Aimee and the Heartthrob (19 page)

“Nick…I just…”

“Are you crying?”

She shut her eyes, but the tears were already running down her cheeks.

“Ames.” His arm was around her. “Tell me what the hell happened.”

“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” she said around the sob in her chest. “I swear, I’m not hurt or sick, but I don’t want to talk about it, okay? It’s personal.”

“You’re sure there’s no one I need to punch in the mouth? I’ll do it right now.”

She nodded, clenching her eyes shut tighter.

“Do you want to be alone?”

She shook her head, feeling miserable and mental, like the screwed-up, heartbroken girl she was.

“You wanna just sit here and cry?”

She sniffed and nodded, assuming Nick would take that as his cue to leave.

“Okay.” He led her head to rest against his shoulder. “It’s all right, Ames. Everything will be all right.”

Aimee grabbed his arm, linking hers around it, and held on, sobbing into his shirt.

Chapter Eighteen

Miles’s head pounded constantly, like a high school pep band marching across his skull. Except for mandatory S2J events, he hadn’t left his bunk in twenty-four hours. It totally sucked that Dallas was their busiest stop the whole tour, with back-to-back-to-back-to-bloody-back interviews, performances, appearances, and two concerts at Cowboys Stadium—the largest arena on the schedule—including the VIP pre-show set being filmed for their DVD.

His mind was drifting in and out of focus as he sat with S2J, LJ, and their PR people. Blah-blah-blah…really important show. Yadda-yadda-yadda…everyone on their best behavior. (Yes, Lester looked directly at Miles.) Yak-yak-yak…don’t be late. (Another stern look at Miles.) Miles spent most of the meeting staring at his knees, pulling at the frays of the holes in his jeans.

“Carlisle,” LJ said as the rest the group was leaving. “Stay a minute.”

Miles let the other guys pass, not making eye contact with anyone. He’d barely spoken to Trevin since their backstage blowout and hadn’t even looked at Ryder. Maybe during tonight’s meet-and-greet, he’d see a hot chick and get security to sneak her backstage for some meaningless…

No, that wasn’t his style. And it wasn’t the way to get over his funk. Get over Aimee. He’d just have to ride it out until he didn’t picture her face every time he closed his eyes.

“Are you listening to me?”

Miles blinked and looked at LJ. “Yeah, I heard you.” (He hadn’t.)

“Then you know how crucial this is. Can’t have you disappearing anymore.”

“Yeah.” Miles slid his hands into his pockets.

“If you’re ill, you tell me and we get the doctor. If you’re stressed, talk to your mom or your priest or your best friend.” Miles shut his eyes. The last person he could talk to about this was Nick. “And if you’re, you know,
distracted
…come to
me
, and I’ll set it up. Don’t go buckwild like Ryder. Kid’s outta control.”

He looked up. “Are you talking about getting me a girl?”

“It’s not that shady. Better to keep it less complicated, cleaner.” He elbowed Miles. “Right?”

Miles forced a chuckle under his breath. “Right.”

“Good.” LJ put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m here to take care of you, all of you. Anything you need. Night or day. I’m here to help.”

“I know, LJ. Thanks.”

“No need to thank me. It’s my job to make things easier for you guys, so you can do
your
jobs and we all get paid.” He smiled. “And since the schedule’s about to get even more hectic, it’s best to cut all loose ends now. Don’tcha think?”

“Yeah.” Miles was about to leave, but turned back. “What do you mean, more hectic?”

LJ had his cell out, tapping the face. “The shows in South America. Then island hopping to Australia and New Zealand. We have four sold-out shows in Sydney alone.”

“When’s this happening? Next year?”

“Next year?” When LJ laughed, his saggy jowls swung like a bloodhound’s. “Right after our last U.S. date, we go directly to Brazil.” He lowered his phone. “You weren’t listening at all during the meeting, were you?”

Something gnawed at the back of Miles’s brain. “This is the first I’m hearing about more shows.”

LJ put his hands on his hips. “Do you have a problem with going to Australia? Look, in this business, you strike when the iron’s hot. Seconds to Juliet is the hottest thing right now, but give it a year or two, and that might change.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Miles said. “I just didn’t know. I thought we had a month off, and we could go home.” Suddenly, the itch at the back of his brain came into sharp focus. “That’s what Aimee was talking about.”

LJ was staring down at his phone again.

“Did you tell Aimee Bingham I knew about South America?”

“It’s no secret the girl has a thing for you, and I did you a favor by squashing that story about you two in the park the other day. She’s from your hometown, so I figured if she knew about the tour extension, and that she wouldn’t be seeing you for a very, very long time, it would get her off your back.”

