by Julie Cannon
“Kiersten?”
No, but I certainly needed to have my head examined, I thought. “No, I’m fine.”
“What are you doing out here? I thought you were inside the coach.”
I shrugged out of her grasp, which admittedly was harder than I expected. Her touch was warm and the calluses on her fingers sensuously rough on my skin. “I was just getting some fresh air,” I lied.
“Out here? This late?”
Okay, so I’m not that good of a liar. I chose offense instead of defense. I looked around. “Where’s Jake? You never go anywhere without him.” Especially on concert night.
“I had to…ugh…talk to someone,” she finally replied, but not before looking over her shoulder. She wasn’t that good of a liar either.
“And Jake doesn’t know about this…ugh…someone,” I said angrily.
“He doesn’t run my life,” Tobin snapped, surprising me and herself, I think. “He runs my business, not my life.” She was calmer this time when she said it. I think she was trying to convince herself of that fact.
I didn’t have anything else to say about this entire scene. I wanted to know what was going on, but it was none of my business, and I sure as hell didn’t want to get involved.
“I’ll leave you to it then.” I turned around and started to retrace my steps back to the coach.
“I’ll walk with you,” Tobin said, hurrying to catch up with me.
“No need. I can find my way. And besides…” I held up my tour pass. “I have an all-access pass, remember?”
Chapter Forty-one
“Courtney, I’m not going to tell her. Stop trying to convince me.”
I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help it. When I came in later that evening and didn’t see Kiersten, I assumed she was in her room. I was a few feet away when I heard her side of the conversation. Several moments passed before Kiersten asked, “And when do you suggest I tell her? Before, during, or after?”
I could hear only one side of the conversation, so before or after what? I should do the honorable thing and step back and give Kiersten the privacy she obviously thought she had.
“Well, let’s see, Courtney, I could say, Tobin, there’s something I need to tell you. That would be a mood killer. She’d probably think I have some contagious STD. Or maybe when it’s really getting hot and heavy, I blurt it out? And the best one could be after, as we’re lying in the afterglow I say something like that wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. None of those is going to happen, Courtney.”
There was another lull in Kiersten’s side of the conversation. What in the hell were they talking about? One-sided conversations are just that, one-sided, and this one made absolutely no sense without hearing the other.
“Did you tell?” Kiersten asked. “I didn’t think so.”
I don’t know who was more surprised when Kiersten stepped out of her room, she or I? Her face suddenly went from flushed to very pale. I stood there knowing I had been caught without an escape route.
“Courtney, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.”
Kiersten stabbed at her phone to end the call. “I didn’t hear you come in,” she said unnecessarily. If she had, she would have hung up the phone much earlier.
“What aren’t you going to tell me?”.
Panic replaced the shock on her face. “Nothing.”
“If it’s nothing, why do you look like you want to run?”
“Because you startled me,” Kiersten explained. “That’s all.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked again. Somehow I knew it was something important.
“It’s not important.”
“Which is it, Kiersten? Nothing or not important?” She tried to step past me but I didn’t move. Fortunately the hall was only wide enough for one.
“Both. Now would you please let me by.”
“Not until you tell me.”
“You eavesdropped on a private conversation. It’s none of your business,” she said defiantly.
“When it comes to me, it is my business.”
“You have an ego the size of this bus,” Kiersten shot back. “What makes you think I was talking about you? I could have been talking about anyone.”
“I heard my name and saw the look on your face, Kiersten. It had guilt written all over it.”
“It did not.”
“It did.” Our conversation sounded like we were both six years old.
“In that case, I’ll tell you what I told Courtney. I’m not going to tell you. Now if you’d please let me by, I’d like to take a shower and go to bed.”
I searched Kiersten’s face for any sign of what she was keeping from me. It had to be something big for her to have this kind of reaction. She couldn’t look me in the eye, and she kept fidgeting. I took a step nearer, closing the distance between us. That got her attention. She finally looked at me. I stepped closer, and fear replaced defiance in her eyes. What on earth could she be afraid of? I pushed my advantage and moved even nearer.
Our breasts were almost touching. I could see the dark flecks of blue in her eyes, feel her warm, sweet breath on my face, feel the heat coming off her body. Her hair smelled like lilac, and her lips glistened. The pulse in her neck beat wildly, and she was breathing fast. I leaned in closer, my lips lightly brushing her ear.
I sensed her leaning into me. It was probably instinct but I didn’t care. I knew I could have her with just one more move. But I didn’t want her by seduction. I wanted her to come to me. Big difference.
When I knew I had her full attention I said, “You don’t need to be afraid of me. But I will find out. I can wait,” I whispered, my lips grazing her ear. Before I was tempted to do more and before she had a chance to reply, I stepped around her and went into my room and closed the door behind me.
*
“Fuck,” I said, then repeated it a few more times. It was the only word I could use to describe what had just happened. I pulled myself together and stumbled to my bed, where I sat down, trying to catch my breath. “Fuck.” My vocabulary consisted of the most descriptive word I could think of.
