Girl on Tour (Kylie Ryans) (20 page)

He closed his eyes and shook his head. He’d never be able to say no to this woman. That’s what she’d become in the few short months on the road. He didn’t know if it was him or the touring that had changed her. He stared at her as she stood there. Vulnerable and needing him. She wasn’t a bright-eyed girl anymore. Wasn’t his girl. But he could do this one thing for her.

She led him to a back corner of the dance floor and pressed herself against him. Instinctually his arms wrapped around her as they swayed to the damned song that he’d cursed as soon as it had begun. It was the worst he’d ever felt with her in his arms. This close he could feel the steady tremble, the vibration caused by her fighting off the pain and the tears. He squeezed her tight as the song ended and inhaled her warm, sweet scent one last time.

He wanted to kiss her more than he wanted air. More than he’d ever wanted a drink in his life. Wanted to grab her up and take her back to Georgia and just make love to her until nothing else mattered. But he’d tried that method. She couldn’t babysit him forever. She had a life, a career, friends. She deserved so much better. He was going to make sure she got it. He just wished it could’ve been him. Part of him hoped one day it would be him. But today was damn sure not that day.

He stepped back to leave, knowing Pauly was out back waiting to take him to the airport to catch his flight to Dallas. But before he did, he leaned over to kiss her on top of the head. It was the closest he could allow himself to get to kissing her goodbye. “I’m sorry, Kylie Lou.”

T
he knocking felt like a fist hammering her skull. Over and over and over. She was lying on her couch in her sweats watching a muted television. Well…not really watching it. On the coffee table sat the latest issue of
Country Weekly
open to the two-page spread she’d read so many times she’d memorized it.

LAST YEAR’S COUNTRY MUSIC ARTIST OF THE YEAR TRACE CORBIN ENTERS REHAB…AND HE’S NOT ALONE.

The pictures of him and Gretchen getting out of a black SUV Kylie didn’t recognize were blurry, but it was very clearly them. The one of him holding Gretchen’s hand as they passed through the doors was the clearest of them all. They both wore dark sunglasses but there was no mistaking them. Trace had glanced back at the last second, looked over his shoulder—probably suspecting someone was watching.

Yeah, I see you
.

Time to work on himself her ass. He’d told the truth about rehab but conveniently left out the part about him and Gretchen checking in together. He’d chosen someone else. Someone who understood what he was going through when she couldn’t. Plain and simple. A deep, dark ache she was becoming familiar with stirred inside of her as the knocking continued.
Is this all for publicity? Rehab? Gretchen? Was our entire relationship for publicity?

She’d gone so long without eating or sleeping that the reality of the whole situation was blurring before her eyes.
Did I ever mean anything to him? Was it all in my head?
He’d told her once that it was. She didn’t believe him then. She did now.

“Kylie, open the damned door or I swear to Christ I will call the fire department!” Now, along with the constant skull-hammering knocking, there was shouting. Fanfuckingtastic. She closed her eyes, pulling the pillow over her head to block out the world. It was a shitty, cruel world anyways, and she was sick of it. She’d tried. She really had. But she was done now.

She’d learned an important lesson though. If you give everything you have to other people and they don’t have anything to give you in return…you end up with nothing. Not a single thing.

She’d given Trace Corbin all of herself. Every single thing she had. Her body. Her heart. Her soul. All he could give her was a kiss on the head and a weak-ass apology. And he’d walked away. Left her alone to deal just like her father had.

“I got it,” she heard someone say just before a loud click alerted her that the door had been opened.

“Jesus,” a muffled voice said. It came from behind her. Kylie rolled over and looked up into four worried faces. Two of the people worked for her. Chaz, her manager, and Maude, her new agent…well, for now. She was also Trace’s agent, and Kylie didn’t want to be associated with anyone linked to him in any way. Which was why she wasn’t answering his sisters’ texts or calls. Well, that and she had absolutely nothing to say. To anyone. The other two people in her apartment were Mia Montgomery and Steven Blythe. What the hell they were doing here, Kylie had no idea. She mentally kicked herself for not locking the damned bolt latch. She’d have to remember that in the future.

“Go away.” She rolled over so her back was to them. She wasn’t on tour, wasn’t scheduled for studio time, and didn’t have any more phone interviews with radio stations that she knew of. She’d done everything that had been asked of her. Now she just wanted to be left the hell alone.

“Kylie, you need to get up, sweetie.”

Mia “I don’t even fucking like you” Montgomery calling her sweetie did make her look back. The sympathy in Mia’s face set off the deep pang in her chest she was getting used to. She’d seen the article, too, then.

Kylie sat up, hugging her pillow to her and watching them eye her warily, as if she were a cornered animal about to jump up and attack. Or flee for her life. She didn’t have the energy for either. “Okay, I’m up.” Her voice was weak and scratchy. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d said a full sentence out loud. Her mouth tasted like she’d been eating raw sewage for a week.

