LIMELIGHT LOVE: A Small Town Rock Star Romance

by Blanc, Cordelia

  “That’s tough.” Danny looked down at his feet. “So what are you going to do now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you could do anything in the world—travel, start a business, become a movie star—what would you do? What’s your dream?”

  Lily thought but no answer came to mind.

  “I mean, just pretending like money isn’t an object. Do you want to go to school? Do you want to go into the arts? Travel? Maybe there’s a sport you’ve always wanted to play? Maybe you want to be the first woman in space.”

  Lily did her best not to laugh. Dozens of female astronauts had been to space. “I guess I just don’t know what I want to do.”

  “You’ll figure it out.” Danny turned off of the sidewalk and began to lead Lily towards the park, which had a large, unused, football field, covered in two feet of fresh snow. “Can I ask you a question?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Do you think Burns Bog is the place to figure it out? I mean, it’s not like there’s a lot of opportunity here. If you move to a big city, like LA, you can do pretty much anything.”

  “I think there’s lots of opportunity out here,” Lily said, trudging through the deep snow. The snow became deeper towards the center of the field. Danny offered Lily his hand and she took it.

  “I asked them to shovel out a path. I guess they got lazy.”

  “You asked who to shovel a path?”

  They approached a large mound of snow that appeared to stretch the length of the field.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A whole end of the football field had been shovelled out, down to the dead grass below. All of the shovelled snow had been pushed aside into tall mounds that surrounded the cleared out space. Danny helped Lily over the mound, down onto the field. The walls of snow made the space private, secluded, high enough to block out the view of the town. “I asked them to shovel out the whole field. Oh well, I guess you get what you pay for, right? It’ll do.”

  “You had all of the snow cleared from the field? This must have taken hours.”

  Danny laughed. “Well, it didn’t take me hours. I paid a group of neighbourhood kids a hundred bucks to do it.”

  “For what?”

  “For tonight,” Danny said, reaching down and picking a football up off of the ground. “At least they left the football here like I asked them to.”

  Lily looked around, wondering what other kinds of surprises might be waiting, but there was nothing there but the walls of snow and the stray football. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Your dad told me you don’t know much about football.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  “Well, you like Burns Bog so much, and Burns Bog loves their football.” He laughed. “Right now, anyway. I thought I’d teach you a few things. Stand over there.” He pointed across the small field and then ran back with the football.

  Lily moved to her designated spot. “Right here?” she called out to Danny, who now stood twenty feet away.

  “Yeah, that’s perfect,” he called back. “Now, when I throw the ball, catch it like this.” Danny stuck the ball under his arm and then raised his hands, hovering his thumbs close together. Then, he demonstrated from across the miniature field by gently tossing the ball straight up in the air and then catching it by closing his hands in like a flytrap. “Got it?”

  Lily mimed the motions a few times but was fairly certain she was doing it completely wrong. And she was. “I think so,” she called back.

  Danny gently tossed the ball, which spun smoothly and gracefully through the air. At first, Lily was ready, holding her hands up in what she thought was the proper stance (it wasn’t) with her feet about shoulder-width apart for optimum support. Then, as the ball came closer, she abandoned her stance and recoiled, covering her face and turning away from the oncoming ball.

  The ball landed in the snow bank with a quiet poof, which Lily clearly didn’t hear seeing as her eyes remained closed and her face covered. It wasn’t until Danny started laughing that she realized it was safe to uncover her face.

  “You had it. Why’d you look away?” he asked.

  “I panicked. I didn’t want it to hit me in the face.” Lily’s face was red, but not from the cold. She dug the football out from the snow and brushed it off. “It’s heavy,” she said.

  Danny laughed but didn’t comment on the remark. “Try throwing it. Put your fingers between the laces, pull your arm back, and then when you throw it, try to pull your wrist in, like this.” Danny demonstrated the proper movement from his position, twenty feet away.

