CHAPTER THREE
JUST DANCE
Trying to avoid the burning pain of the blister plaguing his left heel, Grady performed a lopsided spin move, which made him crash into Jesse.
“Dammit, Grady!” Jesse tumbled to the floor, slid on his ass for about four feet, and thudded against the wall. With an angry grunt, he rolled onto his back and grabbed his knee. “What the hell was that bullshit?”
“Sorry,” Grady said. “I’ve got this damned blister and—”
“A blister?” Oliver shouted over the music. “Are you fucking kidding me? I remember when you performed at Madison Square Garden with a pulled groin muscle.”
“A little bit of medical marijuana helped that night.”
“There wasn’t medical marijuana back then,” Oliver said.
Grady shrugged. “What can I say? I was ahead of the game.”
“You got any with you now?” Jesse asked, drawing a dark scowl from Oliver. “You know, for my knee,” he clarified.
“No way!” Oliver turned the music off. “You jokers can’t even do the moves sober. You sure as hell can’t perform high.”
“You might be surprised.” Grady chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. “What the hell, Oliver. Loosen up a little.”
“We’re not smoking pot,” Oliver shouted. He looked over at Jimmy. “You gonna help me out here?”
“I got nothing,” Jimmy replied.
“Relax, I don’t have any damned pot,” Grady said. “I was only kidding.”
“Well, stop it and get serious.” Oliver pointed at Jesse. “Get up, you big-ass wimp.”
“My ass isn’t big. Is it? Tell the truth.”
Grady looked over at Jimmy, who stood with his arms crossed, silently watching the antics.
“It was Grady’s fault!” Jesse protested. “He smacked into me in the middle of a spin. And a pretty sweet one too.”
“I really do have a blister the size of Alaska.” Grady tugged his shoe and sock off. “See?” He pointed to the evidence and grimaced.
“ ‘I have a blister!’ ” Oliver mocked in a high-pitched tone. “Cry me a river.” He pretended to play the violin. “ ‘My knee hurts! Whaa-whaa-whaa.’ ”
“Shut up, Oliver.” Grady started to lose patience. “Or I’ll throw this shoe at your pretty-boy face and make you cry a river.”
Jimmy pushed his way between Grady and Oliver. “Hey, I think it’s time to take a break.”
“We just had a break,” Oliver said, staring daggers at Grady.
“An hour ago,” Jimmy said calmly. “And that was for ten stinking minutes.”
“Who made you the boss anyway, baby brother?” Jesse asked as he pushed up to his feet. Wincing, he flexed his knee.
“You okay, Jesse?” Grady asked.
“Yeah, I guess,” Jesse replied glumly.
“Oh, come on, walk it off.” Oliver wiped sweat from his brow with the bottom of his T-shirt.
“Hey, I’ve had a bad knee ever since I fell off the stage that time in Dallas,” Jesse said. “Ease up a little.”
“How can I ease up?” Oliver rolled his eyes. “Not one of you remembers any of the routines. Somebody had to take over this mess, and it had to be me.”
“But seriously, bro.” Jimmy shook his head. “Do we really need to do all the old formation-change dance moves? I don’t think anyone expects us to be teenagers again.”
“Or to hit the high notes,” Grady said, clearing his strained throat. He’d been babying his vocals with hot tea and honey, but he still struggled to reach the falsetto he’d been able to pull off a decade ago. “How in the hell does Justin Timberlake do it? We’re going to have to key everything down.” Grady walked over and picked up a bottle of water. He drained it in a few gulps.
“Well . . .” Oliver looked up at the ceiling and blew out a long sigh. “We’ve got less than three months to pull this thing off and you candy-asses are like the walking dead after a week of rehearsals. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get laughed off the damned stage.”
“It’s going to be in Sea Breeze, so slow your roll,” Grady calmly reminded him. “It’s for lupus research, not to revive Heartbeat.” He didn’t want Oliver to get his hopes up.
“I’m aware of that.” Oliver nodded slowly. “Reviving Heartbeat would require a defibrillator,” he said, drawing a laugh from Jesse.
“Hey, that was a good line.” Jesse raised his palm for a high five, but Oliver ignored the gesture and failed to crack a smile. Jesse looked at his hand and then lowered it. “Okaaay . . .”
“I’m not joking. It’s the sad-ass truth.” Oliver tilted his head from shoulder to shoulder as if trying to relieve tension. “And we can’t move the dates we’ve chosen. Devin is already all over the promotion. We’ve got to step it up or have some serious egg splattered on our faces.”
Jesse pointed to the new Heartbeat poster propped up against the wall. “Well, at least we all still look pretty damned good.” He crossed his arms and struck the same pose as in the poster. “At least I do. Just sayin’.”
