My Song For You (Pushing Limits Book 2)

by Stina Lindenblatt

  Callie pressed her teeth into her lower lip again and glanced at Logan. He was too busy shoveling fries into his mouth to notice. Callie’s voice came out as a pained whisper. “They were driving up to visit me when I was living in San Francisco.” Her voice wavered. “A cement truck failed to stop at a red light and hit them. They . . . they didn’t make it.”

  Even though I already knew that they had all died, just hearing how it had happened and hearing the guilt in Callie’s voice, as if she was personally responsible for their deaths, was too much. It felt like someone had dropped me into the depths of the frigid ocean, and the intense water pressure was squeezing the air out of my lungs. Holy fuck. My hand slammed against my mouth. I wished again that I had known about the accident. I could’ve been there for her. For my son too.

  She stroked her hand over Logan’s hair. He smiled at her, but it was clear he had no idea what we were talking about or that it impacted him.

  “So, Logan, do you have any grandparents?” I asked, despite knowing the truth.

  “No,” Logan said. “Just me and Mommy and Mrs. Rogers.” He reached for another fry and beamed at me. Then he returned his attention to his milkshake.

  To Callie I said, “Did your parents die before he was born?” I just wanted to see if she would admit the truth—or if she would compound the lies she’d already told me with more lies.

  “Um . . .” Her eyes grew wide. “Yes. Yes, they did.”

  “When did they die?” I knew I had her. Now I wanted to see how long it would take her to figure out how much I’d pieced together.

  She swallowed hard. “Just before he was born.”

  I ignored what she had said. To my ear, my tone sounded cool and calculating, nothing at all like the usual me—but nothing about this situation was usual. “And then to end up with Logan after Alexis died . . . that must have been tough.”

  When I was eleven, my sister and I had been playing catch in the living room, which was strictly forbidden. Kristen had thrown the ball at me, but her aim was way off and the ball flew into the glass vase on the bookshelf—the vase that our grandmother had given my mom shortly before Grams was diagnosed with the cancer that later claimed her life. Mom loved that vase. I had been positive my sister would suffer a heart attack from the panic at what she had done.

  That was exactly how Callie now looked sitting across from me.

  For a second I could have sworn she was going to bail without another word. To her credit, she just sat there, in shock. The same way I’d felt when Cameron had phoned me this morning.

  At last she whispered, “You know, don’t you?”

  “I know enough. We can talk about it tonight.”

  She nodded, the movement barely perceptible, and pushed her plate away, the food barely touched.

  Logan still seemed oblivious to the tension between us. He finished the last of his fries and smiled at us. “All gone.”

  “That’s right, Logan,” Callie said, eyes damp. “All gone.”

  19

  Callie

  Shit. Shit. Shit. I might have also thrown in a bonus “fuck” or two while I was at it during my shift. After Logan and Jared had left, I forced myself to ignore the hot mess waiting for me at home, and focused on my job.

  The diner door opened, and my mouth dropped open at the sight of her. She walked in with a man ten years older, who was wearing a suit I was positive cost more than what I made in three months. Tiffany was wearing a red jumpsuit that was practically painted on, her cleavage on display. It looked good on her, a direct contrast to how it would’ve looked on me. Her shiny, perfectly straight black hair swung down her back.

  I brushed behind my ear a stray strand of hair that didn’t care to stay put in my ponytail. It must have suffered from an inferiority complex after seeing Tiffany’s silky hair.

  Alice greeted them and led them to the booth in my section that Jared and Logan had vacated not that long ago. I bet the seat where Jared had sat was still warm. Though nothing about him had been warm when he left with his son.

  I finished delivering the plates to one of my tables and walked over to where Tiffany and the man were seated.

  “I’m ready to settle down here,” she told him. “It will make it a lot easier for working with the children’s charity. I want to be more hands-on than I’ve been. Sending them a check once a year just doesn’t do it for me. I need to do more. And I know Jared will be thrilled when I tell him. Part of our problem was that we didn’t live in the same city—” Her words came to a standstill when she realized I was standing next to the table, privy to her conversation.

  “Hi, I’m Callie, your waitress today. Would you like something to drink?” Somehow I said it with a level of enthusiasm I didn’t feel.

  “I’ll have a sparkling water with a lemon wedge,” Tiffany said.

  The man ordered a double espresso.

  When I returned with their drinks, they had switched topics. As far as I could tell, it had to do with acting. “Are you ready to order?”

  Not surprisingly, Tiffany ordered a plain salad with no dressing, not even on the side. My stomach rumbled at the image in my head of her lettuce-only meal. Even rabbits ate more—but I guess rabbits didn’t pose for the cover of Vogue.

  “I wonder what she’s doing here,” Beckie said from behind the counter, her eyes darting briefly toward Tiffany.

  Liam, a part-timer who usually worked the evening shift, grabbed a glass and began filling it with Coke from the soda fountain. “Rumor has it she moved to L.A. to focus on her acting career. And rumor also has it she’s hoping to make things more permanent with her ex.”

