WILDER: A Rockstar Romance

by Lux, Vivian

  "No signs at all. They said whoever did it must have had a key." Her voice rose in a panic as my mind flashed to how? How? How? Did he sweet-talk my super? Did he swipe it from my desk and make a copy before he was canned? Oh shit, sometimes I left my purse in the drawer when I ran to the ladies room. Was it then? Was this my fault? It had to be my fault. I got so lazy sometimes, it totally would serve me right. Had he planned this all along? What was he hoping to find when he went into my apartment? Was he hoping to surprise me and...then what? What was he going to do to me once he was in there?

  And then, just as quickly as these thoughts raced through my head, they were replaced with one bright red blaring warning sign.

  He knows where I am.

  He knows how to find me.

  They flashed through my brain like a slideshow of carelessness. All the things I had in my apartment that pointed to where I was...right now. The confirmation numbers written neatly on the pad on my counter. The printed itinerary, the tour schedule.

  "He has a key, Scarlett." Zoe's voice cut through my terror, repeating like the tolling of a distant bell. "He has a key."

  He knows where I am.

  He's coming.

  Chapter 33

  Keir

  "Welcome Home, Wilder Boys!" the banner across the ballroom doorway screamed in the shittiest gothic font I'd ever seen.

  Balzac crossed arms over his beefy chest and grunted in dissatisfaction. "Did you fuckers adopt me when I wasn't looking?"

  "Guess I'll have to strap on my spare penis," Pepper drawled, cupping her groin and spitting over her shoulder.

  Rane shook his head and laughed. "Okay, I'll go talk to Keith." He rolled his eyes.

  I stared up at the banner. "That's…kind of a dick move," I observed. "Sorry, guys."

  Playing our last show on this leg of the tour to a sold-out audience at Ralph Wilson Stadium—"The Ralph," as Twitch kept annoyingly referring to it, complete with mimed puke-faces—was wild enough. But now we were at the massive afterparty, and that was what made me feel like a real rock star. To be back home again, where it all started...fuck, I needed a beer before I started getting all emotional and shit.

  I wished the radio station hadn't fucked up the banner, though. Ruthless was more than just me and Rane.

  In seconds, Keith was at our side. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he shrilled, every syllable going higher in his vocal register. "It's this dumbass radio station, bunch of local yokels. I'll have them take it down, put up one with the actual band name."

  "Nah, man." Twitch shook his head. "Give it to me. I'm gonna hang that shit in my living room back at home. I think it's pretty cool!" he enthused.

  "You don't have to pretend, Twitch," I offered.

  "I'm not pretending!"

  "Then you're creepy," Pepper declared. "Maybe ask him for a lock of his hair next?"

  I chuckled. "Sorry about this, guys. I'll buy this round."

  "Like hell you are. I'm making sure they are paying for your drinks tonight." Keith coughed, then went over to yell at someone.

  I looked back at the rest of the band and shrugged. "Hey, I tried?"

  Insulting banners aside, WGRX put on one hell of a party. And though I didn't know anyone there, and parties in general tended to piss me off, I soon found the secret stash of Labatt Blue and began to make short work of them.

  Over the sound system they were playing remixes of our big hits, and everyone in attendance seemed to be some sort of super fan. It was enough to make everything go to your head, having an entire room full of people sing along to your song, their eyes rolling back in their heads like they were undergoing some religious experience. Twice I had to slip out of the grasp of some overeager female fan. Overeager to either fuck me or devour me, I couldn't really tell the difference.

  I looked up at one point, wondering if Scarlett was as uncomfortable as I was.

  These past three days I had barely seen her. And when I did, she had her ear jammed against her phone. When she'd see me, her eyes would go wide and she would turn her back and walk away, out of earshot, her shoulders slumped under the weight of all of her secrets.

  I knew she was here now. But she was nowhere to be seen.

  And I was half-drunk and sick of her avoiding me.

  "Have you seen Scar?" I nudged Twitch.

