Hard As Rock (29 page)

“YOU! Not another bloody step!” he roared as he stomped into the kitchen.

Eep.

I turned around to see the Finger of Doom wagging in my face.

“What did I tell you?! What did I tell you I’d do if you fucked with this band?!”

“…you’d bury me,” I said, actually terrified he was about to make good on his promise.

“That I did, and I have half a mind to do it right now!”

Ryan walked into the room. “Then I guess you’re going to have to dispose of two bodies, seeing as I was the one who seduced
her.
”

It was entirely unintentional, but both Miles and I looked at him at the exact same instant like
Yeah, RIGHT.

Ryan looked hurt – but only at
my
expression. “Hey…”

I winced and smiled apologetically. “I just… I wouldn’t use the word ‘seduced.’”

“I
did
save you from a cougar.”

“Yes, and it was very heroic, but that just
happened
. You didn’t exactly plan that.”

“Come on, work with me here,” he smiled, his sense of humor returning.

Miles squinted. “You saved her from a
what?”

“A mountain lion.”

“Oh… I was wonderin’ why you’d need to save her from a middle-aged slag…”

I frowned. “‘Slag’ better not mean what I think it means.”

“I was talking about someone
else,
not
you.
Although, if the shoe fits – ”

“Miles? DON’T,” Ryan ordered.

Miraculously, the band manager complied – although he really just turned his ire away from me and towards his bassist. “It’s enough I have two idjits and a barmy pothead in the band, I didn’t need another fuckin’ problem!” he yelled as he paced back and forth, ranting and raving.

As Miles continued to blow off steam, I whispered to Ryan, “How do all these people manage to get into your gated community?”

“They have a standing pass to come in whenever they want.”

“You might want to rethink that.”

“Believe me, I am.”

Seeing that we weren’t paying attention to his tirade made him even angrier, and he got right up in Ryan’s face. Well, actually, the Finger of Doom got right up in Ryan’s face, since Miles was almost a foot and a half shorter. It was like a Chihuahua barking at a Great Dane.

“You’re supposed to be the responsible one!” Miles shouted.

“I
am
the responsible one.”

“Only because the others are complete nutters! I’d expect this bullshit out of HIM, but YOU?!”

Suddenly Miles calmed down. The expression on his face changed from enraged to troubled.

“Well,” he said hesitantly, “I’d’ve expected it out of him
before,
but
now
…”

Ryan frowned. “‘Now’ what?”

“…he’s different.”

“Different how?”

“Why don’t you see for yourself? He’s out in the car. I can go and get him.”

My stomach flip-flopped. “He’s outside
now?”

“Was I unclear?
Yes,
now,” Miles said sarcastically.

“I understood you fine,” I snapped. “It’s just…”

I stopped and floundered helplessly in silence.

“Just what?”

“The old Derek wouldn’t have waited for anybody,” Ryan spoke for me. “He would have burst in here like a bull in a china shop.”

Ryan had nailed it. That was it exactly.

“That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you – it’s not the old him anymore,” Miles said.

We all stood around looking at each other. Besides all the turmoil inside me at the prospect of seeing him walk through the door, I had the eerie feeling that maybe the man I had once fallen in love with didn’t exist anymore. That maybe all that remained was a shell of his former self. What would that be like, to see the ghost of someone who hadn’t died yet?

“Well, do you want me to go get him or not?” Miles asked impatiently.

Ryan and I glanced at each other. I struggled mightily not to let my emotions show on my face.

After a couple of seconds, I nodded.

Ryan turned back to Miles and shrugged. “Sure. Might as well go ahead and get this over with.”

“Get
what
over with?”

“Whatever’s about to happen,” Ryan said darkly.

“If anything ‘happens,’ it’s your own bloody fault.”

“I’m well aware of that. Go get him.”

Miles scowled and tromped off towards the front door.

My internal panic was off the scale. Not only was I about to see Derek again – or what remained of him… not only was I going to have to deal with all the feelings that I thought were dead, but had inconveniently come back to life… but I might just witness the end of the world’s biggest rock band.

