by Kailin Gow
“What? Who is it?”
“Roni.” His voice was hollow.
“What does it say?”
He swallowed. “Doesn't matter.”
“It does, Danny – what does she say.”
“I'm tired of your games, Danny. You're a disappointment to me and to your father. If you continue to play such juvenile tricks and get in the way of my band, there will be consequences. These things do not go unnoticed, and will not go unpunished.”
Danny and I looked at one another. We didn't want to lend any credence to Roni's words, but we both knew that she meant every syllable.
“You don't think she...”
Danny shook his head. “She can't hurt us, Neve,” he said.
But deep down, I knew that she could.
Chapter 12
We tried to forget all about Roni, but it wasn't easy. Her presence was felt everywhere we went. When we were in the rehearsal room, writing new songs with Kyle and Steve. When we were in the green room, putting on our makeup. When we were onstage, looking out into the audience, afraid we would catch a glimpse of her face, or the faces of the Dusk Riders, who by now seemed to be little better than her minions. Even when Danny and I were in a room alone together, kissing softly, making love, whispering sweet nothings in one another's ears, I began to feel that she was there too: an unwanted and insidious presence, worming her way into our lives.
I hated it. Every second of every day, Roni Taylor was there, out for blood, out to make our lives miserable.
“I don't understand it,” I said to Danny one morning as we lay in bed together, looking out over the sea. We'd gotten used to the cottage by now – its beautiful views, its peaceful breezes. It was the only place that felt safe from her, and even then we didn't feel fully secure. “What does she want? I mean, she can't want you – knowing how much you hate her?”
Danny avoided my gaze. “It's complicated,” he said. “Roni gets what she wants. She has – her whole life. She wanted to marry a billionaire and she did. And – you know, it's not like my father treats her very well...”
“Are you defending her?”
“No – no...” Danny said quickly. “All I mean is – being married to my dad would turn anyone into a crazy lunatic. You remember: Roni isn't my first stepmother, not by a long shot. He's cheated on every woman he's ever been with. He's never loved anybody, not really. He likes women for their bodies, for the prestige of having a beautiful woman or two on his arm. But he doesn't see them as people. Just props to make him look good. Being around my dad – it screws people up, Neve.” He sighed loudly, the sheets rising and falling across his chest. “It screwed me up for a long time. I wasn't a good boyfriend – not to a lot of girls. Not even to...”
He fell silent, and I did not press him further. He wouldn't say her name. He never would. The woman that he loved – the one he felt he had killed – that was a loss too great for words. Only silence could encompass the pain he felt. Against myself, I felt a twinge of jealousy. I loved Danny, but I knew that there were some things about him I could never truly understand.
“But that wasn't your fault!” I pressed him. “It's not like you grew up with a good example.”
“That's certainly true.” Danny's laugh was full of bitterness. “Do you know – growing up – I don't have a single memory of him hugging me. Not one. Not one example of him caring about me. I was shipped off to boarding school as soon as I can remember. “Danny has business to conduct,” he told me. “Now be a man. Don't cry.” But even at boarding school, I wasn't immune. He never came to my plays, to my performances. But I saw him, of course. Lots of him. At boarding school the boys used to be allowed to leave the school in the afternoon to go into the shops – you know, to buy sweets, that sort of thing. And at the check-out counter I'd catch a glimpse of him on the cover of the tabloids. A new woman on his arm. A new model – or a prostitute. And maybe she'd become his wife, after a while, and I'd learn about that from the tabloids, too. Until she couldn't take the cheating....until she couldn't take the pain....”
“Sometimes they divorced him. One killed herself. I learned that from the tabloids too.”
Tears had started to form in Danny's eyes. I turned to him, surprised. I'd never seen Danny so vulnerable – so open to talking about his pain.
“Did you know – though – what the worst part is? I never stopped loving him. Not for a second. I thought it was my fault, you know. That I'd been bad. That if I was a better son, a better kid, he'd have wanted me around. I used to shoplift the tabloids and cut out his picture and keep it on my dresser – just like a real family photo. Because it was the only thing I had of him.”
I felt the tears spring to my eyes, too. How much suffering had Danny enduring because of his family.
“I'm sorry, Neve...” Danny sighed heavily. “I don't mean to unload on you like this. But ever since I went to your house for dinner – met your dad...”
“It made you realize what you'd missed out on?”
“Yeah,” Danny said, smiling. “I knew you'd understand, Neve. Being with your dad made me realize what a dad is supposed to be like. You know – I always figured that it was karmic justice that made my dad what he was. Like – I had all this money, all this fame, that the universe decided to punish me, to even things out, by making my dad the way he is. I thought you couldn't have all those things without having a dad like mine. That's what he said, after all. “You have to be this way in the business. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. There's no choice.” And so I grew – so angry. So cruel. I felt like – if I can't have a loving family, then at least I can have my typical rich-boy pursuits. Money. Fast cars. Cute girls. Music. I was...I was awful at your age, Neve. You think Geoff was bad? I was probably worse. I was punishing the world for my pain. Acting like it owed me all this stuff because I'd suffered. Until...she died. And then I knew what I'd lost. I knew what I'd given up. And seeing your dad the other night made me realize how wrong I was. Like – it didn't have to be this way. Like there was another way I could have turned out. Like you.”