Miles felt a vein throb in his forehead, and he shifted forward, widening his stance. “That was shitty, LJ. What the hell?”

“Now wait a minute. We discussed this, Miles. No girlfriends—you’re cut off. No dates, no rendezvous, no public spectacles of any kind—that’ll kill your image. You need to keep the fangirls on your side. Romance the world, buddy.”

“She thought I lied to her.” He kneaded his forehead with a fist, appeasing a sudden brain ache. “I told her she didn’t know what she was talking about—I called
her
a liar. Dammit, Lester, you should’ve told me first. Stop trying to control my life.”

“Sorry, pal. I did what I thought was best. Didn’t mean to give you a headache.”

“Yeah.” Miles rubbed his forehead again. “Too late.”

LJ patted him on the shoulder, told him to go straight to Wardrobe, then left the room.

Miles felt like crap, muddled, pissed at Lester, pissed at himself. Things with Aimee had to end anyway, because of the blog, but he hadn’t failed to notice her expression when he’d first seen her that last time. She was upset, and she’d just come from talking to Lester about the new tour. He could’ve taken the time to listen, instead of blowing it off like a selfish douchebag.

Not that it mattered now.

He followed the noise down the long hall under the stadium floor. Everything was bigger in Texas, even concert venues. Rounding a corner with his head down, he nearly ran into Nick.

“Hey, dude. What up?”

“Nothing, mate. Everything’s primin’ and shinin’.” With too many lies between them, Miles couldn’t look Nick in the eyes, and his gaze flicked from here to there. “You watching the show tonight? Should be classic. Stadium holds eighty thousand.”

“I’m taking the night off to stay with Aimee.”

His heart automatically hammered at the name, but he ignored it. “How come?”

“She’s not doing well.”

Finally, Miles looked at his friend. “Is she sick?”

Nick shook his head. “I don’t think so. I mean, she looks fine, but I know she’s not. She’s hurt.”

“Hurt? How?” Miles’s head emptied. “Does she need a doctor? Do you have a car? I can get a car right now.”

Nick stared at him. “Thanks, but I don’t think she needs to
go
anywhere tonight. All she wants to do is cry.”

Miles felt a stab in his gut that knocked the breath out of him. “She’s been crying? Do you know why?” he asked, like he was begging to bring up the subject. He was such a sap.

“No.” Nick scratched his head. “But if I had to guess, I’d say she got screwed over by some guy. Same thing happened—the crying—when her boyfriend broke up with her last year. This seems way worse, though. I’ve never seen her this, like, heartbroken.”

Miles swore under his breath and rubbed the back of his neck, feeling too many stress knots to count. “I didn’t mean to make her cry.”

“I don’t think it’s your fault, unless
you’re
the guy who screwed her ov…” Nick glared at him as his voice faded out.

“Yeah.” Miles looked directly at Nick, not bothering to deny it. “I’m the guy.”

“What…” Nick paused to exhale calmly. “What did you do, Miles?”

“We started hanging out—”

“Before or after I asked you not to?”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen. She’s a cool girl.” He almost stopped to correct himself:
She
was
a cool girl
, but he didn’t think semantics were important right now. “She went on a few writing sessions with me—totally innocent. We talked about home and growing up and our families and school and…then suddenly…I don’t know what happened.”

“You don’t
know
? Why has she been crying for two days straight? What did you do to my sister? Did you sleep with her, you bastard?”

“No! We didn’t…I wouldn’t. I care for Aimee. For real. And I’m sorry if that pisses you off, but it’s true.”

Nick didn’t say anything for a long time. He just stood there, working his jaw. Miles knew he needed to haul ass to Wardrobe, or else he’d miss another meet-and-greet and Lester would have kittens. But he needed to clear the air with his best friend first. He owed him that.

“I
am
pissed at you,” Nick finally said, his voice calmer. “But I guess I can’t be mad at only you. It was a long time coming for Aimee.”

Miles nodded a few times. “She told me she used to have a crush on me when we were young.” Saying this aloud sparked another subject he’d been putting off. “Why did you tell her
I
knew about it?”

Nick dropped his gaze.

“You told her I knew and that I made fun of her behind her back because of it. Dude, that never happened. I would never do crap like that.”

“I guess it’s a sibling thing. It was after you got picked for
Rockstars Live
. She had S2J posters and magazines all over the place, constantly playing that first song of yours from the show. Drove me frickin’ nuts. Then all the fanfiction.”

“Fanfiction?”

“Yeah. I saw it one night on her laptop. It started as her personal diary or whatever. She got really into it, almost like gaming. There’re characters and plots and scenarios, different futures you could map out.”

