Maybe Aaron was up late, up until recently, Lily thought. Maybe he threw on a new log before heading off to bed.
Hungry, and not wanting to wake a recently asleep Aaron, Lily crept into the kitchen and made herself a piece of toast. She started a fresh pot of coffee, and then sat by the window while she ate, admiring the newly formed sea of snow, which was bright, reflecting the clear morning sun. Once her eyes adjusted, she noticed the snowshoe tracks heading from the house towards the field behind the house.
Aaron wasn’t home. His bedroom was empty, his coat was missing from its hook.
But the phone-lines were working, so Lily thought it would be a good idea to call her father, to let him know she was alright. “I know,” Kilgore said, sounding surprised. “Your friend, Aaron told me last night. He said he was going to give you a ride back to the lot this morning.” It wasn’t until Lily hung up the phone that she wondered, With what car?
Sitting in Aaron’s driveway, under two feet of freshly fallen snow, was an old pickup truck with a shiny, brand-new licence plate, complete with a brand new insurance sticker. Talk about assimilated, Lily thought—driving around an old pickup, spending his free time snowshoeing. Next he’ll be drinking Bud Light and cheering for the Denver Broncos like a true Burns Bogian.
Lily poured another coffee while she waited for Aaron to return from his morning excursion. She watched the fire dance in Aaron’s living room, and then she gazed out onto Aaron’s beautiful, snow-covered, private nature reserve. The curiosity became overwhelming, so she wandered down into Aaron’s studio basement, which was now impressively set up. Guitars hung from walls between sound-controlling foam panels. On the floor were stacks of amplifiers and other machines that were completely foreign to Lily, rows of speakers, a long desk covered in computer equipment, drums, keyboards, and signed headshots of famous musicians—the place was ready for Led Zeppelin’s next recording.
Lily was careful not to touch anything. It all looked so delicate, so sophisticated, so technical; a sea of buttons, switches, sliders, and knobs. The only familiarity in the room was the computer, which sat at the center of a long, busy desk. On the computer’s screen was a set of familiar controls, the same controls that were on her TV remote at home: rewind, play, pause, and fast forward. She pressed play.
First, a simple drum beat. Then, a bass-line. Then, the strum of a guitar and Aaron’s voice. It was the same song she’d heard a few days before, standing outside of Aaron’s house, except more refined. Cleaner, smoother, but still retaining that gritty hoarseness that didn’t exist in Aaron’s popular hits from the late-90s. The song built up through the verse and into the bridge. The chords moved into broken picking and the bass swelled into the chorus, where Aaron sang with force and emotion.
Addicted to your glow
As it guides me through the fog
You were just lost out in the snow
The Siren of the Bog
Lily stood still, captivated, until the song reached its end. It was moving, powerful, beautiful. As far as she knew, it was the first song he’d written and recorded in fifteen years—and it clearly was about her.
“What do you think?” Aaron was standing at the bottom of the staircase behind her, still dressed in his coat and toque. His cheeks and nose were red from the cold outside.
Lily jumped, her heart suddenly racing. Her face quickly became as red as his as she tried to find the right words to respond. “It’s good.”
Aaron smiled and his eyes drifted down to his feet. “It needs some work. Not really ready for the radio or anything like that.”
Lily stuttered. “It’s good,” she said again.
“How are you feeling?” He walked up to the computer and turned it off. He kept his eyes down awkwardly at the floor. It was obvious that the song was about Lily—about how beautiful she was, how graceful her soul was. It didn’t take an in-depth analysis to figure out that Lily was the titular Siren of the Bog.
“I’m good,” Lily said. “It’s beautiful. The song is beautiful.”
Aaron was silent, eyes down on the desk. He picked up an empty glass and straightened a few things as if he was down there to clean up.
“When did you record it?” Lily asked.
“Um,” Aaron said, as if he had to think about it. “I recorded some of it yesterday. The rest of it last night. I spent a few hours last night mixing it, but I’m not much of a producer, and it still needs a master.”
“It sounds great.”
