Chapter 49: (Even) Rock Stars Have To Compromise

This chapter is dedicated to a new reader,  dragondaze  who, apparently is...psychic.  dragondaze, you pretty much anticipated this whole chapter with your comment, but I am glad we are on the same page!

Trace

It's a long, five hour flight. Kat and I hardly speak for the rest of it, but it's alright because Matt never shuts up. The guy has enough energy to be a drummer, but I guess his crazy exuberance also made for a good frontman of a glam metal band back in the day. By the time we arrive at LAX, he has debriefed me on all my siblings, with Marianne sitting on his lap, making occasional interjections or correcting his exaggerations about them.

Street is their oldest kid—about to be twenty, goes to Berkley, studying environmental engineering. Matt says he's "way too smart to be a musician; he's a genius who will one day save the world." Marianne says he's a "smart kid with a humanitarian bent. More like me than Matt. Probably join the Peace Corps or something."

Bridge, who's name is actually Bridget, is one of their twin daughters—eighteen, a high school student at an exclusive Santa Monica private school. Musical like her old man, according to Matt, she's "almost as pretty as her mama, picks the fiddle like you wouldn't believe, but she's going through this damn rebellious phase." Marianne laughs and clarifies that Bridge's "passion is classical violin and her rebellion is wanting to attend Juliard."

Row, who's name is actually Rowan, is the younger twin by twelve minutes. She and Bridge are fraternal twins, so they don't look alike. "Poor girl looks like her daddy, but thank god she's got my winning personality," Matt grins. Marianne rolls her eyes and reports that "Row is constantly in trouble for trying to date thirty year olds, has been expelled twice from private high schools and singlehandedly keeps EMO alive with her garage band."

The del Marco's took a break from procreating for awhile after the twins. Their fourth and fifth children are much younger. Lane is only five years old—a little boy, and Alley is the baby born last winter, she's almost eighteen months now. "Alley is the best fucking kid we've made yet, we finally figured out this parenting shit, on the front end," Matt announces proudly, "But Lane doesn't look a damn thing like me and if he hadn't picked up a guitar practically at birth and acted like the worlds cutest head-banding, guitar playing prodigy, I would have demanded a paternity test." Marianne smacks him on the back of the head for that one, and Matt and yells, "Fuck, what was that for, you know I'm kidding?" Marianne shoots him a wifely death ray look and then he turns to me with wide eyes. "Awwww, shit...Trace, sorry man. That wasn't funny, really..."

I wave his foot-in-mouth away. "No worries, man. So Lane is a good-looking kid, then?" I joke.

Matt grins. "Funny. Of course he is, but he's blonde as a viking. Where the hell did that come from?" He looks at Marianne indignantly, and she rolls her eyes like they've had this conversation a million times. Both the del Marco's were dark-haired...well at least until Matt went grey.

"Trace was blonde as a kid," Kat says quietly with a twitch of a smile. "I...uhhmmmm, I found some old pictures around the house this week." She looks at Matt shyly, "I figured maybe eventually I'd meet you and maybe you would want to see..."

He smiles back. "Of course I do."

She fiddles with her phone and pulls up a picture of a  picture, rising to show it to the del Marco's. Matt chuckles and says, "Well, what do you know? Trace and Street looked a lot alike, at that age, except for the blonde hair." and Marianne says, "Always was a doll, huh?"

I rise and prevent Kat from sliding away. "Can I see?"

She flips the phone toward me. It's a picture of me, her, and Ashlynn on Easter at the neighborhood egg hunt, when Ash and I were about six and Kat was a toddler. Ashlynn is preening in her white patent leather shoes and hair ribbons. I'm eyeing Ashlynn's Easter basket. It must have been right after that I stole half of her candy from the plastic eggs and replaced them with rocks. Kat's got a big grin and sweet baby curls all over her head, and she's gnawing on a chocolate bunny. Her yellow Easter dress is a hot mess of grass stains and smeared chocolate.

"You were always a disaster as a little kid," I touch her back lightly.

"Yeah, well, you looked like a dork in that bow-tie," she murmurs back, so low I'm sure Matt and Marianne don't even hear. Especially since they are whispering to each other now and Matt is biting Marianne's ear. Hell, are they going to make another kid right here?

Before they can make a mile high mini-Marco, the captain comes on with the descent announcement, and Marianne slides off Matt's lap with a wink and buckles into her seat. Matt growls in dissatisfaction. "I should tell that pilot to circle the landing for ten minutes."

"Ha! You only need two," Marianne barks at him.

"You only need sixty seconds of my tongue on your—"

"Okaaaaayyyyy!" I yell, making the time-out signal in Matt's face. "TMI, Dad. Ladies present," I half-joke, gesturing at Kat.

