Hard As Rock (17 page)

I recognized the voice immediately. Though he wasn’t on speakerphone, Miles was loud enough to hear easily.
“What the fuck do YOU want?”

I was shocked for a moment that he would talk to Ryan that way – and then I remembered that Ryan was calling from
my
phone.

Miles thought he was talking to
me.

If I was Miles’s least favorite person before (other than Riley, maybe), I shuddered to think what that made me now.

“It’s Ryan, Miles.”

There was a pause.

“Seriously? Calling from… THAT number?”

I wondered why he paused before saying ‘THAT number.’ Then I figured that Derek was nearby, and Miles didn’t want to say my name. Or ‘her number.’ Or any other identifier that might betray how I was involved.

He more or less confirmed it with his next comment:
“Have some fucking decorum, for Christ’s sake.”

Ryan wasn’t about to take the bait. “Skip it. How is he?”

 
“He’s fine. God protects little children and drunks. And idiots, apparently.”

“Did he hurt himself?”

“No. Unfortunately, didn’t pound any sense into his head, either – he’s as big an arsehole as he ever was.”

“Is he there? I want to talk to him.”

“He’s here, but I get the vague notion that that’s an absolutely shite idea.”

“Tell him I want to make sure he’s okay.”

Miles sighed and went away. He returned about 30 seconds later.

“He says – and I quote – ‘Tell him to go fuck himself. And tell his whore to fuck off, too.’”

My guts twisted – with rage, with hurt, with betrayal. All I had done was care about him; all I wanted to do was make sure he was alright – and this was the way he treated me?

Ryan reacted, too, but only with rage.

His face twisted into a frightening scowl. “Put him on the phone.”

“This ain’t exactly the time, but you an’ me are gonna have to have a chat about shitting where you sleep, my friend.”

“Fine. Put him on the phone, Miles.”

“I don’t particularly fancy having him set it on fire.”

“Then put him on speakerphone – but
put him on the fucking phone
.”

There was a long silence on the other end. Apparently the manager knew Ryan meant business, because all he said was
“Right.”
The room sounds suddenly became amplified.

“Ryan, what are you – ” I started to say, but he walked away from me.

“Is he listening?” Ryan said sharply into his cell.

I could hear Derek’s voice, loud and slurred. Drunk already on a Sunday morning. Or maybe he hadn’t sobered up from the night before.

“I thought I told you to – ”

“You can say whatever you want to me, but you
leave her out of it,
you self-centered piece of shit,” Ryan barked into the phone. “She’s been worrying herself sick about you, and that’s what you say to her? FUCK YOU. And while you’re at it, pull yourself together, or the next thing they’ll be doing is putting your name in the obituaries next to Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain’s.”

And with that, Ryan hung up.

I stood there, my mouth open, as Ryan walked over and handed me the phone.

“He’s fine,” he said coldly, and walked out of the barn.

Ryan’s speech over the phone blew me away. The way he fought for me – the way he chewed Derek out –

I have to admit, it stirred something inside me.

And his actions afterward – walking away from me rather than giving in and being all
aw, shucks
– caused me to stand up and take notice, too.

Of course, all this was kind of percolating in the background. I wouldn’t actually recognize it for what it was until several days later – partly because there was more drama in Derekland.

On Monday morning, TMZ reported the words that should have filled me with gladness. Instead it just made me sad that it had taken almost losing his life before he stopped his destructive downward spiral:

DEREK KANE ENTERS REHAB

Derek Kane, lead singer of Bigger, is reported to be entering rehab at the insistence of his band’s manager.

After an epic two weeks of partying, Kane was in a car wreck last Saturday morning. He walked away from it without a scratch, but was charged with DUI. He reportedly had a blood alcohol level of 0.17, over twice the legal limit, and was allegedly in the possession of drugs.

