Tyler & Stella (Tattoo Thief) (26 page)

I turn the lock and pause, fearful of what’s on the other side. I want to cover Tyler from the cameras but he’s strapped down and I don’t have anything to protect him.

When I swing open the door, the reporters explode with shouted questions. Their number has swelled to more than a dozen, including at least three video cameras that swoop over him like carrion birds.

“Get back! Get back!” I hear one of the paramedics yell, and I’m grateful for their brawn as they roll Tyler across the asphalt and hustle him into the ambulance. I’m frozen in place as the ambulance doors slam and then the cameras turn back to me, reporters demanding answers and cameras recording my blood-spattered chest.

I yank the door closed against them, hearing questions about drug overdoses and domestic violence and ugly speculations that squeeze my heart. When the locks are securely in place, I heave choking breaths just this side of retching.

I feel sick that they’re attacking him. Sick that at one point, I was supposed to be one of them.

No. I made a choice. I threw that career away as surely as I threw the mugs at Heath’s office wall. I am
not
one of them.

TWENTY-NINE

I do what I have to: call his family, go to the hospital, and wait. I strip off my bloody shirt and pants and step beneath the spray of Tyler’s shower to get the sticky feel of blood off me, then rebandage my wrist that still throbs from the fresh tattoo.

I repack my purse with the litter of stuff I dumped on my bed, including my dead cell phone and its charger. I look for Tyler’s phone downstairs but it’s not on the kitchen counter, in the practice space, or under the tabloids by the couches.

Upstairs, Tyler’s bedroom is a nightmare, his bed covered in bloody, rumpled sheets. I pull them back but don’t see a phone, and it’s not on the bedside table or his dresser. I can’t call it because my phone’s dead, and I don’t want to wait to charge my phone, so I keep looking, in the bedside table drawer and the pockets of shorts left on the floor.

From that angle, I spot his phone on the floor, a corner just peeking out from under the bed. I slide open the lock screen: twelve missed calls.

Most are from the band and I debate whom to call first, but one name screams at me, mocking me.

Kim Archer. Her name is saved in his contacts? There’s no other way it could appear on his phone. I die a little more inside; their connection is stronger than I thought. She has his number. He saved hers. I feel my name fading from the picture that is Tyler’s life.

I force myself to push these thoughts out of my brain and focus on what Tyler needs from me right now: his family. I scroll through his contacts and find the only name that makes sense: Cheryl Walsh. This must be his mother.

The phone rings and I tuck it under my ear, opening a backpack that leans against Tyler’s dresser, emptying it of gym clothes and refilling it with fresh clothes, shoes, and his blood sugar test kit.

Just when I expect to leave a voicemail, I hear a light-hearted woman’s voice answer. “Hey Ty, sweetie.”

I cherish the warmth in his mother’s tone but I’m about to ruin her day. “Um, hi, Mrs. Walsh? This is Stella, Tyler’s, um, roommate.”

I hear a full-throated laugh and Cheryl counters, “Oh, honey, I know better than that. The way Tyler talks, you’re the love of his life. I’m glad to hear from you.”

My mouth gapes and I struggle to find the words.
The love of his life?
This is the man I walked out on less than an hour ago.

“Mrs. Walsh, Tyler’s in the hospital. They think he had a diabetic seizure. He’s unconscious.”

I hear her suck in a breath and the surge of emotions I felt while the paramedics were here hits me like a tidal wave.

I try desperately to stuff down the sobs in my chest and explain, but tears choke out my words. I have no right to feel this way, this deeply for him, when I’m talking to the woman who raised him. She must be terrified.

“Stella, take your time. If Tyler’s at the hospital, he’s going to be OK. Just tell me what happened.”

“I, uh, he, couldn’t breathe and he, blood, and he was choking.” Waves of guilt crash through me. Jayce warned me. Tyler even warned me, and when it mattered, I didn’t see the signs, too wrapped up in my own problems.

“Stella, I’ve been there. It’s scary and horrible but it’s not the end of the world.” Cheryl’s voice is soft and warm like a hug, and I wish she were here. I wish she was
my
mom and could comfort me the way I never felt when I was in the hospital.

Cheryl calls me Tyler’s guardian angel for being there for him.

