Fractured Breaths

by Zoey Derrick

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, would you knock off this tough girl attitude?”

  She pushes me, freeing herself from my hold. “Why? So, I can be open, honest and vulnerable to you again? No, thank you.”

  “Look, I didn’t mean to come off as a dick, alright? I’m just…” I take a deep breath. “What do you want from this, Becca?”

  “Livia,” she corrects me.

  I cock an eyebrow at her. “Okay, Livia, what do you want from this?”

  She folds her arms over her chest, taking a defensive position as she curls in on herself. “I want the chance to start over. To see where this is going, okay? Is that so wrong?”

  I smile at her. “I thought you’d never ask.” I straighten. “Now, where’s your car?”

  She hitches her thumb over her shoulder. “Over there.”

  My smile fades into a mischievous grin. “Lead the way, princess.”

  “I’m no princess,” she retorts.

  “No, darlin’, that you are not.”

  She scowls at me, “Well, fuck you too. Asshole.”

  I laugh, “Come on, let’s go.” I wrap my arm around her shoulders, holding her close to me as we walk toward her car. I catch Liam in my peripheral and nod toward her car. He gives me a chin lift in acknowledgement and heads toward the SUV.

  “Where are we going?” she asks.

  “My place.”

  “How far is it?” Something in her tone causes some concern.

  “About forty minutes, why?”

  “Uh, I need gas.”

  I stop walking as I reach into my pocket for my phone. I pull up Liam’s number and call him. It rings half a ring before he answers. “Yeah?”

  “Come swap cars with us.”

  “Aye,” he disconnects to call.

  “What are you doing?” Her eyes are filled with concern.

  “This is where I pull the celebrity card.”

  “What do you mean by that?” she says as we approach her car.

  “I mean that without Liam, I don’t like to make unscheduled stops.”

  “So we schedule a stop…”

  “No, he can take your car, fill it up and meet us back at the house.”

  “Oh,” she says as she understands. “Alright.”

  Liam pulls up with the SUV and hops out, leaving it running. “Fill it up and we’ll see you at home.”

  “Aye, lad,” he says with a smile and he takes her keys from her. I open her door for her and once she’s seated in the SUV, I kiss her nose and close the door.

  Chapter Twelve

  Begin again?

  LIVIA

  “Does he normally do whatever you ask of him? Or rather, tell him?” I ask Bryan as he pulls the SUV onto the street. Liam is following us in my car.

  “Yes, it’s what he’s paid to do,” he tells me, straight-faced.

  “True, but wouldn’t it be nicer if you asked him?” He looks at me briefly before returning his eyes to the road. “What if he had plans when you guys got home?”

  He snorts but then sobers a little. “Stopping for gas will only add ten minutes to his drive, if that. I highly doubt he has something that pressing going on.”

  “But you don’t know that because you didn’t ask.” I’m just giving him shit and I love how flustered he’s getting.

  “And what do you want me to do about it now? It will take more time to pull over and swap cars again than it will for him to stop and get gas.” He pulls up to a stoplight and looks at me. I have a shit-eating grin on my face and he catches it immediately. “Why are you giving me a hard time?”

  “Paybacks, Mr. Hayes.”

  “For what, exactly?”

  “For being a dick.” I sober. “If you can kiss me like that, you could have just texted me, you know that, right?”

  “But then I wouldn’t be able to do this.” He reaches over the center console and puts his hand on my thigh, then slowly slides it toward my crotch. My breathing hitches and a horn blows behind us.

  “You apparently can’t do that and drive at the same time,” I snicker as he steps on the gas.

  “Oh, I assure you I can do a lot more while driving.” He gives me a sideways glance and a wink.

  “Road head is not my specialty, Mr. Hayes.”

  He laughs, “Good to know. Now, I need to you answer me something.”

