by Cari Quinn
“Lila said the band could work around me. I’ll just have to make up the time extra fast when I get back.”
She lifted her head. “You’re coming back.”
“Of course.”
Shaking her head, she laughed softly. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”
“I was getting around to it. Speaking of getting around to things, why did you go see Cricket?” He gripped her arm, suddenly seized by panic. “You didn’t actually buy anything from her, did you? It’s bad enough you smoked because of me. If you’re pregnant—”
“I smoked a small amount very early on. Not that it matters because I’m not pregnant. I’m also not enough of an idiot to covet a cocaine addiction.” She winced. “Sorry. Can I blame pregnancy hormones without actually being pregnant?”
He let go of her arm. “Why do I love you again?”
“Because of my winsome personality? And because I give one hell of a blowjob, with and without happy ending?”
“The second one, definitely. The first…eh, I’m not terribly impressed.”
“Funny. As for why I went to see Cricket, I paid off the rest of your debt. You no longer owe her a damn nickel.” She looked around the floor. “If I can find where I dropped my purse, I’ll show you the proof.”
“Wait a second. You paid my debt? How? With what money?”
“Mine.” She flushed. “With a little backing assistance from your parents. Yes, I called them and told them you were hurt. They came to the hospital, and we talked. They know about your…issue now.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“I asked them for a loan and explained why I needed it. I’ll fully repay them once I get more money from the tour. And the album and the next tour. Then there’s our merchandising.” She smiled bravely. “See? We’re going to be fine.”
“You won’t be repaying them. I’ll be repaying them and you. You aren’t responsible for my cash-flow problems.”
“That’s a quaint way to put it, but hell yes, I am. I’d expect the same from you if I needed your support.” She pulled the ponytail holder off her wrist and twisted her messy hair into a quick bun that somehow looked sexier than the most artfully arranged style.
“You have officially exploded my brain.” Then there was the fact that she was nauseous. Dear God. “I can’t discuss any of this right now.”
“There’s nothing to discuss.” She tugged on her skirt, fluffing the little kick pleats as if they were having an ordinary conversation. “I was overdue on doing my share of bailing out in this relationship.”
“So you just called her up and met with her?” He shook his head, awe overtaking his initial irritation that she’d used her money to play savior. That wasn’t even mentioning the potential danger she’d put herself in. “And I thought I had a pair.”
She patted her chest. “I just store mine up top.”
“That you fucking do.” He expelled a short breath. “We’re going to talk more about this later. In the meantime, do you think Harper will let us borrow her truck once more?”
“I think so, yeah. She’ll also probably demand to come along and make me take the test in the convenience store bathroom.”
“Why? Does she have a preggo fetish or something?”
“No. She knows I do, and she’s my best friend. Other than you, of course.”
“Oh.” It took him a few more deep breaths to find the strength to put aside his own needs in favor of hers. “Would you rather she go with you than me?”
“No.” She held out her hand. “C’mon. While we’re there, you can buy me some Pepto-Bismol. You know, since you have to start paying me back and all.” She rolled her eyes.
He grinned. “Is this what our life together is going to look like?”
“If we’re lucky.”
An hour later, they stared at the two pregnancy tests lined up side by side on the bathroom sink. “Well,” she said, turning away. “That settles that.”
Without saying anything, he gathered her in his arms.
“I shouldn’t have wanted it to be positive.” She pressed her cheek against his chest. “Right? Tell me I’m wrong to want that. It’s a mistake. The timing is horrible.”
“It’s not the best,” he agreed.
“But I wanted it just the same. I never let myself believe it could be true, but I almost willed those two lines to show up. And they didn’t.”
He tipped up her chin and caught her single tear with his finger. He couldn’t sort through everything he was feeling, not yet. Not today. “No. Not this time.”
“When do you have to go?”
“Soon.” He swallowed hard and turned his cheek against her hair. “Will you come with me when I tell the rest of the band that I’m going to Visions? They’re waiting downstairs.”
“Sure.” She eased back, her unshakable mask slipping into place as she moved away from him.
“Jazz. Wait.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Yeah?”
There was one thing he didn’t have to sort out. One truth he wasn’t willing to deny her for any reason. “I was willing those lines to show up too.”
Her smile only made her tears more poignant as she offered him her hand. “Let’s go.”
Thirty-Nine
Then
Jazz stepped off the bus and tucked her secondhand iPod in her pocket. The ink on the shred of paper gripped in her other hand would probably run soon. Her palms were so damp she couldn’t stop wiping them on her jeans.
Just do it. One foot in front of the other. Keep walking.
She dug out the address and made her way to the end of the block, biting her lip the whole time. She should’ve called first. A landline phone number had been included in the listing, so she should’ve used it.
I could call from outside.
No, she didn’t have many minutes left on her phone and she wasn’t going to be that much of a coward. It had been two years since she’d seen him, but that wasn’t all that long in the scheme of things. Only seven hundred something days. Barely a blink.
