Trouble: Tyler and Katie

by Selena Kitt

  Her eyes got even bigger, if that was possible.

  “So, trust me when I tell you, he won’t have anything to do with you, now or ever.” At least this, I knew, was the truth. Whatever happened between Rob and Sabrina, I knew from Celeste, the man was celibate on the road. He didn’t bring anyone on the bus, ever.

  “But, isn’t he still married…?” Sandy looked at me, confused.

  “Separated,” Zoey piped up. “They’re getting a divorce.”

  “That’s right. So, Rob can get married again.”

  I could tell, this had all been motivated by Jess’s fantasies about her favorite rock star. Her friends had just come along for the ride and had gotten themselves in some pretty big trouble brewing along the way. I knew all the signs. I’d seen Sabrina’s eyes get all wet and shiny like that when she talked about Rob. Except Sabrina wasn’t just thirteen years old, doing something stupid like jumping on a tour bus in hopes of getting to spend the night with a rock star.

  That thought gave me pause. Did I need to take some of my own advice?

  “There’s nothing wrong with crushing on a rock star or fantasizing about him or making up stories in your head about going on his tour bus and both of you getting together and living happily ever after,” I told Jess, her face still cupped in my hands, so she had to keep looking at me, listening to me. “But sometimes, when fantasy turns into reality, you get fucked, and that can hurt like hell, literally and figuratively, especially at your age. Bad choices in your head don’t cost you a damned thing, but one bad choice in the real world can mess up your whole damned life. Not just now, but forever. You don’t understand that, because you’re just thirteen years old, but you will. I hope you look back on this someday when you have a thirteen-year-old daughter you’re hoping makes good choices, and think, wow, she was right, I really could have fucked myself over big time.”

  “But… but… I love him.” Those big eyes, the tears. It was heartbreaking.

  “You think you love him.” I shook my head. It was time to give her a dose of reality. “You don’t even know him. He’s arrogant as hell. He’s a perfectionist. He’s got a temper you wouldn’t believe. He thinks he’s in control of everyone and everything around him. Guys like Rob Burns don’t want a real woman, they want a mirror. They want someone to reflect back the best of themselves, that’s why they get on stage and start singing in the first place. They feel so bad about themselves, somewhere deep inside, they’re so unsure of themselves, that they need hundreds of thousands of people to tell them they’re okay. Every minute of every day. And they still don’t believe it.”

  “But...”

  “Jess, no.” I shook my head again. “You can’t fix him. You can’t make it better. No one can do that but him. You’re not his savior. You’ll never be his lover, or his wife, or whatever you’ve been imagining. You’re just a mixed up thirteen-year-old who fell in love with the image of a rock star. You don’t really know him—he’s just a screen, something you’re projecting what you want in a man onto. And that’s okay, that’s part of being thirteen. That’s what we do, when we’re young and we’re first trying all this stuff on for size.”

  “Yeah? What about you and him?” Sandy jerked her thumb toward the back of the bus. “Tyler Cook?”

  “I’m an adult,” I reminded her, although until that moment, I hadn’t felt much like one. “And Tyler Cook is not Rob Burns.”

  She snorted and rolled her eyes like she didn’t believe me, but I didn’t care.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen, girls,” I said firmly. “When this bus pulls into Oklahoma City, I’m going to take you to the Greyhound station. We’re going to buy you tickets back home. You are to go straight home—do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”

  “What about that?” Sandy pointed. “In your pocket?”

  “You want your eight ball of heroin back?” I laughed. “The seventeen, fifteen and thirteen-year-old? I don’t think so.”

  “What are you gonna do with it?”

  “Dispose of it.”

  “Yeah, right,” Sandy sneered. “You could at least pay me for it. That’s five hundred bucks!”

  “I’m buying your bus tickets home,” I reminded her. “That’s more than enough.”

  “You know, if we told anyone you let underage kids on the tour bus...”

  “And if I told anyone you were in possession of this?” I pulled out the baggie and waved it at her.

  “I’m not, anymore.”

