HeartStrings

by Savannah Kade

  Brian went reluctantly, and she shut the door. Then she bolted it.

  Turning, she passed Craig and headed back to the boys' room to find Aaron. He'd grabbed some of the generic click blocks she'd bought for him, but it seemed he'd then crawled into bed and was almost back asleep. How early had Brian woken him this morning? She kept her voice calm and soft as she tried to bring her boil down to a simmer. "How was your trip, sweetie?"

  "Okay." He didn't look up at her and she figured that was okay. He was safe here.

  "Can I have a hug?" She crouched down next to his toddler bed and held her arms out. Her baby went willingly and even gave her a big kiss on the cheek.

  Then she had to deal with Craig. Aaron seemed to not care that a strange man was standing in the doorway to his mother's room. Did that mean he trusted her? Was it because she obviously wasn't upset by this, then he wasn't. Or did it mean that he was used to strange people coming and going—which could only have happened at his dad's house.

  Shay turned back to her son. "Are there a lot of people at your dad's house?"

  "Mmmm-hmmm." He looked up, answering like the innocent he was, then focused back on the blocks clutched in his hands, his eyes drifting shut. She rotated cleanly away from him before clenching her fists and giving a silent yell of every swear word she knew.

  Craig saw. Reaching out, he grabbed at her clenched hands and opened them, rubbing his fingers down her palms, soothing her hands and her. She let him, until he put their foreheads together, and whispered. "It's going to be okay."

  She smiled at him.

  That's what you were supposed to do—smile and agree—but it was not going to be okay. She needed another fifteen thousand dollars to match what the lawyer had suggested she have on hand. It was enough for a slightly protracted court battle. It would be enough, she hoped, to outlast both of her exes. Winning one was not enough.

  When he leaned in to kiss her, she twisted away. Everything was wrong. Even having Craig here, even stealing what was supposed to be her own time didn't work. "You have to go."

  He sucked in a breath, but he understood. With a quick nod, he ducked back into the bedroom and gathered his things, shoved his feet into his socks then his shoes. He moved past where she stood in the hall, watching her son sleep and being grateful she had him home. Owen would be home the next afternoon. Then she would have both her boys for one evening, until school started. Until next time.

  "Shay!"

  She startled. He must have called her several times, and she looked up to see him motioning her into the living room.

  "I'm so sorry." She shrugged at him. She'd told him she had kids. Told him her life wasn't a fairy tale or a fling. Not shockingly, it had played out exactly that way.

  He shook his head at her, seemed to understand she didn't want to introduce him or parade him in front of her son either. He did pull her close and offer a sweet kiss that made her long for a home she'd never known. Something like she'd seen on TV as a kid, but with a deeper bedrock than even that.

  He kissed her once more, then nodded at her and left.

  He didn't say goodbye, and she wondered if that was on purpose.

  It was all she could do to stand and watch out the small front window as the Mercedes backed out the driveway, turned in the street, and drove away. She hadn't meant to let it happen, and he probably hadn't meant to do it, but he'd taken a piece of her with him.

  She wanted to think it would bring him back, but it didn't matter if it did or not. She'd had a fling in Miami, and she'd mistakenly tried to bring it home. Even without the boys here, it didn't work. So she worked on cutting loose the part he took with him.

  He hadn't turned into an asshole. Yet. So it was still a good memory. Something to take out and turn over and replay in her mind when she was lonely. Something she could think would happen, maybe one day when everything was sorted out.

  Forcing herself to turn away from the empty street she'd stared at long after he was gone, Shay enjoyed an evening with her youngest. Once he woke up, they threw the ball on the lawn, played blocks, and ate the best left over hamburger she'd ever had. Aaron invited her in for a slumber party, so she slept in Owen's bed that night.

  The next night, she'd have her boys back. In the past, she always thought of that as being whole again. But even with Owen's return, she didn't quite feel whole.