“Good news,” Chaz piped up with way too much pep in his voice.

She cut her eyes in his direction. “I can hardly wait.” She would’ve forced a smile. But she just…couldn’t. She couldn’t make her eyes or her face or her body do much of anything.

“So, Maude got a special package for you this morning!” He bravely took a step closer. “And we knew you weren’t, um, feeling well. So we brought it over.”

Her eyelids were heavy and sore from all the crying. It felt like someone was trying to push her eyeballs out of her head from the inside. She was getting a headache trying to keep them open. Sighing loudly, she closed them for a second. “Okay. What is it?”

“It’s from Capital, Kylie,” Maude informed her. “Capital Letter Records wants to sign you. They’re going to take care of the album, the publicity, everything. This is it, what we’ve been waiting for.”

She opened her eyes. All she could do was stare at them as the words tried to break through the thick fog surrounding her mind.

“Come on, Kylie. Say something,” Chaz pleaded.

She looked at the packet Maude held out. “Wow. Yay, ” she sing-songed softly. She tried to smile. She really did. But her mouth was dead set against it.

“Jesus Christ.” Mia shook her head and began giving orders. “Steven, go get a pizza or some of those subs from that Italian deli down the street.”

He shot Kylie a sad smile. “Congratulations, Ryans. You deserve this.” He nodded at her and turned to leave. His words twisted in her head.
You deserve this. You deserve to hurt like this. You were never good enough for him. It’s your fault he had to go into rehab. He never loved you. That’s why he never said he did. He’s with her now.
She swallowed and tried to nod back. That wasn’t what he meant. He meant the recording contract. She closed her eyes again.

“Call me when you’ve signed them all and I’ll take them to Capital. They’re already planning your signing party so, um, maybe take a shower and go shopping.” Maude set the thick stack of paper down on the coffee table, covering the magazine that lay open. She was a no-bullshit kind of lady—this Kylie knew and respected. So she wasn’t surprised when the woman shook her head and left without saying goodbye. Like everyone else had.

Chaz leaned over and kissed her on top of the head. The familiar gesture sliced into her and she winced. “It’s going to be okay, sweetheart. Get some rest. Call me soon so we can talk about what’s next, okay?”

She went through the exhausting steps of telling her lungs to breathe, her heart to beat, and her head to nod. People got nervous when you went catatonic. She didn’t need or want any more unnecessary attention.

After Chaz left, it was just her and Mia. The girl stood in the middle of Kylie’s living room. “You’re a mess, you know that?”

“Thanks for noticing.” Her throat was so tight from lack of use it hurt to swallow. She hugged her pillow and curled onto her side.

“Are you kidding me right now?” Mia’s eyes bulged as stepped closer. “You just got a signing offer from the biggest damned label in Nashville. I know you, Kylie. I know how hard you worked for this.”

“Lots of people work hard, Mia. Doesn’t mean we always get what we want.” She understood what he meant now.

“This is effing ridiculous. Seriously. You’re pissing me slap off. If Trace needed to go into rehab, then good for him. If he chose to be with that train-wreck of a woman who doesn’t have half your talent or drive, then fuck him. But
this
isn’t about
him
.” Mia gestured at the papers on the table.

His name was a sledgehammer to her heart. But Kylie didn’t flinch. She just took it. Welcomed the pain even. At least it was something.

“Don’t do this,” Mia pleaded, lowering herself onto the coffee table across from her, sliding the contract to the side as she did so. “Don’t give it all up, everything you’ve dreamed of, worked for. Not for this. Not for him.”

Kylie clutched her pillow tighter. “You don’t understand.”

“No,
you
don’t understand. This is a once-in-a-lifetime deal. Shit happens. Life is tough. But you’re stronger than this. Or you damn well better be.”

Kylie shook her head. “I tried to be. I tried to—”

“You tried to what, Oklahoma? Tried to make a name for yourself and now you have so you’re going to throw it in the fucking garbage? I know that sounds harsh, and maybe it is. Maybe I’m being unfair to you because…” Now it was Mia’s turn to shake her head. Her gaze began to drift off somewhere else, but Kylie was losing her patience.

“Because why?”

“How much did Trace tell you about me?” Mia asked, catching her off guard.

“Nothing really.”

Mia took a deep breath and glanced down at her hands. “I’ll start at the beginning then.”

“The beginning of what?” Kylie breathed in as deeply as she could stand. She really just wanted the woman to leave her the hell alone already.

“How I got here, to American Idol, then on the tour…and why I kind of hate you most of the time.”

“Awesome. Can’t wait to hear it,” Kylie deadpanned.