  “Don’t make your friend’s pain any worse, okay?” I leveled a look at Sandy and that seemed to get through to her, at least a little. “She’s in need of some tender loving care right now. How about you give it to her?”

  “Thank you.” Jess leaned over to kiss me on the cheek, a sweet gesture that told me not too many people in her life had done what I just had for her.

  “Just remember what I said.” I gave her what I hoped was a stern look. “Stay in school. Eat your vegetables. Stay away from rock stars and eight balls,” I pulled the plastic bag out of my pocket again to reinforce my message. “Unless they’re the magic kind, okay?”

  Jess nodded.

  I started back down the hall, lost in thought, and nearly ran into Ty. He was standing just out of sight, in the shadows.

  “You scared me!” My hand went to my throat. “What are you doing?”

  “I woke up and you were gone.” He glanced down at the bag in my hand. “Thirteen years old and they got their hands on that?”

  “You heard?” I cringed. I’d been hoping to spare him. “If Rob knew, he’d kill them. And us. And everyone on the bus.”

  “You’re right about that.” He took the bag of white powder out of my hands. “It’s probably just baking soda. Come on.”

  I followed him back to our room. Everyone else was still sleeping.

  “You gave her some good advice, Mom.” Ty grinned as he sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Yeah, I sounded just like my mother, actually.” I grinned back. “It was weird.”

  “You got Rob pegged.” Tyler looked down, turning the eight ball over in his hands.

  “Well I was exaggerating for effect.” I sat down beside him, looking at it too.

  “Of course.” He grimaced.

  “You really think it’s baking soda?”

  “Where would kids that young get their hands on heroin?” He lifted it up in the dim light.

  “You’ve never lived in Detroit, have you?” I rolled my eyes. “How would we know?”

  “We could taste it, I guess.”

  “Oh right, like I’d know the difference between heroin and baking soda?”

  “You’d know,” he said darkly. Then he looked at me. “You’ve never taken heroin?”

  “Oh sure.” I smiled. “It’s my drug of choice, after crack.”

  “Crack addicts and heroin addicts are like two separate species,” he said. “Kind of like me and Rob.”

  “You know, what I said about Rob… that was about him, not you.” I nudged him with my hip, wondering how much he’d heard. “And I really was making a lot of it up to scare her.”

  “Right.” He nodded. “I know.”

  “Ty, really.” I didn’t want him to think otherwise. “I don’t think any of those things about you. Besides, you’re not a lead singer.”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” he said softly.

  “Not that you couldn’t be,” I countered. I was just digging myself a deeper hole. “You write amazing songs, and I honestly think you sing better than Rob. You know I do.”

  “But my wanting to be, that would make me an arrogant narcissist?” He lifted his gaze to meet mine.

  “No, I didn’t say that!” I protested, watching him untie the baggie. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m checking.” He dipped his pinkie finger in and stuck it in his mouth, rubbing the white stuff on his gums while I gaped at him. “Hey, I need to know what we’re dealing with here. Anyone gets caught wi
th this, it’s serious time.”

  “Well?” I asked after a moment.

  “It’s heroin,” he assured me. “But it’s so stepped on it might as well be baking soda.”

  “Stepped on?”

  “Cut,” he clarified, but I was still confused. “Mixed with stuff. Who knows what?”

  “Oh.” I frowned. “That’s scary.”

  “Definitely not FDA approved.”

  “You mean like the ten Oxy you take every night?”

  “At least I know they’re not cut with flour.” Tyler contemplated the substance in his hands. “Although it’s a damned expensive sleep aid.”

  “But it helps with the pain?” I asked.

  “It helps with all kinds of pain.” He gave me a short nod. “Haven’t you noticed?”

  I nodded. I was up to five a night myself. The damned things lost their effectiveness so fast! When I first started taking them after shows to get to sleep, I only had to take a half of one to put me right out. Now I had to take five. I understood pretty quickly how Ty had built himself up to taking ten at a time. And when he was really hurting, that wasn’t even touching the pain.

  “This is a rough road.” I sighed.