“Well, these are really good speakers. They make everything sound great.” He laughed nervously. He didn’t want to look Lily in the eyes. She probably thought he was some psycho stalker with some creepy obsession, writing and recording love songs in his basement.
“Aaron, can I ask you a question?” Lily said. She bit her lip.
“Yeah?”
“Is Burns Bog the Bog? And am I the Siren?”
“Um,” Aaron said, his face turning a darker shade of red. “Yes—I mean, you were the inspiration, but inspiration is a strange thing, you know? The idea for one of my old songs came when I was looking at a can of Coca Cola one day. The song had nothing to do with Coke, and it wasn’t about Coke, but that just gave me one idea, and that idea led to another, then another, then I had a song. I’m not saying that that’s how I came up with this song. I mean, I haven’t had a Coke in years.” With each word, Aaron was talking faster and faster, and his face was becoming redder and redder. He’d taken a page out of Lily’s book, and was awkwardly rambling without reaching any conclusion. “I guess what I’m saying is, the creative process is a strange process and it’s not as simple as this is about this and that’s about that.”
Lily stepped forward and kissed Aaron gently on the lips and Aaron shut up. His face was a consistent shade of deep crimson and he was speechless, frozen. Lily let her eyes drift down but she kept her face just shy of Aaron’s, waiting for Aaron to make the next move.
But Aaron didn’t make a move. He remained still and silent. He liked Lily. Her kiss lifted him up and sent his heart racing. He wanted to grab her and pull her in tight and wrap his lips around hers and surrender to the moment of lust, but he didn’t. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” he said.
Aaron liked Lily a lot, but he knew it could never work. Lily was a fan. She knew his music, his reputation, his money, but she hardly knew him as a person. Like all of the girls before her, she would end up hurting him or hurting herself. He became Fred Stein for a reason, so he could experience a real relationship that didn’t carry around the element of doubt—doubt that Lily only wanted the money and the glory. “Let’s get you home.”
Lily remained frozen, paralyzed. She tried to fight back the tears, but it was too hard. She wasn’t just heartbroken, she was humiliated. Maybe Aaron was right—maybe she was just the inspiration for the Siren of the Bog, and not the Siren herself.
Aaron walked to the stairway and stopped. “Lily, c’mon. Your dad’s expecting you home.”
She’d never felt so stupid in her life. And now she had to sit next to him in a truck, broken and pathetic. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes.
Aaron didn’t reply. He just fired up the truck and started towards Kilgore’s lot. “I didn’t tell your dad what happened yesterday. I just told him you had to spend the night because the truck broke down.”
“Okay,” Lily managed to say through the thick lump in her throat.
“I think it might be best if we don’t see each other for a while,” Aaron said.
It was obvious that a while meant forever. A dull, cold pain resonated in the center of Lily’s chest. Her lips parted to respond, but no words came out. It took twenty excruciatingly silent minutes to get back to the family lot through the unplowed back roads of Burns Bog.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When Kilgore asked why Lily’s eyes were so red, she said, “I didn’t get much sleep last night. I’m not good at sleeping away from home.” Kilgore didn’t totally believe his daughte
r, as shown by his narrowed, apprehensive glare.
“Well, before you go take a nap, I need you to come get the truck with me,” he said. Kilgore owned an old tow-truck that hadn’t been fired up in half a decade. It managed to start that day. Lily didn’t speak during the long drive back to the broken-down truck. She just stared out the window, wishing she could go back in time and take back the kiss.
Kilgore was silent too, with a lot on his own mind.
The broken-down moving truck was exactly where Lily had abandoned it. The tow-truck’s towing arm took two people to hoist—one to secure the broken down truck, and the other to tighten the cable. Lily held the big, heavy arm while Kilgore cranked the cable tight. Once her job was done, she went back into the tow-truck and stared back out the window.
The silence ended on the slow drive back to the lot. “Danny swung by the office this morning. He was looking for his golf simulator.”
Head turned away from her father, Lily rolled her eyes.
