Trouble Rising (New Adult Rock Star Romance): Tyler and Katie's Story #3 (6 page)

“Arnie’s here,” I heard Jesse say, and I knew, once he’d settled in, Tyler would have to make his announcement.

“Come on,” I said to Jay, edging my way out from under the piano. “It’s almost time.”

Jay blinked at me, looking confused, but she followed, crawling out from under, too. Lucy and Henry both followed her, Henry crawling and Lucy toddling. I caught Sabrina’s eye—Mama Bear was keeping a good eye on them, even from a distance—and smiled.

I went over to join the group of women sitting on and around the sofa, but Jay veered off to fill a plate full of food. Lucy hugged her mother’s legs for a moment, sucking her thumb and looking around like she wasn’t quite sure about all of these people in her house. I watched Leanne playing silent peekaboo with her, both of them laughing.

The guys were saying hello to Arnie, and I heard Arnie reprimanding Tyler for taking off after his rumored “announcement.” Tyler laughed and told Arnie he’d done worse—and Arnie agreed, laughing, too. Arnie had indeed spun a hell of a lot worse, I thought. He was the ultimate spin doctor.

Although sometimes the public was stubborn. It had been a long road getting them to accept Sabrina in Rob’s life. I think part of it was Catherine’s influence. Rob’s ex was a model, like a blonde, blue-eyed angel, and while they’d been separated when he met Sabrina, the public didn’t seem to care. They saw what they wanted to see.

Sabrina was an interloper, and Catherine was the victim.

It was only after Catherine showed her true colors—her attempt on Rob’s life had gone awry, injuring Sabrina—that the public finally started to be swayed. After Catherine had been put away, Arnie had worked hard to push Sabrina into her place, to make the two of them live up to their couple nickname—Robalina.

The tide really started to turn when Sabrina lost Esther—their first baby. Then, when Lucy had been born, it was like some jubilant celebration in the press, a real victory. Arnie had given
People
the scoop, letting them do a photo shoot of the young couple and their newborn.

It was quite brilliant, on his part, given the darkness that had plagued all of us after Catherine decided to get back at Rob the only way she could, from inside the mental institution—telling the press the truth about their past. As much of it as she knew, anyway.

I still hated Catherine for what she’d done—for hurting Sabrina, and then, for revealing Rob, Tyler and Sarah’s dark secrets. But Catherine had been a victim, too. It was hard to keep that out in front of me, when I thought about her, but it was true. She’d been just a child herself, back then, when their paths had first crossed.

“Peekaboo!” Leanne laughed, playing the game with Henry, now.

I could see the family resemblance, in spite of the scars on her face. She’d paid a big price for her addiction. Maybe more than any of us. Leanne had been the only adult alive back then who could have protected them all—Rob, Tyler, Sarah, even Catherine—but she’d been so entrenched in her addiction, she’d never taken that step.

When Catherine—just fifteen then—had announced she was leaving, Leanne’s husband had refused to let her go. She was one of his “special” girls. The thought, even now, made me physically ill just to think about. Leanne had turned a blind eye to her husband’s proclivities, because while Joe was running a child prostitution ring, he was also providing her with as much crack as she could ever want.

I don’t know what made Leanne finally stand up and say no that day. I had never asked her—and I probably never would. But Catherine had wanted to leave, and Leanne had defended her, and that had started a snowball rolling downhill that would run over everyone in its path. It would lead to Joe’s death—ten-year-old Tyler had shot the bullet that killed his father, while Joe had Leanne in a stranglehold—Leanne’s arrest, and Rob, Tyler and Sarah’s placement in foster care.

It would be years before they were reunited again. Years before Rob found and married Catherine. Years before their mother was released from jail, and finally put the last piece of the puzzle in place, telling them that Joe wasn’t their father after all. Joe had no interest in women—he liked girls, the younger the better. He found them and groomed them, but he wasn’t the one in charge.

The whole show was actually being run by Dante Marotta—the man Leanne was involved with, the one who had fathered three children with her. A man who would later become prosecutor for the state of California, who would also threaten the lives of those three children, once Catherine had made their “secret” public.

He was in jail now—along with several other public figures that could be linked to one of the largest child prostitution rings in the country—and couldn’t hurt any of us anymore. But for a while there, after the scandal was made public, we all worried if Trouble had finally run into the sort of trouble they would just never be able to recover from.

It was Arnie who had saved them, I thought, watching the portly, balding little man talking and laughing with the band. He wasn’t much to look at—especially in juxtaposition to stars like Rob and Tyler—but he was better at his job than anyone I’d ever known. He was like a magician. He could spin anything into gold. He’d created Trouble from nothing, and then he’d managed to keep them out of trouble, in spite of the incredible scandal that had plagued them.

He’d turned Rob into a hero. It had been Tyler who pulled the trigger—but Rob who had taken the fall. Tyler’s older brother had taken advantage of Ty’s mute shock after the incident, and had confessed to the crime. Twelve-year-old Rob had spent time in juvy, but given the circumstances, his punishment hadn’t been too severe. And when Catherine told the press, she’d wanted to hurt Rob and his image, so that’s the story she told.

No one, aside from us, knew that it had been Tyler who pulled the trigger. The press had run with Catherine’s story, and Arnie had taken advantage of it to make Rob into some sort of young hero, a boy who had been abused by his father, who had killed the man who was trying to strangle his mother.

