The damn he usually kept his feelings behind trembled and a tiny crack formed at its base. He wondered how long it would hold before a flood of emotions burst forth.“I used to help my wife out at our local shelter.” He tensed, waiting for all the questions that would follow.
You were married? What happened to her? Where is she now?
“I didn’t know you even liked dogs.” Amy tossed one of the rubber balls towards the playpen. Her face softened when she watched the dog chase after it.“I do.” He coughed out a laugh. “I would love to have one with me, but our tour bus is already crowded enough.”
Amy grabbed another bowl. The rush of water filled the silence between them.
“I’m with you. I would love to have a dog. Maybe when I’m back in LA.”
They continued to work side by side for the next few minutes.
“Why don’t you ever mention your wife?” Amy asked.
He was crouched down next to the bag of dog food when she asked. Tell her or don’t? His grief wouldn’t let him stay quiet any longer.
“Because she died.” He said it softly, keeping his head down and busy himself with peeling the sticker off the bag.
“Oh.” Amy gave a breathless sound. “That must have been devastating.”
If she had just said “sorry,” Ronan could have brushed it off. But the way she answered, it burrowed under his skin and got to the center of his pain.
“Yeah,” he said around a lump in his throat. “It was. It is.”
Sunlight streamed through the window and caught her hair when she turned to look at him.
“Is that why you keep disappearing?”
“In a way, yeah.” Ronan rubbed the back of his neck. “The last place was where Di and I… we both played shows there.”
Amy made a small “o” with her mouth.
“The bartender.” She nodded. “That’s why he was so protective of you. I thought he was just a superfan.”
“He’s that, too.” Ronan laughed, standing up.
He went to wash his hands, looking over to find Amy just a few inches away. Without all the animosity boiling between them, he noticed she was pretty. Her eyebrows framed long lashes and green eyes. Had he never stood so close to her before? She was just a few inches shorter than him. If she wanted, she could rest her head on his shoulder.
When all the food bowls were empty, and the water bowls replenished, the two-headed out. Unlike that first night, they kept step with one another.
“No one else knows about Di,” He said flatly.
“Then, we’ll keep it that way.” Amy nodded once, as she slid into the driver’s seat.
They got back to the venue and slipped back into their roles. Except that things felt a little different. Now, Ronan didn’t want to immediately roll his eyes when Amy disagreed with him. His skin didn’t prickle uncomfortably when she was near.
He had told someone about Di, and the world hadn’t ended. In fact, he felt lighter. Not happier, exactly. But like, maybe, the weight of missing her could be slightly more bearable.
“Let's walk through the crowd tonight,” he said to her.
“That’s new.” She took a swig of water, her ponytail swishing against her back.
“Gotta do something to keep us on our toes, right?” He swore he saw a small smile form on her lips.
That night, Amy was part of the team that made sure Ronan could move seamlessly through the crowd. The sea of phones followed him, sometimes within inches of his face, as he sang into the mic. It had made him feel more alive than he had in months.He wanted to do it again.
He jumped back up the stairs to the stage and slid the mic back into the stand, the roar of the crowd crashing over him. This was why he became a rock star. He ripped through the last few lines of the song and threw his hand up to the sky in triumph.
His eyes tripped on Amy’s face as it ended. She stood just off to the side, her arms crossed. But she was smiling at him.
Suddenly, he wanted to do the entire show again, just to get another smile like that from her.
Chapter 5
Amy
Maybe Ronan wasn’t a total pain in the ass.
Ever since the animal shelter, she and Ronan had been civil to one another. When he finished up his show in Salt Lake City, she surprised both of them by throwing a compliment his way. Sarah did a double take when she overheard it.
They were at a tenuous impasse. It felt like stretching an injured muscle. All this stretching could help it heal or it could make everything go downhill even faster. Amy would catch a flash of confusion, then delight on his face whenever she smiled at him.
From Salt Lake City, they traveled east to Fort Collins, Colorado. Traveling at night kept them on schedule, but it made nights feel gauzy. Amy never felt sure of what time it was as the bus rolled along the highway and the landscape blurred together. She would try to stay up and read or listen to a podcast, but she often found herself just watching the road disappear under the tires.
If Amy managed to sleep, the tour bus was like a teleportation device, magically bringing her from one state to another. But if she lay awake, time seemed to stretch on. It felt impossible that they would ever reach their next stop. Memories would play against her eyelids, taunting her.
Remember how excited you were to come to LA? You kept staring at the palm trees, holding your hand up like you could touch them. Her life looked like a goddamn postcard.
Amy checked her watch again. Just past 1:30 AM. She exhaled and slowly climbed down from her bunk. A small light was already on in the kitchen. Sarah sat perched on the kitchen bench, her spoon halfway dug into a pint of ice cream.
“Hey Ames.” Sarah waved her spoon at Amy. “Can’t sleep either?”
Amy shook her head. She reached for the small electric tea kettle they kept under the sink.
“Do Ben & Jerry need another friend?” She and Sarah hadn’t known each other long – they had connected just a few days before the tour started – but they already moved in sync with one another.
She reminded Amy of her own sister in all the best ways: kind, supportive, and willing to endlessly tease her.
