Libby

I’m tired. So tired I don’t remember where I am half the time. Everything is nebulous. I’m living in this strange cloud filled with too many strangers and too many fake smiles—my fake smiles. I hand them out like a politician passes out buttons. And I feel just as slick doing it.

I have been completely on my own for a while now. But not since my parents died have I felt so utterly lonely. It doesn’t matter that I’m surrounded by people, my schedule full. I don’t have the one person I want at my side. Hell, I even miss the guys. A lot.

My backup band is great. But they aren’t true friends. When the job is done, they head home to family. And Scottie is a man unto himself. In a strange way, he’s a lot like me. Not shy, not antisocial exactly, just self-contained and private. I certainly can’t throw stones his way. But he doesn’t make for an ideal companion.

“Is it always like this?” I ask him as we leave yet another party in the Hills. The house was breathtaking, the people there even more so. I met actors I’d watched since childhood and those who are just now hot commodities. So many gorgeous creatures, I hadn’t known what to do with myself or what to say. Not that I had to say much of anything. Most of these people love to hear themselves talk.

All night, I had to check myself from turning to whisper a comment in Killian’s ear. Because he wasn’t there. Why can’t my brain and body seem to get that message?

“Is what ‘always like this’?” Scottie answers, nose deep in his phone calendar.

“The endless pushing.” I ease my shoes off my feet, wincing. Thanks to Brenna, I now own my own Louboutins. My appreciation for them died the first time I put them on. “Two months we’ve been at it. At this point, I feel like a snake oil salesman.”

Scottie’s lip twitches. “I do so love your expressions. Don’t change them. They add color to your persona.”

“Good to know,” I mutter, then nudge his arm with my elbow. “I’m talking to you. Get your nose out of that thing. It’s indecent.”

Good lord, Killian must have learned that imperious brow quirk of his from Scottie. This man’s is downright glacial. But he does put his phone down.

“What is the problem, Ms. Bell?”

“I go to these things you and Brenna book for me, and the parties y’all seem to think I need to attend, and I feel…I don’t know. Fake. Like I’m faking it.”

Scottie stares at me as our hired car snakes down the twisting mountain road. When he speaks, his tone is softer than I expected. “You are faking it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Calm down.” Scottie leans back, resting one ankle on his bent knee. “In here, we are simply Libby and Gabriel—”

“That’s your name? How did I not even know your name?”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Back to the point—”

“How old are you, anyway?”

He glares ice chips. “Twenty-eight.”

“Back the truck up. Really? I thought you were in your thirties.”

“We see what we want to see. And if you’re good, you make people see what you want them to see. For my job, if I skew slightly older I’ll garner more respect and credibility. All bullshit, but appearances matter in this world.” He pins me with a look. “Which is precisely my point. Stardom is an illusion, an ideal carefully cultivated by persons like myself and Brenna. In private, you can be yourself. But the moment you step in the public eye, you become Liberty Bell, talented ingénue—”

“Hey! I can be sophisticated.”

“Who,” he says over me, “is taking the music world by storm with her unique sound. That is all they’ll know. Because that is all you’ll show them.”

“I just want to be me.”

“You misunderstand. You are being you. Merely another version of you. It is armor, Libby. If you give them all of yourself, the world will drain you dry. But if you go to these events and act a part—something they’re all doing as well—you have a certain freedom. It isn’t real. Therefore it isn’t really you who’s constantly being watched and judged.”

I get what he’s saying. It still deepens the pit of loneliness that’s been haunting my insides. “Is that what Killian does?”

Scottie’s gaze goes sharp. “Not with you. Or his inner circle. But you have to have seen the difference in how he acts with the rest of the world.” Scottie’s hand drifts toward his phone, left lying on the seat cushion. “And he’s had years of practice. He knows just how much to give without losing himself.”

I’m not so sure. He was lost when I found him on my lawn. I saw him come back to his own, saw the shadows leave his eyes. Together we were happy, solid, alive. And I left him. Just as surely as he left me.

Suddenly, I don’t want to talk anymore. I just want to crawl in bed and burrow under the covers, pretending that I’m not constantly reaching for someone who isn’t there.

* * *

Scottie’s right. As days pass, it does get easier. It’s not exactly fun, but it isn’t the torture I made it out to be. And when I perform, even on my own, the adoration of the audience is a beautiful thing. Killian had it right: it is addictive, almost as good as sex with him. But I’ve known that bit for a while. And though I feel myself getting into a groove, finding my place, it’s still all wrong. I can’t shake the emptiness inside me—an emptiness I’ve never experienced before now.

A week later, Scottie leaves me to check on Kill John in London. It takes all I have not to beg him to let me go with him. Brenna will remain with me in his place now. And though I’ve missed her and love her company, her presence is another thorn in my side. She’s been with the guys—with Killian—all this time. I constantly want to ask her about him. And I constantly refrain from doing so. Call it pride, but I don’t want to hear about him from second-hand sources.

Tonight, Brenna has taken me to a club. I don’t blame her. That’s the way the guys relaxed after “work.” Me? I’d rather play my guitar in my room.

