The Problem With Heartache (13 page)

But that wouldn’t do. I was here to work. It had only just been a fortnight; I wasn’t here to swoon over Lee-
freaking
-Collins.

I pressed my hand to my temple and closed my eyes for a moment, willing Lachlan’s face to disappear from my mind, then clawing it back desperately. Flashes of our happy times together, working at Sideways, running in the rain, holding hands …

I shivered. Seven months wasn’t enough time to heal a broken heart. I still needed him like I needed to breathe.

“You guys make a really cute family,” Selife Taker said, snapping some more shots of us on her camera phone.

“Oh, we’re not—”

“Thank you.” Lee gave her a megawatt smile and she all but melted under its intensity.

“Delete those ones too, please.” I gave an asinine smile, and was greeted with a pout but compliance nonetheless. She slowly retreated back to the front desk.

Lee and Jay ran around the water fountain, Jay’s hat flying off behind him as they chased some invisible assailant.

“No pictures, thanks,” I reminded the girl, in case she chose this moment to take another.

Lee stopped running. He froze. He picked up Jay’s hat, placed it firmly on his head, and then he took five steps closer to me. Five long steps, during which I analysed how his chest glinted in the sun with each movement. How his legs were just coiled muscle, ready to spring. How
good
he was with Jay.

“You can take a picture,” he said, his breath hot in my ear. He was so close to me that tingles bolted up and down my spine like lightning.

“I …” I started. Guilt rolled over me, but for just one moment I focused on the firm lines of chest, his pecs at my eye level. I couldn’t finish the sentence. Not when he was so close. When he was so
naked.

Heat rushed to my cheeks again.

“Why are your cheeks red, Kate?” Jay asked, his tiny, slightly chubby arms folded across his chest.

“Yeah, why are they, Kate?” Lee asked, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

“No reason,” I mumbled, my arms now folded across my chest. There was no way I was getting into a situation like this again.

I stared at the blinking cursor in front of me and rapidly typed out the rest of an email to Dad. It was hard, trying to explain to him what this was like—sometimes the words just got stuck in my head. Still, I tried my best.

Dear Dad,

Life’s pretty good out on the road. There are a whole heap of us driving ’round in this big bus that has all the mod-cons. There’s even a coffee machine. Funny, right?

How are things back home?

That was where I got stuck. I stared at the blinking cursor for ages, willing more words to fill the space, but I couldn’t make them form and the computer sure as hell didn’t seem to be willing to aid my cause.

Why was writing to Lee so much easier? I smiled, thinking of the note I’d left under his hotel room door a few hours ago, while he and the boys were out partying at some product launch thing.

Dear Lee,

Thank you for hard copy of the
Rolling Stone
magazine featuring your naked torso on the cover. I truly appreciated finding it under my door when we got back from swimming. Then again on my seat in the bus when we went to sound check this afternoon. And once more from Benny in the hotel lobby when I came back. I sincerely appreciate it.

Thing is, I saw your naked chest all morning already at the water park, and I kinda have to say—do they do a lot of Photoshop work on those covers? I don’t know … Comparatively speaking, it doesn’t quite look the same.

Kate

I was looking forward to seeing what he came back with. Still, the whole situation frustrated me. How come with Dad, the words stuck in my head? I hit save on the draft and did something a whole heap easier instead. I opened up Skype and called Stacey.

She answered on the third ring, her bright-eyed face filling the screen. “How do you look so awake?” I yawned, covering my mouth with my hand.

“It’s only, like, five p.m. here, sweetie. Time zone. Remember?” Stacey rolled her eyes. Of course it was only five there, even if it was after ten at night here. What was wrong with my brain?

“How’s things?” Stacey asked. She snapped closed a book and placed it on the bed beside her. “I needed a study break, anyway.”

“Things are …” I took a deep breath. “Things are confusing. The job is good—full on, but good.”

“Did you meet Lottie?” Stacey asked, her eyes lit up. “She’s such a sweetheart. She only came on tour right at the end, when there was only a week or two to go. And little Jay …”

“Yeah. They’re both pretty awesome,” I agreed. “Do you know where his dad is?”

