Beautiful Distraction(81)

I expect Kellan to unleash his annoyance with me, but he just laughs.

“I know, and I would never expect you to,” he says. “Look, it’s hard for me, too.”

I frown at his words. “What’s hard for you?”

“To like the business. To be excited about it. I hate my job.”

Unsure whether I’ve heard him right, I stare at him. “I don’t understand. I thought it was your dream. You and your brothers had a band.”

“There’s a difference between a hobby and doing it for fun, and a job, which basically forces you to sell your soul and kills any creativity,” Kellan says. “Now don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for what I’ve accomplished, but this job, this lifestyle—” he shakes his head “—it didn’t turn out like I expected. I still enjoy making music. I love writing songs, but in the end, the label decides which songs are recorded. Most of them aren’t even mine.”

I remain quiet as he continues, “The pressure. The fame. The constant traveling. Being stuck on a tour bus. Not able to sing my own songs or play my own music. It gets to be too much. I kind of realized that being famous and under the wings of a huge record label isn’t how I envisioned my life. My own songs being buried just because they wouldn’t appeal to thirteen-year-old girls sucks.” He sighs. I sense more is coming, so I remain silent out of fear that pushing him to open up might have the opposite effect. “Look, there’s no denying that I love singing and playing the guitar, but I don’t want to do it professionally. Everything you saw up there, on that stage…that’s not me. Not the real me anyway. It never was. I just stumbled into it. Ask my brothers, and they’ll tell you how I was discovered.”

“How?” I ask softly.

“We used to play the weekend gig at the local bar. It was our way to connect with friends and family. Someone uploaded us on the Internet. One day, a scout saw us live, and he liked what he saw. The next thing I knew, I was offered the lead singer position in a band he was working on creating. I took him up on the offer, because—” he sighs again “—well, I was young, and vain, and yes, I wanted to be rich.”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” I say.

“You need to understand. My family’s just ordinary folks. We weren’t poor, but we weren’t rich either. It was my opportunity to support my family and the people in this town. So it was a closed deal. Five days later, I moved to Los Angeles, where I met Casper, Derrick, and Rock. They became my new band members. From there, our whole image was created for us, and we were told what to do, who we could date, how we should dress. It’s all part of branding and image building. We started six years ago, and now we have six studio albums, two remix albums, and I have a net worth of ninety-five million.”

I almost choke on my breath, shocked that he’d just divulge that last piece of information so honestly. “Wow. That’s a lot of money.”

I don’t know how to take that.

That is a lot of money. No wonder he doesn’t trust anyone.

“Yeah, it is,” Kellan says. “But it doesn’t matter if it makes me miserable. I’ve come to a point where I realize there’s so much more I want to do with my life, but I have so little time to explore my interests. I mean, Ryder loves his job. And Cash has built up an entire string of nightclubs from nothing and turned them into a huge success over night.” He looks at me, his eyes meeting mine, and his expression softens. “That’s one of the reasons I quit.”

“You quit?” I ask, confused.

Did I miss something?

What did he quit?

Being a rock star?

It sounds too far-fetched, incredulous.

“I got out of my contract four weeks ago,” he goes on to explain. “I’m not the lead singer of Mile High anymore.”

“Four weeks ago?”

That was around the time I won the tickets.

“Today was my last gig. It all started here, and this is where it all ends.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Wrapping my arms around my waist, I stare at him, my mind devoid of any thoughts. “Is that what you want?”

“Yes.” His arms go around my waist, and he pulls me to his chest. “It’s what I want.”

The weak moonlight bathes his face in a golden glow. I take in his beautiful features, the soft smile on his lips, and can’t help but wonder whether someone like him could really be content with the relatively boring life out here—compared to that of a rock star, of course.

“What brought on such a huge decision?”