Melody of the Heart

by Katie Ashley

  Brayden’s aggravation was apparent. “Dammit, Lily, it’s only for a few minutes. Give me a break.”

  His tone and his words stung me, but I managed to plaster a smile on my face. “I’m sorry. You’re right. Go do your thing.

  Without another word to me, he strode off with Marcus. I took a few deep breaths, trying not to panic in the overwhelming situation. Come on, Lily. You were Homecoming Queen for God’s sake. You know how to win people over. Go forth and win these assholes over.

  Trying to be proactive, I started to walk around the room, lingering by groups of people and trying to join in on their conversations. While I gave them my best smile, most only offered me a frosty hello before they turned back to their own friends and acquaintances.

  I took a flute of champagne from one of the waiters. Sipping it slow, I willed myself not to cry. This was Brayden’s world now, and because I was with him, it was mine as well. I just had to get used to it. But I couldn’t help wishing for the past—the days when the band was just starting out and Brayden and I were of one mind and body.

  I don’t know how much time passed. It seemed like an eternity. I’d downed two flutes of champagne. After a trip to the ladies room, I ran into Rhys in the hallway. “Hey!” I cried, enthusiastically.

  He grinned. “Hey, yourself.”

  “Sorry. It’s just good to see a familiar face among all these people.”

  “I know what you mean.” After glancing around, he made a face. “I thought I’d escaped all the pretentious bullshit when I left home. Unfortunately, I’m right back in hell tonight.”

  “I’m glad I’m not the only one who isn’t comfortable with all this.”

  “If you ask me, this is the worst part of the business—boot licking and ass kissing.”

  I giggled. “You’re right. I was just thinking how I missed the early days, especially last summer when we were all together on the bus.”

  “Yeah, those were some good times.” He smiled at me. “I’ll never forget how sweet you were to me. I was in a really bad place with my parents disowning me because of the band. You really came through for me.”

  “Stop, you’re going to make me cry,” I said, as I felt my eyes moistening.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “I feel the same way about you.” Glancing around, I asked, “You guys done with your meeting?”

  Rhys brows furrowed. “What meeting?”

  “Marcus came and got Brayden because the label had some people they wanted you to meet.”

  Shifting uncomfortably on his feet, Rhys said, “Uh, I haven’t met with any of the label guys tonight.”

  My stomach plummeted to my knees, and although I hated myself for it, tears stung my eyes. “I see.”

  Rhys hand came to touch my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Lily.”

  I held up my hand. “You don’t need to apologize. It isn’t your fault.”

  He sighed. “Look, I know it doesn’t make it any easier, but we’ve all noticed a change in Bray over the last few months. And it’s not a good one.”

  “Thanks,” I replied, in a whisper.

  “He’ll come to his senses soon.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “This world,” he motioned around him, “is hard for the others to acclimate to. I grew up with money and excess, so it doesn’t have the shiny appeal to me like it does for the others. AJ would be the same guy if he was living in a mansion or in a box on the street. He’s just that kind of guy. As for Jake and Brayden…” He shook his head. “The greatest prize comes from corrupting the incorruptible. He’s been a target of theirs from the beginning.”

  “The label’s?”

  “Their minions, yeah.”

  The thought of Runaway Train’s handlers manipulating Brayden made me sick. “I just thought that Brayden was too strong to let all this get to him.”

  “You hear their line of bullshit day in and day out, and anyone can fall for it, especially when the brand of propaganda comes in the form of houses, clothes, and cars. Money talks more than anything in the world.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “Just give him some time. He’ll come around.”

  “I hope so, Rhys. Because if he doesn’t…” I bit down on my lip to keep from crying.

  “The worst thing in the world that could happen to him would be to lose you.”

  I barreled forward and threw my arms around Rhys’s neck. “Thank you for being so good to me.”

  He chuckled. “You don’t need to thank me for that.”

