Lovely Trigger

  I put him off, explaining how important it was for me not to rush into things.

  He respected that, of course. It was a talent of his, to know just how much to push, and when to back off completely.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn’t necessarily want to see him every single day.

  I knew I should have felt bad about that. I felt bad about not feeling bad. The man adored me.

  The first time we made love, I locked myself in the bathroom afterward and sobbed like a baby for three hours, the first time I’d cried in years. I tried not to dwell on the why of it.

  He was even understanding about that. He let me have my space and cry it out on my own.

  Tristan would have broken down the door, my traitorous mind told me. He would have made it better.

  Tristan was too self-involved to ever see your pain, my sensible side told me.

  This was the side of myself that had gotten me out of that relationship intact.

  Well, intact enough. It was hard to pretend I was okay when the very idea of having sex with my boyfriend again made me hysterical.

  Andrew was very understanding. I hadn’t told him much, but he knew that I’d suffered through some trauma in my life and assured me that he had no problem waiting however long it took for me to be ready.

  He really was the nicest man. I tried to show him how much I appreciated him.

  I cooked him involved and extravagant dinners. He considered himself a foodie.

  I bought him thoughtful gifts, because he was a thoughtful man.

  I always had my eye out for new music he’d like. He was a bit of a hipster, always looking for something obscure.

  I did everything I could with my free time to show him I cared about him, everything that didn’t involve sleeping with him again and tried not to focus on the fact that my boyfriend was far more a friend to me than he’d ever be a lover.

  It was in the early fall that Bev went in for a routine exam, and her doctor discovered a hard knot in the side of her left breast.

  After a short series of tests, she was diagnosed with malignant breast carcinoma.

  Within days, she was forced to undergo a double mastectomy.

  The cancer was aggressive, and it was treated aggressively. After a short respite where she recovered from the mastectomy, she began six grueling rounds of chemotherapy, to be followed by five weeks of radiation.

  I made it to every single treatment. I drove, flew, worked in the airport, and in the clinic lobby. Whatever it took, I was by her side, keeping her company, showing my support.

  I thought I was strong, but Bev showed me what strength was as she fought for her very life.

  She clutched my hand with her weakened one, her bald head completely smooth, her body emaciated, but her smile as bright as it’d ever been.

  A fresh wave of toxic chemicals coursed through her bloodstream, making her sick, but God willing, saving her life.

  All of this, and she was the one that comforted me.

  “You think this cancer is a match for me?” she asked me archly. “Come on now, Danika. You know me better than that. You have to know I’m too stubborn to die before Jerry. Would never happen.”

  I laughed, and then I cried, because I was so worried about her that it made me weak.

  “I should be the one crying,” Bev told me. “I miss my fucking tits.”

  I wiped my eyes. “You should buy some new ones when all of this is over.”

  “Um yeah. That’s the first thing I’m doing. Not obnoxious ones, but you can be damn sure they’ll be perky.”

  We both laughed long and hard, and that time none of it ended in tears.

  Andrew was beyond supportive through it all, sometimes taking the drive with me, or even the flight. Bev liked him; Bev approved. She was comforted by my finally moving on from Tristan.

  Less than one year after the cancer was discovered, she was cancer free.

  I felt like we’d all been given a new lease on life after that and impulsively, agreed to move in with Andrew.

  I knew within a month that it was a mistake. I needed more space.

  Good on paper was so suffocating in real life.

  TRISTAN

  There were only two nights a week where I didn’t have a show, so the guys came to me in Vegas to work on the new album.

  There would be no touring. I set that boundary up right away. I enjoyed working with them, and some occasional live shows would be fine, but I’d never go on the road again. Too many triggers for me there.

  I made sure they all knew that it had to be a drug free studio, but something, perhaps having two out of five of the original members dying young due to drugs, had gotten us all sober. Kenny and Cory would have the occasional beer, but other than that, we were making a comeback as four sober grownups.

  It was bizarre, but good, because if this whole band thing had turned into a trigger for me, I would have had to drop it like a bad habit.

  I found, now that I wasn’t getting high while Kenny did the writing that I enjoyed being involved with the entire process, and I began to write lyrics to some of the songs.

  I was shit at composing music, but I was as surprised as anybody to find that I had a way with words.

  Adair and Dahlia were still going strong, and she and Jack came to listen to us record more often than not.

  It was good medicine. We all loved that boy, and he was spoiled with attention by every single member of the band. None of us had failed to see the uncanny resemblance to Dean, and we all felt a bit responsible and saw to it that he had everything he needed.

  She and Adair were living together by then, and Jack just adored him. It was a huge relief, to say the least.

  We finished recording our second album in half the time the first one had taken us and that was with me working nearly every night in my magic show. We’d all grown up, and the result was a much more finely tuned machine.

  I couldn’t quite believe when we got our first number one hit out of the record’s first single, and when a second and a third followed, I was completely floored.

