Hard As Rock (6 page)

There was the insane sexual tension before we slept together… the hilarious ride in the car with his fans… him buying the convertible Mercedes… the slipping into the concert incognito and bursting onto the stage… the nights of partying… the time Shanna had come to San Francisco, and we had gone wild until dawn…

But all of that was just fun.

It wasn’t sweetness, or tenderness, or romance.

It was just Derek playing the rock star, and me being seduced by that lifestyle.

I struggled to recall something really good, and all I could remember was the sex.
Of course
I remembered the sex: our first night together in Irvine – first tender, then deliriously savage. The mind-blowing orgasms in Joshua Tree. The over-the-top fucking as we drunkenly destroyed the hotel room. The almost religious experience on the salt flats in Utah.

But had he told me he loved me even once?

Only in his fucking drunk voicemails, where he was just as likely to call me a bitch.

But four years ago, he had told me he loved me… gently… sweetly… over and over again.

I had fallen in love with a boy four years ago, when I was just a girl… but the boy had grown into a completely different man.

I had just been too stupid and blind to realize the difference between the two of them.

They were both cocky, charismatic, sensual, fun, sexy, and gorgeous.

But the boy was tender and romantic, and would have given anything to keep me by his side.

The man was narcissistic, impetuous, addicted to ever-increasing highs – of attention from women, of adulation from his fans, of acting like an asshole.

And I had just been another drug for his addiction.

Idiot.

Idiot.

IDIOT.

Like a recurring dream that turns into a nightmare, I kept coming back again and again to our heartbreaking conversation at the very end:

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

…yes. Probably. At some point, yes.

You would have cheated on me before you got famous?

…probably.

Just with… somebody you met in a club?

Maybe.

The scorpion couldn’t have spoken any more clearly than that.

And worst of all, the final jab, the one that tore my heart clean out of my chest:

YOU cheated on YOUR boyfriend. YOU cheated on him with ME. But I guess since it was YOU doing the cheating, that makes it alright, huh?

That was the killer.

That was the one that gutted me and left me dying on the floor.

Because he was right.

I
had
cheated on Kevin. I could rationalize it all day long – that my boyfriend was an insecure jerk, that I was in love with Derek, that I was young and stupid and should have just broken up with Kevin, but didn’t know enough to follow my heart instead of my head – but, in the end, I had cheated.

Like my mother had cheated on my father.

Like Derek had cheated on me.

I was no better than him.

Except in one way: never,
never
in a million years would I have thrown it in Derek’s face like he threw it in mine.

But the fact of the matter was, I had given him something to throw.

I had committed the crime he’d accused me of.

I had done the same thing he had, just to somebody else.

All that self-loathing came back, and I wallowed in it. In the guilt, in the shame. And even as I hated Derek for what he had done to me, I wondered secretly if maybe I hadn’t deserved it. If maybe this was my punishment, my karma, for what I had done four years ago.

As much as I hated him, I hated myself even more.

Stupid little frog.

Of course she had given a ride to the scorpion.

Because she deserved to be stung.

Not just an idiot.

Not just stupid.

But bad.

I am bad.

I am bad, and broken, and horrible, and I hate him and I hate myself and I want to die.

It was a very, very dark plane ride.

We flew to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport first, then to a little place I’d never heard of called Rapid City, South Dakota. The airport was a couple of runways in the middle of a vast, green expanse. The terminal itself was small but nice. Much to my surprise, we bypassed the rental car counters and went outside where a black SUV was waiting for us.

“You have a private driver?” I asked, stunned. “Here in South Dakota?”

“No,” Ryan smiled. “It’s a limo company.”

“Oh.” I felt a little foolish. “But if it’s a limo company, why isn’t it a limo?”

“We wouldn’t want one of those. Not for where we’re going.”

I understood that comment about an hour later.

We left the town and drove into a national forest full of hills and thick with trees. Most of the drive I was melancholy, but the scenery was a pleasant distraction. Ryan left me to my thoughts and chatted with the driver about things like the weather and how business was doing.