  I pulled away and kissed his cheek. “Yes, there is. Just like you thanked me earlier for being good to you last summer. You have such a good heart, Rhys. In spite of what you grew up with, you are a decent, caring person.”

  Rhys’s jaw clenched like he was fighting his emotions. “Thank you, Lily. That means a lot coming from you.”

  “I’m going to go find Brayden. I think it’s time I left for the night. Let him do his thing.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks, I’ll probably need it.”

  After I made my way back to the main room, I started searching through the crowd for Brayden. When I didn’t see him, I started down another hallway. Just as I came around the corner, AJ stepped into my path. “Hey, Lils, what’s up?” he asked, a plastered smile on his face.

  “I was trying to find Brayden, so I could tell him I was leaving.”

  “No, you can’t do that.” When I cocked my brows at him, he said, “I mean, you can’t leave yet. Why don’t you stay and dance with me?”

  I knew then that Brayden was in the next room, and he was doing something that would be hurtful to me. I shook my head. “AJ, get out of my way.”

  “Please, Lils, you don’t want to see him like this.”

  Closing my eyes, I willed myself to wake up from the nightmare I found myself in. “Is he with another woman?”

  “No, God, no. It’s just he’s…really fucked up.”

  “He’s not even been gone an hour.”

  “I’m sorry. But he is.”

  Even though I knew it wasn’t the best time to confront Brayden, I side-stepped AJ and hurried around the corner. Overstuffed sofas filled the room along with the pungent aroma of pot. With his tie undone and suit disheveled, Brayden lounged on a couch with two other men—I think they were label executives. On the table in front of them were probably dozens of empty shot glasses along with a white powdery substance with a razor blade.

  At my gasp of horror, Brayden jerked his head up to meet my gaze. “What are you doing in here?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “I think I could ask you the same thing.”

  “I’m unwinding. Having a good time. Something your uptight ass doesn’t know how to do.”

  “By drinking and smoking pot? I mean, please tell me you’re not in here snorting up.”

  Brayden shot off the couch and grabbed me by the shoulders. “Keep your fucking voice down!”

  I shoved him away. “Don’t you dare put your hands on me!”

  Glancing behind him, Brayden said, “AJ, get her out of here.”

  “I think it’s you that needs to leave, man.”

  Brayden’s brows shot up. “You’re taking her side now? Whatever happened to bros before hos?”

  AJ closed the gap between them in one long stride. Grabbing Brayden by the neck, he shoved him past the couch and up against the wall. “AJ!” I cried.

  Ignoring me, he practically snarled at Brayden. “You need to shut your fucking mouth before you say or do anything else you’re going to regret in the morning.”

  “Get off me.”

  “I will when you apologize to Lily.”

  Brayden glanced at me over AJ’s shoulder. He looked like a stranger. No, he looked at me like I was a stranger. Tears stung my eyes at the final revelation that the man I had once loved, the man I wanted to marry, was gone.

  “Sorry,” he finally muttered.

  “I’m sorry, too,
” I whispered. I was sorry for what had been lost between us in the last few months. I was sorry for the countless promises he’d broken. I was sorry that the future we had once dreamed of together would never come to fruition. I was sorry that no matter how hard he had once tried to stay grounded, Brayden was now just another casualty of fame and fortune.

  Turning around, I fled the room. I desperately wanted to leave the ugliness I had seen behind, but I knew it would come with me. In a way, I needed it to. If it didn’t, I would be tempted not to do what I had to do.

  When I got to the elevator, AJ appeared at my side. “I’ll take you home.”

  “Thank you, but that’s not necessary. Stay here and have some fun. Find a girl to take home.”

  He gave me a sad smile. “Right now, none of that matters to me. You’re the only girl I want to take home.”

  His words caused the dam of my emotions to break, and I began to sob. He wrapped his arm around me, and I drew myself against his chest. He led us on to the elevator. “I’m sorry, Lils. I’m so fucking sorry,” he murmured against my ear.

