LIMELIGHT LOVE: A Small Town Rock Star Romance Read online

“Are you okay?” Aaron asked with that same look of confused concern.

  “Me? Oh yeah. It’s good. Good coffee. Did you use a filter?” She coughed.

  Aaron drank more. “No, I couldn’t find one.”

  Sitting there, in Aaron’s kitchen, Lily thought about revealing her secret—Aaron’s secret. But she hesitated. It seemed too risky. She barely knew the guy, and who knows how he would react. And while she was 99.99% certain it was indeed Aaron Brown, there was still a possibility it was actually Aaron’s very rich doppelgänger who grew a beard because he hated being told he looked like Aaron Brown. So Lily dug deeper. “Where are you from?”

  “LA. Born in New York, but I lived most of my life in LA.” Aaron could now feel his headache subsiding, drowning in the powerful sludge he called coffee.

  “I’ve never been to LA. I’ve always wanted to go. I bet it’s nice there, right? I had an uncle who lived in San Francisco in the 60s. I know that’s not really LA, but I hear they have a lot in common. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never really left Burns Bog. Well—once to go to Chicago. Do you miss LA? I bet you miss it.”

  “No.” The coffee pot was nearly empty and Aaron was prepared for a second pot.

  “Really? Even with all the beaches and the ocean and the interesting people…”

  “It’s a filthy shithole. America’s dumpster.”

  “Oh,” Lily said. The word ‘shithole’ was unexpected, and shockingly vulgar. Not that Lily was a prude by any means, but that kind of language was rare in a place like Burns Bog. “So what did you do in LA to afford a house like this? Your house is beautiful, by the way.”

  Aaron stared at Lily, took a drag from his cigarette, and contemplated whether to lie or give some stock, vague answer. Lying would be easier. A simple girl like Lily would certainly believe he made his money with computers. There probably wasn’t a person in Burns Bog who know jack-shit about computers, so no one would ever ask any questions. But Aaron was never a great liar, which the tabloids had always been very quick to point out. “I guess I just got really lucky,” he said, siding on vagueness.

  Lily smiled and looked around the house. “I’d say. I bet this is the nicest house in the whole town. Maybe even the whole state.”

  What Aaron wanted to say back was, ‘No shit, you think so?’ but he’d been in the town for less than twenty-four hours and he wanted to make a half-decent first impression. He simply forced a smile and lit a second smoke.

  “Are you still working? I hear a lot of people work from home these days. No need for offices anymore. You know, they say in the next few years, computers are going to take most of the jobs. What do you think of that?”

  “Sounds fine to me.”

  “Fine? Then where are we supposed to work?”

  “You won’t work. The computers will do all the work.”

  “Then what are we supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know. Live?” Aaron laughed.

  Lily continued asking questions in her attempt to uncover Aaron’s true identity. But they were all met with similar vague responses, and Aaron was always quick to change the subject. So Lily started asking increasingly specific questions.

  “Don’t you have some football game to watch or something?” Aaron asked.

  “That’s tomorrow.”

  “So what the hell is today?” The coffee pot was empty, but Aaron kept forgetting, raising it up to his lips and tilting nothing into his mouth.

  “They call it Super Bowl’s Eve around here. Want me to make you another pot?”

  “Yes.” He handed her the empty pot.

  The bottom of the pot was covered in black sludge and stray coffee grounds. “For crying out loud. If you keep drinking it like this you’re going to give yourself a tummy ache.”

  Lily couldn’t see Aaron scowling behind her as she headed for the kitchen counter. The coffee wouldn’t have been filled with grounds had Lily’s company been there to unpack his kitchen, like he paid them to. Besides, what was he supposed to do? Meticulously strain all of the grounds out of the coffee?

  Rolling a strip of paper towel into a cone, Lily fashioned a makeshift coffee filter. Before starting a new pot, she cleaned the old one, along with the coffee maker. She even wiped all of the spilled coffee off of the counter. “Careful. You don’t want these new counters stained!”

  The coffee that Lily returned with wasn’t half bad. It was actually pretty good. Years of drinking his self-made sludge, and avoiding cafes out of fear of being recognized, Aaron had forgotten what good coffee was supposed to taste like.

