Chapter 12: Rock Stars Don't Comment

Trace

The band and  management are sprawled out in my suite. We've finished with the daily schedule, and the preview of the next venue, and the lead techs have left, and the label rep has signed off the conference call. It's just the five band members, and Dawes our manager and Marcy, our publicist. I toss my stress ball with Bodie as Dawes and Marcy discuss the spin we should put on Kat's exposure as Little Sister. They go round and round about it, neither one of them asking my opinion, or the rest of the band's. Dawes thinks we should capitalize on the event. He's got that old school perspective: all press is good press. Marcy is adamantly against that.

"The climate is different that it used to be, Dawes. This could turn really bad for Soundcrush."

"Why? Every girl in America wishes they were Katheryn Ballard right now. They all want to know her story. They all want to get inside it and imagine they are her."

"What do you think Trace? Should every girl in America want to be Kat Ballard?"

I can tell she's staring at me, waiting for me to say something. I just keep tossing the ball with Bodie. I don't have any desire to discuss my personal relationship with Kat. It's between me and her. The less I can get away with saying here, the happier I'll be.

"Are you even listening Trace? This is all about you, you know?" She steps between me and Bodie and snatches the stress ball.

Marcy is a tough lady—a former college basketball player who almost made it as a pro . When she didn't break the pro's, she used her marketing degree and started branding athletes, and eventually celebrities. She has other clients besides Soundcrush, but we've been slowly claiming more and more of her time. I like her. Generally I like Marcy better than Dawes, but she and I are about to have a problem if she's implying what I think she's implying.

"I'm listening. I just don't have a comment. Which should be our official position, Marcy. Kat is entitled to her privacy. She didn't ask for me to write a song about her. She didn't ask for Leed to out her."

"Trace, is there anything else she didn't ask for?"

I shoot her a deadly look. "You got something to ask me Marcy, go ahead."

She runs a hand through her cropped dark hair and looks around the room at the band members. Adam is eating a bagel, Leed is checked out on his phone. Mac is watching me, a little concerned, but also checking her phone. Bodie is reaching around Marcy, trying to get the stress ball back. She pushes him back into the chair.

"Maybe we should have a private discussion. The three of us." She gestures to between her, me and Dawes.

I shake my head. "Band stays. I got nothing to hide from my family."

"Fine," she tosses the ball back to me. "Katheryn Ballard is eighteen years old. The first lyric tracks of Little Sister were laid down over two and half years ago. Can you explain to me specifically how you 'hurt' this fifteen year old girl, Trace?"

"I could, but I won't. The specifics are between me and Kat."

"I'm sorry, Trace, but they aren't anymore. It's out there. We live in the #metoo era. As great as it is that harassment isn't tolerated and women are believed, there's the flipside, too. There are those who will look for a story where there isn't one to capitalize. I need to know what we are talking about here, in order to do right by you."

I toss her back the ball. After a long moment, I try to give her the briefest synopsis possible.

"Our families lived next door to each other. I've known Kat...hell, I've never not known Kat. She's like family to me. There was a bunch of teenage drama and family shit that happened over the course of the New Year holiday, two and half years ago. Right after Soundcrush got signed, but before the festival tour. Well before you and Dawes came on board. I was home. I was part of the drama, but I wasn't there for Kat like I should have been. I hurt her emotionally, Marcy, which I regret very much. But, I didn't hurt her physically. And fuck you very much for even thinking—"

She raises her hands. "I wasn't thinking anything, Trace. But I have to know what happened, in order to get out in front of this. So I'm going to ask you plainly." She looks around the room and sighs. "Look, did you have a sexual relationship with that girl when she was underage?"

Everybody in the band stops what they are doing at looks at me, all of them curious. "Fuck you all," I say. "No. The answer is no. We were friends. Our relationship was appropriate. When there became even a flicker of it becoming inappropriate, I shut it down. That's why I haven't seen her since, not once." I squeeze the ball. They are all still looking at me.

