That he’d showered angered her for some reason. That he hadn’t sat around wanting to be certain that he could beg her forgiveness. She pushed it to the back corners of her mind.
“Norah,” His arms reached for her, the frown on his face one of concern. “Where did you go?”
“Away.” She pushed past his embrace. “I took care of it.”
She was walking down the hall, but his voice chased her. “Damnit, Norah, I can’t follow after you and you know it. What did you do?”
He did follow after her, just not fast enough to catch her. When she spun around, he was at the end of the hallway, his face contorted. It wasn’t rage, or anger, or even flat-out concern. She couldn’t place it, and she didn’t have time.
“I got a morning after pill. I won’t get pregnant.”
With that delivery done, she turned and fled to her room. Closing the door behind her, she locked it as she heard him crashing down the hallway. His voice carried through the wood. “Norah!”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t.
She had taken the pill as a response to her fear. All that waiting in the doctor’s office, all those nerves at the pharmacy, she had toughed it out. But she hadn’t thought. And thinking was churning her stomach.
It was her baby. Even if it wasn’t yet. And she wasn’t capable of destroying it. Or even of destroying the possibility of it.
His fists pounded on the door and he called to her.
She managed to get out a few words, “Leave me alone!” before she bolted into her thankfully private bathroom and vomited.
Her stomach heaved out the pill and the shaking quieted.
Sitting on the floor of the bathroom, while TJ yelled for her through the door, her hands stilled, and her heart did, too. It didn’t matter that she was more terrified of having another baby than of anything else in this world. She would have to play the cards she was dealt and level the rest with TJ later.
He was still calling to her through the door when she stripped down and climbed into the shower.
Chapter 28
TJ sat on his couch staring into space. In all the days since the accident, he’d never been less motivated. His thoughts were punctuated by shuffling sounds coming from the back bedroom. Norah was packing.
She’d taken Thunder back yesterday, her father driving her back here. TJ had stood at the doorway and waved at the man when he dropped his daughter off. He remembered Norah’s Dad. Of course the man looked older now, and the last time TJ had seen the man he hadn’t been wanting to say, “I’m in love with your daughter.”
So he had just smiled and waved at Mr. Davidson. He wondered why Norah hadn’t changed her last name when she married, or if she had, but changed it back. He asked her, hoping it was so far off topic that she might respond.
She didn’t.
Norah wasn’t talking to him. It wasn’t as childish as refusing to speak to him. That actually would have been better, because he could have called her on it. Could have yelled and told her to grow up. No, it was more like she simply didn’t have anything she wanted to say to him. She answered his questions, sometimes with only a dirty look, but usually with a couple of meaningless words, then she would walk off.
She’d driven him to therapy yesterday, silently. Still the fool, he tried several times to start a conversation, and was quietly rebuffed each time.
TJ played a few games of his own. He worked late at therapy, forcing her to come inside to get him. He was grateful when Tim told him it was time to start distance walking. Preferably at a track, as he needed a flat smooth surface, one with a fence lining the inner perimeter, in case he stumbled or needed support. Norah agreed to drive him, and Tim made her promise to stay with him when he was there.
TJ had almost jumped up and hugged his therapist right there. He needed a way to Norah, and Tim had handed it to him.
Still, she had said very few words on the way home.
TJ sought her out later, trying again to start a conversation. He’d found her in her room last night, where she stayed for most of these past few days. He wondered if she regretted her decision, but as she wasn’t talking to him, he had no chance to find out.
A slow anger had started to boil alongside the discouragement. That Norah had been so adamant about not getting pregnant ate at him. He didn’t want children, he hadn’t even considered it. It was always one-of-those-things, it would happen when it was right. But part of him wanted Norah to want it. Or to at least be sad about what she’d done. That she’d rapidly thrown away any chance at it was more painful than he wanted to admit to himself.
“Norah.” He stood in her bedroom door, having learned quickly that if he wanted it open, he would have to open it himself. TJ braced his hand on the knob, both for support and to keep her from closing it in his face.
She didn’t look up, but she knew he was there.
So he just started talking. “I called JD and we wanted to start early at the studio. Can we leave soon?”
“When?”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
She nodded.
He left.
In that whole exchange she’d said one word. He sighed, turning, and stumbled down the hall to his chair.
She appeared, ready to take him, keys in hand, in just inside five minutes. They drove along in silence, TJ trying to figure out how to make her come up to get him afterward.
JD met them at the front of the studio, guitar case in hand. Norah smiled at him. “It’s good to see you, again.”
“When are you coming for dinner?”
She shook her head, looking for all the world like she was so sad that she couldn’t make it. What a beautiful liar she was. “Oh, I’d love to but I’m moving out this afternoon.”
JD laughed. “You’re still invited to dinner.”
“I’ll see.” And she drove off.
In two minutes with his brother she’d spoken more words than in the three days since she had fled, leaving him in her bed.
JD waited until they were in the studio, but as soon as the door clicked, he spoke. “I’ve seen that face before.”
