Heavy Metal (A Badboy Rockstar Romance) (10 page)

Our very frank and rather emotional discussion had left me exhausted.  I accepted Brandon’s embrace gratefully, allowing him to pull me onto his lap and wrap his arms around me in a giant bear hug.  The affection felt good and his understanding felt even better.

Arguments with Carl always turned into nasty, heated affairs – and often one-sided ones, at that.  Once he lost his temper, he could rant and rave for hours, holding a grudge like you wouldn’t believe.  He would throw things, break things and do his best to leave me in tears.  And he never, ever apologized.

With Brandon, it was vastly different.

He hadn’t raised his voice.

He hadn’t hurled insults at me.

He’d actually given me the opportunity to explain my point of view, patiently and respectfully listening even when I had been rude and hostile.  He’d heard me out, he’d tried to understand where I was coming from and then he’d apologized. 

And now he was hugging me. 

Before, I had thought men like Brandon were only figments of overly-optimistic women’s imaginations.  But now I knew the truth.  I had never been happier to be wrong in my entire life.

Chapter 09

“What’s your life like when you’re not on tour?” I asked curiously.

Brandon and I were hanging out on the tour bus.  Everyone else was partying up front – we could hear the hooting and hollering through the thin walls.  The two of us, however, had opted to shut ourselves away at the back of the bus, which was where the bunks were. 

We had, in fact, made ourselves a pillow fort and were now sprawled out beneath it.  Brandon was at one end and I was at the other.  It was completely juvenile, as was the pillow fight that had wrapped up only moments earlier.  I loved it.

The show had only ended a few hours ago and already, the band was headed to its next destination.  It was a crazy lifestyle that I imagined could wear a person out really quickly.  So I was curious about what life was like in between all the touring.

“We spend a lot of time in the studio recording,” he replied, sitting up.  “Last year we rented a place in Barbados – a producer buddy of ours owns it.  We basically spend all day and half the night holed up in a tiny room trying to force ourselves to be creative.  Have you ever tried to force creativity?”

I shook my head.

“It’s every bit as unnatural as it sounds.”

“Didn’t you get any free time in Barbados?” I asked.  “What’s it like there?”

He shrugged.  “I wish I knew.  Barbados was right after our European tour wrapped up in Germany and after that mess, we didn’t really venture out much.  With the amount of security we needed it just wasn’t worth it, you know?  I never expected being in the band would turn me into a virtual shut in,” he commented, only half-joking.

“What’s all this I keep hearing about Germany?” I asked, propping myself up on my elbow.  “What happened over there?”

He made a face.  “It’s not even worth getting into.  Let’s just say some of our fans are more zealous than others.  And a small percentage of the most zealous fans are also completely insane.  We got some threats.”

My eyes widened.  “You did?  What happened?”

“Some mentally ill woman with an unhealthy fixation on me managed to slip by security,” he replied.  “But let’s not get into that.  It’s ugly and something I would rather not relive.  Anyway, to answer your question, when I’m not touring or recording, I like to read.  I’m a bookworm.  Sorry my answer isn’t more exciting.”

“What do you like to read?”

“Anything I can get my hands on,” he replied.  “I especially like biographies – not of famous celebrities, but of ordinary people who have had something extraordinary happen to them.  It’s kind of cool getting a glimpse into another way of life, you know?”

The more I listened to Brandon talk, the more I sensed he was deeply disillusioned about what he did for a living.  He didn’t whine, exactly, but he had a certain tone that hinted he was bitter and dissatisfied.  In fact, he seemed happiest when he got to be a regular guy, playing at amusements parks or even just eating breakfast uninterrupted by fans.  

“Overall, do you like what you do?” I asked.

He looked taken aback by my question.  “Nobody has ever asked me that before.  Everybody just always assumes that I must be living the dream.”

“Are they right?” I pried gently, wanting to have a deeper understanding of his inner workings.

Brandon appeared to give the question some careful thought before answering. 

Then, almost apologetically, he admitted, “I don’t know what I would be doing if I wasn’t in the band.  I don’t know if I’m good at anything else because I never had the chance to find out.  But sometimes I wish it could be different.”

“As in, you wish you could walk down the street without being accosted by a mob of screaming fans?” I guessed, feeling as though I understood where he was coming from.

“Yes.  Although sometimes I can still get away with that if I keep a low profile.  Not in the bigger cities, mind you, but in the small towns.  But actually, sometimes I love the thought of being able to shut myself away in a cabin in the woods with a stack of books and one of those old fashioned typewriters,” he admitted.  “I’d read and write and be a hermit.”

“You don’t think you would get lonely?” I asked, trying to envision the life he had described.

“I don’t think that kind of solitude would bother me,” he replied thoughtfully.  “I think it would be peaceful...and good for the soul.  The solitude a person feels onstage in front of a massive crowd is far worse, if you ask me.  And hey, if I was lucky maybe you would come with me?”

Brandon was looking at me in a strange way. 

I was used to being invisible, the overweight, quiet waitress who kept her head down and did her job.  Sometimes I was even invisible in my private life – though invisibility was better than the alternative.  Even though Carl was supposed to have been my boyfriend, he’d made no secret of the fact he wished I had a body like the women in the porn he watched.

But I knew what that look on Brandon’s face was.  Even though I wasn’t used to getting that look myself, I’d seen it in movies.  Every time I watched a Ryan Wright romance, I melted inside as I took in the way he gazed adoringly at his leading ladies.  Even though he was only acting, there was so much emotion in those expressive eyes of his...

And now that was the way Brandon was looking at me.