Mia shot her a sad smile. It was the first time Kylie noticed how vulnerable she seemed. Vulnerable was not an adjective she ever thought she’d use to describe Mia Montgomery. “I didn’t grow up in a great situation.” Kylie realized she’d been holding her breath so she let it out slowly as Mia continued. “My mom ran off when I was just a baby and my dad was…not a good man. As in, he makes Lily’s dad look like a saint. When I was three, he went to jail for beating a man nearly to death in a bar. He’s still there. My grandma raised me. My mom’s mom. We didn’t have much. Sometimes people from the church helped out, made sure we had food and that I had clothes to wear…but it was…rough.”

“Jesus,” Kylie said softly. Okay, this was not what she’d been expecting. At all.

Mia shrugged and took another deep breath. “My gran and me saved every penny we could to afford my plane ticket to LA to try out for American Idol. When I won, I thought I’d made it, you know?”

Kylie nodded.

“But it wasn’t like that. I could only do the things allowed in my contract, and the gigs I wanted to take weren’t permitted. The tour with Trace was supposed to be what launched my career, but everyone hated me. I mean
hated
me.”

Yeah, she had heard about her getting booed, and she knew first hand how badly that could hurt. “Bet that was tough to take,” was all she could think to say.

“Yeah, it was.” Mia’s eyes went dim. “My gran died two weeks into the tour. I’d just been booed off stage when Trace found me crying on the bus. He said some things I needed to hear but didn’t want to.”

“Sorry about your grandma.” Kylie really was sorry. She knew exactly what it was like when someone died on you, taking your whole world with them. “What did he say?” she whispered, hoping it wouldn’t kill her to hear that he’d kissed Mia or something to make her feel better.

Mia shrugged. “Just that I needed to take a step back, deal with my Gran’s death, and work on my sound. I couldn’t sing a pop cover, then a country cover, then an original song of mine that no one knew all in the same set. And I couldn’t keep letting the way other people felt about me reduce me to a sobbing mess of a human being every time things didn’t go my way.”

She didn’t know whether to smile or cry. Sometimes Trace could be pretty amazing. Like he was with his sisters. Like he was with her. “He’s not perfect but he’s… he
was
something special. To me, anyways,” she finished with a slight lift of her shoulder, shrugging as if the permanent lump in her throat wasn’t choking her to death. She didn’t want to talk about him too much or the missing him would tear another jagged hole into her heart. “You ended up on the tour, so things worked out. Right?”

“I’m getting to that.” Mia’s eyes narrowed and Kylie sensed that something bad was coming. Something that might be worse than her own pain. Or damn close to it. “After burying my gran and breaking my contract with Idol for personal reasons, which obviously started a ton of rumors, I was broke. Not like surviving-on-Ramen-noodles broke, like lost-the-house, living-in-the-car broke.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Mia answered. “I did some things I’m not proud of to get by. And I did get by. I even got a manager finally who helped me get a job cleaning hotel rooms at a place that let me rent a room for cheap.”

The pain in Mia’s usually strong, steady voice was rattling Kylie’s nerves. Hard. She’d thought she’d had it rough, but her life was a walk in the park compared to what Mia was describing. “Mia, I’m sorry you had to—”

The woman across from her waved a hand, cutting her off. “That’s not the point. I’m not looking for your sympathy, Oklahoma. The point is I finally got an audition with the Vitamin Water people about the Road Trip tour. And then my manager called and said they’d picked me. And that if it went well, I’d probably get a record deal. I hadn’t eaten anything other than the pizza I’d been living off of for a week, and I had literally eleven dollars and forty cents to my name.” Her voice was thick, and Kylie felt tears welling in her own eyes. “I thought I’d finally made it, you know? That I’d be okay and that my gran was watching over me and it was all going to work out.”

Kylie nodded her understanding. She’d felt the same way when she’d finally got hired at the Rum Room when she was broke and about to be homeless.

“But then a week later I got a call saying they were very sorry to have to tell me, but a new up-and-comer had been chosen instead. They were going in a different direction.
Your direction
,” she finished.

The bottom of Kylie’s stomach gave out and the room began to spin. She sat up straight and tried to steady herself. “Oh shit. Mia. I swear to God, I didn’t know it was you.” Her hand rose to her mouth. Probably to hold back the bile rising up from her stomach.

“Right,” the other woman said, raking her eyes over her as she spoke. “So you didn’t contact Trace about rushing to record that song you guys wrote together so the Vitamin Water people would pick you instead? Because you saw me with him at your party and got jealous?”

Panicked shame made her head throb. She shook her head and tried to concentrate on answering. “No. I mean, yes, I did go see Trace about that song. A lot was going on and we had to talk and I—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Mia interrupted. “What matters is you got your way, right? You got them to scrap me and go with you. Luckily Lauryn McCray got pregnant and I was offered the spot she left open.”

“Mia…” Kylie wanted to reach out, to hug the girl, apologize. Maybe even beg for forgiveness. But Mia stood, obviously ready for this mushy over-share to end.

“Forget it. It is what it is. And even if you had known, would you have done anything differently?”