  “So, don’t you have some Super Bowl’s Eve festivities to go to?”

  “I’ll go later, to be honest, they get a bit too loud and wild for me.”

  Lily’s phone rang and she answered. It was her father, asking her to come back to the office to sort shipping labels. There was a tone of anger in his voice. She thanked Aaron for the company and took off.

  It wasn’t until Lily was standing in her father’s office, the office of Kilgore H. Parker, that she knew why he was angry. He held up a handful of timecards, all with holes punched into Saturday, at 7AM, and punched out at 9AM.

  “Willing to explain why I’m paying six guys for two hours of overtime work this morning?”

  Lily had forgotten about the timecards. They were new, introduced just a couple of weeks prior, after Kilgore began to suspect that Walter Biddle, the seventy-seven year old man who had worked for the company since its inception in 1956, was lying about his hours. Turns out, he was lying, though the timecards didn’t necessarily prove anything, but they did solve the problem. Walter’s hours dropped from nine hours each day, to five. He quit a week later.

  Lily did her best to explain what happened with the workers to her father. Kilgore was unimpressed, red faced, like he had things to say that would have been censored on HBO. But he kept his composure and said, “Just don’t let it happen again.”

  After sorting through the shipping labels, and after Kilgore’s face returned to it’s regular ivory state, Lily asked, “So who’s this Fred Stein guy?”

  “What do you mean, Who’s this Fred Stein guy?” Kilgore asked without looking up from his desk.

  “I mean, who is he? He’s got a lot of money. What’s he doing here in Burns Bog?”

  “No dating the clients,” Kilgore said.

  Lily perked up. “What?”

  “I said, no dating the clients. It’s against company policy.”

  There was no company policy, but that was beside the point. Lily wasn’t that kind of girl. She wasn’t asking because she wanted to date Aaron. And even if she did, she thought, it was none of her dad’s business. She wanted to say, ‘What company policy?’ but she knew how that would sound, so instead she said, “I was just wondering if he was famous or something.”

  “No famous person would ever move to Burns Bog,” Kilgore said.

  “Danny Fitzpatrick is from Burns Bog.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. And how much do you wanna bet he’ll never come back now that he’s gone?”

  “He’ll come back. Everyone loves him here,” Lily said.

  “No he won’t, Lily. And if he does, he won’t be staying, I’ll tell you that much for sure. No famous person would ever move here. There isn’t anything here for any famous person.”

  Lily shrugged. “Well, he kind of looks like Aaron Brown. I thought maybe it was actually him.”

  “Aaron Who?”

  “You know, Aaron Brown?”

  Kilgore did not know Aaron Brown. When Lily was a teenager, all of the songs that came out from her bedroom may as well have been the same song to Kilgore. Just a bunch of repetitive pop crap. He shrugged.

  “You know Aaron Brown, dad. Remember? Mom took me to Chicago to see his set. I got his autograph. I still have it. On the CD.”

  “I don’t remember your mother ever taking you to Chicago.”

  “Yeah. I was thirteen. It was the year before mom passed away. We drove the wrong way dow
n the I-90 for thirty minutes and we almost missed the show. Mom bought me that t-shirt that I still have. You know the t-shirt? Mom got one too, though she never really wore it ever—just sometimes to sleep.”

  “I don’t remember,” Kilgore said in a grumble, turning away from his daughter.

  “Sure, you do, dad. Even Mom was singing the lyrics the next day. Here, there’s a picture of us in Chicago around here somewhere—”

  “—I don’t remember!” Kilgore’s voice raised into a roar and Lily became silent. The conversation ended there. Kilgore stood up and grabbed his coat from the back of his chair. “I’m heading down to Main Street. Before you go, I need you to sweep the trucks.” Kilgore’s eyes connected with Lily’s for a brief moment. He didn’t have to tell her not to bother clocking in—that much was implied.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lily was singing her favourite Aaron Brown song at the top of her lungs as she swept the dirt out the back of one of the moving trucks. It had been stuck in her head for the past couple of days. It wasn’t Gunpowder Girls, but one of Aaron’s lesser-known tunes from one of his later albums, one that never got the radio play that Lily truly believed it deserved. It was called Calling to the Trees, and it was slow and very, very beautiful, as far as Lily was concerned.