  “I just don’t understand.”

  “I know. I don’t either. All I do know is I’d like to throttle his ass for treating you the way he has.”

  “I can’t stay with him. Not when he’s like this.”

  AJ grimaced. “I know that. I wouldn’t expect for you to. You deserve so much better.”

  I brushed the tears from my eyes. “I only deserve the old Brayden.”

  Taking my hand, AJ led me off the elevator. The limo that had brought us to the party was waiting outside. At AJ’s wave, the driver hustled out to come open the door for us. Once we were inside, I buried my head in my hands and wept.

  AJ wrapped me in his strong arms. When I had finally had my fill, I pulled away. “Will you do something for me?”

  “Anything, mi amor.”

  “Will you take me to the airport in a little while?”

  “Don’t you think you should wait to talk to Brayden?”

  “There’s nothing left to say.”

  “I still think you need to talk to him. I’ll call Rhys and have him bring Brayden home.”

  Feeling defeated, I murmured, “Fine.”

  When we got to the house, I went straight for Brayden’s bedroom. The moment I closed the door behind me, I stripped myself out of the horrible dress. I threw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Then I escaped out onto the deck. Leaning forward on the railing, I listened to the waves crashing against the shore. “Fight for me again, Brayden. Please,” I whispered, as I thought back to our first date.

  At the sound of the door opening, I whirled around. My heart sank at the sight of just AJ standing there. “He wouldn’t come home, would he?”

  AJ shook his head sadly. “He said he would talk to you in the morning.”

  Glancing back out at the water, I expected myself to break down, to become hysterical and sink down onto my knees. But the tears didn’t come. It seemed I had shed all the tears I could at the moment for Brayden. “Will you take me to the airport now?”

  “Yeah, I will.”

  With a nod, I turned and started down the deck to him. “I just need a few minutes to pack.”

  “Take all the time you need.” AJ then slipped out of room, leaving me alone to do what I had to do. It didn’t take me long to throw my clothes and makeup into my suitcase. I didn’t even bother trying to neatly pack. I just wanted out of there and the faster the better.

  I grabbed my purse and suitcase and started to the door. When I looked down at my left hand, I paused. Without a second thought, I slipped off my engagement ring. There was no reason to take it with me, and it had belonged to Brayden’s grandmother anyway. Putting down my things, I went over to the nightstand and put it down by the picture frame. It belonged with the happy couple in the pictures, not what we had become.

  When I started down the hall, AJ met me halfway and took my things. I knew I would miss his sense of humor, his dancing, and his larger than life personality. But what I would miss most of all was his kind and caring heart.

  I was leaving California, but what happened to me in the few short days I was here would haunt me for a long, long time.

  BRAYDEN

  THE PRESENT

  As Lily painfully recounted the demise of our relationship, I fought the urge to throw up. It seemed like she was talking about a stranger. I guess in a way, whoever that asshole was that I had become, was a stranger to me. Even after seeking out a therapist years ago, I still couldn’t quite grasp why I had changed. While the therapist gave me some psychobabble spin of why the sudden fortuitous changes in my life affected my psyche, it still didn’t seem to set in to me how I could have become such a superficial son of a bitch.

  When the story progressed to the agonizing end that night at Chateau Marmont, I rose off the couch and started pacing the room.

  “Brayden?” Giovanni inquired.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you need to take a break?”

  Raking my hand through my hair, I replied, “I think I need a drink.” I stalked over to the mini-bar and threw it open. After grabbing three small bottles of Jack, I reached for a glass. Emptying them one by one, I then took a large gulp. When I caught Giovanni’s eye, I gave a mirthless laugh. “For the record, I only allow myself to have one glass of hard liquor at a time. I might throw back three or four beers, but it’s only one glass of liquor. It was this shit,” I held up my glass of Jack, “that partly contributed to me being such an unimaginable bastard to Lily.”

  “So during your early days of Runaway Train success, you abused alcohol.”

