Girl in Love

by Quinn, Caisey

  “IT’S KIND of hard to explain. Things got crazy and I haven’t exactly had time to tell her yet.”

  Trace’s voice roused Kylie from unconsciousness. She rubbed her eyes and sat up. It was barely daylight, and she wasn’t sure if she’d slept for a few hours or a few days. But she was in his bedroom. In his shirt. Which was her absolute favorite place to be.

  Right up until a woman’s voice made its way to her ears.

  “Well I’m thinking you’re out of time, Tray.”

  It wasn’t Rae or Claire Ann, which she didn’t expect it to be since Rae still had at least one more day to stay in the hospital according to Trace.

  Kylie grabbed her jeans and yanked them on.

  I don’t bring women here. He’d told her that the first time she had come to the farm. And she’d believed him. But maybe things had changed, because even though Kylie couldn’t tell whose voice it was, whoever Trace was arguing with quietly in the next room was decidedly female.

  She ran her fingers through her hair and stepped out of the bedroom.

  “Hey, I thought you’d be back sooner…” Her voice failed her as soon as she saw the two people embracing in the kitchen. “Oh. God. Wow. Okay, well, I was just—”

  “Kylie,” Trace began while hastily removing himself from Gretchen Gibson’s arms. “Good. I’m glad you’re up because we need to talk about—”

  “Yeah. Um, actually I’ve been talking to Hannah and the label and I really need to go because I have like no time to get to Oklahoma. So I’m glad you’re here and I didn’t have to leave a note.”

  The words tumbled over each other as her mind raced, trying to process the real-life version of the nightmare she’d been living for the past year. She prayed on everything holy that the feeling of blood rushing from her head wouldn’t cause to pass out. Because this was humiliating enough as it was.

  This wasn’t a grainy cell phone photo in a cheap tabloid magazine or a pixelated image on a website. This was the real deal. Live and in person.

  Adding insult to injury, Kylie looked and felt like week-old run-over garbage while Gretchen Gibson looked amazing. She was practically gleaming as she stood there looking from Kylie to Trace and back again.

  Surprise, annoyance, and something akin to amusement sparkled in the woman’s eyes.

  There is something I should tell you. Something about Gretchen.

  “Kylie, wait. Slow down,” Trace began, coming toward her as she snatched her keys and cell phone from the kitchen counter. But she couldn’t hear him. She could only hear the memory of him trying to tell her something she didn’t want to hear.

  “I’m gonna run by the hospital and say goodbye to Rae.” She swallowed hard and did her best to keep her grip on what was left of her dignity. “Great seeing you again, Gretchen.”

  She let Trace’s back door slam behind her. Running to her truck, she ignored the way the wind ripped through her thin shirt. Just like she was ignoring the way it carried his voice calling her name.

  HER TEARS were nearly blinding her by the time she hit the main road.

  The voice in her head screamed obscenities and for her to turn around and face whatever was going on with Trace and Gretchen. Force it all out in the open.

  But she just…couldn’t.

  She’d walked away from her career, her dream, her managers, her label, her band, her best friend—all of it. Thrown caution to the wind to be with him. To be here for him because she thought he needed her.

  And for what? So he could offer to let her be girlfriend number two?

  There has to be an explanation for why she’s here.

  But she couldn’t figure out what it could possibly be. The way they were hugging…Granted, it wasn’t like he’d had his tongue down Gretchen’s throat, but there was something there. Something deep and complex. Something she didn’t know about or understand.

  How could I have been so damn stupid?

  Her hand smacked the steering wheel hard enough to make the truck swerve off the road. She hit the brakes and felt the skid of tires on gravel.

  She jerked the truck into park and jumped out to make sure she hadn’t flattened a tire or hit anything. Kicking a back tire that thankfully wasn’t damaged, she broke down in sobs on the side of a deserted Georgia road.

  The sound of a truck approaching and coming to an abrupt stop startled her. She swiped her tears swiftly, expecting to wave off whoever it was and let them know that she was fine.

