“Fine,” I grumbled, dragging myself up.
“Taylor got her heart broken,” Danica blurted, like she’d been holding that one in for way too long and the pressure was killing her.
“Really?” Ash said.
I cracked open a Strongbow and gave her a dirty look.
“I’m sorry, okay?” Danica eyed me. “But enough is enough. You can’t keep this dirty little secret forever. For one thing, it’s not dirty. And for another, it doesn’t need to be a secret. You’ve got to let people who care about you help you.”
“Yeah. I get that.” She was right, though I really didn’t want to talk about it.
Ash came over and leaned on the island. He was still just looking at me. “That’s what this is all about? You got your heart broken?”
“Why do you think she’s been moping around, on and off, for months?” Danica said gently.
“I dunno. PMS?”
“That, too,” I joked. I took a swig of my Strongbow.
“But you’ve been working with Dirty,” Ash said. “You must be meeting hotties all over the place.”
“Yeah. The hotties are all married,” I informed him. “The work is going great, though. I think I may have found my calling.”
“See?” Ash said, like that was all wrapped up. “Next thing you know, you meet a hottie, life is good.”
“Whatever.” I ignored the hottie thing, sipping my drink. “I don’t know why I never thought of this career path before. I love music. Working with musicians is really interesting to me. I guess I just never had the opportunity before. They weren’t exactly handing out jobs with rock stars at the temp agencies. But I like it. I think I’ll keep doing it.”
“Well, that’s awesome,” Danica said. “I bet Maggie could give you tons of guidance, if you want. Or… Talia.” She glanced at me, uncertain.
“Yeah.” Talia. Who now had the gig with the Players that I probably could’ve gotten if A) I’d thought of it first, B) I actually applied for it, and C) I could’ve actually worked with Cary. But since he was barely even speaking to me, I figured that was never happening.
“Anyway, my career isn’t the problem,” I told Ash. “As you just heard.”
“I didn’t know.” He glanced at Danica.
“Well, I couldn’t really tell you,” she said. “It’s Taylor’s story to tell. And it’s kind of… private.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “But only because it’s so private for him. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore anyway.”
Ash cocked an eyebrow. “Him?”
“Cary,” I said.
“You’re shitting me.”
I just took a sip of my drink.
“You were involved with Cary?”
“Yup.”
“Like, while you two were working in his studio all that time… You were screwing?”
“Ash.” Danica gave him a look.
“Yup,” I said. “Constantly.”
“Damn. I thought he just fired you.” He studied me thoughtfully. “So, he broke your heart, too?”
“Yeah. Well, he won’t talk to me anymore. That hermit thing? It’s real.”
“No doubt.”
“It didn’t even bother me so much, when I was on the inside. But then… he kicked me out.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. It hurt. Like… really bad.”
Danica gave me another sad face.
“Hey. Come here.” Ash waved an arm at me and I went over so he could pull me into a hug. “You’re prime cut though, babe. You’ll find someone else.” He kissed me on the head.
“Ashley! That’s all you have to say to her?”
“What?” He released me. “I’m just saying. She’s not gonna die alone. Look at her.”
Danica rolled her eyes a little. “I’m sure what my husband meant to say is… You deserve to be happy, Taylor. And we’re here for you.”
“Thanks. I know.”
My phone chimed and I went to grab it from the couch. While I did, I heard Danica gently giving her husband crap. “When your friend is hurt, you don’t tell her she’s hot meat and she’ll find someone else,” she told him. “You tell her you love her. Etcetera.”
“No, that’s what you say,” he replied. “You tell her she deserves good things and you’re here for her. Your husband tells her she’s hot. That’s the way it works.”
“Really,” I told them, “you both said the exactly right thing.”
While they continued to debate the issue, while drinking, flirting, and chopping veggies, I checked my messages. A text had come in from Talia. At the top it said: Dear Cary.
My heart almost stopped.
I stared at his name for a long moment. Below it was a cut and paste of a bunch of info for the Players’ album release party. The date for the party had been set in stone for a while now. It was happening in a matter of weeks. But now they also had the location confirmed and all the details.
“Hey,” I asked Ash, “did you get a message about the album release party?”
“Nope,” he said. But then he pulled out his phone, and when he looked at it, he amended, “Yup. Forwarded from my assistant.”
“Mine has Cary’s name on it.” I looked at Danica, who gave me an eek face. “I must still be on a contact list somewhere as his assistant.”
“Well, Talia’s still learning the lay of the land, right?” she offered.
“Yeah. No biggie.” I was already writing out a text to Talia, asking her to remove me as Cary’s contact from wherever she’d found it.
Talia replied to me with lightning speed.
Talia: Sorry!! That was a mistake. I meant to send it to you. But it shouldn’t say Cary on it. Oops!
Me: No worries.
I sent that to her, then hesitated.
Me: I’ll forward it to Cary.
Talia: Thank you! And I hope you can come.
Me: Yes. I’ll be there.