  “The road is rough,” he agreed. “But it’s all worth it for the adoration of thirteen-year-old girls who want to fuck us and let us snort heroin off their tiny little tits.”

  “Jesus.” I winced.

  “I’m joking.”

  “I know.” I swallowed. “But you have to know there are plenty of bands that would...”

  “Hell, yeah there are.” He nodded slowly. “Rob’s got the rules in place for a reason. Control freak that he is.”

  “Condoms on the coffee table in every hotel.”

  “Right.”

  There were even condoms in a big box in the closet on the bus. Rob knew it was going to happen—he even knew about the drugs—and did his best to avoid it, or barring that, to prevent the repercussions of a night of poor choices, as my mother would put it.

  “Oh my God, Ty, I forgot to tell you.” I grabbed his arm, thinking suddenly about condoms and repercussions.

  “What?” He frowned at me, looking more than a little scared at my sudden change in conversation.

  “I talked to Sabrina...”

  It had been on the night I’d found him in so much pain backstage, and I’d forgotten to mention it. Or, maybe the reality was I was afraid to say something. Sabrina had sworn me to secrecy, of course, and that was usually iron clad, even when I was engaged to Alex. I never told Alex anything. But this was different. I shared everything with Ty.

  It was hard not to get close in such tight quarters, spending so much time together. It was all day, every day, and we grew familiar quickly, far more than if we’d been in some regular dating situation where we both went to work every day, came home too exhausted to do much more than talk on the phone a while, and saw each other only on the weekends. This was like high-intensity dating. Immersion dating. Things barreled along on the road at a dizzying pace, and that included this thing between me and Ty.

  So, when Sabrina told me her secret and then asked me to swear I wouldn’t tell Ty, I actually hesitated. At least, in my head. The words, “Of course!” came out of my mouth, just like they always did, but I had to think twice about whether or not I meant them. How could I not tell Ty? In the span of just a few months, this man had come to know everything there was to know about me, from how I took my coffee, to where I went to elementary school, to just where to touch me to give me mind-blowing, soul-rending orgasms that made Rob knock on the wall separating us to remind me to keep it the fuck down.

  I tried, but hells bells, could my man fuck.

  I shared everything with Ty.

  “And?” Ty prompted when I didn’t finish my sentence.

  “Oh… and...” I swallowed, knowing I was betraying a confidence, but this wasn’t Alex, this was Ty. This was different. If I told him, I was betraying Sabrina. If I didn’t tell him, I was betraying us. “You have to swear you won’t tell anyone. I mean it, Ty, not even Rob. You swear?”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die.” He ran a finger in an X shape over his bare chest. So earnest. It made me smile.

  “Well you don’t have to go that far.” I took his hand and kissed his callouses, the ones that rocked me to climax and then to sleep every single night.

  “So, what’s the big secret?”

  I took a deep breath and just blurted it out.

  “She’s pregnant.”

  “What?” Ty gaped at me like I’d just told him the universe had imploded. Like he couldn’t quite wrap his head around this latest information. It didn’t compute. Then he asked something that actually shocked me. “It’s Rob’s?”

  “Tyler!” I gasped. “Of course, it is!”

  “Okay, okay. Just checking...” He held his hands up in a warding off gesture when I punched him in the shoulder. “Holy fuck. What’s she going to do?”

  “She’s planning on telling him after the tour is over,” I told him. Sabrina had been so freaked out, afraid of what he would say or do when he found out. I tried to imagine Rob responding and just drew a blank. I knew he was crazy about her—but a baby? I knew she was afraid it would be a deal breaker and while I tried to be as positive as I could, I wasn’t sure myself what his reaction would be.

  “That’s, what, a month?” Tyler frowned, considering this news.

  “Yeah.” A month. I didn’t like to think about the end of the tour, about what came afterward for us. “She just found out. It’s early days. I guess they can decide… what they want to do.”

  “This is bad.” Tyler shook his head, staring at the baggie in his hands. “Fuck. Rob doesn’t want kids.”

