by LJ Evans
“Who was this complete jackass? And why one earth were you still carrying a torch for him?”
I wanted to be defensive. I wanted to be mad. But I couldn’t because I knew he was right. “Hayden. His name was Hayden.”
“Well,” he tilted my chin towards him, “Hayden was not only an insensitive ass, but the biggest fool on the planet because you are the most delightful creature this side of paradise.”
“You sound like such a suck up.”
“Do I?” He sounded surprised.
“Yes. No one says that kind of stuff. No one that really means it anyway.”
“But I do,” he said, and kissed me so that my toes curled and my aching body ached in a different way.
He pulled away. “Sorry, no time for you to ravish me here. Things to buy. Miles to travel.”
And I ignored all the questions swirling at the backdoor of my brain, and instead, went inside with this energetic man where we bought the kitten supplies and a kitten carrier and food for us to eat on the road and the supplies he’d already mentioned which I tried not to look at while the clerk rang us up. And then we were back in the Camaro with me driving.
* * *
It was four-thirty by the time we pulled into Denver. George and the guys had been texting and calling for the last hour. They were stressed because some of the equipment wasn’t working right and the venue was having sound issues.
I drove Derek straight to the club. He looked tired as he came around to the driver’s side to kiss me through the open window after buckling Jane’s carrier into the passenger seat. He had napped for an hour or so, but it wasn’t enough.
“You’re tired. I feel like that’s my fault,” I said, being careful to avoid the word sorry.
“I believe that I started everything yesterday,” he said.
“True, but—”
“No buts. Go to the hotel, take a long hot bath. Ease those sore loins,” he teased. “Although, I’ll probably be late, and too tired to ravish you. Damn. That really sucks.”
I pushed his hand off the window, “Go! George already hates me.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Of course it does, who wants anyone hating them?”
“Miss Mia.” He tried to reach back in, but I put the car in reverse and backed away.
“Have fun!” I said and then drove away from him.
The hotel wasn’t far and thankfully, it was pet friendly. I checked in and had to have a bellhop help me with the luggage plus all the kitty supplies. I felt like Mama, traveling with the entire family when we went on road trips for Jake or Cam’s sports.
In the room, I made sure Jane was locked up tight in her new carrier and then did exactly like Derek suggested, I took a bath. It made me sleepy, but it eased my sore muscles. I got out and looked at my body in the mirror. It was far from fat. It was just round… curvy. But suddenly, that didn’t seem all bad. Derek seemed to like it.
Even as sleepy as I was, my brain wouldn’t quite leave me alone in the quiet of the room with just the sound of the air conditioning unit clicking on and off.
I felt like I’d been on this trip for much longer than six days. It was as if I’d lived more since knowing Derek than I had my whole life. But, it also wasn’t my reality. It wasn’t what I would be returning to in another fifteen days.
I’d wanted my heart to feel lighter. And it did. I’d wanted to escape briefly. And I had. I wanted to forget Hayden. And he was not much more than a bad memory of things I shouldn’t have done.
But I’d also known from the moment Derek had walked into the dealership, that he could unravel me. Like a ball of Christmas garland that had been flung in a box for someone else to deal with the next year. And he had done that too. Unraveled me.
I just didn’t know what would be left when it was all done. Would there be a Mia that could return to her old world and pick up where she left off? Because, I didn’t have a choice. You don’t move away from parents who have lost everything because of you.
And, really, I didn’t want to move away from them or my life in Tennessee. I just wanted to feel… I don’t know. Not broken. Not defective. And after this trip, I thought I might be trading one scab for a different one.
Eventually, the tiredness forced me to sleep and I only woke up as Derek was climbing into the bed with me. Scary that I hadn’t even heard the door.
“How’s our baby?” he asked through a voice that was so tired I wanted to cry.
“Good. She ate, pooped, slept, just like a real baby,” I whispered. “Go to sleep.”