And it would be all my fault.

Ryan eyed me carefully. “Are you alright?”

“I… no, I’m not. What if you guys break up?”

He relaxed – I guess because he thought that was my primary concern. “Whatever’s going to happen, better it happen now and we get rid of the uncertainty.”

Actually, I could have lived a few more days in uncertainty as long as I didn’t have to deal with
this.

Ryan walked over and put his arm around me. “You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to.”

But I
did
have to be here.

I couldn’t walk away.

I had to face the music.

I had to face
him.

I heard the sound of the front door opening and almost threw up.

“Here we go,” Ryan said. He stepped just far enough away from me to maintain propriety, but stayed close enough to present a united front.

Then Derek walked into the room.

He looked the same – in fact, he looked better. Same exquisitely handsome face, but without the alcoholic puffiness from his TMZ pictures. His emerald-green eyes were clear, and the dark circles underneath them were gone. His skin was tanned and radiant. He looked like he had put back on weight since his gaunt appearance that night in South Dakota.

In short, he looked healthy and vibrant.

And oh my god so hot.

My heart skipped about three beats as his eyes found mine – but he didn’t betray any emotion at all. His face was entirely blank as he walked up right in front of me, his gaze never leaving mine.

My mouth was dry, my throat constricted. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t look away – all I could do was stand there and wait for what I knew was coming: the screaming. The yelling. The insults. The rage.

Ryan tensed up next to me. I could feel him ready to leap between us, to take his best friend down.

But Derek surprised us both.

He held out his arms, moved in close, and hugged me.

I stood there stiffly, too surprised to react.

Then he pulled away and looked me in the eyes. His expression had gone from neutral to sorrowful.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for everything I did to you. I’m sorry for every time I hurt you. I know that my saying that will never be enough… but I hope someday you’ll be able to forgive me.”

I just stared at him, my lip quivering.

I wanted to cry.

Derek turned to Ryan. His face darkened the tiniest bit, but he still stuck out his hand in an offering of peace.

Ryan looked down in shock, like Derek had offered him a handful of diamonds or some bizarre alien artifact.

Then, slowly, he put out his own hand and shook Derek’s.

We eventually wound up on the back patio, with Ryan grilling up burgers for all of us.

Derek stood around drinking a bottle of sparkling water. He seemed calm, collected, almost zen. He cracked jokes, smiled, told stories about rehab – like how he had tried to escape five times in the first three days.

“I didn’t adjust so well at first,” he grinned.

However, Miles had posted rotating shifts of roadies surrounding the walls of the property. Every time Derek got out, a big, burly dude had chased him down, tackled him to the ground, sat on him, and then called his fellow guards to help carry Derek back inside, kicking and screaming.

“The first time it was Otto – remember Otto, with the beard?” Derek asked Ryan. “He sat on me and I was screaming, and the whole time he was shouting, ‘I’m sorry, man! I’m sorry! Miles is making me, dude! Don’t hate me, bro!’”

He went on to talk about long hours of therapy, and even longer hours of solitary soul-searching. About how he realized that he was always lashing out at the world because he felt like his father had abandoned him. How he hated authority figures because his own father had left him, so what the fuck did a teacher or a cop have to say to him?

He told us he was working the 12 Steps, and that he had a lot of amends to make. He apologized several times, and each time Ryan and I murmured
It’s okay
.

I just stared at him the entire time. Or rather tried
not
to stare at him. He was so different from how I had seen him over the last six weeks of the tour. He was relaxed, good-natured, at ease in his own skin. He would say something the slightest bit cocky, then would turn around and tell a self-deprecating story from rehab. Like how – with Miles’s blessing – the rehab center punished him for all his escape attempts by making him scrub toilets. Which Derek thoroughly, violently refused to do. So when he wasn’t in therapy sessions, he spent days four through seven locked in a bathroom with a toilet scrubber, sleeping on the tile floor with a roll of toilet paper for a pillow.

“Then I figured out I was being an asshole, so I just cleaned the fuckin’ toilet and they let me out,” he laughed.