  Three days later, another bouquet arrived. No note this time, no card, nothing but the feeling she got inside to identify the sender.

  The day after she got two texts.

  —How did you like the flowers?

  —I loved them

  Then

  —When?

  —I can’t.

  Chapter 12

  Craig sat in rehearsal like a lump. He hit notes, sure. Played all the right chords at all the right times and managed to do so with exactly zero enthusiasm.

  It disturbed him at a cerebral level. He'd fought hard for the right to play music for money. Getting to this level, there had been many nights he'd eaten ramen noodles or nothing at all. Times he spent the only money he had on guitar strings instead of shelter or needed clothing.

  But now his lack of energy affected more than just him; he wasn't a solo artist. As much as it pained him to be relied on, he'd set himself up as an integral part of the band. This was the only true family he'd ever known.

  They didn't seem to notice that he wasn't even really there.

  Or maybe they did and they didn't care? Craig didn't really see that as a possibility. It was more likely that they noticed and they simply figured that's the way he was; he'd snap out of it soon.

  No one asked about him disappearing for five days. Then again, it was possible they had no real idea what he'd done. After all, he'd answered texts and returned phone calls. They might have no clue he'd even been out of town, or that he'd thrown his heart at the feet of a woman.

  It hadn't been stomped on. Just turned away.

  Stomping might have been better. It would have been a reaction. Had she been a bitch, he could have hated her.

  Instead, she wouldn't carve out a space for him in her already overcrowded life. It was hard to be mad at that. Having been on the receiving end of both good mothering and bad, and despite all that never having had a real mother, Craig couldn't fault her.

  How could he ask her to take time from her children?

  How could he ask her to stand up to not one, but two, ex-husbands who wouldn't take kindly to his presence? It would create shock waves in her life and create battles she shouldn't have to fight.

  Despite his knowledge of the situation, and his belief that she'd probably made the right choice, his heart caved in, and he hit his notes with perfunctory attention that his skill and talent managed to hide a bit. By the end of the rehearsal, JD had only said that they all sounded a bit rusty.

  JD probably thought Craig sounded like he was rusting, more like. But they all slapped each other on the back. JD headed home to be with his wife and kids. They were tight-knit, JD's little family. The six of them—soon to be seven—were like magnets always pulling back to the others. Alex and Bridget didn't seem quite that way.

  Craig hadn't examined it before, and he didn't know why he was doing it now, but he couldn't help it. Alex and Bridget seemed to like their life more than each other. Like they each had found a spot they fit into perfectly, and each was content in that role. It was an interesting concept to Craig. He hadn't really considered that he needed a spot. He'd always thought he needed a someone.

  He tried to shake it off. So when TJ asked if he wanted to head downtown for drinks, it felt like a terrible idea. "We can find an open bar, maybe an open stage, and maybe some open chicks."

  "Sounds great." Craig slipped his bass strap over his head and locked the instrument away with practiced ease.

  Nash-Vegas—as the downtown strip was often referred to—lit up like fireworks. Every door was open, and every bar had live music playing. Craig knew. Wilder played some of thes
e places before they got signed. Before their songs hit the radio. Before he realized that fame was a web he could easily get tangled in.

  He was in the passenger seat of TJ's hot new ride before he realized he'd actually agreed. The bar they chose was another door among many embedded along the buildings standing shoulder to shoulder for blocks. Restaurants flanked bars, and even sat atop them, open to the air and the generally good weather of the beginning of fall.

  TJ didn't choose one of those.

  He rode the crowded street with the top down. The smile on Craig's face was more something he was in the habit of doing, rather than something he felt.

  "Here we go, man." TJ swung a quick right and let himself out of the low-slung car even as he made a smooth movement to hand over the keys to the street-side valet.

  Mimicking the slick motions, Craig unfolded himself from the passenger side and turned to his friend. "Where to tonight?"

  "Wherever the women are hot and the drinks are flowing." TJ's wide grin showed off straight teeth and the confidence needed in a lead singer and front man. For the first time Craig looked at him through jaded eyes.

