Courteney listened, and when I said nothing else, she asked me, “Do you feel like you’re still broken?”
“I think I’ll always be broken. But that’s not Gabe’s fault.” I realized my fingers were still tapping restlessly on the couch, and I stopped myself. “Can you not put that in the book? All that stuff about the water?”
“Okay,” she said softly. “I won’t put that in the book.”
I nodded. Then I just sat there in silence for a long moment. Courteney waited patiently. She didn’t take her eyes off of me.
“Did you know that he couldn’t swim?”
“I didn’t know that,” she said.
“I always thought I dreamed of him drowning because I feel guilty that I can’t save him. One of my therapists said maybe I’m trying to rewrite the event. If he drowned because he couldn’t swim, it’s not my fault anymore. It wasn’t the pills.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Cary,” my sister said softly.
I blinked a couple of times, bringing her back into focus.
Then I glanced at Taylor, but the look in her deep-sea eyes almost killed me, so I had to look away. I raked my hand through my hair. “I don’t think I have anything else to say.”
“That’s okay,” Courteney said.
I got to my feet, and my sister did the same. She walked over and hugged me tight. I buried my face in her hair.
“I’m sorry, Court,” I whispered.
“It’s okay, Cary. You know he’d forgive you, if he could.”
“Yeah,” I said, after a moment. “If he could.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cary
Low
“Just a few… more… steps.”
I led Taylor into my dining room with her hands over her eyes. She was wearing my cheesy, Dean Slater Born Like This T-shirt—her choice—and her panties, and nothing else. I’d turned on the gas fireplace to warm the room up for her; until this morning, I hadn’t turned it on or even stepped foot in this room, probably, in years.
“Okay,” I told her, standing her at the head of the table. “You can look.”
She dropped her hands. “What! This is awesome!” She stared, open-mouthed, at the spread on the table.
I’d set the table for two, with the good dishes, the ones my mom gave me when I bought this place and I never used. They were pretty, and I thought Taylor would like them. I’d put out toast and jam, eggs and bacon, some olives and hummus and whatever else I could find in the kitchen that seemed good for brunch.
I knew she liked white wine, so I’d poured her a glass.
There was also a big bouquet of pink and black lilies in a vase as the centerpiece. I’d had Liam pick the flowers up for her yesterday, after the interview, when I realized I should’ve gotten her something for her birthday. I’d wrestled with that a lot.
On one hand, I wanted to get her a birthday gift.
On the other hand, I hated doing anything that might remind her of what happened on my birthday.
“I would’ve set this up outside, by the pool,” I told her. “But it’s November. Figured it would be more cozy in here.”
Taylor turned her awed gaze on me. “It’s amazing.”
“Happy birthday,” I said, but my eyes darted away when her eyes seemed to melt.
“Thank you, Cary.”
“It’s just a quick surprise brunch I whipped up. I didn’t exactly know I’d be waking up in bed next to you again this morning.” I pulled out her chair and she sat down.
I sat down across the corner of the table from her. Close enough to touch her. I also didn’t know she’d be spending most of yesterday, other than the interview at my sister’s place, in my bed. But I wasn’t complaining. Figured I could at least feed her before we ended up back there again.
I watched her fawn over the food. “Almond stuffed olives! My favorite.”
“I know. You left them behind when you moved out.”
She looked at me. Her eyes softened again.
I started filling my plate and she did the same.
“Your hair looks nice.” I wasn’t sure if I’d actually mentioned that yet, during the many hours of telling her how beautiful she was and how much I’d missed her and what an asshole I’d been while we made out.
“Thank you. I got tired of upkeeping the pink.” She ran her fingers through the blonde strands.
“This is your natural color?”
“Not exactly. This is lighter than my natural. I’ll let it grow out now, maybe, let the natural take over. I don’t know. I figure at some point I’ll start going gray anyway, so I should get used to going lighter. I want to make sure I can pull off silver fox.” She waggled her eyebrows at me and popped an olive in her mouth.
“I think you’ve got a long time to go before the silver fox years kick in.”
“Not that long. I found a gray hair just the other day. I named it Cary.” She took a sip of her wine and smiled at me. “Then I plucked it out.”
“Funny.”
“The flowers are gorgeous,” she said, sounding suspicious. “Since when do you have flowers in your house?”
“They’re for you.”
“You picked them from the neighbor’s garden this morning?” she teased.
“I bought them at a florist. Yesterday.” I darted a glance at her. “Well, Liam did. I wasn’t sure what to get you. I wasn’t really sure if I should get you anything. So I went with flowers. The black lilies are kinda rare, I guess. I thought you might like them.”
“I love them.”
“And I wanted to thank you again for coming with me to the interview.”
“Of course,” she said gently. “Anytime.”
“I guess that was pretty fucking self-centered of me. Some birthday present, huh?”
She smiled a little. “It was a good present.”
“I guess it was my way of trying to let you in on some of the stuff that’s hard for me to tell you directly.”
“I get that.”
