reputation

by Dr. Rebecca Sharp

  “Are you fucking—Is this for real?” His laugh sliced deeper than the question. “What’s your plan here, Baby Blake? You think pretending to be your boyfriend is going to make it really happen?” he swore, spinning towards the fire and then back to me again, his body wound so tight I thought he might explode. “Christ. Has fame gotten into that pretty little head of yours and made you forget the last time I told you this was never happening?”

  “Wait, Zach. Just let me explain. It’s not what you think,” I said, holding my hands up to try and stay the storm. “My manager… says I need a boyfriend.”

  “Why? You don’t seem to have a problem finding those,” he bit out, his jaw muscle tensing. “Why does he care? And, more importantly, why would I care?”

  A harsh exhale rushed from my lips. “You’re right. Why would you when you never did give a damn thing, Zach.” Especially not about how I cried for you.

  I met his hard, glinting stare and forced myself to bite my tongue. Acerbic retorts weren’t going to get me what I needed. And I needed this more than I wanted him. I swear I did.

  One breath.

  In for two seconds—Rep-u—out for two seconds—ta-tion.

  “I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend because my reputation is going to shit and my manager thinks that if I go on tour with you and pretend to fall for you, it will save my image.”

  Silence.

  So much silence that I began to wonder if I’d said the words or only replayed them in my head.

  He let out a tortured laugh, his hands coming up to grip the lip of his hat and bend it in front of his face. Goosebumps erupted over my skin. I knew that laugh. It was the laugh of cruel disbelief when life gives you what you want most, but with a cost that you’ll hate yourself for paying later.

  I knew because it’s what came out of me every time I thought about that night in the treehouse.

  “It’s just for the next four months until the tour ends,” I continued quietly, unable to stand the tense silence any longer. “They just need to see that I am actually capable of being in a normal relationship, that I’m not just dating and dumping guys because I have no heart or whatever it is that they think.” Quit the honest-vomit, Blake.

  Again, I watched my boots move the tiny rocks underneath my feet as the shadows from the fire flickered over them. Until they didn’t.

  Large, hard male. Right in front of me.

  Air. Where was the air?

  “Why me?” he growled.

  All I could see was his eyes and I was afraid that all he could see was my desire.

  Because I want you. Because I’ve always wanted you.

  I swallowed, licking my lips once again. “Because it’s the only believable option on such short notice,” I answered with instead. “You’ve been Ash’s best friend forever so it’s plausible I would add your band as my opening act. B-Bruce says that I need to give the public what they want—and what they want is to see me fall in love; he says they won’t believe it if it happens with a stranger so quickly.” Sucking in air, I realized that I rambled without stopping to breathe. “You can ask Tay—she’ll tell you how bad it is.”

  My eyes fell to the barely visible plaid that covered his chest. I wished I knew what it felt like. I imagined it was as hot and hard as his thigh was that night—and as hot and hard as his heart.

  “So, you’re fucking bribing me with my ticket to fame—to my dream? And the price is that I have to pretend to be your boyfriend?” he ground out.

  I nodded, still unable to meet his eyes until unyielding fingers gripped my chin and forced my gaze to his. I swore he looked right into my soul that was engraved with ‘Property of Zach Parker.’

  And then my heart stopped when his thumb began to brush over my lower lip. What was he doing? Why? Every rub sent sparks right down to my core, like he was rubbing me right between my thighs. The worst part was that he knew what he was doing to me and, just like that night, he did it anyway.

  “And how do I know that you aren’t going to go and actually fall in love with me?” he demanded gratingly.

  I caught myself before I flinched at the question. Painful. Rude. He wanted assurance that the past wasn’t going to repeat itself—that I wasn’t going to make a fool out of myself for him again, this time on a very public stage.

  My nerves steeling, I bristled back against his insinuation. Finally, I’d hit the wall—the edge of the embarrassment I was willing to take over this.