  Trace jumped out of the old blue truck, leaving his door hanging open, and stalked toward her.

  “What the fuck, Kylie? What happened to not running out on each other?”

  “I’m fine,” she lied. “Leave me alone.” Turning away from the swirling storm of a mess of a man and heading for the safety of her truck, she reached for the door. His hand covered hers and tore it from the handle.

  “No I damn sure will not leave you alone. Did that once, remember?” He yanked her wrists back and pulled her to his chest.

  She slapped at him as hard as she could in an attempt to break free but he didn’t even flinch.

  “Fucking hit me. You know I can take it.” He pressed her up against the truck. “But don’t run out on me like that. That, I cannot fucking take.”

  She held her body rigid to keep it from melting into his the way it wanted to. “W-what is she doing here, Trace? Why is she here? What happened to I don’t bring women here? There a benefit concert happening later that I don’t know about?”

  She hated the way she sounded, the way she crumbled in his arms, the way he—and only he—had the ability to reduce her to this. This wasn’t her. This wasn’t the Kylie Ryans she wanted to be. She wanted to be a serious musician, the kind of girl who could handle anything that came her way. Not a simpering mess of someone’s sort of girlfriend.

  The words of a warning Pauly Garrett had given her a long time ago whipped through her head.

  If you want to be Kylie Ryans, country music artist who gets taken seriously, it would be unwise to align yourself with an already established artist in any way other than professionally. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen. Now, if you want to be Kylie Ryans, Trace Corbin’s little sideshow fling, then by all means…

  Trace released one of her wrists to run a hand through his hair. “She just…showed up. It’s complicated. And it’s not entirely my story to tell. But it’s not what you’re thinking. I swear it’s not.”

  She glared at him, pulling her hands away and folding her arms across her chest. “How am I supposed to know that, Trace? To believe that?”

  “Kylie Lou,” he coaxed, his pleading tone threatening to penetrate her resolve. “Baby, please, please don’t—aw, hell,” he said, giving up and cutting himself off to lift her into his arms and slam his mouth down onto hers.

  The anger and the jealousy they both carried collided, and she took the punishing kiss he gave. Her fingers clutched at him, tearing at his hair and neck as she wrapped her legs around him.

  His teeth scraped her lips and she whimpered in pleasure. Sucking his bottom lip into her mouth—tasting him and letting him drink his fill of the deep ache she still had for how badly she’d needed him to come home and make love to her the night before—was an enticing torture.

  “You need me inside you, pretty girl? Right here?” Trace mumbled against her mouth as he tightened his grip on her ass. “Bet I can fuck any worries you have about any other women right out of that tight little body of yours.”

  “Trace,” she breathed, unsure of what she wanted at that moment. Kylie tilted her head back, giving him the access to her throat his mouth was demanding. His warm, wet tongue lashed up her throat, sending a jolt of pleasure through her body.

  “I’ll beg, baby,” he said into her ear. “I’ll get on my knees if you’d like.”

  “W-we can’t,” she said, her voice quaking as her thighs did. “We have to stop.”

  “Like hell we do.” Trace began walk toward his truck, still holding her to him in
midair and claiming every inch his mouth could reach.

  Panic gripped her even more tightly that he did. If they made it to the cab, she’d let him screw her right then and there. And then what? She’d head back out on tour while he went home to Gretchen?

  “Stop.” She used all of her strength to grab his shoulders. “I’m serious. Please. Please, put me down.”

  He leaned her against the side of his truck and let her down gently. His head fell forward onto her shoulder and she shivered from the heat of the ragged breaths he breathed into her ear.

  “Don’t go like this,” he whispered. “Don’t leave mad. Please don’t.”

  “Okay. I’m okay,” she said, using both hands to push him out of her space. “I’m not mad.” She took a deep breath and used every ounce of strength to pull those old familiar walls back down over her heart. Indifference took the place of the hurt inside of her. Hurt was warm and soft—messy and yielding. Indifference was cold and hard—solid and tangible. Something she could hold on to.

