Cover Me: A Rock Star Romance (18 page)

“I don’t want to crush you. I want to be with you. I want to make love to you every night and wake up with you every morning. I want a life with you. I want what Emmy and John have—neurotic female Halprin genes and all.” He held both of my hands against his chest. “Bess, I’m holding back because you’ve been standing on shaky ground. I don’t want to scare you and push you away, but I would marry you tomorrow if I thought you’d say yes. I told you, it’s our time.”

An overwhelming wave of emotion rushed up from the pit of my stomach into my chest and flooded my eyes with more tears. I sobbed and covered my mouth, holding back more. Derek placed my hands on my lap and kissed my forehead before standing and resuming his packing.

He was still leaving? After confessing he’d marry me tomorrow if he had it his way? Why was there always this constant push and pull to our relationship. The ebb and flow that kept pulling me under and washing me ashore. I wanted—craved—consistency. I knew I was being obstinate and stubborn and should let go of the past, but it had eaten away at me for all this time. It was a parasite that I could only be ridded of by Derek realizing and understanding what he’d done and giving me a sincere apology. It dug in deep after so many years. It dictated my beliefs and my confidence in him. It wasn’t as simple as letting go, like it was a balloon that would quickly float away and be out of sight and mind.

He made a quick trip across the hall to the bathroom and came back with his toothbrush, shaving kit and hair supplies. “Are you staying here or do you want me to walk you home? I need in your garage.”

“I’ll go.” Why would I stay? I wasn’t sure if we were breaking up or together or what we were. All I knew was that I was tired. Exhausted. My eyes kept leaking tears and a physical pain ached and throbbed in my chest. My throat was sore and constricted, my hands shook and my palms stung where anxious nerve endings stood on end in red bumps. My stomach clenched and roiled. There was a good chance I was going to throw up. I couldn’t remember ever being so upset.

He was leaving without me and I couldn’t manage to choke out the words that might make him stay.

Derek

M
y mom gave
me the exact same look she gave me when I was eighteen and told her I was headed to L.A. “What do you mean you’re going back there?” She took the money I handed her and looked at it like she didn’t know what it was. “What about your father?”

“That’s for his fine. Tell him I’m sorry I got him involved.”

She crumpled the money and let it fall to the floor. “He
wants
to be involved. He’s your father.”

“He was arrested because I’m here. It was stupid of me to think that something like this wouldn’t happen.” I caught Bess’s eyes where she stood beside me. “I can’t escape my life and pretend to have another one.”

She blinked and looked down at the floor. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I wanted her to know she was stripping me bare. I couldn’t stand in front of her and be eighteen again and carefree like I’d been trying to do all week. I was someone else now and couldn’t run from him any longer. She either accepted me for who I was, or she didn’t. I told her how I felt. It was up to her to determine if she felt the same for me.

“Well,” Mom said, looking back and forth between us and—I was certain—sensing something wasn’t quite right. “Is Bess going back with you?”

“No,” she said. “I’m going to stay here a little longer. Spend some more time with Emmy and the girls.” Her voice was hoarse, like she lost it and was forcing it to come. It was all I could do to keep myself from taking her hand and pulling her to me.

“I think this is a bad idea, Derek,” Mom said, grabbing one of my suitcases by the handle. “This has been an emotional day for all of us. Why don’t we sit down and I’ll make us something to eat. We’ll watch a movie and relax and if you still want to leave in the morning, then fine.”

“I know what you’re thinking, Mom. I’m being irrational. I’m making a big deal about nothing. But I’m not. I know what I have to do and being here is only prolonging the inevitable.” I gave her a hug and took my suitcase from her grip. “I’ll call when I get in.”

She pursed her lips and scowled, but didn’t try to stop me. “Be careful driving.” She reached out for Bess and gave her a hug. “We’re right over here if you need us, dear.”

Bess sniffled and blinked a few dozen times, nodding. “I know. Thanks.”

I wasn’t sure which of them I was hurting and angering more. All I did was love Bess and want to protect my parents’ privacy by getting out from under their roof. What a bastard.

