Hard As Rock

It’s the eternal question every woman must face at some point in her life:

Good Boy or Bad Boy?

The Good Boy is sweet. He’s stable, secure, a rock. He’s safe and comforting, a shelter from the storm.

The Bad Boy is dangerous. He’s that thrill you’ve been seeking, that ‘something’ you’ve been missing from your humdrum life. He’s the line of shots, the hit of cocaine. He’s fun and drama personified.

There’s danger in both. Just because the Good Boy loves you doesn’t mean he won’t hurt you. And just because the Bad Boy is wild and crazy, doesn’t mean he can’t touch you deeply.

The Good Boy can break your heart.

But the Bad Boy can rip it out.

I’d just snuck into the Wynn Hotel in Vegas to surprise my boyfriend – Derek Kane, lead singer of the hottest band in the world, not to mention one of the hottest
guys
in the world.

Turns out, I was the one in for a surprise.

The ‘surprise’ was a six-foot tall vixen with long black hair and an all-over tan. She stood there staring at me, naked behind a bed sheet she clutched to the front of her perfect body.

“Can I help you?” she asked politely.

Before I could answer, Derek’s voice rumbled from inside the hotel room: “Is that the messenger guy, babe?”

I went through a whirlwind of emotions in four seconds flat.

First: shock. My mind blanked out for the first second. The lights were on, but nobody was home.

Second: denial. As soon as my brain kicked back in, it started lying to itself.
That’s not him,
I thought desperately.
That’s not him, he swore he wasn’t going to see any women or groupies or anybody – that’s not him! It CAN’T be him!

Third: heartbreak. I couldn’t lie to myself for longer than a second. I
knew
he had lied to me, that he had cheated on me, and it tore me apart.

HOW COULD HE?!
I wailed silently in the most heart-wrenching scream you can imagine.
HE PROMISED ME! HOW COULD HE DO THAT TO ME?!

Tears filled my eyes – though they didn’t spill over because of what came fourth:

Anger.

Bone-crushing rage.

I ripped past Ms. December like she wasn’t even there.

“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” I yelled at the top of my lungs as I stomped into the room. “YOU FUCKING, LYING, PIECE OF SHIT!”

There he was, coming out of the bathroom, completely naked, his tattooed body wet from the shower, rubbing his hair dry with a towel.

Under normal circumstances I would have been enjoying the view. Whatever else there is to say about him, Derek is a gorgeous man. Physical perfection.

At the moment, though, I just wanted to find the nearest sharp object and cut off his dick.

He looked at me and it was almost comical. His mouth formed a little ‘o’ of surprise, his eyes bulged open wide, and he froze with the towel in place on his head.

“Oh shit,” he whispered.

I pointed back at Ms. December, who had closed the door and come into the room with the bed sheet now fully wrapped around her.

“WHO THE FUCK IS
SHE?!”

“Derek?” she asked, her voice soft but alarmed. “Who is this?”

I wheeled on her, rage coursing through my body. “I’M HIS FUCKING GIRLFRIEND, BITCH! WHO THE FUCK ARE
YOU?!”

It was like I had physically struck her. Like I had slapped her in the face, even though I was ten feet away from her.

When she looked at Derek, she seemed physically ill, like she was about to throw up. “You… have a girlfriend?”

I whipped my head around to see what he would say.

By this point he had grabbed his jeans from the floor and yanked them on quicker than I thought was humanly possible. Now he was still standing there, half-naked, with his hands out in the air like he was trying to convince somebody not to shoot him.

And then he said the lamest thing ever.

“Kaitlyn, this is not what it looks like.”

Okay, that tore it.

I launched myself at him, raining overhead blows down at him, my fists striking his chest. “HOW STUPID DO YOU THINK I AM?! YOU FUCKING LYING, CHEATING, SON OF A BITCH!”

He backed away from my fury as he tried to calm me down. “Kaitlyn – Kaitlyn, stop – Kaitlyn, it’s not what you think – stop – ”

Of course, he didn’t calm me down, he only made me madder.

Finally he had enough and grabbed my wrists and held me there, my arms suspended in the air. I tried to wrench away, but he was far too strong.

“Kaitlyn, it’s not what you think.”

“Oh yeah?” I half-sneered, half-cried. By now tears were trailing my cheeks – tears of hurt, tears of rage. “So you didn’t pick up some model groupie last night and rent a hotel room so you could fuck her?”

“No. We’ve been seeing each other for two years.”

I stopped struggling and just stared at him.

I wanted to puke.

He could tell that the fight had gone out of me, and he stopped holding me by the wrists and instead put his hands on mine.

As soon as he did, I ripped them away and took a step back. I couldn’t stand for him to touch me.

“But it doesn’t mean anything, Kaitlyn,” he said in a low voice. “It’s not like you and me, and what we have – ”

“Doesn’t
mean
anything?” a voice whimpered behind me. I could hear the tremor in her tone, the pain in her words. “What the hell, Derek?”