Marcy sighed. "So something did happen."

"Christ," I mutter. Marcy is a like a pitt bull with a taste for blood.

"Kat went to a party on New Year's Eve that year. I went with her, just to keep an eye on her. She was a high school sophomore, you know...just getting her drinking legs under her. The guy who was throwing the party...I knew him. I knew it would be a blow-out. I wanted to make sure she stayed safe. I ended up crashing in a bedroom with her. She was passed out drunk. I was too buzzed to drive and it was too far carry her home —it was the next neighborhood down the road. After we crashed, the party got raided by the cops. They searched the house for me, because the fucker who's party it was panicked and put his stash inside my guitar, that I had left downstairs. Of course, everyone knew the guitar was mine. So the cops found me and Kat in the bedroom together. When they had me in the back of the car for the weed, they lectured me a little about Kat. She said nothing happened, I said nothing happened. That was true. Nothing happened. Her parents were made aware, they never made anything of it."

There was more to the story, but this was all that Marcy needed to know, and more than she wanted to deal with.

Marcy pinches the bridge of her nose. "So you're telling me you were questioned over a possible statutory rape charge with this girl?"

I wince. "It wasn't like that. Nothing happened. They just asked our names, our ages, a few questions, that's all. They were no charges even mentioned, nobody ever said anything about statutory rape or assault or anything like that. They only charged me for the weed. Kat and I weren't anything close to criminal."

"It doesn't have to be criminal for the media to crucify you. People at this party were aware that you had disappeared into a bedroom with her? What else might one your old neighborhood friends say??"

I squeeze the ball. "They might have seen us kissing."

Dawes laughs bitterly. "Of course they did."

Marcy is glaring at me like she wants to castrate me now. "You said appropriate."

"It was New Year's Eve, okay?" I toss the ball to her. "Everybody kissing everybody. I never kissed her before, or since."

"That's it? One little peck at the stroke of midnight?"

Fuck, it was more than a peck. "Look, it was kiss. But I stopped it. I didn't feel right about it." I gesture impatiently. "For exactly the reasons we are talking about. Because she was too young. Because she was drinking. But she saw it like...a rejection. She got upset. She got so drunk she went upstairs with another guy," I admit.

Leed, suddenly interested. "Wait, let me get this straight. You kissed her, then Kat was with another guy, but you still ended up in the bed with her? Damn, Little Sister is a go-getter."

"Don't fucking talk about her like that," Mac interjects. "That's the kind of shit that is wrong with the world. She was fifteen and in over her head and you wanna label her for making a mistake. That's no different than people assuming Trace is a creep."

"Mac's right," I say. "But honestly, looking back, I feel like I was at fault. The party was thrown by her friends, not mine, but I was older. I didn't try to stop her from drinking. When I realized she was too drunk to handle herself, I knew I had to step in. I followed her and that kid upstairs and put a stop to it. Then, she got sick. I took care of her until she passed out. You probably don't believe me, but that's the honest to god's truth."

Marcy sat down on the coffee table, a blank look on her face as she stared into the distance, calculating. Finally, she twitched to life and looked at me, her eyes creased and wry smile on her face.

She sighed. "Actually, I do believe you Trace. I've seen you with Ashlynn. It's what you do...you take care of people. But it doesn't matter what I believe, or what really happened. What matters is, you let yourself get in a gray situation, and there's no gray anymore, in the world we live in. There's only black and white. And I'm afraid you might get painted like a villain for this."

"That's messed up, Marcy." Adam says.

"Yeah, it is."

Adam looks at me. "Fuck it, brother. We know the truth. It'll blow over. Always does. The music is what matters."

I smile at him. Adam is a good guy, as close as to a brother as I can have, being an only child.

Marcy claps her hands. "Okay, so that's it then? All anyone who was at this party could say is that they saw you kissing, and later, cops marching you downstairs fully clothed to the squad car?"

