by Lauren Dane
“Ezra did my job. I should have showed you that interview. Fuck that, I wouldn’t have shown it to you. Ezra had no right to make that choice for me. He should have contacted me before he showed it to you. I’m your boyfriend, not him. Not only was it not Ezra’s place, you don’t need that emotional shit from your father. You don’t need to struggle through any of this shit. You were better off not knowing. As for Bob? He needs a punch in the face.”
“What?” Not only was she still confused, he was starting to piss her off. “I don’t like that for your own good stuff. I make my own decisions because I’m a grown-up. I’ve been dealing with Bob my whole life. I decide if or when I deal with Bob. No one else gets to make that choice for me.”
“For once in your life, you might let yourself be taken care of, Natalie. Ezra took that from me. And you let him. When it came down to it, you trusted him with it and not me.” He looked at his phone and then made a call.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling Ezra.”
“What? No!” She moved, but he turned his back, shutting her out.
He’d never done that before in an argument and her world shifted a little.
Ezra must have answered because Paddy started speaking into his phone, “Yeah, I’d say sorry I woke you up, but I’m not. What the hell, Ez? You kept this stuff with Natalie and her dad from me? Why would you do that?”
Natalie walked around him so she could look him in the eyes. “Paddy, you need to stop this now. I’m not kidding. This is spinning out of control and we need to work it out. Not by yelling at your brother.”
“She’s still taking your side. Do you hear that?” He wouldn’t look at her, further shutting her out.
She touched his arm. “What side? There are no sides here. This happened to me. To. Me. If anyone gets to decide how to handle something or how to feel about it, it’s me.”
Paddy focused on her. “He took that from me, Natalie. I should have been the one to help you through this.”
He wanted her to trust him by fighting with him? Okay then. “You’re not even making sense. A bad thing happened to me and what did I do? I came here! To you. God, you’re being such a self-centered asshole right now. You’re making this about you when it isn’t. And you’re waking up your brother to yell at him for what? Being kind? Reaching out to me to tell me something awful? Something I could have found out by being blindsided by a reporter? You like to talk about how it’s normal for couples to fight, and I’m trying to, but you’re pulling Ezra into this, and he doesn’t need to be.”
“It is about me, though. If this gains speed, it’s my girlfriend who looks like a dope-fiend skank. Sort of the opposite of what the rebranding push was about, no? Your father using me to get himself some attention. He’s got himself a little bit of spotlight. You didn’t trust me to handle this, and now it’s fucked. Your need to always have control has wrecked everything.”
Everything inside her went really still at his words. Even through the rest of this, she knew they’d get past it and work things out. But those sentences made a wound in a heart she’d trusted him with. How many times in her life had she been blamed for things other people did? All those voices threatened to swallow her up.
She heard Ezra yell at Paddy to shut up but the words were out, hanging between them. Slicing her open.
She managed to swallow her anguish and speak calmly to him. “I’m sorry you see it that way.”
He and his brother continued to argue as she went into the bedroom and got dressed, leaving the T-shirt on the bed. She had to wall it out. Build a big moat around it and not feel. Not look at it because it hurt so much that if she spent even a second more on it, she’d break down.
As she reached the door she stopped, dropping her bag. Damn it, she was running, and she’d promised him she wouldn’t. This was too big a deal to just walk away from. He’d hurt her, but they could get through it.
“Patrick!” Natalie yelled as loudly as she could, grabbing his shoulder and turning him to face her.
He was so surprised, he didn’t prevent her from taking the phone and hanging it up.
She handed it back. “Now that I have your attention.”
“What the fuck?”
“I nearly walked out just now.” She jerked her chin toward the door where her leather jacket lay across her bag.
“Oh, you’re going to run like you always do.”
She shook her head. “Nope. I started to but when I got to the door, I realized if I left, I’d be using that to put distance between us.” She’d be taking back control. “So I let go of that. I didn’t run. I’m right here, trusting you to work this out with me.”
