Cover Me: A Rock Star Romance Read online

  “I didn’t want you there,” I said. “After what you did.”

  “What did I do?” he whispered, anguished. “You’re the only thing left in this world that I care about. Tell me what I did to hurt you.”

  He almost broke me. It was the way his voice wavered with emotion. I knew he was desperate to get past the barrier between us, keeping me from trusting him fully. “You have to figure that out,” I said, taking his face between my hands. “If you think back and realize what you did, then I know you won’t do it again. If you don’t recognize that you did anything wrong, I can’t be certain you won’t do it again.”

  He pounded his fists on the counter beside my legs and closed his eyes. “What if I fail this test? When will you leave me? I’m constantly thinking my time’s coming to an end and we’ll be over and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

  “It’s not a test,” I said, suddenly not so sure.

  His eyes opened and he studied my face. “It is a test, and you can’t be with someone you don’t trust.” He stepped away from me and crossed the kitchen. “I’m losing everything. My music career, my home life, you.”

  “You’re not losing me.” I slid off the counter and tried to put my arms around him, but he held out a hand and wouldn’t let me.

  For a moment, we stared at each other. His eyes were wild, his chest heaving. “Bess, every day we get closer together and farther apart. There’s a ticking time bomb hanging over my head. I’m in love with you and I can’t be. You won’t let me love you. You don’t trust me to love you. How am I supposed to deal with that?”

  There was nothing in the world I wanted more than his love. “What do you mean I won’t let you? What do you think this has all been about?”

  He threw a hand in the air. “I don’t know! I can’t crack your riddle. With everything else that’s going on…” he turned and leaned his hands on the counter, not looking at me. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t invest in someone who can walk away.”

  My stomach bottomed out. “What are you saying?”

  He looked over his shoulder and stabbed me with the hurt and desperation radiating from his eyes. “I’m going back to L.A. Maybe you’ll miss me and want to let me in to your heart. Maybe you won’t. I don’t know how to prove to you that all I want to do is love you and take care of you. Maybe someday the answer will come to me.”

  I grabbed his arm and held tight. “You’re already in my heart! You always have been! It’s not a question of love or caring. It’s knowing you won’t overlook me again!”

  “Overlook you? How?” He waved the thought away. “Never mind. You won’t tell me.” He stalked around the breakfast bar and past the table. “I’m getting my things and heading back. I can’t keep hitting this brick wall with you.”

  “You’re going back now? What about your dad?” And he accused me of being hot and cold and running away. Derek Bast had a hair trigger. When things started getting out of his control, he did something drastic.

  “If I leave, hopefully the paparazzi follow and this nightmare can be over for my parents.” He tapped his palm on top of a kitchen chair watching me. Waiting for me to respond? To beg him not to leave? I knew him too well. Once his mind was made, he didn’t back down.

  His eyes rose to the ceiling and his hands hit his hips before he pivoted and strode out of the room and down the hall.

  I paced after him. He couldn’t think he was the only one taking a risk with our relationship. “Hey,” I said, pushing his bedroom door open before it closed in my face. “Don’t you think I hear the time bomb ticking over my head too? Why the hell would a guy like you want to be with me? I’m nobody. You can have any woman in the world. Someday you’re going to wake up and realize that. Then what? Where does that leave me?”

  “I’m not Jack Fucking Stewart! You’re not just another pussy to me. What is it going to take to get you to believe that? Jesus, I won’t even have sex with you because I don’t want you to think that, but it doesn’t matter. You still think the worst of me.” He grabbed a suitcase, tossed it on the bed and flung the lid open.

  I stood there, helplessly watching him toss in t-shirts and socks, jeans and underwear. “I want us to work.” I stepped forward and put a hand on his back. He paused for a second, then kept packing. “I’m sorry I’m not as secure in this relationship as you are.”

  “I know,” he said, tossing in a hooded sweatshirt. “It’s my fault. Whatever I did that I have yet to figure out.”

  I dropped my hand. “You make me sound neurotic.”