I'm gripping my head. It was beginning to feel better, but now the headache is returning with full force. "Well, when they took us out to question us...Kat...well, she wasn't wearing a shirt."

Marcy groaned. I raise my hands in defense. "That was the other guy, not me. When I kicked him out, for some stupid reason, he walked out with her shirt. Before I could deal with that, she started vomiting tequila everywhere. It really didn't even register to me that she was in her bra, considering..."

"He's right. Drunk girl spew? Shirtless was the least of his problems at that point," Bodie agreed. He'd had his share of sweet party girls sour on him.

Marcy looks utterly resigned now. "Okay, forget spin. We're going with radio silence and praying that everyone at this party was too stoned out of their minds to remember the details. Worse comes to worse, we'll set you up an exclusive and control the questions, but we'll cross that bridge if we come to it. Is there anything thing else to do with this girl, Trace? Anything that could trigger more static?"

"No, that's it," I say with a wave of my hand.

"Trace," Adam says. "Ashlynn..."

Fuck me. Management doesn't know. I had already helped Ashlynn change her name, before Dawes and Marcy came on board. All the documents they have ever seen list her as Ashley Lynn Foster. We just chose a generic last name at random...one that couldn't be connected to either of us.

"Christ, yeah, there's one more thing. I forgot you guys don't know. Kat is Ashlynn's sister."

Marcy and Dawes both stare at me in utter disbelief.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Marcy says.

"I know," I say. "It's complicated."

"It's not complicated, Trace, it's a goddamn press disaster waiting to happen!" Marcy leaps to her feet, pacing as she yells at me.

"We've barely been able to keep Ashlynn under wraps. I've paid off three paparazzi for fuzzy photos of you two, at your house last year. If anyone starts digging and starts asking questions in the right places there's no way I'll be able to control the story. Not everyone that knows has an NDA. Vegas, all the rehab places, delivery people...there's no way to lock down everyone. The only reason I am able to keep Ashlynn a secret is frankly, Trace, you've been a pretty boring rock star. No drama. No celebrity romances, no Tweets. That's all changed now. You're trending on Twitter, you're on TMZ's front page. and the media will start digging around in your business, past and present. Somebody somewhere will remember something about you and Ashlynn and sell the story. The big outlets will run it for ratings, no matter how much hush money they are offered to kill it."

She looks around the room. "Every client comes with baggage. You guys all have a lot, but none of it is as difficult to manage as Ashlynn." She sigh and looks at me. "Trace, the one thing you've always told me is that your number one priority is to keep your personal life completely separate from your public image. Why put Ashlynn and her sister in the mix together? Why are you doing this?"

Shit, this is one of those moments where I need to be real. "I have a new number one priority, Marcy. I want to be with her."

She throws her hands up. "Which one!?!?"

"That's pretty obvious," Leed answers for me. "Hell, I feel what he feels every time I sing the damn song."

Marcy shakes her head, exasperated. "I'm tagging out, Dawes. You explain what a fucking mess he's making to him, because I have no idea how to help him." She stalks out of the suite, and slams the door.

Dawes runs a hand through his spiky hair and pours himself two 10am fingers of Scotch. "Rock Star, his Secret Wife, and her Little Sister? That's a fucked up love triangle, even for this business. I got nothing."

Leed snorts. Bodie laughs out right. Adam and Mac look at each other sheepishly and then at me sympathetically, because they know what it is to let secrets swirl until they become a natural disaster.

Me, I just gesture for the bottle of scotch. Dawes chuckles and passes it over.

So Dawes has just confirmed for us, Trace is married to Ashlynn! Probably you guys saw that coming right? How do you think that happened, exactly? Do you think Trace is a good guy caught in a bad situation or is he a selfish manipulator? Is he black, white, or gray?

When, where, how in the story do you think Kat is going to find out and how in the world will she react? Yikes, this is going to be fun! Please vote, comment, share, follow, and add to your library if you are enjoying the story! Thanks so much!