“Screw him. Who cares if he got dragged into the limelight along with you. The guy’s a total jerk for stringing you along for the last two years.”
“With this mess with the media, his parents are going to kill him. I don’t know if he deserves that, but they’re politicians. They can spin it.” Nicky sighed, reaching for Julian’s hand. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine. I’m headed to Vanderbilt in a few months, so I’m just going to focus on that and getting a fresh start there in the fall.”
“Uh-oh, Nicky.” Julian pulled his hand back, nodding toward the bank of windows on the opposite wall. “No, don’t look.”
“Too late.” Nicky’s heart thundered in his chest at the sight of so many cameras pressed up against the windows. Brian Callahan was outside, trying to get them to leave the premises, but that didn’t stop them from congregating in the parking lot. Lights flashed and reporters beat on the windows to get Nicky’s attention.
“They’re going to break the freaking windows.” All the blood rushed from Nicky’s face.
“Look at me, little man.” Julian pulled his attention away from the sea of faces watching him like he was a rare fish in an aquarium. “You’re going to get up and run to the back room like you’re going to make a break for the back door. Most of them will race around to the parking lot. When you get to the kitchen, wait for my signal.”
“For what?” Nicky wiped the sweat off his brow. The idea of facing all those cameras and making some kind of statement made him nauseous.
“When I tell you to run, you’re going to come back into the dining room and out the side door.”
“Out there with them?” Nicky’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you crazy.”
“Is Wylder working at the hardware store today?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Text her to meet you at the front door.”
“Okay.” Nicky nodded, following Julian’s plan.
“She’ll let you in, and you two can go out the back together. Have her drive you to my house, and you can hang out there for a little while. They won’t have a reason to come look for you there. Here’s my house key. Have Wylder park in the back, and you can go in through the back door. Addie’s at school, so you’ll have some peace and quiet while this all blows over.”
“Thanks, Julian. I better go.” Nicky cast a worried look at the media frenzy building in the Callahans’ parking lot. He was hurting their business. The place was empty because no one in Twin Rivers wanted to deal with that shitstorm. “I need to lead them away from the restaurant. Your parents don’t deserve this.”
“Don’t worry about it, Nicky. We’re all behind you. I’ll take your car and lead them on a merry chase.” Julian grinned. “We’ll call it research for my next book.”
“Okay, Wylds is ready.” Nicky tucked his phone into his pocket and darted out of the booth and into the kitchen. He waited behind the swinging door for Julian’s signal. It didn’t take long before Julian waved him back out of the kitchen.
“Go, Nicky.”
Nicky crouched low and ran from his hiding spot in the kitchen. The side door of the dining room led to the alley between the buildings, but Anderson’s Hardware store was just across the street. As Nicky charged out of the alley, he saw Wylder waiting for him across the two-lane road.
“Hurry,” she called to him. Grateful the afternoon traffic down Main Street was light, Nicky darted across the street and through the front door of the hardware store. Wylder slammed the lock in place and flipped the sign to closed.
“Thanks.” Nicky leaned over to catch his breath.
“Let’s go out the back before they realize what just happened.” Wylder craned her neck to see Julian occupying the media as he made a show of climbing into Nicky’s car.
“This is insane.” Nicky shook his head. “I’m a nobody.” He followed Wylder to the parking lot out back. He slid into her back seat to hide.
“Unfortunately”—Wylder threw the car into reverse—“my idiot brother has turned you into the super star of the week.”
“This is insane,” Nicky repeated, scooting down to the floor. He didn’t know how else to describe it.
“Sorry, Nick. They’re onto us. There’s a blanket back there, put it over your head.”
With his face pressed into the carpet, Nicky tossed the blanket over his head.
“Nicky!” voices demanded his attention. Fists hammered at the windows. “Are you cheating on Beckett? What’s his name, Nicky? Why aren’t you with Beckett?”
