by Selena Kitt
“Tyler,” I choked, hearing the entire crowd gasp, seeing our images up on the screen, Tyler kneeling, holding out the ring box. They knew what was coming, before I did.
It was the same ring he’d tried to give me before he went on the European tour, when my recovery was so new. We’d both just gotten out of rehab, and I had felt like a newborn colt trying to walk on shaky legs. I was sure, if we both went on tour together again, we’d both fall flat on our faces.
It had been the hardest thing I ever had to do, turning him down. What girl in her right mind would ever turn down a marriage proposal from Tyler Cook? I didn’t know what would have been crazier at the time, accepting it or refusing it. Both were pushing the limits of insanity.
But we were both back on our feet again. We were on the other side of my relapse—and had been, for months. There were no more secrets between us now. We’d told each other everything, shared the deepest, scariest, most shameful parts of ourselves, and still, I’d never loved anyone more than I loved Tyler.
And I’d never felt more seen than I did in his presence. Really seen, all of me, even the worst parts. And he loved me in spite of them. Sometimes, I think, because of them. He seemed to delight in my peculiar habit of sassing off and getting into trouble and boldly saying whatever I was thinking, consequences be damned.
“Katie…” Tyler was still holding the microphone in his other hand and he spoke into it as he looked up at me.
Goddamnit, now I really was going to cry. There goes my professionally applied makeup, I thought. I didn’t even know how much it had cost Tyler to get the service to come do my hair and makeup that afternoon, but it hadn’t been cheap.
“You are the only woman I’ve ever met who I can’t stop thinking about,” Tyler said, and I wondered if I was the only one who could see the little tremble in the hand holding the ring. “We’ve been through hell and back together, girl, but somehow, no matter how bad it got, it still felt like heaven when you were in my arms.”
Oh hell. Real tears slipped down my cheeks, and everyone was watching us, but I could only see them on the edges of my blurry vision. Tyler was my entire world, in that and every moment.
“I want to spend the rest of my life loving you, Katie Monroe. And I will, even if you turn down every single proposal I make.”
A collective sigh from every woman in the audience. I had a vision of this proposal being all over the entertainment news shows, wondering how all the other Tyler Cook fans were going to take such a public display of affection.
I knew Arnie wasn’t going to be a happy camper, and that almost made me laugh, because I could tell by the gleam in Tyler’s eye that he’d planned this public spectacle to get a little bit of a rise out of their long-time manager and agent.
“I thought, maybe, if I asked you here, in front of all these people…” Tyler glanced around, grinning up at Daniel Craig for a moment—I’d almost completely forgotten he was there—and then looked back at me. “You might say yes. Will you marry me, Katie?”
I honestly didn’t hesitate, not even for a moment.
The crowd exploded into applause when I choked out, “Yes!” and Tyler took just a moment to slip the ring on my finger—a cool, weighted bit of satisfaction—before standing up and kissing me in front of everyone. The flash of what felt like a thousand cameras burst all around us as Tyler whispered that he loved me into my ear and I thought, now I’ll wake up, and this whole thing will be a dream.
But it was real. He was real. And he was mine.
Chapter Eight
“Are you nervous?” I asked, squeezing Tyler’s hand.
“You could say that.” He rocked back on his heels in his Keds, looking at the door as if contemplating whether or not he should knock.
“I’m here.”
He leaned over and kissed me full on the mouth, and I actually felt a tremble in his lips. I pressed my forehead against his when we parted, closing my eyes and breathing him in. I remembered how I felt, seeing my dad again after so many years, that mixture of hope and dread in the pit of my stomach.
“Here goes nothing,” he whispered, then knocked.
Sarah answered the door with her usual smile, her long, dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. I felt Tyler hesitate, and I knew just how he felt. I’d felt that way, last week, when we’d visited my dad and his new wife—who wasn’t really “new” anymore, they’d been married for years, but she was “new” to me—and my little eight-year-old sister, Emma. It had been Tyler nudging me into the house then, urging me forward when I hesitated.
