Cheryl’s phone rings and she shimmies downstairs to answer it. “Back in a minute!” she calls up to me as I stuff pillows in new cases.
She returns holding two fragrant sacks. “Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy Chinese food, which is practically the same thing. Get down here, Stella, you’re starving.”
She’s right, and I join her on the couch as we share several cartons of fried, sauced, carbohydrate-laden goodness.
It’s hard to imagine that this vivacious woman is old enough to be Tyler’s mother, but as she jokes and tells me stories of his childhood and then stories of her own dating woes, she becomes more human and more relatable.
When we’re done, I collapse on my air mattress and Cheryl climbs the stairs to Tyler’s bed. Sleep pulls me under.
THIRTY-THREE
“Good news or bad news? What do you think? Are you a betting woman, Stella?” Tyler strides to the kitchen holding an envelope in the air just out of my grasp, taunting me.
“The last time I bet you, I’m pretty sure you let me win.”
Tyler scrunches his mouth to hide a smile. “I did no such thing. You beat me fair and square with that lyric from Blood Brothers.”
“So are we going to bet again? Or are you going to just open the stupid thing?”
Tyler nods, his finger digging for the corner of the envelope’s flap. He rips it and the sound echoes in our quiet loft.
Tyler reads the results in silence.
“Negative—for the drug test,” he says, and I snort. That’s more than Kim Archer can say. Last weekend, five days after she went public with news of Tyler’s alleged baby, she was busted while going through airport security with an ounce of weed hidden in her baby girl’s diaper bag.
Kim’s Mother of the Year image is ruined, and media sympathy vaporized.
“What’s the other one say?”
“Negative.” Tyler blows out a breath. “Her baby isn’t mine. I knew it couldn’t be true.”
“How could you know for sure? Shit happens. Condoms fail.” I shrug as if it wouldn’t have mattered to me either way, but it does. I don’t want Tyler to be the father of someone else’s child.
“I never meant to sleep with her.”
My eyes fly to Tyler’s face. “You what?”
“I never, well, I’ll spare you the gory details, but I never, you know, meant to.”
“But you thought—you said you thought there was a chance?”
“She kept saying she was on the pill, that we were protected, but I wouldn’t do it without a condom. And she said she was allergic to latex. So she was going to get some special kind …”
Tyler trails off and I cringe. He’s right. I don’t want the gory details.
“I slept in her bed one night. And in the morning, I woke up and found her on me. Trying to, you know, get me off.” Tyler rubs his face. “I let it go too far. I lost control.”
“She took advantage of you. Why didn’t you …?” I fumble for what Tyler could have done, but it would have been his word against hers. A battle he’d never win.
Shame colors his face. “I thought the best way was just to pretend it never happened. I thought I’d never have to see her again when we went on tour.”
I put the pieces together in my head. The timeline. The slim but still real possibility that he’d been the father. The depths to which Kim betrayed Tyler, again and again.
It’s a wonder he ever wanted anything to do with me.
And so I ask him.
“Why me, Tyler? After all this time, all the girls who threw themselves at you and the band, why did you pick me?”
“Guess I like a challenge.” Tyler drops the test results on the counter and his arms circle my waist. “And I like that you’re real. That first night I saw you? You weren’t made-up and panting like the groupies. You were broken and hurting, trying to mend things with Beryl. You just looked like you needed a friend.”
“I needed you.”
“This—us—it’s not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
Tyler’s brow furrows and I can tell he’s really thinking about his answer.
“This isn’t typical for me,” he says. “I mean, Gavin and Jayce had plenty of … experience, even before Tattoo Thief got big. But I didn’t. Just a few.”
“Why?”
“I was awkward. Girls were pretty alien to me in high school, and even most of college. So when I started bulking up and the band started gigging on the reg, it was weird to have so many women come after me.” Tyler chews on his lip. “It was awesome until it was scary.”
“What scared you?”
“The want,” Tyler says and pulls me closer. “They always wanted something more than just me. Whether it was money or access or the fact that they could say they were dating a rocker. I never felt like they were just into me.”
I pull Tyler against my chest and kiss his hair, breathing in his rich, woodsy smell that reminds me of a forest floor. “I’m into you. Just you, Tyler.”
“I know. I knew it the minute you brought me all those pastries. You were so freaked out that I was mad at you and I realized that you really cared about what I thought of you, and not because of what you could get from me. Even after I pushed you away. Twice.”
I exhale, the reasons for Tyler’s resistance finally falling into place. It’s not that he didn’t want me—he didn’t want a user. He didn’t want a groupie or a nosy reporter. He just wants to be loved for who he is without all the rock star bullshit.
Tyler pulls my head away from his chest so he can look at my face. “You’ve been a bit luckier in love than I have. Why are you so into bad boys?”
My face and neck flush. That’s a very polite way of pointing out that I’ve never played hard to get. I’m glad he doesn’t know all the gory details, but if being with him is really going to have a future, I’ve got to own my past.
“I’ve always said a bad boy can’t break your heart. Because with a bad boy, I don’t expect flowers and sweetness and commitment. If I start craving those things, I’m always going to be disappointed.”
“Not always.” I hear the promise in Tyler’s voice but I plow ahead.
“Good guys expect virgins and obedience. Bad guys expect sluts and no strings. Being a good girl never got me anything but a broken heart, so I decided bad boys were for me.”
“Have you ever been in love?”
“I thought I was once.” I look away from Tyler but he doesn’t let me go. His hand slides up and down my side, from my hip to my ribcage. “I thought he loved me but I was wrong. He used me.”
Details about my three-month affair with Dixon Ross finally come spilling out, and Tyler lets me talk. I tell him about baby Blue, the rift with my parents, and giving up my Broadway dream. There’s no judgment, no questions, just his gentle fingers trailing up and down my spine.
Finally, I tell him about the settlement. The wire transfer hit my account three days ago and I’m afraid he’ll think I went after Dixon for money the way Kim went after him. I try to explain it wasn’t like that, but when I finish, he’s quiet for too many heartbeats.
“Kim acted like she was crazy about me, but it always came with strings,” Tyler says. “It was too much pressure. I didn’t want to bring her into our group the way Gavin brought in Lulu. So when our tour came up and we went on the road, I just stopped calling her.”
“That’s a chickenshit move, Tyler. No girl likes that.”
Tyler hangs his head. “Hey, I never said I was good with women. Just the opposite.”
“You’re good with me,” I say, and pull our bodies closer together, chest to chest. His hand continues to trace my skin as if he’s caressing a new instrument.