Matt winks at Kat again. "We're very open in this family. You'll get used it."

Kat smiles and looks out the window. I'm sure she has a smart-assed comment, but she's still mad at me so she's not going to joke around. I watch her sadly as she avoids my gaze, watching the ground approach. I remind myself that our cold war is mostly of my making.

"Yeah I'm still irritated at what she said about Riley watching out for Ashlynn while I partied with fangirls. I spent a shit ton more man hours in the last two years pleading with and helping Ashlynn than I spent in meaningless quickies, but I can't blame Kat for not really knowing what it was like for me, since I kept the whole situation a secret from her. But more than I'm mad about her Riley/fangirl snark, I'm still not happy about this WITCH business.

But I love her, and no amount of angry words and disagreements are going to change that, so I know when this flight is over , I have to get her talking somehow, and we have to work this shit out.

We say our goodbyes to Matt and Marianne in the cabin. Marianne tells Kat that her WITCHCampus orientation doesn't start until tomorrow afternoon, which I'm glad about—I have virtually twenty four hours to make my case against Kat being a WITCH. The time change means it's still early afternoon in LA, and dinner at del Marco's won't be until much later. They are planning to tell their kids about me in private this afternoon and give them some time to process before I show up for dinner.

Kat doesn't protest when I take her hand and pull her firmly through the airport. Paparrazzi hang out here like it's their damn office, but Kat puts on the sunglasses I bought her and her bored bitch face and ignores their shouts, and with me on her left and Ben on her right, and our steady pace, nobody gets closer than I am comfortable with.

Riley's on point with a car. Ben takes shotgun by the driver, and we set off quickly. And silently. Kat watches the tall palm trees pass by and says nothing. In day traffic it takes a full hour from LAX to where we are going. We ride our anger for about half the distance, and then unable to bear the cold silence between us anymore, I blurt. "So, I'm thinking about changing my name."

She props her sunglasses on her head and regards me solemnly. "Wow. I hadn't thought about that. But you are a del Marco, aren't you? You and Matt have talked about that?"

I laugh. "No, that's not what I meant. Publicly, I always be Trace Gallant. I was thinking more of a nickname, to fit in with my brothers and sisters. What do you think—should I become Trail? Rotary? Turnpike, maybe? Or just plain Road? "

Kat's laughter comes in peals. "Oh...my...god, right?" she claps. "Street, Bridge, Row, Lane, and Alley? What the hell is wrong with Matt and Marianne?"

"Too much LA warps your brain, baby," I say darkly.

"And we're back to that," Kat says.

She surprises me by climbing on my lap and straddling me.

"What are you doing?" I ask, surprised, but my hands automatically squeeze her hips. God, I love the feel of her.

"We're going to finish our fight," she says. "Right here, right now, where you can't walk away, and you are going to touch me the whole time. Because I am not afraid of your hands on me, even when we are mad at each other. You would never hurt me. Well, not like that. Not with physical violence. You don't have to run away from me when you get angry, Trace."

"Getting angry with you right now might not be the problem I'll have," I sigh, rubbing her thighs. Her shorts are very short, and her body is very warm, and my cock is getting very hard, even after thirty seconds of Kat on me.

"Well, try to remember why you are angry. Because I'm really fucking irritated with the way you keep making everything between us about Ashlynn. I am not her. I am not brain-damaged. I'm not drug-addicted. I am not going to do lines with some douche-bag in a VIP section and need saving by you."

The viciousness in Kat's tone stokes my irritation a little. "Christ, I know that. It's not about her. It's about the fact that you are eighteen years old, Kat. You don't have a lot of experience. The first time I took you clubbing, even I let you get accidentally roofied. I don't think you'll make bad choices on purpose, but anything could happen to you here. It scares the shit out of me to leave you alone in LA."

"Being one of Marianne's WITCH's means I won't be alone, Trace. That's exactly the point. That's why she recruits the porn stars, the strippers, the prostitutes. To give them a second shot at something different, but also so the younger WITCH'S can learn from their experience. Marianne says its a sisterhood...the WITCH'S watch out for each other when they go off-campus. They have a code: leave no WITCH behind. In a club, or any other compromising situation, they stick together, and the savvy ones look out the most for the others. And Trace...anything could happen to me anywhere. Look what happened to Ashlynn in your house. Or what almost happened to me with Chaz, in a houseful of people we both knew."

"Chaz didn't happen because I was there," I remind her . I should have destroyed that punk that night, but I didn't punch him because honestly, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to stop, and secondly, I didn't want to make more hassle for Kat. If I had gone to jail for assault, Kat would have probably been questioned as a witness. I didn't want her to have to tell a bunch of cops that she nearly got sexually assaulted if she didn't want to, or have to deal with the blow back for the fact that she was underage and drunk when it happened.