  “That was a long time ago, Zach. I was a stupid little girl, as you well know. I’m over it. I’m over you,” I retorted, trying my best to sound as cold and nonchalant as he did. “This is my life now. My career, my music… it’s everything. I would hope you would understand and appreciate that enough to know that the situation must be dire for me to come to you like this, knowing full-well what you would think.”

  I wanted to pull away, but his grip still wouldn’t let me. He still held my face close to his, the rim of his hat shielding us from any light that tried to shine between us.

  “Are you sure about that?” The hoarseness of his words brushed over my skin like sandpaper as he came closer. No, not sandpaper. Quicksand. And I was sinking right back into my fifteen-year-old self… and right back into him.

  His lips were so close to mine. Another inch—or less—and I could see if his kiss was one more thing to add to the list of his parts that got better with age.

  “Because you don’t seem sure, Baby Blake,” he accused angrily, watching as my tongue darted out to lick my lips again. “And I need you to be very fucking sure.”

  My breath caught, causing my chest to brush against his—my nipples hard and hidden underneath my sweater. His body was hot; his words were cold. I couldn’t figure out if I should feel burned or frozen.

  He’s doing this on purpose, the small voice of my teenage broken heart whispered. Making a fool of you…

  I surprised myself when I jerked my face free and stepped back, stumbling slightly in my eagerness. He pushed me because he thought I would break. All he wanted was one more piece of evidence that Ash Tyler’s little sister—no matter how famous—was still pining absurdly for him after all of these years.

  “Yes. I’m sure,” I managed to insist even though my voice wavered at first, growing stronger as I added, “I’m more likely to fall off stage than I am to fall in love with you,” and then grumbled, “And it would probably hurt a helluva lot less, too.”

  He just laughed like he didn’t believe me—and then looked up to the sky like it didn’t even matter. Tay was right—Zach wanted this.

  I swallowed the bitterly ironic pill that, when I was fifteen, I would have given him the world if he’d just given me the chance and now, I was actually offering it to him to pretend to look at me, and it still almost wasn’t enough.

  Focus on the end game, Blake. Focus on your reputation. It doesn’t matter if he wants you; he can save you.

  “So, you’ll do it?” I asked sharply, like I was expecting nothing less than ‘yes’ for an answer.

  He looked me up and down, resenting me for the opportunity—and for something else that I’d probably never figure out. “You know I don’t have a choice. Not when it comes to this,” he said tightly. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  And deep down, I did know. I knew because it was his love of music that had inspired my own. Probably why he ended up being woven into so much of it.

  Even though I’d backed him into this corner, I still stared dumbly at him. Fine? Was that…it? I’d been prepared to go to war.

  “But you’re telling Ash,” he added, jerking me from my trance. “You’re making sure this is alright with him. I don’t want there to be any confusion as to why I’m agreeing to this.”

  He always had to twist the knife.

  “Of course,” I replied with defiant forcefulness. Neither of us had to pretend to like it—for right now, at least. For tonight.

  Tomorrow, the show would begin.

  Feeling the whisp
ers of hurt begin to move through my body, I spun to walk back to the house; I needed to tell Ash and my parents. And then I needed to lock myself in my room with Tay and beg her to tell me again how I was going to do this; ten minutes in his presence had my heart pounding, my body feeling fevered, and my soul yearning for the one man who had proven time and again that he wanted nothing to do with me.

  Stopping abruptly, I turned to shoot over my shoulder, “You know,” I said, unable to stop the sarcasm from seeping into my voice, “Now, I’m the one who’s famous and all, so maybe I should be telling you to try not to fall in love with me.”

  Take that, Zach Parker.

  My chin rose as I smiled, satisfied with my conversation-ending jab. I should have known that would only make it all the easier for him to knock me right back down.

  “Don’t worry, Baby Blake,” he smirked, and the chill that washed over me had nothing to do with the temperature, “it was never a problem before.”

  I hated him.