Derek kissed my neck, drew me up close to his body, and slept.
* * *
The next four days were a blur. We didn’t even have a chance to use the new box of condoms we’d bought. Derek was at the venue all day, singing all night, and I was taking care of the kitten. The day after Denver, we were supposed to go spelunking but I didn’t want to leave the kitten for that long, so I stayed in the motorhome while the boys went.
When Derek came back, he wasn’t happy that I hadn’t gone with them and said something about needing to find a babysitter for our child. I didn’t know how to react to that as I often didn’t know how to respond to him. Our child. It seemed crazy to even say those words out loud.
Because a child wasn’t the anticipated outcome from a three week escapade. A child couldn’t be divided in two when we both went back to our real worlds. I could feel the emotion Derek was pouring into me. And even though I didn’t know why, I could see that he didn’t just think of this as sex, but I also didn’t know what he expected to happen when the trip came to its natural conclusion.
After the spelunking, we drove to Vegas, where I had never been. Derek insisted that I get the full experience, so he drove me down Las Vegas Boulevard, and I stared in wonder at the lights and the sounds and the energy that seemed to hum through the entire place. Like the electricity that lit the lights was also lighting up the people. As if they were all automatons.
We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, where the band would also be playing. Our suite was huge and impressive, but was tucked away so that you couldn’t see the lights from the strip. This was both disappointing and a relief because all that false energy made me feel as if I were in a different dimension even more than this whole trip had me feel.
That night, the Vegas girls at the show were more trashy than any of the fan girls at any of the other stops. They looked like hookers ready to be paid. I hated it when people put down girls for the way they dressed, but even I couldn’t defend them.
As we left the theater, Derek was mobbed by a crowd that was aggressively vying for his attention. The crowd tore me from his grip, and I got shoved against a wall with a bang that twisted my ankle in the wedges I’d worn and shook my whole body. I could hear him call my name, and I saw him forcibly thrust some of the tramps aside to get back to me. When he reached me, he picked me up and I wrapped my legs around him. He pushed his way through the crowd as casino security finally showed up and escorted us to the elevator.
I was still shaking when the doors of the elevator shut us in, and I suddenly realized why Trista didn’t always travel with the band. This was insane. I forced him to put me down, and I wanted to wince as my ankle gave, but I also didn’t want him to worry.
“Are you okay?” his voice was gruff, angry, but I knew it wasn’t at me. He was eying me like Mama had when I’d come home from caving with him.
“Yes,” I said, not wanting him to know how shaky the whole experience had left me. My ankle would be fine by the morning.
I was thoroughly relieved when we got to our own room. “Why was it so bad tonight?” I asked.
“It’s gotten worse ever since they released the single,” he said.
“What?” I said.
He looked at me with an almost embarrassed grin that only came out when he talked about his success. “Humanity. They released it just before I played at Jake’s fundraiser, and it’s climbing the charts.
That’s why it’s been getting crazier at each stop.”
Which it had been, but I had just assumed it was because they were playing bigger venues.
Derek sank into the couch, pulling me with him. He looked worn out, more worn out than he had the entire time I’d known him. “Let’s go to bed,” I said.
“I just need to sit here for a few minutes,” he responded, but his eyes were already drooping.
“You’ll fall asleep here.”
“Hmm?”
And he was out. He didn’t even budge when I pulled away from him. I brought out a blanket from the bedroom and covered him up, and for the first night in many, I went to bed by myself.
At first, I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about how crazy it had been downstairs and how different Derek and I’s real worlds were and how much his world was going to continue to grow and expand and change. But I also tossed and turned because I was aching to find a body next to mine that I’d grown accustomed to having tucked up against me. In only a handful of nights he’d changed me so that I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to sleep on my own in the same way again.
Eventually, my own exhaustion took over and slumber-land claimed me.
* * *
I woke to fingers on my cheek and when I opened my still tired eyes, Derek was smiling at me as he sat next to me on the bed. “You let me fall asleep on the couch, naughty girl.”