“And I know the flowers and meal aren’t much. I just didn’t want to do anything over the top. I didn’t want you to think I was trying to buy you back or something.”
“Cary… There’s something you need to understand,” she said.
“Uh-oh. I know that tone. Is this another one of your confessions coming?” I was teasing, but half-scared that it was.
“Maybe?” she said.
“Did you make out with Matt again?”
“Actually… no, but I made out with Johnny O’Reilly. That’s not what I was gonna say, though.”
I stared at her.
“Uh, it was nothing. It was drunk. It was brief. It’ll never happen again.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath, knowing I deserved much worse than a brief, drunken moment with Johnny O. Much, much worse.
And anyway, I’d asked.
“Anyone else?”
“No,” she said. “You?”
“No.”
“Bliss?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I was too busy with the album. And… I’m in love with you.”
Her shoulders softened as she gazed at me. Then she cringed. “Did I mention I was really, really drunk when that thing happened with Johnny O…?”
“Let’s forget it.”
“Okay. Let’s.” She sipped her wine.
“You didn’t tell me your confession yet. Should I lie down?”
She smiled a little. “No. I promise it doesn’t involve another man.”
“Good.”
“I just wanted you to know… All that money you paid me? It’s still sitting in my bank account. I haven’t touched any of it. I actually want to give some of it back to you. I didn’t work for you for the full six months.”
“You don’t have to give it back, Taylor. It was my fault. If I hadn’t freaked out on you like I did—”
“It doesn’t matter. I didn’t finish the job, so I’m not taking all the money. I’ll acce
pt pay for every day that I worked for you, but that’s it. The thing is… I have my own money.”
“I know you do. I never meant to insult you.”
“You didn’t. I totally understand now why you did it. You were afraid that something bad could happen. Something like what happened on your birthday. And if you couldn’t handle things and you pushed me away, you couldn’t stand that it would hurt me. So maybe you convinced yourself that paying me upfront would protect me?”
“Yeah. Maybe something like that.”
“But it didn’t protect me, Cary. I got hurt.”
“I know that now.”
“I really don’t care about the money. And I don’t need it. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” She took a breath and added, “I have almost a million dollars in the bank.”
I stared at her as she nibbled on an olive. “You do?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “After my grandma died, just before my parents left Vancouver, they sold my grandparents’ house. Like I told you, it was big and old, but it was on a large corner lot not far from the beach, and the property was bought up by a developer for almost three million, to be re-developed into townhouses.”
“Wow. Not bad.”
“Yeah. It was in my grandmother’s will that the house was to be sold and all the money from the sale was to be split three ways between my parents, my sister and me. Because I was underage, my share was put into a trust fund for me, for when I turned nineteen. I could’ve stayed with my parents until then, and then lived off the money, but I didn’t. I left them, like I told you, to come back to Vancouver, when I was barely eighteen. I basically clawed my way through a college program while living with five roommates and eating ramen and waiting tables. On my nineteenth birthday, I got this weird phone call from my mom. My parents and my sister were in town, and they wanted to see me. I literally hadn’t heard from them since I left them in Ontario almost a year before. I met with them at a restaurant, and they eventually confessed to me that they’d blown through all their money and now they wanted some of mine.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah. They took me to the bank and I gave them twenty thousand, and they were gone by nightfall. They came back a month later asking for more. I gave them another ten, and the next time they came back, I cut them off, and they basically haven’t spoken to me since.”
“I’m sorry, Taylor. That’s fucking terrible.”
“Well, what can I say. They’re kind of terrible people.” She tried to make light of it with a small smile, but obviously, it hurt her. “Other than the thirty grand I gave them, I haven’t even touched that money. I finished my college program while living with those five roommates and eating ramen, and waiting tables. And then I got my first executive assistant job, and a few months later, when I felt secure enough with my paycheck, I moved into my own apartment. It’s not exactly much, but it’s mine. I’ve been really careful, really thrifty with my money, because I want to live off what I make, live within my means, and I want that money from my grandparents to last. It’s my nest egg. It’s not even enough to buy and upkeep a nice house in Vancouver, which is the sad part. But it’s enough to keep me feeling secure while I try to figure out my life. I never wanted to be an executive assistant for the rest of my life, Cary. But it’s given me the opportunity to work with really successful people in all kinds of industries, and I hoped that along the way I’d find where I belonged. I just wanted to be self-sufficient, no matter how hard it was. And I found my place in the music industry. That couldn’t have happened without you.”
“That’s incredible, Taylor. You should be proud.”
“I am.” She grinned, and I loved that confidence she had. That spark. That thing I’d felt the first time I met her. “I love working with Dirty. Brody and Maggie have been really amazing to me.”
“That’s because you work hard and you’re great at your job. They need people like you who are there to get things done, not just party with the band. You’re more valuable than you know.”