“He asked about you. I think he’s quite fond of you, Lily. He wanted to know what you’re doing later.”
Lily kept her face to the window. “I’m probably just going to go to sleep. I had a long night.”
“I told him you’d give him a call.”
“I’ll give him a call tomorrow.”
“Don’t be rude. That’s not like you,” Kilgore said, looking over at his daughter with an overwhelmingly disappointed glare. “Give him a call today, when we get back to the lot.”
Lily felt like a twelve-year-old girl all over again, with no freewill and no valued opinion. She wanted to argue but she knew it was hopeless. The last thing she wanted to do was entertain a conversation with Danny, who was a nice enough guy, but had nothing in common with Lily. “Why are you so obsessed with Danny Fitzpatrick, Dad? Since when did you care about the Broncos or football.”
“I’m not obsessed with anyone, and I’ve never had anything against football.”
“So why do you care whether or not I call Danny Fitzpatrick today or tomorrow? What difference does it make to you?” Miles from town, stuck in a little truck, moving at a snail’s pace, Lily began to feel trapped, claustrophobic, like her father had orchestrated the snowstorm and the dead engine just to corner her about Danny.
“Because Danny did something with his life. He went and he became somebody, instead of just sitting around Burns Bog and rotting away like everyone else. I don’t want you to end up like everyone else, Lily. I don’t want you to end up like me. I want you to get out while you still can. Why do you think I sold the business? Why do you think I want you to come to LA with me?”
Lily’s heart was racing and her blood was running hot. She wasn’t being treated like a ten-year-old girl anymore; now she was being treated like her father’s slave. Property. Sure, Kilgore wasn’t orchestrating the snowstorm or the dead engine, but he was trying to orchestrate Lily’s life. She wanted to scream at her father, but instead she said, “So that you have someone there when you realize Ping Pong, or whatever her name is, is just some online-dating scam.”
Kilgore became silent.
The guilt was quick to follow. “I’m sorry,” Lily said.
Her father remained silent with his head forward. His eyes were glazed over and she knew she’d just broken his heart, embarrassed him. “I just don’t want you ending up like me, nearing seventy with nothing to show for it.”
Lily couldn’t stand to see her father so defeated. “I’ll call Danny when we get back.” No more words were exchanged for the rest of the ride home.
Lily went to her room and picked up the phone. She sat for a few minutes, trying to get in the right headspace so she wouldn’t sound dead-souled. She tried to think of a few conversation starters. The whole thing was stupid, entertaining the poor guy just to make her father happy.
Worst of all, her father might have been right. Maybe staying in Burns Bog was a waste of life. Maybe Lily did need an out, be it with Danny, or by moving to Los Angeles. Maybe she dodged a bullet when Kilgore sold the company.
A strange instinct inside of her was telling her to call Aaron, to hear what he had to say. He knew a lot about Los Angeles and he knew what it was like to have a meaningful life. He’d gone through it all and he was an honest-enough man.
So Lily called Aaron. But no one picked up, and the call went to voicemail. Her eyes drifted to the window.
Outside, Kilgore was standing with his hands deep in his pockets, staring off into seemingly nothing. He’d been standing outside since Lily took the phone up to her room, probably to give her some privacy while she made the call.
So she called Danny and Danny picked up. And after a short conversation of stock back-and-forth banter, Danny invited Lily to meet him in town later that night. And after a few seconds of hesitation, Lily agreed.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Danny was giddy with nerves. He’d dated his share of beautiful women in the past. Models, actresses, socialites. But things were different with the other girls. Those girls came to him. When Danny and his teammates went out to clubs, and women found out he played in the NFL, he didn’t have to make any moves. He didn’t have to plan any romantic dates or win over any hearts.
Never before did Danny have to seek out a girl’s number. Never before did Danny have to exert any effort winning over a girl’s father, just to go on a first date. The whole ordeal made him feel vulnerable. But he liked it. He didn’t want to be chased. That was boring. He liked to be the one chasing. Because he knew all too well that the ones who chased were only chasing his money.