“I’m not exactly big enough to forcibly move you,” I retorted.
“I’m sure there are things you could have done that would have motivated me.” His sexy tone was back, and that made my heart perk up.
I brushed my fingers over his cleft and he bit my finger, sucking it in that way that made my whole body quiver. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” I said with my own smile.
“No, no, you cannot lure me into your bed now. Too late.” He pulled away.
“What?” I said as my heart broke a little.
“Home, Miss Mia. We get to go home today.”
“To Tennessee?”
And his surprise registered at the same time my surprise did because we had different homes. Homes that weren’t anywhere near each other and hadn’t even come into discussion even if they’d been on my mind. We hadn’t had those kinds of discussions. Instead we’d played twenty questions about sex and love lives.
“L.A. home,” he said thoughtfully.
“Umm. I’m not going to stay at the PlayBabe Mansion,” I told him with a scowl.
He scowled back. “God, I should hope not. Hugo would try to get you into his bed as soon as he saw you.”
“Ew!”
“I agree, ew!” He laughed at my shudder.
He had his hand moving gently down my leg, sexy as all get out, my body burning to be with his as we hadn’t been able to be together since the Wooly Bison. But when he got to my foot he started tickling and I bucked and laughed and gasped into a sitting position, curling my feet up protectively under my body.
“It lives!” he cried with a triumphant smile.
“You’re awful,” I said.
“Awfully good!”
“Awfully conceited!”
“Awfully hungry!”
“Awfully ridiculous!”
“Come on, Little Bird, please get up so that we can finish our drive today. We get two days at home before we have to leave again.”
I couldn’t resist his beg. He wanted this. He needed this. I got out of bed, got ready, and tucked our little kitten and luggage back into the Camaro so we could drive all the way to L.A. in one long swoop.
* * *
Derek was driving when we entered the L.A. basin. Even with the Google Map lady, I would have been overwhelmed. But Derek didn’t need a compass here; it was his home. It drew me back a little more from the bubble we’d been in where there was just me and Derek and whatever this was between us. Even the band hadn’t invaded in on us in any tangible way, but now we were entering his real world.
And that made me nervous.
We hit some curving roads that led out of the noise and traffic and pulled up to a set of huge wrought iron gates with a security guard. My stomach flipped in an entirely different way than Derek made my stomach flip.
The guard smiled when he saw it was Derek and waved us through. I turned in my seat to watch the gates roll shut behind us. When I turned back around, I was floored by the enormous mansion in front of me. It’s not like we don’t have mansions in Tennessee. We have plenty, but I’d never personally known anyone that lived in one. Even Blake, with all his success, lived in a Victorian in the old part of Nashville.
“Is this your home?” I said with a gasp.
He looked at it as if it was the first time he’d noticed it.
“Well, it’s really Dylan’s. I live in the guesthouse out back,” he said flippantly.
“I don’t know what to say to this,” I said as my heart pitter pattered.
He shrugged. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Holy guacamole, Derek, you live in a palace!”
He laughed. “So, I impressed you?
“I’m not sure impressed is the right word. Terrified?”
We pulled up in front of a set of mammoth granite steps that someone had beautifully polished. Probably a servant. Derek had servants! Panic surged through me.
Derek leaned over and grabbed my chin and said, “Little Bird,” and I stopped and looked at him, trying to push aside the waves of nausea. “It’s my brother’s house. Not mine.”
“But it’s home,” I said weakly.
He shrugged again. “It has been.”
He kissed me. And that brought me back to him. To us. To the feeling that reached my toes every time he touched me.
“Better?” he grinned.
I smiled back because it was. I just had to focus on Derek and not all the rest for now. I nodded.
We grabbed Jane and our bags and headed up those shiny steps. The first thing I noticed when we walked in was Seth’s waterfall, the one Cam had told me she’d seen here. There it was in all its enormity, somehow fitting inside this mansion and making you feel like you were going on a trip to paradise.