Arnie could spin anything. Now “Robalina” was the darling of the press, with their perfect family. Rob was the ultimate reformed “bad boy.” Even the girls who swooned over him and wanted to marry him—like young Jay, who had been so enamored with him at the age of twelve, she’d snuck on a tour bus to meet him—couldn’t help loving Sabrina. She was beautiful, an amazing singer, and she and Rob were so much in love, it was like a light around them. Add two adorable babies to that mix, and the press couldn’t resist. They loved them all.

And Arnie had been behind the whole thing, orchestrating. He would feign surprise tonight, when Tyler made his announcement—but Arnie already knew about Tyler’s diagnosis. Tyler had told him, before asking Arnie to find him more dramatic roles. Arnie was smart, shrewd—I thought he’d been planning for this day for a while now, pushing Tyler into acting while raising Sabrina’s popularity in the press.

I watched Tyler, who seemed so at ease, smiling, laughing, but I wondered if anyone else saw the muscle working in his jaw, the way his shoulders tensed whenever anyone clapped him on the back. This wasn’t going to be easy for him. I didn’t blame him for saying he was only going to make this announcement once.

I made my way over to Tyler, putting an arm around his waist, and he smiled down at me, but that tension was still there. He didn’t want to do this—and I wished he didn’t have to. It seemed like some cruel twist of fate, to give a man such an incredible talent, only to curse him with a disease that would make it impossible for him to use it.

Rob went over to the piano and playing something—I only half-recognized it, but it got everyone’s attention—and then ceded the floor to his brother. Tyler’s announcement was brief and heartbreaking. I stood by his side the whole time, and I think I was the only one who knew he was trembling just slightly as he told them all he wouldn’t be playing guitar in the band anymore. And he finally told them why.

Leanne listened with tears rolling down her cheeks. Sarah and Anne clung to each other, both of them crying silently. Sabrina dabbed her eyes with a Kleenex. Even Daisy, who was taking an empty platter back to the kitchen, stopped to listen, her eyes welling with tears.

The guys were simply stunned. Rob, of course, already knew. Arnie acted shocked and sad—a perfect acting job. I didn’t cry, but Tyler’s revelation was so heavy it felt like, if his arm hadn’t been there around my waist to hold me up, I would have collapsed under its weight.

Leanne got up to hug Tyler and tell him how sorry she was—and everyone had an opinion about treatment and doctors and possible solutions. But Tyler was resolute. He was leaving the band. That was final.

“What the hell are we going to do?” Nick asked. He was back on the sofa with Jon and Kenny—they’d sunk down together at the news, like their legs wouldn’t even hold them up anymore. I knew just how they felt.

“We’ll find another lead guitarist,” Arnie said, waving their concern away. “I found you three, didn’t I?”

Some discovery, I thought, but didn’t say, hiding a smirk in Tyler’s shoulder.

Then Jay piped up—she was sitting on the floor by the sofa, holding Henry in her lap.

“Why doesn’t Sabrina join the band?”

I winced, waiting for the “three stooges” to object. They’d never liked Sabrina—even though the tide had turned for her in the press. They looked at her like Trouble’s Yoko Ono, afraid she was going to take Rob—their big meal ticket—away.

But Arnie spoke up before they could. “Best idea I’ve heard yet.”

“Thanks!” Jay beamed up at him.

“Who is this brilliant, beautiful young lady?” Arnie asked, cocking his head and looking at her. Even in jeans and a t-shirt, Jay was a fresh, stunning beauty. I saw Arnie looking at her with “agent” eyes and groaned inwardly.

“My cousin,” I lied, feeling Tyler looking at me. Since I’d already lied to his mom, I decided to just keep up the ruse, even though Rob and Sabrina knew who she really was. “Jay, this is Arnie, Tyler’s agent.”

“Jay?” Arnie’s smile widened. “She’s already got a model’s name. You should come see me. I can get a modeling job for you in a heartbeat.”

“Really?” Jay’s eyes widened, and she took Arnie’s offered card with reverence. “Me? A model?”

“You want Sabrina to join the band?” Nick asked, changing the subject back to the one at hand. “Are you kidding me? Didn’t you say the label didn’t want her?”

Arnie shrugged. “That was before she had proved she could sell records. And now that she’s done having babies and she’s got her figure back? I think we could really make it work…”

“Dude, if anyone can make it work, it’s you,” Rob told him, putting an arm around his wife’s shoulders. Sabrina looked a little stunned, but she had to have known that this was a possibility. Maybe she was still reeling from Arnie’s “figure” comment—he’d never been nice about Sabrina’s curves.

Soon they were all talking about the possibility, and somehow Tyler’s tragic announcement had been forgotten. Celeste came over to hug him and tell him how sorry she was—but I think she already knew, at least suspected. She’d been the one who got us a doctor on the road who had given Tyler his shots that had helped, at least for a little while. Along with the truckload of Vicodin he was taking at the time.

“I’ve got to put these two down for a nap,” Sabrina announced, taking a fussy Henry from Jay. “Do you want to help me?”

Jay was ecstatic at that and followed Sabrina upstairs. Tyler and I sat on the couch with his mother, who was still talking with Anne and Sarah. Sarah was still exclaiming over the baby pictures they found.

“You didn’t tell me about your grandmother,” I said, nudging Tyler.

“Oh, sorry…” He frowned. “Sarah called me just before we left, and… I guess I didn’t want to spoil our vacation.”

“Do you remember her at all?” I asked.

“Vaguely.” Tyler shrugged, looking over at his mother. “I… I don’t remember a lot from that time.”

I nodded, putting my head on his shoulder. He’d spent his first year in foster care not speaking at all. They called him an “elective mute.” He’d come out of it eventually—Tyler said it was music, really, that had saved him. He’d thrown himself into playing guitar and writing songs. It had been his calling, even then.