Page 125 of Dirty Rock

“Maybe you need to calm down before you go to her.” Bobby frowned, forcing me to focus on him and snap out of my daydream. When he glanced down at my hands, I realised they were balled into tight fists, hard knuckles under stretched, white skin.

I shook them out and cleared my throat.

A pair of arms slid around my waist. “Hey,” Jules said softly. It was her cautious voice. I knew it well now. “Everything okay?

I pulled her into my arms quickly, acting like she was six, and I’d just found her, scared and alone in an abandoned car. I pressed her head to my chest, pushing her against my beating heart.

“I’m never going to abandon you. You know that, right?”

She pulled back to look up at me.

“I won’t abandon you, Julia.”

Her eyes filled. Just a light, misty coating of emotion. “What is it about rock stars not being able to let me go?”

I had so much left to learn about this formidable woman, and I was only going to love her harder until she showed me every last tainted, horrible memory she’d kept bottled up inside. And as I stood there holding her in my arms and staring down into her eyes, I realised that what Julia needed in her life wasn’t control or looking after.

What she needed was to finally be set free.

Chapter Forty-Two

After we’d made it back to the hotel room, we washed, stripped off, and climbed into bed. I kept waiting for her to open her mouth, but so far, fifteen minutes had gone by of us lying there without a single word passing her lips.

“Ma always used to tell me that when someone came along who mattered to you, you’d know it was real because their pain suddenly became your own.” Turning my head in her direction, I studied her, taking in her profile and all the perfectly sharp edges there. “I get it now. You’ve had it a lot harder than you’ve ever told anyone, haven’t you?”

“Sometimes,” she whispered. “But I made a promise to myself when I was younger, not long after Bobby and the others took Sarah and me in, that I didn’t want to go back to the past all the time the way they did. Spending life on the road with the guys was amazing, but it made me realise that rock stars are different to everyone else. They tell stories with their songs, and they release their pain in a way that makes it seem cool out there on the stage. They’re not whining; they’re singing and entertaining. That’s what the world thinks. But I saw them on the tour bus. I saw the regret they drowned themselves in. I saw the whining and the moaning, and the way alcohol was the only thing that numbed their minds for a while. I saw how much they lived in the past, and their present was a constant haze because of it.”

“I guess now I know why you always gave me such a hard time about the booze.”

She shrugged a shoulder. “That, and I knew you could do better.”

I blew out a breath. “Man, how is it possible that the world doesn’t know Bobby Hart rescued two kids?”

“He and the guys knew it would do no good for us to be in the media. Mum would find out, and no doubt ask them for money—exploit the band’s kindness for all she could. The newspapers would have had a field day over it. Bobby and the band had the money and the contacts to make it all go away, so that’s what happened. If anyone ever asked us outright who we were, Sarah and I would make up stories about being one of the roadies’ kids.”

“You never wanted to find your real parents.”

“No. I don’t want anyone in my life who doesn’t want me,” she said quietly.

“Why didn’t you tell any of us—me—what Bobby had done for you? I’ve been in your life for years now, and you’ve never mentioned his name.”

“Because his name comes with privilege. People assume in this industry that when you do well, it’s because someone gave you a leg up and put you there.”

“Did he?”

Her fingers rippled against my chest. “He gave me experience in dealing with entertainers. The rest I did for myself.”

“He told me how he found you and Sarah.”

“I was too young to remember it as clearly as he does. It still doesn’t make sense to me… why he took us in the way he did.”

“He told me that the lonely seek the lonely. The sad seek the sad. Maybe that was why.”

“Maybe. Though, I think he did it to give his life purpose.”

“You don’t think the music was doing that for him?”

Jules glanced up, never taking her cheek from my chest as she stared at me. “It wasn’t doing for you, was it?”

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