I pushed open the door with a suitcase in each hand and my guitar case slung over my shoulder and headed down the porch steps and across the yard with Bess on my heels. I motioned for her to hurry and catch up, but she ignored me. When we got to the house, she opened the front door and turned to me. Her eyes were bloodshot and her nose red. “Have a safe trip. I’ll open the garage for you.” Then she went inside and closed the door on me.

Like last time—when she left for college—she shut me out. No goodbye, no nothing. In an instant, I was relegated to someone she shoved out of her life. Someone she had to protect herself from.

Fuck that. She wasn’t going to do this to me again.

I threw my suitcases aside, set down my guitar and grabbed the door handle. It was locked. My temper flared. There was no keeping my anger under wraps. I pounded with my fist, making the door shake. “Bess! Open the fucking door!” I kept pounding until I heard the garage door grumble to life and begin to rise.

I jogged down off the porch and around to the garage. She wasn’t there, but my car was and it was running. It wasn’t a stretch to guess she wanted me gone. I dashed past it to the door that entered into the house. It was locked too. “Mother fucker. Bess!” I pounded and waited, paced back and forth in front of my car and didn’t care about the paparazzi shooting photos or filming the whole ordeal. My manic rage was quickly fading to desperation. I knocked again, defeat sinking in my stomach. “Bess,” I said, leaning my forehead and palms flat against the door. “Please. Let me in.” I whacked my hand against the door. How could she leave me out here begging?

I stepped back and got ahold of myself. Next thing I’d be breaking down the door or punching out a window and joining my dad in jail. The Bast men and their tempers were as notorious as the Halprin women and their crazy. Bess and I were fire and gasoline. An explosive combination, in all the right and the wrong ways.

I had to walk away or I’d do something stupid I’d regret and she’d never forgive me for.

I opened my car door and popped the trunk, stowed my suitcases and guitar and got in behind the wheel. L.A. seemed like a distant memory. I had nothing there to go back to, but had to go just the same.

I put the car in reverse and backed out of the garage. When I got to the end of the driveway, I looked back and saw her standing in the doorway at the back of the garage. We stared at each other for a long moment, me wondering if we would somehow go forward from here. Who knew what she was thinking. Then she hit the garage door button and in seconds was stolen from my view by the creaky door coming down on its track.

I put my car in gear and got the hell out of Santa Cruz.

The sound of
Derek pounding on the door still echoed in my ears. I didn’t think I’d ever forget his raw voice calling my name, the desperation and anger.

I wanted to let him in, but couldn’t. Telling him goodbye wasn’t something I could face. It never was. Goodbye wasn’t a word I could use with Derek. I spent too much time without him and now he was gone again. How could he walk away when we were in the middle of finding our way together?

Freaking time bomb over his head.

I crashed down onto the couch, picked up a throw pillow and screamed into it. I was my own worst enemy. I should’ve let him in. I should’ve begged him not to go. I should be in my car going after him.

What was I so afraid of?

I threw the pillow across the room and looked around. Here I was, sitting in the house I grew up in. Twenty-seven years old and I was still firmly enclosed in my safe-zone. I strayed outside my bubble long enough to make a handful of friends and date a few guys in college. Since then my life was all work and making The Scene a respected magazine. The one time I let my guard down, Jack Fucking Stewart blasted my emotions to pieces. So here I was—the girl in the bubble forevermore who let the love of her life walk away.

I dragged myself into the bathroom to take a hot shower and wash the day down the drain. Not that it would rinse away. It loomed there inside me, intensifying in the steam until I almost suffocated on it.

I sank to the floor of the shower and wept. Wrapped my arms around my knees and sobbed like I hadn’t in a long, long time—maybe ever.

When the tears gave me a reprieve, I bundled a towel around my hair and another around my body and went to my room. My eyes habitually focused out my window to Derek’s. I pulled the blind and shut the curtains tight. The room went dim. In another hour or so, it would be dark and the day would end and all of this would be one horrific memory I lived through and could begin getting over.

