Love Songs for the Road (9 page)

“Just typical twenty-five-year-old stuff. Trying to have a career, I guess. Desperately trying to save enough money to get out of the small town I’ve been in my whole life, so I can go to the best school I can. And…”

“What?”

She took a deep breath. “And breaking up with this dumb guy.”

“I’ll say he’s dumb. What did he do to screw things up?”

“The best way I can put it is that he forgot what it was that made the two of us special. And he put his own interests before ours, or mine.”

“That’s a mature way to put it.”

Ryan sighed. Marcus had seen right through her. She liked that he was pushing her to answer his questions. Maybe he did talk about himself too much, but at least he was able to listen to other people, too. “He cheated on me. With my best friend.”

Marcus flashed a look of pure disgust. “That sucks.” He reached out and grabbed her hand, and it took her breath away. He held it for a moment and looked into her eyes. Then, as if thinking better of it in front of a busload of his employees, an
oops
expression crossed his face, he grabbed a pillow from the seat across the aisle, and slipped it over their entwined hands.

Ryan, despite the fact that her heart was thrumming in her ears and her body temperature seemed to have instantaneously shot up three degrees, tried to focus on what he was saying. But it wasn’t easy.

“I know it’s a cliché, but time does heal all wounds,” he said. “How long’s it been?”

“A few months.”

“And you were together how long?”

“Almost a year.” But Ryan could barely concentrate, thinking,
I can’t believe I’m holdings hands with…MARCUS TROY!

Marcus nodded. “Another three or four months, you’ll be feeling so much better. Promise.”

“Even if he keeps calling me?”

Marcus hesitated. “Well,
that
you should nip in the bud. Have you told him to stop?”

“No.”

“You just ignore the calls, then?”

“And texts, and e-mails.” She laughed ruefully. “Sometimes I write back, but I don’t say much.”

“Oh, Ryan, you’ll get over him so much faster if you either cut him off or confront him.” He squeezed her hand. “Do you still have stuff you need to get off your chest?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?”

“Do yourself a favor. If you’re still angry, go ahead and let him know.”

Ryan grimaced. “I hate confrontation. I just want him to go away.”

“Face your fears, Evans,” Marcus said. “Tell him how you feel, and the pain? It’ll go away so much faster.”

Ryan couldn’t believe that Marcus Troy was giving her relationship advice. She didn’t know if it was his age, or just the quirky artist in him, but he was so sensitive and intuitive, and he was giving her the same kinds of smart pointers that a girlfriend might. At the same time, though, he couldn’t have been manlier. Skeptically eyeing him—this handsome, sexy guy who obviously loved women—she couldn’t believe he was so outraged by Nick’s affair. A guy as hot as Marcus, as rich and as famous? There was no way he was a saint.

“So you never cheated?” she asked Marcus. “You must have had plenty of opportunities.”

He looked at her like she’d just slapped him across the face. “Absolutely not! When I’m with somebody, I’m with somebody, period.”

“So you’re a
monogamous
narcissist, at least.”

“I guess.” Marcus still looked stung that she’d teased him about the possibility of cheating.

Ryan looked down at their two hands intertwined. She wasn’t sure whether this was a romantic hand-holding or maybe just a friendship thing. Even as Marcus was revealing himself so openly to her, she still couldn’t quite figure him out. Did holding hands mean anything to a rock star who could have any woman he wanted? “Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that, with all the temptation you must face, on the road and everything—”

“That’s exactly what Bianca thought, but no…not once. That’s just me. I’m a huge pain in the ass to be in a relationship with, I talk too much, I ask too many questions, I’m kind of a worrywart, and my head is always in the clouds with some song I’m working on. But one thing I am is loyal to the bone.”

Ryan was about to respond, but Charlotte, who seemed to appear out of nowhere, walked down the aisle and took a picture of the two of them. Then, without a word, she sat in Marcus’s lap. “Were you…holding hands?” she said, pure mischief in her eyes.

“Charlotte, it’s not polite to go around taking pictures of people without asking them first,” Marcus said.

Charlotte ignored him. “What were you doing, then?”

“I was just, um, ch-checking on Ryan,” Marcus stuttered.