  “Oh yeah. Big time.”

  “And after you and Lily got back together, did you try to curb your drinking?”

  “Yes. That’s when I first instated the hard liquor clause. I realized what it had cost me.”

  Giovanni frowned. “There’s no record of you ever being in rehab.”

  “That’s because I wasn’t. I did it cold fucking turkey. I was that dedicated not to ever screwing up with Lily again.”

  “I didn’t realize talking about the past would affect you so much,” Lily said, softly.

  Turning around to face her, I shook my head. “It doesn’t just affect me. It tears me apart, shreds me. Not only because I treated you that way, but because I don’t even have a fucking good reason for why I started acting the way that I did.”

  Giovanni cleared his throat. “If I might interject here, I think Lily touched on many reasons why your behavior towards her changed.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Trust me, I’ve already had a therapist explain that it was the alcohol, the separation, the manipulative bastards who worked for the label, blah, blah, blah.” I took another gulp of Jack. “It’s all bullshit. I should have been stronger. I mean, I didn’t just lose myself. I lost the most important thing in the world to me—the very reason to get out of bed and make the music that I did.”

  Lily rose off the couch and came over to me. “It was just a bump in the road.”

  “Don’t sugarcoat it, babe.”

  “Okay, it was more like a dark, cavernous crater in the road. But in the end, we got through it.”

  “Only because you were willing to forgive me.”

  Giovanni came over to us. “Why don’t we move we forward, shall we?”

  “That would be a good idea,” Lily replied. She offered me her hand and then led me over to the couch.

  Once we were seated, Giovanni started in on the next question. “After Lily left you in California, did you try to reach out to her, mend fences?”

  With an anguished moan, I closed my eyes. “I called her the next morning like I said I would. She was back home in Georgia then. It wasn’t a good call.”

  “You didn’t question her as to why she left or ask her to come back?”

  When I dared to open my look at Lily, tears pooled in her eyes. “I can’t do this,” I muttered. “I can’t dredge eyes and this shit up again and h
urt my wife.”

  “Brayden, it’s okay. I’m okay,” Lily protested.

  “No, you’re not. I’ve made you cry. Again. I swore I would never let that happen.”

  She reached out to cup my cheek. “You aren’t that man anymore. I’m only crying again because I hate to see you in such pain.”

  “And to relive it,” I countered.

  “Yes, you’re right.”

  Pinning Giovanni with a harsh look, I said, “I answer this and then we move on. No more dwelling about what happened in California. Okay?” He nodded. “When I called her, I wasn’t looking to apologize. I wanted to hear she was sorry for leaving me…for not appreciating the new life I had or that we could have.”

  “And what did you say to that, Lily?” Giovanni asked.

  “We’re dwelling,” I practically growled.

  “I need to know,” Giovanni replied, softly.

  Lily sighed. “I told him when he found the man that I loved with all my heart and soul, his old self, to give me a call. Until then, I didn’t want to see or hear from him. And he honored that.”

  As I exhaled a ragged breath, Giovanni asked, “So you were broken up for a year?”

  With a shrug, I replied, “Yeah, give or take.”

  “It was eleven months, two weeks, and five days,” Lily replied. When Giovanni and I both looked at her, a sad smile appeared on her face. “There are some things you don’t ever forget.”

  Easing back in his chair, Giovanni adjusted his tie. “Look, I don’t want you guys to think I’m some kind of masochist freak for having you dredge up these painful memories. I just have to paint the full story, and that has to include part of your past.”

  I sighed. “I don’t suppose you can help it. I mean, you’ve got to get your story, right?”

  “Yes, I do. But at the same time, I want you to know that I won’t be exaggerating these hard times to sell the story. I want to juxtapose them against the people you are now—the people it made you. In the end, these hard times are what made your love so strong.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” I replied.

  Giovanni nodded. “Now what happened at the end of those eleven months to finally reunite you?”