I looked over at Danica and Ash, who were now kissing. I turned away and took a closer look at the party information. It was at the Crystal hotel ballroom, and I was sure the event would be filled with VIPs. They could only fit so many people into that venue, and surely Brody and the band knew a lot of VIPs. The fact that I was invited, as part of Brody’s team, was flattering.
I wondered, as I had so many times these last three-and-a-half months, if Cary would be there.
Since I’d been fired, we hadn’t spoken about the release party. We really hadn’t spoken about much.
I copied the party info and forwarded it to him, like I said I would. I hadn’t had an excuse to message him in a long while.
When I looked over, Danica was watching me. She was still cutting veggies and Ash’s arm was slung around her shoulders. “You okay?” she asked me gently.
“Yeah. I’m just gonna go outside for a bit, get some air.”
“Okay, babe. We’ll head over to Dylan’s in a bit.”
“I’ll see you there.”
I grabbed my coat and slipped on my UGGs and went out the back door with my Strongbow. I was just heading down the path when my phone chimed in my hand. I glanced at it.
Cary: Thank you.
I stopped in my tracks, and I reread the message. A few times.
“Hey, pretty lady.”
I looked up. Amber was standing on the other side of the low gate in the fence, with a glass of wine in her hand, looking a little flustered as a group of kids streaked by, shooting each other with water pistols.
“Hey.” I smiled. “Having fun?”
“I’m overrun.” She gestured over her shoulder, where Dylan’s family members were spilling out of the house, onto the back deck. Music was playing and kids were screaming. “Hey! Spray me again and I dunk you in the ocean!” she called out to a couple of little boys who blurred past, but she was smiling.
“Strong genes in that family,” I observed. “Hope you’re on top of the birth control.”
Amber laughed.
Just then, her boyfr
iend swaggered out onto the deck, looking incredibly virile sans shirt and beer in hand, his auburn hair drifting over his eyes in the breeze. He looked every ounce the rock ’n’ roll drummer and underwear model he was.
“Does he know it’s November?” I asked her.
“He’s impervious to the cold,” she said, admiring her man’s assets.
“Taylor,” Dylan called over when he noticed he was being ogled. “Come join us.”
“I will. In a while. I was just going for a little walk.”
“Get her a beer, Dylan,” one of his brothers-in-law called out. There were a few of them lounging in the hot tub/pool.
“You want a drink?” Dylan offered. “Take it with you?
I lifted my Strongbow. “I have one.”
“Cool. Well, come over anytime.”
“Thanks. I will.” I reached my bottle over the gate and tapped Amber’s glass in cheers, then continued along the path, down to the water and out to the very end of the dock. I took a big gulp of fresh air, then sat down with my bottle of cider.
I hadn’t been sitting there a minute when the dock vibrated beneath me. I turned to find Merritt approaching.
I’d liked Cary’s studio manager from the moment I met her, though I’d never talked to her much outside of work. And I hadn’t talked to her much at all since Cary fired me. I’d avoided everyone who still communicated with him, even Ash at times, because it was just too painful.
Merritt wasn’t at the wedding last night, though I was pretty sure Summer would’ve invited her. Maybe she’d come to the barbecue to make up for missing the wedding? I knew it was a pretty big deal she was here. She didn’t exactly seem to party with the Players much. She’d even brought her little boy to the barbecue.
“Mind if I sit down?”
“Nope.”
I did, kind of. I wanted to be alone. But I didn’t want to be rude. And the dock wasn’t exactly mine.
She sat down next to me and dangled her legs off the dock. “You’re coming to the barbecue?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” She sipped her beer. “I guess it would be obnoxious to ask you how you’re doing, so I’m not going to. Unless you want me to.”
“I’ll pass on that.”
“I figured,” she said gently.
Silence fell, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.
“Do you ever get used to it?” I asked her. “Being around all the superstars?”
“Well, you either get used to it, or you find another job, I guess.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“You can’t really hold it against them. The superstar thing. It’s obvious why everyone likes them. I like them, too. You can’t fault them for being talented, charming, sex symbols…”
“And yet you sound sarcastic right now.”
She laughed. “How about you? Is it strange, having your best friend marry a rock star?”
“No. I think it’s stranger for her than it is for me.” I shrugged and took a sip of my drink. “I mean, that part hasn’t really changed my life any. Except that I now get invited to the big parties, too.”
“Yeah. I guess that’s nice. But you get invited to them yourself these days.”
“So do you, I’m sure. Yet you don’t seem to come out much.”
“Well, I have two other jobs. One of them is night shifts in a bar. Plus, I have my son.”
“Right.”
“I think we have it pretty good,” she said. “We get to just pick and choose the perks we like and leave the rest. It’s not like that for them.”
I considered that. “What do you mean?”
“Well, they don’t really get to pick and choose. They think they do. But… their lives are controlled by the will of the masses a lot more than they realize. Like I think if the Players put out this album and the fans decided they didn’t like it, it would crush the band members. And Cary. They try to act like that kind of stuff is irrelevant, that it’s all about the music, but I know they thrive on the fame, too. The love. Even Cary. When you’re that high… it’s a long, long way to fall.”
