by Cherrie Lynn
“Looks like this baby is a girl!” the tech confirmed.
Savannah bent over to throw her arms around Rowan’s neck, careful not to disrupt the wand. A girl. For some reason, knowing was more of a relief than she had expected, and now she allowed a tear or two to slip free and dampen Savannah’s scrubs.
“A little princess,” Regina said, dabbing underneath her own eyes with a tissue she’d plucked from a box on the counter. “Oh, I can’t wait to spoil her.”
“Little mama here might have something to say about that,” Savannah said, laughing as she stood straight again. Rowan had noticed Savannah intervening on her behalf whenever she had a chance to. While she was eternally grateful for the advocacy, she didn’t want to end up the cause of a tiff between them. Their relationship could be a little touchy at times as well.
“Rowan, I have a wonderful idea,” Regina said. Oh, God. She’d learned to brace herself whenever she heard those words. Unfortunately, she had no idea how bad it could get. “I had been thinking of this, but I wanted to make sure we were able to find out the sex today. We should do a gender reveal at Tommy’s birthday party.”
Rowan’s entire being froze, and her gaze locked with Savannah’s. “Mom, let’s talk about this later,” Savvy said quickly, but Rowan couldn’t let her fight her battle this time.
“No,” she said firmly. “I’m not okay with that.”
The tech, eyebrows high and mouth resolutely closed, continued to take pictures on her screen. Regina’s expression was the exact opposite: lips parted in shock, eyebrows low in confusion. “You’re not?”
“Hell, no, Regina. Absolutely not.”
“But it would be a beautiful moment for everyone to see. Maybe have the cake be pink when we cut into it, surprising everyone, or balloons—”
“I’m not even sure I’ll be at your party. I don’t feel much like celebrating.”
“But we’re celebrating his life.”
“You go right ahead. I’m still trying to learn how to live with his death.”
“Okay, okay,” Savannah said, moving over to place a hand on her mother’s arm. “Like I said, let’s save this for later. I am so sorry,” she quickly added to the tech. “It’s been a . . . very emotional time for our family.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” the tech said gravely, her big brown eyes kind as she looked down at Rowan. “I didn’t know.”
“You couldn’t, it’s okay. Thank you.”
“I’m getting plenty of pictures for you. Look here, and you can see the spine . . .”
Twenty minutes later, the women emerged from the clinic without a word into oppressive heat, the humidity so thick Rowan immediately felt her hair, which she’d straightened this morning, begin to wilt and curl. She’d been burning up lately, sweating profusely even in the air-conditioning at home, so it was particularly brutal for her. She couldn’t get to her car door fast enough, clicking the key fob and hoping she could escape before Regina said a word. She should have known that wasn’t happening.
“It was just an idea,” Regina snapped, following her with clicking heels.
Rowan snatched open her car door and whirled on her. “I don’t like the idea. I get why you want to do it, okay? I understand. I just don’t want to be a part of it.”
“You’re being very selfish.” Regina’s eyes swam with tears, her voice wavered, and Rowan felt about as tall as the ants on the concrete beneath their feet. “We received one blessing out of this horrible situation, and it’s that baby. That’s enough to celebrate all by itself.”
“Then celebrate! Are you hearing me? But please, do it without me.”
“How on earth can we do that?” Regina all but shrieked at her.
Savannah had come up behind her mother, laying a hand on her shoulder. “Mom, listen to her, okay? She’s dealing with it in a different way than you are. You have to respect that.”
“Are you not happy with this pregnancy?” Regina demanded, and Rowan recoiled a step. “I see through you. Your smiles are always forced. You never want to come shopping with me. You acted like you couldn’t care less in there just now, and you embarrassed me in front of that woman, speaking to me that way. What do you think Tommy would have said if he’d heard you?”
He probably would have told you to back the fuck off. It wouldn’t have been the first time. “Forgive me if I can’t find much happiness right now. I’m going through this without him. It’s hard to feel exactly overjoyed about it.”