Sarah grabbed another spoon for Amy while Amy snagged an empty mug to pour her tea.
Once Amy was settled, Sarah turned to her.
“You and Ronan haven’t screamed at each other in at least twelve hours. I’m concerned.”
“You’re concerned we’re no longer screaming at each other?” Amy purposefully kept her voice light.
“You know what I mean.” Sarah nudged her.Before Amy could respond, the sound of padding feet bounced down the hall. The sliding door opened, revealing Ronan, wearing a tight white t-shirt and a pair of striped pajama pants. Amy felt like her arms were electrified when he came into view. The shirt showed off his biceps and cut close to reveal broad pecs and a flat stomach. They were on tour all the time. How did he manage to stay so fit? His pants hung low and loose on his hips. Amy forced her eyes up, but that was no better. His curls were in complete disarray. Amy’s hands itched to push them back from his forehead. She pushed her hands under her thighs.
When she smiled, his face softened.
“Hey.” His heavy-lidded eyes burned into her. His voice was low and gravelly. It made something in Amy want to come closer. “Couldn’t sleep either?”
Amy shook her head. On impulse, she waved to the empty seat across from them. Being nice to him with Sarah as the audience all of a sudden felt loaded. She was already suspicious that they were being nice to each other. So what if Amy found him bearable now? It didn’t mean anything.
She decided to keep it strictly business. Because that’s who they were to each other: business colleagues.
“Your meet and greet is going to be in front of the bus this time.” Amy cleared her throat.
Sarah nudged her and shot her a look. Amy widened her eyes back. What else was she supposed to talk about?
He pulled a water bottle from the mini fridge, positioning hi
s back against the counter. Okay, so maybe his screaming female fans had a point. Up close, the man looked good.
“Sounds good. Try and keep the heartbreakers away, hm?”
“Yup, no problem.” Amy pointedly ignored the look Sarah was giving her. She cleared her throat. “Keep the heartbreakers away.”
She brought her eyes back to the pint of ice cream. Maybe that would be enough to throw Sarah off her scent.
“Headed back to bed. Night, ladies.” He jerked his head to the back of the bus, shooting her a smile when he left. Sarah pointedly leered at his ass as he walked away. Amy felt like her stomach had been through a tumble dry cycle.
“See?” Sarah narrowed her eyes at Amy. “He was downright pleasant. What did you do to him?”
“What? Nothing. I did nothing. He just decided to stop being such a prick.” Something stopped her from mentioning the excursion to the animal shelter. It wasn’t her business to talk about his dead wife, even if he was only a colleague to her. “I thought you always liked him.”
“I did.” Sarah nodded slowly. “He was always nice to me, which is why I was never sure why you two always butted heads.”
Amy was starting to forget why they butted heads too.
After a few more minutes, Sarah begged off to bed. Amy pulled her knees up to her chest. Cornfields stretched out just beyond the highway. Amy even saw one or two tractors chugging along, their lights flashing as they went.
They would only be in Fort Collins for one night. Amy pulled up the next stop on their tour: Sioux City, Iowa. Her finger hovered over the Maps button. Fuck it. She typed in “animal shelters” to their next venue to see what came up. She picked the closest one and called them. Maybe if she added it to the list, Ronan wouldn’t go disappear again.
She left a message for the owner of the animal shelter explaining their situation. She gave her cell number for them to get back in touch. She was just thinking like a team leader, she reassured herself. It had nothing to do with Ronan specifically.
Now she just had to tell him and make that clear to him. It would have to wait. She propped her head on her knees and let the landscape lull her to sleep.
Chapter 6
Ronan
Ronan paced in his room, amping himself up before the Meet and Greet. He jumped up and down a few times, shook out his hands, and fixed his hair for at least the third time in the past fifteen minutes.
Some musicians didn’t want to know who their fans were. They scrawled their names on posters, fake-smiled for a few photo ops, and hopped back on the bus. If Ronan had it his way, he would do hours of fan meet and greets and only a few big shows.
There was so much to love with meet and greets. Just like playing a smaller show, he got to see the immediate impact of a song or a lyric. Many of his fans, he realized, were in their teens or early twenties with glee etched into every movement. Right when his star was rising – before they knew she was sick – he had spent ten, twenty minutes chatting with each fan that approached. How could he not? Di had actively encouraged him to chat with fans. Just call me when you’re done.
But when she got sick, and as she got sicker, he started resenting spending time with fans. He would get wrapped up in longer conversations that would leave him feeling antsy.
Ronan took a deep breath. Okay, he was ready.
When he stepped off the bus, the fans were already waiting for him. A few pops of light came from phones all along the line. He gave a small wave and went to meet the first few fans. Amy stood just a few paces past the autographing table. He shot her a small smile.
The first few fans – a few young women wearing ripped jeans and vintage dresses – eagerly stretched their arms out for a selfie.
“I’ve played your album all day when I’m studying.” One girl bounced on the balls of her feet as she gushed, “Burn is one of my favorite songs!”
“Thank you.” He smiled as he wrote Keep rockin’, Ronan Cash, in black Sharpie on the vinyl jacket.“That’s so sweet. Who else do you love listening to?”