Yeah. That sure was one way to put it.
Cary had fallen so, so far, when his best friend died. That much was obvious. He acted like he didn’t want the fame. He tossed it away. Rejected it. Closed the door on it, quite literally.
Or at least that was how it looked from the outside.
But I’d been on the inside. Inside his world, as small as it was these days. And I knew it still mattered to him. That was why he obsessed over the albums. That was why he was a perfectionist and pretty much a workaholic. Or at least, that was part of the reason.
If an album he produced bombed… I knew he’d be devastated. He’d take it personally, even if he shouldn’t. Even if it had nothing to do with how good the music was, and way more to do with the marketplace or how the record company didn’t promote it properly or whatever.
“Have you ever dated one of them?” I asked Merritt. “A rock star, I mean?”
She laughed a little, uneasily. “Oh, I don’t think so.”
I studied her for a moment as she looked out over the water, her dark hair dancing around her shoulders. Merritt was pretty, like super cool and pretty. So I wasn’t sure what that response was about.
Maybe she felt me staring, because she looked at me. Her brown eyes twinkled as she smiled. “Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to feel sorry for me. I mean, rock stars aren’t really my thing.”
“Yeah. Me neither.” I looked away, taking a sip of my drink.
They really weren’t my thing. Even when Danica met Ash… I was happy for her. She was so into him, and he was definitely hot. He treated her well from the beginning. And I loved rock bands, rock music. But I just never saw myself with a famous musician. I always thought I liked guys who were down to Earth. Everyday, real world guys.
But in the end, the real world guys I dated hadn’t been all that good to me. Not nearly as good to me as Cary had been.
At least… he’d been good to me for a while.
“So, I’m gonna ask. Are you having a bad day?” Merritt asked me. “Or is this just you hungover?”
I laughed a little. “The wedding was pretty wild.”
“I heard. Everyone says it was incredible.”
“It really was. It was the biggest wedding I’ve ever been to, but it was also really personal. The bride’s dad cried. It was gorgeous.” My voice actually broke a little. I was feeling really emotional today. The wedding last night, the whole scene, it was so emotional for me.
“Do you want to talk?” she offered. “We could be friends?”
“Sure. I’d really like that. But… there’s not much to talk about. I just… had one of those summers that break you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and I wondered if she’d put two-and-two together. Me getting fired and disappearing. And seeing me like this—so not okay.
I wasn’t exactly hiding it well right now.
“Yeah. Me too.” Tears sparked in my eyes and I looked over the water. “It still hits me in waves.” I cleared my throat. “Some days… I still feel like it might take me under at any moment.”
Merritt was quiet for a bit. I wasn’t sure what I could expect her to say to that. A virtual stranger, pouring out their heart to you….
“Well…” she said. “How about this. Whenever you feel like that wave is going to take you under… you can message me or call me to talk. I’m a good listener.”
I blinked back the tears. I nodded.
“I’ve had my share of broken times, too,” she confided.
“Okay. I’d like that.”
“Good. I guess I should head back up. Check on my kiddo.” She got to her feet.
“I’ll probably head up soon, too. Help prep some food.”
“I’ll see you at dinner, then.”
“Yeah. And thanks, Merritt.”
“Anytime.” She hesitated before walking away. “You know, whatever it is… Whatever left
you feeling so broken… You can probably fix it.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“For what it’s worth… I’m pretty sure he’s broken, too.”
I looked at her. She gave me a sympathetic, knowing look, and walked away. The dock vibrated a little as she walked back up to the path and disappeared through the trees.
Cary. Was she talking about Cary?
Or just making a general, sympathetic statement?
I looked out over the water. I watched a boat drift by in the distance.
Cary. She meant Cary, didn’t she?
Was he broken?
Did he miss me?
Why the fuck wasn’t he reaching out to talk to me?
I pulled out my phone and stared at the text he’d sent me in response to the party invitation.
Cary: Thank you.
I wrote and rewrote my reply in my head a dozen times, and then I actually typed it out and sent it to him.
Me: Maybe I’ll see you at the party. I’m going with Danica and Ash.
Maybe twenty minutes later, while I was still sitting there and wondering if this could ever be fixed, and if I could be the one to somehow fix it, he messaged me back. Just three small words that tore my heart out all over again.
Cary: I’m not going.
I took a breath and texted him back.
Me: I’m sorry to hear that. Everyone will miss you.
He didn’t reply.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Cary
Apparitions
Summer had sped by, autumn had gone and winter was fading in. Now that the Players’ album was finished, the passage of time had slowed to a dull drip. All I could feel was the paralysis creeping in, the fear that the whole world would stop when I gave the okay.
When I handed the album over for final mastering.
So I kept delaying it.
I needed more time to go over it. More time to listen. More time to think.
Lovely Madness: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 4) Page 37