Girl With Guitar (13 page)

E
verything
would be different between them now and for that reason, Kylie never wanted to leave his arms, his bed, or his house. Maybe for a few other reasons, too. For the first time in a long time, she felt protected, safe.
Home.
She was also feeling pretty pissed off at herself. She should not be letting herself want this. Sleeping with him was one thing, wanting more than that was just outright asinine.

“Everything okay?” he murmured into her hair as he held her naked body against his.

She snuggled down into the covers, wiggling her backside against his crotch. Who knew spooning could be so hot?

“Again?” he asked, not bothering to keep the shock out of his voice. This would be the third time. Trace’s mouth met her bare shoulder with a hot wet kiss.

Kylie purred softly. “Mmm, maybe, if you’re up for it, old man. But we should probably get going soon.”
Back to reality
, she thought bitterly.

“Ah to be young and free,” his warm voice teased as he kissed her neck. Oh God. Free. Could she ever really be free of Darla? Since their discussion earlier, nagging thoughts about what Darla might try to do if Kylie garnered any type of success had been plaguing her. Now was so not the time, but he deserved to know the truth.

“Listen, Trace, about that—”

“Hold that thought.” He grabbed his vibrating phone off the nightstand. She didn’t even remember him getting it. He must’ve gotten it at some point when she’d dozed off.

“Hi, Pauly. Yeah, working on that now. Okay, okay, relax. We’ll be there soon.” He paused and ran his hand down the length of Kylie’s side. “Yeah I know,” he snapped into the phone, the sharpness of his voice contrasting with the gentleness of his touch. She heard a click before Pauly had finished talking.

She twisted around so she could look at him. “Did you just hang up on him?”

“I did.”

“Trace!”

“Well, he was ruining the moment. Where were we?”

Kylie opened her mouth to finish her sentence from earlier but looking into his eyes stopped her cold. They were the same stormy color they’d been that night at The Rum Room. This might be all she ever got. Talking could wait.

“We were right about here,” she told him, pressing herself against him once more. He was right. She already couldn’t stand for him not to be inside of her. This would probably be the last time, she thought to herself, so she wanted it to be everything.

“P
auly
has called me eleven times,” Kylie told Trace as they wolfed down their burgers on the drive back to the bus.

“He’s just stressed we won’t make it in time to rehearse at Tin Roof. He’ll calm down once we get there.” His confidence was mildly reassuring, but Kylie didn’t mention the texts Pauly was sending in rapid-fire succession telling her to get as far as possible from Trace and call him ASAP.

When they pulled into the RV lot where the tour bus was parked, Trace shut off the engine but didn’t make a move to get out.

When our feet hit the ground this will all be just a memory and nothing more
. They’d do their last show and go their separate ways. Something deep inside of her ached in the way it had when the police had told her about her dad.
My soul
, she realized. Letting go of Trace after having him for even less than twenty-four hours was hurting her soul.
Because I am obviously outside my ever-loving mind.

Trace didn’t seem to be in a hurry to exit the truck either. Even though it was beginning to feel as if there wasn’t enough oxygen in the cab for both of them. “Kylie? You okay?”

She couldn’t risk crying, not now, after everything. So she just shook her head.
No.

“Is it Pauly? ‘Cause I promise, he’ll be fine once this last show ends and wraps this tour up smoothly.”

Smoothly.
Huh
. The thought of it ending now felt jagged and razor sharp to her. “I know. I’m sure you’re right,” she said quietly.

He stopped wadding the paper wrapper from his sandwich and stared at her for a moment. “Then why do you look terrified of getting out of this truck?”

Kylie took a deep breath. There was already one lie between them. She couldn’t stand to add another. “Music has been my…everything, for as long as I can remember. It’s the only connection I have left to my dad.” She paused to swallow the lump ascending into her esophagus. “There have been times when I’ve chosen it over food and shelter. I’d take it over air if I could survive.” It was the truth. She’d live, breathe, and eat it if she could.

“Kylie, it’s fine. I prom—”

“That’s not it,” she said, shaking her head and staring straight out of the windshield to avoid the intensity of his probing eyes. “I’m not afraid of losing music—no one can really take that from me, not even Pauly.”

