Playing it Kale (The McCain Saga Book 4) (25 page)

Carefully, supporting her delicate head
with his rough hands, he settles her into my arms.
 
I notice he smells faintly like horses.
 
“She’s so tiny,” I coo as I look down at her
precious face.
 
She blinks at
me,
her eyes not quite blue any more, not quite the same
green as Riley’s.

“Is that Whitney?”

I look up and see Robin McCain coming
through the door with a diaper bag slung over one shoulder.
 
She’s got a smile on her face and excitement
in her step.
 
She closes the space
between us and folds me into a big mom hug, careful to not squish Callie.

“It’s really great to see you, Robin,” I
say, feeling my heart squeeze.

She looks so happy.
 
So different from the last few times I’ve
seen her, when she was mourning her husband and son.

“Don’t you just look like the superstar
you are,” she says.
 
And she actually
pinches my cheek.
 
“I just feel so proud
whenever I see you on TV.
 
You’re doing
amazing.”

“Thank you, that really means a lot,” I
say, and my heart melts all the more.

I don’t let Callie go as we settle down
for dinner.
 
I just hold her.
 
And fall in love.
 
And strangely, start to want one of my
own.
 
Because this is what really
matters.

I look up at this incredible
family.
 
This
is what really matters.
 
Not money, or fame, or the approval of the outside world.
 
What matters
is
those who love you most.
 
Who hold you
close to their hearts, even if you’re not actually family.
 
Family bonds of heart run deeper than blood
and water.

And for the first time in a long time,
I’m just happy.
 
I’m just Whitney, being
happy.
 
And that is the most amazing
feeling in the world.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE

“Thank you, Toronto, you’ve been
amazing!” I yell into the microphone.

The crowd goes insane, and I laugh and
smile and wave at them.
 
I take one last
bow, but put too much momentum into it, cause I trip forward, nearly falling
over.

I look up, embarrassed, but the crowd
just goes even
more crazy
.

“Thank you!
 
I love you!”

And then someone is talking in my ear,
telling me to head off the stage.
 
I blow
the huge crowd one last kiss, and then jog off to the side.

“Great job, nice show,” Hadley says as
she starts helping the costume people change me out of my stage clothes.
 

“Oh
my gosh
,
that was crazy,” I breathe hard.
 
Just
like I always do after a show.

“I promise, security will be tighter in
Paris,” Hadley says, irritation in her voice.

About half way into the concert, some
girl broke onto the stage, ran over, and gave me this crazy hard hug.
 
I couldn’t even breathe.
 
I played it off like it was cute and we were
friends, but it was actually kind of scary.
 
She was acting kind of insane.
 
Security swarmed the stage, dragging her off.
 
She started screaming, “I love you, Whitney!”
as they manhandled her off into handcuffs.

The crowd was stunned and quiet for a
minute.
 
“I love you, too!” I finally
called just to break the awkward silence.
 
And then everyone went crazy.

“What happened to her?” I ask as I
finish changing.
 
I had to get over my
fear of other people seeing me when I changed.
 
It just wasn’t an option to have modesty when on the move like
this.
 
People are going to see things,
and I’m okay with that now, as long as they’re not seeing it all.

“We handed her over to Toronto police,”
Tony says, coming up from behind.
 
“It’s
up to them now.”

“I feel bad,” I say as we start for the
car that will take us to yet another hotel.
 
“She was just excited.
 
Can we
make sure we send her something?”

Hadley sighs, as if this is a huge inconvenience.
 
“Yeah,” she relents.
 
“We’ll see what we can do.
 
I’ll put Mae on it.”

It takes me a moment to remember who Mae
is.
 
One of Hadley’s
three assistants.
 
It now takes a
whole army to keep me and everything involved going.

When we’re at the crazy-priced hotel, I
shower, pull on pajamas, and flop down in front of the TV.
 
I flip through channels.
 
And freeze when I hear Kale’s name.

“Former world-famous model, Kale McCain
sold his Manhattan apartment for a whopping seven point eight million
today.
 
Not present at the sale, we
tracked him down and managed to talk to him on the phone for a few
minutes.
 
When questioned about his big
move, Kale responded that he would be moving home to Washington State in the
near future.
 
He would not, however,
disclose where he has been the last few months.
 
One anonymous source has stated that America’s most handsome face has
been getting a degree online in Fire Science.
 
Is Kale headed into a new line of work?
 
Will we be seeing him gracing firemen calendars soon?
 
What do you think, Annette?”

The male reporter turns to the female
one.
 
“I think this would be amazing, to
see someone so well-known and so famous turn his life around and enter some
kind of service.
 
What happened to this man
is tragic.
 
Kale McCain’s life has been
ripped apart.
 
First
with losing his father, then the fire, and breaking things off with Whitney
Ford, all within the space of a few weeks.
 
The man had some issues to heal.
 
And I think it’s honorable, serving
others.
 
If he really is going into being
a fireman, I say that’s amazing.”

“There you have it,” the guy whose name
I can never remember says.
 
“We’ll keep
you updated if we hear more on this story.”

They move onto some story about Anthony
Hawkins, and I click the TV off.
 