  He pogoed in place, all six-foot-five of him, his scalp nearly scraping the ceiling. "I see her!" he yelled, drawing several odd glances. "She's on her phone, over in the corner there. By the coat check."

  I thanked him and began elbowing and smiling my way through the throngs of people.

  She lowered her phone and stared at it for a second, then startled when she saw me in front of her. I saw her eyes dart around like a trapped animal and I felt bad for a second. I had her backed into a literal corner, but somehow I knew this was the only way I was going to get her to talk to me.

  "What going on with you?" I demanded.

  I expected her to square off and start yelling at me. It's what we'd been doing this whole trip, honestly. Me badgering her for clarity, and her getting defensive. It was getting fucking old.

  Instead, she sighed and shoved her phone into the pocket of her jeans, and once more I was struck by just how fucking beautiful she was. Her skin looked paler than it should be, the skin around her eyes drawn tight with fatigue. Or worry. I was seized with the need I always had. To take her worries, make them my own. I wanted to fix it just as much as I wanted to know what it was.

  "A lot," she finally said. "A lot is going on."

  I leaned against the wall. "Why don't you tell me? I bet I can help you."

  She looked up, her mouth working, and for a second I thought she was going to spill it. Whatever it was, I could see it there on the tip of her tongue. "There's a lot of things you probably could help me with, Keir," she finally said. "But I've got this. It's behind me. Or, almost, anyway." She looked up at the deejay, the banners advertising Buffalo's Rock Station. "It doesn't bother you?"

  "What doesn't?"

  She gestured. "This. Being back here?"

  "No."

  "Lucky."

  I licked my lips, feeling about two inches tall. I hadn't even thought of that, inviting her along on this tour. Never even considered how she would feel being back in our hometown. The memories it would stir. "Fuck," I said. "Your family... Are you okay?"

  She lifted her chin. "They don't know I'm here, right? I can just pretend this is any other city and we're just passing through." But her lip wobbled a little, and she sagged. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm being an idiot."

  My hands went out to catch her, to hold her. I hesitated for only a moment before the membrane of hurt that squeezed my heart tight finally burst, and I pulled her to me with a sigh.

  "Let's go somewhere quiet," I told her, entwining my fingers in hers. The music thudded around us, but I knew what to do. "Hang on," I called to her, then caught Caleb's eye through the crowd and cocked my head. "Is there roof access?" I asked him when he came over.

  "Sure thing, boss," he smiled, waggling his eyebrows.

  I rolled my eyes.

  He spoke into his Bluetooth for a second, then nodded and led the way. Scarlett kept her head down but closed her fingers even more tightly around mine as we climbed a hidden set of fire stairs off the main ballroom. At the top was a heavy, nondescript door. Caleb pushed it open.

  The city twinkled around us in the soft, warm night. Traffic rushed by in Niagara Square below and the night was so clear the lights of the Peace Bridge twinkled like a necklace across the river to the north. It was home, and it was beautiful in a way that made my heart squeeze like a fist.

  But Scarlett wasn't looking at any of it. She hid her face in my shoulder like she was trying to shut out the existence of the city itself.

  Chapter 34

  Scarlett

  I had been waiting for the phone call for three agonizing days, but when it finally came, I almost missed it over the din of the party around me.
r />   "Hello? I'm here, I'm here. What did you say?"

  The officer on the other line sighed. "...can certainly press charges..."

  I had scurried over to the coat check to try to find some privacy. I shoved the heel of my hand into my ear and closed my eyes, trying to block everything out except the words she was saying.

  They weren't good.

  "...claims he came by the key legitimately. Your word against his."

  "What can I do?" I breathed.

  "In instances of domestic violence like this…" My heart had stalled at the words and I nearly missed the rest of what she was saying. "…unless they violate some sort of restraining order."

  "Restraining order?"

  "Yes, ma'am, that would be what I'd advise you to do. That way, if he comes anywhere near you again, even if we can't prove he's taken anything, we still get him for the order of protection violation."