He put on his best suit, his favourite watch, and a careful dab of his most expensive cologne. He made it to the local florist before she closed to pick out a bouquet of the prettiest flowers, and then he arrived fifteen minutes early for his date with Lily. He stood out on the snowy sidewalk with the bouquet in hand and waited. While he waited, his fingers became blue from the cold, but he didn’t notice because of the significant nerve damage from his career of being slammed and tackled to the ground.
When he saw the Parker Family Movers truck approaching, he perked up and smiled. The truck parked on the side of the street and Lily emerged. She didn’t have to look around much to locate Danny, who stuck out in his expensive wardrobe, holding his bundle of colourful flowers.
Lily suddenly felt rather stupid, wearing a pair of jeans, an old grey scarf, and the only winter coat that she owned, which was worn thin. Earlier on the phone, Danny withheld his night’s plan, simply saying that “it will be a surprise.” Lily didn’t think twice about what to wear, seeing as the fanciest restaurant in Burns Bog was Wacky Joe’s, a family pasta restaurant, which was complete with a big plastic slide and a ball pit.
Danny gave Lily a hug and a peck on the cheek, a move that all of the smoothest of his NFL buddies opened with. “Lily. I’m so glad you could make it out tonight.”
“You look so nice,” Lily said. “I’m sorry. If I knew you were getting dressed up—”
“No, no. Don’t worry about it. It’s better that you’re dressed warm. Here. These are for you.” Danny handed Lily the bouquet.
“They’re beautiful. Thank you so much.”
“They’re okay. It was the best I could find in town. Not a lot of options around here.” He laughed.
“Well I think they’re gorgeous.”
“I thought we would go for a walk around town. Are you okay to walk?”
The two began walking down the quiet Burns Bog street. Danny started pointing at buildings, commenting on how they haven’t changed one bit in ten years. “I think that light was even burnt out ten years ago,” he said, pointing to the burnt-out light above the hardware store.
“I think that light’s been burnt out since I was born.”
“It’s a hardware store. You’d think they’d have the stuff to fix it.”
“Roger thinks it saves him money on his electricity bill.” Lily looked over at Danny. “There was a town meeting about it a few years back.
”
“Geez.” Danny shook his head and laughed.
“What?”
“Burns Bog is the only town on the planet where everyone knows the story behind the burnt-out light bulb. I guess I just forgot how… how small this place is.”
“People here don’t like change. They like what they’ve got.”
Danny smiled. “And what’s that?”
Lily thought about it, but had no good answer. “I don’t know,” she said. “But they like it. People around here like things small. They like knowing whose kid is doing what and why the light bulb is burnt out. I think that’s a big part of why everyone loves you so much.”
“Oh, c’mon—they don’t love me. I’m just a fad. They’ll move onto the next thing in no time.”
“That’s the thing. There is no next thing here. You’re the first thing to happen since… since the light bulb above Roger’s shop burnt out.”
Danny smiled. “Well they shouldn’t like me. I didn’t do anything. Sure, I was playing for the Broncos when they won, but only because I was cheap, they already had Anderson and Thompson, and they needed the cap space for a better OLB.”
Lily smiled at Danny with glazed eyes. None of what he’d said made a lick of sense.
He laughed. “Not much of a football fan, eh? I only have a Super Bowl win because I was cheaper than the benchwarmer the Broncos had before me, and they needed that extra money to buy Todd Davis.”
Still, it was Mandarin to Lily, who just smiled and nodded.
“Enough about me. What do you want to do with your life?” Danny asked.
Lily thought. “I don’t know, to be honest. Until last week, I thought I was going to take over the family business.” She laughed but only to hide the resentment she could feel seeping through. “I was looking forward to that. Now, I don’t know.”
“Right. Your dad told me he’s selling the company.” Danny’s smile faded and he suddenly looked genuinely sympathetic. He took a step in closer to Lily.
“He’s not just selling it. He’s already sold it. In a couple weeks, I’ll be unemployed and homeless.”
LIMELIGHT LOVE: A Small Town Rock Star Romance Page 9
