Girl in Love (41 page)

Gretchen opened her mouth to respond, but Kylie wasn’t done.

“And that’s the thing. I feel like it’s always going to be something. I throw my heart at him, because like you said, I’m immature and impulsive apparently. And he keeps tossing it back at me like a game of hot potato. So excuse me if I didn’t stick around for the gory details.”

Gretchen nodded again, the hint of a smile playing on her lips. “Well guess what, kid? Love is one big mess of gory details. So deal with it.”

Kylie watched her intently. “Meaning?”

“We all have shit in us that we’d rather other people not be privy to. Except that one person who sees that and loves us anyway.” Gretchen looked sad for a moment, a fact Kylie tried not to dwell too much on. “And for you, Trace is that person. He doesn’t care how much of a pain in the ass you are. In fact, I think he likes it. For whatever reason. The part that concerns me is that you might not be that person for him. Can you handle everything that comes with him? Because I think you know by now it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.”

“If he loves me so much, how come every time you called he took it in the other room? Or looked like a deer in headlights when I saw you together in Macon? If y’all are just friends, why all the secrecy,
Gretch
?”

Judging from the way her eyebrows lifted, Gretchen didn’t miss Kylie’s disdain for the nickname Trace called her by.

“Well, let’s see. The media has made us into some alcoholic duo just because we happened to do a stint in rehab together. He knows you and I aren’t exactly friends. And he and I are about to be business partners. He was trying to figure out the best way to tell you about it when I heard from a mutual friend that his sister was in an accident and decided to bring myself over to Georgia and check in. Plus, I had paperwork for him to sign.”

Kylie was beginning to feel as if she were being buried under the heap of information Gretchen was piling on her. “But I saw the pictures. Same as the rest of the world. The two of you didn’t just happen to go into rehab at the same time, you walked through that door hand in hand.”

“And if we were teenagers, instead of grown adults, that might’ve been a big deal.” Gretchen’s pointed expression let Kylie know how big of a deal it wasn’t. “But for your information, if you saw a picture of Trace and I holding hands, it was because at the last minute, I panicked. The fear of everyone knowing I was trying to get help, of knowing I might fail, had me retreating. Trace literally pulled me through.”

“I still feel like I’m missing something. What in the world kind of business are you buying? Please don’t say a bar or a record label.”

Gretchen snorted. “No. Neither of those.” The woman took a deep breath and scooted her drink aside so she could prop her elbows on the table. “In order to explain about Trace, I have to tell you some things about me that are really none of your business. So once I do, you feel free to let them slip right out of your memory. Got it?”

Kylie nodded.

She watched as the other woman took a deep breath. “Okay. So I have a son.”

Kylie’s hands gripped the table. Her entire world began to tilt dangerously to one side. “Oh,” she whispered.

“Not with Trace. Christ almighty, why does everyone assume that?” Gretchen shook her head. “Anyways. Once upon a time, I was very young and naïve. I met a traveling musician who promised to help me get out of my backwater hometown in South Carolina. He turned out to be a dirtbag who left me pregnant and broke.”

Kylie’s mouth was dry, and she wished she’d ordered water or straight vodka instead of coffee. “Um, I’m sorry to hear that?”

“Sure, that’s an acceptable response.” Gretchen continued. “Anyways, I wasn’t ready to be a mother. I couldn’t even make decent decisions for myself. So my mom agreed to raise my son so I could pursue the one thing I loved.”

“Music,” Kylie offered softly, thinking they had that in common.

“No,” Gretchen said evenly. “Partying. Clubs, musicians, DJs, whatever. I was never like you and Trace. Music was never my be-all and end-all. I was a complete mess with no real ambition.”

Or maybe not.

“Classy.”

“Yeah, well. I was eighteen and stupid. And then I stumbled into a band one of my loser boyfriends was in with Trace. Even in my stupidity, I knew a decent guy when I saw one. So I tried to ditch my boyfriend and hook up with him, and you can imagine how well that ended.”

Kylie tried not to make her internal cringing obvious. She must not have succeeded because Gretchen actually appeared sympathetic for a moment.

“Relax. It was one time, and we were both too drunk to remember. But it was enough to get me kicked out of the band. So I went home.”