  She was startled half to death when someone behind her said, “You’re way off key.” It was the writer of the song himself, Aaron Brown, standing with his hands buried deep in his pockets and a cigarette drooping down from his lips. He was right, Lily was very badly off key. Her face became dark red, which Aaron could see, even in the dark back of the moving truck.

  “I’m sorry,” Lily said after the initial shock wore off. Lily thought she was caught, that she’d revealed her secret. Aaron’s secret.

  And though Aaron had to stop and think twice when he heard Lily’s horrendous singing voice blurting out his lyrics, he still wrote it off as a coincidence. Maybe, he thought, the old song had been playing on the radio just before he showed up.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Sweeping the trucks. Getting all the dirt out from the move.”

  Aaron looked off into the distance, awkwardly averting his eyes while he swallowed his pride. “I need help finding something. I thought maybe you’d know where to look, being from here and everything.”

  “What do you need? If it’s here, I bet I can tell you where to find it.” Lily leaned the broom up against the truck wall.

  “I’m looking for a…” Aaron paused while he reconsidered the alibi he was about to roll with. He needed a new set of strings for his guitar. After one too many bourbons, he broke his low E string, and shortly after Lily left his house that morning, he’d discovered Amazon wouldn’t ship to Burns Bog. Customer service claimed they’d never even heard of such a place.

  “A what?” Lily prodded.

  “Some speaker wire. For my TV’s sound system,” Aaron said, digging the toe of his shoe into the ground.

  “They might have some at Andy’s hardware store. It’s about a five minute walk from here. There’s a big sign that says ‘ice cream’ because Andy sells ice cream too.”

  “Uh huh… Well, I’m actually looking for the high quality stuff. They don’t usually carry it in hardware stores.”

  “Hm…” Lily thought. “You could try Mel’s. He fixes old radios. As a hobby more than anything. He might have what you’re looking for.”

  “No, I doubt it. Radios don’t really work the same. Maybe if you have something like an electronics store, or… you know, a music store would definitely have it, if you have one of those around here. You know, the kind that sells guitars and amps and stuff like that. Is there a music store in Burns Bog?”

  Lily did her best to conceal the little smirk that tried to break free. Once again, she felt like she was a special member of some exclusive club. “There’s no music store in Burns Bog, but there’s Willy Upnik, down by the lake. He makes banjos. He made an acoustic guitar for my brother when we were kids. He’s the best. People come from all over Illinois and other states for his banjos. But I doubt he’s got any speaker wire.”

  Aaron perked up and scratched his head. “He might, you know. You never know. Where does Willy live?”

  “By the lake.”

  ‘By the lake’ meant nothing to Aaron. Aaron didn’t know there was a lake in the treed town. The whole town was speckled with patches of festering bogs, any of which could have been ‘the lake.’

  “You go down the road here until you see a brown horse standing by a fence. Turn left and count the silos. You want to take a right after the sixth silo, and then it’s a left at the Benson farm. That’ll get you to the lake.”

  Aaron scratched his head.

  Lily quickly clued into Aaron’s blank gaze. “I can show you, if you’d like.”

  She closed the moving truck’s back door and started towards the front parking lot, where her little truck was parked. “Just follow me,” she said, but Aaron didn’t have a car. He didn’t own a car worth less than sixty-thousand dollars, so he left all of his cars back in Los Angeles. Driving around a sixty-thousand dollar car was a good way to blend into LA, but it would have made him stick out like sore thumb in Burns Bog. He hired a guy to sell the cars before he moved, and was planning to buy an old pickup once he settled in Burns Bog.

  Lily was happy to give Aaron a ride, though it wasn’t until they were both in the car that she realized there was an Aaron Brown CD jewel case sitting out in the open, on the passenger seat floor—a jewel case which prominently featured a young Aaron Brown’s face and signature, which would almost certainly have spoiled Lily’s secret.

