From My Heart (13 page)

“Well when we’re out of this place, you’d better not play it safe,” Cale whispered close to my ear, his breath causing the hairs on my neck to stand straight up. “Upstairs in my own suite.”

“In your dreams, my rock star boyfriend,” I replied with a smirk, slapping his butt as we approached everyone.

There were two large pleather couches in the shape of an L that faced each other, with Kallie conveniently sitting in between Flynn and Krystal. I hadn’t seen Krystal that much so far on the first few days of tour, but from when I met her on New Year’s Eve, she seemed more down to earth than that bitch Kallie. I really needed to come up with another name for her besides bitch. I make a mental note to do that later. Krystal had dyed dark blue hair that was tied into a braid off one shoulder. She was dressed more conservatively than Kallie, wearing a pair of high waist shorts and a beige flowered cap-sleeved shirt tucked into the shorts.

“Hey, Bryn. Hey, Cale.” Krystal waved from her spot, patting the space next to her. “Come sit by me while there’s still room.”

I looked hesitantly to Cale and he nudged me along.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll like her. She’s a total goody goody, but can rock it with the best of them. And she’s not as rude as Cooper.”

We squeezed past Kyler from The Brittle Souls, taking a seat next to Krystal. Right away I noticed the scowl on Kallie’s face, but when Krystal nudged her, she forced a thin smile.

“Looks like the love birds are all happy go lucky again.” Kallie peered over at Cale’s hand resting on top of my thigh.

“Couldn’t be better.” I leaned over Krystal and stared Kallie dead in the eye. “Picture perfect, actually. I don’t think it can get much better than that.”

“Good,” was all she said, turning her attention over to the cosmopolitan in her hand.

“I’m sorry about her.” Krystal offered me a sympathetic look. “She may be my older sister, but sometimes I feel like I’m her baby sitter and it’s the other way around.”

“You two are sisters?” I asked, sounding completely dumbfounded. There were no similarities between the two of them as far as looks went. Krystal appeared to be at least my height while Kallie was about half a foot shorter than Krystal. I studied both of their faces and their bone structure didn’t even appear the same.

Krystal gave me a small smile. “Yeah. Different moms, same dad.”

I spent the rest of the time at the club talking with Krystal and the others, doing my best to avoid Kallie at all costs. Later on I joined Gina and Bethany, who were out on the dance floor without their guys.

“Are you having fun?” I asked as I grabbed Gina’s hand and she playfully spun me around.

“The best!” she replied.

“What’s-her-face couldn’t even look at you without a scowl on her face,” Bethany said to me. “It was pretty comical.”

“Probably because she thought I would’ve broken things off with Cale over that kiss. Her face was priceless when I told her off. I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” I admitted, letting myself move to the music. I could hear Cale’s laughter in the distance through the pounding beat and when I turned around, I saw him over by the bar drinking with Raptor, Vince and Luke. Tyler was talking to Kyler from The Brittle Souls off the dance floor and Kallie was dancing with one of her bandmates.

Cale saw me watching him and he waved took a sip out of his glass.

“He’s totally in love with you,” Bethany whispered to me as Cale’s amber eyes kept glancing my way every couple of seconds.

“He’d better be!” I yelled loudly over the music. I let my hips sway even more proactively, knowing Cale was watching me. “He’s stuck with me for the next few months regardless.”

“Oh please. He has that look of love in his eye, B. Plus—don’t hurt me for saying this—but he’s fucking gorgeous and I’d totally do him.” Gina admitted as she shrugged.

“I know you wouldn’t take him from me. You have that guy standing next to him wrapped around your finger,” I said and she grinned like the Cheshire cat.

“Really think so?” she asked.

I nodded. “Maybe he’s waiting for you to make the first move or something. Take him back upstairs and spend some
alone
time with him.” I finger-quoted “alone” and Gina giggled.

“It’s not the same now! I can’t run my hands through that Mohawk anymore. It’s just normal-people hair.” Gina gestured towards the now empty spot where they were before. Before we knew it, hands were on all of our shoulders, causing me to shriek over the music.