“Come on, Jesse,” Oliver said. “Looking good won’t cut it. We’ve got to sound amazing and pull off the choreography. I don’t want to break Twitter being laughed at or be a skit on SNL. Can’t you be serious for one moment in your life? Not everything is a joke.”
“You’re a joke,” Jesse said, and Oliver flipped him off.
“All right, knock it off.” Grady slipped his shoe back on and faced his brothers. “Look, this was supposed to bring us together, not tear us apart. And we’re doing this for a damned good reason. Keep that in mind.”
“Grady’s got a point,” Jimmy said. “Let’s get our act together and stop the petty bullshit.”
“I agree.” Jesse walked over and put his hand on Oliver’s shoulder. “But all joking aside, this should be fun, not a nightmare.”
“I get that, but it’s also hard work.” Oliver sighed. “Look, I’m not trying to be a prick. But I can’t stand in front of you guys, showing you the dance moves, when I need to be in line with you. It screws everything up.”
Grady crunched the plastic bottle with his hand and tossed it into the trash with more force than needed. “I thought after watching the videos and singing the songs that the rest of it would all come flooding back like riding a bike, you know? I hoped that we would just be rusty.”
“Oil me.” Jesse moved stiffly around the room like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, and, thank God, they all laughed, except Oliver.
“This will get easier,” Grady said with more conviction than he felt. He looked at his sweaty brothers and felt a stab of guilt. “We need to give it some time.”
“It’s only been a week,” Jimmy said. “I don’t know if rehearsing will get easier, but we’ll get better,” he added, but didn’t sound too convinced either.
“At least we can’t get worse,” Jesse said, drawing a dark look from Oliver. “Wait, maybe I should rephrase that. . . .”
“Yeah, I’m not so sure about that.” Oliver scrubbed a hand down his face. “I have to be honest and agree with you guys on one thing. We can’t re-create what we did thirteen years ago. We need some modifications.”
“Good.” Grady felt a wave of relief.
Oliver nodded. “Grady, I think you should reconsider giving Arabella a call.”
“What? No!” Grady shoved his fingers in his damp hair, trying to chase away his inner doubts. If they had Arabella on board—No, don’t go there. “I just can’t.”
“Can’t and won’t are two different things,” Oliver argued.
“You just don’t get it.” Grady felt tension building at the base of his skull. Damn, it had been hard enough seeing Arabella in some of the videos of their tour they’d binge-watched. What would it be like seeing her in person? He couldn’t even imagine, but his brain went there anyway. Did she still have that gorgeous, cinnamon-colored hair? That endless energy? A sweet smile that lit up the room when she walked in? “Hey, let’s call it a day,” Grady said, suddenly feeling completely drained.
“Grady!” Oliver said in a pleading tone. “Come on, man. It’s still early.”
“Well, personally, I think it’s just about beer-thirty,” Jesse said, still favoring his knee. “I need to ice this thing soon or it’ll be the size of a melon. I’ll hang out for a while, but no more dancing.”
“You mean no more flopping around,” Oliver said as he grabbed a water from the minifridge.
“I’m willing to stay,” Jimmy offered.
“Okay,” Grady said. “You guys hang out here if you want to, but I’m going to go inside and do some paperwork. Devin wants to talk about having merchandise available before the concert and I need to get back to him.”
Oliver didn’t look pleased, but he nodded. “Well then, let’s get started early tomorrow.”
“I have to give a guitar lesson in the morning,” Jesse said.
“I’ll be staying up late working on Mom’s song,” Jimmy said. “I’m not at my best early in the morning.”
“You guys suck,” Oliver nearly shouted. “Okay . . . how about one o’clock so you can get your lunch in. Wouldn’t want anybody to be low on blood sugar.”
Jesse raised his hands. “Dude, I think you’re low on blood sugar. Grab a Snickers bar or something.”
Grady had to chuckle. “Hey, I’ll let you guys figure it out. Shoot me a text. See ya tomorrow.” He gave them a wave over his shoulder. Truth was, he could put off the call to Devin until later, but he felt exhausted both physically and mentally. While Grady had known that this Heartbeat reunion would pose some challenges, he hadn’t realized how much he would be thinking of Arabella. Last night he’d had an erotic dream about her that had felt so real, when he rolled over in the morning, he’d expected her to be lying in bed with him. He longed to pull her warm, willing body next to his, bury his face in her silky hair and inhale her light floral scent that always drove him nuts.
“How fucked up is that?” Grady mumbled under his breath. “Still hung up on someone who walked out without looking back. Not even a backward glance.”
He once again wondered what it would have been like if that groupie hadn’t barged into his dressing room that night. Would he and Arabella still be together? Married by now?
Have kids?
The thought hit him with an odd pang of . . . longing? Wasn’t the ticking biological clock supposed to be a woman thing? I’m only fucking thirty-four, Grady thought as he reached into the fridge for a bottle of water but snagged a bottle of beer instead.
