Love Today

by Delaney, Delia

  I chuckled and said, “Not if you’d rather repulse me.”

  “Oh. Then give me a few hours first, okay?”

  “Jared…”

  “I’m kidding. Come on over. But if you sell my address to anyone, you and I are through.”

  “Okay,” I smiled. “Deal.”

  “I’ll text it to you. See ya soon.”

  Maggie and I arrived at his house on Lake Stevens around three. I wasn’t really surprised I guess, being that he was a famous rock star and all. His house was beautiful, and it was right on the water. He even had his own boat launch with a huge deck attached to it, and a tennis court.

  “I didn’t know you played tennis,” I said when he came outside to greet us.

  It was the first thing I could think of to say to him to block out the lyrics that kept running through my head, and then I headed for the trunk to get his gift.

  “I don’t,” he shrugged with a smile. “I keep meaning to try it though. Maybe you and I should have a match.”

  “I would smoke you.”

  “You play tennis?”

  “Even if I didn’t I would smoke you.”

  He laughed, just as Maggie wrangled out of her booster seat and found her way out of the car.

  “Hey there, Princess Maggie!” Jared greeted her.

  “We have a birthday present for you!” she exclaimed. “It’s a—”

  He covered her mouth before she could finish and it made me laugh.

  “Maggie, don’t ruin the surprise,” he said. “I mean I’m already thrilled, but it’d be nice to—” He stopped short when I pulled it out of my trunk and then said, “Holy cow.”

  “It’s a candy bouquet!” Maggie informed him, ripping his hand off her face.

  “Yeah, I guess it is,” he replied as I brought it to him.

  “I figured you weren’t too picky, so there’s a little of everything,” I said.

  “Man, that is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.” He kind of leafed through it with his hands as I held it, noticing all of the different candy and other little details like the pinwheel and all the curly ribbons everywhere. “Jeez, how does someone think of something like this?”

  “You’ve never seen a candy bouquet?” I asked.

  “Uh, I’m not sure. I don’t think so. At least nothing like this. I’ve gotten, like, food baskets, and uh…alcohol and stuff but…never a fancy candy thingy. Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome. It’s the least we could do to thank you for giving us such a great Halloween on your own birthday. Here, take it,” I smiled. “It’s heavy.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Well hey, come on in.”

  He turned to head for the house, and Maggie followed right behind, stopping briefly to touch a stone statue by his garage. I was a little hesitant, however. It was one thing to drop something off as a birthday gift, but it was another thing to stay at his house for long.

  He glanced back when he realized I hadn’t moved yet and he stopped. “What’s the matter?”

  “Uh…I’m not sure we have time to stay.”

  “How come?” he asked, trying to glance at his watch while holding the big basket in his hands.

  “Um…”

  Maggie was already to the porch, wondering what the hold up was. Jared decided to open the door for her, and he came back outside with empty hands.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, coming across the drive. “I thought you could stay for a while so I have dinner in the oven.”

  “You cook?” I sort of smiled.

  “Not really, but I can make enchiladas. Come on,” he motioned.

  The only reason I went with him at that moment was because my niece was inside a home unsupervised. Other than that, I would have turned for my car and hightailed it out of there. But I guess Maggie could take care of herself since she was cuddled up with a giant white bulldog in Jared’s living room. It was the cutest thing I ever saw, and I wished I had my camera with me. I used my phone instead, glad for at least something to capture the moment with.

  “That’s Clyde,” Jared told her. “Man, he sure loves you.” Maggie giggled as she continued to pet the dog, and to me he added, “He’s the most mellow dog I’ve ever known, which also means he’s the laziest.”

  “He’s cute,” I said. “How old is he?”

  “Uh…three I think.”

  “How do you keep a dog when you tour all the time?”

  “Uh, well, I never planned on having a dog. He was kind of a gift from a girlfriend. I had no problem forgetting everything about her except…I had to keep the dog. He and I just kind of meshed.”