“You didn’t spill any of my dirty secrets, did you?” Raptor asked me as he pulled Gina into him, her face lighting up.

“Only you’re deepest darkest ones, Raptor,” I teased, letting Cale hold me from behind, his fingers rubbing over the hem of my top. “Like how you talk in your sleep and you drool all over your damn pillow.”

Gina glanced up at Raptor and raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

He threw his head back and laughed.

“No, of course not. I sleep like a baby and I do not snore nor do I drool,” Raptor defended himself.

“He’s lying,” Luke told Bethany as he grabbed hold of her hand. “Let’s go back upstairs. Kallie and Krystal are having a huge party in their room and they invited us.”

“Ugh, count me out,” I replied coldly. “I’ll sit in my pajamas and drink my 2 liter of Pepsi under the covers.”

“Wow, you’re too boring,” Raptor taunted, turning his attention to Gina. “You want to head up there, pretty lady?”

“It beats staying down here sweating to death.” Gina’s eyes locked on Raptors. “I’ll see you guys later.” She waved to Cale and I and we waved back as they left the dance floor.

“Sooo…” Cale leaned closer to me so our foreheads met. “I don’t think you’re boring at all if that helps.”

My lips parted as he kissed me briefly. “You’re just sucking up…”

“No, I swear, Bryn. I think you’re the absolute coolest most un-boring girl on the planet. That’s a big compliment because that title used to belong to my sister Alexandria.”

“Well, in that case thank you.” I smirked. “Did you really think I was going to go up there and party in that girl’s suite?”

Cale shook his head. “I’m avoiding it too. So I think it’s just going to be us two…all alone…”

“The first time in what seems like forever,” I replied.

We hurried out of the nightclub and back down the hallway towards the lobby. The person handling the front desk gave a slight nod and told us to have a nice stay and we said thank you, pushing the button for the elevator.

Stepping in as the door closed behind us, I had a giddy feeling in my stomach that Cale would try to pull something with me since we
were
alone in the elevator.

He pinned me against the wall facing the door and his hands gently cupped my face. I could smell alcohol on his breath as his mouth opened to speak, but to me it was familiar…it was him.

My chest was rising and falling with each breath that I took as we just stared at each other.

“Okay, lover boy, just kiss me already!” I finally said, grabbing the front of his polo shirt and dragging his lips to mine. I was hungry for this man so I kissed him with every ounce of energy I had. His hands went from above my head to my back side, guiding me so I wrapped my legs around his waist without breaking the kiss. I slipped my tongue into his mouth and he welcomed it with open arms, pressing against me even closer. 

I didn’t want the kiss to end. As soon as the elevator beeped to tell us we were on our floor, Cale quickly peeked behind him to see if anyone was standing there waiting for them to get out, but conveniently there wasn’t. He held onto the bottoms of my legs to support me as we left the elevator, no sign of stopping the kiss. I accidently bit his lip as he tried to find his room key while still holding onto me, and he let out a growl.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I broke the kiss. He finally found the key and set me down so he could slide it in and open the door. Slamming it shut behind us, he said, “Why are you sorry? I fucking loved that.”

I ran a hand through the side of my hair and frowned. “I don’t know. Damn I’m a buzz kill.”

Cale grabbed me by the ass, practically running towards the bed. Before laying me down he said “Don’t ever say you’re a buzz kill, Bryn. You are absolutely perfect to me and I can’t tell you enough how I’m in love with you.”

My heart was pounding a thousand beats per minute it seemed. Just the fact that he said he was in love with me gave me good shivers down my body. Cale laid me against the pillows that were untouched on his bed and started taking out the pins I had in my hair. He threw them onto the floor with a pinging sound as he knelt down on his knees beside me.

“Much better,” he said in a low whisper. “I like it when you leave your hair down. You should never ever cut it.”

“Well I don’t want Rapunzel hair, but I’ll keep that promise,” I said softly as he went from his knees to lying down merely inches from me. Our faces were so close that we could feel each other breathing. It always felt good to be this close to Cale.

