Trouble: Tyler and Katie

by Selena Kitt

  “Everything ready?” I asked hopefully.

  The five of us girls had planned this wedding down to every last detail, along with Claire, our wedding planner—Tyler hadn’t wanted much input, except for the music, which I gave over to him—but now I just couldn’t wait for that walk down the aisle.

  And our honeymoon.

  “Your dad is going to have a heart attack,” Celeste laughed. “I’ve never seen a more nervous father-of-the-bride.”

  “You better go calm him down, Emma,” I told my sister and she gave me a gap-toothed salute before heading out the door.

  “Oh my God, Katie…” Sabrina’s gaze swept over me, top to bottom. “You look so amazing.”

  “This could have been us,” I said, sticking out my tongue. “But you had to go get secretly married in Aruba!”

  Sabrina laughed and then shrugged. “Rob couldn’t wait.”

  “Katie?” A voice called, and I looked past my bridesmaids to see Tyler’s mom—my future mother-in-law—peeking in. “Claire said five minutes.”

  “Thanks, Leanne.” I smiled back at her. She’d been so afraid of “messing up all your wedding pictures with my ugly face,” but we’d hired a professional make-up artist, and she looked amazing. She gave me a little wave and ducked back out again.

  “Are you ready for this?” Sarah asked, adjusting my veil.

  “I should have worn the Versace.” Celeste sighed, looking at my dress. “You look amazing in it.”

  “You were a beautiful bride,” I reminded her.

  Celeste and Jesse had gotten married just a few months after they announced their engagement. They couldn’t wait either. Honestly, I wouldn’t have waited myself if we hadn’t been forced to plan around the series’ shooting schedule.

  “It’s time!” Claire poked her head in this time. “Places, ladies!”

  They all squealed and squeezed me and rushed out of the room carrying their bouquets and then I was left alone. But I heard Tyler’s voice, calling me, playing our song.

  I didn’t want the traditional wedding march, anyway.

  “Katie?” My father poked his head in. and the look on his face was priceless. “Oh my God, Katie. You look…”

  “Like a princess?” I laughed.

  “Beautiful,” he breathed. I saw tears brimming in his eyes.

  “Don’t you cry!” I warned, fanning my own eyes when I saw his. “Don’t you dare! My mascara is waterproof, but still…”

  We could both hear Tyler singing.

  When you sleep, and I keep

  My vigilant gaze into the night

  Where the light can’t penetrate

  In the cold, in the dark

  You are the star fire burning bright

  To where I navigate

  Then the morning rise

  And I feel it

  In your waking eyes

  And I see it

  My eyes claiming yours

  And you feel it

  My father smiled, offering me his arm. I took a deep breath, my bouquet in my other hand, and took a step forward to take it.

  There are stars, that never part

  Split halves that are fused into one whole heart

  That spin into infinity

  How it burns, generates

  A force unmatched among the stars

  It’s a love like gravity

  My heart swelled as we walked out of the room into the alcove of the church. It was a beautiful, old Catholic church, although neither of us were Catholic. We’d gotten some sort of exception, because we weren’t members, but Celeste had been married in it, and I’d fallen in love with all the stained glass.

  “Are you happy?” My father leaned in to ask as we stood at the back of the church.

  “Beyond,” I whispered back, seeing everyone I loved standing or sitting up there at the front of the church.

  My mother was in the front row, along with my brother, Aaron, and his wife. My bridesmaids were standing in a row, Emma waving wildly to me, making me smile. On the other side, Rob was beside Tyler—his best man—along with the rest of Trouble acting as groomsmen.

  And there was Tyler, singing my song, and waiting for me to be his bride. Slowly, my father walked me down the aisle to meet him.

  Then the morning rise

  And I feel it

  In your waking eyes

  And I see it

  My eyes claiming yours

  And you feel it

  Put your hand, in my hand

  Our hearts surrendered to love’s demands

  The only bonds that make us free

  Claire had timed this moment perfectly. I saw her out of the corner of my eye, our wedding planner, checking her watch. This was the moment my father would hand me over to Tyler.