“You can't blame yourself, Danny,” I said, kissing him lightly on the forehead, wiping his tears away, brushing his face with my fingertips. “You've become a wonderful man. And if it took you time to be the person you are today, then you need to forgive yourself for that. You need to forgive yourself – and realize that you learned from your mistakes.”
“Roni's crazy,” said Danny. “No doubt about it. But deep down, I feel sorry for her, too. Because I know what my father does to people. I still love him, you know. But sometimes I don't. Just sometimes, when my mood is so dark I cannot stand it, I don't. And then the guilt is so terrible I can't breathe.”
My heart ached so badly I couldn't breathe, either. Seeing Danny in this much pain was torture.
“Let me cheer you up,” I whispered. We made love slowly, deliberately, running our hands over each other's bodies. I wanted to get through to him, to get into that deep and dark part of his heart he hadn't shown me yet, and which sometimes I doubted he would ever show me. I wanted to be able to cure him, to heal him, to make him whole again. But all I could offer him was this gift of love, this gift of myself. All I could offer him was our two bodies becoming one, when it was our souls I truly wanted to join.
“You know,” I said, afterward. “You're part of my family now. And that means – my dad loves you. And if you want to spend more time with him, with us, as a family – that's great. It's not just about sex with us anymore. It's about...love. Community. You're part of my world.”
And then a lightbulb went off in my brain.
For so long, I'd pushed myself away from my father professionally – tried to distance myself from his legacy, his history, tried to find my own path without the stigma of being just another rocker's daughter trying to claw her way out of his shadow. But now I felt something else about my father's legacy. Pride. I was Keith Knight's daughter, like it or not, and I was proud of it. I was proud o
f my success because it did come from him, whether I wanted it to or not. Not because of the money or the fame, not because of the connections. But because his support of me, his love, his unconditional love, made it possible for me to have the strength to carry on. He had inspired me. He had motivated me. He had kept me sane.
And I could no longer hide from that.
“What would you say to a joint concert?” I said, kissing Danny lightly. “Us and my dad's band? A celebration of family.”
“Really?” Danny looked surprised. He knew how I usually felt about capitalizing on my dad's name.
“Family – both the kind you're born into, and the kind you make for yourself.”
And that was how Keith Knight and his band joined us for the next gig. I'd never appeared onstage with my father before, and I had to admit I was nervous. My dad wasn't just a rocker – he was a legend – and while I had confidence in my talent, I wasn't at his level yet. Not by a long shot – the man had been honing his craft for decades. But somehow, when we were onstage together, that didn't seem to matter. We both loved this music; we both loved this world. We both believed in the possibilities that it offered us.
I didn't feel self-conscious – like I was an impersonator, snatching onto my dad's fame. I was Never Knight, a musician in my own right, proud of the dad who had supported me and willing to work hard to get to the place where he was now.
And the crowd went wild. They loved it – every minute of it. They believed in us. Both of us. I had never felt closer to the person I wanted to be.
Backstage after the show, I stood with my parents, feasting on oysters from the enormous spread the venue had laid out for us. My father's arm was around my shoulder, his other arm around my mother's. Danny was standing with us. Kyle and Jim were in a corner, talking animatedly about bass techniques. Luc, Steve, Roc – we were all there. Together.
And then Danny's phone rang.
“Slayton,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I've got to take this....”
He walked over to the corner. “Hello?”
I watched him through the crowds, not taking my eyes off him. He looked beautiful – more beautiful than ever, I thought. Happiness had changed him. His hollow, haunted look had faded somewhat in the presence of my family, replaced with a sense of boyish joy.
Until he started sobbing.
“Danny?”
He was on the floor, collapsed, sobbing hysterically – sobbing like a child – his breath heavy and deep, his face a mask of pain.
“Danny – what is it...”
He could hardly force out the words.
“My fault....my fault...my fault....”
“What's your fault, Danny?”
“I should never have said those things...it's my fault...I know it is...”
“What is, Danny?”
“Heart attack,” he gasped. “My dad. He's in a coma.” He took a deep breath. “They say he's not going to make it.”
And with that, he collapsed into my arms.
Chapter 13
“Danny?” My pain was his pain. My agony was his agony. I could feel his sorrow shake through him; his whole body was shaking, racking with sobs. “Danny – please, listen to me...” I had never seen him like this before. This wasn't a man, the beautiful, confident, swaggeringly sexy man I'd fell in love with. This was the boy who sat alone in his dormitory at boarding school, cradling his father's tabloid photographs to his chest. This was the boy who missed his father – who had been missing him for twenty-one years – who had at last spoken out about the emotional abuse he had suffered at the hands of the one who was supposed to love him...only to find that the man lay in a coma, near death.
“I shouldn't have said those things to you,” Danny was still shaking. “I shouldn't...I shouldn't...”