Today it was me, taking his hand, pulling him into Sarah’s new apartment. We hadn’t been to visit yet, although Sarah had been to our place, where we had her birthday-slash-graduation party. Sarah had just recently moved out of Rob’s place into her own, with roommate, Anne—but we weren’t just here to see the new digs.
“Mom?” Sarah called out as we stepped in and closed the door behind us. “Tyler’s here.”
His hand tightened in mine as we entered the little living room.
The woman sitting on the sofa reminded me so much of Sarah it was a little frightening. She was an older, scarred version of her daughter. She’d been in prison a long time, and every bit of it showed on her face.
“Tyler.” She said his name softly, and the pain in her eyes was so clear. She blamed herself—and I knew what that felt like. I’d walked the path of addiction, too. I’d felt that empty chasm inside, a hole that was impossible to fill.
We’d both done things we weren’t proud of.
And we both loved Tyler. That much was in her eyes, too.
“Hi, Mom,” he said, not moving forward. He sounded so small and childlike I had to look at him and do a double-take, just to be sure. “How are you?”
“Alive.” Her smile was small, grim, but she held a hand out to him. “It’s so good to see you, baby boy.”
I met Sarah’s eyes as Tyler crossed the little living room to take his mother’s hand for the first time since he was ten years old. Sarah and I had talked about this meeting, her plan to reunite with her mother, to help heal Tyler’s wounds, along with her own. Rob, so far, had refused. He wouldn’t let any of us even talk about Leanne in his presence.
But Tyler had agreed, albeit a little reluctantly, when Sarah told him their mother was getting out of prison, and Sarah planned on letting Leanne live with her until she found a job and got back on her feet again. Sarah said she didn’t want her living in a halfway house, somewhere shady and risky, where relapse would be right outside her doorstep.
Sarah had only been six when she lost her mother, and her longing for her was clear every time we’d talked about it. I’d wondered if her image of her mother, her fantasy of what it would be like, might be clouding her judgment when she told me about her plan. But Sarah had a good head on her shoulders, and realistic expectations, in the end.
I’d gone with Sarah, at her request, to visit Leanne the week before she got out of jail. I’d been witness to the tearful reunion between mother and daughter, the apologies and the memories. I’d sat next to Sarah, listening to the two of them catch up, even laugh together, through their tears, and had been humbled all the way to my bones by the experience.
It’s what had inspired me, the following week, to call my own father, to talk to my stepmother, who answered the phone, and arrange to go over there for dinner, so I could tell them that Tyler and I were now engaged. If Sarah could do it, if she could forgive her mother her sins, surely, I could forgive my father for leaving me, leaving us, behind.
And if Sarah could extend her hand to the woman who had given birth to her, to attempt to have a relationship again with her, then I, too, could ask my father if he would walk me down the aisle.
I think he was shocked I even asked.
My father looked at me across the table like I’d grown two heads all of a sudden, when, after we’d announced our engagement and all the ring-admiring was over, I asked him, “Would you want to giv
e me away… at the wedding?”
I don’t think I took a breath until he answered—and it took him a minute. He sat back, staring at me, and I thought he might have gotten a little misty-eyed, although it may have been a trick of the light.
“Do you want me to, Katie?” His answer was a question, at least at first. I wanted to say something snarky, like would I have asked you if I didn’t want you to? But I didn’t. Instead, I held my breath and waited, our eyes locked, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much emotion on my father’s face, even when he came to visit me in rehab. “Because I’d be… pleased—thrilled—to walk you down the aisle.”
I think we all got a little misty-eyed then. I had to blink back my tears until he looked at Tyler and said, “You better take good care of my girl. She deserves it.”
Then I had to excuse myself to run to the bathroom before everyone saw my mascara run. I was still a damned coward, even after everything, and didn’t want anyone to see me cry. Except Tyler, who held me that night while I cried. He kept asking if they were happy or sad tears and all I could say was, “Yes.”