  “He was probably easier to get along with than she was.”

  He laughed and nodded his head. “Uh, yeah. Definitely. You familiar with Serena Sloan?”

  “The crazy rocker chick?”

  “Yep,” he smiled. “And she’s just as neurotic in real life.”

  “You dated her?”

  “Well, I’m not really sure. It was less than two weeks, but long enough for her to think she needed to tie me down with her animal offerings,” he nodded to the dog. “One day I found this thing curled up on my couch in L.A. I told her to get lost a few days later because she drove me nuts with her stupid, crazy phone calls all the time. But I wouldn’t let her take Clyde. She even took me to court.”

  “For a dog?”

  “Yep, only because she knew I wanted to keep him.”

  “So obviously you won.”

  “Yeah, because he was a ‘gift.’ ”

  “A gift of crazy love,” I teased.

  “Yeah, and you have no idea how many times I wondered if she possessed him somehow. I thought she trained him to kill me in my sleep.”

  I laughed out loud. “Oh, my gosh. You were paranoid of a puppy?”

  “Yes,” he scoffed. “I’m telling you…people that have been in L.A. too long… It’s just crazy.”

  “Hmm. Then I guess I never have to wonder if the stories of her have been blown out of proportion.”

  “No, she’s that insane.”

  “And you were drawn to her…why?”

  With a smile he nodded. “Yeah, I know. But she can have her totally humane moments, and I guess that’s when I met her. I thought, ‘Hey, she’s not as bad as everyone says she is,’ so we became friends. And in her defense, she is pretty funny. But a lot of her antics are just for attention and I don’t care for stuff like that—I’m a very private person. At the time I was a little stressed out about our current album, so it was kind of a relief to be around her—someone kind of carefree. But then she just got crazy with the phone calls. It was insane. And I really didn’t want to be tied in with all of her publicity stunts. Anyways, let’s not talk about her anymore.”

  “Well I wouldn’t even consider her a former girlfriend if I were you,” I said. “I mean two weeks? So there; case closed.”

  “Good, that’s what I thought too. Well get out of my entryway,” he motioned, trying to get me to follow him into the living room.

  He could sense my hesitation and he just looked at me for a long time. Finally I did come into the house a little further, and I wasn’t sure if one of us was going to say something or not, but it was Maggie that asked, “Do you have swimming pool?”

  Jared looked at her still sitting on the floor with the dog and replied, “Uh, no I don’t. But I have a lake,” he pointed to the back of the house.

  Maggie got up and ran to the windows that lined the family room and put her hands against them to peer outside.

  “Honey, don’t put your hands on the glass,” I told her as I followed after her. She pulled them off to look at the handprints she’d left, and then tried to wipe them off—which made it worse.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jared said as he joined us. He opened the back door to the deck and motioned us to follow.

  “Cool, that’s your lake?” Maggie asked, totally impressed.

  “No, that’s not just mine,” he chuckled. “But tha
t’s my dock right there…and my boat is there in the boat shed.”

  “You have a boat?”

  “Yeah, just a small one. Maybe you and Taryn can come on it with me sometime next summer.”

  “Yeah! Can we, Taryn?”

  I shrugged uncomfortably. “Um, we’ll see.”

  “Do you want to see the rest of the house?” Jared asked us.

  “Yes!” Maggie answered.

  I guess I didn’t really have a say because they were already headed inside. But Jared did wait for me at the door and asked, “Is that okay?”

  “Yeah, that’s fine. But we need to get going pretty soon.”

  “You’re really not going to stay for dinner?”

  “Um…”

  “You mean you’re expecting Zack and you don’t want to explain why you’re not home?”

  “No, that’s not it. He wouldn’t mind. I mean he doesn’t keep tabs on me or anything and—”

  “Come on!” Maggie begged excitedly. She took Jared’s hand and pulled him along, so I just followed after them.

  The tour of Jared’s house took almost an hour, not because it was gigantic or anything, but because Maggie had to touch almost everything. I didn’t like her doing that unless she had permission, so every ten seconds she would ask Jared, “Can I touch it?”