  I hesitate, only because I don’t want to get into an overly in-depth conversation with him in the car. Though I plan to sit him down and tell him everything he needs to know before we can take this any further, the car isn’t the ideal place to start. “Okay.” My voice is cause for alarm as he looks at me quickly.

  “It’s a simple question. I promise. I’ll save the harder stuff for when we get home.”

  “Alcohol might be a good idea for that conversation,” I mutter.

  “I had a feeling it might. So, tell me, what am I supposed to call you? You ignored Livia, but turned when I called you Becca. You asked me to call you Livia, but I get the feeling you’re uncomfortable with that name.”

  “I’m uncomfortable with that name because it’s a name I haven’t used in nearly eight years, that’s all. I’m not used to people calling me by that name. I am slowly getting used to it, it’s still not exactly normal for me.” That’s the truth.

  I decided on my drive to Nashville that if I got this chance, got to talk to him, that I would tell him everything. He needs to know.

  “Understood, but you do realize that if we pursue a relationship…”

  “Don’t jump that gun too fast. You need to know everything before you can make that decision,” I urge him.

  “And how long am I going to have to wait for that?”

  “Until we get to your place. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you alone. Liam needs to be there too.” I stop looking at him and move to looking out the front of the SUV, watching the closeness of the buildings start spacing out the farther we get away from Lower Broadway.

  “I don’t care about your past, Livia.”

  I can’t look at him. “But you have to care about it, Bryan. My past is not exactly conducive to a public life. There are going to be risks to being seen in public with you and I need you to know and understand all the risks. Once you know, you and Liam can decide for yourselves what it is you want to do. He will be able to tell you what exactly I’m up against. If you decide you don’t want to have that kind of influence in your life, your career and most importantly, your reputation, I will understand and walk away.”

  No need to add that I will disappear completely. From Ireland’s life and from Bryan and Liam’s life. I’ve done it before, and I will do it again.

  “I have no intentions of walking away.”

  “You say that now, but you don’t even know the half of it,” I tell him.

  We spend the rest of the ride in silence while I mull over what I need to say, what I need to tell them.

  Just when I’m figuring it all out, we pull into a gated driveway. I can’t see anything beyond the gate and some large trees, but the big iron gate is a huge indication that I’m meddling somewhere I don’t belong.

  Being in a hotel room in Phoenix, be it the penthouse or not, doesn’t allow someone the inclination of what their life is like. This is his home. Where he spends his time when he’s not on the road. It would only make sense that it’s huge.

  We round a corner on the driveway and the trees give way to open land. A lot of open land. Though there are trees surrounding the property, the house that sits in the middle is not what I was expecting to see. It’s a ranch house. Albeit, a very long, ranch house. Much of the house is two stories, except on the ends it drops down to one story for about the length of a normal house. “Wow,” I breathe.

  “You like it?”

  “It’s gorgeous, Bryan,” I tell him.

  The house is white, with black shutters on either side of all the windows. The roof is a steep A-line that dips low, and there are pillars on either side of the doorway.

&n
bsp; Bryan pulls off to the left, into a barn that’s been turned into a garage. “Holy shit,” I squeak as my eyes roam around the open area of the garage barn. There are four cars that line the sides of the barn and another everyday kind of car in the center where we pull in.

  My eyes land on the Aston Martin parked toward the back then follow to the other side of the garage where there is a… “Is that a sixty-seven?”

  He turns his head to look at me, his eyes wide with surprise. “You know your cars?”

  “Hell yeah,” I tell him with a grin on my face. “Growing up in New York, cars were something you didn’t need or didn’t have, but it made for a great obsession. The cars you did see were usually high-end. So, it became a fun little game for me to figure out the makes and models of cars as I walked past them on the streets.”

  Bryan laughs, “That’s one way to become obsessed. Come on, come look.” He smiles as he opens his door and climbs out. I follow him with excitement and bound over to a Corvette.

  “She’s gorgeous,” I say as I take in the sleek curves of the most gorgeous car I’ve ever seen in person. It’s shiny cherry red and perfect. “Did you do any work to her or did you just buy her this way?”