  Trace stood upright and opened his mouth to answer, but his gaze widened when she pulled back, as if he could literally see the transformation that was taking place before his very eyes.

  “It’s just seeing you…and her…” she began, her voice coming out as shaky as her legs felt. “Seeing her reminded me of how we’ve been living in a bubble. The outside world doesn’t disappear just because we do. Your family needs you and I need to get back to the tour, so we should probably take a step back anyways.” She forced herself to swallow and look away from the torment filling his eyes. “Everything’s been so crazy lately that we haven’t really had time to think about what’s best for everyone.”

  “Kylie, I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. I don’t really give a damn what’s best for everyone. You’re what’s best for me. And I’m trying my hardest to be what’s best for you. But if you’re having second thoughts—”

  “Second thoughts is hardly the right term.” She tried to smile at him but her mouth wasn’t cooperating and it resulted in more of a smirk. “More like we’ve been rushing into things without bothering to have any first thoughts about them.”

  “Don’t do this. Don’t bail on me now, sweetheart. I hear the words coming out of your mouth, but you forget I know what’s really going on in that head of yours.” Trace pulled her close once more, and she held her breath so as not to breathe him in.

  Her own words echoed around them.

  Don’t do this. You don’t mean it. I don’t believe you. She’d once begged him not to leave her. And he’d had to go too. She finally got it. Sometimes it was better to walk away. Painful as it might be, sometimes that was the only option.

  “Well unless you’re going to explain what the hell she’s doing here, I guess we’re out of luck. I need to go, Trace. One of us has to be the grown up and finish this tour.”

  He stepped back as if she’d shoved him. She flinched as well, knowing that had been a cheap shot.

  “I didn’t mean that.” She wanted to hit something. “It’s just her…and you. And—”

  “She’s a friend, Kylie. A good friend. One that I trust and have been through a lot with. That’s it. For the most part. But it’s not like you think. Not like what you and I—”

  Kylie put a hand up between them. “Then tell me, this friend you trust, what does she think of us being together? And what are you going to do the next time you slip up and drink? Who are you going to turn to for advice? Let me guess, the good friend you trust and have been through a lot with. Who also happens to despise me.”

  She couldn’t know for sure, but she’d be willing to bet Gretchen was a firm supporter of his decision to walk away from her last year. And she’d be damned if she was getting a repeat of that performance.

  “You already planning my next rehab stay, Kylie Lou? Nice. That’s hard to hear from the girl who just gave my mom a big speech about her faith in me.”

  His words broke something inside her. She was upset and didn’t want to keep saying hurtful things. The last thing she wanted was to hurt him when everything was already so screwed up. She needed space. Needed room to think clearly without him disorienting her all over again.

  “I just…need some space, okay? Can you give me that? Please?”

  His shoulders dropped as he stared at her with an unreadable expression. He nodded slowly. “Yeah. I can give you that. If that’s really what you want.”

  She leaned up and kissed him softly on the cheek, stilling for a moment so she could feel the rough stubble against her lips, could breathe him in one last time. Slowly, and without another word, she walked to her truck, climbed calmly inside, and pulled away.

  But because she’d never really be able to move on from the natural disaster that was Trace Corbin without looking back, she glanced in her rearview.

  He stood there with both hands on top of his head, growing smaller. Looking lost and alone.

  Just like she felt.

  OKLAHOMA WAS a lot prettier when you’d been gone awhile.

  It blurred into sight as she crossed the state line. She had three hours to get to Oklahoma City and rehearse for tonight’s show. But she had a stop to make first. Two, actually.

  Pride is Proud of Kylie Ryans, the sign announced when she entered her hometown.

  She’d heard about it, but this was the first time she’d seen it for herself. On one side was her formal senior yearbook photo. On the other was a shot of her smiling for the very first promo shots she’d ever taken when she’d signed up for Trace’s Back to My Roots tour.

