Worth the Trouble

by Selena Kitt

  “It’s been years, Katie,” he reminded me. “He’s ignored her at every holiday we’ve had at our house—now he can ignore her in his house. What’s the difference?”

  “Okay, okay,” I soothed.

  I felt a little shanghaied by this impromptu ‘family meeting’, and I imagine Tyler felt the same. We’d been set up. It felt a little like we were walking into the lion’s den. Or an intervention. Is that what this was about? I wondered. Were they going to try to talk Ty out of quitting the band?

  But Rob and Sabrina knew the truth. They knew Tyler had a particularly good reason. This wasn’t just a bored or disgruntled musician who wanted to do something else with his career. This was something Tyler was going to have to live with for the rest of his life, and it was probably the hardest decision he’d ever make. Except maybe the one he’d made a few years ago when he’d decided not to be junkie anymore.

  I squeezed his hand and looked up at him. Ty smiled down at me, leaned in to kiss me, a sweet, brief connection. But I saw the pain in his eyes. I don’t know if anyone else would have seen it, besides me—it was pushed way back, as far back as he could possibly get it, but it was still there. He was hurting.

  “You don’t have to,” I whispered, nuzzling my cheek against his shoulder. “We can go home instead. You and me, baby.”

  Tyler’s other arm tightened around my shoulder and he gave a slow, sad shake of his head.

  “She’s right… I have to face the music eventually. Might as well do it now.”

  “Fast—like pulling off a Band-Aid.”

  “Right.” He laughed, but it was a bitter sound.

  “I promise, I’ll kiss it and make it better.”

  “You make everything better,” he breathed, kissing me again.

  It was the hardest lesson I think I’d ever had to learn. Some things you just couldn’t fix, no matter how much you wanted to.

  There was a crowd of paparazzi waiting at the gates outside of Rob and Sabrina’s place. But the car windows were tinted, and Celeste had us duck way down as we approached, so they couldn’t get a picture from the front. Once we were inside, we were safe. At least, it felt that way. Granted, we’d had press—and even the occasional obsessed fan—jump the gates before. But Rob had excellent security.

  After Catherine, he’d made the place nearly impenetrable.

  Thinking about Catherine gave me shivers as we pulled up to the house. It was right here, just over the foot bridge, that Rob’s ex-wife had shot Sabrina. It had been a shoulder wound—nothing fatal, thank God—but Sabrina had lost her pregnancy. Poor little Esther. I could still remember the weight of her in my hand, such a tiny thing, a totally senseless loss.

  And my fault. It had been my fault that Catherine was there that day—I was the one that let her through the gates. Granted, I hadn’t known it was her, but what did it matter? The results had been the same. I didn’t like to think about that time—and the downward spiral the followed, my relapse, my shame. I could never make up for what Sabrina and Rob had lost that day.

  “You ready for this?” I asked Tyler, taking a deep breath and readying myself.

  I could put on a brave face for him. I knew how much it hurt him, quitting the band, but everyone in there, except maybe Rob and Sabrina, was likely to be furious about his decision. I’m sure they all thought it was selfish on his part—but that couldn’t be further from the truth. He was giving up something that meant more to him than almost anything.

  “Let’s get it over with.” He shoved the door open and got out.

  I followed, hoping I could pick up the pieces once everyone was done ripping him apart.

  Chapter Four

  You would have thought we were having a party, instead of making an announcement that would end life as we all knew it. It should have been more like a wake—everyone in black, mourning the loss, talking about the good old days—but it wasn’t. The mood was far lighter than I expected, even after Leanne had arrived.

  That was probably because Sarah brought her. Tyler and Rob’s sister, Sarah, was sort of the mediating one in the family. She was the youngest, and if she stood between her two big, towering brothers, she could stop them fighting with a shake of her finger and just one word. It was a talent neither Sabrina or I had perfected, and I admired her for it.

  But Sarah was big on doing her own thing, speaking her mind, and telling the truth when no one else was willing to. She and her long-time roommate-slash-lover, Anne, had gotten married last year, after California made gay marriage legal—again. Anne had worn her combat boots under a black lace dress—and Sarah had worn white. They were both stunning, even Anne with her piercings and tattoos.