  At the thought of which ex he was referring to, dread skated through me and did a triple axel. Kristi Yamaguchi would’ve been impressed. ”You mean Jared Leigh, right?”

  Beckie’s jaw dropped open, and for a second all she could do was gape at me. I gave my head a barely there shake. Fortunately, she got the hint and shut her mouth.

  “That’s right,” Liam said. “He’s the lucky guy. Why go after a lowly waiter and drama student like me when you could have a rock star?” He smirked and walked off with his order.

  “I thought you were dating Jared,” Beckie said.

  “Nope. He was just looking after Logan for the week.” And possibly discovered he was Logan’s father.

  Inwardly I groaned and glanced at Tiffany. If she and Jared were getting back together, what did it mean for Logan? Or maybe Jared wasn’t interested in having Logan in his life, because he’d be too busy with his famous girlfriend to have time for a little boy.

  As much as I wished the end of my shift stayed away for as long as possible, time was not rooting for me. In fact, I could’ve sworn it picked up speed just to spite me, forcing me to face Jared that much sooner.

  On the way home, I took a detour. Little old women with walkers moved faster than I did as I plodded home. I told myself the detour was so I could buy a special dessert for Jared and Logan. A way to say “I love you” without saying the actual words.

  Although from the way Jared had looked at me in the diner, “love” wasn’t in his vocabulary when it came to me. “Throttle” would’ve been a better word.

  Once home, I went straight to my bedroom and parked my purse on the floor next to the desk. I could hear Logan’s favorite TV show through the wall. Shit. I can’t do this.

  I closed my eyes, willing time to turn back three weeks. Instead of going to the grocery store when I did—the day I bumped into Jared—I’d wait until the next day. I would’ve willed time to go back to the day before Alexis and my parents died, so that they would still be alive, but that might’ve been a little greedy. Best to aim small.

  I reopened my eyes and walked into the living room. Clearly I hadn’t willed hard enough (or however it worked). Jared was on the couch, watching TV with his son.

  He gave me the standard chin nod and went back to the show. Unlike in the past, the smile of greeting was absent. My heart free-fell from i
ts location in my chest, conveniently knocking my ovaries out cold. But that was okay. I didn’t require them anyway.

  “Mommy!” Logan scrambled from the couch, which suddenly looked as worn as I felt, and flung his small body at me. I gathered him in my arms and held him tight. His body was warm against the chill that now filled the room. I kissed his cheek and let him go so he could return to his show.

  I entered the kitchen and placed the Black Forest cake in the fridge. Breathe in. Breathe out. Simple, really. As long as I remembered to do those two things, I would be fine.

  Jared remained in the living room with Logan while I cooked dinner. Normally he would’ve joined me and we would’ve talked about our day and about those years before our lives had moved in different directions.

  This time, instead of laughter, silence crowded the space.

  I focused on making dinner and keeping myself together, for Logan’s sake. During dinner, while we ate, I did my best to smile even though I was dying on the inside.

  And the Academy Award goes to . . .

  Once we were finished, I cleared away the dinner dishes and returned with the dessert.

  “Yay,” Logan cheered.

  I cut him a small slice and handed him the plate. “Do you want to go to the park after dinner?” I asked him. “You can bring your soccer ball.”

  “Are you and Jared playing with me?”

  “I don’t know about Jared, but I definitely am.”

  Jared smiled at his son. “Me too.”

  We finished our cake and headed to the nearby field, Logan proudly carrying his ball. Growing up, neither Jared nor I had played soccer. Beach volleyball, yes. Soccer, no. So I was surprised at how skilled he’d become.

  “When did you learn to dribble a ball like that?” I asked.

  “Nolan played soccer as a kid. The band and the roadies used to play whenever we had downtime before the shows. Nolan taught the guys in the band a thing or two because he got tired of always losing to the roadies.” He chuckled.

  That was the only time he laughed while talking to me. He cheered Logan on and goofed around with him, but as far as he was concerned, I was the leper he wanted to keep his distance from.

  By the time we had finished playing, Logan was too tired to walk home.

  “You want a piggyback ride?” Jared asked him.

  “What’s a piggyback ride?” Logan looked around, as if searching for piggies.

  Jared flashed me a look that could have easily been translated as What kind of fucking parent are you to have deprived my son of a piggyback ride?

  I simply shrugged. I was hardly going to admit that I’d been paranoid about dropping Logan, so I had never attempted it.

  I helped Logan onto Jared’s back and we walked home. With each step that I took, the bigger the knot in my insides became, to the point where I didn’t think I’d ever be able to untie it.

  Once Logan was in bed and Jared had read him a bedtime story, I tucked him in and kissed him good night. And for the first time since he was diagnosed, I was glad Logan was deaf. At least then he wouldn’t hear what Jared and I were saying—and, I hoped, neither would the neighbors.