  “I mostly bought her this way. I did do some work and had her repainted. Unfortunately, the engine was in perfect condition, but the previous owner didn’t take a lot of pride in her exterior and the interior was worn pretty well.”

  “How many miles are on her?”

  He smiles wider. “Only about sixty thousand.”

  “Damn, she’s worth a pretty penny.”

  “Wanna drive her?”

  I stare at him without blinking. “Uh, no.”

  “She purrs like a kitten.” The spark in his eye as he talks about his car is something I’ve only seen when he looks at me and it sends my heart racing in my chest.

  “I bet she does, but I would never forgive myself if I scratched her or worse,” I admit truthfully.

  “Then I’ll take you for a ride sometime.”

  “I’d like that very much,” I respond softly and he comes over to tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear.

  “Good. Wanna look at anything else?”

  I shake my head and look at him through hooded eyes. His proximity and the adrenaline from the car have my blood racing in my ears. The only thing I hear is the sound of my own heartbeat. That is until another car pulls into the garage and breaking the trance. Liam is back.

  I cringe. “You should park that p.o.s. in the street.”

  “Hardly.” He reaches for my hand and leads me toward the opening of the garage. We walk past a series of bikes, six in all. Two Harleys and a couple others I can’t identify. Bikes aren’t my thing, but I don’t mind riding on them. The vehicle opposite the bikes is a Tesla, the expensive one. The car we parked behind is a Nissan Moreno, not something I would expect amongst the Escalade SUV and everything else, but I wonder idly if it’s Liam’s.

  Liam climbs out of my car and hands me the keys. “She’s all filled up.”

  “Thanks, how much do I owe you?”

  He shrugs it off, “No worries.”

  I roll my eyes but let it go. I can tell an argument will be futile and not worth it.

  “She wants to talk, to both of us,” Bryan shares with Liam.

  “I had a feeling she might,” Liam says looking at me. The look is oddly reassuring and I give him a small, worried smile.

  “Are you busy?” I ask Liam.

  “Not at all, lass.” He smiles at me, again reassuring me.

  “Let’s go inside,” Bryan says. “I’ll give you the nickel tour.”

  He leads the way toward the house and I look around the open property. There are a couple horses in the distance.

  “You ride?” Bryan asks me.

  I shake my head. “Never have, but I think they’re beautiful animals.”

  “I’ll take you sometime.”

  “You’re sure making promises for a future with me…” I whisper before he cuts me off.

  “Because, it doesn’t matter to me what your past holds, but I need you to know that you can tell me anything. I won’t have secrets between us, Livia.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I mutter remembering Ireland’s reaction. I’d known her for years and she still needed time to come to grips with what I’d told her about my past and the things I’ve done to keep my life moving forward. Yes, she’s come back around, and we’ve talked since then, but that initial rejection still stings, hard.

  Bryan opens the door to his home and ushers me inside. Liam follows us inside and Bryan punches some numbers into a keypad near the door, deactivating the alarm.

  “You two hungry?”

  “No,” I say.

  “Yes,” Bryan says at the same time.

  Liam chuckles, “I’ll work on some food while you show her around the house.” He disappears down the hallway.

  The house is wide open. You can see from one side of the house to the other on the lower level. The décor is everything you’d expect in a country home. It reminds me more of a log cabin with rich wood floors and wooden accents. The furniture is sparse, but what is there looks masculine and inviting.

  On one end of the lower level of his house are three bedrooms and four bathrooms. One common one and each bedroom has its own. The rooms downstairs are obviously guest rooms or never used because they’re quite stale when compared to the rest of the house.

  On the other side of the house is a ‘playroom’ with bar décor, a pool table and a built-in bar. The room is bigger the apartment I shared with Ireland. It’s obvious this room gets used quite a bit and it makes me smile. It means he’s capable of letting loose occasionally. Reminds me that the superstar is human.