  “I don’t think Sabrina is really ready for them either.” I sighed, trying to imagine being in her position. What in the world would I do? “I know I’m not.”

  “Good.” Tyler’s head came up and he looked at me sharply. I gasped at his response and he must have realized how it sounded. I felt an instant stab of pain, in spite of the fact that my own feelings about rugrats were pretty much the same as his. “Hey, that wasn’t… I mean… I’m not saying not ever, I’m just saying, you know, not right now.”

  He tried to cover his tracks and I shrugged, letting him.

  “No worries.” I laughed, hoping it didn’t sound as hurt as I felt. “We’re not exactly to the talking about having kids stage, Ty.”

  “Neither are they, but here it is.” He sighed.

  “Apparently my mother was right about that one poor life choice speech.”

  “My mother never gave me that speech. But Rob did.” Ty laughed, a short, bitter sort of laugh, shaking his head. “This could fuck up everything.”

  “How?” I shrugged. If Rob and Sabrina wanted to, I knew they could work it out. It could be a deal breaker, but it didn’t have to be. “I mean, Rob has more money than God. That’s not an issue.”

  “You don’t understand.” Ty shook his head, frowning. “Trouble has an image. We’re not supposed to be attached. We’re definitely not supposed to be married with kids.”

  “Well no one said anything about marriage.” I scowled. Of course, Rob had—to me—but I didn’t know if he’d said anything about that to Ty. “Besides, Rob was already married, remember?”

  “It’s just… complicated,” Tyler went on, like I hadn’t even spoken. “Having a relationship is hard enough in this world. But adding kids to that? It’s a disaster.”

  “How do you know Rob doesn’t want kids?”

  “He’s told me a hundred times.” Tyler snorted. “He thinks… he doesn’t want to pass anything on.”

  “Genetically, you mean?”

  “I guess.” He shrugged. “But don’t tell Sabrina that. Swear you won’t say anything to her!”

  Great. This worked both ways apparently.

  “Okay,” I agreed, wondering how to negotiate this unfamiliar territory. I had to not share things with
both of my best friends. How did people do this? “Where are you going?”

  “I need a shower.” Tyler headed toward the door.

  “What are we going to do with this?” I held up the baggie he’d left on the bed.

  “I’ll take care of it.” He pulled the door open, glancing down the hall toward the girls. “You take care of them.”

  “I will.” I gave him a nod like I knew what I was doing. The reality was I felt in serious need of a real grownup, because I for all the world seemed like a little kid trying to negotiate my way through a suddenly very adult world.

  Chapter Ten

  I was up, dressed and ready to rock and roll when the bus stopped in Oklahoma City. None of the girls had brought anything more than a purse. How in the world they thought they were going to survive on the road, I have no idea, but that was the foresight of thirteen-year-olds for you. One phone call to Celeste procured me both bus tickets and a loaner car to drive them to the bus station.

  But before we left, I knocked on Rob’s door and asked him a favor. Once I’d explained—leaving out the part about the heroin because I didn’t feel like getting a new one ripped for me so early in the morning—Rob agreed to come out, talk to the girls, sign autographs, take selfies, and most importantly, tell Jess the truth.

  “You really have a new girlfriend?” she asked. I could tell she was trying to hold back tears.

  “I do,” he said gently. He was wearing sweats and a t-shirt and still had bed head, and the man was sexy on wheels. All the girls were practically drooling.

  “Is it serious?” she asked, sounding hopeful. Like, maybe if she’s not here or anything and maybe if you’re not too serious, there might be hope…

  “Don’t tell anyone but...” Rob leaned in to tell just Jess, although I was close enough to hear him. “I’m going to ask her to marry me.”

  Jess’s poor face fell. Mine probably gave away all the shock I felt, at least in the moment. He’d confessed this to me, but I didn’t know he was going to tell Jess. I wondered if he’d conveyed his intentions to Sabrina yet? I doubted it, because while she still said she was completely in love with the man, she often wondered if he felt the same way about her. After all, we only spent one night together, Katie, my practical friend said over and over. I don’t know how we’re supposed to build a relationship on that.