  But she could hardly hold the entire ball in her hand, never mind get her fingers in the proper spaces and whatever else Danny told her while she was trying to wrap her hand around the pigskin.

  “Okay, now throw it,” Danny shouted.

  She tried, but the ball flipped and wobbled and fell to the ground unceremoniously, hardly five feet in front of her, and again, Danny couldn’t help but laugh. He jogged over. “Here, let me show you.” He picked up the ball and stepped around Lily. He took her hand and placed her fingers in all the right places, nowhere near where she had them before. Then, he placed his hand over hers and with his free hand, took her wrist and demonstrated the motion. “And as the ball is slipping out of your hand, just flick your wrist like this.” He showed her and then took a step back.

  “Okay, ready?” Lily said, practicing the motion a few times without releasing the ball.

  “I’m ready. This is the game winner. Seven seconds left on the clock. There’s a clear man in the end zone, ready for the throw. The crowd is on its feet. All over the country, people are glued to their TV screens. People have money on this game. Millions and millions of dollars, all riding on whether or not you make the toss. Four seconds. No more time to waste.”

  Lily threw the ball, but again it fluttered and wobbled and hit the ground in same exact spot.

  “So, you just need a little bit of practice,” Danny said with a chuckle.

  She turned to him. “Sports were never my thing growing up.”

  “So what was your thing growing up?” He picked up the ball and brushed off the snow.

  “I liked music. I would lay in my room all day and listen to CDs with my headphones on, and I had the coolest collection of band t-shirts you’ve ever seen.”

  “You know who I like?” Danny tossed the ball up in the air and caught it a few times.

  “Who?”

  “Drake. His music is off the hook. We would play his songs in the dressing room to get pumped up before games. You know the dude’s got like, five hit songs?”

  “I like rock music.”

  “Hm,” Danny said, “I’ve never been into rock music. Never saw the appeal.”

  A cool wind blew down into the shovelled football pit. She pulled her toque down to cover her ears, which were starting to turn red.

  “Getting cold?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Let’s go and grab a drink from the bar. Maybe a bite to eat, too. I’m getting pretty hungry, if I’m going to be honest.”

  Danny helped Lily back over the snow mound, out of the shovelled-out pit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Lily was worried Danny would try to make a move. After a few drinks, he’d moved his seat in closer and he was becoming touchier, putting his hand on Lily’s back, giving her a playful nudge every time she made a joke. Around midnight, he had the bartender call the town’s only cabbie and Lily and Danny split a cab home.

  Aaron watched them leave the bar together, having just parked his truck across the street, intending to pick up a bottle of Jack Daniels before closing. He waited for the cab to pull away before getting out of his truck.

  He shouldn’t have cared, seeing as he and Lily weren’t even an item. But seeing Lily laughing, out on a date with another guy, not even twenty-four hours after she kissed him in the basement, hurt. And sadly, it only confirmed his suspicions. Immediately after being reject
ed, Lily went out with the only other rich guy in the whole town. Lily wasn’t looking for a relationship, a partner, or love. She was looking for money, glory, status—just like the club-hoppers of Los Angeles. Aaron didn’t want to believe it; he liked Lily a lot. At least he thought that he liked Lily. But maybe he’d just fallen prey to a sham. A fake.

  He bought his whiskey and went home.

  Before Lily and Danny parted for the night, Danny said, “Your dad really wants you to go to LA.”

  “I know he does. I just don’t know if I can. I don’t know what I would do there.”

  “Your dad’s a nice guy, Lily. He’s just doing what he thinks is best for you.”

  “I know.”

  Danny gave Lily a pat on the shoulder. “You should at least go out there with him, even just to help him move in and get settled in. I think he’d appreciate it.”