When she stood beside the patchy lawn of the home Gray now lived in, she flexed her fingers and imagined limbering up for a lengthy session behind the kit. It was about mental endurance as much as anything else. Playing on past the point of pain and frustration and exhaustion, even when the notes wouldn’t fall right and nothing sounded the way it did in her head. She never buckled, never stopped.
No matter what greeted her on the other side of this door, she would be fine. Unbreakable. Fucking granite.
Then he opened the door, his dark, wavy hair falling past his bare shoulders—he’d lost his shirt somewhere along the way—and his jeans hugging lean hips, and she forgot all about being stone. One glimpse was like hot lava, melting her on sight.
The cool frost burned away in his eyes, leaving only heat. “Jazz.” Her name sounded like a prayer.
“Yeah.” She smiled and adjusted her knapsack over her shoulder. “You look good.”
“Thanks. So do you.” He rubbed his hand over his mouth. “Uh, do you want to come in? You look hot. I mean, thirsty. It’s brutal out there. Want a drink? Not alcohol. Like lemonade.”
When she started to laugh, he grinned. “Fuck this noise.” He locked his arms around her waist, hauling her straight off her feet and over the threshold. She laughed harder and locked her arms around his neck, wondering how it could still feel this right. Nothing had changed. He was the lock for her key. The hand for her glove.
Fuck it, he was her everything. Still. Always.
He finally set her down, though she doubted her feet would ever truly touch the ground again. “How are you? What are you doing now?”
“Not much. I’m working at the waffle house. What about you?”
“Teaching music theory to some kindergarten kids as part of an internship.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “I still have one year left at Berkeley.”
“That’s awesome. And you’re no longer living with your parents.�
�
His face closed down. “No. I haven’t since it happened.” He held up a hand. “Don’t ask me how they are, because I don’t know. We don’t talk anymore.”
“Gray,” she said, barely unable to speak. He’d given up his family for her, and they hadn’t even been in contact. She’d never met anyone more selfless.
“Don’t. It’s done.” He scratched his chest and she tried not to watch his muscles ripple. So many freaking muscles. “What else are you up to?”
“I just finished school.”
“That’s great. Where’d you end up?”
“Trawler Community College. I finished up my high school credits and got a certificate in Early Childhood Development in one fell swoop.” She gave him a sheepish smile. “Turns out they have programs for fuckup dropouts like me.”
“Shut up. You weren’t ever a fuckup.”
“But I did drop out.”
“It isn’t dropping out if you end up somewhere better.” He tucked her hair behind her ear as he always had. “I’m so proud of you.”
She fought not to blush. “Thanks. I’m in a band.”
“Huh. Imagine that.” His grin grew. “Me too.”
“Oh yeah?” She knew exactly which one. She’d only stalked him to clubs in the area about ten times over the past year. “Maybe we should compare notes.”
“Maybe we should.” He frowned, tilting his head as he rubbed his fingers over her crowded earlobe. She was up to half a dozen piercings. “What the hell did you do to your hair?”
“Took you long enough to notice.”
“Oh, I noticed.” He rubbed his hand over the shaved part of her head that transitioned into long pink and green waves on the side. “You look fucking amazing.”
“But not hot,” she teased.
He started to respond when a door shut down the hall. She’d assumed he lived with a couple of roommates, so that didn’t surprise her. But when a curvaceous blonde came down the hall wearing just a nightshirt, carrying a basket of laundry that clearly contained a pile of boxers, Jazz stumbled back. Her heels hit the floor, hard.
“Hey, I couldn’t find the dryer sheets you bought. Are they in the—” The blonde trailed off and smiled at Jazz. “Hi. I didn’t realize we had guests. I’m Amber.” She anchored the laundry basket against her hip. “Man, your hair is sweet.”
Jazz laughed because what else could she do? Cry? Well, yeah, but that’d be later, when she was alone. “Thanks. I’m Jazz.”
“Awesome to meet you. Are you one of Gray’s music friends? You look like one of them.” She pursed her lips. “Oh my, that sounded bad. I mean, you dress funky like they do, with the ripped jeans and the cool hair and all. Of course your ass is half the size of mine.” She paused, apparently noticing Gray had yet to speak. He actually didn’t seem to be breathing, so that wasn’t too surprising. “Notice he’s not arguing with me,” she added.
“Jazz is my foster sister,” he said, almost robotically.
Jazz flinched before she could control it. You walked away. Remember that. “Used to be,” she said, making her voice as cheery as possible. “Now I’m just the girl with crazy hair he used to know.”
She turned to reach for the door, surprised to find it was still open. They’d just started talking without even closing it. Forgetting everything around them, just like the old days.
Not anymore.
“Jazz, wait.”
“I wish I could hang out longer, but I have practice. You know, us wild music types have to play as much as possible.” She smiled at Amber over her shoulder. “Nice to meet you.”
“I’ll be right back,” Gray said to Amber, following Jazz onto the sidewalk.
When she just kept walking, he grabbed her arm and spun her back. “That’s it? You’re just leaving?”
“What do you expect me to do? You have a girlfriend. She’s even pretty.”
He frowned. “Did you expect me to have one that’s not?”
“No, but it would’ve been more considerate.”