Some consider rehab to be a PR stunt, or an early attempt at cultivating sympathy from the judge at Kane’s eventual DUI hearing. In response, Bigger’s manager, Miles Sumner, made this characteristically colorful statement: “Derek has entered rehab to deal with personal issues, namely that he drinks too bloody much. We request that the media respect his privacy, but since I know you won’t, f*ck off, then.”

Ryan stayed in daily contact with Miles. Derek was doing fine, according to the band manager. Or, at least, he hadn’t burned the facility down yet.

Ryan was fully supportive of the entire rehab attempt, as was I.

Riley had a slightly different take on it the next time she talked to us via Skype.

“Pussy. What a quitter.”

She was a lot more animated than the last time we had talked to her.

She also happened to be drunk.

In the fifth week on the ranch, life slowly returned to normal. With Derek safely locked away in rehab, there were no more TMZ revelations to read. And with no more TMZ scuttlebutt, and no connections to Derek tugging at my attention, my obsession began to fade once more, and I began to heal again.

Ryan and I slowly resumed the quiet, easy life we’d had before the storm. Days of horseback riding, dinners with the MacCruders or just the two of us, nights of music and wine.

We didn’t talk about what had gone on in the barn. Neither of us mentioned it.

Which was fine with me. Ignoring uncomfortable things had long been my strong suit.

That is, until they burst to the surface again, uncontrollable, unstoppable.

It was a Friday. We had taken the horses up into the hills to go riding. The weather was beautiful as the horses picked their way along the trail through trees and boulders. Ryan and I were talking about nothing in particular.

“If you could do anything in the world that you wanted – if somebody gave you a check for all the money you could ever need – what would you do?” I called over my shoulder.

“They kind of already have,” Ryan said as Fat Albert loped along behind me and Bessie.

“So what would you do?”

“Sit in my studio and create music all day long.”

“So you’re basically doing exactly what you want to do, even if you had all the money in the world?”

“Well, you didn’t say
that.
”

“Didn’t say what?”

“All the money in the world. If I had all the money in the world, I’d probably start a whole bunch of schools for underprivileged kids with the best teachers I could find, and then – ”

“Okay, okay, enough money to do basically whatever you wanted to do, but not save the world.”

“Then yeah, I guess I’m doing exactly what I’d be doing then. Except I’d want to bring in other musicians I respected and work with them.”

“You could totally do that. I bet you could call up people and totally have them come play with you.”

“Yeah, I probably could.”

“So why don’t you?”

“You forget, I have to go back to Athens in three weeks and record another album.”

Oh shit…

I’d forgotten all about that.

“Do you think that’s still going to happen?” I asked, a lot less chipper than before.

“What?”

“Well, with Derek in rehab…”

“Rehab’s only 30 days. Or his is, anyway. If we delay recording, it’ll probably only be by a week or so.”

My stomach turned. Derek would be back in Athens with Ryan.

Not that it would make any difference to me, since I would be in New York.

“Do you think – ”

I was going to ask again if he thought Derek might quit the band, but I didn’t get the chance. Bessie, my horse, suddenly started to fidget.

“Whoa – calm down, girl, calm down.”

“What’s wrong?” Ryan called out behind me.

“I don’t know – something’s freaking Bessie out – ”

That was all I had the chance to say before Bessie suddenly neighed loud and shrill and reared up on her hind legs.

Keep in mind, the most I’d ever had to contend with was a light trot in the pastures around Ryan’s house. As soon as she was up in the air, I was out of the saddle.

The world spun crazily around me, sky and green branches overhead, and then
WHAM
I hit the ground on my back. All the air in my lungs went out with a single
whoof
and I lay there in the dirt, unable to breathe, unable to move, listening as Bessie continued to neigh in terror just a few feet away.

Ryan was suddenly over me, his worried face taking up my entire field of vision.

“Kaitlyn?! Kaitlyn! Are you okay? Can you move?”

I just stared up at him, moving my lips, but no sound coming out –

And then suddenly I was able to breathe again, the air
whooshing
back into my chest.