“Holy guacamole,” I said for the second time in almost as many minutes.
“That’s my brother’s wife, Bianca. She’s pretty showy.”
“Is that my long lost, good-for-nothing baby brother?” a booming voice gushed from a hallway. It was nothing like’s Derek’s smooth voice. This one was all conceited command.
In came who I presumed to be Dylan Waters. He was blonder and taller than Derek. They almost had nothing in common. Except the cleft. That and maybe the charisma that dripped off them both. You knew that Dylan would own whatever set he walked onto. He was a man in charge. He was “the man.”
Derek dropped his bags and they hugged, not the typical half hug that men do but a real hug full of real love and affection. It surprised me again. But I guess it shouldn’t have. Derek was a man who seemed to feel everything deeply. It was probably what made him a great songwriter.
“George says you’ve been pulling all kinds of shit on the tour,” Dylan said when they stepped back.
And then it clicked, the puzzle piece that was George. George was Dylan’s friend, acquaintance, whatever. He wasn’t Derek’s choice. He’d taken what was given to him.
“He’s just pissed that I haven’t let him dictate my every move,” Derek said with a goofy grin that seemed so different from his confident charm. All of a sudden, he was the little brother. He was the shadow in the superstar’s wake. Maybe Derek and I had more in common than I had ever thought possible for a nobody from nowhere and a sexy musician.
Derek stepped back and found my fingers, pulling me forward. “Dylan, Mia. Mia, Dylan.” He was beaming, happy. He wanted us to love each other. I wanted to be loved. Good Girl Mia only wants to be liked after all, but the way Dylan appraised me, I wasn’t sure if I was going to make his cut.
He shook my hand and smiled at me, but the smile didn’
t reach his eyes the way his brother’s did. Instead, his eyes were analyzing, judging. Maybe it was something about being a director and having to analyze the actions of every scene being built in front of him, but I could see that Dylan wasn’t a man to easily approve of anything.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, Mia.”
I couldn’t help but flush. “Hopefully all good.”
“I hear you haven’t seen The Spy Network,” he said as if he was deeply offended, but he was watching me like a hawk. Derek was the eagle. Dylan the hawk. I knew I liked the eagle better.
My face burned more and I punched Derek in the shoulder, but he just laughed at me and wrapped me under his arm, tugging me next to his body where I fit. I wondered if his brother thought I was yet another fan girl thriving on his brother’s success.
“It’s true. I’m more of a book girl,” I finally responded.
“Well, thank God, because I get so fucking tired of this guy trying to bully us all into reading whatever he’s decided he’s liked. Please, for the love of god, talk books with him,” Dylan joshed us both and winked as if we’d used ‘books’ as a pseudonym for ‘sex’.
And, hey, that was okay because I’d found that if you did both right, they were similar. Both full of beautiful words and beautiful emotions. And the fact that Derek really did like books was not lost on me.
“Uncle Derek!” a high-pitched squeal interrupted us as a tiny blonde bombshell thrust herself into Derek’s arms, causing him to lose his grip on me.
“Mags!” Derek said, hugging the little body tightly to him. The way I love to be hugged. Where there is no space and no hope for escape.
The blonde headed body squirmed in his arms. “What have you brought me?”
He looked chagrinned. “Um.”
“You didn’t bring me anything!” she demanded as she pushed against him until he had to put her down where she promptly stomped her foot and crossed her arms across her tiny chest.
“Well. I’ve kinda been busy, little tyke.”
She took me and the carrier I was holding in with a frown.
“Who’s the bimbo and what does she have?”
“Maggie!” Dylan and Derek both said at the same time as if it was supposed to be a scold, but they were both laughing. I didn’t know if I should be insulted by this little girl who couldn’t be more than four, or if I should be insulted by their laughing at me.