“Woman, I don’t fucking understand you. You took off for two years without a word. You gave me a fake address and a fake phone number, swapped cell numbers and dropped out of school. You did everything you could to break contact with me. What the hell did you expect me to do? Hold my dick for two years?”
“I’m not supposed to think about your dick. Because I’m your foster sister, remember?”
He swore under his breath. “What am I supposed to do? Tell me.”
“It’s already done.” She shook her head and kept walking, anchoring her knapsack higher on her shoulder. “I’ll see you around. Maybe on the cover of a magazine. Or maybe YouTube. Lots of artists get discovered on there nowadays.”
“Jesus, Jazz, wait. I couldn’t just hit the pause button on my life.”
“I know. And neither can I.”
“So that’s it? This is really the end.” He let out a harsh laugh. “I got you back only to lose you all over again.”
She stopped at the end of the sidewalk and turned back, sucking him down one last time. Bathed in unrelenting sunshine, he seemed to glisten with life and vitality. The golden boy she would always love, no matter what.
“With us, you never know.”
Forty
Now
Gray adjusted his guitar on his good shoulder and stepped onto the set where they’d be shooting the “Sugar Kiss” video. After eight weeks in rehab, his first task involved stepping in front of the camera.
Nothing like a trial by fire.
The crew bustled around the room, arranging cameras and set pieces. There was a big four-poster bed in the middle, piled high with a thick duvet and piles of fluffy pillows. He frowned. No one had mentioned a bed to him.
Then again, Lila wasn’t exactly forthcoming with details. Her instructions had been along the lines of “here’s where we’re doing the shoot, get your ass there at ten a.m. and don’t be late.”
He considered it lucky she’d given him until ten a.m., since he’d been released at eight.
Technically he could’ve gotten out last night, the official end of his two month stint. But he’d taken the last night away from the band to plan how he wanted things to go. He’d coasted for too long, just doing whatever it took to get by. Eight weeks of talking more than he’d ever wanted to in his life had helped him to realize that he couldn’t do that anymore. He’d always been someone who had concrete goals and a step-by-step way of reaching them. His ability with the guitar and 4.0 average in college hadn’t been accidents. He’d worked his ass off.
Now he had a new subject to master. Well, a couple of them. He wanted to take his skill to the next level, both with the guitar and with songwriting. He’d discovered a whole new way of making cash on the side, and that meant he couldn’t take the slacker’s way out when it came to coming up with new material. His A-game wouldn’t cut it. He needed an A+.
Then there was the even bigger goal. The one where he settled down with the girl of his dreams and they finally made it work.
It wouldn’t be easy, but he was committed to doing things the right way this time. No more two-week courtships and a proposal outside a grocery store. This go-round, they were going slow. They would date for a long while and really hit all the levels. No quickie moving into the same room, no skipping to the good stuff first. It was all good stuff, and he’d be damned if either them were cheated out of the whole experience. She was it for him, and this would be the one and only time he headed toward the altar. So they could take the scenic route.
Assuming she was on-board, of course. They hadn’t spoken much during the past eight weeks by mutual agreement. She’d been busy in the studio, and he’d been busy cleaning out his system and his mind and going more than a little stir-crazy. Once he’d found his songwriting outlet—and had started making serious use of the fitness facilities at the center—everything had started falling more into line.
Even mental exertion and physical exhaustion hadn’t stopp
ed him from wanting coke. He didn’t think of it as often as he had before, especially during the time right before rehab. But he still thought about it way too much. That would be his life now. He had to be constantly vigilant. There would never be a time he could relax and “recreationally” use any kind of substance. He had an addictive personality, and using any of his drugs of choice was a slippery slope leading to the same pit.
Including the woman he’d had to learn to love differently. Not less. That wasn’t possible. But he’d begun to figure out that she had her own life, her own decisions to make, her own world that he didn’t have to be privy to twenty-four/seven. He couldn’t shield her from everything. And that was okay, because she was a fucking wonder in every way. Her strength astounded him.
Now he had to be just as strong.
“You’re here.”
He turned at the sound of Lila’s voice and smiled. “I am.”
“Gained some weight. And some serious muscles.” She surprised him by poking his belly. “You look good.”
“Thanks. I feel good too.”
“And you kept growing out your hair. Nice.” She fluffed the ends, viewing him with an objective eye. “You’ll look great in the video, especially since it requires a little physical work, shall we say.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Last I knew, the concept involved Jazz pouring sugar on Simon.”
“Oh, that was just a wild hair.” She glanced down at her tablet and waved her bright red nails. “We went round-and-round about it. Donovan had a different visual in mind, but I convinced him to go with the sure thing.”
“And what’s that?”
She gave him a smile that could only be construed as wolfish. “You and Jasmine on a bed, making out.”
“Say what?” He set down his Epiphone between his feet. “She agreed to that?”
“Actually, it was her idea.”
Had he only been gone eight weeks? Sure didn’t feel like it right now. “Hold up. Jazz hates to be out front for long.”
“Really? You should check out the footage from Trix. She has quite the stage presence.”