  He shrugged, but didn’t deny it.

  “Fine. Maybe when it comes to men, I’ve played it safe since Jack. Lonny isn’t exactly Mr. Excitement.” I sat on the bed beside his suitcase, looking up at him, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “You’re everything dangerous, Derek. You’re someone I’ve loved my entire life. You’ve got the world by the ass and you left me behind last time.”

  He glanced down at me. “One kiss was all I got,” I said, “and you moved on without me.” A hot trickle of tears made me close my eyes. I felt him sit beside me.

  “That’s what it was? The kiss? But we agreed—”

  “I know what we agreed,” I said, wiping the tears away. “That wasn’t the issue, but I lied when I said it shouldn’t have happened. I’d been waiting for it to happen for years. Years. While you went out with the popular girls and talked to your friends right in front of me about kissing them and having sex with them. I was dying inside. Dying.”

  He took my hand. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have said anything to hurt you.”

  “But, you wouldn’t have gone out with Bess Halprin. You wouldn’t kiss me again.” I inhaled, shakily, trying to calm down.

  He traced circles on the back of my hand with his thumb. “I can’t pretend to know how hard it was being you growing up. I know you didn’t have a lot of friends—”

  “Any friends.”

  He kissed my hand. “You had me and I should’ve included you. I shouldn’t have cared what anyone thought or said. I was a stupid kid, Bess. I fell for all the social class bullshit that makes some people popular and others outsiders. I wasn’t intentionally mean to you. I hope you know that.”

  I turned to look at him, blinking to clear the wetness from my eyes. “You were never mean to me.”

  He brushed my hair back and stroked my cheek. “I know we can’t leave the past behind. It made us who we are today, but I can’t keep apologizing for the person I was back then. I’m not him anymore.”

  “I loved the boy you were back then.” I turned my head and kissed his palm. “But he’s even more capable of destroying me now. I need to be certain he won’t. If you think I’m neurotic, crush me and see what happens.”

  “I don’t want to crush you. I want to be with you. I want to make love to you every night and wake up with you every morning. I want a life with you. I want what Emmy and John have—neurotic female Halprin genes and all.” He held both of my hands against his chest. “Bess, I’m holding back because you’ve been standing on shaky ground. I don’t want to scare you and push you away, but I would marry you tomorrow if I thought you’d say yes. I told you, it’s our time.”

  An overwhelming wave of emotion rushed up from the pit of my stomach into my chest and flooded my eyes with more tears. I sobbed and covered my mouth, holding back more. Derek placed my hands on my lap and kissed my forehead before standing and resuming his packing.

  He was still leaving? After confessing he’d marry me tomorrow if he had it his way? Why was there always this constant push and pull to our relationship. The ebb and flow that kept pulling me under and washing me ashore. I wanted—craved—consistency. I knew I was being obstinate and stubborn and should let go of the past, but it had eaten away at me for all this time. It was a parasite that I could only be ridded of by Derek realizing and understanding what he’d done and giving me a sincere apology. It dug in deep after so many years. It dictated my beliefs and my co
nfidence in him. It wasn’t as simple as letting go, like it was a balloon that would quickly float away and be out of sight and mind.

  He made a quick trip across the hall to the bathroom and came back with his toothbrush, shaving kit and hair supplies. “Are you staying here or do you want me to walk you home? I need in your garage.”

  “I’ll go.” Why would I stay? I wasn’t sure if we were breaking up or together or what we were. All I knew was that I was tired. Exhausted. My eyes kept leaking tears and a physical pain ached and throbbed in my chest. My throat was sore and constricted, my hands shook and my palms stung where anxious nerve endings stood on end in red bumps. My stomach clenched and roiled. There was a good chance I was going to throw up. I couldn’t remember ever being so upset.

  He was leaving without me and I couldn’t manage to choke out the words that might make him stay.

  Sixteen

  Derek

  My mom gave me the exact same look she gave me when I was eighteen and told her I was headed to L.A. “What do you mean you’re going back there?” She took the money I handed her and looked at it like she didn’t know what it was. “What about your father?”