“Checking what?” Charlotte asked, clearly knowing she’d gained an advantage. “She hurt her foot, not her hand.”

Ryan looked around to see if anyone was eavesdropping on this awkward scene: two adults getting totally busted by a little kid. No one seemed to notice.

“I was checking her pulse.”

“That’s not true.”

Testily, Marcus said, “Yeah, it is
.
You know I used to be—”

“I know, a paramedic,” Charlotte said. “But you
were
holding hands. And I’ve got the proof.”

Charlotte wore a smile so pleased, so victorious, that Ryan couldn’t help but laugh.

Chapter Eleven

Very Special Guests

For the next two days, Marcus berated himself for the way he’d acted with Ryan on the bus. Why, exactly, had he felt the need to pour his heart out to her? She was twenty-five years old and fresh from her own breakup, but that didn’t mean she could fathom what it meant to divorce the mother of your children, not to mention your life partner for more than a decade. There was no way Ryan could be interested in those personal details, no matter how polite she’d been about it. He’d have to show more restraint.

Although holding back wasn’t a strength of his, he realized that when it came to how much Bianca had hurt him, he’d been keeping the emotions in for too long. It would be better to put them into a song, or to let them out over a couple of beers with Smitty. When he thought about the fact that he’d opened up like that, with no holds barred, to Ryan, he was super-embarrassed. No, he wouldn’t be pouring his heart out again.

Marcus also wondered what had possessed him to hold Ryan’s hand in front of his children, not to mention the entire crew. Charlotte was so bright and alert, she didn’t miss a thing. Her mother was careless with the people she got involved with, and she never hesitated to introduce the kids to some meathead model she’d met at a club or a party. That had to be confusing. But now Marcus was guilty of the same impulsive carelessness. By all rights, he should have shut the flirtation down without another thought. The risks were simply too great.

But in his heart, he knew he couldn’t just press stop on this relationship. And he knew, too, that he wouldn’t have had such an intense conversation, or held hands, with just anyone. Unlike Bianca, he hadn’t had dozens of one-night stands; for a long time, he hadn’t felt attracted to anybody at all. But Ryan was different. He didn’t want to spend less time with her, or share less with her. He wanted more, more, more.

For the first time since he could remember, Marcus wanted someone, badly, and he had no idea what to do about it.

…

The next night, Marcus stopped by Ryan’s room during her afternoon break and asked her if she could bring the kids to the evening show. The tour had breezed through Lake Tahoe, San Jose, and San Luis Obispo, during which the kids hadn’t shown much interest in leaving the suite after dinner. But tonight, the band was playing to a smallish crowd (“At only ten thousand, it’ll be downright intimate,” he’d told Ryan, which made her laugh).

“You guys want to come join me onstage, like the old days?” Marcus asked, as if he wasn’t confident of the answer.

“Sure!” said Miles.

“Yeah,” said Charlotte, although she didn’t seem quite as enthusiastic.

“It’d mean a lot to me,” Marcus said.

Charlotte nodded. “Okay, Daddy.” She had a sly look on her face, but he ignored it.

Marcus turned to Ryan. “I’ll bring them on during ‘Love of My Life.’ That’s the last song of the night. Second song of the second encore. I’ll invite them up, loud and clear, ’kay?”

Ryan nodded. “Sure thing.”

Once their dad had jogged onstage to the roar of the crowd, Ryan asked Charlotte, “Is this a family tradition, joining your dad for that song?”

“It was, until the divorce,” Charlotte said. Nodding at her brother, she added, “He probably doesn’t even remember it.”

“I do, too,” Miles said.

This was only the third show that Ryan had seen in full, but the songs had started to make their way into her head. She could even sing the choruses to a few, although she didn’t yet identify with them as passionately as Marcus’s audience clearly did. As she looked in the front rows, she saw grown men wearing T-shirts with Marcus’s face and name on them—men like Nick, she supposed, though some of them were ten, even twenty years older—pumping their fists in time with the drums. She also saw couples engulfed in each other’s arms, swooning to the slower numbers.

