Chapter 3
3
Sydney
T he manager made anyone who was not a guest at the hotel stay off the property. Which meant there were literally a hundred people crammed onto the sidewalk between the valet parking area and the street. All of them with cameras.
The valet parking area was jammed with cars and guests who were all standing around waiting to see what the excitement was about.
Wyatt and I were standing in the lobby, just in front of the glass revolving doors, watching the entire scene unfold. A dark SUV was making its way up as close as it could to the entrance of the hotel. Which was still fifty feet away. Fifty feet of shark infested waters.
“Stay behind me,” Wyatt said. As if we were about to go into battle.
Only this was my battle, not his.
“Wyatt, I know what I’m doing. No matter what they say, just keep your head down and say nothing. They will try to push every button to make you angry so they can get the pic. It’s the reaction they’re looking for. Don’t give it to them.”
“Got it. You ready?”
I nodded. This was nothing. Easy-peasy. Just a couple uncomfortable moments and then we would be in the back of the SUV. Safe and sound.
Beatrice had already left the hotel. She’d taken the back entrance, and while some people knew she was my PA, she hadn’t been subjected to much hassle. She always said she was a middle-aged woman – invisible to the world.
Wyatt took a deep breath and pushed open the doors.
It was always the sound that was the most startling. That first rush of cameras all clicking at once while people shouted questions. The key was not to really hear any of it. Like so much white noise, I just let it roll over me.
Beatrice had included a baseball cap with the clothes she’d brought me. I pushed the ball cap low over my eyes and basically tucked my chin against my chest. I followed Wyatt’s super-sized frame through the crowd that barely separated enough for us to walk through it.
“Sydney! Tell us what happened!”
“Sydney, were you drunk?”
“Sydney, how long have you known Wyatt Locke?”
“Sydney!”
“Wyatt, did you at least get to fuck her?”
We were only ten, maybe fifteen feet from the SUV, but Wyatt stopped in his tracks and I bounced off his back.
“What the fuck did you say?” He asked and lunged for the, and I use the word loosely, journalist.
It was exactly the reaction they wanted.
Cameras went off in Wyatt’s face. People were shoving for position to get closer to him even as he barreled his way through them. He was like a bowling ball, plowing through pins. It was absolute pandemonium and I needed it to stop before someone got hurt.
“Shut your fucking mouth!” Wyatt roared, just as his hand wrapped around the short man’s neck. I wasn’t even sure how he knew who had said what, but Wyatt seemed convinced.
I ran behind him and reached for his free hand. I had zero ability to alter his momentum, so all I could do was squeeze his fingers as hard as I could to communicate to him that he needed to back off.
“Wyatt!” I shouted over the noise. “Let’s go!”
Something about my tone must have penetrated his anger, because he released the guy and turned back to me.
“Don’t engage!” I shouted.
“Did you hear what this fucker said?”
“Let’s go,” I said, trying with all my weight to pull him forward.
It was a joke. He was only going to move if he wanted to move.
A brave soul, a woman this time, shoved a microphone in Wyatt’s face.
Great. She was probably from Celebrity Truth .
“Mr. Locke, how long have you known Sydney? Was this a drunk Las Vegas wedding or a planned event?”
Wyatt, going completely rogue at this point, took the microphone from the woman’s hand and held it to his mouth.
“We’ve actually been dating for months,” Wyatt said, his face dead serious. “This was not some drunken accident. Sydney isn’t a flake or a slut or any of the other shit you say about her. This is my wife and you’ll watch what you say about her. Are we fucking clear?”
I closed my eyes.
This wasn’t happening.
He dropped the microphone on the ground and together we launched ourselves into the back seat. Me first, then him behind me, shutting the car door, blocking out most of the noise and flashing lights.
“Drive and don’t worry if you run over anybody,” Wyatt said.
That was a little unfair to put on a paid driver, but I had other concerns.
“Wyatt!” I slapped his massive shoulder and hurt my hand in the process. “What were you thinking? Why would you say that?”
He leaned back against the seat and crossed his arms over his thick chest.
“They pissed me off.”
My eyes nearly rolled back in my head. “Of course they pissed you off. It is their job to piss you off. I told you they only want the reaction!”
“Yeah. Well. They got one.”
I dropped my head into my hands. “Beatrice is going to kill me. No wait, Tyler is going to kill me. No wait, I’m going to kill you.”
“I changed the narrative,” he said, his voice deceptively calm. “You said we could do that.”
“With a plan! A planned narrative where we have time to get our stories perfectly straight. Now we’ve got this huge lie that’s just out there for the entire world to debunk.”