“I don’t want to deal with you right now. I’m pissed off.”
“So you’d rather yell at your brother over the phone than work this out?”
“You can’t just act like I’m a man to rely on, one you trust to protect and take care of you and then give that all to someone else, instead.”
“I didn’t do that.” God, her chest hurt. She wanted to cry. Wanted to shake him to make him see reason. “Please listen to me. I came here to you. I am relying on you. Right this moment and ever since Ezra told me about this.”
“I think you need to go. Cool off awhile. I’ll be back home in a month.” His voice had gone flat. “Have them get you another room here. Charge it to us. I’ll have your travel taken care of.”
Real fear was ice in her veins. Everything was falling down around her ears, and she didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know how to fix it. Wasn’t sure he even wanted to.
“You’re seriously asking me to leave right now? You’re breaking up with me?”
“No. I’m not breaking up with you. I’ll call you in a few days once I’ve processed all this. Right now I just don’t want to deal. I’m on tour. I have to keep my head straight for that.”
She drew a breath and licked her lips. She would not cry. Not in front of him. “This is going to do more damage than me staying here will. You have to know that.”
“If you stay here, I’m going to say something I can’t take back.” He turned away from her, closing her out that last little bit so she stood there on the outside. Alone.
“You already have, Paddy.” She took a step back. “I’ll handle my own details, so don’t bother. Have a good rest of your tour.” She turned, hoping so much he’d call her back, but he didn’t. So she picked up her jacket and opened the door, grabbed her bag and left.
* * *
PADDY HEARD HER behind him and didn’t turn. Hurt anger burned through him. He didn’t want to look at her right then. Couldn’t.
He heard the door open and close, and she was gone.
He called Ezra back, who answered and started yelling before he could say a word. “Patrick! Get your head out of your selfish ass right now. Snap out of it. I can’t slap the shit out of you to get your attention, but let me call attention to the fact that you’re saying all this stuff in front of Natalie. To quote Pearl Jam, ‘some words when spoken can’t be taken back.’ Dick. That last bit was me, by the way.” Ezra’s voice had that whip in it he used when he dealt with them in the studio.
And Paddy didn’t want any part of it.
How long had he worked, really dug in and worked to earn her trust? With her, he’d been the man he had always wanted to be. The kind of man a woman would come to when she needed help and support.
And in the end, she’d trusted Ezra to do that and had treated him like a pretty second choice.
“Get your own girlfriend. Better yet, solve your own problems for a change instead of trying to solve everyone else’s. Fuck off and stay away from Natalie.”
He hung up and headed to the minifridge and grabbed a beer. Then he grabbed two more and a bottle of tequila he had already.
He drank them and wallowed. How could she have gone through all that and not called him immediately? Damn Ezra for not coming to him first and letting Paddy decide how to tell Natalie. She didn�
�t need to hear any of it. It made her unhappy, and Paddy would have known that. Ezra hadn’t.
He’d spent the better part of a year with her, proving himself and in the end, it hadn’t been enough.
Between Ezra and Bob Clayton, Paddy ached to pop someone in the nose, and since Ezra probably wouldn’t answer his calls, and he’d already unloaded on his brother, anyway, Paddy decided to handle Bob Clayton.
Before he got any more drunk, he did just that, using the phone number Jeremy had given him a few months back when he’d asked their manager to keep an eye on the man just in case.
“Bob,” Paddy said when he answered, “this is Patrick Hurley. Who the hell do you think you are?”
“Well, listen to that. A slurred phone call after midnight.”
“Says the man with opiate slur totally awake after midnight. I’m confused. Do you even try to be a dick or does it come naturally?”
“I’m trying to save my daughter from the likes of you.”
Paddy laughed at that. “From me? Yeah, because selling a lie to the tabloids for drug money is more your style than mine, old man.”
“My daughter is the most important person in the whole world to me. She’s gone to therapy, which has convinced her I’m the bad guy. I was an addict. I was a different person when I used, but that was the substance. Not me. You should know that. Your own brother was addicted to heroin of all things.”