  Lily smiled and turned to part ways for the night. Then, Danny grabbed her gently and moved in for a kiss. Before Lily could process anything, she turned her head away. She should have seen it coming, being the end of what was obviously a date and all, but still, she was caught off-guard. Throughout the night, she’d convinced herself that Danny was just being a nice guy, looking for friends after moving halfway across the country. And Danny was well aware that Lily had no idea what part of the country she’d be living in within a few weeks time. Trying to start a relationship now was an obvious setup for disappointment, for both of them.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his cheeks rosy. “I was just going to give you a peck on the cheek.” It was an obvious lie, trying to save face in the wake of his rejection.

  Lily smiled, her heart racing. Danny was a nice guy. He was cute, funny, kind—but there was no spark. He was in a different place in life and he wanted different things. “Goodnight, Danny,” she said, giving him a peck on the cheek and then turning towards her house.

  The next morning, Lily told her father she would make the trip out to LA with him, just to get a feel for the city. Kilgore couldn’t fend the smile from his face. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

  There were no new moving jobs, so Lily spent the week helping her dad pack up his things. The Los Angeles apartment he was moving to was a tenth the size of their house in Burns Bog, so most of his things were packed into boxes destined for storage. The company that bought Parker Family Movers didn’t take possession for another few weeks, so Lily still had time to pack her own things and find a new place to live, either in Burns Bog, Illinois, or Los Angeles, California, or somewhere she hadn’t even considered.

  The evening before Kilgore and Lily were set to begin their long drive to California, Kilgore came across a Styrofoam box in the back of one of the moving trucks. It was wrapped tight with packing tape, but the large package was not labelled. He opened it. It was filled with six identical golden trophies. The trophies were shaped like old-timey record players, with large horns projecting out the top of them.

  Kilgore lifted one of the awards up and inspected it. A plaque on the trophy’s base read, “Aaron Brown, Song of the Year, 1998.” Another read, “Aaron Brown, Album of the Year, 2000.”

  Lily walked into the room carrying a full moving box. She stopped when the glimmer of the trophies caught her eye. “What are those?” she asked.

  “National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences…” Kilgore read off the trophy. “There’s a whole bunch of them here. I found them in the back of one of the trucks—the old blue truck with the crack in the windshield. They’re all made out to an Aaron Brown. When was the last time we used that truck?”

  “On the Stein house,” Lily said.

  Kilgore scratched the stubble on his cheek. “What is Fred Stein doing with six of someone else’s trophies?”

  Lily continued towards the door with her box.

  “Wait. Can you run these over to the Stein house quickly?” Kilgore asked as he carefully placed the trophies back into the foam box.

  “Can’t we just have them mailed?”

  Kilgore laughed. “Mailed? The Stein house is on the way to the post office. Besides, Mr Stein is probably wondering where these are. I imagine they’re valuable. They’re heavy, and hell—I think this is real gold, too.”

  “Can’t we call him and tell him to come pick them up?”

  “First off, phone-lines are still down, and will be until they’re finished repairing the cell tower. Second off, he paid us to deliver everything, and this is part of everything. Just go and make the delivery, it’ll take half an hour.”

  Lily lingered in the doorway, trying to think of an excuse out of the errand. Unless she told her father that she was rejected after trying to kiss Aaron a few days earlier, she had no excuses. So she took the foam box and set out towards Aaron’s home. By the time she’d arrived, the sun had set behind the woods.

  Lily knocked on Aaron’s door and waited. A gust of wind pierced Lily’s coat and sent a chill down her spine. She knocked again and continued to wait. There was no answer.

  “Hello? Aaron? Are you home? I have your trophies!” she called out. Her call was met with no reply. She tried the door handle. It was unlocked. Thank goodness, she thought. Now, she could just leave the box inside and take off—no need for any awkward conversations. She wouldn’t have to relive that humiliating kiss.

  Quietly, she brought the box into Aaron’s home and placed it down on the kitchen table. As she turned to leave, she noticed drops of blood on the floor. The drops formed a trail through the room and met a small puddle of blood near the sink, which was also smeared with blood.

  Lily froze and her heart stopped beating in her chest for a moment before erupting into a frenzy. “Aaron?” she tried to call out, but her voice was too shaken to make much noise. She took a few deep breaths and tried to gather her composure. “Aaron?” she called out again.