  I’d forgotten about that part. I remembered the embarrassment, the hurt, the heartbreak. But in that moment, I relived each and every last rip he’d torn through my stupid teenage heart.And I hated him all over again.

  ‘Four months.’

  ‘Pretend boyfriend.’

  All I heard was my fucking fantasy.

  And my fucking downfall.

  I looked like I was listening as she sat her parents and brother down and told them what was happening. I looked like I was watching the way Ash’s face twitched in anger, his eyes flicking back and forth between Blake and me. The fact that he was petting Muffin’s head, who sat expectantly at his feet, was probably the only thing that kept him from lunging across the room and ripping mine off. And I looked like I watching as Scott and Alison Tyler’s faces registered with shock as their daughter told them what she thought she needed to do to get the world to fall back in love with her.

  I wasn’t. All I saw was her.

  Beautiful blonde hair that looked like Rumpelstiltskin had fucking spun the gold in it himself. Brilliant blue eyes that made the ocean look like a muddy pond and the sky a faded painting. And even though her sweater did an admirable job at hiding mostly everything else, I still knew what was there.

  Like the goddamn sun hidden behind the clouds, she was just waiting to fucking blind me if I didn’t stop staring.

  “I don’t understand,” Alison said, looking from Blake to Taylor like there was a better explanation.

  “It’s just for a few months, mom. It’s not a big deal,” she brushed her off, glancing at me as she spoke. “I just wanted you all to know.”

  I stared back hard, trying to ignore the twitch of my dick at the way even just her lips moving was like watching the prelude to the porno that would play in my mind later as I imagined them wrapped around me.

  At least she didn’t have on that red lipstick. Seeing that shit on her that last Christmas left me hard for days imagining the red ring of death that she’d leave around the base of my cock. Proof that I’d died from the heaven inside her mouth.

  That mouth… I wanted to spend hours with her bottom lip; it had always been slightly fuller, giving her that perfect pout. I’d hoped the top lip would grow into it so I wouldn’t feel the perpetual need to suck on the enticing pink flesh. But it didn’t. It stayed carved with those perfect arches—the ones that tipped up as if to say that there was a cave of wonders hidden inside waiting for my tongue.

  She could never know it, but all I saw was the woman that the tall, lanky, too-trusting-for-her-own-good, Baby Blake had become. All I felt was the way her desire for me still vibrated off of her in waves and my own body strained against my clothes, uncontrolled like a goddamn teenager. All I saw was the indignant anger when I reminded her just how in love with me she’d been, and just how successfully I’d made her believe that I hadn’t given a shit.

  She was too young then. And Ash’s sister. And even those two things almost hadn’t been enough to stop me from taking what I’d always felt was mine. I wasn’t a jerk… I wasn’t an ass… except when it came to her. It helped that wanting what I couldn’t have made me irritable beyond all words. I didn’t know what else to do when she always stood in front of me wearing her heart on her sleeve; I needed her to hate me.

  God only knew why… how… I could have wanted her at fifteen. Back then, she’d really been skin and bones. No curves. No concept of flirtation. But all I saw was beautiful. Her sense of adventure. Her shyness. Her honesty. And the way her big sky-blue eyes always stared at me like I hung the goddamn stars. But I hadn’t hung hers. I hurt her. I knew everything that she did to try to get my attention and I shot her down.

  There were a lot of reasons I fought how I felt about her, but the biggest was that I was only eighteen. There was no fucking way I could feel about her the way that I did. I’d only had a few girlfriends; I had college and a whole fucking life ahead of me; I couldn’t find the love of my life in the one girl who’d always been in it.

  Ash and I left for school and I hoped the years apart would clarify things, not just for me, but for her, too. I told myself that by the time I graduated, she would have found other guys, dated other guys, and realized that I was just a sorry excuse for a girl-crush. And if she didn’t? Well, maybe then it would be ok for us to finally see what was between us.

  When you’re young, you just run, thinking you can just come back to what you need.