  Leanne appeared between Sarah and Anne. I saw Rob scowl when he saw his mother, and I saw Sabrina nudge him and say something into his ear. After that he stopped scowling, but he pretty much ignored her existence for the rest of the night.

  For my part, I went over, and kissed Leanne’s scarred, ravaged cheek and welcomed her to the gathering. Tyler did the same, whispering, “Thanks for coming, Mom.” You’d never know, the way she beamed up at him, that Tyler was the one who had shot her husband in the head when he wasn’t quite a teen yet.

  More secrets. So many secrets.

  I hugged Sarah and Anne, and we chatted for a moment, catching up. But the whole time, I kept an eye on Jay. She was playing with Lucy and Henry, rolling a ball under the big, grand piano and giggling when they chased after it. She looked like such a kid herself, still, even though she was fifteen now. A stunning beauty, with long, dark hair that flowed like a waterfall to her lower back, it was her eyes that captivated. Big, round violet eyes.

  “Who’s that?” Leanne asked. She’d noticed me keeping an eye on Jay.

  “She’s…” Oh crap, how was I going to explain Jay? “My cousin. Here for a visit.”

  It was the best I could do on short notice. Tyler’s eyebrows went up, but he didn’t contradict me.

  “Pretty girl.” Leanne smiled as Henry, who was crawling now, fought over the ball with his older sister. I felt bad for Leanne. Rob refused to let her have anything to do with her grandchildren. I knew Sabrina had taken them to visit Leanne a few times, without Rob knowing, but it was a tough situation.

  Not that I blamed him, exactly. Leanne hadn’t exactly been in the running of any Mother of the Year awards when she was arrested on drug use and possession charges and her three kids had been put into foster care. My mother was a pain in my ass—but I knew she loved me, and I never really wanted for anything, not like Rob and Tyler and Sarah had. I couldn’t blame Rob for being angry—nor could I blame Sarah and Tyler for forgiving her and wanting to reconnect. I mean, the woman was their mother—and you only ever got one of those.

  “Who’s hungry?” Daisy—Rob and Sabrina’s cook—appeared in the doorway carrying a tray full of something appetizery that smelled amazing. “There’s lots more in the kitchen—anyone want to help me bring them out?”

  Of course, Rob and Tyler went to help, and Sarah and Anne did, too. Sabrina stayed to keep an eye on the babies, but they were too busy playing with Jay to notice. I sat on one of the sofas and patted the seat beside me for Leanne. She joined me, looking more than a little uncomfortable being in Rob and Sabrina’s house. I could only remember one other time that she’d been there—right after she’d gotten out of jail.

  I waved at the other guys in the band—Tyler called them “the three stooges” when they weren’t around. They were sitting three across on another sofa, all of them drinking beer, busy on their phones. Nick was the only one who waved back—he was Trouble’s third-cutest band member and bass player. Jon, the tall, lanky, bespectacled keyboardist, didn’t look up from his phone. Kenny, the almost-chubby drummer, saw me wave but didn’t respond.

  I’d always thought it was kind of weird, the way the other three members of Trouble were kind of distant. They were in the band, and they certainly reaped the benefits, but they just didn’t participate in the mor
e “family” type things that much—and when they did, they stuck together, just like that, the three of them, thick as thieves.

  Maybe it was the blood connection between Rob and Tyler—didn’t they say blood was thicker than water? But that didn’t explain it completely, because for years, no one knew Rob and Tyler were even brothers. That had been yet another secret they’d kept, up until a few years ago, when everything had sort of come crashing down around our heads.

  “Do you have any idea why we’re here?” Leanne asked, leaning in so she wouldn’t be overheard.

  “Tyler’s got an announcement to make,” I told her, glancing up as Tyler and Rob came in carrying more trays full of food. My stomach growled.

  “Are you?” Leanne’s hand rested on my forearm and I looked down at it, then up at the bright look in her eyes—well, one eye. The other was glass and didn’t see anything—the one on the scarred side of her face. “Oh Katie, are you expecting?”