I closed the gap by kissing him on the lips. Cale used his hands to pull me on top of him so I was straddling him, only pausing the kiss for a second. My body leaned down so I could kiss his chin, and I worked my way down his neck as his fingers knotted in my hair, giving the strands a hard tug. I stopped so he could pull off his polo shirt and the undershirt he had on, tossing it to the edge of the bed and kicking it off with his feet. My fingertips ran their way down his chest, stopping at his “Live and let die” tattoo smack dab on his heart. Next to the fancy lettering was the scar that remained from the bullet he took for me back in November. I barely touched it and I froze. It brought back too many guilty feelings. How it should have been me with the bullet wound, not Cale. But I couldn’t think about that.

“It doesn’t hurt right now,” he said as he grabbed hold of my hand and let it lay above the scar. “You don’t have to be scared to touch me here. You know that, right, Bryn?” His voice was so calm and reassuring, his touch feather light against me.

“Yeah,” I barely uttered out, too completely mesmerized by the man underneath me to even speak.

I moved my hand off of his chest to remove the pieces of my outfit in just a couple of swift movements, leaving me only in my revealing bra and matching black panties. Cale was gawking at me, pushing myself off of him and rolling so he now lay on top of me.

“Look at you,” he said, his amber eyes raking over my body bit by bit, part by part. “There’s no words. I should seriously take a picture of you right now because with the way your hair is all sprawled out on my pillow and what you’re wearing…even though you know what my favorite look on you is…” When I raised an eyebrow he shook his head laughing. “I’m sorry. I’ll be quite blunt. I really want to take what’s still covering you up off your body. I want to see every single inch of you, bared to me, in the flesh, ready for what’s about to happen.”

My mouth gaped open, Cale seizing the opportunity to claim my mouth for a long tongue dancing kiss. I broke the kiss only briefly, asking him, “What are you waiting for?”

I snuck a few when she wasn’t looking in the night. Even though it was my suite and I could do whatever I damn well pleased.

I immediately felt at ease as soon as I popped the prescription pills into my mouth, like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. I crept out of the bed when I knew Bryn was sound asleep, draped beautify across the bed underneath the sheets. I remembered they were in the bottom of my bag after Bryn had found them and luckily were still there, not a single pill missing. 

I poured a cup of wine that was in the suite, complimentary of the hotel, and drank half of the bottle along with the pills. I felt a pinch of guilt fall over me.  I told myself I’d stop with this deadly combination, but I also told myself to screw off.

On a high, I wanted to surprise Bryn when she woke up. I ordered room service for breakfast and went out and walked to the closest 24/7 store I could find, buying Bryn a few bouquets of lilies and a pad of paper and a pen. I was going to give this girl the best morning of her life. Not only with already made breakfast, but her favorite flowers and a letter that told her my real feelings for her. I was never good with telling people how I felt, which was why I liked song writing in the first place. It got my shitty feelings out when I was feeling depressed; when I felt like I was on cloud nine, I wrote down the next love ballad for the band. There weren’t many. I kept those mostly to myself.

Bryn brought something out in me. She was so sweet and innocent, and it made me want to be a better person not only for her sake, but my own. But without the pills, I could be a monster if I was set off the wrong way. That’s partially why I had been on pills ever since I was younger, when the doctor diagnosed me with bi-polar disorder. My real problems escalated after the first fight with my birth father, who could go to hell for all I cared.

Regardless of how I got addicted, I mentally told myself for the millionth time that I needed to quit cold turkey. I was afraid weaning myself off of them slowly would just make it worse. Tyler mentioned the word ‘rehab’ to me before when Bryn wasn’t listening but I told him to shut the fuck up, I wasn’t ever going to abandon this group and go to rehab for something I could fix myself. Plus explaining my life story to a bunch of strangers pretending to ‘help’ me didn’t sound appealing at all.

I placed the bouquets in a vase the lobby staff had hidden in an office and room service was going to be knocking on my door any minute now. I had sat down with the pad of paper and pen, writing exactly how I felt about her in a song. Cheesy, I know, but it could be a big hit someday!