This day was completely messed up, from the kiss this morning to the conversation I’d overheard to this. I guess karma really is a bitch.
I tossed and turned for what felt like forever. I looked at the clock for the umpteenth time and saw that not even twenty minutes had passed. Shit. I’d never get any sleep at this rate. I couldn’t get Kiersten’s conversation out of my mind. I knew she was talking with Courtney, but what had they been talking about? They were best friends, and what could it be that BFFs talked about that could get heated?
I’d seen right through her smoke screen of maybe it was somebody else she was talking about. The look on her face told me otherwise. I replayed what I’d heard in my head and tried to connect it to what I knew. There was the part about when she would tell me. There was a before, during, or after. After what? The before was scary when she said something about an STD. The entire world knew an STD was a sexually transmitted disease. The during was, what were her words, when it was really getting hot and heavy and the afterglow? What the fuck was afterglow?
Suddenly every organ in my body seemed to stop. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and I was sure my heart had stopped beating. It couldn’t be. Could it? No way. Not someone as beautiful as Kiersten. Not someone as charming and witty as her. Not someone who lit up a room when she walked in and took all the air with her when she left. Not someone with a smile that could light the dark and a laugh that could echo in any auditorium. But it had to be. All the signs pointed to it.
I got out of bed, pulled on my robe, and went across the narrow hall. I raised my hand to knock but stopped. We all had our secrets, and if this was Kiersten’s, who was I to pry into it? I was certainly the poster child of don’t ask because I’m not ever going to tell, so why would I expect anything different from her? If it was what I thought it was, Kiersten was right. It was none of my business
. But I wanted it to be my business. I tapped lightly on the door twice and opened it.
“Kiersten?” She didn’t acknowledge that she’d heard me. Maybe she was asleep. I moved into the room and called her name again. Her back was to me, and the quick, uneven cadence of her breathing gave her deception away. She was not sleeping.
“Have you ever been with a woman?” I’d thought and rehearsed what I was going to say, and that was not it. What a bonehead I was. I knew she heard me because her breathing stopped for a moment, then was even faster.
“Get out.” Her voice was muffled but her command clear.
Without answering the question she had answered it. It was my turn for my heart to race. I’d never been in this situation before. I didn’t know what to say, but I was with it enough not to say something stupid like “Why and how” and the dozens of other questions I wanted to ask. But she was right. This was none of my business. Yet when she kissed me it was my business. When she pushed me away she made it none of my business. When she had her hands up my shirt it was my business. My head started to spin. I’d been getting conflicting message from her practically from the day we met. Definitely for the last two weeks. I might not yet be a college graduate, but I wasn’t stupid either.
“Kiersten.” I reached out to touch her arm. She jerked away from me like my touch was searing, and not in a good way.
“I said get out.”
Chapter Forty-two
“Tobin! Tobin!”
I roused myself out of a deep sleep to someone banging on the door.
“Tobin!”
“All right, all right,” I grumbled, dragging myself out of bed. I hadn’t slept much the night before and was paying for it now. I grabbed my robe and opened my bedroom door.
Kiersten had come out of her room as well and was standing in the hall. She stopped, her eyes grazing quickly over me. Then I realized I hadn’t put the robe on yet and was standing there in what God gave me.
I had an uncharacteristic urge to cover myself and fought it. I wasn’t modest, but the way Kiersten was looking at me made me feel a little shy. This made absolutely no sense, and I pulled the robe over me and cinched the belt. I sidestepped her and unlocked and opened the door.
“For Christ’s sake, Tobin, what did you do?” Jake said, barely separating his words. He stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind him.
“You woke me from a sound sleep, Jake. What are you talking about?” I heard Kiersten pour coffee. I’d made the pot and set the timer before I went to bed last night.
“Irene. She’s given HSO a fucking tell-all interview.”
All sleep flew out of my body when I heard Irene’s name. There were millions of Irenes in the world, but I knew Jake was talking about mine.
“When?”
“It’s online this morning. And, shit, you have the interview with Bibbie Williams this afternoon. For sure she’s going to ask you about it.” Jake rubbed his hands through his hair and paced in the small room.
“Who’s Bibbie Williams,” Kiersten asked, a puzzled look on her face.
“Just the hottest news-magazine reporter,” Jake answered. “We have a no-holds-barred interview scheduled for this afternoon at Fulshine College.”
“I’ll handle it,” I found myself saying calmly.
“What?” Jake asked, clearly confused.
“I said I’ll handle it.” Instead of melting into a puddle or going ballistic like Jake, I was absolutely calm. Okay, maybe not absolutely calm, but much more so than I would have expected. I really didn’t think Irene would ever have the nerve to follow through on her threat.
“Who’s Irene?” Kiersten asked, coming up behind me and offered Jake a cup of coffee. He refused the offer.
When I didn’t answer right away, Kiersten looked at me, then Jake, then back at me. “I’ll leave you two alone.” She turned to go back to her room.