“I figured that much. After being to about a billion industry parties this year, I truly get that. The people around Dirty party hard, but the closer you get to the band, the harder people work. And the band members party hard, but they work much harder. I really can’t wait for the tour… I’m hoping they invite me to go with them.” She paused, maybe considering what she’d just said. “But even if I’m back here in Vancouver, I’m sure Brody will have work for me.”
“I hope you get everything you want, Taylor.” I said it, even though it was gonna kill me if she went on tour with a band.
And left me.
“I will. For the first time in my life, I really feel like I will. I know the money I have in the bank isn’t exactly Cary Clarke money, and I’m not a rock star, but I’m becoming the most kick-ass version of Taylor there is. And I know I’ll be okay.”
“Of course you will.”
We ate in silence for a moment. I didn’t really know where this day or this morning or this conversation was going to go. I just wanted to make her brunch. Give her her flowers. Find out if she was okay.
I wanted to be near her.
But there were so many things I could feel her wanting to ask me. So many things she wanted me to say.
Did she want me to ask her not to go on tour with Dirty? To come work with me again? To move back in?
I was afraid to ask her for those things. To ask her for anything… and then fall apart on her.
“I’m just gonna ask you, Cary,” she said, after a long moment. She took a sip of her wine, then looked me right in the eye. “I’m weary of being afraid to ask you things because I’m afraid of the answer, or I’m afraid you won’t answer me at all. So here goes. Is there any chance you would join the Players and tour with them?”
I took a sip of my water and cleared my throat. “I don’t know, Taylor. I wish I could tell you what you want to hear. I wish I could tell them what they want to hear. But my answer is pretty much the same. I can barely leave the house. I don’t see how I could ever go on tour.”
I expected her to agree with me, maybe, but I really shouldn’t have been surprised when she didn’t. “That’s just not true.”
“Which part?”
She shook her head a little, studying me. “You know, when you say you barely leave the house, you sound like I must sound to my friends when I complain to them that I don’t have enough money to buy a house in Vancouver. They look at me like I’m a fucking dumbass who has almost a million in the bank and is still complaining. Do you get that? I’m practically a millionaire, technically, but I feel poor because I live in a city where real estate is expensive.”
“It’s not the same thing, Taylor.”
“Oh yes, it is. It’s just how you look at it. How you choose to look at it. And if you really think that you ‘never leave the house,’ then I think maybe you’re a dumbass who just produced an album—down at Little Black Hole, not in your house—with a band who are probably going to be the next hottest thing in rock music, and you’re still looking at yourself like nothing has changed.”
“I’m not sure it has.”
Taylor slipped her hand over mine on the table.
“In case I’ve never said this out loud before,” she said, “I believe in you, Cary. I want to support you any way I can. Please tell me. What is it you need from me? What can I do?”
I took a deep breath and tried to answer that question as honestly as I could. I’d been afraid to ask her for so many things I wanted. But where had that gotten either of us?
“I just need you to be here for me. Support me without pressuring me.”
“Okay,” she said softly. “I can do that.”
And I wanted to believe her. But many, many people in my life had told me they could do that, then let me down.
“Eat,” I said.
“Hmm.” She plucked an olive off her plate. “Still bossy. Glad to see you haven’t lost your edge.” Her gaze drifted down my b
are chest. I was wearing sweats and that was about it, and her eyes flirted with me. “I promise, I’ll do my best on the no-pressure thing. Maybe you can tell me if this is supportive or not.” She got up and walked away. I watched her go, my eyes drifting down to her naked thighs. She glanced back over her shoulder, catching me checking her out, and smiled.
I sat back in my chair, waiting for her. I was just about to go after her, when she came back, papers in hand.
“I did a bunch of research,” she said, plunking down in her chair, “about your anxiety disorder.” Her eyes met mine and held.
“When?”
“Last night, while you were sleeping.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. And everything you said in the interview was fresh in my mind. I needed to act on it.” She unfolded her papers. “I found all types of therapy that can potentially help. I know you’ve struggled in and out of conventional therapy. I know you’ve been talking to a therapist again. But maybe it’s best not to put all your eggs in one basket, and be open to trying other things? This sounded interesting, and it might just be right up an eccentric rock star’s alley… Have you ever heard of equine therapy?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s where you basically hang out with a horse. A woman came into the shelter this summer to adopt a rescue dog, and she mentioned that she had a stable and a couple of therapy horses. That was the first time I heard of it, and last night I remembered and I looked it up. Apparently it can be really effective in treating anxiety. Horses are super sensitive, and they pick up on whatever energy you’re giving off. So you have to master control of yourself to be able to guide the horse.” She blinked at me expectantly.
I didn’t even know what to say.
“Have you ever rode a horse?” she asked me.
“No.”
“Me neither. But if it’s something you’d be interested in trying… there are a bunch of places in and around Vancouver that offer it. There are a couple down in Southlands, right here in the city, you know, where all the stables are? And there are a bunch of others just outside the city.” She held the papers out to me. “Maybe we could go together. Or you could go alone, or with Xander. Whatever feels better for you.”
Lovely Madness: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 4) Page 43