I don’t feel like a guardian angel. I feel helpless, like nothing I can do will fix all that’s broken in Tyler’s life. I feel like I’m only adding complications. I’m blubbering this to Cheryl, but she asks me short, simple questions about where he is and what else the paramedics told me.

“I’ll try to get on a flight tonight,” she promises. “In the meantime, just chin up and go be with him. Tell him I love him. And tell him you love him.” She pauses. “You do, don’t you?”

“With all my heart.”

“Good. Tyler understands people. He sees them better than they see themselves. When he told me he loved you, I knew there had to be something special about you.”

“Oh.” It’s all I can manage without setting off a fresh round of tears.

“I’m looking forward to meeting you, Stella. Now go be with my boy.”

I hang up and swallow hard. I grab Tyler’s backpack and as I run downstairs, Tyler’s phone rings in my hand.

Gavin’s photo appears on the caller ID. I answer immediately and hear a rough growl.

“Stella? What the hell is happening over there?”

“Tyler. They took him to the hospital.” My breath comes in short pants.

Gavin fires questions, just like the reporters. Why is Tyler unconscious? Why is he bloody? Why was I bloody? Which hospital are they taking him to?

Gavin must have seen something on the news but his questions feel like angry jabs, like he already assumes the worst of me.

A fresh wave of panic hits me and I scream. “I thought he was drunk! I was pissed off and I didn’t know—I didn’t realize.”

My brain’s on overload and it’s all I can do to get the hospital’s name out before I hang up on Gavin and throw open the door to a mob of reporters who make a human wall, blocking my exit.

They shout questions loaded with speculation and accusation:
Overdose? Domestic violence? Attempted suicide?

I push and claw through them, running to hail a cab on Eleventh Avenue, but they follow me. I am the hunted.

Fuck Kim Archer. If her story hadn’t blown up, the media would have never been downstairs to see the aftermath of Tyler’s seizure. Fuck her very much.

***

I reach the hospital waiting room and Jayce is already there, pacing. He walks toward me rapidly, his face dark and tense, and I shrink back, afraid I’m about to get bawled out for failing to see the signs. For failing Tyler.

I duck my head. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. You told me—”

Jayce wraps his thickly muscled arms around me in a crushing hug that muffles the rest of my apology. “Shut up, Stella. You were there for him. Like he needed you to be. That’s all that matters.”

Jayce finally lets go of me and holds me by my shoulders, looking me up and down from my damp, stringy hair to my mismatched T-shirt, shorts, and sandals.

“I thought he was drunk,” I whisper. “Because I was drunk. This morning. After I got fired.”

Jayce’s eyes widen and he shakes his head. “Hell of a day, huh? Well, what matters is that you were there. The shit with Kim Archer is just exploding, and if you hadn’t been there for him, if you’d believed her lies and left him…”

“Lies? He
told
me. He told me that was his kid.”

Jayce squints. “He couldn’t have. He doesn’t know. He hasn’t done the test.”

“But he said he gave her ten thousand dollars,” I whisper.

Jayce doesn’t deny it. “Look, Stella, when it comes to groupies, there are two kinds of easy. There’s
easy
as in, I-want-to-have-sex-with-a-rock-star, and
easy
as in, I-want-to-use-you-for-your-money. Kim was the second kind.”

My face flares with shame. “Which kind does Tyler think I am?” I’m afraid I know the answer. I’m living with him. I’m the freeloader.

Jayce tips my chin up. “Don’t you dare. Don’t even think that. You were
never
easy, Stella. You were a challenge. He called you the sadder-but-wiser girl. Said it was from some song.”

I nod. “He sang it to me.”

“See? You were his hard-to-get girl,” Jayce says. I shake my head, thinking of the times I threw myself at Tyler and he turned me down. “You don’t believe me? You don’t know how much he complained about wanting to see you again after that first night. He thought you hated him.”

“I did, sort of,” I confess. “I thought he manipulated me.”

Jayce chuckles. “He was just freaked out about getting too close to you with Kim’s lawyers sniffing around. But then he managed to piss you off again and he thought he’d blown his last chance. If you hadn’t come to our Rockwood concert, I was going to track you down and force you two to apologize to each other.”

“You were?” Hope creeps into my voice, the push-pull of my first few meetings with Tyler finally starting to make sense.