  “That’s for his fine. Tell him I’m sorry I got him involved.”

  She crumpled the money and let it fall to the floor. “He wants to be involved. He’s your father.”

  “He was arrested because I’m here. It was stupid of me to think that something like this wouldn’t happen.” I caught Bess’s eyes where she stood beside me. “I can’t escape my life and pretend to have another one.”

  She blinked and looked down at the floor. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I wanted her to know she was stripping me bare. I couldn’t stand in front of her and be eighteen again and carefree like I’d been trying to do all week. I was someone else now and couldn’t run from him any longer. She either accepted me for who I was, or she didn’t. I told her how I felt. It was up to her to determine if she felt the same for me.

  “Well,” Mom said, looking back and forth between us and—I was certain—sensing something wasn’t quite right. “Is Bess going back with you?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m going to stay here a little longer. Spend some more time with Emmy and the girls.” Her voice was hoarse, like she lost it and was forcing it to come. It was all I could do to keep myself from taking her hand and pulling her to me.

  “I think this is a bad idea, Derek,” Mom said, grabbing one of my suitcases by the handle. “This has been an emotional day for all of us. Why don’t we sit down and I’ll make us something to eat. We’ll watch a movie and relax and if you still want to leave in the morning, then fine.”

  “I know what you’re thinking, Mom. I’m being irrational. I’m making a big deal about nothing. But I’m not. I know what I have to do and being here is only prolonging the inevitable.” I gave her a hug and took my suitcase from her grip. “I’ll call when I get in.”

  She pursed her lips and scowled, but didn’t try to stop me. “Be careful driving.” She reached out for Bess and gave her a hug. “We’re right over here if you need us, dear.”

  Bess sniffled and blinked a few dozen times, nodding. “I know. Thanks.”

  I wasn’t sure which of them I was hurting and angering more. All I did was love Bess and want to protect my parents’ privacy by getting out from under their roof. What a bastard.

  I pushed open the door with a suitcase in each hand and my guitar case slung over my shoulder and headed down the porch steps and across the yard with Bess on my heels. I motioned for her to hurry and catch up, but she ignored me. When we got to the house, she opened the front door and turned to me. Her eyes were bloodshot and her nose red. “Have a safe trip. I’ll open the garage for you.” Then she went inside and closed the door on me.

  Like last time—when she left for college—she shut me out. No goodbye, no nothing. In an instant, I was relegated to someone she shoved out of her life. Someone she had to protect herself from.

  Fuck that. She wasn’t going to do this to me again.

  I threw my suitcases aside, set down my guitar and grabbed the door handle. It was locked. My temper flared. There was no keeping my anger under wraps. I pounded with my fist, making the door shake. “Bess! Open the fucking door!” I kept pounding until I heard the garage door grumble to life and begin to rise.

  I jogged down off the porch and around to the garage. She wasn’t there, but my car was and it was running. It wasn’t a stretch to guess she wanted me gone. I dashed past it to the door that entered into the house. It was locked too. “Mother fucker. Bess!” I pounded and waited, paced back and forth in front of my car and didn’t care about the paparazzi shooting photos or filming the whole ordeal. My manic rage was quickly fading to desperation. I knocked again, defeat sinking in my stomach. “Bess,” I said, leaning my forehead and palms flat against the door. “Please. Let me in.” I whacked my hand against the door. How could she leave me out here begging?

  I stepped back and got ahold of myself. Next thing I’d be breaking down the door or punching out a window and joining my dad in jail. The Bast men and their tempers were as notorious as the Halprin women and their crazy. Bess and I were fire and gasoline. An explosive combination, in all the right and the wrong ways.

  I had to walk away or I’d do something stupid I’d regret and she’d never forgive me for.

  I opened my car door and popped the trunk, stowed my suitcases and guitar and got in behind the wheel. L.A. seemed like a distant memory. I had nothing there to go back to, but had to go just the same.

