in awkward silence. “Oh, you already know,” she continued with a sheepish grin. “Hey, Zach.”
I glared at her for not being here to do the one thing I asked her to do—the one thing that was her job. Prepare me.
Track 04: Stand Still, Look Pretty
“First it was the boys who played me like a toy.
Now my heart is on a string, your puppet it’s forced to be.
Not that I have a choice, but I don’t wanna just stand still, look pretty.”
THANKFULLY, DINNER THIS YEAR WENT without incident—no talk about my (ex) boyfriends and no mention of any songs written for anyone in particular. Ash carried most of the conversation, updating my parents and me on ZPP who’d just finished recording their first full-length album. Ash was neck-deep working to get their name out there and gain more exposure for it.
I tried to politely participate in the conversation but it didn’t help that Tay kept looking from me to Zach like she was expecting me to get down on one knee and propose to the guy or something.
“Don’t tell,” I whispered to Max as I gave him a bite of leftovers from the plate I was about to wash and put in the dishwasher. He greedily ate them before running off through the dog-door to go outside, apparently unable to decide what he was more excited about—human food or being outdoors.
“Let’s go, lady.” Taylor nudged me in the back. “We don’t have all night.”
Biting back a groan, I let her lead me outside towards Ash and my soul-lighter, the screen door slamming behind us. The boys were enjoying a beer out by the fire pit—a poor source of heat in the frozen night, in my opinion.
The screen door slammed closed behind us. It was an incredibly clear night out—Orion’s belt perfectly visible in the black sky. That was me. Always shining. Always seen. When the truth was that I was burning up inside.
“Ash,” Tay called as we approached them, “your mom wants your help inside for a sec.”
My brother turned and mumbled something, but Zach stayed facing the flames. I felt Ash brush by me and when I turned, Taylor was gone, too. It was just Zach and me. Alone.
“Zach,” I said, clearing the lump out of my throat, “can I talk to you for a minute?”
I saw him flinch slightly, not realizing that I’d come out with Tay. He let out an audible sigh that would have translated into a ‘no’ given the chance. But, while he felt uncomfortable around me, he was too respectful to flat out refuse my request. At least at this point. If I started singing, he might change his tune.
His hands came up to pull off his old Alabama hat, running one through the waves underneath, before replacing it. My stomach clenched watching the subtle show of frustration and the way his shirt tightened over his body. God… Bama and time had done a number on Zach. Bigger. Harder. Leaner. Larger. That was the word. I may have become the biggest popstar in the world, but Zach, well, he had become larger than life.
I licked my lips, taking in the subtle details that I’d been too nervous to notice earlier. His hair was a little longer, the rich brown locks curling out from underneath his hat. His shirt really seemed like it should have been purchased a size bigger, the way his biceps were outlined.
The flash of his movie-star-perfect smile appeared for a split second as he let out a harsh laugh.
“You going to stand there ogling me all night or was there something you wanted to say, B
aby Blake?”
I winced. He was only half-turned to look at me, the fire melting the honey of his eyes to gold; it wasn’t warm enough though to melt the scorn from his voice.
My stomach rolled at the derisive nickname. I could practically hear the unspoken words ‘Please don’t sing another fucking song to me again,’ on the night breeze.
I closed my eyes and the flashbacks started—me, standing there, on that makeshift stage in the humid, summer air…
Crossing my arms over me (even though I wasn’t cold at all) I replied, “I-I have something that I want to offer you.” His eyebrows raised warily. “I mean, to the band.”
He turned to face me. Now, I had his attention. Of course.
“I was wondering if you would be interested,” I paused to clear my throat. There was no going back from here, “in having ZPP open for the rest of my US tour?”
His eyes widened and now it was his turn to stare. Shaking his head, he laughed again. “Is this a joke?”
Oh, how I wished it was.
I took a step back, offended, crossing my arms even tight over my chest. “What do you mean? N-no. This isn’t a joke.”
His broad shoulders shrugged; he thought I was taunting him with this to get back at him for all of the humiliation I suffered because of him.
I wished. But no.
“I mean—Shit.” He wiped his hand over his mouth, forcing my tongue over my lips again because it wanted to taste him. Did he still taste like honey? “Seriously?” he asked again.
I nodded, adding, “I’m very serious right now.”
And that’s when his eyes narrowed on me, reading my mind just as expertly as ever. “What’s the catch?”
My gaze dropped to the ground, attempting to kick around dirt that was too frozen to move.
“Blake…”
My eyes jerked back to his. “I need you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend.” The words rushed from my mouth as I prepared for impact.
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