“What do you want?” he asked me, catching me off guard.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been listening to me whine and bitch about what I want nonstop, it seems, but enough of that nonsense.  What about you?  What do you want out of life, Hayley?”

No one had ever asked me that before, and I wasn’t sure I had ever asked myself such a bold question either.  Growing up, my life had been about survival – and about staying under the radar.  And life with Carl had in some ways been the same.  I’d never asked myself what I wanted because, deep down, I hadn’t thought I could ever
have
what I wanted.

“I – I don’t know,” I replied, giving Brandon a blank stare.

“You must know,” he pressed, his voice gentle and patient.  “You must have thought about it?”

“Not really,” I admitted.

“Then do it now,” he urged.  “If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?”

A notion that had been pushed down into the recesses of my mind began to emerge from the shadows.  It was a dream I’d had as a young girl, back when my mother was frequently spending our grocery and rent money on pills.  And it was something that had flickered in the depths of my subconscious from time to time during my relationship with Carl.

“This will sound silly,” I cautioned.

“Try me,” Brandon insisted.

“Well, I’d like to have a vegetable garden and maybe keep a few chickens, a goat – I’m not talking about an actual farm,” I clarified, as I tried to get my point across.  “But I’d like to always know where my next meal was coming from.  I’d like to live off the land in a little cottage with rose bushes and pink shutters on the windows.”

“Pink shutters?” Brandon repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” I nodded.  “I know it’s dumb, but it was what I always dreamed about when I was a little kid: a cottage with yellow roses out front and pink shutters on the windows.  I think I must have seen it in a cartoon or something,” I shrugged.  “For some reason, it stuck.”

“I see.  I like your ideas,” he said.  “Well, everything except the pink shutters, if I’m going to be perfectly honest.  But I could handle pink shutters, if I had to. And I like goats – they’re good entertainment.  Although chickens scare the crap out of me with those beady little eyes and I don’t care if saying so makes me sound like a...”

“Like a chicken?” I ventured, a small smile playing over my lips.

“Ha!  Exactly,” Brandon agreed.  Then, growing serious, he said, “We could do it, you know.”

“Do what?  Live in a cottage in the woods?”

“Yes.  I could write.  You could have your rose bushes and vegetable garden and chickens and anything else you wanted.  We could be happy.  We could be free.”

Our conversation had taken a very sudden turn.  We were no longer speculating about some obscure idea that would never, ever come to fruition.  It wasn’t a daydream anymore.  Brandon was proposing we make it a reality and to be honest, I had no idea how to respond to that. 

I knew he had the means to make the cottage fantasy happen, and that terrified me to no end.

“We couldn’t really,” I pointed out, opting not to elaborate – mostly because I was having trouble coming up with a good reason why we
couldn’t
do what we were talking about. 

I couldn’t speak for Brandon, of course, but there was nothing holding me back from surrendering to the fantasy.

And yet there was.

“You’re right,” Brandon sighed, looking defeated. 

“I am?” I asked, disappointed.

“I can’t just quit the band,” he explained.  “I’m lead vocals, plus I write most of our songs.  Quitting would probably mean the end of the band.  It would screw the other guys over and I can’t do that to them.  And then there are the fans...”

“You have a love/hate relationship with the fans, don’t you?”

“You bet,” he confirmed.  “I love the good ones and hate the crazies.”

“Fair enough,” I replied, unsure of what else to say. 

“Do you think you could be happy without your cottage in the woods?” Brandon asked me suddenly, apparently unwilling to drop the topic.  I could practically see the wheels in his head turning, although I had no clue what he was thinking.

“I mean...yes, of course I could.  It’s not like I’m expecting it to actually happen,” I told him, somewhat taken aback by the question. “It’s a silly notion dating back to my childhood and nothing more.”

He cleared his throat, looking nervous.  “Do you think you could be happy here?”

“Here as in...?”

“Here as in on tour, with me.”

I fell silent for a moment as I tried to get a read on the man in front of me.  It should have been obvious.  The way Brandon looked at me – and looked out for me – were strong indications of what he might be feeling.  And then there was the fact that he treated me like royalty, something no man had ever done for me.  Yes, it should have been very obvious indeed.

And yet all I could hear in my head at that moment was Carl’s voice telling me I was fat, ugly and lucky to be with him.  I tried to shut it off, but once Carl got into my head there was no shutting him up.  He was doing me a favor by being with me, he’d said.  No other man would ever want me, he’d told me. 

Naively, I had hoped to shut Carl up once and for all when I finally lost my extra weight.  I’d jeopardized my health by going on a crash diet to drop the pounds as quickly as possible, and I’d done it all for him.

He’d told me that it didn’t matter: I’d already ruined my body.  He’d reminded me that my stretch marks would never go away, and had pointed out the small amount of loose skin around my belly that hadn’t completely tightened up after my body had shrunk.

Brandon was looking at me funny now.  “Are you okay, Hayley?”

“Is this some kind of sick joke?” I demanded, suddenly feeling lightheaded and faint.

He furrowed his brow in confusion.  “Huh?”

“Why are you being so nice to me?  And what was all that stuff about me waking you up?”  I took a deep, shuddering breath and then finally found the courage to ask the question that had been on my mind pretty much constantly.  “What are we?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are we friends?” I asked.

“Well yes, I hope so,” he answered, still looking perplexed.  “But I hope that’s not it.”

“But you haven’t kissed me,” I pointed out, somehow mustering up the courage to address the elephant in the room.  “On the top of the Ferris wheel...out on the hotel balcony under the stars...  There were plenty of opportunities and yet you never even tried.”

Immediately I saw a flicker of something in Brandon’s eyes and he opened his mouth to speak.