  None of us could believe it. It was everything we’d talked about. Kenny, Cory, and I had been daydreaming about this since we were all fourteen, and it had actually worked out for us.

  It was a bittersweet time for me. Every time we celebrated another hit, all I could think about was who was missing from the revelry.

  CHAPTER SIX

  FIVE YEARS AFTER THE ACCIDENT

  DANIKA

  It was in the summer that I met the mysterious artist.

  I’d gotten a memo that the boss had himself a girlfriend and that he was insisting on giving her a gallery showing. This was told to me rather snidely by the New York gallery manager. I knew she’d had her eye on James for herself, but she’d made an advance on him ages ago, and it couldn’t have been clearer that he just wasn’t interested. Still, I thought, as she told me over the phone about the new development, she must have been holding onto some idea that he’d change his mind. She didn’t say it aloud, but she was clearly more upset about the new girlfriend than she was about the fact that James was going to be sponsoring this mystery woman as some kind of an artist.

  I was shocked myself about the girlfriend. I’d known James for years and had never thought I’d see the day he committed to any kind of romantic relationship. From what I’d observed, he was never serious about any of the legions of women he was seen with. Shocked was quickly followed by pleased, as I cared about James as a person, and I figured that if he was doing all of this, he must care for the woman.

  Even so, I wasn’t thrilled at the idea, at least not the one that was originally presented to me. A large, lavishly promoted showing, exclusively featuring this woman’s paintings. I knew only the facts as they were presented to me. She worked with acrylics and watercolors, and had an indefinite amount of paintings, and she was without training of any kind.

  It was obvious that he was in love with his new girlfri
end, but that wouldn’t make our jobs any easier.

  And then I saw her paintings.

  I was leaning casually against my tall work desk, flipping through my day’s workload.

  I was meticulous; so I organized my workload and made to-do lists daily and anything that came directly from the boss, which was rare, went straight to the top.

  I opened the portfolio, which contained only photos of the paintings, with absolutely no expectations. One look, and I had to sit down.

  Three hours later, I was obsessed.

  The color, the depth, the dreamy imagination that each picture contained made my heart beat faster. This was the part of my job that I thrived on. It didn’t happen often, not like this, but when it did, I just lived to put a show like this together.

  I felt such a sense of wonder at the untutored skill behind it all. It always astounded me, the crap that came out in the art world, by artists that had impressive credentials, and years of study, and yet the results showed little in the way of skill or depth.

  This was the opposite. This woman put her soul on the canvas with a skill and talent that I could scarce believe was untrained.

  One phone call with James, after looking at her portfolio, and falling in love with it, and he’d put me in charge of the showing. We were kindred spirits when it came to this sort of thing, and I think my enthusiasm alone could have gotten me the job.

  It all made sense to me upon meeting her. She was so composed, so reserved. I’d have thought she was cold, if I didn’t have a similar approach to strangers.

  Her passion, her animation came out on canvas, it was clear. It was all the expression she needed, as far as I was concerned.

  I was promoted. It wasn’t a little promotion. One day I was quite satisfied to be the manager of one very successful gallery, and the next I was running seven, placed all over the globe.

  It was daunting, but exhilarating. I had to move back to Vegas, though I traveled a lot, so that was some consolation.

  It was surreal to be working in the same building as Tristan, but after a few weeks with no sightings, I was fairly confident that we could avoid each other cleanly.

  Andrew was pleased with my promotion, but not with the fact that I had to relocate for it. Still, he accepted my decision without fighting me.

  He wasn’t a fighter.

  He came to see me every other weekend in Vegas, often surprising me with various show tickets.

  Once, those tickets happened to be for Tristan’s show.

  At first, I tried to make excuses and to talk him into getting a refund. He seemed so baffled by that that I changed gears, bit the bullet, and just went.

  If I were even a little bit honest with myself, I’d have admitted that I was dying to see the show. Morbid curiosity, I told myself.

  We sat three rows back, center stage. The theatre was colossal, and they were amazing seats. Andrew had to have spent at least five hundred dollars on the tickets.

  Five hundred dollars to make me a paranoid mess. We were so close that the entire time I was sure Tristan would see me, would know I’d come.

  He never did, thank God, but as soon as it was over, I made sure we got out of there fast, feeling like I’d dodged a bullet.

  I waited until Andrew fell asleep that night, went into the bathroom, and cried for hours. The show had been amazing, but it had hurt so much to see him again, and moreover like that, so beautiful, so compelling.

  It brought to mind how much of myself I’d invested in him, knowing that this was the investment, this amazing man I’d seen tonight. He’d been a gamble, with a strong potential for loss and gain. I’d suffered the loss. Tonight I’d been reminded brutally of the promised gain.

  I cried because of that. But also, because I was a fool.

  I was so very proud of him.

  TRISTAN

  I spotted James and his new woman just as I finished my stint with the red carpet photographer nonsense.

  I grinned at the way James glared at me just for glancing in her direction. The man had it bad.