At the same moment, both horses roared past us down the trail, fast as they could, their hooves thundering vibrations into my body through the dirt.

“What – what happened?” I choked out through the dust in the air.

“I don’t – ” Ryan started to say, but at the same time he looked around.

And stopped talking.

For a split second he stared at something, and then he started to stand up, slowly and deliberately.

“Kaitlyn,” he whispered. “Don’t move. Don’t run.”

I had no idea why on God’s green earth I would want to run after what I’d just been through until I raised my head and saw it.

A cougar.

It was a yellow shape in the shadows of the trees and boulders, a long, lithe body with a twitching tail. It was crouched, its gaze fixed on me and Ryan, golden eyes glinting in the dappled sunlight.

I almost messed my pants.

Just as I was about to scrabble onto my butt and hightail it out of there, Ryan said quietly, “
Don’t run.
It’s faster than you, and if you run, it’ll chase you.”

Ryan was at his full height now. He stepped across my body towards the cat, getting between me and it. At the same time, he raised his arms up in the air above his head like a grizzly bear, his fingers curled like claws –

And began to bellow.

Though I couldn’t see it, I imagined his face was full of fury, because he was yelling at that cat for all he was worth.

“What are you doing?!”

“MAKE NOISE!” he shouted. “SCREAM AT IT!”

That wasn’t hard to do, terrified as I was.

I screamed at the thing as loud as I could. Ryan’s low-pitched roar and my high-pitched shriek reverberated through the hills, echoing back to us like a pair of murder victims.

Which is what I was afraid we were about to become.

However, the cat looked back and forth between us, apparently freaked out. Its head lay low to the ground, its ears flattened against its head –

And then it bolted into the treeline, running as fast as it could.

As soon as it disappeared into the brush, Ryan turned back to me and knelt down. His pale face belied his previous display of aggression.

“Are you okay? Can you get up?” he asked urgently.

“I – I don’t know – ”

“Here, let me help you. We need to go
now.
”

He grabbed my hands and pulled me to my feet – but my right ankle screamed in pain as soon as my foot touched the ground.

“Aaah!” I cried out, and lifted my foot up gingerly.

“What’s wrong?”

“I think it’s sprained. Or broken, I don’t know.”

“Can you walk on it?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Here,” he said, and suddenly bent beside me. One arm swept around my back, the other behind my knees. Suddenly I was swept off my feet, my body in the air, supported by his strong arms and pressed hard against his chest.

I flung my arms around his neck involuntarily. “WHOA – what are you – ”

“We’ve got to get out of here
now,
” he repeated as he began walking down the path – or more like trotting down it, as fast as he could go with me in his arms.

“What’s wrong?” I asked fearfully, though I was pretty sure I already knew.

“We scared it off, but there’s no guarantee it’s not still around. We need to put as much distance between it and us as we can, as
fast
as we can.”

“Then let me down!”

“What are you going to do,
hop
back? No, this is faster.”

“Ryan – ”

“Just keep an eye out for it behind my back, okay? It might be stalking us.”

Well,
that
scared the hell out of me. I clung tighter to his neck and began scanning the forest like a paranoid conspiracy theorist.

“Where are the horses?” I whispered.

“They had sense enough to get the hell out.”

“Is that why Bessie freaked?”

“Yep.”

“She could smell it? Or sense it, or something?”

“Exactly.”

“Where did they go?”

“If I were a betting man, five’d get you twenty that they’ll be waiting for us down in the barn.”

I clung tightly to him and watched the trees as he walked as fast as he could down the trail.

“What was that you were doing back there?” I whispered.

“What?”

“The whole hands over your head thing – and the yelling and screaming.”

“If you ever see a cougar again, you have to make yourself as big as possible. Stand up taller than it and yell as loud as you can.”

“Yeah, well, I never have to worry about that, since I am
never
coming up here again!”

He smiled, amused.

“I’m glad you think this is so funny!” I hissed.

“We made it out alive, didn’t we? It was probably more scared of us than we were of it.”