  It’s not that he had anything exquisite, but she did think his jukebox was cool, and there were some really cool chairs in the billiards room that she couldn’t get enough of. He had several masks on the wall of one room that she was fascinated with, and some swords and shields in another. One of the bedrooms had lava lamps that she wanted to turn on, so while those got heated up, we explored another couple of rooms and then came back.

  I thought his recording studio would be a different story. I knew there was a lot of expensive equipment in there, and I figured he wouldn’t want her to touch anything. But Jared didn’t mind at all, and he let her play with almost everything in there with his help. There were some guitars on the wall that he asked her not to touch though; he told her they were special to him and they needed to stay safe. I figured they were gifts from friends, or maybe other musicians. When I walked by, I noticed the signature on one of them.

  “Does that say Pete Townshend?” I asked.

  Jared stopped playing the keyboard with Maggie and looked my way. “Uh, yeah. The only cool present my dad ever gave me.”

  “Did he get it through an auction or something?”

  “No, he had it signed in person years ago. My dad kept it in his house all the years I was growing up, and threatened me to never touch it.” He smiled and added, “If he knew I use to anyways, he probably would have never given it to me.”

  I looked over the guitar with interest, along with three other autographed guitars that were hanging next to it. I studied Kurt Cobain’s signature on a baby blue Fender Jaguar. There were so many musicians that had died because of careless lifestyles. It was sad to me and I was glad that Jared wasn’t like that.

  A sound caught my attention. Jared had an acoustic guitar on his lap as he let Maggie mess around with some digital drums. He was paying attention to her, answering her questions and encouraging her, but he was also on autopilot as he strummed the guitar without thinking.

  I sat on a stool across from him and he looked at me, but he also stopped playing. “You getting bored?” he smiled. “I’ll skip the tour of my vintage banjos and mandolins.”

  I laughed but shook my head. “I’m not bored. You really have vintage banjos?”

  He grinned. “Actually I do. But they’re in my L.A. home. But I’ll definitely have to show you sometime.”

  I felt uncomfortable with his gaze because he was literally waiting for me to offer some sort of reply. Tour Jared Miller’s L.A. home and view another part of his life as a musician? Absolutely. Spend more time with the man that wouldn’t stop making my heart race… That was another story.

  “Play something for me,” I said, changing the subject.

  He lifted an eyebrow and then shrugged. “What do you want to hear?”

  Wow, what did I want to hear. And suddenly my thoughts drifted back to the most recent song he’d given me, and my mouth became dry. He wasn’t at the piano, but I had no doubt he could play it on a guitar, too. I couldn’t let that happen, so my brain had to think quickly.

  “I heard you do a pretty wicked cover of ‘Wish You Were Here.’ ”

  He raised both eyebrows, obviously surprised. “You want to hear some Floyd?”

  I shrugged. “I would listen to anything you played. It was just a suggestion. You don’t have to if—”

  “No, that’s cool,” he seemed to assure me. “I love that song but… I’ve never actually played it in a show or anything.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling embarrassed. How did I think he had? Recently I’d read something…

  Then I remembered. It was on a Breaking Point video that I’d watched, kind of a behind-the-scenes thing from their last tour. Jack was filming Kurt eating Coco Puffs, but then there was Jared in the back of the bus, playing an acoustic guitar. “Oh, and the master is at work,” Jack had whispered, and we got a glimpse of Jared sitting on the edge of a bed playing “Wish You Were Here” without knowing he had an audience.

  “Well anyways,” Jared said, bringing me back from my private memory. “Yeah, I’ll play that. Don’t think I’ve ever played it for anyone though,” he playfully muttered with a smile.

  “Oh. Does it have special meaning to you or—?”

  “No,” he chuckled. “I’m just joking.”

  Without further words, he began the song. I was instantly thrilled, like a teenager that was being given a private performance by her favorite rock star.