  I put the car in reverse and backed out of the garage. When I got to the end of the driveway, I looked back and saw her standing in the doorway at the back of the garage. We stared at each other for a long moment, me wondering if we would somehow go forward from here. Who knew what she was thinking. Then she hit the garage door button and in seconds was stolen from my view by the creaky door coming down on its track.

  I put my car in gear and got the hell out of Santa Cruz.

  Bess

  The sound of Derek pounding on the door still echoed in my ears. I didn’t think I’d ever forget his raw voice calling my name, the desperation and anger.

  I wanted to let him in, but couldn’t. Telling him goodbye wasn’t something I could face. It never was. Goodbye wasn’t a word I could use with Derek. I spent too much time without him and now he was gone again. How could he walk away when we were in the middle of finding our way together?

  Freaking time bomb over his head.

  I crashed down onto the couch, picked up a throw pillow and screamed into it. I was my own worst enemy. I should’ve let him in. I should’ve begged him not to go. I should be in my car going after him.

  What was I so afraid of?

  I threw the pillow across the room and looked around. Here I was, sitting in the house I grew up in. Twenty-seven years old and I was still firmly enclosed in my safe-zone. I strayed outside my bubble long enough to make a handful of friends and date a few guys in college. Since then my life was all work and making The Scene a respected magazine. The one time I let my guard down, Jack Fucking Stewart blasted my emotions to pieces. So here I was—the girl in the bubble forevermore who let the love of her life walk away.

  I dragged myself into the bathroom to take a hot shower and wash the day down the drain. Not that it would rinse away. It loomed there inside me, intensifying in the steam until I almost suffocated on it.

  I sank to the floor of the shower and wept. Wrapped my arms around my knees and sobbed like I hadn’t in a long, long time—maybe ever.

  When the tears gave me a reprieve, I bundled a towel around my hair and another around my body and went to my room. My eyes habitually focused out my window to Derek’s. I pulled the blind and shut the curtains tight. The room went dim. In another hour or so, it would be dark and the day would end and all of this would be one horrific memory I lived through and could begin getting over.

  I set my glasses aside, crawled in bed
and closed my gritty, swollen eyes.

  I could still hear Derek pounding on the door—except it was hours later and woke me from a dead sleep. Someone was knocking.

  I jumped out of bed. Could it be him? Did he come back?

  The idea grew to the point of imploding in my brain before I got to the front door and tugged it open to find Emmy standing there with her phone in her hand. “Have you seen TMZ?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, rubbing my eyes and securing my towel around myself. “I went to bed early. I’m not even sure what time it is.”

  She shoved her phone at me, pressing play on a video loaded on the screen. I watched, horrified. “Oh my God.”

  “Yeah, oh my god,” Emmy said, pushing by me to get inside.

  It was a video of Derek losing it, pounding on my door and yelling for me to open it. The article it was embedded in was titled, Bast Berserker. It recounted his outbursts over the prior weeks, firing his manager and breaking the contract with Unholy Union. There was a quote from one of his ex-bandmates from Generic Obsession, “Bast needs anger management classes. He’s always been a loose cannon.”

  “First you drive the guy into a drunken stupor and my husband has to go get him from the bar.” Emmy flicked her long, blond hair over her shoulder, glowering at me. “Then you make him nuts enough to practically knock the damn door down and it’s all on camera and posted online for all eternity. Nice going.”

  I shoved her phone back at her. “Who says this is my fault? And I never asked you to have John pick him up at the bar.”

  “This is obviously your fault. You’re like a pit bull when it comes to men. You let them get close enough to touch and then bite their hand off.”

  “How do you know anything about my relationships with men?” I slammed the door and crossed my arms. My pulse hammered in my temples. “And pit bulls are very misunderstood animals. They’re only mean when they’re treated poorly.”

  “So you were treated poorly by a man?” she crooned, mocking me. “Join the club, princess. There’s not a woman on this planet that hasn’t been treated like shit by a man at least once.”