“Well, it was a thought. Until we found out you were homeless and you had to crash with him. I figured getting you two under one roof would force things to work out. And they did.” Jayce grins, as if I’ve already got my happily ever after instead of a stark waiting room that seems more crowded by the moment.

Dave and Kristina are a few yards away, talking with Gavin and Beryl. A well-dressed woman approaches them but Dave barks something short and sharp at her and she retreats.

Another reporter tries to question them and is rebuffed. Dave signals to hospital security and they round up the reporters who slunk into the waiting room.

“Friends and family only,” I hear the guard repeat. “Media inquiries to our public affairs office.”

A white-coated doctor enters the waiting room from a side door. “Who’s here for Tyler?”

When the six of us respond in unison I can tell it overwhelms her. She tucks her ash-blonde hair behind her ears and clears her throat.

“He’s awake,” she starts, and I feel my knees crumple. Jayce’s arm snaps around my waist to steady me and relief floods my veins.
Awake
might be the most beautiful word spoken today.

The doctor explains that Tyler’s diabetic seizure caused him to bite most of the way through his tongue. I cringe with this revelation; that explains the blood.

Jayce asks several questions about Tyler’s glucose levels and I can tell he knows more about diabetes than anyone else in the band.

The doctor tells us Tyler’s tongue will heal, but right now he shouldn’t be talking much. She adds he can take visitors two at a time.

Jayce grabs my hand and steps forward, looking to Gavin and Dave for permission to go first. Dave nods.

Tyler’s face is mostly cleaned of blood and he wears a faded green hospital gown, the kind that makes everyone look sicker than they are. When he sees us, his sad eyes light up.

“Ace! Ella!” He drops the first consonants in our names and I giggle, moving to the side of the bed where I can lace my fingers in his again. His hand is cool and I’m grateful for his reassuring squeeze.

“I’d bitch you out for letting your blood sugar get so low, but you’ve already heard my speech,” Jayce says to Tyler. To me, he adds, “One time in Pittsburgh he got low and decided to drive to the store to get
honey
. Like that was a good idea—he was so messed up he would have made a drunk driver look sharp behind the wheel.”

Tyler grimaces and I hate that Jayce is rubbing it in. But Jayce puts a hand on Tyler’s arm, a brotherly gesture of solidarity. “She’s got to hear this, buddy. She was there for you when you needed her and she deserves to know what we’re up against.”

Jayce continues, “I yelled at him and jumped on the hood of his truck as he was pulling out of the driveway. Pounded on it until he stopped.”

“Lef a den,” Tyler adds.

“More than one dent. I hauled him out of the truck and made him drink juice until he could see straight.” Jayce gives Tyler a soft punch in the arm. “So Stella’s in the club now. The I-rescued-Tyler club. Don’t piss her off too much because I think she’s a keeper.”

I blush and Jayce adds, “I’ll leave you guys alone for a minute before I send in the others.”

Jayce pushes open the curtain and turns back to me. “Go easy on him, Stella. Wounded tongue. Don’t let him over-exert himself.” I hear his cackling laugh as the curtain drops back into place.

Tyler pulls me closer. Tubes from an intravenous drip snake from the back of one of his hands and I cringe.

Tyler drops my hands and caresses my face, tucking my hair behind my ears, tracing my jawbone, stroking my neck and throat. His eyes are creased with emotion that I can’t quite decipher, but his touch speaks of yearning and tenderness.

Tears leak from the corner of my eyes and Tyler’s fingers smooth them across my cheeks. We plunge into a without-words moment and I’m lost and found again, the intensity of his eyes on mine so many times greater than our connection across a concert stage or a bed.

He isn’t saying it, but I know. I
know
he loves me, as fiercely and wildly as I love him back. As much as I would do anything for him—protect him, comfort him—he would do the same for me. He already has.

When my heart feels so full of him it could explode, I press my lips to his forehead and inhale the smell of his hair. I kiss down his temple to his cheek, across his feathery lashes, and leave one silly kiss on the tip of his nose. His tongue is swollen in his slightly open mouth, but he grins back at me, his hand finding mine again to squeeze.

I bend and whisper in his ear. “I’m fighting for you, Tyler. I’m going to fight to stay.”

THIRTY

Gavin and Beryl visit Tyler next and I sit with Jayce, Dave and Kristina in the waiting room. The tabloid cable news is on and Dave listens intently, alert and preparing for damage control.