It wasn’t hard to see what was turning the audience on. Everything Marcus did onstage was just so damn sexy
.
The way he moved that body of his, strutting around and pivoting the guitar off his hip, the way his trademark white T-shirts clung to his broad shoulders and back, the way he closed his eyes when he sang—Ryan couldn’t get enough of it. She could watch him every night and never get tired of it. And to think, this gorgeous man had been flirting with her, massaging her feet, only days earlier. The tour schedule had been so busy, Ryan and Marcus hadn’t been alone long enough for a moment like that to happen again. She wondered now if it ever would.

Once the encores began, Ryan carefully counted the songs, nervous that she might miss her cue. But it wasn’t necessary. When Marcus introduced “Love of My Life,” he made it clear to the audience that something special was about to happen.

“Folks, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sung this next song,” he said. “It’s probably well into the thousands.” The audience screamed in anticipation. “A lot of people think it’s about a woman, but they’re wrong. It’s about the most precious things in my life, my beautiful children. So just for fun tonight, I’ve asked two very special guests to come join me, and maybe even sing the chorus along with me. But they need to know you guys want to meet them. What do you say, will you give a hand for my daughter, Charlotte, and my son, Miles?”

The crowd went crazy. “Is that the best you guys can do?!?” Marcus yelled. “Come on, bring it for my kids, will you please?” The crowd complied, and went way past crazy.

Miles looked up at Ryan for her permission. She nodded, and he immediately sprinted into his father’s arms. But Charlotte stayed put.

“Come on, sweetie,” said Ryan. “Don’t be scared.”

“I don’t want to go,” Charlotte said, looking like she was near tears.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. Your brother’s already up there, see?”

“I’m not going.” Charlotte crossed her arms defiantly. “Not without you.”

Ryan, starting to panic, looked up to see Marcus peering in her direction. She didn’t want to mess this up, not in front of 10,000 people.

“But Charlotte, I’m not invited. Only you and Miles are.”

Charlotte grabbed onto Ryan’s arms and started pulling her onstage with her.

“Stop, Charlotte, this isn’t cool.” The girl was surprisingly strong for a ten-year-old.

“Yes, it is!” Charlotte continued to tug and pull, and Ryan had no choice but to follow her.

“But it’s not what your dad wanted.”

She tried to loosen her hand from Charlotte’s grip, but it wasn’t easy. And by now, they were actually on the stage. People could see her, so she couldn’t make a scene by swatting crazily at a little girl’s hand. As the crowd roared, she tried to smile.

“Charlotte, please don’t!”

Three steps later, the spotlight hit Ryan’s face. Now that both kids had appeared, the audience totally erupted. The spotlights blinded her, and she could no longer see where her feet were leading her.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Charlotte said, not upset at all, instead smiling mischievously. “Don’t be scared.”

…

Marcus didn’t know what to make of it when he saw Ryan take the stage. He’d been perfectly clear that he’d wanted the children, and only the children, to join him. But even in performance mode, it wasn’t difficult to see that Charlotte was dragging her nanny along against her will. Ryan smiled a big fake smile because she seemed to understand that was the default expression when you were unexpectedly being carted out in front of 10,000 strangers, but when she made eye contact with Marcus, she looked mortified.

Two microphones had been set up for Charlotte and Miles so they could sing the chorus with Marcus. As soon as they’d taken their positions, Ryan swiped her hand from Charlotte’s grip and started walking—no, she was actually tiptoeing, as if that would make her less noticeable—back to the side of the stage. Marcus tried to pat her on the shoulder, but she slipped out so quickly that he found himself reaching out to thin air instead. He heard a few titters from the audience.

When Ryan was just a few steps away from disappearing, some schmuck in front of the stage left monitors whistled so loudly—one of those earsplitting, two-fingered whistles hunters used to call their dogs inside from miles away—that everyone around him plugged their ears with their fingers and looked at him with unrestrained hostility.

“Hey, take it easy, there, buddy,” Marcus said gently enough, hoping to diffuse the tension.

“Who’s that, Marcus?” Another voice called out. “Your girlfriend?”