Where you should’ve stayed
, Kylie thought but didn’t say out loud.

“And my mom and Daniel—that’s my son—had this bond. I felt like this giant third wheel that was just in the way. So I came back to Nashville and threw everything I had into music. I gambled on it, hoping my tiny bit of talent and originality would be enough.”

Her mouth turned down in a way that actually made Kylie feel sorry for her.

“I just wanted to be someone my son could be proud of, you know?”

The tears gathering in Gretchen’s eyes struck a chord in Kylie’s compassion center.

“As someone with two dead parents who would give it all up in a heartbeat to have them back, I can honestly say, I bet your son doesn’t care if you’re a musician or famous or whatever. My mom was a secretary and my daddy worked in a factory. I don’t remember my mom, but I thought my daddy was the most amazing person in the whole wide world. All your son probably cares about is that you’re there, that you’re his mom.”

Gretchen nodded and a few tears leaked from her eyes. She wiped them as quickly as they’d fallen. “Yeah. Working on that. Anyways, I didn’t ask you here to throw me a pity party. My mistakes are mine and I own them.”

“So why did you ask me here?” Kylie sucked in a breath and held it.

“Because I want you to know what’s going on with Trace. I think he needs you. And while the old me couldn’t really give a shit, the new me, the me who really does want to see him happy, doesn’t want to get in the way of that.”

“So…”

“So I’m going to tell you something I shouldn’t. Something Trace said during a group session in rehab that stuck with me.”

Kylie didn’t interrupt to mention that Gretchen had said that he’d kept her secrets but now she was revealing his. Because whatever she was about to tell her seemed important. And dammit, she wanted to know.

“We had this exercise we were supposed to do—describe our happy place—the one place where we were never tempted to drink.” Gretchen offered Kylie a small smile. “We were supposed to describe it in vivid detail for the group so that if any one of us was tempted we could help each other by reminding them of that place, that place where they felt true happiness, felt complete without the need to abuse any substances.”

“Okay.” Kylie’s brows dipped as she tried to figure out how this was relevant.

“For most of us, it was a place from our childhood. Not for Trace.”

Her words wrapped around Kylie’s heart and gave it a squeeze. No, his childhood didn’t contain many happy memories that she knew of.

“For him, the time he was happiest, the one time in his life he never felt temptation to drink…It was being in Macon…with you.” Gretchen paused. “I’ll give you a minute to let that sink in.”

And sink in it did. Kylie just sat there, speechless for one of the first times in her life.

“He described this day, this long afternoon, of just horsing around with you on the farm. He said he fell in love with you that day. We all kind of figured more happened than he’d described. But from the way he looked, lit up and happy in a way I’d never seen him, the falling in love was the most important part.”

A tiny sound of surprise escaped Kylie’s lips.

“I’m guessing this is a lot for you to hear all at once. But there’s more. You okay?”

Kylie nodded and struggled to suck up the emotions threatening to pour out all over the place. “I’m trying to be. Go ahead.”

“The facility in Dallas…It was struggling. It’s this sprawling, well-hidden place that could seriously be like
the
rehab place for people in need of privacy, like celebrities and such, if it had the funding needed.”

“So he bought it,” Kylie finished for her. Of course he had. He was always trying to save everything and everyone. Except himself.

“Sort of. He and I agreed to go in half, like silent investors. There’s a Board of Directors already in place, so we would literally be just money and maybe do a few figurehead-type things. Kind of like with his A Hand Up Foundation.”

“I see.” So Trace and Gretchen were going to be business partners. That was major, but not as major as she thought.

“I know what you think—how it looks. But for the record, he didn’t leave you for me, and he and I haven’t ever been an item like the media makes it seem.”

“Why do I feel like there’s a
but
coming?”

Gretchen was quiet, just long enough for Kylie to feel a panic attack coming on.

“There was this one night, your birthday, actually. We had a fight because he said he had to see you and I told him he wasn’t ready for that. That he hadn’t been sober long enough to go dealing with your unstable ass. But it was your birthday, so he was determined to do something nice, like show up with flowers or take you to dinner so the two of you could talk.”

“Oh God.” Kylie’s heart sank like a heavy stone into her empty stomach.