  Okay, so half of that was true.

  But man, was it heartbreaking when he began to sing. My insides turned to hot molten lava with the sound of his voice. Of course I was familiar with his sound—way too familiar now—but this…him right in front of me, singing and playing…

  I was so screwed.

  Maggie climbed onto my lap to listen, and instead of looking into Jared’s eyes, I focused on his hands instead, fascinated by how well they created such a sound. It was five minutes of love and hate, and thank God Maggie took over the praise when he was done and told him he sounded “super cool.” I was honestly speechless and could only offer a quiet applause.

  When the house tour was over, we headed back upstairs and Maggie was immediately content with Clyde again—who hadn’t even moved from his spot in the living room.

  While her attention was directed elsewhere Jared asked, “So when are you going to give me your honest opinion about the song?”

  Okay, so I didn’t get away with it for long. “Oh, uh, it was great. Beautiful. I mean your voice is a bit coarser and just…” I wanted to say sexier, but held my tongue. “It was honestly better than the original. Not even kidding.”

  He smiled uneasily, like I’d said something totally wrong. “Taryn, I wasn’t talking about that down there,” he said, pointing towards the basement. “I’m talking about the other song.”

  “What song?”

  He lightly laughed, but it seemed a little bitter. “Don’t give me that. It’s why you’re so uncomfortable around me, isn’t it?”

  My heart started hammering in my chest and my thoughts reverted to my own bedroom, listening to Jared’s very personal, very heartfelt message to me.

  “I told you you weren’t ready to hear it, and I was right,” he sort of shrugged. He was obviously disappointed, but my fear encouraged me to be defensive again.

  “Maybe next time go with your instincts, then,” I barely mumbled.

  He scarcely nodded. “And what if I already did?”

  I sighed, feeling totally unequipped to have this particular conversation with him. I wanted to run out of there, hop in my car and not look back.

  “Taryn, you made me a promise. You said that you’d give me your honest opinion. I gave you the song trust
ing that you would do just that. I want to know what you think of it.”

  “It was beautiful, okay? It had to be the most incredible song I’ve ever heard, and I listened to it over and over, and it made me cry, damn it. And I put in on repeat and I listened to it all night long. Okay? Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Uh, yeah I guess, but maybe without the hostility.”

  “I’m not—”

  I stopped short and took a deep breath. I did feel a little annoyed, but it was because I felt so vulnerable at that moment. How could he write such a song for me? Some of the words in it…the things he said… I just couldn’t have him doing that when I was already in a relationship with someone else.

  “I don’t mean to sound angry because I’m not,” I said quietly, trying to fight off the tears threatening to appear. “I’m just not good on the spot, I guess. I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

  “I know.”

  “And I’m not a genius, but I get the feeling that—” He paused and glanced back at Maggie, and then in a quieter tone continued with, “I get the feeling that you want this, Taryn.” He motioned between us. “I mean I can feel it right now. Can’t you? I know you can because why else would you be here?”

  I didn’t answer. I was afraid to with my heart pounding and my emotions fighting with each other. I wasn’t capable of making a response other than—

  “Uh, Maggie, we need to go, hon.”

  “Aw, but I wanna stay with Clyde.”

  “I know, but Zack gets off of work pretty soon and he’s coming over.”

  Thankfully she gave the dog one last hug and stood up from the floor, but she just had to say, “Jared, can I come see Clyde again?”

  I know he glanced at me, but I refused to make eye contact. He had to answer on his own, which was, “Sure, sweetheart. You can come by any time.”

  “Yes!” she cheered. “Thanks, Jared,” she told him, and she wrapped her arms around his legs to hug him. He knelt down so he could hug her back, and it was one of those moments—like the little extra stab to the heart—that I wished I didn’t have to witness.

  “Thanks for the candy bouquet,” he told her. “That was seriously the coolest present ever.”

  She grinned really big and said, “You’re welcome. But it was Taryn’s idea,” she shrugged honestly.