  I moved to them, making as if to embrace Bianca, but James was there, catching me up in a bear hug, lifting me just enough to show me that he was no pushover.

  “You lay a finger on her, and I’ll break those magic hands of yours,” he growled into my ear.

  I threw my head back and laughed. That was just what I’d needed to get over some of my tension about seeing Danika again.

  I sized him up, more out of habit than anything else. I’d never lost a fight in my life, but I thought James could put up a good struggle before I took him down.

  It was an arrogance born out of the simple fact that I was undefeated. He was as tall as I was, but I outweighed him, therefore I could take him. It was a simple formula that had always served me well. Also, there was no way the prep school prince had been in as many fights as I had.

  He pulled away, but not before I stole his watch.

  He stayed directly between me and his woman. I really couldn’t get enough of this new side of him. He was just too easy to rile.

  Bianca gave me a little wave and a smile.

  I bowed to her, grinning. She was beautiful and really quite sweet, and I’d seen the change she’d made in James. I approved wholeheartedly. She was good for him. Even if she had turned him into a jealous nutcase.

  I was going to have some fun with this.

  “So no touching,” I observed. “Can I at least see her tattoo? I heard all about it. I heard her back was lovely, just like the rest of her.”

  Bianca giggled, and even James grinned, shaking his head.

  “Outrageous bastard,” James said under his breath.

  They introduced me to a guy named Stephan and his boyfriend, Javier.

  I’d heard about Stephan, Bianca’s best friend, and we hit it off right away. I had a feeling he was the type of guy that hit it off with everyone. He was charming and came off as very sincere. It didn’t hurt that he went all fanboy on me right off the bat.

  “I bet he lets you hug her,” I told Stephan, smirking at James.

  That set James off, and we insulted each other for a few thankfully distracting minutes.

  It felt like I was bracing myself for a blow, and my eyes scanned the crowd constantly, searching for a shining black head of hair.

  “Bianca only just found out that you’re a singing magician,” James shot at me.

  “Well, it pays the bills. Some of us have to have more than one talent. We can’t all get by on looks alone. Are you using a new conditioner or something? I swear your hair is even shinier than usual. I bet it smells like strawberries. And admit it, those are contact lenses.”

  “Please, I know what you get paid just for the magician gig. All your bills were covered before you got the band back together. And I have no idea what conditioner I used. It all just magically appears in the dispenser in my shower. And if you try to smell my hair, I’ll assume you’re coming onto me.”

  Bianca laughed, and James and I shared a smile. This was the real deal for him, and I thought it couldn’t have happened to a better guy, weirdo that he was.

  Bianca never seemed bored with the banter, even when she was quiet. On the contrary, she had a look on her face that made me think she was connecting new pieces of a puzzle. James had to be a strange guy to date. I was one of his closest friends, and even I didn’t know much about his past.

  James was complaining about how much I was planning to gouge him with my upcoming contract renewal when I glanced at his watch on my wrist. “Are you about done harassing me, pretty boy?”

  James cursed, holding out his hand. “Give me my watch back,” he demanded.

  I waved it at him. “It’s almost my birthday. Can’t we just call it even?”

  He grinned and shook his head. “I don’t like you that much.”

  I shrugged and handed it back to him.

  My entire body became rigid as I saw an achingly familiar figure moving through the crowd.

&nbsp
; I thought I had braced myself.

  I knew she was going to be there. No one could say I wasn’t warned. Still, it was a straight up brutal punch to the gut when I saw her.

  She wasn’t alone.

  I was taking harsh, ragged breaths, using all of my efforts just to drag much needed air into my lungs.

  I’d known it was going to be hard, but nothing could have prepared me for this.

  I spotted her before she approached us, caught her momentary wince as she caught sight of me before she turned slightly away, her shoulders squaring, what’s his name putting his arm around her for a moment before she shrugged him off. Good.

  She was with him. I knew this, because I kept tabs on her. Always had. But she didn’t look to be that into him. She didn’t shoot him even one of those adoring glances that used to slay me on a regular basis.

  Thank God for that one small favor.

  But even so, he touched her with privilege, and I hated his guts with a deep and enduring passion. I hadn’t been in a fight in what seemed like forever, but I had a sudden and persistent urge to start one with him. It would just be so easy to crush him. He was half my size and asking to be put in his place.

  She approached our group, not avoiding me, her limp more pronounced than I’d realized.

  Every jerky step made my chest ache.

  She wore a dress the color of her eyes. It caressed her curves distractingly. She was as fit as she’d ever been, limp or no.

  “Hello, Danika,” I finally spoke, my voice coming out softer, less confident, than I meant for it to.

  The punk she was with hung back, talking to the last group of people they’d been mingling with.

  I was immeasurably relieved by this. I hoped to never have to deal with him directly. Nothing good could come of it.

  She nodded in my direction, her gaze staying firmly fixed somewhere else, in the distance, anywhere but at me. “Hello, Tristan.” Her tone was firm and impersonal.