Nicky squeezed his eyes shut to keep the tears from coming. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. If this was what it was like to be with Beckett Anderson, Nicky didn’t want any part of it.
4
Beckett
Beckett’s bed shifted, jostling him awake, but he didn’t open his eyes. It moved again as someone’s foot connected to the frame.
“Beckett Anderson.”
He groaned, knowing his cousin was only here for one reason—to make him leave his apartment for the first time in a week.
“Go away, Sky,” he groaned.
“No.” Skylar was the most stubborn woman Beckett had ever met. He hadn’t even known he had a cousin until she found him online during his last year of high school. They struck up a relationship until she convinced him to move to Nashville. Beckett and Nari even lived with her for their first year in the city.
Now, though? Now, she was just a pain in his butt.
She threw herself down on the bed beside him, shaking him until he finally lifted his head to stare at her with bloodshot eyes. He’d barely slept over the last week as he watched video after video of his career crashing to the ground.
He’d kissed Nicky in front of everyone, and now the whole world had seen it.
“Why are you hiding?” Sky asked, leaning back against a pillow. “Are you ashamed everyone thinks you’re gay now and that kiss was some massive closet burning?”
“What?” He met her gaze. “Why would I care if people think I’m gay? I’m not—for the record. Thanks for asking. But even if I was, I wouldn’t be ashamed.”
“Then why have you ignored all calls from your PR team? Sofie says she tried coming over, but you wouldn’t let her in. Even Nari and Avery haven’t been able to reach you.”
Sometimes, it sucked having the person Beckett was closest to working for the label that owned him. “I just… I don’t want them to tell me what I already know.”
“And what is it you think you know?”
He sighed and pushed himself up so he was sitting. “Country music isn’t exactly a place for people who are different.” Some people described it as a “straight white guy with a guitar” industry, and Beckett fit their image…until now.
“First of all, that’s stupid. Secondly…you’re stupid for having the stupid thoughts.”
He couldn’t help the smile parting his lips. “So, basically, it’s all stupid?”
“Shut up.” She shoved his shoulder.
Becks loved being around Sky. She reminded him so much of Wylder. He shot from the bed. Wylder. “Shit.”
“What?”
“I meant to transfer the money for Wylder’s new school. It’s due tomorrow.”
Sliding her phone out of her pocket, she unlocked it and tapped a message on the screen. “You have an assistant for a reason, Becks. Sofie will take care of it.” She leveled him with a gaze. “That girl’s in love with you. You know that, right?”
“I didn’t ask her to fall for me.” He crossed his arms over his chest. Sofie had been there for him when he was lonely in a new city, and it just kind of continued. But when he kissed her, he’d never felt half the energy as that kiss with…
Scrubbing a hand over his face, he forced himself to push it from his mind. He’d only been helping Nicky out.
But he should have thought of it beforehand, of the repercussions. He saw videos online of press finding Nicky in various places in Twin Rivers. Beckett hadn’t only hurt his o
wn career; he’d thrown Nicky to the wolves.
Sky scooted to the edge of the bed. “We never ask people to fall, Becks. Sometimes, we want the very people we’d never considered before.”
There was a hidden meaning in her words, but Beckett was too tired to decipher the Skylar code. She ran a hand over her short blond hair. The top was parted, bangs hanging into her eyes, but she’d buzzed the sides of her head. It fit her.
She stood and looked down on him. “You can’t avoid this forever, SexyBecksy.” Her dimple winked as she grinned at the new name his fans had for him. “You need to face your team. For what it’s worth, I don’t think your career is over. Maybe country music isn’t ready for everything you are, Beckett Anderson, but we can give you to them all the same.”
She stopped at the door. “Take a shower. You stink. I’ll have Sofie send you a car in one hour. You’re a grown man. Act like it.”
As soon as she was gone, Beckett sank back onto the bed. “Sometimes, we want the very people we’d never considered before.”
He grabbed his iPad off the nightstand and scrolled through the various videos clogging the YouTube channels. The captions caught his eye.