“Then what—”

“It’s always come first, been what’s made every painful thing bearable. Before today, there was never anything I’d have even thought about doing for a second if it meant risking my shot.” She paused, as startled by her own realization as he was probably about to be. “But if I could relive the past twenty-four hours over again every day for the rest of my life...I’d give it up altogether.”

I’m afraid of losing you
, she wanted to add but didn’t because it would make her seem pathetic. And also because Pauly had stormed off of the bus and was heading straight for them. He didn’t look angry like she expected him to. He looked…panicked.

Trace got out of the truck without saying a word. She flinched when the door slammed shut. She watched as he made his way to her door, trying to soothe Pauly the whole way. It didn’t appear to be working.

“Don’t touch her!” Pauly shouted at Trace when he opened her door and reached in to help her out of the cab.

Trace jerked his head towards his manager. “Jesus, Pauly, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“You,” Pauly seethed in her direction, “have a visitor.”

“W
ell,
as I live and breathe,” Darla drawled as soon as Kylie stepped onto the bus. “Mr. Corbin, I’m a big fan of yours. It’s truly a pleasure to meet you. Everyone back in Pride can hardly believe our little Kylie here is touring with such a big star.”

“Um, thanks.” Trace shook the woman’s hand, shooting Kylie a puzzled look.
God take me now, please.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Kylie blurted out. She and Darla had never really been anything more than barely civil to each other, and after the last time she’d seen the woman, she didn’t see the point of even bothering with that.

“Well now, Kylie, I think the better question is what exactly are
you
doing here? And according to the interviewer from
Country Weekly
, I should be asking exactly what, or rather who, you’ve been doing while you’ve been here.”

Her stepmother had on a tight red tank top and Kylie’s mother’s pearls. Took the phrase ‘seeing red’ to a whole new level.

“Since you and I are nothing, I can’t see how anything I do is really any of your business.” Kylie knew she was snarling and that wasn’t exactly the version of herself she wanted Trace or Pauly to see, but it really couldn’t be helped.

“Oh darlin,’ I’m not here for you,” Darla informed her, using her best southern belle patronizing tone. “I’m here to protect poor Mr. Corbin here from a sneaky little snake in cowgirl boots before she bites him the same way she did my poor Leo and Jakeykins.”

“What’s going on, Kylie?” Trace asked, his head turning from her to Darla to Pauly and back around again.

The mention of Leo made Kylie flinch. He was the worst one. The reason she had to put a bolt lock on her bedroom door.

Clearly tired of the charade, Pauly blurted out, “Mrs. Ryans here has some information about Kylie that she is willing to keep quiet for the right amount of money.”

All the blood rushed to Kylie’s head as if Darla were hanging her upside down.

“What kind of information?” Trace asked, directing his attention to Pauly.

“She hasn’t shared all the details with me yet,” the weary looking manager answered.

“How much do you want, Darla? Because right now I’m basically working for the price of what it costs me to travel and perform. I haven’t received any money yet but I will give you whatever you want as soon as I can, provided that you stay the hell out of my life so long as we both shall live.” Her heart slammed against her chest, seemingly as desperate to escape the situation as she was. She was wilting quickly under the heat of Trace’s glare.

She turned to him with pleading in her eyes. “I tried to tell you before. This is my—”

“Mother,” Darla interrupted. “Stepmother of course, as I’m nowhere near old enough to have a child Kylie’s age.”

It was exactly as dramatic as Darla had intended it to be. Trace’s pupils widened and constricted and his chest heaved in and out with each breath.

“It’s just you, huh?” Trace said, snorting in disbelief, or maybe disgust. Kylie wasn’t sure.

“Kylie told us she didn’t have any living relatives,” Pauly said, eyeing Darla as if he thought she might be lying.

“Mr. Corbin, I hate to be the one to tell you, but Kylie here is quite the liar. This isn’t the first time she’s lied and seduced older men to get what she wanted. I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

Trace just shook his head as if that would clear out the confusion. “Seduced?” he mumbled more to himself than anyone else.

How could anyone know yet?
It had just freaking happened and Kylie hadn’t even processed it herself.

Filled with five years’ worth of anguish, Kylie lunged at the woman she hated with everything she had.

“You are a crazy bitch, you ruined my dad’s life, and you will not come here and ruin mine!” Kylie roared, reaching for her mother’s pearls. She felt hair and flesh barely in her grasp before Pauly yanked her back.