My father hugged me a little tighter before we left—Tyler invited them over to our place to go swimming in the ocean, which made my little sister, Emma, squeal with excitement—and that’s when my father told me not to be a stranger.
I wanted to laugh, or make some sarcastic comment, but I couldn’t. I saw something real and honest in his eyes for the first time in so long. I didn’t want to extinguish it with sarcasm.
Funny, we’d been strangers for years, but it was gratifying to see that I wasn’t the only one who’d missed out. He had, too. I wanted to ask him why—why he’d left, why he hadn’t come to see us, hadn’t invited us to see him—but I knew we’d get to that. And I didn’t even need to hear his apology, although I knew it would come, and I would accept it.
It was his step toward me, instead of taking a step back, that made all the difference.
For Tyler, it was when his mother reached a hand out for him. Amazing, but that’s all it took. He crumbled, went to his knees in front of her, and I watched with tears streaming down my face as he put his head in her lap like the child he’d been when they were separated, and he cried, too.
I felt Sarah’s hand in mine and looked over to see tears on her face, as she watched her mother stroke Tyler’s hair, crooning over him like she would a small child.
“I’m sorry,” Tyler choked, his head still in her lap. “Oh, Mom, I’m so sorry…”
It broke my heart into a thousand pieces to hear him say those words to her, to see the pain on her scarred, burned face. One of her eyes was staring at nothing—I knew it was made of glass. I didn’t know what had happened to her, but the scars she bore on her face were clearly nothing compared to the ones she harbored on the inside.
“No, sweetheart,” Leanne whispered, her ravaged face streaked with tears. “I’m sorry. So very, very sorry.”
“I shot him,” Tyler croaked. “I didn’t mean to… she said he was going to kill you… I…”
“You were just a baby.” Leanne gave a soft sob, wrapping her arms more fully around him. “It’s not your fault.”
Hearing her say those words made me cry even harder.
I wanted to go put my arms around him, around both of them, but I didn’t want to interrupt the moment. So, I turned to Sarah, who put her arms around me, and we held onto each other, watching the reunion of mother and son, one that none of us had ever believed could or would ever happen.
We all had a good cry, and we three women shared a box of Kleenex while Tyler excused himself to go to the bathroom. While he was in there, Sarah and Leanne put food out on the table—we’d come over for dinner, after all—and I helped. Sarah and I had spent months hanging out, living together, and we were comfortable around each other.
Leanne sat at the table, listening to me and Sarah banter back and forth, smiling to herself. I don’t think any of us had expected Tyler to warm so quickly to his mother. Sarah had, but that made sense. She’d been the youngest—and she was a girl. But when Sarah first talked to me about her idea, I’d been naturally hesitant. I didn’t know if Tyler would agree. And even if he did agree, I wasn’t sure it would turn out so well.
But when Tyler came out, I saw the relief on his face, and I knew we’d done the right thing. Sarah’s plan—concocted and carried out against Rob’s express wishes—was working. It was a plan based on love, on forgiveness, on the ability of the human spirit to survive at all costs, even the worst environments. We were so resilient, all of us. We could hurt ourselves, hurt other people, again and again, and still, we were capable of opening up and loving. In spite of it all.
Tyler held my hand under the table. We sat on one side, and Sarah and Leanne sat on the other. Sarah had made chicken fajitas, which were delicious, and Sarah regaled us with the tale of their shopping trip to Whole Foods to buy the ingredients. Her mother had never been in one before and was stunned by the concept of “organic” produce, and how much it cost.
“The world probably looks like a whole different place,” Tyler said, smiling over at his mother.
“It does,” she agreed. “But looking at it from this side of the bars is much better.”
“No doubt,” Sarah agreed, pouring more water into her glass from a pitcher in the middle of the table. “I’m just glad we’re all together. And we’re all clean and sober.”
“Well, not quite all of us.” Tyler met his sister’s eyes. I knew they were talking about Rob. He was perfectly sober, of course. He just wasn’t there and had no intention of it.