  But then her never-fading star shot out of my universe. Never in a million years did I think that Baby Blake would become Blake Tyler: pop star, icon, and arguably the most famous celebrity in the world. Baby Blake who was so goddamn pure, so innocent, so open was now the center of a world that was anything but. Whatever I’d thought or hoped would happen when I came back from college, this card hadn’t even been in the deck of options.

  So, instead, I came back to her ubiquitous presence and unfailing absence. She was everywhere—the internet, TV, magazine, radio. And not just her songs. I hadn’t read all of the tabloids that she mentioned, but I always knew when she was dating someone. The world would never let me forget it. At least when I’d gone to college, she hadn’t gotten the play-by-play of my life and relationships. This was my punishment, I reminded myself: to watch from afar as the little girl that I refused to admit that I loved, swiftly and easily made the entire world fall in love with her.

  How could they not?

  The world was smart where I had been an idiot. So now, I kept my distance and my coldness because I didn’t want to be reminded of what I’d given up. And because of Ash, I had to keep telling myself.

  “Mrs. Tyler, we just need to give the press something to focus on until the tour is done, otherwise, they are just going to continue this negative spiral because it’s making them money—not because it’s true,” Taylor finally spoke, backing up her friend and boss’s story.

  “Who could actually think that of you though, Blake?” she whispered with astonishment.

  Her father spoke before she had a chance to answer. “People who don’t know her, Alison.”

  “And you fucking agreed to this?” Ash’s cold voice shot at me.

  “Ashton!” his mother exclaimed at his unfiltered expletive.

  My hands shoved deeper into my pockets as I leaned against the doorway to their living room. He asked like he would have told me to refuse. He wanted to be angry because it was his sister—his sister who’d been in love with me for most of her childhood—but as my friend and as the unofficial manager for ZPP, he knew the only answer was ‘yes.’

  “You know it’s for the best,” I said roughly, “for everyone.”

  “Ash,” Blake interrupted with a sigh, stepping into the line of sight between her brother and me. “I need this,” she said with a quiet, pleading voice. “I need him to do this.”

  Growling with his eyes pinned on me, he stood and stalked around his sister, stopping right in my face.

  “I want your word right fucking now that this is just for
show—for Blake. I want your word that you won’t lay a finger on her unless explicitly told to do so for a goddamn camera.”

  “I promise.” I meant it. And I hoped to fucking God I could keep it.

  It should be easy, right? Just like it was all those years ago, to pretend I didn’t want her.

  Only now she was twenty-five—legal—and much more woman than I could or wanted to ignore. So much so that the rest of my night when I got back to Nashville would be spent with my hand wrapped around my dick, imagining it was those perfectly unproportioned lips sucking me off.

  “Good. Because you touch her at any point when it’s not for the world to see, and you better hope this shit makes you famous enough to need a goddamn body guard because you’re going to fucking need it,” he threatened with a deadly voice.

  I felt his rage as he disappeared out of the house, slamming the door behind him, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  She was only partially right when she insisted this would benefit me just as much as her. Yeah, this would be huge name recognition, but ZPP wasn’t a nobody. We’d made a name for ourselves, mostly in the country scene and mostly thanks to Ash’s phenomenal networking skills. We also had a few crossover singles on our upcoming album that were recorded with Bruno Mars and John Legend, so it was only a matter of time before we were a household name.

  No, what it really came down to was that she needed me; and no matter what I was willing to let her think, she was more important to me than even I wanted to believe.

  What I also understood was that in those moments when I’d been inches from those perfectly arched lips of hers, reddened from the cold, moistened by her tongue, I didn’t care whether or not this scheme made me famous. I only cared that I’d be able to have her for just a little while.

  Track 05: Lullaby

  “I thought I came into this with eyes wide open, nothing left to lose.

  But, baby, you’re the lullaby that brings me back to dreams of you.”

  Three weeks later

  BIG PLANS.