  I licked my lips. I was about to fix this. It was almost over, right now. I could be free of Kevin and this fear and move forward with Keir and finally tell him everything without the worry that it would come back and bite me...

  "Yes," I had said. "I'd like to file a restraining order.

  *****

  Now Keir was holding me, and I was holding him, but instead of feeling the relief I craved, the panic still coursed through my body unchecked. Keir gently pulled back. "Scar, what's wrong?"

  "Nothing." It had to be nothing. I was safe now, the order of protection being filed first thing in the morning. It had to be nothing.

  Saying it made it true, right?

  "Truth, baby."

  I swallowed. "I don't want to say it. Because I don't want to admit it."

  "Well, given as how I have yet to acquire the power to read your mind, much as I've prayed for it, you're going to have to tell me so I can help you—"

  "Fix it?" I finished for him, finally looking up from his chest and meeting his gray-blue eyes.

  He chuckled and leaned in, brushing his lips lightly across mine. "Well, what the hell else am I going to do?"

  "You could try ignoring my melodrama for once?"

  "Would you stop diminishing everything? If it bothers you, then it bothers me. That's just how it goes."

  I chewed on the inside of my lip. "That...takes some getting used to."

  "Hopefully not too long." He smiled. "Otherwise, I'm just going to record myself saying it and keep a tape recorder in my pocket." He tipped my chin up so that in the dark his eyes were the only thing I could see. "Now, spill it."

  The sound of the party died away around us, the music, the laughter. There was only him and me.

  I felt...safe.

  "It's… Here," I realized.

  "Here? This roof? This hotel?"

  "This city."

  "Buffalo?"

  I nodded.

  "It's too…close." I twisted my fingers around themselves. "I haven't been back on the East Coast since, well, since I left, honestly."

  "Five years?"

  I nodded. "Five years." A hysterical little laugh sprang from my lips before I could catch it. "You'd think that'd be enough, right? I mean, I've been all over this country with you. It's just another city; it doesn't mean anything. I mean, it's not even my home anymore. I have no ties, nothing keeping me here anymore. In fact, I could just leave right now, and none of my family would even know I was here."

  My voice was rising. "But that's just it. I'm here, and they don't know I'm here. I feel guilty for that, but why do I feel guilty for that?" Keir raised his eyebrows, and I understood. This outburst was startling me even as it was pouring out of me. I thought it was Kevin that had me so on edge, but it went so, so much deeper than that.

  "It's not like I owe them anything," I said, stepping back and starting to pace. "Except I feel like I still do. I feel like if I don't go and try to see them, that everything they said about me being a terrible person, a terrible daughter, well, that'd be true, right?" I whirled and directed this question right at Keir, who only shrugged helplessly. I nodded. "Yes. They'll be right about me, and yet, if I do go see them, I'll be falling back right into their trap."

  I laughed, and it sounded strange in my ears, not mine at all. "Everything they said about me will be right if I go, because then I will still need them and I will still be part of the family, and they will still have a hold on me in spite of everything I've done to try to get rid of it!"

  Suddenly, the frantic energy that had been propelling me forward, making me pace like a jungle cat in a cage, left me, and I sagged onto the gravel-topped roof. The stones bit into my thighs as I slumped on the ground, but I welcomed the pain. "So I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know why I'm up here freaking out, because no matter what I do—go or stay—they are still right, and I'm still wrong and…and…"

  His hands moved over my shoulders, down my arms, and he knelt and held me tight, flush and warm against his chest. "Scarlett, Scarlett," he murmured, over and over again until it became a kind of chant, with no meaning other than soothing, warming love.

  Love.

  This is what love feels like.

  That's what this is.

  The trembling that had only started to dissipate under his soothing touch began again, but this time, I was trembling not with panic but realization.

  I realized...I had never felt like this.

  I was in love.

  I thought love was supposed to be pain. The house I grew up in, the parents I had, the boyfriend I lived with after that—each one of them burned into my brain that love was a toxic thing, full of drama and tears and retribution.