“Lawsuit, Kylie. You have to
think
,” he said sternly into her ear.

“I hate you! I wish my dad never met you! I wish it had been you instead of him!” She screeched at Darla from the security of Pauly’s, and now Trace’s, grasp.

“Well, I think that proves my point, gentlemen,” Darla said, righting her hair and fingering Kylie’s mother’s necklace. “And frankly, I don’t see any reason I should lie for a disrespectful brat who is clearly not mature enough to be managing a career of her own.”

An animalistic sound ripped from Kylie’s core as she lunged again.

“Get her out of here, Pauly. Fuck!” Trace yelled as his hands tightened around her arms. “Take her in my room.”

Pauly spoke soothing words into Kylie’s ear as he all but dragged her back to Trace’s room. She could hear Trace asking Darla for a specific dollar amount to keep quiet about whatever she supposedly knew about Kylie. “Enough to fill a best-seller,” Kylie heard the woman say. Something about a Non-Disclosure Agreement was being mentioned just as Pauly closed Trace’s door behind them.

Kylie pressed against it to listen. Tears of rage burned trails of shame down her face. She didn’t even bother wiping them. “This is extortion, isn’t it? Can she really do this to me?”

“This is why we asked if you had any family members or things in your past that we should know about. It’s not uncommon for relatives to pop out of the woodwork when someone gets a little notice. But what she said about seducing older men, is there anything to that? Please tell me this wasn’t some type of plan to make Trace look bad.” He didn’t even look at her as he made the accusation.

Kylie slid down the length of the door until her bottom reached the carpet. “Is that really what you think of me, Pauly? Seriously?”

“I don’t know what to think, Kylie. It’s just a messed up situation and I have to do what’s best for Trace.” He rubbed his temples for a moment and looked up at her with bloodshot eyes. “Lots of larger labels have been known to take the low road when they want to get rid of someone. Even so low as to plant a girl to sing his song at an open mic night to get his attention, only for her to later release a sex tape of them. This is country music. Something like that would ruin him.”

“Jesus Christ.” Kylie shook her head to keep the ugliness of his words out. “She kicked me out and I lost my job in the same day. I had nothing, no one, and nowhere to go. I used what little money I had to get a hotel room and a waitressing job when I got to Nashville. My plan was to save up to record a demo and go from there. There was no way I could’ve known Trace would be there that night. Hell, Clive didn’t even know.” She squeezed her eyes shut, thinking about the impossibility of her fate.

“What was I supposed to do, Pauly, when you dangled the answer to my prayers, my freaking life’s dream, in front of me? Tell you I had a crazy bitch of a stepmother, lose my dream, and go back to having nothing? What would you have done?”

“Swear to me she doesn’t have anything on you that could hurt Trace,” he said quietly.

“I swear. A few of the random men she constantly had coming in and out of her bedroom paid a little too much attention to me and she was jealous. She’s a horrible woman. My dad’s grave was barely covered when she started dating again. All she wants is money and I will pay her whatever it takes to keep her out of my life.”

“People like this,” Pauly began and then stopped and shook his head. He ran a hand through his thinning hair. “I can’t manage you. Not now. It’s a conflict of interest, but I know someone who can. And you’re going to need a lawyer in case she ever tries this again.”

Kylie nodded, finally wiping her tears. “Just tell me what to do.”

“Right, ‘cause you listen so well.” He aimed a pointed glare at the blue shirt of Trace’s she was still wearing.

Yeah, okay. Truth hurts. “I will this time. I’ll do whatever you say.”

“If you really mean that, I will have Chaz Michaelson meet us in South Carolina. He’s a manager that has already expressed some interest in you and he’s good, has some major connections in Nashville. He’s young but solid, trustworthy. But I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything,” she promised, swiping a hand under her nose and standing.

“Keep quiet about whatever happened between you and Trace in Georgia.”

“Done.”

“And stay away from Trace until this tour is completely over and whatever your stepmother has put out to the media dies down.”

Anything except that, she thought. Like Trace would want anything to do with her now that he’d just seen Darla bring out her inner trailer park.

She nodded. “I care about him, Pauly. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt him.”

The manager just rolled his neck and looked at her for a long minute. “It’s usually the people we care about that we hurt the most.”