I set my glasses aside, crawled in bed and closed my gritty, swollen eyes.

I could still
hear Derek pounding on the door—except it was hours later and woke me from a dead sleep. Someone was knocking.

I jumped out of bed. Could it be him? Did he come back?

The idea grew to the point of imploding in my brain before I got to the front door and tugged it open to find Emmy standing there with her phone in her hand. “Have you seen
TMZ
?” she asked.

“No,” I said, rubbing my eyes and securing my towel around myself. “I went to bed early. I’m not even sure what time it is.”

She shoved her phone at me, pressing play on a video loaded on the screen. I watched, horrified. “Oh my God.”

“Yeah, oh my god,” Emmy said, pushing by me to get inside.

It was a video of Derek losing it, pounding on my door and yelling for me to open it. The article it was embedded in was titled, Bast Berserker. It recounted his outbursts over the prior weeks, firing his manager and breaking the contract with Unholy Union. There was a quote from one of his ex-bandmates from Generic Obsession, “Bast needs anger management classes. He’s always been a loose cannon.”

“First you drive the guy into a drunken stupor and my husband has to go get him from the bar.” Emmy flicked her long, blond hair over her shoulder, glowering at me. “Then you make him nuts enough to practically knock the damn door down and it’s all on camera and posted online for all eternity. Nice going.”

I shoved her phone back at her. “Who says this is
my
fault? And I
never
asked you to have John pick him up at the bar.”

“This is obviously your fault. You’re like a pit bull when it comes to men. You let them get close enough to touch and then bite their hand off.”

“How do you know anything about my relationships with men?” I slammed the door and crossed my arms. My pulse hammered in my temples. “And pit bulls are very misunderstood animals. They’re only mean when they’re treated poorly.”

“So you were treated poorly by a man?” she crooned, mocking me. “Join the club, princess. There’s not a woman on this planet that hasn’t been treated like shit by a man at least once.”

“Why the hell are you so mad at me?”
I stormed past her down the hall and into my room to throw on a robe. She followed me.

“Because I’m sick of you acting like a hard ass until you get what you want and it scares the shit out of you. When The Scene started getting huge you bailed and came home for two weeks. Now you get the guy you’ve wanted since you were like twelve and knew the difference between a penis and a vagina and you freak.
Why
do you do that?”

I plopped down on my bed, put my glasses on and considered what she said. It was true. Every word. I ran. And ran and ran and never let happiness catch up to me. It was easier to always want than to get everything and lose it. “There’s a saying that goes, ‘When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet.’ That’s why I do it. I’m afraid to be happy. I won’t be able to handle it if it’s taken away.”

Emmy eased down beside me and leaned her shoulder against mine. “Sometimes it’s worth the risk.”

She was right, but old habits died hard. The thought of handing over my heart and soul to him—especially him, who could take and take until there was nothing left of me—was terrifying. And so, so desirous. If I gave him all of me, it could be like dying and going to heaven. It could also be a train wreck. There was no telling.

But Derek was worth the risk.

Emmy turned her head, glancing around my old bedroom. “Ha! You still have those Marti Gras beads! Do you know what I had to do to get those?”

“Yes, I’m aware.” I pushed her shoulder off of me and stood up.

She laid back on my bed and continued to cackle away. “That was a good time. You should go. Flash those big bobbies of yours. You’d be queen of Bourbon Street.”

“Shut up!” I picked my towel up off the floor and snapped her leg with it.

“Ow!” She bolted off the bed and grabbed the towel. “At least offer me a drink. I drove all the way over here to chew your ass out and make you open your eyes. I’m like your own personal Dr. Phil. You’re welcome.”

“You know where the kitchen is,” I said, but walked that direction anyway. My stomach grumbled. I had no appetite, but needed to eat. I was light headed.

“
TMZ
has photos of Mr. Bast punching that paparazzi. Mom’s going to love that.” She laughed. “He’s still giving her shit about those lawn clippings.”

I poured her a glass of wine and bit into an apple. “The whole thing’s a mess.”