Uh oh
. The last thing he needed was for some fool to get a rumor started about Ryan and him. He had to move quickly to squash this. “Everybody, please help me give a shout-out to the most valuable member of my crew,” he said, assuming a tone that was official, professional, and anything but romantic. “Our nanny, Ryan Evans!” Not
my
nanny, but
our
nanny. Marcus patted himself on the back for thinking on his feet. He loved to give props to the crew, and by the end of the tour he would similarly single out probably every single Bus of Awesome passenger. “Woo-hoo, Ryan!” Miles said in his still partly babyish voice, and Marcus could hear women in the front row cooing,
Aaaaww.
The crisis seemed to have passed, thankfully.

He nodded to Smitty, who counted off, eyes on the drummer, “A-one, a-two, a-three, a-four!” and the band, rock-solid now that they’d been playing every day together for this long, launched into a crack version of Marcus’s biggest hit. Singing on top of the groove felt smooth and comfortable and luxurious, like taking a ride in the ’73 El Dorado on a Montana summer day. Marcus sang:

Came into this world a frightened little boy

Never knew I’d know nobody who could give me any joy

But a man can climb a mountain if you give him enough rope

And a hopeless soul can fall in love if you give him enough hope

Marcus glanced at the kids, who were both looking up at him with mile-wide smiles. When he’d told the audience that he’d written the song for Charlotte and Miles, he’d told a white lie. In truth, of course, he’d written it for Bianca; he’d been madly in love with her at the time. But now that the kids were up here with him, he realized it described his feelings for Charlotte and Miles much better than it had ever captured his feelings for his ex-wife. He didn’t love Bianca anymore, not even a little bit, but he adored these children who were the product of their union and their love. Was it possible he’d written a song for two people he hadn’t even known when he’d written it? He thought so. And it made him feel like all the pain of his marriage, his divorce, his separation from the kids, might have been worth it, or would at some point in the future.

Marcus looked stage left, where Ryan had disappeared. He didn’t know why, but he wanted to see her.

You’re the fire in my heart, and the love of my life

And I hope I lead a long one

‘Cause any life I live without you by my side

Won’t be nothin’ but the wrong one

He spotted Ryan, but she wasn’t looking at the stage anymore. She was talking to a couple of guys, though he didn’t recognize either one. He laughed to himself
. How dare she speak to other men when I’m singing my biggest love song and trying to make eye contact?

You’re the love of my life, and the reason I try

To be a better, kinder man

Never want to go back to the life I lived before

Sure hope that’s not part of the plan

Marcus smiled at Miles, then bent down and gave each of the kids a peck on the cheek. The audience went wild, and he saw a woman in the front row put her hand on her heart. Rock critics accused him of pandering to the crowd, over-emoting, but wasn’t the whole point to move people? When he made a woman touch her heart, connect with the feelings that had made him write a song in the first place, he knew he was succeeding at his job.

At the same time, Marcus acknowledged the humor and irony of these lyrics he’d written when he hadn’t known anything about life or loss.
Part of the plan
…he’d never been the kind of guy who lived according to a plan. Life was out of control, always, and that was the beauty (and sure, sometimes, the pain) of living it. He’d never planned on being a rock star, or falling in love with Bianca, or having two beautiful babies. He’d obviously never planned on a painful split from his wife or having to beg her just so he could spend one-fifth of the year with them. But he was determined to change that, and he knew that life would get better for him and the kids. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

He glanced again stage left Ryan was still talking to the men, gesticulating with her hands. Two camera flashes went off. If he hadn’t been mid-song, he would have run over and checked on her. Luckily, the show was almost over; soon he’d be able to see just what the hell was going on over there. He belted out the final chorus, while Smitty, behind him, whipped the band into a big, stirring crescendo.

As they walked offstage, Marcus headed toward Ryan and the two guys—he needed to see what was happening. Over the din of the crowd, Charlotte yelled, “You like her!”

“Who’s that, baby?” he asked.

His daughter looked at him as if she were the adult, and he the child, like,
Silly Daddy, can’t you understand anything?

“Ryan! You like Ryan!”

Marcus stopped before they got close enough for anyone to hear. “Charlotte, I like Ryan as your nanny. And as a friend, maybe. But that’s all.”

But his daughter was having none of it. “You
like
her, like her, I can tell!” she cried as he bundled Miles into his arms.