“You’re not alone, though. You have us. You have our entire extended family, and we want to make this a special time for you!”
“Except that you can’t,” she practically snarled, and now it was Regina’s turn to step back. “It’s a horrible fucking time for me, Regina. Stop telling me how I should feel, stop telling me what I should do, and stop telling me what Tommy would want, because you didn’t know him as well as you thought you did.”
“How dare you? After everything we’ve done—”
“You have. You have done so much, and I love you, I really do. But I can’t take this anymore. Please, just . . . give me time to come to terms with this. I need to work on me before I’m ready for this baby.” I’m in my cocoon, and you can’t tear me out no matter how badly you want to.
Even Savannah was looking at her warily, her full lips tight, and Rowan knew she’d crossed a line there was no stepping back over. For all of Regina’s meddling, for all of her domineering ways, she was Savannah’s mother. Immediately, Rowan wanted to take back all of her words, erase the looks on their faces, go back to the way things had been when they’d walked into this building a little over an hour ago. Start all over and handle it a little better this time.
For God’s sake, she’d said the F word in front of her. “Regina . . . I’m sorry. It’s hot, and I’m hormonal, and . . .” At last, she gave up, staring down at her shoes. A few more weeks and she didn’t think she’d be able to see them anymore, at least without leaning over a bit. “I’m sorry. This still feels like some alternate universe, some nightmare I’m still waiting to wake up from.”
She wasn’t going to get off that easily. If there was one thing Tommy had inherited from his mother besides her laugh, it was her temper. “Well, it’s not,” Regina snapped. “This is reality, honey, and you don’t have long to adjust to it before your life changes in ways you can’t even possibly imagine right now. You’d better hope to have supportive people around you when that happens, Rowan. You’d better hope you haven’t chased us all away, being so ungrateful.”
“Mom,” Savannah said desperately while Rowan stood stunned. “Stop. Time out. Everyone needs to cool off, and then we can talk about this rationally. Okay? I need to get back to work but I’m not leaving either one of you this way.”
“I’ve said everything I need to say.” Regina lifted her regal chin, directing her dark, angry gaze at her daughter. “Get to work if you need to.” She glanced back at Rowan, but just as Rowan thought she was going to say something else, Regina turned on one Louboutin heel and clicked away to her Escalade.
Savannah watched her go, looking helpless. “Oh my God,” she said at last, when the SUV door slammed shut and the engine turned over. “Rowan . . .”
“I know,” Rowan said, hating how small she sounded. “I royally fucked up.”
“She can’t stay mad for long, though. I mean, you are carrying her granddaughter, after all.”
“You see it too, huh?”
Savannah frowned at her. “What?”
“Sometimes I think that’s probably the only reason she has anything to do with me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Give her some time to cool off. By tomorrow she’ll be ready to go out and make amends over retail therapy.”
“I’m afraid I won’t be ready for amends until she abandons this dumbass party idea.”
“Give her a break, Ro. Please? Would it absolutely kill you to show up for a little while and open a stupid fucking box full of pink balloons t
o make her happy? She did the same kind of crap when my grandfather died. It’s how she deals. And surely you remember Tommy was no different. If he had his way we’d throw a party for him every month. Lots of people and lots of food, laughing about all the dumb shit he did.”
Rowan couldn’t help but chuckle. God, it was true, and she’d never really put it together before that it was another way he and his mother had been similar. Social butterflies, people lovers, the brightest and loudest in the room. Loudest especially when you pissed them off. It was that temper, that stubbornness, she knew, that had pushed him to get into the cage with Mike Larson when he shouldn’t have. He’d had a slight head injury from training that spelled his demise from one catastrophically placed punch, but Tommy Dugas could never back down. Oh hell no.
“She needs the people she loves around her, and she needs to focus on the joy of the situation,” Savannah continued. “And honestly? I can’t really blame her for that, Rowan. I’m sorry, but I think you’re out of line on this one.”