  “No!” I exclaimed, shaking my head. “No, it’s not that.”

  “Oh, okay then.” She sighed, sitting back against the sofa and I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Did every mother-type-person want grandkids this bad?

  “Someday,” I lied. I knew better. Tyler didn’t want kids—and I wasn’t sure about it myself. Not that I didn’t like them. I loved kids and watching Sabrina with hers made my ovaries vibrate like they were going to just explode, but we’d been through so much, before and after we had gotten married, I just hadn’t had enough time to really consider it.

  “Is this about the band breaking up then?” Leanne asked, and I looked at her and sighed. “I read the article in Variety on the plane.”

  “The plane?”

  “Sarah went with me to go through my mother’s things.” She smiled up at Sarah as she approached with a plate full of appetizers for her mother. Leanne accepted them, and my stomach growled again. “We were there for about a week. We just got back.”

  “Your mother?” I felt like I was repeating everything she said, trying to make sense of it.

  “Our grandmother,” Sarah explained, perching on the edge of the sofa with her own plate. “She passed, about a month ago. We had to go through her house, so we could put it up for sale.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” I glanced over at Tyler, who was talking with Rob by the grand piano, where the kids were still playing around the legs. Jay crawled around under there with them, chasing the ball, all of them giggling.

  Why hadn’t Tyler told me?

  “Liver failure. She was an alcoholic. Drank herself to death,” Leanne said. “Her drug of choice just happened to be legal.”

  “Some of us get lucky like that.” Sarah winked when I looked at her.

  All of them—Rob, Tyler and Sarah—had inherited their mother’s addiction, in one form or another. For Sarah, it had been alcohol, before she could even legally drink it, although now she was an addictions counselor. Rob had kicked his addiction to cocaine years ago. Tyler’s drug of choice—and mine, soon after we met—had been heroin.

  “You should see the photographs,” Sarah said to me as Anne approached. She was wearing her signature combat boots with leggings and a t-shirt with a band I didn’t know on it. “So many photographs! Mom, you have to show Katie—Tyler was so cute when he was little.”

  “You all were,” Leanne said, watching her grandkids playing under the piano, a wistful look on her face.

  “I’d love to see them,” I told her, suddenly enamored with the idea of seeing Tyler as a baby. I hadn’t even known pictures of him existed as a child. He’d lived a lot of his years in foster care, and all that had survived were standard school photos.

  “You come over this week,” Leanne said. “I’ll call you.”

  “That would be great.” I looked up as Sabrina came over to join the gaggle of girls—we’d all congregated together, while the guys were in another corner.

  “Did I hear something about baby pictures?” Sabrina asked. “Do you have baby pictures of Rob?”

  “I’ll trade you, for some baby pictures of those two,” Leanne offered, a glint in her eye. Sabrina laughed and said it was a deal—she just had to promise not to tell Rob.

  Celeste and Daisy came over, too, to complete the gender segregation.

  “Who are we waiting on?” I asked Celeste, assuming, rightly, that she would know.

  “Arnie.” Celeste sipped her wine, making a face. “He had a meeting. He said he’s on his way.”

  Arnie was almost always late. Trouble’s agent—now Sabrina’s agent, too—had been singlehandedly responsible for putting Trouble together. He’d discovered Rob first, and together they’d found Tyler, still living in foster care. The other three Trouble members had been hand-picked by Arnie, although I couldn’t understand it. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to Jon, Nick and Kenny’s addition to the band. Sure, they could play, but that was about it.

  “I’m hungry,” I apologized, getting up off the sofa. “And I don’t get Daisy’s food enough anymore.”

  “Don’t miss out,” Sabrina agreed, nodding toward the platters of appetizers. “She’s in fine form tonight.”

  Before Tyler and I had bought our own place, we’d eaten Daisy’s food every day. It was the thing I missed most about living with Rob and Sabrina—that, and the fact that we’d always had dinner together, depending on our schedules. Sarah had lived with Rob, then, too, so it really was like “family dinner.” We tried to recreate that, now, once a month on a weekend, so we could catch-up.