Country Love Story.
No one needs to see this.
I wish someone would kiss me like that.
SexyBecksy is right.
And on and on they went. Some called Becks words he’d never expected to hear directed at him. He focused on Nicky’s tearstained face. Becks had wanted to take all his pain and humiliation away. That was what friends did, wasn’t it?
He set the iPad aside. Sky was right. He couldn’t hide from this anymore.
After taking a shower, Becks pulled on a pair of dark wash jeans with a light-blue polo. He ran a comb through his hair as he wiped condensation from the mirror so he could see his face.
The man who hid from the world wasn’t Beckett Anderson. Becks leaned forward, gripping the sink with both hands. “You’re a good-looking dude,” he told himself. “And you’ll probably keep your looks long after Avery is a balding man with a belly. So, man up. This world needs you to make it more interesting. You can do this. You can face them. Why? Like I said, you’re damn sexy.”
Chuckling sounded from the hall outside his bathroom, and Becks met Avery’s eyes in the mirror. He’d barely spoken to his best friend since kissing his brother and fleeing home to Nashville before the rest of the band.
“Shut up. You wish you looked this good.” Becks turned, crossing his arms over his chest.
Avery’s grin widened. “Do you give yourself that little pep talk every day?”
“No,” Becks scoffed. He totally did.
“I don’t believe you, but whatever you have to do to get up in the morning, man.”
Becks pasted on a smile that held only fake joy behind it. “At least you can’t say I’m lying to myself.” He ran a hand down his chest, feeling his muscles underneath the soft shirt.
Avery lifted an eyebrow. “If you’re trying to get me to call you SexyBecksy, you can forget about it.”
“Avery, buddy, I don’t need you to call me anything. The rest of the world does it enough.” He bumped Avery’s shoulder as he walked past him into the open living room. Becks didn’t buy in to the star lifestyle with fancy and expensive things, but his apartment was nice enough. The best thing about it was that Nari and Avery lived across the hall.
“It’s good to see you upright.” He rubbed the back of his neck—a nervous tick Avery had always had. “I, uh, stopped by a few times, but you were sleeping.” Avery had a key to his place just like Sky. Maybe it was time to be more careful about who had access to his life. Then they’d stop sticking their noses in it.
Becks grabbed his shoes and sat on the white leather couch in the living room to pull them on. Avery perched on the arm of the couch, not meeting Becks’ eyes. Their humor from moments before no longer existed as an unfamiliar awkwardness stretched between them.
Becks sighed. “Don’t be weird.”
“I’m not being weird,” Avery mumbled.
“I never thought you’d be one to care if I was gay.”
Avery snapped his eyes to Becks. “Dude, I don’t care if you’re gay. You kissed my brother.” He shivered. “Do you see how epically weird that is?”
A laugh burst out of Becks. “That’s a kiss Nicky won’t soon forget.”
“Ugh, stop. Please. This is Nicky. My little brother. I’ve spent the last week thinking through every interaction you had with him back in high school. I knew how much you cared about him—like he was your family—but this…”
Beckett offered him a carefree smile as he clapped a hand on Avery’s shoulder. “Relax, dude. It wasn’t a real kiss.”
“You… What? But you guys…”
“I know what I did.” He shrugged. “Nicky needed help.”
“Help?”
Becks remembered the moment like it happened that very day. He’d seen Nicky with Kenny and felt a surge of protectiveness. “Kenny decided to throw his girlfriend in Nicky’s face. I could see it from the stage. He looked so broken.” And after their conversation earlier that day, Becks had wanted to show Kenny just how much better Nicky could do.
Avery looked at Becks as if he’d never seen him before. “And you thought jumping off a stage mid-concert to kiss Nicky in the middle of a crowd of fans would help him? What century do you think we’re living in, Becks? Did you consider that my shy, quiet, private brother would become a source of fascination for the country? That paparazzi would suddenly invade Twin Rivers? Have you even talked to Nicky since it happened?”
