Making Trouble (8 page)

“Trying to make everyone happy?”

“He’d tear out his own heart if it would make someone he loved happy.”

I nodded.
“It’s a good heart.”

“It is. The best.”
She glanced down below. “Looks like Arnie’s vacated the pool. You ready to go down and sing happy birthday?”

“Are we doing that before the Indigo Girls
show up?” I groaned. I had promised I would lead everyone in singing a round of “Happy Birthday” to Sarah when it was time.

“Daisy’s
going to get the cake ready. She told me to come up get you.”

“Okay, let’s go,” I grumbled, reluctant.

Celeste hooked her arm through mine and led me downstairs. I was surprised to see everyone crowding into the kitchen, but then I saw Daisy hovering over the cake.

“There’s my girl.”
Rob brightened when he saw us come through the swinging door. He pulled me into his lap when we got close. Sarah was sitting across from us with her friend, Anne.

“Happy birthday, Sarah.”
I smiled when she leaned in to share some private joke with Anne. I turned to Rob. “When does she get to open her gifts?”

“After cake,” Daisy called. She was putting the finishing touches on it.

“Ugh, don’t say cake.” I groaned, glancing over and seeing it sitting on a pedestal. “You made it chocolate didn’t you?”

“It’s my favorite,” Sarah
reminded me with a sympathetic smile. “You can’t have cake, I can’t gave a drink. We can commiserate together.”

“You eat cake for me.”

“I will!” She laughed. “I’d tell you to have a drink for me, but we’re completely dry tonight.”

I led the crowd in singing the happy birthday song and Sarah blew out all twenty-one candles on her cake. There were so
many presents on the gift table, Sarah exclaimed it would take all night to open them all, so Rob told her she should do it tomorrow. But he did have her open our gift—a new laptop—which she thanked him for, putting her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek. His heart was in his eyes when he looked at her, and I knew he wanted to ask her to stay, but he wouldn’t. I think he’d finally come to understand this was what Sarah wanted, this was what would make her happy. And like Celeste said, he was tearing out his own heart to make her happy.

When the Indigo Girls
showed up to play, Sarah screamed like a teenager and she and her friends stood around the makeshift stage with stars in their eyes. I remembered looking at Rob that way, once upon a time, way back at the beginning of my fairy tale. Rob watched her, looking on like an indulgent father, but I felt the way he clenched my hand, saw that faraway sadness in his eyes.

“Come with me,” I whispered into his ear, pulling gently on his hand, leading him away from the crowd.

The guests were all focused on the makeshift concert in Rob’s giant playground of a backyard. He followed me, glancing briefly over his shoulder to check on Sarah, bookended by her delighted friends.

“Where are we going?”

“Swimming.” I slipped out of my heels, standing barefoot on the patio as I shimmied out of my green silk Prada dress. Rob’s eyes lit up when he saw I was wearing a black bikini underneath.

“I’m not wearing a suit,” he protested as I worked the buttons on his shirt, stripping it off him. Under his jeans, he was wearing a pair of boxer briefs. That would do well enough.

“Come on,” I urged, stepping into the pool, onto the first step. The water was warm, inviting, and I glanced over my shoulder, seeing Rob stripping himself of his jeans before following me in.

It was full night now, but the lights around the house, plus all of the ones they’d strung for the party, made it feel like mid-day. When I looked up, I could barely see the stars.

“Where are you leading me, siren?” Rob teased as I kept myself just out of his reach, following the curve of the infinity pool toward the other side of the house, away from the people and the lights and the noise. The water was deeper here and I had to tread to stay afloat.

Rob finally caught up to me, grabbing me around the waist and pulling me close. He could still stand here and I wrapped my arms around his neck, breathing him in as we floated together in the water. The sounds of the party were distant here, the stars brighter, the moon a silver coin in the sky above our heads.

“You’ve made her very happy.” I kissed the side of his throat, water beading on his skin, and felt his arms tighten around me.

“How about you?” Rob slid his hands down over my hips, pulling my pelvis in toward his so I could wrap my legs around his waist. “Are you happy?”

“You make me happy.” I pressed my lips to his, feeling him soften, the tension in his body slowly ebbing away as we drifted around the pool toward the front of the house.

I wanted it to be like this forever, just him and me, drifting together,
contented, buoyant. I remembered what Celeste had said about Rob, how he would rip out his own heart to make someone else happy. We’d talked about my going out on tour with Jimmy Voss, and every time we did, Rob always said it was up to me, that he would support me, no matter what I decided. And of course he would—even if that meant ripping out his own heart.

I couldn’t do that to him, I thought, feeling his breath on my shoulder as we clung together, his heart beating steady and strong against my own. His fingers twined in my wet hair, pulling my head back so he could trail kisses down my throat. My thighs tightened around him, an involuntary response, always. He made my body do things, all on its own. Just being near him was enough to make my breath catch, my heart race. You’d think I would get used to him, like mar
ried couples were supposed to, but I supposed that was what made him a star.

Like Tyler had said
—Rob was meant to be a super star. Arnie had known it, Trouble’s record label knew it, their legions of fans proved it year after year, pushing them to higher and higher heights. But what about Rob? Had he always known he was meant to be here, rich, famous, the object of desire for of millions of women? Or had it all been a means to an end?

“Rob?”

“Hm?”

“When did you know you wanted to be a rock star?”

“I don’t know any boy who doesn’t dream about being a rock star.” He chuckled, sinking deeper into the water with me, his tongue licking at my collarbone, sending shivery waves through my body.

“Did you ever… not want to?” I tried not to let him distract me, but it wasn’t easy with him nuzzling my breasts.

Rob hesitated, cocking his head at me before gathering me in to him, foreplay abandoned for the comfort of his arms around me.