He shrugged. “Who cares? It’s not like I lied to the cops or a judge. I don’t give a fuck what those fuckers think.”
Oh God. If only my life was that simple.
But it wasn’t. And he just made it worse.
“Please tell me you haven’t been seeing anyone recently,” I asked. That might be the worst case. If people thought I had broken up a relationship.
“We talked about this yesterday.”
“Yeah, well, the finer points of our conversation yesterday are a little blurry,” I snapped back. The menace had the nerve to smile at me.
“What in the world are you smiling about?”
“It’s nice to see you got your sass back.”
I growled in my throat and he smiled broader.
“There’s been no one,” he said. “Not for a long time. Not serious anyway. Even drunk off my ass, I wouldn’t marry someone if I had someone else in my life.”
It was frustrating when I couldn’t stay mad at him.
I hadn’t had a relationship for a year, since the John Bernard situation blew up in my face.
“Okay. I think we’re good on that front. Now we just need to…make up a whole relationship.”
“We’ve been dating. We decided to get hitched. Simple.”
“Wyatt, come on. There is nothing simple about this. As much as I hate to say it, we need Tyler.”
“Mean dude?”
“Mean dude,” I confirmed, pulling up my phone. “Hey, do you need to get home for some reason? Like do you have pets, or any obligations you need to worry about in the foreseeable future while we fix this?”
He didn’t take too long to think about it. “No. I’ve got a few weeks free. Why?”
“What do you think of LA?”
“I hate it.”
I beamed at him. “Excellent. Wyatt Locke, you are coming home with me.”
“Holy shit,” he breathed, as we took the slow curve on Highway 1 to Zuma Beach, and he got the full breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean. The view from that curve never got old.
When my first album went platinum, I bought the sweetest little bungalow just off the Pacific Coast Highway, or as the locals called it PCH. Everyone gave me grief because it was so small, and when I bought it, it smelled like mildew and I had to replace the roof. For me it was heaven.
It was my peace. My solitude. The only place I’d ever really felt safe. Now more than ever. I could sit on the back deck for hours listening to the sound of the ocean rolling up against the beach. Write, sing, play my guitar for just me and the seagulls.
There were times I thought I should do more with my time near the water. Have someone teach me how to surf. Get one of those long paddle boards. But I just never seemed to do it. I was content to watch. Maybe that said something about me? I didn’t know and I didn’t care.
The driver hit the button to open the gate and he pulled into the garage. I led Wyatt into the house, watching his face even as I told myself what he thought of my perfect seaside cottage didn’t matter even a little bit.
He looked at all of it, my bright green kitchen with the blue backsplash. The vintage fainting couch. My funky art. The long comfy couch covered in throw blankets and pillows. My guitar collection. The plants that were thriving in the sunshine. He looked at all of it and…nada. Nothing. No expression. That mouth of his was just a flat line in his beard.
“Nice, isn’t it?” I finally asked, standing next to him in front of the sliding doors that opened out onto the deck, and beyond that, the beach.
He turned to me. “Breathtaking.”
I got that weird flutter in my chest when he said it, looking at me like I was the center of his attention, and not the view.
Hold your horses, Syd. All this fluttering attraction? I had to shut it down. Now.
Regardless of how much fun yesterday had been, this wasn’t some happily ever after story. Right now, we were in crisis mode. Zero emotions could be allowed to enter this circle. It would only complicate the narrative.
The narrative he forced us into.
“So?” He wandered over to my guitar collection. He strummed my Gibson Les Paul that had been a gift from Stevie Nicks. He looked good in my little cottage. Like a balanced weight to all the boho/fairy esthetic. “What do we do now?”
I was not going to think about that kiss in the club. I mean, I barely remembered it, but what I did remember made it the single hottest thing that had ever happened to me. If I was a person who could look myself up on social media without being sent down a rabbit hole of self-loathing, I would go and find the videos of that kiss that were probably all over TikTok and see if it looked as hot as it felt.
Probably hotter.
“What are you thinking about?” Wyatt asked, his lips curved in a far too knowing smile.
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring at my lips, Syd. You’re thinking about that hot as fuck kiss in the club.”
“Am not,” I lied. “And neither are you, mister.”
“I don’t know,” he said, walking across the room towards me. “You know the best way to cure a hangover?”
I shook my head, a little breathless as he got closer. God, he was big. Everywhere. Was that what he meant this morning when he asked if I felt like we had sex?
“Orgasms,” he said.
“That’s not true.”
“Pretty sure it’s science.”