“You keep talking in the past tense but you’re high right now. Try it on someone else. I’ve been around enough junkies to know. You’re nothing like Ezra. He took responsibility for the things he did. He got clean. He doesn’t blame everyone else for his bullshit. And he would never, in a million years, hurt his family the way you’ve made a hobby of. I know you’re rich. Why are you selling stuff to the tabloids? Have you blown your monthly trust check or something? Looking for cash to shut up?”
“It’s hard to get clean when no one believes in you. My daughter has abandoned me for you. You and your easy life and promises to her. If I had incentive to keep clean, I wouldn’t have to tell my story. Of course, also yes, I’d love to have her back in my life.”
Paddy snorted. “I’m not giving you a dime. I work for my money.”
“My daughter doesn’t. She’s got a fourteen million dollar trust and then she sits and condemns my life?”
Holy shit. Her trust was fourteen million dollars?
“Your daughter totally works for a living. She volunteers. She helps people. Which is more than I can say for you. Leave her alone. If you really love her like you claim to, stop exposing her to people who’d do her harm for page views. She has a quiet, private life. She wants to be left alone. You’re not helping.”
“But she seems just fine with her picture all over the place with you.”
Paddy got it right at that moment. Her father, that piece of crap, was actually jealous that Nat was getting coverage, even though she hadn’t set out to get it and was uncomfortable with it.
“That’s the real problem, isn’t it? Oh, Bob.” Paddy settled back, feeling vicious. He was so pissed off, and as he’d already hung up on his brother and chased Nat away, he had a better target for his rage.
“You can’t stand it that she’s got a life and she’s happy.”
“I’m going to pray for you. You’re leading my daughter down the wrong path.”
Paddy laughed and took another shot. “Save your prayers and use them on yourself. As for Natalie being led? If that’s not the clearest evidence you don’t know her at all, I don’t know what is. I’m going to say this one last time. Leave her alone. Don’t mention her. Don’t paint her with your own sins to make yourself look like a victim. For once in your miserable life, don’t use your kid and hurt her for your own benefit.”
“Or what? Is this a threat of some type?”
“It’s not a threat, Bob. It’s a promise. Leave Natalie alone.”
He hung up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
BONE-DEEP TIRED and emotionally wrung out, Natalie keyed open the front door and headed into the house. Tuesday looked up from her place at her worktable, surprised to see her back.
She put down the pliers and the piece she’d been creating. “What’s going on?” Tuesday got up, concern on her face. “I thought you weren’t due back until tomorrow night?”
“I... He...” Natalie burst into tears. Now that the door was closed, now that she was home and with Tuesday, the walls she’d built around everything that had happened in the hotel room in Chicago came rushing back.
Tuesday put her arms around her and guided Natalie to the couch, sitting with her. “Oh, honey, what happened? Did you find him with someone? Did he cheat on you? I’m going to run his ass over with my car!”
Natalie shook her head, getting herself together. “No. He didn’t cheat.” She laid out the fight. “You know, it was so good when I got there. It was... I felt like this could be it, that forever person. Even as we were fighting, I thought he was being a dick, but it was whatever, you know how dudes can be sometimes. And who am I to talk? He has a button I pushed, and I did it without knowing that. I figured he’d burn off his mad and we’d get to what it was really about. Then we’d have great makeup sex.”
Tuesday blew out a breath. “And then what happened?”
“A few things. The main one is he walled me out. He took this thing between me and him, and he called Ezra. He was so cold. His voice was flat. He even turned his back on me. At the end. He told me to go. This was after he’d said to Ezra that my need to control everything had ruined things.” He’d taken what vulnerability she’d shown him, and he’d turned it around to hurt her.
She’d hurt him so deeply, he’d done that. She hadn’t meant to, but that’s what happened all the same. And he had reacted with so much hurt anger.
Tuesday sat back. “Like that?”