I checked my phone.

Eleven new messages, 15 new texts, all from the same number.

I deleted the voicemails without listening to them. I should have done the same with the texts, but I read the first five until I got so angry that I erased them all.

After almost forty minutes, we passed through Deadwood, South Dakota. The town was basically one long strip of buildings that looked like they were built in the last twenty years, but wanted you to believe they were over a century old. Lots of places with ‘saloon’ on the sign, and a couple of casinos.

“Is this the Deadwood in that old HBO show?” I asked.

“The very same.”

Shortly after that we left the national forest. Woods and mountainous hills sloped up to the left, and a vast expanse of prairie stretched off to the right. We drove another fifteen minutes, then turned off the asphalt onto a deserted side road. We passed through a lot of tall grass, and occasionally I would see creatures that looked like a cross between deer and moose.

“Elk,” Ryan explained when he saw me watching them.

Another ten minutes went by, and we turned off the road onto what could only charitably be called a gravel road. More like rutted dirt. Now I understood why we had the SUV as we bumped and jostled along.

At one point we reached a long metal gate, bounded on both sides by endless wooden fence. The driver was about to get out when Ryan said, “I’ll do it.” He jumped out, opened the gate, waited until the SUV had driven through, then closed the gate and got in the backseat again with me.

“What was that?”

“Cattle gate.”

“You have cows here?”

“Not anymore. My grandparents did, but I just keep a few horses.”

We drove another few minutes until we reached a small group of buildings. There was a barn, a small ranch-style house, and a couple of large shacks, one of which might have been a garage.

Several hundred feet away sat a much larger house, a one-story with an expansive wooden porch out front. The wood was weathered, but it looked well cared-for.

The driver pulled up in front of the main house, then hopped out and took my luggage from the back. Ryan peeled off a couple of hundreds and handed them over.

“Goodness – thank you, Mr. Miller,” the driver enthused.

“My pleasure. Thanks for the ride.”

As the SUV disappeared down the dirt road, I suddenly realized just how isolated we were. Nothing around us for miles and miles except prairie and wooded hills.

“Does anybody else live here?” I asked nervously.

Ryan smiled and pointed over at the smaller ranch house. “The MacCruders. They handle the place for me while I’m away, take care of the horses. We’ll meet them later. Let’s get you settled first.”

We walked up on the front porch and he opened the door – not locked at all.

“You don’t lock your front door?” I asked, astounded.

Ryan looked at me in amusement. “Who’s going to break in, way out here?”

He had a point. But for a girl who had six locks on her New York City apartment door, it was a novel concept.

The house was absolutely beautiful. A gigantic open main room, with exposed rafters and lots of light-colored wood paneling. There was a stone fireplace, comfortable leather sofas, a beautiful dining room table, antique desks and bookcases, and a grand piano in front of a vast bay window.

“This was your grandparents’?” I asked, trailing my fingers across the keys.

“No, they weren’t exactly the musician types. I put it in after I remodeled the place. Want to see the studio?”

He led me down the hallway to a soundproofed room with microphones, speakers, computers, mixing boards, and about a dozen different guitars hanging on the walls.

“Is this going to be a working vacation?”

“It’s not work if you love it,” he smiled.

He led me back through the house. As we passed, I looked at the dozens of pictures on the wall. I recognized Ryan’s mother and father, and Mara and Casey at all different ages. There was an older couple, silver-haired and usually in denim, who looked just as happy as the rest of Ryan’s family.

And, of course, there were shots of Ryan – from a smiling, gap-toothed seven-year-old holding his baby sister, all the way up through his high school years. In the latter ones, he looked the way I remembered him from four years ago: innocent good looks and short hair.

“Look at you, you’re so cute,” I cooed.

“Oh God,” he moaned. “Don’t look at those.”

I pointed at a few that could charitably be called his ‘awkward years,’ with braces and outdated hairstyles. He was still adorable, though. “What, you mean these?”