“Kendrick Lamar!”
“Halsey!”
Ronan smiled to himself. He had never known what to ask fans, but he had wanted a question that would give him a glimpse beyond their adoration for him. He scrawled his name on one of their posters as his mind wandered to an old memory.
“Try asking them about their favorite song,” Di had first suggested. “Or what about: favorite band member?”
Ronan was pretty sure he had thrown a pillow at her for that. She had squealed in laughter, burrowing her head into the bed. He had then proceeded to tickle her until she was breathless.
“Mercy! Mercy!” she had yelped. Then she had reached for her own pillow and knocked some stuffing out of it.
That was one of the last good months she had.
He waved over another fan and tried to beat away the sadness that could overwhelm him if he thought about the end for too long. Cancer was such a fucking poison. He asked this fan a question, but the answer couldn’t cut through his own thoughts.
After Di fell sick, he had told his manager he was done with touring. He may have sounded like a cocky twenty-six year old, but he hadn’t cared. It was harder thinking about moments like that. Yet Ronan would rather think about them and be in pain then forget about them.
Di had finally come up with a great question: Other favorite bands. It was useful to Ronan as he looked for groups that he admired and wanted to open for him. And it gave him a snapshot into these fans’ lives of who else they loved to jam to. The times when fans mentioned other bands he knew well, he could bond with them over it.
“I love Halsey too.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “I blast it whenever I need to pump myself up.”
He saw Amy give a small smile, but quickly tucked it away.
The young women bounced away, tapping away on their phones. He missed Di for so many reasons, but this was one of the big ones: She taught him how to keep himself open to every fan conversation.
He welcomed the next two people in line. They were a little older – her septum piercing glinted off the lights in the tent, while tattoos peeked out from under his cuffed shirt.
“I’m such a big fan,” she started. “Alex got me this as a birthday present.”
The gut punch was swift and unexpected. After Di had… well, after Di, he barely got out of bed. His manager tried everything to get him back in the studio and out on the road. He managed to get Ronan to do a smaller stage for Coachella six months after Di died. There had been a couple just like this one there. He had felt like the grief would overwhelm him. He found himself lingering over those conversations, willingly escaping into these strangers’ lives, if only for a few minutes.
Clearly, Alex is a very smart man,” Ronan responded, sending a wink her way. He chatted with them for another few minutes (turned out they loved moodier rock like Kaleo) before they headed back into the concert space.
As he kept chatting and taking photos with people in line – sometimes with their friends, more likely with their eager parents waiting just a few steps behind them – he always kept one eye on Amy. Now, he felt a zing whenever she came over to his side of the tent. When she dipped out to work with one of the other roadies or security guards, he longed to run after her. How was it that just a day ago he was always on high alert to stay away from her?
Now he seemed to have an itch in his brain that stopped whenever he saw her. His eyes always scanned the room until they fell on her familiar leather jacket and her military stance. He couldn’t believe he had told her, of all people, about Di.
It had felt uncomfortable, like talking with blocks of ice in his mouth. But it had loosened something that had calcified in his chest. Something in how she responded told him that she knew how devastating a heartbreak like that could be.
Damn it, he was intrigued by his security. She was tough as nails on the outside – something he distinctly remembered for the weeks they kept fighting – but underneath that, there was
something else. As the line grew shorter, he watched Amy get more agitated. She started tapping her fingers against the thigh of her jeans when there were a few people left. Then she began pacing a few steps in either direction.
He took a closer look at the people left in line. No one seemed suspicious or a little too eager to get up close and personal with the rock star. Her nerves didn’t seem directed at anyone in line. He watched as she checked her watch again. No, this was something else.
When the last person left the tent, he went up to her. Her dark brown hair was wrapped in a ponytail. It made her look younger. He wanted to tease her just the way a boy on the playground would want to pull his crush’s pigtails.
“Christ, Sinclair. You keep that up and you’re to give both of us a panic attack. What’s the problem?”
She crossed her arms, her fingers still tapping out a rhythm on her jacket arm. The rhythm was sporadic and manic. For a musician like Ronan, it scratched like nails on a chalkboard. He put his hand on her arm to still her.
They both paused. It had been instinct – but Ronan hadn’t been prepared for what it felt like. It was the click that happened when he and the band were perfectly in sync in the studio; the feeling of everything coalescing into place. He absently stroked his thumb over the back of her hand.
Amy’s eyes flew to his. Her cheeks had gone high with color. Standing this close to her, he saw how her green eyes shone and how full her bottom lip was.
He withdrew his hand and took a step backwards. It was enough to pull them both back into where they were: surrounded by their team, with just an hour before he was supposed to jump on stage.
“We leave for Sioux City tonight.” She looked away.
“Not planning on ditching early, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” He leaned against the table where he had been signing albums.
“No.” A flash of frustration moved across her face. She shook her head and threw back her shoulders. “I, uh… I called ahead to the Sioux City animal shelter.They’ll be able to open early if you want to stop by.” In a smaller voice, she added, “They have a lot of cute dogs.”
Till There Was You: Rock Star Enemies To Lovers Romance Page 4