The words weren’t unkind, spoken in Savannah’s usual gentle way. Unlike Tommy, she had a way of telling you off that made you feel as if you should thank her afterward. Unless she was really pushed.
“No,” Rowan sighed at last, “I know it wouldn’t kill me to show up.” But it would beat her down deeper into her hole, and she feared she wouldn’t have the strength to regain the ground she’d lost for quite a long time. “But she needs to respect my feelings if she wants me to respect hers. That’s only fair. I shouldn’t have to feel like shit just so she can feel better.”
“There has to be some sort of compromise. We’ll put our heads together, okay? Maybe we can come up with something she’ll be good with.”
Rowan gave her a tight smile and accepted her parting hug so she could get back to work.
But if Savannah believed the words that had just come from her mouth, Rowan had to question whether she knew her own mother at all.
* * *
The studio had been home for the past couple of days. Zane had crashed on the couch in there more often than in his own bed, drifting off with melodies in his head and a pen in his hand, only to wake up and get right back to work. Before long, the band would have to get ready for their tour dates, and it couldn’t be a worse time for an interruption. Their momentum on the new album was rolling, and he knew from experience that the work they would get done on the road would be minimal.
The fans had been waiting on this long enough. It was already overdue.
He was dozing when his phone buzzed on the floor beside him, jerking him awake and causing his lyric book to tumble off his stomach to the floor. Yawning, he picked it up and answered without checking the display. “Yeah.”
“Zane?” Rowan’s sweet voice sounded uncertain. Zane shot upright, instantly awake and wiping the bleariness from his eyes.
“Hey! Hey, sorry.”
“Oh, God, did I wake you up?”
“Yeah, but it’s all right.” It was midafternoon; he needed to get his lazy ass up and working again. “Power nap. How are you?”
“Fine,” she said, but immediately he knew she didn’t sound fine. “I just got home from the doctor.”
Everything within him froze: heart, lungs, life. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m having a girl.” The trembling in her voice belied the brightness she tried to inject into it. He let his breath out in a rush.
“Well, that’s great. Right?”
“It is. It’s great. I got into a major fight with my mother-in-law, and Savannah is more or less taking her side, but other than that, it’s fine.”
“Sorry to hear that.” He frowned, suspicion sparking. She hadn’t already told them about his offer to let her spend time on the tour, had she? “What was it about?”
“She wants to have a gender reveal on Tommy’s birthday. Have people over, the whole thing. I’m not okay with it. I’m not up for anything like that.”
“Seems to me like it should be your call. You’re the one having the baby.”
“That’s kinda how I look at it.” She chuckled without humor. “But apparently I’m an ingrate.”
“And Savannah is taking her side?”
“Her position is that it’s a small sacrifice to make her mom feel better.”
“What about you feeling better?”
“That’s my position.”
“Yeah. I don’t know, Rowan. I’m the last person to ask about these things.”
“Haven’t you . . . lost someone?”
He rubbed his eyes again, digging his thumb and index finger in to the point of pain. He’d hinted at his past before in the press, but he’d never publicly divulged the details, and no amount of gouging his eyes was going to erase the images engraved on the insides of his eyelids. “Yeah. I have. But these family dynamics . . . my brothers are all I’ve ever had.”
“Ever?”
“Might as well say that.”
He didn’t know his dad. Some random guy, no doubt—enough of them had come in and out of his mother’s bed. If she was lucky, they left money on the dresser on their way out, but it was money that had gone into her veins instead of into her sons’ hungry mouths. Zane still wore the scars from a few of the ones who had stuck around to feed her habit in exchange for God knew what kind of sexual favors. He could still hear the sounds in the night. Mike and Damien would never talk about it, but he knew they could too.
He had enough nightmares to fuel a lifetime of dark creative endeavors.
“I didn’t mean to hit you with my problems when you’re just waking up.” She sighed. “I can let you go.”