“Yeah. Turns out you’d moved on. When he came back to my place—”

“No. Don’t tell me.” Kylie closed her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t need to know.”

She didn’t. It didn’t matter. If he’d turned to Gretchen for comfort that night, well, so be it. She’d have to find a way to deal with it.

“We didn’t sleep together, if that’s what you’re thinking. But I offered. He turned me down.” Gretchen shrugged. “And not for some noble reason like he didn’t want to hurt our friendship. He turned me down because he said he’d tried. He’d almost taken some waitress home after leaving your place, but all he could see was you. All he wanted was you.”

“So he went back to rehab?” Kylie had never gotten a chance to ask Trace why he hadn’t shown up at the party the label had thrown for their single. The rumor mill had answered the question for her and she’d assumed they were right.

“No. He went to Dallas and got everything in order so we could do the deal with the facility. The Second Chance Ranch we’re calling it.”

“Catchy,” Kylie said absently, still attempting to put the pieces together.

“Yeah, we think so. He’s funding this huge redesign to make it as similar to his farm in Macon. Because that’s the one place he doesn’t want to drink.”

“Because of me,” Kylie said softly.

The other woman nodded once. “Look, I told you I wasn’t going to blow smoke up your skirt and I didn’t. I won’t sit here and tell you life with him will be easy or even the best thing for either of you. Because who the hell am I to give anyone life advice?” Gretchen paused to put her jacket back on. “But I’ll be damned if I’m going to be anyone’s excuse. So if you don’t want to be with him, then don’t. But don’t try to pin it on me, because given the choice between me and you, Trace would step over my cold, dead body without blinking.”

Kylie frowned. “I don’t always make the best decisions in the spur of the moment. Especially when thrown into situations I’m not prepared for, I’ll admit that. But I’m not as completely vacant as you seem to think. I could tell pretty early into the tour that the two of you weren’t together
together
. That’s not why I left Macon when you showed up.”

Gretchen raised her eyebrows. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why did you?”

Kylie felt her forehead wrinkling as she tried to explain. “Because…because seeing the two of you made me realize that you have something with him that I never will. You understand about his drinking and you’re the one who he turns to in a crisis or when he needs help.”

“So? You gonna take up drinking so you can room together in rehab?”

Kylie’s eyes narrowed. “No. But I’m not going to stick around and wait for him to ask you what you think about he and I being together just so you can tell him to toss me out with the garbage either.” She sucked her bottom lip in so it wouldn’t give her pain away. “He told me himself that he respects you and values your opinion. And you’ve made your opinion of me pretty clear.”

Gretchen surprised her by laughing. “Seriously? That’s why you left? Why you’re making him give you space or what the hell ever?”

Does he tell her everything?

Kylie shrugged. She didn’t need to describe the details of what the last year of her life had been like for this woman. “For the most part. Yeah.”

“Well in that case, I have good news.”

Kylie eyed her skeptically, wondering what good news she could possibly have. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“The truth is, even if I tell him to stay as far from you as humanly possible for the sake of his sobriety, he’s not going to listen.”

“How do you know?”

Gretchen’s eyes lowered, making her seem mildly ashamed of herself. “Because that’s what I’ve been doing every time I’ve talked to him. I’ve been a pretty shitty friend to him actually. Telling him that he was a screw-up that couldn’t handle being with you because you’re young and unpredictable and he’d just mess everything up again.”

Kylie felt her eyes widen at the grand confession from Gretchen Gibson. She cleared her throat. “Okay. So what changed your mind?”

Gretchen met her imploring stare. “Seeing your interview. And the fact that you basically told the label to fuck themselves and deal with it because they can’t switch Trace out with a dipshit like Parker and expect you to play along. Hearing you say those things about Trace—that you clearly believe to be true—I realized that I might have been wrong about you. About both of you.”

“I love him,” Kylie said evenly. “Of course I believe those things to be true.”

“Well, good.” Gretchen finished off her coffee and moved her cup to the side. “Look, I’m not here for entirely unselfish reasons. This business deal is the one good thing I have in my life—the one thing I’m hoping will allow me to provide for my son myself. But if you can’t handle Trace being involved with me like that, I’m sure he’ll say to hell with it if you say the word.”