Plopping down onto the couch in front of the TV, I kicked my legs up and watched re-runs of old Nickelodeon shows until Bryn woke up about fifteen minutes later. She sat up straight with the blankets still covering her, and let out a small groan as she stretched her arms above her head. Bed hair looked best on Bryn, her long black hair tangled like a fur ball. It definitely turned me on. I wanted to pounce on her and recreate every single memory we made last night.

I stared down at the bulge in my jeans, wishing my dick didn’t have such a mind of its own. I figured I’d try and make it through breakfast before I took a cold shower. I fucking needed it badly. I returned my attention back to the beautiful girl in my bed as she batted her eyelashes and glanced my way with a bright smile.

“Why did you get out of bed?” she asked, stretching her arms up a second time.

“Couldn’t sleep, I suppose,” I said as she climbed out of bed, still her beautiful naked self. My fingers were itching to take it all off of her again, but a knock on the door and a voice faintly saying, “Room Service!” broke my thoughts.

I got off the couch and headed towards the door to let the guy in, but not before I picked Bryn up and held her in my arms.

“Don’t come too close, my breath stinks!” Bryn tried to wriggle out of my grasp, breaking away so she could run and put on some sort of clothes. I opened the door to see one of the hotel employees flashing a cheesy smile and a tray of a half dozen plates of different food.

“I hope you enjoy your breakfast, sir,” the employee said. “If you require anything else, a menu is included with the phone number to the kitchen and they’ll be glad to assist you.” He left the tray and walked away as I shut the door behind me.

“What’s all this for?” Bryn asked with a surprised look on her face as she saw the lilies and the large amount of food that had been delivered.

“I wanted to give you a special morning, just you and I. But the flowers and breakfast were an extra touch,” I explained, noticing she was in one of my t-shirts. “Seeing you wear that makes me want to keep you locked in my suite all damn day, Bryn.”

I placed my fingers underneath the bottom of it and Bryn swatted my hand away. “Except…we have to leave in like an hour so we can make it to the next venue,” she said playfully, sitting down at the small dinette table where I started to open up all of the covered dishes.

“Killjoy,” I teased. “I wanted round two.”

Bryn stuck her tongue out at me, ogling the huge platter of bacon and sausage that sat before her. What she didn’t know was underneath one of the platter lids I had one last surprise for her. I was going to save it until last because I didn’t know if she would laugh at what I had to say or cry. I wrote her a song, basically summing out how much I loved her and how she’s become my best friend.

After we finished the five platters of breakfast food, I handed her the last one and instructed her to open it and look under the lid.

“Why can’t you just
tell
me what’s under it instead?” Bryn’s bottom lip popped out and I contemplated sucking on it right then and there.

“Well why can’t you just
look
?”

She caved after I gave her the smolder look, lifting the lid off the platter and noticing a small white envelope taped securely to the plate.

Bryn’s green eyes widened as if she didn’t know what to think, let alone expect. Her face bent down. She furrowed her eyebrows as she opened the top of the envelope, taking out the single piece of paper I had stuffed into it. Her eyes studied the lyrics that I wrote, and she sat glued to her seat for a good five minutes not moving an inch.

Finally, she set the piece of paper down and looked at me with tears in her eyes and a hint of a smile.

“Was it bad?” I asked. She shook her head and wiped her eyes.

“I…I’m speechless,” she managed to blurt out the words. “I can’t believe you wrote that about me. And you wrote this overnight?”

“You caught me.” I winked. “The lyrics were stuck in my head after you fell asleep last night, I had to write them down. They were too good to forget.”

Bryn got up from her chair and stood next to me. “Well thank you Cale. All of this…flowers…breakfast…the song about me…I’m so lucky I’m with you.”

“And you get to sing next to me every night,” I pointed out and she let out a hearty laugh.

“Yes, of course that. Which by the way is definitely your best feature.” Bryn grinned, linking one of her hands in mine as I stood up and pulled her into me.

“What about my dashing good looks?”

She laughed again, and I swore I heard a snort. “Just stop while we’re ahead! You already know you’re good looking or else you wouldn’t have girls chasing after you every night even though they
know
we’re together.”