  She dove across the center console before Aaron had a chance to look down, grabbing the jewel case like a starving seagull diving at dropped potato chips. The pounce successfully granted Lily possession of the jewel case. It also successfully placed her face inches from a very confused Aaron’s crotch.

  “I’m sorry the car’s so messy,” she said, grabbing the rest of the clutter from the car floor—just a candy wrapper and an old lipstick tube.

  “I wouldn’t call this messy,” Aaron said, holding his hands up and out of Lily’s way.

  Lily’s face was red as she threw the case and the stray junk into the backseat, out of sight. Sitting upright, she could feel the redness draining from her cheeks. Then she turned on the car, and at a loud volume, one of Aaron’s songs began to play. The redness returned to Lily’s face. She was too embarrassed to look over, but through the corner of her eye she could see Aaron’s face was also bright red. She dialled down the volume. “Sorry if that’s too loud.”

  Aaron awkwardly scratched at his bearded cheek. “This your favourite band? Some local guy or something?”

  “Uh, no—I don’t know, maybe. It’s just some old mix tape my friend left in the car. You can put on something else.” Lily started towards Willy’s house.

  The ‘lake’ was indistinguishable from the many bogs that were spread out in and around Burns Bog. Just some dirty, diseased insect spawning pool, Aaron thought.

  “I’ll be one second,” he said, stepping out from the car.

  “I’ll introduce you to Willy. He’s a bit strange but he’s really nice once you get to know him.”

  “No. Just stay in the car. I don’t want to have a damned conversation with the man. I just need some speaker wire. I’ll just be a second.” Aaron jogged towards Willy’s front door, knocked, and was let in.

  Lily waited with the car running. She grabbed the jewel case from the back seat to inspect it for damage. It was cracked but luckily the autograph was on the inner flap, and was unharmed. She pulled the slip out and swapped the case with another CD from the center console. After a few minutes, Aaron emerged with his hands buried in his pockets.

  “Get your speaker wires?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he replied, patting his pocket but not revealing anything. “Mind driving me back to my place?” Lily started the car and they took off.
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  CHAPTER FIVE

  Aaron awoke the next morning the sound of honking horns. It was a frightful awakening because it was such a familiar sound, but one that shouldn’t have existed in Burns Bog. During that brief moment between returning to consciousness and opening his eyes, Aaron’s mind considered the possibility that the past decade had been a dream, that he was still living in Los Angeles.

  For that brief moment, he had returned to his nightmare, unable to open his blinds without facing a swarm of paparazzi, unable to sit down at his computer without being mocked by a flurry of tabloids. He had to keep his phone on silent, and pretend as if all of the agents and managers and record labels and promoters weren’t phoning him at the top of every hour, checking in on the progress of his latest album, his latest tour, his latest single, his latest comment to his niece’s substitute school teacher.

  That anxiety slipped away as Aaron’s eyes opened and focussed on the cedar beams that crossed the ceiling of his master bedroom. But the sporadic honking continued. Honking? He lived in the middle of nowhere, off of an unpaved rural back road—not in the heart of downtown Los Angeles.

  In nothing but a housecoat and slippers, he made his way down the treed driveway, towards the street, the source of all the noise.

  A caravan of cars travelled at walking speeds down the street, honking as they went. A few men and women walked alongside the caravan, between the cars, waving Denver Broncos flags. Everyone looked to Aaron, smiled and waved. They were all far too happy for seven-thirty on a Sunday morning.

  “What in the hell is going on?” Aaron asked, still rubbing the remnants of the sleep from his eyes.

  The only man who heard Aaron’s inquiry simply laughed and continued on down the road with the half-assed parade of simpletons. Aaron couldn’t decide whether he was confused, angry, or tired. Maybe he was dreaming—actually fast asleep in his Beverly Hills mansion—nearing the end of some Twilight Zone-esque dream, in which an Illinois town full of hicks stopped working for a weekend to worship the Denver Broncos.

  What a stupid parade route, Aaron thought. The road was ten miles long and only passed half a dozen homes. Instead of watching the cars pass, Aaron went back inside, back to bed.