  It was like seeing two different girls up there. And then a quick glance in the mirror revealed a third. One she didn’t even know herself.

  A brief lyric flitted through her head. Something about where you go when you don’t recognize the face in the mirror.

  Home, apparently.

  She rolled to a stop in front of her old house. A late-model minivan with a handicap tag was parked in the driveway. For a few minutes, she let herself remember.

  Sitting on the front porch with her daddy, playing music, catching fireflies, and talking about everything under the sun. But once he was gone, that small faded white house with blue shutters had stopped being home.

  She could practically see herself running out the door with nothing other than her guitar case the day Darla had thrown her out. Cringing at the painful words that had accompanied her eviction, she’d walked to work. Where she’d promptly gotten fired and hopped a bus to Nashville.

  It felt like a lifetime ago. Or someone else’s life.

  She placed her hand over her mouth to keep the tears from coming. She’d left that place and she’d found another home.

  One with a man who might be more than even she could handle.

  For reasons she couldn’t justify even to herself, she got out of the truck and approached the front door. Hopefully a stranger showing up out of the blue and saying, “Hey, I grew up here, can I come inside for five minutes,” wouldn’t creep out whoever lived here. Or at the very least, maybe they wouldn’t call the cops.

  Just as she made her way up the front walk, stepping over the cracks the same way she had as a kid, the front door opened.

  An attractive middle-aged Hispanic lady looked at her and gasped.

  “Hi. Um, so sorry to bother you,” Kylie began.

  “It’s you,” the lady said, seemingly not surprised, as if she’d expected this random confrontation for some reason. “He said you might come by some day.”

  “He?”

  “We’re just heading out. Isabelle has piano lessons at the church,” the woman explained as she pulled a young girl in a wheelchair out onto the porch. “But if you’d like to come back later, we’ll be home in an hour or so.”

  Kylie smiled at both of them, trying to cover her confusion. “Um, gosh, no. I have to be somewhere. I just… I grew up here and I was in town so…”

  “Pride is proud of Kylie Ryans,” the lady said with a wink. “Yes
, we know. I’m Marlena Gutiérrez. And this is my daughter, Isabelle.”

  So someone recognized her then. Well, that made one of them.

  “Is that really her?”

  Kylie glanced down at the girl, who looked to be around nine or ten.

  “It is,” her mother confirmed.

  “She’s really pretty.”

  Kylie smiled at the girl. “Isabelle was it? I bet you sleep in my old bedroom.”

  “I do! The kids at school didn’t believe me until he put the sign up.”

  Kylie glanced at her mom for clarification. Marlena pointed to the small wooden plaque by the front door.

  Childhood Home of Country Music Singer Kylie Ryans - Official Property of the A Hand Up Foundation, it read.

  Below was some small print about restrictions on changes being made to the house, but the water welling in her eyes made it too blurry for her to make out.

  “He’s a good man, that Mr. Corbin,” Marlena said softly. “You didn’t know?”

  Do not cry in front of these people.

  “Yes. He is.” Well, that answered the question of who had bought her house. She’d always wondered. And yes, she knew he was a good man, but she was pretty sure that wasn’t what the lady had meant. “And no, I didn’t know. But I’m glad this old house has so much love in it.” Kylie nodded at each of them. “It was wonderful to meet both of you. I hope y’all have as many good memories here as I do.” She turned to leave before her tears fell.

  “Miss Ryans? Before you go, could you sign something for my daughter?”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat once more. “Of course.”

  Marlena dug an envelope and a pen from her purse. After Kylie had signed it, she thought about Trace, what he would do in this situation.

  “Listen, do y’all have plans tonight? I have a show downtown and I can send a car…or a van. Whatever y’all need. Would you like to come as my special guests?”

  It was ten minutes before they stopped thanking her. Kylie was pretty sure she’d made Isabelle late for her piano lesson. But it felt good to be able to do something nice for someone else. She could see now why Trace’s foundation was so important to him.