  He loved TJ. The man was as close to a brother as he had. But TJ was built for fame. Wide smile, genuine laugh—or it sounded that way even when it wasn't. A quick answer, a ready comeback, or a smooth line. And he never missed a beat. The velvet voice didn't hurt him any either.

  Craig had been happy to be along for the ride.

  TJ had three beers to his one when it happened.

  "Don't I know you from somewhere?" The blond was looking at them, her eyes narrowed but her mouth wide. It was a look that was coming more and more often lately.

  "Maybe." TJ drew out the word, leaned on the bar and waited her out.

  This was the moment they'd started counting about two years ago—how long before someone recognized them?

  When they stayed out all night and it didn't happen, TJ would bar crawl hoping for someone to say they loved him. Craig had done it, too. He'd enjoyed the sly smiles, the moves, the conquests. He was reaching for that feeling tonight, to find that it slipped through his fingers each time he thought he grasped it.

  "Are you in a band? Did I see you on stage?"

  "Maybe at the Ryman." TJ casually threw out the name of one of the most famous local theaters.

  Craig leaned on the counter, knowing the blond's brunette friend was sauntering over in her short skirt and cowboy boots. She was eying what her friend was reeling in. Craig felt his eyebrows lift in an invitation he hadn't meant to invoke.

  "What's your name, drummer boy?" The brunette asked him, a quirk to her lips as she checked him out head to toe.

  "Craig." He responded, easily, cockily maybe despite the fact that he was not the drummer. Did she think he was Alex? The smile though was just his natural response to her question. Coming as much from habit as rehearsal earlier had. "This is TJ." He tipped his head toward his friend and watched as TJ winced just a little.

  Craig had just thrown the game.

  TJ liked to make them figure it out. He toyed with them until they recognized him themselves. But the two first names together were often enough of a clue, and Craig wasn't up for a drawn-out game tonight. Focusing on the woman who was looking at her friend as though they'd discovered a secret, he at least enjoyed when they figured out who they'd netted.

  "Oh my God. Y'all are from Wilder, right?" The blond gushed, her body leaning closer to TJ. He didn't lean back towards her. He liked to let her do the work.

  "Yes, ma'am." He took another swig of his beer and left it at that.

  The brunette eyed Craig again, until he felt like he was a car she was having trouble deciding if she would buy. He wouldn't have been surprised had she run her hand along his leg to check the upholstery or asked if he had a Dolby sound system. Then she seemed to make her choice and stepped boldly between his legs.

  He leaned back. It was no longer about making her do the work. Suddenly she was in his personal space, and suddenly he cared.

  He didn't usually and found himself confused by his own reaction. The woman's makeup was too heavy. Up close, he could see that she was painted like a canvas, three shades lined her eyes and he wondered at the amount of effort required for a temporary effect.

  "Buy me a drink?" Her grin turned an odd combination of sweet and feral, but he signaled the bartender and put her pink mojito on his tab. Thanking him and grinning slyly, she licked the straw. The blatantly sexual move just didn't grab him and he was getting pissed about it.

  Next the two started into asking them to play something. As though, by virtue of being musicians, they always had their instruments and always played music. Though TJ was prone to let himself get talked up on stage if there was a gap in the music, there wasn't one tonight. Despite the women's efforts, the two guys wouldn't interrupt another musician on stage.

  There had been an incident early on, where TJ and Craig had been drinking and had let the crowd get out of hand. Another band had ended their set early due to the uproar in the bar about having half the hot new band Wilder in their midst. The way they had hurt that musician still left a sour twist in Craig's stomach when he thought about it. But it joined a handful of other sour twists. There was plenty of easy company among his regrets.

  Suddenly, TJ was signaling him that he was out the door.

  Craig knew the drill; he'd find his own way home. TJ was getting lucky. Then again, TJ was born lucky.