The place beats with music so loud the floor rattles. Bodies writhe, laughter breaking out in disjointed bursts. Beautiful people, impeccably dressed and with perfectly capped smiles, wide and fake, are everywhere—eyes on everyone else. Watch and be watched.

I hate it. Longing for my porch hits me so hard that I struggle to catch my breath.

“I can’t stay here,” I tell Brenna at my side.

She nods. “Thank God. I’m really beginning to hate this shit.”

We make an about face, and Brenna calls our car service.

Back in my suite, I take a long, hot shower. It doesn’t seem to wash the fug off my skin. I’m imbued with an ugly feeling: time of my life, and it’s a void. I dress myself in my beloved Star Wars shirt that used to be Killian’s. The soft cotton caresses my skin as I pull on sweats and go back to the living room.

Brenna greets me with a cocktail. She’s been serving me way too many of these Pity Party of One drinks. I reach out to take it from her, my fingertips brushing the icy glass, when a wave of nausea hits me so hard I double over.

“I can’t do this,” I wail, hunching on the ground.

In an instant, Brenna is kneeling by my side. Her hand rubs gentle circles over my back as I try to catch my breath. “What is it, Libs?”

“God, don’t call me that.” I can’t hear Killian’s nickname for me right now.

“Okay. Okay.” She continues to pet me as if I’m not totally off my nut.

Taking a deep breath, I push my hair out of my face and sit on the floor. The carpet has a scummy film over it, the way most hotel carpets do. I wrap my arms around my knees. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak out.”

Brenna copies my position, her sky-high heels snagging on the carpet. “Freaking out doesn’t bother me. It’s why you are that’s my concern.”

“I don’t know.” I wipe my watery eyes. “I just saw myself taking drink after drink. The same way my father did—so casual, like it’s no big deal…”

“You are not your father,” Brenna insists. “And far from an alcoholic. Trust me, I’ve seen my share of them.”

I try to smile but can’t.

“What’s wrong, Libby? Talk to me.”

Absently, I rub my thumb over my knee. “I had a guitar in my hands before I learned to write. I never tell anyone that. But it’s true. Music was our family’s way of communicating. My parents died, and I just let it go. Until Killian.”

I glance up at Brenna. “My mom didn’t want this life for me. She thought it was too hard, soulless. My dad didn’t either. But because he thought it was too addictive. And I told myself I resisted being here because I was afraid or shy. But it was them and their constant warnings that if I tried to live this way, I’d lose myself.”

“Libby,” Brenna says quietly. “Your parents’ experiences don’t have to be yours. What do you want? If you want to quit and go back to your farmhouse, you can.”

Closing my eyes, I can see the golden coastal light slanting through the old glass of my grandmother’s house, the worn floorboards, the battered farm table where I served Killian biscuits. The echo of his laughter haunts my memories.

“I was on vacation there,” I tell Brenna. “That wasn’t real life.”

“What is for you?”

“I love singing, making music, performing. Killian saw that in me when I couldn’t see it myself. But this life right now? It’s empty. It doesn’t…it doesn’t have him.”

I miss Killian with a force that’s nearly crippling. We haven’t spoken in a while, and that’s on me and my pride. It still hurts that he sent me away. Find myself, my ass. I’d found myself with him. But I let him go too. The fact that we both just seemed to give up depresses me. Maybe we weren’t meant to be.

Silence ticks.

“You have to know Killian is crazy about you,” Brenna finally says.

“I thought so,” I say thickly. “But if he really was, he wouldn’t have told me to go live my life without him. Would he?”

“What?” she sounds shocked.

My chest clenches, and I have to force myself to tell her the rest. “He could have said we’d met up at the end of his tour. But he didn’t. Instead he tells me that we should take this time to reevaluate what we want.”

It isn’t until I say the words that I really feel how badly he’d cut me. “He pushed me away.”

Brenna looks at me for a long minute. “I know my cousin. He has never been this way about a woman. Ever. If he said that, he was probably trying to do something noble and set you free.”

I laugh without humor. “Oh, he certainly did that.”

“No,” she says gently. “I mean, he told you what he thought you needed to hear to go because he thought it was best for you. Not because he didn’t want you anymore. That’s typical of my big-hearted but ham-handed cousin.” She gives my arm a nudge. “Come on, Libby, he’d be here in a heartbeat if you asked him to, and you know it.

“Brenna, my dad drank to escape the reality of life with me and my mom. I cannot be any man’s burden. I can’t. I want Killian to know I’m okay on my own too. That I can manage without him holding my hand.”

“But you aren’t okay.” Brenna’s pretty face pinches. “You’re miserable.”

I stand and dust myself off. “You know what? I am. I miss Killian so much it’s eating me alive. But worse than that, I’ve been feeling sorry for myself. Moping like a sadsack.”

Brenna’s face changes. “Okay…”

“We doing the Late Night Show tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you make sure Killian sees me on it?” I know she can. Between her and Scottie, they could take over the world if they wanted to.

“Sure thing.”

“All right, then. I have to practice a song.” I head for my room. One thing is certain: the tight band I’ve kept around my emotions has snapped. And now broken, nothing can hold back the tide. I need to find my way back to happy.