  My hand slipped from my father’s into my soon-to-be husband’s. My father’s hand closed over both of ours for a moment, squeezing, before he took a step back and gave me over completely.

  Tyler, still holding a mic, looking down at me as the music shifted and changed, bringing around the last verse. Tyler sang it to me, his eyes shining, and goddamnit, I wasn’t going to get through the first five minutes of my own wedding without crying.

  In the dark, in the night

  What we are ignites a forever light

  Where we will always be

  Say you’ll marry me

  Will you feel it?

  Say you’ll marry me

  Will you see it?

  Say you’ll marry me…

  Tyler’s voice trailed off, and he handed the mic over to the minister, like Claire had planned. It was all perfectly choreographed and orchestrated.

  Then Emma’s voice rose above everything, clear as day, “You have to say yes!”

  I looked at her and laughed. Then everyone laughed.

  “Yes!” I cried, throwing my arms around Ty and kissing him, much to everyone’s surprise, long before the official ceremony was begun, let alone over. Tyler wrapped his arms around me and kissed me back as I whispered the words that really sealed the deal against his lips, “So much yes!”

  The End

  WORTH THE TROUBLE

  WORTH THE TROUBLE DESCRIPTION

  He’s mine. I married the sexiest rock star on the face of the planet. There isn’t a woman alive who doesn’t want my man, because he doesn’t just make guitars moan and g-strings vibrate--Tyler Cook can play me all night long, with the hottest licks I can handle.

  And I’m his. He owns me completely, body and soul. I’ve never met another man who could turn me inside out and upside down the way he does, and now that I have him, I’m never letting him go.

  We’ve been through hell and back again, more than once. We’ve stumbled, we’ve faltered, we’ve gone reeling into chaos, but somehow, so far, we’ve managed to stay on our feet.

  This time, the secrets are so deep, there may be no bottom.

  Turns out, falling down is easy. It’s getting back up that’s the hard part.

  Chapter One

  I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find out that Trouble was breaking up in Variety, but somehow, it surprised me anyway.

  I sat there, staring at the words, with the sinking realization that when it came to Tyler and his secrets, I seemed to always be the last one to know. Then I saw the byline.

  Alisha McKenna.

  I should have known.

  The little redhead with the great big green eyes and the great big silicone tits who had been begging for an interview from Tyler since before we were even married. He’d always been partial to redheads, hadn’t he? I remember, the roadies said something snide about that once. So, what had made Tyler finally grant Alisha McKenna an interview?

  Not just an interview, I thought, blinking at the headline—Trouble’s in Trouble: Is the Ultimate Boy Band Breaking Up?—but the scoop of the goddamned century. At least in the entertainment world. This wasn’t just news. This was a front-page, oh-em-gee, did-you-hear, mind-blowing story that was about
to send every girl from the ages of twelve to twenty-something into palsied fits of downright insanity.

  Including me.

  Trouble’s breaking up?

  I mean, I knew, probably more than anyone else, that Trouble was in trouble. Tyler was exhausted, trying to keep up with the band and taping the Album series on top of it. He’d won two Emmys for the show on HBO—the critics loved it and the fans loved it even more. For the first time since Trouble’s inception, lead guitarist Tyler Cook had surpassed lead singer Rob Burn’s popularity in teen ’zine polls.

  My husband had finally become a true teen heartthrob, instead of just “the other cute one” in Trouble—the number one rock-slash-pop-slash-boy-band, depending on who you asked. Tyler’s brother, lead singer Rob Burns, had always been the front man, the center of attention, the one in the spotlight. Now Tyler was giving him a run for his money, a fact Rob claimed he didn’t mind, although secretly, I think he did, at least a little bit.

  But if Tyler left the band, Rob wouldn’t have to worry about his younger brother hogging the spotlight anymore, would he?

  It wasn’t like Tyler hadn’t talked about it. We’d had long, heartfelt conversations into the night about Tyler leaving Trouble, the pros and cons, all the implications and ramifications, from big to small and back again. We’d tossed it like a ball, back and forth between us, a game of hot potato, neither of us wanting to be left holding a decision that would affect not only our lives, but everyone we knew.