  "I have my own keys." The brunette dangled them in front of him, even the sway of the metal tag was seductive. The cold note it hit in him wasn't.

  He wanted to think he wasn't drunk enough, but that wasn't the problem. "I'm going to catch a cab."

  He turned away, catching instead an indignant huff from the woman he'd just bought an overpriced drink for. She blended back into the crowd a little too seamlessly Craig thought. It was easy; she looked like every other woman in here. When he checked back with the bartender, he saw the question. "Are you paying your friend's tab, too?"

  Of course he was. Craig nodded.

  It wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last. TJ often forgot things like money when a hot piece of ass was involved. Craig never forgot about it. But all things equal, he had an old truck and TJ let them arrive in style. TJ made all of it possible, because despite Craig's moves, he didn't have TJ's magnetic power. And Wilder wouldn't be Wilder without TJ up front. So if he picked up the tab once in a while, it wasn't a problem. What he needed now was a ride home.

  Leaving the change on the counter for the bartender, Craig pushed himself away and then wound his way out the door. Though it was only twenty feet away, it took a while to make it past the throngs pushing their way inside and despite swimming in a sea of people, he felt horribly alone.

  Maybe it was because they were all moving into the club and he was the lone person headed out. Maybe because something seemed to have broken recently and he didn't know how to fix it. For a kid who started broken and stayed that way, it was definitively disturbing to think there might not be a way around it.

  On the street, more people moved in masses, leaving gaps that echoed the noise of the people off the brick siding. They laughed, they chatted, they took pictures of themselves and each other. They all looked happier than he felt. Were they hiding it better?

  Or did they simply have something he lacked?

  Craig was pretty sure it was the second. There was something magical about a mom and a dad and a house and a dog. He'd had these things sometimes, but they'd only ever been lent to him. Each time, the lender had taken his things back and sent Craig on his way without them, on his own, his own meager belongings in a black trash bag as he headed to the next stop.

  Even when he'd run out on his own, he hadn't had more things than fit into the cloth grocery bag he'd stolen. It had been a huge step up from the disposable plastic bags he was used to carrying around. And no one had gone with him.

  Hands shoved down into his pockets, Craig found h
imself at the sidewalk, in one of the gaps between people. He shouldn't be standing there alone. As he hailed a cab, he thought of the first way to fix it.

  Chapter 13

  Had he been able to, Craig would have gone the night before straight from the bar, but it wasn't open. Nashville, despite having a party section, wasn't a party town. Unlike New York or L.A. and a ton of other big cities, most of the town rolled up their sidewalks after ten or eleven.

  So when the cab dropped him home at nearly two a.m., he was the only one up and about in the neighborhood, and there were no businesses willing to speak to him.

  But he was able to hop online and look up what he needed and found that seven a.m. was the time. After a shower and some food, he realized he still wasn't going to be able to sleep. Two infomercials later he went to Walmart and spent an hour checking out his options.

  At four a.m. as he was staring at the beds, a woman recognized him. "Aren't you the bassist from the new band 'Wilder'?"

  Craig shook his head, "I just look like him." He offered a sad grin and an expression that he hoped suggested the woman had made an honest mistake.

  "You sure sound like him, too." She smiled.

  "I'll take that as a complement." He turned away, hands in pockets, a good place to keep them.

  For some reason, two things struck him then. One, that the woman might have been hitting on him. You'd think he'd have a better handle on that. He had plenty of experience getting hit on, he should recognize it. Where had that skill gone? Why was he even questioning her motives rather than confidently assessing them?

  The second thing that struck him was that sticking his hands in his pockets was a remnant of one of his foster moms. She'd told him to do that to keep from touching things that didn't belong to him. So why had that lesson stuck so well? Why was it that nothing belonged to him?

  He was out to change that today. He couldn't have Shay. He wasn't going to get what JD had. But he could have his own little slice of things. And he could touch the things in front of him on the shelves and he could buy them if he broke them.