  Beyond the playroom is another door. Bryan points out that it’s Liam’s area. It’s basically his own apartment within the house. It has a bathroom, a kitchen and a second small bedroom. Then the house turns to the left, toward the backyard.

  “This is where I spend much of my time,” he says as way of introduction before ushering me forward. And the house changes, taking on an entirely different demeanor as I step from hardwood to tile floor. There is a door ahead of us but there are also two more doors on either side of the hallway.

  “This,” he opens the door on the left, “is a spare bedroom.” I look inside and see the bed is a mess, like it was slept in last night. “I sleep here a lot when I’m working. Sometimes it’s just too far to walk upstairs,” he explains before closing the door and turning and opening the door on the right. “This is my office,” he smiles as he ushers me inside.

  I step inside and while it’s messy, typical male, it’s nonetheless a gorgeous office. It’s long and narrow, but still spacious. There is wood paneling on the walls that match the rest of the house. At one end of the room is a sitting area with several pieces of paper scattered on the coffee table. Up on the wall are a series of six flat screens. Most of which are on. The top three have various news outlets playing, though there is no sound. Below them, in the bottom row, one screen is running a screensaver like it’s tied to a computer, the other has something I can’t quite make out and the last one is off.

  I point to the one I don’t understand, the one in the middle. “What’s that one doing?”

  He smiles at my curiosity. “It’s monitoring social media,” he explains as he walks toward it. “It runs twenty-four seven so I can see various things that are happening.” He gets a little closer. “Come here,” he says with excitement.

  I walk to him, skirting the coffee table and I see there are four different things on the screen, one for each of the major social media outlets, and he points to the side of a couple of the panels. “These are trending lists,” he explains. “Look at the top of the list,” he tells me.

  I do, and I see two at the top of each list, one is Bryan Hayes and the other is ‘Fate Has a Reason’. “Wow, congrats, Bryan. That’s awesome.”

  “That didn’t take long,�
�� he mutters as he touches the screen and the screen changes, pulling up one of the media outlets and he starts scanning the messages.

  “And what’s the verdict?” I ask him. Unsure if I want to know. He doesn’t seem all too thrilled with whatever he’s looking at.

  Then a smile as wide as Texas spreads across his face. “Well, there is one way to know for sure,” he says as he reaches over to the monitor that’s turned off. It flickers to life and looks a lot like the one we’re standing in front of.

  “What’s that one?”

  “This one is always off. If I leave it on, I’ll stand here and stare at it forever.”

  “Why?”

  He chuckles, “Because this is the one that shows sales. This one tells me how many sales have happened, both in pre-orders for the new album, single sales and then previous album sales. From here I can see where my songs rank on the various charts for sales outlets.” He looks at it a little closer. “Here,” he points to something on the screen, then his finger traces to the other side. “These are the two major outlets for digital album sales and their charts. Look.” There is a little more excitement in his voice as I look at the charts.

  “Number one? On both?” I say, shocked.

  “Uh huh,” he says in such a way that tells me he’s not sure how to put it into words.

  “Congratulations, the song is really awesome.”

  His eyes meet mine. That look of pure happiness in his eyes once again. “I wrote it for you.”

  I blush as red as a cherry. I can feel the heat in my cheeks as he looks at me. “I know,” I breathe. I can’t let him see how much that song truly affected me. If I do that, I’ll never be able to walk away from him when I tell him everything.

  “Come on,” he says, taking my hand. “I have one more room to show you.”

  I nod, but don’t say anything. And I don’t remind him that he hasn’t shown me upstairs yet. Maybe it’s better if I don’t see upstairs, at least not right now.

  Bryan leads me by the hand through the doorway and back into the hallway. He takes me to the door at the end of the long hallway that is his house. He opens the door and my jaw drops. Beyond the door is a mixing room and beyond that room is a small recording studio. “You record here?” I ask.