I looked over at her, and for the first time, I felt bad for her. She was physically trembling, and tears were welling up in her eyes.

She wasn’t the whore who had slept with my boyfriend.

She was just some woman who had been dicked over by the same asshole as me.

Derek looked up like he had realized she was still standing there, and I could see the
Oh
shit
play out on his face.

I wanted to punch him so bad.

I wanted to break his fucking nose.

“Tawny,” he said –

Tawny.
Of COURSE her name was ‘Tawny.’

“Look, babe, it’s been awesome – but…”

He just trailed off, like there was nothing more to say.

She just stood there shaking, tears streaking down her cheeks.

“Fuck you, Derek,” she said softly, and grabbed her things off the nearest chair, then walked out of sight, presumably to some other part of the suite.

I looked up at him and rubbed the tears out of my own eyes. “Two years?”

He looked beaten, defeated. He nodded. “Yeah.”

“What, is she your real girlfriend?”

“What?! No. She’s just… every time I was in Vegas or LA, we’d hook up. She lives here.”

My stomach turned. I really
did
want to puke. “So she’s just some
groupie –
”

“No! No. I mean – look, I actually met with her to tell her it was off. That you and I were together now. And… well… one thing just led to another…”

“Riiiiight,” I sneered.

“I swear to God,” he said angrily, as though incensed I didn’t believe him.

“Just like you swore when you left me that you weren’t going to fuck any women? Any models, any groupies, any nuns? Remember
that?!”

He glanced away, breathed out heavily. “I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t come here planning on sleeping with her.”

“You’re so full of shit,” I raged. The tears were falling fast now, hot and stinging my eyes.

He looked back at me, and his face was full of sorrow. “I’m sorry, Kaitlyn. I fucked up. I know I did, and I’m really, really sorry.”

For a moment he almost had me. I wanted to believe him so badly… I wanted all this hurt to go away… I wanted him to take me in his arms and swear that he would never do it again, and I would forgive him, and everything would be back to the way it was weeks ago when we were madly in love –

And then reality intruded at exactly the right moment.

Tawny spoke up from behind me. Her voice was soft, but clear and unwavering.

“You’re an asshole, Derek Kane.”

I turned back to see her. She was crying, just like me. Her makeup was smeared, her clothing was in disarray from dressing quickly, but she was holding herself with as much dignity as she could.

She stared him down hatefully, then turned and walked out of the hotel room.

I turned back to Derek. I caught a look of yearning on his face – an expression that said,
Fuck,
like someone resigning themselves to watching a valued possession slip away.

“You
are
an asshole,” I burst out.

He looked down at me in a flash of anger, like I was being unreasonable.

Didn’t I know what he had just given up for me?

Wasn’t I
appreciative?

Then he figured out that maybe that wasn’t the best play, and his features softened.

Too late.

The damage was done.

“Kaitlyn – ” he said, and reached out for me.

I stepped away from him and wrapped my arms around me like I was cold.

The bed they had rutted in was right beside me. The sheets were wrinkled and smelled of sex.

I wanted to vomit.

More than that, I wanted to pour lighter fluid all over it and flick a match. Watch it burn.

“I’m going to ask you a question,” I whispered, “and I want you to tell me the truth.”

He pulled back, unsure what was coming. “What?”

I looked up at him, in more pain than I’d ever felt in my life. “Promise me you’ll tell me the truth. The real truth.”

He stared at me for a long moment… then nodded once, somberly. “Okay.”

“If I’d stayed with you four years ago… if I’d ditched all my plans and stayed with you in Athens, and lived with you while you started a band, the way you asked me to that day before I left… would you have cheated on me?”

He winced the slightest bit.

He also didn’t answer.

“Would you have cheated on me?” I repeated. “Maybe not in two weeks, maybe not in two months… maybe not even in two years… but eventually?”

He gritted his teeth and looked away. Stared at the wall.

“Derek?” I whispered. “The truth.”

“Yes,” he said, his voice pained. “Probably. At some point, yes.”

It was like ice water rushed through my body, excruciating at first, then numbing me completely. Couldn’t feel anything. Like I was dead.

Somehow, though, I kept speaking. “You would have cheated on me before you got famous?”

He still wouldn’t look at me. “Probably.”

“Just with… somebody you met in a club?”

“Maybe.”

I breathed out, but it was more like a sob.

The scorpion had struck.

And now I was drowning.

It’s in his nature.

“Thank you for being honest,” I whispered, and I turned towards the door.

“Kaitlyn,” he said, and I felt his hand on my arm.

I twisted violently away.
“Don’t.”

He circled around me, got between me and the door. “Kaitlyn, look, I know I fucked up – and I’m sorry, I’m so goddamn sorry – please, you have to give me another chance – ”

“Why, so you can cheat on me again?” I said angrily through my tears.