“It's not your fault,” I whispered, brushing the sweat away from Danny's forehead. I wanted so badly to comfort him, to make everything better. But I knew I could not. I would have done anything I could for him, given him anything, changed everything. But not this. Not this. These were demons that he would have to face alone.
“Danny, let me help you,” I whispered. “Tell me what you need. Is there someone you need me to call?”
“No...” He whispered. “I'm the only son. The only heir. My...responsibility...”
My father and mother had by now come over to see what was wrong.
“Poor child...” My mother swept past both me and my father and took Danny into her arms, holding him to her as if he were her own child. “Poor boy...” She gave my father a significant look. “Neve – is there anything we can do?”
I shook my head.
“Do you need to fly home, is that it?” My mother's voice was calm and soothing. “We can get you a ticket back to England. We'll call our travel agents. Or...two tickets?”
Back to England? No – no, I couldn't think about that right now. I could only think about the moment, this moment in which it seemed that everything was falling apart.
My mother kept on whispering words of comfort to Danny, words into his ear that she thought might be soothing. But I knew better. As far as my mother knew, Danny was freaking out about his father – a father that he loved, for – after all – how could she even conceive of a boy who didn't love his father absolutely? But his anger, his guilt, his shame, all melded in together with his fear of losing his father – these were secrets that Danny and I shared alone.
I could never truly understand his pain. And I could never cure it.
“Neve...” Danny was gasping for breath. “Neve, please, let's get out of here...”
He caught my eye – and the intensity of his gaze was enough to convince me. I took his hand, ignoring Kyle's look of shocked hurt – and the two of us left the backstage area together in silence, rushing faster and faster to get out of the venue. Right now we had to be alone, just the two of us, to share in this grief. Right now we needed to be as far away from the rest of the world as we could manage.
We drove back to the cottage in silence. I could see Danny's face in the rearview mirror – he was trying not to cry. But he was calmer, now – no longer sobbing, but rather resolute, firm in his need to make it back home before he allowed himself to succumb once more to the pain flooding through him.
At last we made it inside. We looked at each other, tear-streaked face to tear-streaked face, gazing into one another's eye.
“Ah, Neve...” His voice was hollow, now. It felt like it was coming from a million miles away. “Nobody said our life together would ever be smooth...” His irony was bitter, self-mocking, full of cruelty. “Are you done with me, yet?”
“Done with you?” I was flabbergasted. “How could I be done with you? I'm here for you, Danny – of course I am. Always.”
“I don't deserve your love,” he cried. “I don't deserve your trust.”
“How can you say that?”
“Everyone I ever get close to gets hurt. I lose everyone I love.”
“You don't!”
“That heart attack? That was stress, Neve, I know it! Because of the stress I've put him under. Because I've been such a disappointment to him.”
“That can't be true.”
He almost sounded angry, now. “Isn't it, Neve? Isn't it true? You think you know, but you don't. You don't know how I've failed him. You don't know how I've failed...”
I took him into my arm and kissed him – decisively, not letting him move away. “I'm proud of you, Danny. We all are. And you haven't failed him. If he thinks that, it's his issue, not yours.”
“I've killed him,” Danny said, his voice shaking.
“He might be fine...” I tried to encourage him. “The doctors don't know for sure yet...”
“You shouldn't love me, Neve,” Danny's voice deepened into a growl. “Nobody should love me. You'll see....”
He kissed me so violently that I yelped in pain. He was rough with me – almost brutal – as if making love to me would somehow make him forget his fea
r, would somehow blot out the agony spreading through his heart. We made love in silence – quickly, roughly, more furiously than I was used to. I was darkness and he was darkness, and together our darkness consumed us. I could hardly think about pleasure – mine or his. I could only think how much I wanted to forget, how much I wanted us both to forget, how much I hoped that this action would bring him, bring us, the relief we both sought.
I was numb; my mind was blank; when at last Danny brought us both to orgasm, it seemed less a climax that a relief, a moment when I didn't have to worry, didn't have to think.
When it was over, I pulled the sheets over my body and turned to face Danny. He was weeping, his tears seeping into the pillow.
“I'll come to England with you,” I said. “I'll follow you.”
“You can't,” he said. “The band.”
“We can't have a band without you.”
“Jim sings,” said Danny. “He's got a good voice. He can do the male vocals temporarily, until I'm back. And we can focus on songs with your voice only.”
“But I need to be with you!”
“No!” I was surprised by the violence of his reaction. “No...” he was softer with me now. “Neve...this is something I need to face alone.” He cupped my face in his hands. “And I'd never forgive myself if I was the reason that the Never Knights finally folded. With all the drama that's been happening lately, everyone needs you here, taking care of them, taking care of all of us. You are the heart of the Never Knights and you know it.
“We all are the heart of the Never Knights.”
“Not like you, Neve,” Danny whispered. “This is your baby. Always has been. Always will be. You belong here, with the band. And I belong in England...”
“Forever?” I hardly dared to whisper it.
“Not forever,” Danny said. “Just for a few days. Just so that I can be at his side...when the end comes.” He swallows. “Take care of arrangements. Say goodbye. And then I'll be back, Neve. If you still want me.”
“Why wouldn't I still want you?”