I roll
onto my back and stare up at the ceiling.

Kale, a fireman?
 
I never, ever would have considered it.
 
But how much sense does that make?
 
It was a fire that ended his
career, that
nearly killed him and his friend.
 
Kale
is having
to
face his demons, and what better way to do it than literally facing what ended
his life as he knew it?

And he’s moving back home to
Washington.
 
That says something,
too.
 
That he’s ready to be a part of his
family again.
 
That he’s ready to face
them.

A hard thing in my chest gives a
squeeze, and I try to tell myself to just be happy for him.

Because one of us
should get that.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX

Paris, Zurich, Sydney, Perth.
 
And a bunch of other places in between.
 
All the shows are sold out.
 
They’re all crazy.
 
They’re all amazing.

My album sits at number one.
 
“Safe Life” sits at the number one song.
 
Some days it all still feels like a
dream.
 
A fantasy.
 
This can’t be real and can’t be my life.
 
Because it’s too big.
 
I don’t fit into this
life,
I’m not enough to fill it all.
 
This has
to be someone else who’s on every music magazine.
 
That’s someone else on the TV, laughing and smiling
like she knows what the heck she’s doing.

But it’s not.
 
That’s me.
 
And I’m not sure how I got there, or who I am these days, but I’m pretty
sure I’m some alternate version of myself.
 
The self that was scared to death to sing in front of
a hundred people at a wedding.
 
She’s still scared to sing in front of those ten thousand people.
 
But she does it.
 
Somehow.

I turn twenty-three, and I don’t even
remember that it’s my birthday.
 
It’s
Tony who reminds me in the morning.
 
He
gives me a cupcake with a single candle on top.
 
And a pack of rainbow colored guitar picks, and a vintage necklace from
the fifties.
 
It’s so thoughtful and
perfect, and I just get teary eyed and hug him.

June is gone in the blink of an
eye.
 
So is July.
 
And then August.
 
And before I know it, most of September is
gone.

If I thought my life was going by at warp
speed before, it’s nothing like the acceleration I live at now.

But finally.
 
Finally.
 
There are only two shows left.

London.
 
And New York.

I have big plans when the tour is
done.
 
Big plans to sit
and relax, and to drop off the face of the planet for at least a few months.
 
I plan to not do a single interview.
 
I plan to get a dog, or a cat, or maybe a
couple of both.
 
I plan to sleep in and
sleep in my own bed for weeks on end.
 
I
plan to know where I am each and every morning I wake up.

I plan to reconnect with my
parents.
 
And Ming.
 
Slowly, I’ve been trying to heal those
relationships.
 
Ming will text me every
once in a while now.
 
Dad calls on most
Sundays, and Mom seems interested in talking to me for a few minutes here and
there.
 

I plan to be a person for a while,
instead of this thing that is almost alien to
myself
.

And it will be amazing.

But first, there are these two shows.

I’ve become a pro at falling asleep on
planes.
 
I bring my own special pillow
and blanket.
 
I curl up in one of the
plush seats.
 
Pull the blanket up over my
head, put some earbuds in, and zonk out.

Tony wakes me when we land in
London.
 
A car transports us to a
hotel.
 
I get an hour to shower and dress
in something comfortable.

I put my headphones back in as we drive
to the venue.
 
The tail end of a Miranda
Lambert song plays out, the music shuffles, and then a 3 Doors Down song comes
on.

How fitting.
 
It’s “Landing in London
.
”

The song is about the life of being on
tour, but only thinking about the one you love.
 
Or, that’s what I’m pretty sure it’s about.
 
But it’s heartbreaking.
 
Cause it talks about how this life gets
crazy, but what keeps you sane is knowing you’ll be going back home to the one
who matters.

I turn my face to the glass window as my
eyes turn red.
 

“And all these days I spend away, I’ll
make up for this I swear.”

The breath catches in my chest.
 
I can’t pull in a deep one.

Because I wanted this
heartbreak.
 
The one that Brad Arnold is singing about.
 
The longing to be with the
one who loves you.
 
The hard weeks away.
 
The desire to go home to the one who is waiting for you.

Kale and I should have had this.
 
I should have been painfully missing him,
knowing that I would be going home to him, eventually.
 
That he was going to be waiting for me.
 
I should have been able to call him before
the show, to hear his voice, to have him tell me that he’d be flying out soon
to see me.

And it’s then, listening to that
song, that
I finally break.

A floodgate of tears comes out in a
torrent.
 
A pained gasp rips from my
throat.

“Whitney?” Tony asks from beside me,
concern ripping through his gravelly voice.
 
“What’s wrong?
 
You hurt?”

Another gasp rips through me, my eyes
completely glazed over with tears.
 
I
shake my head.
 
No, I’m not hurt, but
everything in me has finally broken.
 
I
feel Tony’s hands on me, and he pulls me into his arms.

A sob catches in my throat.
 
My chest feels so tight I can’t get any
oxygen up or down.
 
I grip Tony’s suit in
my fingers, grasping onto it for dear life.
 

This is the edge, and I’m going to fall
off it and never see the light of day again.

“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” Tony says
in a low tone as he runs a hand over my hair, holding me close.
 