“This is a book she was writing?”

“No, her
blog
.”

“The one where she reviews books?”

“No, the private one. The fanfic. All the crap she made up.”

Miles felt like he needed to hold his head in place to keep it from spinning. “Made up?”

“Yeah. After she caught me looking at it, she showed me everything, all the pages and topics. Pretty elaborate for a fourteen-year-old. I might’ve been less wigged by it had the characters not been based on my sister and best friend, even if they were pure fantasy. I get it, though. It was kind of a way for her to deal with her feelings, like get ’em on paper.” He shrugged. “That’s why I told her that stuff—about you laughing at her crush and everything. I thought she needed a wake-up call. Sorry, man.”

A slow, cold sweat slicked over Miles’s body as his brain slid the pieces into place. “Hold on.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “So she has one blog for reviews, and the other one—”

“She shut down the other one, stopped posting on it years ago.”

“And it was all just a diary…for fun?”

“Yeah, like a joke.”

“Joke,” Miles whispered, feeling like he might dry heave. No doubt about it, he was indeed the biggest assjacket on the planet. “No. Oh, holy bloody bullocks, no.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m in love with your sister and I totally, totally cocked it up.”

“Wait a damn second.” Nick shifted forward. “You
love
her?”

Miles closed his eyes, feeling his heart race as the words ran through his head, washed over his body, the words he should’ve told
her
instead. “Yes.”

When he opened his eyes, Nick was glaring at him, jaw tight. “Say that again.”

Miles swallowed but didn’t move; he stood before his best friend and finally told him the whole truth. “I’m in love with Aimee. I’ve never been more dead serious about anything in my life, and if you want to beat the shit out of me, I’ll let you, but it won’t change my mind. I don’t want anyone but her. I love her.”

Admitting it aloud, even to Nick, made all his mistakes come crashing over his head again. It was a lost cause.

“If I wanted to beat the shit out of you,” Nick said, “you wouldn’t have to
let
me. I’d just do it.” He paused, and Miles waited. “I know your rep, man. Our first day here, you said you wanted to
seal the deal
with her.”

Miles felt another wave of nausea, his stomach clenching in pain. “That was me being a tool. Right after it came out of my mouth, I regretted saying it, even thinking of Aimee like that—or any girl. I’m sorry, man, seriously sorry. I was showing off, and it was totally dick of me. Sometimes my ego…” He paused, almost laughing as he recalled all the times Aimee had kept his ego in check. “That’s not me. It’s just not.”

Nick blew a breath out his nose, but at least he hadn’t thrown a punch. “Hell, man,” he said, “you’re my best friend, you’d think I’d be the one who really knew you. But Aimee told me the same thing, saw it when I didn’t. She sat there crying and still defended you, said you were a good guy.”

After the horrible way he’d treated her, Miles couldn’t fathom Aimee would have anything positive to say about him. But she had, when he’d deserved it the very least.

“I’ve known you forever, man,” Nick continued. “I know how you used to be, when we first met.” He took a beat and looked Miles right in the eyes. “But I’ve also seen how far you’ve come since then. You might be a bullshitting poser, but you’re also a good guy. The best I know.”

Miles dropped his chin, feeling overcome. “Thanks,” he said around the lump in his throat.

Nick put a hand on his shoulder. “If Aimee wants you…”

“She doesn’t. I don’t deserve her.”

“Obviously not.” Nick laughed and gave Miles a light punch on the arm. “If you ever make her cry like that again—”

“I won’t. I swear.” It was probably the closest to giving them his blessing that Miles would ever get from Nick. And he’d take it. “I have to find her,” Miles said, feeling a new fire under his feet.

“
Miles! Yo!
” Trevin called from the hall, dressed in his concert garb. “I know we’re not speaking and, not to be a killjoy, but we have a show.”

“No, I have to find Aimee. I have to tell her,
beg
her. I messed up so bad; she’ll never forgive me.” He pulled out his cell and clicked on her number. It rang once then rolled to voicemail. “Aimee, I…dammit. It’s me, please call back.” He exhaled and glanced at Nick.

“Well, that was, um…”

Miles huffed and pressed a hand over his burning, pounding forehead.

“
Carlisle
.” Trevin pointed at the open doorway. “While we’re young?”

Miles groaned at the floor and gripped his phone. “Okay, no, it’s okay, it’ll be okay. I’ll find her after the show and explain everything.” While walking with Nick toward Wardrobe, he kept muttering to himself like a madman. “Yeah, after the show. No, wait. She’s with Nick tonight, that’s good. I’ll find her tomorrow.”