"But you haven't been there the last two and a half years," she retorts. "And I took care of myself. I made friends that I could trust. I dated a guy that would never...be like Chaz," she mumbles, looking away from me.

The look on her face when she's thinking about Chaz—she looks like she's spending far too much energy trying to keep him in a box labeled "I'm over that." That's when all the anger in me breaks. Fuck, I never saw it before. Kat is a little bit...traumatized. I knew that New Year's night did a number on her, but I thought it was Ashlynn's accident. I didn't realize Chaz...scared her, that much.

"Baby, look at me," I say softly. "I will never let anyone get next to you like Chaz again. It's why I don't want you on your own in LA. It's why I want you to have Ben with you. I will never let anybody hurt you, even if I have to fight you to make sure of it."

Her expression softens—her dark eyes darkening more as her pupils open up, and a sweet smile turns up her lips. "You really are a Knight in Leather Armor, aren't you? You can't help it."

"I don't know about all that. I just know I love you, and I want to make you feel safe and happy."

"I get that, Trace, and I love you for that. But I have to know that I won't let anyone like Chaz next to me again. I need to prove it to myself...that I can make good choices. Not like I've been doing—not hiding from choices in a blue room. But out there in the world. I want to be confident and competent, not just safe and taken care of."

Damn. Kat is so smart and so fucking self-aware for eighteen. I was a complete moron at that age—getting drunk, hookin' up with co-eds I didn't care about, and drunk dialin' my fifteen year old Ultimate Fantasy, completely oblivious to the fact that I was stringing her along in the worst way.

I like to think I've grown up a lot since then.

So I guess it's time to admit that I can't keep Kat in my cave just because I want to. And I definitely want to. The Neanderthal in me hates the thought of my woman livin' it up in LA without me. I am scared for her, and I don't want anything bad to happen to her, but there is also the part of me that just doesn't want any other Neanderthals to have the opportunity to snatch her up by the hair and drag her off to their cave.

Fuck. Being an evolved dude with a more developed cerebral cortex sucks. Because the intelligent, evolved part of me can plainly see she's right about this.

I sigh heavily. "Okay, I'm conceding that I totally see your point of view. I'm struggling to square it with my need to protect you. I grew up, watching out for you, KitKat. It's...what I do."

"But you never tried to control me back then, Trace. You always let me...explore, learn, grow."

"Well the stakes weren't so high, I guess. Getting a scraped knee, even a broken arm seems like nothing compared to being exposed to the life-altering shit like goes down in LA."

She nods and presses her lips to my forehead. We stay that way a long time. Finally she says, "You asked me what's it's going to take, to earn my forgiveness. It's going to take this, Trace. I've decided I'm taking Marianne's offer, at least for the summer, because I need to know I can handle myself. And I want you to support me, and believe in me, and trust me, and have my back when my parents freak the fuck out. And if you can do that, I'll compromise. I'll gracefully accept any security guy you want me to have, as a fall-back precaution."

I sigh and lean my head back on the seat. Her having a security guy will only mean that she's not physically harmed or harassed. A security guy would never stop her from making her own choices—choices that might hurt her. Hurt me. Hurt us.

Kat doesn't ask much, does she? She's asking me for the one thing I have the hardest time giving up...control. My childhood, and then Ashlynn, have given me control issues that won't quit. There's a part of me that wants everything about me and Kat locked down. I'm terrified of losing her, or of her losing herself. But she's right. She's not that kid climbing the tree, anymore. I can't tell her every little move to make and expect her to listen to me because I've already been there.

I don't want her to be my arm candy—one of those girls that trips over herself to do whatever the rock star asks. I want her to be my wild girl, my best friend, and my partner-in-love-and-in-crime. So I have to let her find the bad-ass that's been sleeping inside her.

She's says its going to take a miracle to forgive me, but I know, it's going to take a miracle for me to keep the promise I'm about to make—to support her living in LA. Because she's going to fuck up—LA is the perfect incubator for dumb mistakes, everybody here makes them at some point. Yeah, she's going to fuck up at some point, not because she's not smart, just because it's a part of growing. And my instinct will be to drag her home kicking and screamin' like I still think I should have done with Ashlynn. But I won't do that. I won't treat her like a child or push her away, either. I'll make a miracle. Whatever mistakes she makes, we'll get through it, because she's willing to forgive my biggest fuck-up ever.

"You got a deal." I squeeze hips again, softly massaging her lower back. I guess my favored son-in-law status will be short-lived, but I don't care. I care about Kat's best interests and I see now—this is the first step back to her true self, independent of me, her parents, and everyone else. "I'm down to date a WITCH. I promise to support you, and come to your charity shit when I can, and trust you, and I promise to stand shoulder to shoulder with you when it comes with Mike and Ellen, cause you are right. They are going freak. But I want Ben to head your detail. He's the guy I trust the most."