He was so close I could reach out and touch him. Trace the edges of muscles on his chest. Rub my palms along that beard and into his hair.
You could do a whole lot more than that.
“We should have a wedding night,” he said.
“For science?” I quipped with a smile.
“Exactly.”
As much as I wanted to, I stepped back and then back again until I couldn’t smell him when I inhaled. Until I could think straight. “We barely know each other,” I said.
He nodded like he’d expected that. Then grinned like a teenage boy who’d taken his shot and wasn’t going to be embarrassed for it.
He was so much himself. Like he just didn’t care what other people thought. It wasn’t just refreshing, but kind of revolutionary. I wished I could be myself like that. Then I wondered what that would even look like? Who was I when I didn’t care what people thought about me?
Geesh. That’s sad.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s get to know each other. You have an apartment in New York, too, right?” he asked.
“Did I tell you that?”
“You did.”
“And you live in…” Ugh. It was there, locked behind some tequila. “Denver!”
Wyatt nodded. “I’ve got a loft in the LoDo section of Denver.”
“And no pets?”
He shook his head. “Travel too much. You?”
“Same. I really want them though. All of it. Dogs, cats, maybe even a parrot. I keep thinking when all of this is over, when I can finally settle down into real life, then I’ll have all the animals I want. I’ll love them so much, you know?”
He blinked. “This isn’t real life?”
I looked back out at the ocean. “No,” I said. “This is…a dream. A fantasy. That one day I’m going to wake up from. I just want to do my best to honor it while I’m here.” After the way my last record flopped and the way the press were talking about me, that day might be coming sooner rather than later.
“You said you were contracted to your label for one more album, right?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I am. You remember a lot from last night.”
He grinned and rubbed a hand behind his neck. “I can hold my liquor a little better than you.”
“Well, you’re like four hundred times my size.”
He stepped up to me as if to prove it, and my head came to about the middle of his chest. He lifted my hand and pressed our palms together. His fingers were at least two inches bigger than mine. He was watching me so carefully, his eyes missing nothing.
What does he see, I wondered.
“Are you writing songs now?” he asked.
I stepped back and shook my head. “I’m…blocked.”
“Like constipated?”
“Like writer’s block!” I laughed.
“That’s like brain constipation, isn’t it?”
“I guess?”
“So? How do you get unblocked?”
“I wish I knew.”
I quickly retreated to my kitchen. Why did I bring this up? I hated talking about myself. I always said too much and then ran it over in my head for days feeling like a fool. “You hungry? Thirsty? I can make some coffee or tea?”
“I’m good, Syd. What’s got you blocked?”
“I don’t know. The scrutiny? Total failure? The world?” See. I said too much. “Whatever, you’re a professional athlete. You know better than anyone else that there is an end date to our careers.”
“That’s different. At some point, I won’t physically be able to keep up the demands of the game. When that day comes, it will be my choice. Not people’s opinion of my play. But you, you’ll always be able to sing and write songs.”
“Hmm,” I said, not agreeing or disagreeing.
I was a pop star. Pop stars were a commodity with a shelf life.
The air at the top was thin for a reason. No one got to live there forever.
I walked over to my L shaped couch and sank into its faded blue material. It had been a bright vibrant blue when I bought it, but the sunshine from the western facing window had faded it. I loved that about it.
“So Beatrice is going to pick up Tyler in LA and then she’ll bring him here to the house. We’ll lay out a blow by blow of how we met, when we started dating, all of it. Then we’ll come up with a reasonable timeline on how to end things so it doesn’t sound like a lapse in judgement. Instead, just a love affair gone tragically wrong because of timing and the demands of our professional lives.”
“Why do I feel like this is normal for you?” he asked, walking back to the window. Watching people throw a ball to a dog out on the beach.
I shrugged. “Because it is. I’ve spent eight years in the tabloids, Wyatt. Everything is a show.”
“Yesterday wasn’t,” he said, looking back at me, the brown of his eyes so pure it kind of took my breath away. “Was it?”
I was saved from having to answer him by the whirr of the gate opening. “Beatrice is here!” I announced too loud and jumped off the couch. “Please try not to kill Tyler. I promise you he means well.”
Wyatt crossed his heavy arms over his chest. “I don’t give a shit about how he talks to me, but if he says anymore of that slut crap about you, I make no promises.”
I rocked back on my heels, taking in that feeling of protection. I didn’t know how to respond to it.
“You know, I’m tougher than I look.” I wasn’t. Not really. But sometimes I pretended.
“We’ll see,” he said, clearly calling me out on my lie. “Now let’s go meet Mean Dude.”