“Yes. He said I always ran. So I stayed. He said I didn’t give up control when I held things back so I went to him. And in the end, he flipped out when I shared because it wasn’t exactly how he’d wanted, and he shoved me away.”
“And you left.”
“I tried to stay. He told me to go. He told me to get my own hotel room and charge it to the band and that he’d see me when he got off tour. Claims he wasn’t breaking up with me. I did think about getting another room and trying to work it out with him again today. But by the time I got to the lobby, I was so humiliated. I just needed to come home. The really nice man who drove me to the venue to start with was around when I called, and he took me to the airport. He even stopped and made me get coffee.”
“You look like hell. Did you sleep at all on the flight?”
“I tried.”
“Go. Take a hot shower and get in bed. I’ll crank up the heat and when you get out of the shower, there’ll be some tea waiting. You’ll sleep, and then we’ll figure out what you need to do next. He’s going to be sorry soon enough and call for you.”
“I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t know if I ever will.”
Tuesday started to say something but closed her mouth, pointing at the stairs. “Go.”
* * *
THE POUNDING ON his door woke Paddy up from where he’d passed out on the couch sometime after sunup. He glanced at his phone and noted it was already nearly three.
Which meant he was about to miss sound check.
“Coming!”
He braced himself to see Renn’s face, about to make an apology and run to the shower, but it was a very-angry, very-pregnant sister-in-law with an equally angry Damien right behind her.
“What did you do, Paddy?” She pushed him back.
“I’m sorry! I overslept. I’m going to jump in the shower now. It’ll take me five minutes.” It wasn’t as if he’d never shown up hungover and still drunk from the night before.
He started into the bedroom and that’s when Nat’s scent hit him, and he remembered. “Did Nat spend the night with you? Sorry about that. I told her to get her own r
oom.”
“Are you actually kidding me? Because Patrick, I am in no mood for your jokes right now. This is serious business.”
“Why isn’t she here to be mad at me in person, anyway? She sends her pregnant friend to do her dirty work? Weak.”
“You don’t even know, do you?” Damien shoved a hand through his hair. “Jesus. How drunk were you last night?”
Suddenly, he remembered. He’d told her to get out.
“Sorry you got dragged into our fight. She and I will work it out. I should call her this morning at least since I told her to go.”
Mary shook her head. “I’m leaving. Don’t tell him anything, Damien. He doesn’t deserve to know.”
Damien groaned and moved to his wife, catching her at the door. “Curly, I nearly lost you. He pushed me to make it right. He made a mistake. But everyone makes mistakes. Go back to our room and put your feet up. I’ll be back in a few. You stay here tonight. No use you going to the venue.”
“I’m going. I have a menu planned. I made a commitment to do that for you guys at every show. There are three more weeks left, and I’ll continue to do that until the tour is over.” She shot Paddy a glare over her shoulder and left the room.
“I repeat. What the hell is going on? Is Natalie all right?”
“If you mean is she back in Hood River? Yes.”
“She’s not supposed... Oh. I told her to go home. She really fucking did it? And she came to your room to tell you all this?”
“Jesus, Paddy. How drunk were you?”
“I wasn’t drunk when I had the fight with Natalie. I didn’t start drinking until she left, and I’d hung up on Ezra. Then...I called her dad. I drank some more. I watched The Matrix and I passed out.”
“Ezra called us about forty-five minutes ago.”
“God, I went off on him. I was so pissed. But out of line.” Paddy knew he had some apologies to make after losing his temper the night before. But still, the brother code. “I can’t believe he called you to tattle, though.”
“First, she didn’t come to our room last night. She went to the airport. She left a thank-you card for Mary for handling all her arrival details. The front desk notes that was at nearly three in the morning. Ezra called Mary to let her know Tuesday called him at the ranch. To let him know Natalie just got back to Hood River. He figured you might want to know she was safe, but Tuesday says she’s a wreck. What did you say to her, Paddy? Did you hit her?”