I had worried that I would see a ghost, an empty shell. Instead what I got was all of his positive qualities with none of the rage, none of the narcissism, none of the selfishness, none of the assholish sense of entitlement.

In short, he reminded me of the Derek I had fallen in love with four years ago when I was a freshman in college.

It was something I really struggled with. Especially considering Ryan was right there, just ten feet away.

I loved Ryan; I did. He was absolutely wonderful. Sweet, kind, gentle, caring, supportive.

But all my feelings for Derek – the ones I thought I had buried with my tears and pain – were poking their way back up through the soil, like green shoots from the charred remains of a forest fire.

I almost wished he was still an asshole, because then I could have continued to hate him.

But he wasn’t. And my emotions were threatening to overwhelm me.

Luckily, I’m pretty good at hiding them.

Miles stuck around long enough to be sure that no fights were going to break out. Once he was convinced, he took his leave.

“You lot behave,” he admonished the boys. “We start tomorrow at the studio at noon.”

“No problem,” Derek said, and took a sip of his sparkling water.

“See you there,” Ryan agreed.

Miles took one last look at me, harrumphed, and then saw himself out.

“How’s Riley and Killian?” Derek asked. “I haven’t talked to them yet.”

“Um… they’re okay,” Ryan said.

“That didn’t sound convincing.”

Ryan and I exchanged looks.

“You guys have got to quit doing that, you’re freaking me out,” Derek joked. “Like there’s some conspiracy everybody knows about except me.”

Ryan hesitated. “It’s just…”

“Everybody thought the band was going to break up,” I blurted out.

Derek looked at me and nodded serenely. “Because of you and me.”

My heart caught in my throat. “Yeah.”

“Well, we’re not breaking up. In fact, I should text them and tell them to stop worrying,” Derek said as he dug a cell phone out of his pocket.

“You have a cell phone now?”

“Yeah, I kind of ‘borrowed’ one from one of the roadies when I was in my obsessive phase with you,” he grinned. “Sorry about that.”

My heart jumped again. He didn’t notice, though; he was too busy scrolling through his contacts and tapping on the iPhone.

“Anyway, I got used to it… and Miles gave me one with everybody’s numbers in it once I got out. I, uh… I was too nervous to call anybody, though.”

“You were nervous?” I asked, shocked.

“Yeah,” he said, like he couldn’t understand why I was so surprised. “I was a real asshole to a lot of people. I wasn’t too sure how they were going to react once I got out.”

Ryan shifted uncomfortably. “Derek, I… um… I need to tell you something.”

Derek looked up from the phone. “Okay.”

“Kaitlyn and I weren’t together in South Dakota when we saw you last… but… since then… we are now. Together, I mean.”

It was kind of like stating
The sky is blue,
but I suppose it needed to be said.

As soon as Ryan put it out there, though, my heart started to pound in my chest.

I saw a brief flash of something on Derek’s face – anger? Hurt? – but then he returned to his zen serenity.

“I know,” he said simply.

“…you do?”

“Yeah. Well, I mean, I didn’t believe you back at your ranch. That’s the whole reason I flipped out in LA. I did a lot of work dealing with it in rehab. And then Miles told me you guys were still together the second I got out.” Derek chuckled. “He said that if I was going to lose it, he wanted me to do it then so they could put me right back inside.”

“We weren’t together when you saw us,” Ryan said. “I swear we weren’t.”

Derek nodded. “I believe you.”

“But… we are now.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Derek said with a bit of dark humor.

“And… you’re okay with it?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m
okay
with it. But like I said, I dealt with all that stuff in rehab. I’m…”

He paused and blew out a hard breath.

“Okay, if I’m totally going to be honest, then… you hurt me. Both of you.” He looked at me. “Kaitlyn,
you
I can totally understand. I cheated on you, and I’m so sorry for that. If I could take back just one thing in my entire life, I would take that back. It was only that one time, I swear, but that doesn’t matter. It was one time too many. And the cheating wasn’t the only thing. I treated you really badly towards the end, and I hope you’ll forgive me for that, too. I’m so sorry.”