“No, no. I’m happy to be here for you.” Grabbing his pen and his lyric book, he reclined on the couch, propping his head on the armrest and bending his knees. The lyrics for Rowan’s song were in this book; he turned to the page and imagined her wherever she was right now, her little downturned mouth and sad green eyes. He wished she had FaceTimed him. But she hadn’t, so he left that up to her. “What are you doing? Right now.”
“Um . . . lying on my bed.”
Fuck. If only things were different. “I miss you,” he ventured, swearing he could hear her breath catch.
“Zane . . .”
“I know. You don’t need me fucking things up worse for you right now. If this offer I made is messing with your head, then I apologize. Don’t feel like you have to do it. I was an asshole for pushing like that, knowing how things are.”
“It still stands, though, doesn’t it?” she asked. He liked that the barest note of panic was in her voice, hoping that it meant she still might be considering taking him up on it. Zane sketched on the paper balanced on his drawn-up thighs, creating an image of her face from memory. While he was a better artist musically than he was with pen and paper, he didn’t suck. He gave her an ethereal, angelic quality, no less than she deserved. A little angel with a broken wing.
“Of course it does. Always.”
“I listened to the song.”
“‘The Niles Edge’?”
“Yes. It’s beautiful. Do you have any more? I like you broadening my horizons.”
“And I like broadening them. Elysian Fields. ‘Black Acres.’”
“I’ll make a note.”
“I have a condition, though.”
“What?”
“You have to think of me.”
She was silent a moment. “I already think of you more than I should.”
“I wouldn’t have that any other way, Rowan.” No sooner had he said it than the door flew open and Mike stuck his head in. Seeing Zane was on the phone, he gave a wave of his hand and stepped back out again. Zane sighed. “Mike is here. I gotta go. Can I FaceTime you later?”
“Sure, I’d like that.”
“The guys will be here after seven, so it’ll be before then. We’re probably pulling an all-nighter.”
“Oh, yuck. For you anyway. Good for your fans.”
“Yeah, that’s what I keep telling myse
lf. See you soon.” He hung up and then went in search of his older brother, who had free run of his house. When Zane was in the studio, he would never hear a doorbell, so Mike had a key. As usual, Zane found him in front of the TV in the living room clicking over to ESPN on the eighty-inch screen. “What’s up?” he asked, carelessly flinging himself onto the pale leather couch.
“Who were you talking to?” Mike asked. The casual observer might not have detected the tightness in the question. Zane heard an outright accusation.
“Rowan,” he said, preparing himself for the lecture.
“What’s going on with that?” Mike’s hair was military short and his eyes were an icy blue. Sometimes he barked like a drill sergeant, and he could twist any motherfucker alive into a human pretzel, but Zane was never moved to jump just because he spoke. Never, not once in his life, had Mike’s innate ferocity been turned toward him. Toward others on Zane’s behalf, yes. Many, many times. Zane had been the target of countless assholes at school, of countless assholes at home, and every time, Mike had either defended him or avenged him. Those hard, callused fists that could pound a face into hamburger meat had been infinitely gentle helping him up, dusting him off, doctoring his hurts. And he always tried to remember those times whenever he wanted to get pissed at his big, bad brother.
“I don’t know,” Zane said noncommittally. Mike was dressed in dark colors and, due to his size, practically ate up the light in the room like a black hole. “Damn, dude. I think you’re bigger than the last time I saw you. Nice gains. Training hard?” Mike’s biceps strained his T-shirt fabric to the ripping point.
“Always.” He stepped over and claimed a seat in the recliner across from Zane in one graceful motion. As built as he was, he was incredibly light on his feet and poetry in motion in the cage. “How’s the album coming?”
“About the same as the last time you asked. Want a beer?”
Mike’s brows drew together. “Why the fuck do you have beer in the house?”
“Entertaining purposes. Hence me offering you one.”
“Isn’t that a temptation you don’t need?”
Zane shrugged, absently watching the sports commentator on TV. “Beer was never my poison.” His tastes had run much harder than that.