“Not really.” Stacey grabbed some of her hair and twisted it around her finger. “I asked one day, and Lottie told me he wasn’t around anymore. Guess it’s one of those sad stories.”

“Wow. I couldn’t imagine falling pregnant single, raising a kid on your own. She couldn’t be that much older than twenty-five, right? And yet she’s still so glamorous and stylish. How does she do it?”

Something strange flashed over Stacey’s gaze, and I opened my mouth to ask about it further but she changed the topic. “How’s Mr Sexy Lead Singer?”

“A jerk.” I rolled my eyes. “Well, not exactly a jerk, but you know what I mean.”

“I don’t, actually.” Stacey’s lips twisted into a smirk. “To be honest, he never really paid that much attention to me, but when he did he was always nice.”

“He’s just … he keeps trying to embarrass me.” I pulled at the hem of my shirt, twisting it round in my fingers. I didn’t want to tell Stacey about the letters. They seemed like a little secret, between Lee and I.

“Embarrass? How?” Stacey crawled closer to the screen, her face dancing with excitement.

“Stace, it can’t be coincidence that I’ve seen him without a shirt six times in two weeks.”

“Oh!” she squealed, and clapped her hands. “He totally likes you.”

“Likes making me blush.”

“Likes the idea of getting naked with you.”

I grabbed my clipboard and waved it around in front of the screen. “He likes that I do this. Make sure he’s where he needs to be, when he needs to be there. And he likes to make me embarrassed, I think … but it’s some kind of weird control thing, I’m sure. He’d never hit on me. In fact, when I get all red and hot—”

“I bet you do.”

I levelled her with a steely glare. “Can it, Allison.”

“Sorry.”

“When I get
flustered
, he teases me even more.”

Stacey chewed on her lip in thought for a while, then tilted her head to the side. “I don’t think … can you ever remember seeing him have a girlfriend?”

I chewed my lip and thought, clippings of the band in gossip and music magazines over the years flitting through my brain. The more I thought about it, the more blanks I drew. “The only girl I’ve seen him linked to more than once was that chick Dave was seeing.”

“Me too.” Stacey pursed her lips. “I wonder why that is …”

“Maybe he isn’t looking for love.”

“Maybe he was waiting for you.” My insides gave a little churn when she spoke.

I hated it. I hated that my body was betraying me like that.

“From what I saw of him on tour, Kate, I just …” Stacey chewed her lip. “I think he could be good for you.”

So do I.

That was the freaking problem.

I couldn’t risk forgetting the past. If I let go of that, then what was the point? Did it mean Lachlan wasn’t what I’d thought he was in the first place?

I pushed myself up to a sitting position, then pointed my finger at the screen. “That’s enough from you, missy. Now tell me: how am I going to get him to stop making fun of me?”

A wicked grin flashed across Stacey’s face as she wiggled her eyebrows. “Easy,” she said. “You’re going to make him feel uncomfortable, too.”

Four years, eight months ago …

I
T STARTED
with some emails, back and forth between each other. He asked me about my favourite rugby team. I asked him about his taste in music. We danced around the serious and stuck securely to the light, to the easy, to the surface-level stuff, a deliberate choice on my behalf after Tony warned me to be careful. “Everyone always finds a long-lost relative when they hit the big-time, kid.” He’d clapped me on the shoulder, his wise, grey eyes all-knowing. I shook my head at the thought of it. I sure as shit hoped not.

And so it was that I pulled up outside of a bar just out of town in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday, nerves racing through me like firecrackers. I was going to meet my brother. Today, I was going to meet my goddamn brother!

I opened the car door and walked to the front of the building. A few people, jackets buttoned up against the cold, winter air, gave me a second look, but no one spoke to me or called my name. I guess that was the difference between checking into a bar with a mostly male versus mostly female patronage.

“I’ll just check—”

“Wait here.” I put my hand out to stop Benny from entering the bar first. While it hadn’t been officially announced, I was fairly sure his job description was to make me look like I was a pussy who couldn’t protect himself.

Benny narrowed his eyes at me, but let me enter the bar by myself, like the grown-up I was. Well, despite being of not legal drinking age, of course. Small mercies …