  Apparently, Tyler had finally decided to decide.

  Without me.

  I couldn’t believe it. But it was true. The headline glared back at me, defiant, black and white. Tyler had told Alisha McKenna what he’d decided to do. Alisha-bottomless-cleavage-McKenna. He’d called, and she’d printed. I was left entirely out of the loop.

  My phone buzzed on the table and I turned it over to see Sabrina’s name come up on the display. Had my best friend in the world read the article? Of course, she had. And she was calling to find out if I’d known. That would be the first question out of her mouth—Katie, did you know about this? What’s going on? And what would I say? What could I say.

  I had no idea.

  I’m his goddamned wife, and I had no idea.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I’d known it was a possibility, some day. That Tyler was tired, that his hands, his poor hands, were just going to get worse due to the rheumatoid arthritis he’d been diagnosed with when he was just a teen—a disease he refused to tell anyone about. Except me.

  Granted, a new medication, plus a radical change in his diet, seemed to have stemmed the decline, but age would only make it worse. Eventually, he just wouldn’t be able to play guitar anymore, no matter how much pain medication he took. Besides, HBO had renewed Album—it had surpassed Game of Thrones in ratings during its second season—and Tyler was the star.

  The phone buzzed in my hand and I looked at Sabrina’s name, debating whether or not I wanted to take the call. What was I supposed to tell her? Well, I knew he was kind of thinking about it, but I had no idea he’d decided…

  I couldn’t believe he’d decided without me.

  I tossed the phone back on the table, finishing my coffee in two big gulps. It was still too hot, and I burned my tongue, but I didn’t care. I folded the paper, so the headline was prominent, putting it on the kitchen table next to my empty cup. Then I turned the ringer off on my phone and waited for Tyler get back from his morning swim.

  The ocean was right outside our back door, and he swam in it every chance he got. Rob and Sabrina had a giant pool, but we preferred the thunder of the ocean. Swimming in it was an experience. There was always a slight hint of danger in it, unlike the placid experience of a pool.

  I suppose it was a pretty apt metaphor for our lives, the four of us. Rob and Sabrina were pool people. Calm, clean, warm water. No waves. Nothing to disrupt the placid surface. Me and Tyler? We were definitely ocean sorts. Jagged rocks, jellyfish, even sharks. Bring it on.

  I got up to raid the fridge while I waited for my husband to return from his morning swim. Rob and Sabrina had a cook, a driver, a housekeeper, but we’d never gotten around to employing any of those, in spite of the giant size of the house. We liked our privacy—mostly the ability to be able to have sex in every room in the house whenever we wanted.

  We did have a couple housekeepers—but no one live-in. They came a few times a week, cleaning all the rooms on a rotation. I couldn’t have cleaned this whole house by myself, no way.

  And we did subscribe to a food service that delivered fresh, organic food to our fridge for the weekdays. We cooked together as much as we possibly could, depending on Tyler’s schedule. Given Tyler’s condition, I was determined to keep him on the diet that had proven effective in decreasing general inflammation and easing his pain.

  But oh God, did I miss junk food. So, I kept a stash, hidden away where Tyler couldn’t find it and ate it when he wasn’t around. And right now, I needed a goddamned York Peppermint Patty. I hid them in a freezer-burned bag of Okra at the back of the freezer. The slit in the middle had been opened and resealed with Scotch tape. Tyler would never in a million years think to look there.

  Frozen Peppermint Patties were one of my favorites—like little mouth orgasms. I let the chocolate melt on my tongue, wishing the sweet, brightness of it could wash away the bitterness I was feeling.

  Here I thought we were doing so well, me and Tyler. We’d only been married a few years, but that was like twenty-something in Hollywood years. The tabloids and TMZ constantly photographed us as a couple, speculating on how long it would last, and Tyler and I would read the articles and laugh.