  I was completely wrong. Love was sitting next to me, quietly taking my hand and letting me cry without shushing me. Love was listening to everything I said without interruption. Love accepted me as I fell apart and had the grace not to gather the pieces before I was ready. Love had always been there for me, waiting for me to stop running and notice it.

  Keir loved me, but I never took it seriously because I didn't know, until this moment, what love really was.

  Unconditional.

  "Keir, I love you," I blurted. Then I pulled back and bit my knuckle when I saw I had gotten snot on his shirt.

  The four words seemed to hit him in slow motion. First, the slow blinking of his eyes, then the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. Then a slow, spreading smile growing wider and wider like the sliver of sun rising above the horizon at the dawn of a new day.

  I started to cry before he even said the words.

  "I love you, Scarlett," he said simply. Just stating a fact, as true as anything. "I always, always have."

  Then he held me. Held me as the crying quieted, then came again, then quieted once more until the only thing left was the steady beat of his heart as I listened with my head against his chest.

  "Here's what we're going to do," he finally said.

  It was the dead of night; even the streets below us were hushed. The party had ebbed away, shouted laughter no longer bubbling up from the ballroom below. The music was over. We had missed everything. What was there left to do?

  I turned to look at him.

  He slid my hair behind my ear and wiped the tear that hung on the tip of my nose. "Here's what we're doing now, Scar. We are going to go to Wallace Street." I twitched a little, but he pressed on. "We're not going to call, we're not going to tell them where we are, we're just going to go. And when we're there, you're going to tell me exactly what you're feeling. Can you do that for me?"

  I licked my lips, then nodded slowly. "I love you," he repeated, entwining his fingers with mine.

  "I know," I said. "I know you do."

  *****

  Keir drove slowly down the quiet streets, the way etched into his muscle memory even with driving an unfamiliar rental car. I watched out the window, feeling protected by the dark, the quiet...the man beside me.

  There were things that were different, but there was still so much that was the same. They had replaced the playground equipme
nt at the corner public school, but the brick building was still squat and ugly and surrounded by chain-link fence. The house on the corner was no longer obscured by a massive pine tree, but it still had the white flower boxes in the front windows. As Keir's headlights swept around the corner, I sucked in my breath hard and squeezed my eyes shut. "I'm not ready…" I heard myself say.

  Out of the darkness, I heard Keir say, "Yes. You are."

  I opened my eyes when he stopped. Peering out into the darkness, I tried to make out where we were. The sun was just starting to light the horizon a pale turquoise blue, but overhead, the stars were still twinkling, winking in and out of the scuttling shapes of dark clouds.

  The house in front of us was all wrong.

  "This is it?" I exhaled.

  "This is it."

  I looked up and down the block, certain that he must be mistaken. "It looks so…small…"

  He shook his head minutely. "No, still the same size." He looked over at me. "It's you that's bigger."

  Chapter 35

  Keir

  I let her stare as long as she needed to. She glared at the Sawyer house, then winced, guilt passing across her face like a shadow. Then she sighed and closed her eyes, tired of it all. Tired of carrying this place around on her back, dragging her past behind her.

  I knew what she was feeling because I was feeling it too.

  The past wound its way around my heart as we sat here. The garage where Ruthless had started was sagging inward now. Whoever moved in after my father left was an even worse housekeeper than we were. The whole place seemed to have collapsed inward, like the soul had been sucked out when we moved.

  I wanted to be sad about that.

  But I wasn't.

  Because it was over.

  The edges of the clouds were starting to go blush pink now. Scarlett was leaning back in her seat, eyes closed, asleep for all I knew, her regular, gentle sips of breath quiet and peaceful. Something warm and flowing moved through me.

  I fixed this.

  I finally fixed it for her.

  The Sawyer house was not looming large and overpowering in her mind anymore. I had shown her how small the past really was, and even better, she had let me show her. She had trusted me enough to let me shine a light on the dark shadow that followed her everywhere.