“Sabrina, I love you,” he whispered into my ear as we drifted under the footbridge that led to the front door. “I will love you no matter what happens. You could become more famous than Trouble ever thought about being—and it wouldn’t change anything. Not for me.”

“Me either,” I assured him. The truth was, I wasn’t afraid he would leave me, or that the separation of going on tour would tear us apart, in the end. I was afraid of his sacrifice, always giving up something for everyone else. He had risked the future of Trouble—for me. He did so much for everyone else.

“You have to decide if it’s what you want, baby.”
His eyes were dark in the moonlight, glinting silver.

“I just know I want you,” I whispered, feeling tears choking my voice. The truth was, I didn’t want to be away from him, ever. Not even for a minute, let alone for two months.

“You’ve got me, sweetheart.” He reassured me with kisses, his lips soft and wet. “Now and forever, remember?”

“Let’s go upstairs,” I said, my thighs tightening around his waist, fingers tangled in his wet hair.

We snuck into our own front door like thieves, giggling and shushing each other as we crept up the stairs, leaving puddles wherever we stepped, all the way down the long hallway to our room. Rob closed the French doors that led out onto the patio, blocking out most of the sound of the concert and the crowd.

I don’t know how long we made love—first in the warm steam of a shower, and then in bed, after we’d dried off under the heat lamp—but the clock read two a.m. when I drifted off. Below, the band had stopped, the noise
of the crowd fading to just a small group of voices, enough that we could both fall asleep.

It wasn’t
noise that woke me. It was the silence. My unconscious had grown used to and had assimilated the noise of the party into my dreams, so that when it disappeared, my mind rebelled and I startled awake in the darkness. I listened for the sweet sound of Rob’s deep, even breathing, but there was nothing. Reaching across our silk sheets—they were real silk, so soft it was like sleeping on clouds—I found his pillow dented but empty. Still warm though. He hadn’t been gone long. Probably just in the bathroom—which reminded me I had to pee.

“Rob?” I sat up, shivering. I was still completely naked and the covers fell away as I swung my legs over the side of the bed and reached for my robe. That was real silk too, such a decadence.

There was no light on in the bathroom and I tried the door. It opened, the motion detector night light going on. No Rob. Where was he? I peed and washed my hands, knowing I should just go back to bed and wait. He had a habit of getting up in the middle of the night, especially when he was stressed. Bouts of insomnia would usually send him to the music room, where he would work for an hour or two, composing.

But instead
, I turned on the light next to his side of the bed and saw his phone was missing. I hadn’t heard it ring, but I was a pretty sound sleeper. So someone had called or texted and Rob had run off to the rescue again. That was my guess. Damn him.

I decided to go get my husband and bring him back to bed.

The house was quiet. I stood in the hallway and listened, cocking my head to the side, straining to hear the sound of a keyboard or the strum of a guitar from the music room. If he was composing, I would leave him be. Then I heard Rob’s voice, faint but it was him, and he sounded angry.

I crept forward toward the sound, down the hall. At the end of the long hallway was an open space with a leather couch, a television, and a balcony overlooking the foyer and that’s where Rob was, pacing back and forth, talking into his phone.

“Goddamned, Celeste, there has to be a way!” he snapped.

I swallowed, inching back into the shadows, not wanting him to see me, not now.

“She can’t know,” Rob insisted. “I can’t have her finding out and… I know… I know… I know that!”

He practically yelled the last, sinking onto the leather couch, phone pressed to one ear, his other hand running through his hair. My heart hammered in my chest, breath caught in my throat. She can’t know.
Who? Sarah? I remembered the last conversation I’d overheard, how angry Sarah had been with him. But I had never asked or brought it up again. Whatever was going on, he didn’t want me to know. It was between them. Besides, if tonight was any indication, all had been forgiven. I turned, starting back to our room, when something he said stopped me cold.

“When does she get out of jail?”

Catherine.

It came back in an instant. I felt a sharp pain under my scar, a tug, a flash in my head at the memory. So much blood. So much pain. I covered my scar—and the tattoo of Esther’s tiny little hand—closing my eyes, feeling tears sting. In my mind, I could see her like it was yesterday, so
tiny and frail, struggling to breathe with lungs too small to work. It had been Catherine’s jealousy, Catherine’s crazed rage, that had sent a bullet in my direction. She had come to kill Rob, but she had ended up nearly killing me and ending the brief life of our baby.

“A week?”
Rob exploded, bolting up again, pacing back and forth. “No, Celeste, she can’t… that’s not possible…”

He was right. It wasn’t possible. Catherine couldn’t be getting out of jail, could she?

Well, technically, she was in an institute for the criminally insane. Which meant, if they deemed her well enough, I supposed they could release her. Maybe it was possible? Had she convinced them she was “cured?” Whatever act she was putting on, I knew better. Celeste did too, on the other end of the phone. She’d warned us Catherine was crazy, that she would do anything in her jealous rage. And she had.

What would stop her from doing it again, if she was out?

A slow, creeping terror filled my throat, cutting off my air supply. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think. I barely made it back down the hallway and into our bed. I huddled in the darkness, shivering uncontrollably, trying to calm my racing heart. It beat so fast I could barely keep up, and it seemed to pound out a warning—
Catherine, Catherine, Catherine.

She was coming. She was coming for us.

Coming for Rob.

Rob, who did everything for everyone, who was always trying to protect me, who wouldn’t be watching his own back.

I couldn’t let her hurt him.

I w
ouldn’t let that happen.

Rob came back to bed and found me shivering. He put his arms around me, murmuring sweetness against my ear that made tears come to my eyes. I didn’t ask him, because I knew he wouldn’t tell me. He wanted to protect me.