I ran my free hand up and down her clothed back, the other entwined with hers. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about them or anyone else for that matter. It’s just you and I against the world, B. I have seriously been blessed with you. And I can never thank you enough for even accepting the open spot in the first place and going with the guys and I on this crazy ride and I can’t wait to make even more memories along the way.”

Bryn looked up at me with her big beautiful green eyes and kissed me briefly on the lips.

“I’m glad you chose me,” she replied. “Otherwise I probably would have been working from sunrise to sunset at Lozano’s not knowing what to do with my life.”

I took Bryn back to her suite that she shared with Gina so she could get ready to leave. Hal had sent me a text telling me he was already warming up the bus and we’d better wake up and get our asses in gear. I picked up the dirty clothes I had worn from the night before and some other trash I had to get rid of. The others were slobs and lost things on a daily basis, but I was always the guy who hated to make a mess. Which was why I made sure my suite was spotless before grabbing my bag and returning the room key downstairs.

Bryn was standing over with Gina and Bethany by the front door to the hotel, all three wearing sweatpants and hoodies.

“Hey, come here!” Bryn waved me over to where they were talking. “Bethany, you have to tell Cale what happened in Kallie’s suite last night.”

“Holy shit you’ll die laughing, Cale seriously.” Bethany gave me a hug and smiled. “So the four of us and Vince were at the party in Kallie and Krystal’s suite of course, and it was going pretty great. Then I saw Tyler come in and when we had bumped into him in the hall he said he wasn’t coming, but obviously he did.
Okay
, so he showed up, and since you weren’t there, Kallie started hanging on him and following him around like a lost puppy.”

“It kind of made me want to vomit in my mouth,” Gina interjected. “And you could tell he had no interest in her whatsoever. So we tried to get him away from her and I swore for a second I thought she was going to attack me with her cat claws or some shit. But her sister Krystal—who I love by the way—walks by and Tyler starts getting all goo goo gaga eyed and so he leaves Kallie standing there to go talk to Krystal.”

“But the point is, Kallie threw an empty bottle of rum at her sister’s head and it hit the wall, luckily,” Bethany explained. “I had a feeling there was going to be a girl fight any second after that, but Krystal walked up to her and slapped her hard on the mouth. She left with Tyler after that. But Kallie’s reaction was bloody amazing. I wish I would’ve recorded it for you.” She seemed pleased with herself. That was definitely a sight I would’ve liked to see. Kallie Cooper getting slapped in the mouth by her very own sister.

I was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner.

“Damn. We should’ve stopped by there. I could’ve seen this all for myself!” I said excitedly to Bryn. She rolled her eyes at me and wrapped an arm around my waist underneath my coat.

“Then she would’ve been all over you,” she whispered in my ear. “I would’ve done a hell of a lot worse than slapping her in the mouth.” I loved it when Bryn got all protective over me. I pulled her closer to my side and gave her arm a gentle squeeze.

I saw Tyler out of the corner of my eye walking towards us with Krystal beside him, talking about something. Krystal quickly said hi to all of us and gave the girls a hug before running off to catch up with her group.

“Damn, Tyler.” I nudged him. “You’re really into Kallie’s sister?”

He shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know, dude. I was just tired of Kallie trying to pounce on me at any moment, so Krystal helped me. But she really is a nice girl.”

“Meaning you slept with her,” I insinuated.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, dick wad.” Tyler punched my shoulder. “I slept on the couch and she took my bed. I was a gentleman and even bought her breakfast.”

“Aww,” Bryn teased. “What a sweet guy.”

“Aww yeah, don’t start with me, B,” Tyler joked, grinning at Bryn. “I’m not settling down anytime soon. I just hung out with her last night, don’t start jumping to conclusions.”

“Alright I promise I’ll stop.” She giggled, taking her phone out of her purse to type a message.

Seconds later I heard a ping on my phone.

Bryn: Obvious? Totally likes her.

I looked up from my phone and Bryn and I locked eyes and smiled widely at each other.

We were thinking the same exact thing.

***