He took my arm good-naturedly and propelled me past the pictures. “Yeah, I’m going to have to take those down while you’re here,” he joked.

It surprised me the tiniest bit that I liked feeling his strong, powerful hand on my arm.

He led me past the modern kitchen, with its marble-topped island and a hanging rack of pots and pans, down a hallway with four bedrooms. We wound up at the farthest one, with a four-poster bed and a white billowing canopy flowing from the frame.

“Nice,” I said.

“Mara insisted on it.” He sounded a little embarrassed.

“You mean, you weren’t the one who wanted the flowing, sensual curtains?” I teased.

He gave me a
You’re a little devil
look, then said, “You’ve got your own bathroom here, so you’ll have plenty of privacy.”

I looked in. Nice. Clean white tile with light blue accents, a granite sink and counter, and a humongous claw-foot tub with a sleek modern showerhead. And there were thick, soft towels hanging neatly on a metal rod.

He went to the door and looked back at me. “I’ll let you get settled. If you want to take a shower, that’s cool – I know I’m going to. Take your time. Afterwards we’ll… I don’t know. Get a drink and relax, have some dinner.”

“Okay,” I said, suddenly shy. “Thanks.”

He smiled. “Don’t mention it.”

He turned and left. I heard his footsteps down the hall, and then the door to his bedroom closed.

I decided on the shower. I hadn’t bathed since leaving Vegas, and over 24 hours of tears and travel had left me feeling grimy and blah.

It was heavenly. Even though we were out in the middle of nowhere, Ryan hadn’t skimped on a hot water heater during the remodel.

Afterwards I put on one of my few clean outfits and padded out to the kitchen, my hair still damp, my face free of makeup.

Ryan wore a new pair of jeans and a white, long sleeve shirt. He was already busy at the stove, presiding over a steaming skillet. Delicious aromas competed in the air, including what smelled like a baking pie.

He looked over and saw me. “You look nice.”

I touched my hair unconsciously, until I realized I was doing it. “I look terrible.”

“Terribly nice,” he grinned, then said, “I’m just whipping up something simple. You okay with chicken stir fry, maybe some apple pie for dessert?”

“That’s great – but how do you have any food? When was the last time you were here?”

“When I called, Mrs. MacCruder stocked the fridge for me. And, I cannot tell a lie, she’s the one that brought over the pie. I’m just heating it up.”

“Thank God for Mrs. MacCruder, then.”

“Amen. You like white or red wine?”

“Well, you’re fixing chicken, right? So we should do white?”

“We can do whatever you want.”

“…then red.”

“Red it is. Strong or velvety?”

“Oooh, velvety sounds nice.”

He walked over to a fancy, free-standing cabinet and opened it up. Dozens of bottles lay in wooden racks inside. He traced his finger down a couple, then selected one, pulled it out, looked at it, decided yes.

“Damn, Ryan, you’ve got a nice little selection there.”

“This is just the tip of the iceberg. You should see the wine cellar.”

“You have a wine cellar?!”

“Gotta have something to do on long winter nights. Drinking’s as good as any.”

He pulled out a couple of beautiful wine glasses and poured a generous portion into each.

I sniffed it and sipped.

Exquisite. Soft and just slightly sweet, with so many subtle flavors.

“Oh my GOD that’s good,” I sighed.

“Glad you like it,” he grinned, then turned off the stove and spooned out our dinner from the skillet: chunks of chicken breast with slivers of carrot, broccoli, asparagus, mushrooms, cabbage, celery, and sprouts.

“Smells wonderful,” I said.

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t know you could cook.”

“This isn’t cooking, really… but yeah, I enjoy it. I used to cook for everybody back when we lived in the crack house in Athens.”

My heart hurt a tiny bit as I thought of Derek living there, but I got past it. “You cooked for the band?”

“Yeah. No one else was going to do it. If you gave Killian a choice, he’d just live on mary jane and whatever he could grab when he had the munchies. And Riley would be fine with hot dogs and Jack Daniels.”