“My mother.” Jake was as shocked at my admission as I was. I never spoke about my family. Not in interviews or with anyone. This was the first time I’d said her name to anyone other than Jake in ten years. I’m sure the look on my face told Kiersten that as well.
“What did she say?” Kiersten asked the question I was afraid to.
I nodded when Jake looked at me. He answered for me. “Everything.”
Chapter Forty-three
“Tobin, this morning Irene Brown, a woman claiming to be your mother, gave an interview with HSO news magazine. She claims that you’ve paid her and your brother and sister for years to stay out of sight. She claims you view them as an embarrassment to you. They’ve never been invited to one of your concerts, and you haven’t spoken to them in over ten years. She said they are on a fixed income and live in a rundown trailer and have no means of transportation.”
This was it. The moment I’d been dreading for years. The moment I’d be paralyzed with fear would happen. HSO was a trash online magazine with more slander lawsuits than readers. But scandal sells, and this was big news. The fact that this interview was being held in the student union of one of the country’s largest private educational institutions added to the sizzle.
“Is there a question in all that?” I couldn’t afford to antagonize Ms. Bibbie Williams, but that was a statement, not a question. She was more than a little surprised but recovered quickly.
“Is it true?”
“Yes.”
I could tell by the expression on her face that my answer was not what she expected.
She quickly regrouped. “So she is your mother?”
“Yes.”
“And you paid her…”
“To stay out of my life, yes,” I answered honestly.
“Is your family an embarrassment?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Bibbie said as she formulated her next question. Obviously she’d prepped for complete denial from me. “They live on a fixed income?”
I wasn’t sure if that was a question or a statement. I treated it as if it were the former. “I don’t know. Until a few weeks ago I sent them a monthly check. I don’t know what else they do to earn a living.”
“And they have no transportation.”
“I don’t know. That’s what they claim.” Again, I answered honestly. I didn’t know anything other than what they told me. Bibbie called me on it.
“You don’t know how your own family is doing?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because they wanted nothing to do with me when I was growing up other than to be their maid, cook, and punching bag. I left when I was fifteen, and even though they knew where I was, they never came to bring me back home. When they did finally come sniffing around, I paid them to stay out of my life.” There. The dirty laundry of my life was out in the open, and it felt great. A weight that I didn’t know was crushing me was suddenly lifted.
“Don’t you feel ashamed?”
“Of what?”
“Your actions. After all, they’re your family.”
She made it sound so simple, and it was anything but. “No, not at all, Bibbie. I believe that family is who you choose to surround yourself with, not your bloodline. Where were they when I was singing in a piece-of-shit bar when I was fourteen? Where were they when I had to walk home alone from that piece-of-shit bar? Where were they when I didn’t go to school, have any friends, or ever go to a birthday party because there was no money to buy some cheap present? Where were they when I did go to school and had to wear dirty clothes because my mother and father drank and smoked the last dollar we had. Where were they when I was running down the hall escaping from the creep that was one of the many boyfriends my sister brought home? Where were they to support my dreams, to give me encouragement or pick me up when I stumbled?” I took a breath to calm myself. This is more information about my family than I had disclosed in my entire life.
“Nowhere. That’s where they were, and that’s where they can stay. I don’t know them, don’t want to know them, and don’
t care to ever know them. Judge me if you want, but that’s the way it is, and to answer your question, no. I’m not ashamed of my actions. Not at all.”
You could have heard a pin drop in the auditorium. The interview was live, and hundreds were in the audience, so there was little chance it would be edited. The swear words would be bleeped, but the rest was what it was. The reporting on this interview would pick out some key sound bites, but in my opinion, my entire statement was one big sound bite.
“So what now?”
“Nothing,” I said. “There is no more. No more money from me and no more threats from them. The world knows, so they have nothing to threaten me with.”
“Let’s switch gears to your sex life.” Bibbie was known for her bluntness and had often been referred to as the female Howard Stern.
“What about it?” I asked, grateful for the change in subject but not sure I wanted it to be this one.
“You’ve been quoted as saying that sex is simply a natural bodily function. That it’s an emotionless act.”
“I said I believe it’s as natural as any other bodily need, like hunger or sleep. I never said it was an emotionless act.” I hate it when I’m misquoted.
“So when you have sex, you are emotionally involved?”
“If it’s done right, yes.” I couldn’t see them, but I heard the audience snicker. I knew what she was driving at so I beat her to the finish line. “What I feel during sex is no different than what I feel when I’m enjoying a good meal or listening to wonderful music or watching a great movie. There is emotion in all of those things, sex included.”
“But you’ve admitted to sleeping with many women. I think you said,” she put on her reading glasses and checked her notes, “and I quote, more than I can remember.”
“I didn’t sleep with any of them. I had sex.”
“Isn’t that quibbling over the word?”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But in my mind there is a difference. Sleeping together implies falling asleep in each other’s arms and waking up together. That I do not do.”