  I filled my plate with appetizers—hummus and deviled eggs and some sort of pinwheel pastry with salmon—and then crawled under the piano to check on Jay.

  “Hey girlie,” I said, offering her the plate.

  “Oh yum.” She took a deviled egg—the inside was green, and I suspected it was avocado—and wolfed it down. “Daisy made me a grilled cheese sandwich, but I’m still starving.”

  “Her grilled cheese is legendary around here,” I said, through a mouthful of appetizer. “How are you, Jay?”

  “I’m good, now,” she said, tucking her long, dark hair behind her ears—out of Lucy’s reach as she toddled toward Jay. The teen’s hair was so black, it was almost blue, and it hung down past her waist.

  “How did you get here?” I sat cross-legged, smiling as Henry crawled into my lap. “Did you really hitch a ride the whole way?”

  “Yeah.” Jay shrugged one thin shoulder.

  I shook my head. “So dangerous. Why didn’t you just call me?”

  “I don’t know.” Jay rolled the ball and Lucy squealed and ran after it. “I guess… I just wanted out of there. And I thought, if I showed up here…”

  Her voice trailed off and she shrugged again. I knew what she wasn’t going to say—she thought if she showed up here, it would be harder for us to turn her away. And she was right, of course. Now she was here, and we were going to be forced to decide, one way or another.

  “Arnie’s here,” I heard Jesse say, and I knew, once he’d settled in, Tyler would have to make his announcement.

  “Come on,” I said to Jay, edging my way out from under the piano. “It’s almost time.”

  Jay blinked at me, looking confused, but she followed, crawling out from under, too. Lucy and Henry both followed her, Henry crawling and Lucy toddling. I caught Sabrina’s eye—Mama Bear was keeping a good eye on them, even from a distance—and smiled.

  I went over to join the group of women sitting on and around the sofa, but Jay veered off to fill a plate full of food. Lucy hugged her mother’s legs for a moment, sucking her thumb and looking around like she wasn’t quite sure about all of these people in her house. I watched Leanne playing silent peekaboo with her, both of them laughing.

  The guys were saying hello to Arnie, and I heard Arnie reprimanding Tyler for taking off after his rumored “announcement.” Tyler laughed and told Arnie he’d done worse—and Arnie agreed, laughing, too. Arnie had indeed spun a hell of a lot worse, I though
t. He was the ultimate spin doctor.

  Although sometimes the public was stubborn. It had been a long road getting them to accept Sabrina in Rob’s life. I think part of it was Catherine’s influence. Rob’s ex was a model, like a blonde, blue-eyed angel, and while they’d been separated when he met Sabrina, the public didn’t seem to care. They saw what they wanted to see.

  Sabrina was an interloper, and Catherine was the victim.

  It was only after Catherine showed her true colors—her attempt on Rob’s life had gone awry, injuring Sabrina—that the public finally started to be swayed. After Catherine had been put away, Arnie had worked hard to push Sabrina into her place, to make the two of them live up to their couple nickname—Robalina.

  The tide really started to turn when Sabrina lost Esther—their first baby. Then, when Lucy had been born, it was like some jubilant celebration in the press, a real victory. Arnie had given People the scoop, letting them do a photo shoot of the young couple and their newborn.

  It was quite brilliant, on his part, given the darkness that had plagued all of us after Catherine decided to get back at Rob the only way she could, from inside the mental institution—telling the press the truth about their past. As much of it as she knew, anyway.

  I still hated Catherine for what she’d done—for hurting Sabrina, and then, for revealing Rob, Tyler and Sarah’s dark secrets. But Catherine had been a victim, too. It was hard to keep that out in front of me, when I thought about her, but it was true. She’d been just a child herself, back then, when their paths had first crossed.

  “Peekaboo!” Leanne laughed, playing the game with Henry, now.

  I could see the family resemblance, in spite of the scars on her face. She’d paid a big price for her addiction. Maybe more than any of us. Leanne had been the only adult alive back then who could have protected them all—Rob, Tyler, Sarah, even Catherine—but she’d been so entrenched in her addiction, she’d never taken that step.