TJ’s eyebrows rose. Since he’d never felt like this before, he had no clue where his brother might have seen ‘that face’ before. Even though he didn’t ask, JD answered. “In my own mirror, when I couldn’t get things right with Kelsey.”
That had been over six years ago, and TJ winced now that he had teased his brother mercilessly about falling in love with his neighbor.
“What happened?”
TJ gave the short version. “We made love, the condom broke, she fled.”
“So she might be pregnant?”
TJ shook his head. “No, she made certain that she got a morning after pill within a few hours. Apparently the thought of being pregnant by me made her shake and vomit.”
JD winced at that one. Then he took a breath and spoke again. “You know, you’re giving up awful easily. It’s clear that you’re in love with her. You waited a long time for this.”
TJ didn’t point out that he hadn’t been waiting, and he certainly hadn’t wanted this. Still he nodded, realizing his brother was right. He wanted Norah, and he got what he wanted. He would have to be more careful, more thoughtful, but he wouldn’t give up.
He tucked that thought away and changed the subject. “So I have this piece of a song in my head—” The look on JD’s face stopped him cold. Then he laughed. “Yes, I decided to try my hand at writing.”
It felt good to laugh. It would feel better to have Norah, but he tried to keep his thoughts on task. “I need guitar for it. That’s your job.”
They’d never written together before. Hell, TJ thought, he’d only ever written the one thing before. But they knew each other, and TJ cranked up the mic so he could hear what his one line sounded like. “It just always seems it goes / that the one you can’t have is the one you want the most.”
JD listened. “That’s fairly hard.”
“Well, we have to keep up
our punk side. It’s getting harder to do with all that mushy crap you write for Kelsey.” He didn’t mention his own ‘mushy crap’ that he’d been fine tuning the last week.
Thankfully his brother laughed at him, then thought for a minute before pulling a string of notes and chords out of his brain. TJ nodded, it was exactly what he’d wanted. They tried it together. JD added a line of lyric. They tried it again. TJ added to it.
It still wasn’t quite there. Alex and Craig passed by outside the small window, then turned the handle entering the room. TJ and JD just played what they had, and Alex nodded, pulling out his sticks. He added a drumline to it, and Craig then also picked up a set of sticks and, standing over Alex, added more drums around him.
TJ looked around. He’d never been part of this before. JD and Craig were the writers, Alex occasionally added, and he himself had changed lines here and there. But he’d never been part of synthesizing a piece before.
JD pointed at the ground, “Go lower on that last part.”
They played and tuned and tweaked and only managed to run a few of their old songs. TJ stayed on his stool, not ready to go crashing around the studio. But his lungs didn’t give out anywhere near as fast as they had previously.
Three hours later they packed things away. Alex was already anxious to get home to Bridget and his new daughter. Craig was anxious to get away from Alex and his wallet full of baby pictures. TJ wanted to get back to Norah. He had work to do.
JD hung back after the others had left, “Are you going to go after her?”
“I guess I have to.” TJ shrugged as though it would be that easy.
“I’ll stay here. I’m parked at the curb and I don’t want to intrude on your time.”
TJ nodded and stuck himself back in the chair, grateful that his brother was a better man than he had been, and hadn’t given him hell about falling for Norah.
She pulled up just as he pushed through the front doors. With more efficiency than was necessary, she popped his chair closed and stuck it in the seat behind his. He stayed on his feet while she did it, then slid in.
About a block away, she started talking. At first he was just grateful for the sound of multiple words at one time. But then he heard what she was saying.
“I’m just dropping you off. All my things are at my Dad’s now. I’ll be back to get you to the studio tomorrow morning. Ten, right?”
And that was it. He said ‘yes’ because she had steered the conversation to his one-word answer and then closed down again.
He watched her while she drove back to his place. Her hair was unbound, a blue-black shimmer falling just past her shoulders. A few big, loopy, wild curls defied the slick brushing she’d given it. Her aquamarine eyes stared straight ahead at the road, in open defiance of his perusal. Her nose was straight and stubborn, her mouth set against him.
He had his work cut out for him.
When she pulled into the driveway he allowed her to help in ways he no longer needed. He climbed out of the car and let her pull the chair from behind his seat. He could do it, but most likely she did it because she was used to it. Norah probably wouldn’t have gotten out of the car at all if she’d realized.
When she held the chair open for him he ignored it, instead stepping around and taking her into his embrace. She stiffened, but TJ chose to ignore that. He put his mouth next to her ear, hoping she felt any portion of the rush he got being this close to her. “I’m going to miss having you here, Norah.”
She didn’t respond verbally. But for just a moment he thought he felt her relax in his arms. He couldn’t help the reaction from his body. His arms tightened around her and he breathed in the smell of her.
She stiffened and pulled away. Offering a forced half-smile, she hopped into the car. She left him standing there in the driveway as she practically left rubber on the pavement in an attempt to get away from him.
TJ didn’t know whether to be encouraged or disheartened.