“It’s okay,” Leanne said, shrugging one shoulder, her eyes down on her plate. “He’s angry. And he has every right to be. I don’t… I didn’t expect you, any of you, to welcome me with open arms. I really didn’t even think I’d hear from you.”
“Rob’s just mad because he lied, and he got caught,” Sarah said, putting sour cream on her tortilla. “He didn’t tell Sabrina the truth. Hell, he knew you were getting out of jail, Mom, and he wasn’t going to tell me, either. I overheard Celeste telling him about it, or I wouldn’t have even known.”
“Rob thinks that withholding the truth is a protective measure,” Tyler said to his mother with a roll of his eyes.
“Hm.” She nodded, peering at him with her one good eye. “Sometimes, maybe it is.”
“I broke down and told Katie,” Tyler said, and I felt his hand move over my knee, squeezing gently. “I had to. I just… when you’re that close to someone, you just have to share things.”
I smiled at that.
“Well, I don’t blame Sabrina for being mad,” Sarah countered, frowning. “Given the way she found out…”
“How did she find out?” Leanne asked, taking more peppers out of the bowl for her fajitas.
“Oh my God, that…” I shook my head, spreading sour cream on my own tortilla. “Was awful.”
“What happened?” Tyler’s mother asked.
“She overheard a conversation,” Tyler said, looking longingly at the sour cream that I put out of his reach. “About someone getting out of jail.”
“And she assumed it was Catherine,” I said, smacking Tyler’s hand playfully when he tried to reach over me for the sour cream. “No dairy, mister.”
“Catherine?” Leanne prompted.
“Remember, I told you she tried to kill Rob, and she shot Sabrina,” Sarah explained to her mother. “And they lost their baby?”
“Why would she think it was Catherine getting out of jail?” Leanne asked, rolling up her fajita.
“I guess it was a misunderstanding. She just assumed,” Sarah replied, licking sour cream off her fingers. “I mean, she didn’t even know about you. So, who else could it be, but Catherine?”
“So anyway,” I said, biting into my fajita. “She went to see her.”
“In jail?” Leanne asked.
“Catherine’s in…” Tyler cleared his throat. “Well, she’s in treatment.”
“Substance abuse?” Leanne guessed.
“Psychiatric,” Tyler corrected.
“Anyway, Catherine told her,” I said. “Well, she told her everything.”
“And Sabrina, she didn’t know anything?” Leanne looked at me. “Rob hadn’t told her?”
“No. He stuck to our usual story,” Sarah interjected. “Rob and Tyler met through Arnie. They formed Trouble with the rest of the guys. I came along a couple years later, after Rob met me through rehab.”
Leanne looked incredulous. “She didn’t even know you were all related?”
“Like I said, Rob uses deception as a layer of protection,” Tyler said bitterly.
Leanne chewed thoughtfully. Then she asked, “So did they break up? Rob and Sabrina?”
We all looked at each other for a minute, not answering. Sabrina had been both angry and hurt—not that I could blame her. I remembered how I felt when Tyler told me. And I’d found out from him—not from a crazy ex-wife who had been responsible for a shooting and the loss of their baby. I couldn’t fault her for wanting some space after that.
“I guess… they’re on a break?” I offered by way of an explanation. “Sabrina got the chance to go on tour with Jimmy Voss, and I think, finding out that Rob lied… it just kind of made up her mind.”
“Jimmy Voss?” Leanne choked. “Bad Dog Blueshounds? That Jimmy Voss?”
“That’s the one,” Tyler agreed. “Arnie made that happen.”
“Arnie is Trouble’s agent,” Sarah explained to her mother.
Leanne looked more than a little star struck, not that I could blame her. I saw celebrities all the time now that would have left me speechless before. It was a whole new world for her, in so many ways.
“It was a good compromise,” Tyler said, mid-chew. “Rob insisted on Sabrina joining the band, and the label just wasn’t gonna let that happen.”
“Trouble wouldn’t be the same,” Sarah said, sipping her water.