  The trail of blood led down the hallway, to the basement door. Blood dripped off of the handle. She opened the door and rushed down the stairs. “Aaron!” she continued to call out.

  The basement was a mess. Amps were knocked over, computer equipment was scattered throughout the room, and an acoustic guitar had been smashed into small pieces. At the center of the mayhem, Aaron stood topless, the skin on his arms, chest and abs stained red with fresh blood. He turned to Lily. “Jesus, you scared me,” he said in a terrifyingly casual tone of voice.

  Lily ran over to Aaron, who had a makeshift bandage wrapped around his chest. His skin was pale, and his eyes were heavy. “Oh my God, Aaron, what happened? Are you okay? There’s blood everywhere.”

  “I accidentally cut my rib right here,” he said, pointing towards a patch of dark red on his bandage. “I’m hardly bleeding anymore. It’s fine.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s a long story. Well… It’s not that long of a story, it’s just a stupid story that I’d rather not tell. Why are you in my house? How did you get in here?” The smell of whiskey on his breath was potent.

  “The door was unlocked. You need to go to a doctor.”

  “The door was unlocked? Damnit. I need to start being more careful.” He staggered over to his desk and grabbed an open bottle of whiskey. He took a long hit, straight from the bottle.

  “You’re drunk.”

  Aaron slammed the bottle back down onto the desk. “You’re correct.” He reached for one of his guitars and then slipped on a pool of his own blood. Lily caught him before he fell. “Oh, by the way, be careful. The floor is slippery,” he said to Lily.

  “What happened to all your stuff?”

  “I hit it with the guitar.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I could. Here—sit down. Listen to this song I wrote. You’ll like it. It’s called The Denver Broncos Suck Ass and So Does Every Other Stupid Football Team. I think it could be a real hit.” He adjusted the strap of his guitar and then plucked a few open strings. Within seconds, his guitar was smeared with blood.

  “Put that down, Aaron. I’m taking yo
u to the doctor.”

  Aaron ignored Lily and began to strum the guitar. He started to sing. “Orange skies at night near Chicago, sobbin’. Streaks of blue swirl west and down on this little town. They cheer the kid who sits on the bench, warmin’.”

  “Aaron, that’s enough. Put the guitar down.” She reached out and tried to grab the neck of the guitar. But Aaron pulled away and stepped back.

  “But I’m not even at the best part yet. Don’t you want to hear the best part?” He stumbled and managed to catch himself before falling.

  “Why don’t you sing it for me on the way to the doctor?” She slowly and carefully approached him with her hands in the air, palms facing out.

  “Is there even a doctor in this shitty little town?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it Willy Upnik, the banjo maker and radio DJ? Is he a doctor, too? Or do you have some sort of witchdoctor? A healer? Is it Danny Fitzpatrick? Can he absolve me of all my sins while were there, too? Is that why this town loves him so damned much?” Aaron stumbled back into a chair, conveniently in sitting position, but the force of his body sent the chair back and Aaron hit his head on the ground. “Ouch,” he muttered. “That hurt.” He remained still, on his back, on the chair.

  “Are you okay?” Lily asked, dropping down to her knees next to him.

  “I think so. I’m just going to take a quick nap.” He closed his eyes.

  “Aaron?” Lily gave him a nudge, but he was out cold. “Aaron, wake up.” He didn’t. Instead, he began to snore. His torso was still bleeding. “Great…” Lily muttered aloud. She pulled out her phone and was quickly reminded that the phone-lines were down by the blinking “NO SERVICE” icon on the screen.

  With no other option, she began to pull him across the floor, towards the stairway. One excruciating step at a time, she managed to pull him all the way up the stairs. After the final step, she was exhausted, panting for breath. Aaron was humming a song in his sleep, with a big smile on his face. The idiot doesn’t even care that he’s going to bleed to death, Lily thought.