"I'm fine with Ben," She grins. "You are really ok with this? You won't give me anymore static about WITCH Campus?"

"I don't have any choice, Kat. I love you. Trust, support, having your back is part of the deal. And I know that telling you what to do, isn't. So yeah, I'm going to get okay with it."

She looks amazed. "You really mean that, don't you?"

"Yes," I say solemnly. Then I add a wink. " And I'm hoping, like you said, it will speed my forgiveness curve. Soundcrush has a three day break on the tour coming up for July 4th...maybe by then we can spend a sexy mini-vacation together..."

She's looking at me in a way I haven't seen since New Orleans. She bites her lip. Fucking sexy as hell. "Don't worry, we aren't waiting that long..."

"Kat—" I need to tell her where we are going. Now's probably not the time to get something started—

Before I can say another word, she crushes her mouth to mine, practically prying open my lips with her tongue and staking her claim on me. Fuck, she's all inside me like I want to be inside of her. Her kiss is hot and deep and urgent and demanding way more than I can give her in the back of this car. She's unbuckling my belt, her fingernails scraping my stomach as she struggles with the button on my jeans.

"Kat," I break the kiss. "Slow down, baby."

"Please don't tell me to slow down," she whispers as she kisses beneath my ear. "I forgive you okay? For the two and half years you were MIA, for Ash, for having a control freak-out on the plane. And I'm sorry about what I said, about Riley and the fangirls, so I hope you forgive me, too. There's no point in pretending we aren't always coming back around to forgive each other. You're my best friend, and I want you to be my lover now. God, Trace, just...let's make-up, okay?"

Suddenly I feel drunk, but it's not the two beers I had at high altitude. I'm lust drunk for Kat. I can't stop myself from taking her throat, sucking at the base the way I know she likes, sliding the linen white shirt she's wearing over her jumper off, so that I can kiss across her bare shoulders. The way she's working her hips on my laps drives me to recklessness, and I pull her strapless romper roughly down, freeing her beautiful, bra-less breasts. She moans in approval as I fondle her. I get lost in Kat's tits. Only the touch of her warm fingers around me and the fact that shes trying to slide the zipper down on her romper and wriggle out of it recalls me to my senses. I pull her forward against me, revealing in the feel of her soft chest flattening against my harder one.

"Baby, please— not like this. Not the first time.  Not rushed, in the car. Plus you riding me—it might hurt more that way—it's just...deeper," I explain.

"Then we need a bed. Now," she demands, still working me.

I pull her hand gently away and beat my head against the seat, forcing my awareness beyond her tits in my face and her breathe in my ear to the outside--out the window.  Fuck, we are here. There's a bed alright, but it's in a room attached to the rest of the house—that I shared with Ashlynn.

Talk about a major mood killer.

Kat becomes aware that the car is turning, and pulling to a stop. "Are you kidding me?" she whispers. "You brought me to your house?" She stares out the window at my four million dollar sprawling Spanish-style hacienda as she pulls her top back up.

I lightly roll over the backs of her shoulders with my hands. "You said you kept imagining me and your sister doing mundane shit here, so I though it might be easier for you to lay your imagination to rest, if you saw it—one time. I'm selling it, Kat. I never expect you to spend a night here, but I just thought maybe you wanted to see it before it's not my house anymore.  Look, fuck it, this was a terrible idea. I'm sorry. I'll tell the driver to keep moving. I'll take you to a hotel—"

"No, I want to see," she shakes her head, her rich brown locks sweeping her tan shoulders. "You swear...you never had Ashlynn in your bed? Not even for movie night or some shit?"

"No. She never touched my bed, or even went in my room," I say solemnly. "I haven't ever...had a woman here in my bed, Kat." The only girl I ever came close with was Molly, and that was a foyer situation not of my own making--and we had just barely gotten started before Ashlynn-interruptus.

Kat's still staring at the house, like she's never seen one, but she nods, all definitively. "Okay, then. Actually," She turns to me with a sweet smile. "I feel kind of bad for you, baby. I think you deserve to fuck once in your first mansion before you sell it, don't you?"

"Christ," I groan. "You mean it? You're sure? Here? Now?" I whisper. What about that stuff she said about, freezing up thinking of Ashlynn? Surely this is the place most likely to cause that to happen.

"I'm absolutely sure I want to be the only woman you've had here," she's suddenly adjusting her clothes in determination, and fumbling between us to rebuckle my belt as she's preparing to exit. "Right now, Trace. Take me to bed."

Ha! Are y'all ready for this?