Becks bent forward, putting his head in his hands. “This is such a mess.”
“You’ve always gotten everything you’ve wanted, Becks. Your life has been a damn fairy tale with few repercussions for anything you’ve ever done. But this… You have a brain in that thick skull of yours for a reason. Maybe, it’s time to stop relying on your looks and voice. Your mind will get you further than either of those things.”
Becks lifted his eyes to his best friend, marveling at how much he’d changed from the cocky football player. “Since when did you become such an expert on anything?”
Avery chuckled. “While you’ve been stripping your clothes off for adoring fans, I’ve been sitting in classrooms learning about sports psychology. It’s not really that different from what you do.”
One corner of Beckett’s mouth tipped up. “I only take my shirt off when I can’t stand the sweat anymore.”
“Whatever you tell yourself, man.” He stood. “Come on. The car the label sent for you is downstairs. Nari wanted me to get you. She’s a bit more pissed at you than I was. Nicky is my brother, but the two of them have always been closer.”
“Is she going to use her Korean kill factor on me?” Becks’ eyes widened in mock horror. That was what Nari called her fiercest glare. But when she used it, it only made her adorable rather than scary.
“Nah, she knows you’re immune. She’ll get back at you some other way.”
“Great,” he groaned. Nari had a habit of telling embarrassing stories of their band days in high school. Harrison and Quinn were good at pulling them out of her.
Becks left Avery in the hall between their apartments and found Nari already in the car out front. The driver gave him a nod as he slid in.
He tried to start speaking, but Nari put up a hand. “I’m glad you showed, Beckett.” She only called him that when she was mad. “I don’t need you to explain anything. Nicky told me why you kissed him. I hate that you did that to my best friend.”
“I thought I was your best friend,” he interrupted.
She leveled him with a glare as she pushed her thick-rimmed glasses up her nose. “Don’t even start. Nicky is supposed to be moving here to Nashville in one month. He’ll be living with me and Avery while he starts at Vanderbilt. I don’t want his life to become a circus. He doesn’t deserve that.”
“I know. I screwed up.”
“Well, at least you seem to be taking this seriously.” She had a point. Becks usually made light of any situation.
“Do you want to talk about the meeting?” They were on their way to what could be the end of their recording contract. Beckett Anderson and the band had a few chart-busting songs, but their full album drop failed to live up to their high expectations. The band hadn’t been sent on tour following the release, instead playing random music festivals and gigs.
Despite becoming a household name in a couple short years, Becks didn’t consider himself a success just yet.
And his kiss with Nicky wouldn’t help matters, not in country music.
After a few moments of silence, Nari slid her hand into Becks’. She could never stay mad at him for long. “It’s going to be okay.”
Becks leaned his head back against the headrest and rolled his head to look at her. “Is it?”
She pursed her lips. “The Beckett Anderson I know never doubts himself. He’d walk into this meeting and tell them how they’d handle this situation. He wouldn’t look like he was marching to his death.”
“Sorry to disappoint, darlin’, that Beckett isn’t here today.”
Nari didn’t get a chance to respond as they pulled up outside the label’s offices. Inside those walls, the PR team waited to drop the lever, severing any hope Becks had.
“It’s going to be okay,” Nari repeated.
“How do you know that?”
“I just do.”
Becks wrapped an arm around her and sucked in a deep breath. She’d always believed in him. It was why she followed him to Nashville instead of going to college like her parents wanted. He didn’t know if he could have made it on his own. Over the last two years, they’d struggled and fought for everything they accomplished.
She was right. They would make it okay. Releasing her, he reached for the door. “Let’s do this.”
Pasting a smile on his face, Becks stepped into the sun, shielding his eyes as he waited for Nari to join him. Together, they walked inside. He slid his sunglasses into his hair and winked at the secretary.
Dating Him: The Series Page 4