  Because we were invincible. We were going to be like Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, or Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. Before they broke up, anyway. But you know, one of those couples who last and last, for twenty or thirty years—which worked out to just about forever in Hollywood years.

  And we were going to last forever, because we were just that much in love. I told Tyler everything, good or bad, and he did the same with me. No more secrets had been our mantra since we’d decided to get married. There had been plenty of them before that, but none since.

  Except now, there was.

  I took another Peppermint Patty out, resealing the bag and shoving it to the back of the freezer behind the frozen steaks and pork roast—all grass-fed and hormone free, of course—where I knew Tyler would never look. Besides, he hated Peppermint Patties. If they’d been Snickers or Kit-Kats, he would have devoured them, but even if he found my secret stash, he’d probably turn his nose up at it.

  I drifted across the kitchen to look out the back doors—a wall of sliding glass, really—to look for Tyler. I saw his head bobbing in the waves, and the sight of his dirty-blonde hair slicked back, his skin tawny from the sun, made me smile in spite of the anger bubbling in my chest.

  It was hard for me to stay mad at Tyler.

  But he lied to you.

  The headline was still glaring at me from the table, along with Alisha-I’m-an-obvious-whore-McKenna’s byline.

  Secrets. God, I hated secrets.

  Like your secret stash?

  “Oh, come on,” I muttered, shaking my head with a snort. It wasn’t as if my secret stash of junk food was in any way comparable to Tyler telling a reporter he was leaving Trouble before he told me. Or his brother. Or the band.

  And my secret was just a little white lie. It was for his own good, after all. So maybe he thought doing it this way was for everyone’s good?

  I snorted again at that, seeing Tyler wading toward the shore. He was like a Greek god coming out of the surf, a reverse Venus, so beautiful it was almost blinding. And he was mine. All mine. To hell with Alisha-call-me-anytime-Tyler-McKenna. She wasn’t the one who had him in her bed every night, was she? So, she’d gotten him to tell her he was thinking about leaving Trouble. She’d probably tricked him into it.

  Or maybe he didn’t really tell her at all. />
  That possibility occurred to me, a bright flash through the red haze of my anger. What if Alisha-I’ll-do-anything-for-a-scoop-McKenna had made it up? It wouldn’t be the first time someone in the press had misconstrued something Tyler said, or just outright made something up and lied about it. The tabloids could take one tiny bit of truth and twist it to fit whatever story they wanted to tell.

  So, give him the benefit of the doubt.

  Okay, I could do that much, I decided, taking my seat again at our kitchen table. It was really more of a breakfast nook, cozy and sweet, brightly lit in the morning, a definite selling point when we bought the house.

  I slid onto the bench seat, checking my phone—I’d silenced the ringer, but when I flipped it over, I saw a bunch of texts and calls had come in since that first call from Sabrina. Everyone had read the article, apparently. Even Rob had called me.

  Tyler came in the back door, dripping wet, a towel draped around his shoulders. He shook off like a wet dog, then toweled his hair dry, smiling as he padded barefoot across the marble floor toward me. He stopped at the coffee maker to pour himself a cup, bringing the pot over to the table.

  “Good swim?” I watched him pour more coffee into my cup.

  “Great.” He leaned over to kiss the top of my head, hearing him breathe me in. I smiled when he dipped lower to nuzzle my ear, sending little electrical shivers down my arm to tingle my fingertips. “Not as good as you this morning, though… I didn’t want to get out of bed.”

  “Me either,” I confessed, feeling that strong, steady pulse between my thighs that being around Tyler always elicited. I still wanted him just as much as the first time we’d met. “But I promised Sabrina I’d meet her for lunch. And don’t you have the read-through? For the show?”

  “Rescheduled for next week.” Tyler went over to the fridge, pulling it open and bending to peer inside. Looking at him in profile, I felt the steel in my resolve melting. I wanted to be mad, indignant. But seeing the sculpted angles of his chest and back, the way his swim trunks cinched his trim waist, interrupting that darkly exciting treasure trail of hair from his navel down to his crotch, I found myself unable to keep up my directive.