“No, it’s not,” I breathe out
harshly.
 
“It hasn’t been okay in
months.
 
It’s been shit and wrong, and
I’ve been…I’ve been trying.
 
But I just
can’t anymore.
 
I can’t.”

Tony’s grip tightens on me.
 
Somehow, I can feel anger in his grasp.
 
“That boy was an idiot.
 
You don’t push people away when you need to
be loved the most.
 
He’s going to regret
it for the rest of his life.”

I cry harder.
 
Tony’s words were meant to be comforting, but
they just rub salt in the wound.

I wipe the tears from my face, still
clinging to Tony.
 
“I thought you were
supposed to stop loving the people who broke up with you after time.
 
It’s almost been a year, Tony.
 
In four weeks, it will have been a year since
he let me go.
 
When is it going to stop
hurting?”

He rubs a hand up and down my back.
 
“I don’t know,” he says after a long
moment.
 
“But when it hurts this long,
this hard, I think that just means it was real and big.
 
That doesn’t go away fast.”

“No,” I say, as a fresh round of tears
rolls down my face.
 
“It doesn’t.”

“Oh hell,” the Powers That Be say when I
walk into my prep room.
 

I’m a mess.
 
A wet, swollen, barely
under control mess.
 
One glance in
the mirror reveals tangled hair from my savage hands.
 
Swollen eyes.
 
Red, splotchy face.
 
Lips that threaten to
quiver.

I look anything but like the person
who’s supposed to go up on stage in two hours.

“What happened?” Hadley says
,
taking my hands in hers and looking me square in the
eye.
 
“Did the crazies get to you?”

I shake my head.
 
I must be out of
tears,
otherwise they’d be rolling down my face again.
 
Get me emotional, show me someone who’s showing concern for me, and it’s
a dead guarantee I’ll cry.
 
But I’m out
of them now.
 
The well is dry.

“I don’t know if I can do it tonight,” I
say to her as I shake my head and my lip quivers.
 
“I don’t know if I can pretend tonight.”

“Oh shit,” Hadley says as she guides me
to a couch.
 
We sit, and she doesn’t let
my hands go.
 
“Kale.
 
I always wondered when the break would
happen.
 
Didn’t figure
it would take eleven months to surface.”

My chin sinks to my chest, and I shake
my head.
 
My shoulders shake.

“I’m sorry,” Hadley says as she wraps
her arms around me.
 
“That was super
jackass insensitive of me to say.
 
Of
course it was going to happen sometime.
 
I just thought you were being crazy wonder-woman strong.”

“I just can’t tonight,” I sob into her
shoulder.

But even as I say it, I know I’ll have
to.
 
Cause
there
is that thing inside of me, the thing that whispers in a melody of three
different octaves that says everything’s going to be alright.
 
That I can go up on that stage and put on a
smile.
 
I can open my mouth, close off
the world, close off the gate in me that lets loose the emotions and the hurt,
and just be one with the music.

And there are twenty thousand people out
there tonight that are counting on it.

I sang, but that’s about all I did.
 
The reviews will say that London was the
least stellar performance of my
career, that
the
crowds never connected with me.
 
They’ll
speculate if I have lost my magic touch and that I don’t really have what everyone
thought I had.

But as I went up on that stage, my
fingers closed around the locket that has never left my neck.
 
Just before I walked out in front of
everyone, I opened it.
 
I saw our faces
there, so happy and in love.
 
I saw our
hands clasped together, a promise to never let go.

And I just couldn’t do anything but
sing.
 
My voice came out strong and
clear.
 
But I didn’t banter with the
crowd.
 
I didn’t talk to them.
 
I didn’t make an awkward joke when I tripped
over a cord and nearly went down to my knees.

When the set was over, I walked off the
stage, right past everyone, and went to my dressing room.

I didn’t cry.
 
I braced my hands on the table and stared at
myself in the mirror.

Just
let him go,
I tried to tell myself.
 
He let
you go, so you let him go.
 
You don’t
have to keep that promise anymore.
 
Move
on.
 
Let it go and be a person again.

But my eyes drifted down to the locket
swinging from my neck again, and that was it.
 
I ripped it from my neck, breaking the clasp.
 
With a scream and a sob, I flung it across
the room and into a corner.
 
I grabbed
the corner of the table and upended it.
 
I swung the curling iron at the mirror and shattered it.

Tony erupted into the room then,
grabbing me before I hurt myself or something.
 
I was just in a red rage.
 
Hadley
was in my face, trying to talk me down.
 
The PR people were strategizing how to keep this quiet so my mess didn’t
end up on the news tonight.

And finally, I put back on the numb
façade.
 
They started leading me out of
the room.
 
Just before we stepped out, I
darted back to the corner, picked up the locket, and slipped it into my pocket.

We leave that night.
 
Our show in New York is in two days, and we
don’t have time to spend the night here in London.
 
So a car drives us to the airport, where our
private jet is waiting.

Tony dozes, his head leaned back against
the seat.
 
Hadley and everyone else are
in the car behind us.
 
The divider
between me and the driver is up.
 
So I
have a few quiet minutes to myself.