Chapter 29
Norah pulled into her own driveway, nearly crying. Her father should be home any minute now. She fled through the front door, tears starting as she fumbled the key.
The old farmhouse should have screamed ‘home’ at her, but it didn’t. She could see the old couch more for what it was. She could see photos of Lilah and her doctor husband and kids, photos of Norah, dancing. And one lone photo of herself, with Jeff and Jordan, happy at a picnic. Her father insisted on keeping it up, even though she hadn’t been able to bear the sight of it.
Now she could.
She blinked at it for a minute before realizing that it didn’t hold her attention one way or the other, and she fled up the stairs to her room as fat tears fell.
When she heard footsteps on the wooden planks of the front porch and the key in the old lock, she jumped up. Her feet carried her back down the stairs where she flung herself into her father’s arms.
He dropped his briefcase and hugged her back. “Honey, what’s wrong?”
She shook her head against him, not able to talk.
His hand stroked her hair, and for a minute he just offered the parental comfort of a hug. “Did you fall in love with the hunk?”
She nodded, still not looking at him.
He smiled. “It’s about time.”
She knew he was referring to Jeff. That there had been no one since her husband. But she had expected that when it finally happened it would be because she met someone and dated, and they fell in love together.
“No, Daddy, it’s bad.”
“Can you tell me?”
She sniffed, arrows piercing her heart, but she had to tell someone, and her father was the best. “I might be pregnant.”
“Is that good?” He led her over to the couch, now that she seemed to have it a little more together and was talking.
“No.”
He waited her out.
“Daddy, I can’t have another baby. I’m too scared.”
“Sounds like it may not be your choice. What about him?”
“He’s a playboy. I was the only one around and I still fell for him.” She sniffed again, thinking of that morning in TJ’s embrace. But it didn’t make her face flush, that she saved for at night, when she gave up and simply let her mind remember how he’d touched her. Like she was precious.
Her Dad searched her face and she wondered what he saw.
She didn’t have to wait long.
“Norah, you’re not stupid. There must have been something there on his part.”
“Yeah, he made me feel loved. But Daddy, I must be number ten thousand, seven hundred and ninety-two. I’m sure he knows how to make a girl feel special.”
Her Dad didn’t pull punches. It was one of the things she liked best about him. “He’s not that small a number on your list either.”
Norah winced. She had only ever been with Jeff, until a year after he died. Then she’d gone crazy, seeking companionship in the form of sex whenever she found a suitable partner. Her Dad knew about that, too. She didn’t answer.
“He’s different.”
She snorted. “He’s different because the condom broke.”
“He was different before that, Norah. I didn’t say anything, maybe just because I was so shocked. I guess I’d given up on you ever coming around.”
Her father had given up on her coming around?
He continued, “I thought maybe you would never fall in love again. But when we went out to dinner after you first moved out there, you talked about him all evening. About how he always got back up, about how he got himself back together, wondering if you’d made the right decisions expecting things out of him. Your face lit up, honey. I haven’t seen that since you were a kid.”
Norah cried earnestly then.
“And you were a kid then, Norah. A kid with a big heart, a good boy, and some really bad luck.”
It didn’t help to have her father pointing out that she’d had these feelings for TJ all along. For a minute he let her sit there with her te
ars.
“Honey, I imagine he feels more for you than you think. I’ve never known you to throw yourself at anyone.”
Norah shook her head, the tears still falling. Her father was sweet, but clearly biased. He’d never understand how someone couldn’t fall in love with his baby girl. Norah could. “He’s used to getting whoever he wants. I’m not what he chooses when he has his pick.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.”
She wanted to laugh, but her chest was too tight. “He likes me as a friend, and if he found me attractive then I put the two together wrong. Loving someone and having sex with them doesn’t mean that you’re in love. It doesn’t mean that you want to be with that person.”
This time it was her Dad that snorted. “Don’t I know that.”
It didn’t make her feel any better about TJ, but it did make her laugh. Her father had been pursued by a string of girlfriends since he moved here. Norah knew her elopement with Jeff had been the final straw in her parents’ marriage; her mother had wanted to disown her and her father had wanted his grandchild. She also knew enough now to not start that conversation again.
Her dad got up off the couch, picked up his briefcase, and gave her a minute to compose herself. Then he wandered into the kitchen. “I guess we should eat here, so you can tell me about this baby you’re going to have.”
She followed him. “I don’t even know yet if there is a baby. I have to wait.”
“All right.”
Her chest worked, and she needed to get it out. “I went to the clinic. Well, I ran to the clinic, and got a morning after pill. I took it.”
Her Dad frowned as he filled a pot with water for rice.
“I started shaking when I realized what I had just done. I went right back home and vomited it up.”
He nodded absently as he turned the stove on. “When are you going to tell him?”
“He thinks I took the pill. I told him I did. So I guess I’ll say something if—” She really couldn’t push the words I’m pregnant out her mouth again. Saying I might had been hard enough. “If there’s something to tell.”
Love Notes Page 14