With a sigh, he twisted off the cap and sat down on a stool at the kitchen island. He’d updated the room with granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, and a six-burner state-of-the-art stove he barely used. The kitchen used to be the hub for the Heart family, and now the house seemed to echo with loneliness.
“Well . . . hell.” After the loss of his mother, Grady had wondered if it was such a smart decision for his mental health to keep the family home, with its constant reminders of the good times they’d shared as a family, but they just couldn’t sell it. After a lot of discussion, Grady had offered to buy his brothers out of their shares.
After taking a swig of the tangy beer, Grady toed off his shoes and tried to relax before making the call to Devin. Despite his sore muscles, the blisters, the arguments, and the struggles with the dance moves, Grady still believed that doing the benefit concert was the best way to honor their mother. Raising money for a cruel disease that remained an unknown mystery to two-thirds of the public would be worth whatever they had to endure along the way. Watching his mother struggle with pain and fatigue had been so damned difficult. Doctors had thought that her symptoms were brought on by depression stemming from the death of her husband, and she’d gone misdiagnosed, something common for those who suffer from lupus. One very small saving grace was that their father hadn’t had to see his beloved Susan suffer.
Grady finished his beer and then walked across the kitchen to gaze out of the bay window. He spotted his brothers sitting by the pool, deep in conversation. For a moment, he considered joining them, offering to fire up the grill, lighten the mood, but fatigue and an odd melancholy had him opting to head to his bathroom for a long, hot shower instead.
As in many Florida homes, the layout of the sprawling ranch sectioned off one half of the house as the master suite, with three bedrooms on the opposite side of the living room in the center. Cathedral ceilings and sliding glass doors leading to a large lanai gave the house a bright, airy feeling. Grady had bumped out the master bedroom and enlarged the bathroom to include an open walk-in shower and a deep whirlpool tub. While almost nothing of his childhood décor remained the same, the spirit and the bones were there, and Grady felt comfort in knowing the house remained in the family.
Grady groaned when the hot spray pelted his back, easing the ache in his sore muscles. He’d thought he was in pretty damned good shape, working out on a regular basis, keeping his weight down, and going for early-morning runs, but this Heartbeat choreography was kicking his ass big-time. He supposed the redundancy, the stress of trying to do the fast moves they’d pulled off as teenagers, didn’t help matters. Jimmy was right in that they didn’t need to perfect the routine, but perfection was what had driven Heartbeat to the top of the charts and he didn’t know any other way to practice. Modification would help, but modification meant new choreography. Damn.
Grady turned around and lifted his face to the hot spray, letting the water slide over his skin. Reaching for the soap, he inhaled the spicy scent, glad to wash away the sweat. For the last few weeks, he’d let his dark hair grow longer, much like the shaggy layers that had been his signature style back in the Heartbeat glory days. Devin, a mastermind at managing a boy band, had always wanted the fans to know Heartbeat as brothers but also as individuals, so that they could have a favorite poster to hang on their bedroom wall. Grady had been known as the broody bad boy, and although most of the early tabloid stories were mostly hype, the fans bought into the image and Devin wanted it that way. Devin pegged Jimmy as the mysterious Heart brother, and with his long hair and soulful brown eyes, he made girls want to know more, but he kept to himself, preferring to avoid the limelight when he could. Jesse won girls over with his sandy-blond surfer-boy looks and his easygoing charm.
Grady had to shake his head as he soaped his chest. Oh, but damn, Oliver might have been the youngest, but his swagger and his hotter-than-hellfire good looks drove girls wild and he sure knew it.
Devin hadn’t been too happy about Grady’s romance with Arabella. Fans wanted to fantasize about the brothers, and having Arabella capture the famous bad boy’s heart wasn’t something he wanted made public. Looking back, the secrecy had added to the affair’s allure but it hadn’t been long before the paparazzi caught a steamy kiss on camera.
Grady had thought that after his romance with Arabella became public the girls would back off, but they seemed to become more determined to grab a piece of him. When Arabella received hate mail, Grady was furious. If anything had happened to her . . . Ah, damn, he couldn’t have handled it.
He squirted some shampoo into his hand and lathered up his hair. Paparazzi had dogged them and done crazy things to get snapshots of him and Arabella. Rumors had made tabloid headlines, making their romance difficult, but in some ways it had made Grady love her even more for what she had to put up with.
From the beginning, the sex was amazing. Arabella seemed to know his body like she had some sort of sexual GPS connected to his every single pleasure point. She was uninhibited, playful, sensual. . . . No relationship had come close to offering the intimate connection that they’d shared. Grady groaned when his body reacted to the memories.
Was it the same for Arabella? Did she ever think of him? Regret leaving? Had she ever really loved him?
He would probably never know.