  I was standing by the living room window, staring out but seeing nothing, when Jared entered. His reflection moving in the window jarred me out of my trance.

  “So when the fuck were you planning to tell me that Logan is my son?”

  I dropped my head forward. The cool glass pressed against my forehead but did nothing for the headache I sensed coming.

  “That’s what I thought. . . . Fuck. I trusted you, Callie. I thought you were different than your sister. Did you know that she lied to me too? A few days after she told me she was pregnant, she told me she’d aborted the baby. All this time I had a son and had no idea.”

  My eyes widened. Alexis had lied to Jared—and to me? But why? “I didn’t know,” I said. “I only knew that she had decided to raise the baby on her own. She said it would’ve been different if you two had been in love, but you weren’t and it would be unfair to the baby to be placed in that kind of situation. She felt it was better for the baby to be brought up by a single mother than by two parents whose only interest in each other was purely sexual.” Yes, it had been quite the conversation to have with your seventeen-year-old little sister. Maybe it had been her way of making sure I didn’t follow in her footsteps.

  “I don’t get it,” he said, voice tight. “Why did she lie to me, telling me that she’d had an abortion and then keeping the baby?”

  Good question. I shrugged, my head still resting against the window. “I have no idea. Maybe she was going to include you in his life but then changed her mind. She also wanted to protect Logan, and felt the only way to do that was to keep you from being part of his life.” I flinched at how horrible that sounded, even though it was the truth.

  “Like fuck she did.” He grabbed my arm and forced me to turn around to face him. “How the hell does keeping him from his father protect him?”

  “Because she believed in you.”

  “Right. That’s why she kept me from knowing the truth. Doesn’t sound like she believed in me at all.”

  “That’s not true,” I bit out. “She knew, like I did, that you were talented and would go far with your music. We both believed that one day you would be where you are now.”

  “So you believed in my musical abilities, but not in my ability to be Logan’s father?”

  “Yes! Maybe! All she knew was that one day you would hit it big, and where would that leave the baby? You wouldn’t be around much, always on the road or in the recording studio. She was afraid that you’d regret your child, and then what would happen? She would be left raising Logan on her own in the end.” Except it wasn’t Alexis who had been left with that responsibility. It was me.

  And it was me who was now the sole bearer of Jared’s hate for what my sister had done in order to protect her son. Their son.

  “Is that what you thought? After knowing me all those years, is that what you thought too?”

  Breathe in. Breathe out. That was all I had to do.

  “No. At least not at first.” I had believed that Jared would be there for his child, even if he wasn’t romantically involved with my sister. In time, Alexis had convinced me otherwise.

  Jared stepped closer. “What changed your mind?” The pain in his tone was undeniable. I inwardly flinched.

  I didn’t have an answer that I could tell him without betraying my heart, which had foolishly began falling for him since he’d become part of my life again. So I kept silent, letting him fill in the blanks as he chose.

  His face darkened at my silence. “When did Alexis and your parents die?”

  “Just after he turned one.”

  “And he thinks you’re his mother?”

  I bristled at this. “I am his mother.”

  “Legally?”

  “What does that have to do with anything? I’m the only mother he remembers. He doesn’t even remember Alexis.” My voice cracked with guilt at my sister’s name. “I’ve been with him since the day he regained consciousness at the hospital after the accident.” My eyes misted at the memory of his tiny bruised body in the hospital crib. Until now I’d kept that memory locked away.

  “Fuck. Logan was in the car accident?”

  I nodded, and the sobs that had been building just under the surface broke free. After the accident I’d barely had time to cry and mourn my sister’s and parents’ deaths. Everything had happened so fast when it came to all the difficult decisions I’d been forced to make on my own about Logan’s future.

  Warm, solid arms enveloped me and held me close to an equally warm, solid body. The familiar scent of woods and spice and man also wrapped around me. It soothed me, but not enough to bottle up the more than three years of sorrow I’d been holding on to. It felt so good to be held by him that for a moment I pretended the last five years had been a bad dream.

  Eventually my sobbing slowed to a hiccup and the
memory of what had led me to cry against Jared’s chest returned full force—including the distrust and aversion he now felt toward me because of my role in keeping Logan’s paternity a secret from him.

  I pulled away and attempted to dry my cheeks with my fingers. “You know what the hardest part is? Despite what you might think, Alexis was an amazing mother. Her world revolved around your son. But Logan doesn’t even remember her.” He did in those early days, though, and would cry himself to sleep because he wanted her and only her. Over time, as I became his sole parent, the one person he could rely on, her memory faded. “To him, the girl in the pictures was his aunt.” It killed me every time he referred to her that way. “I thought it would be easier.” For me or for him? I had no idea anymore.

  Jared’s gaze dropped to the floor for a moment. When his eyes met mine again, the storm of emotions in them terrified me. I had no idea what he was thinking, which left me feeling stripped and vulnerable. I wrapped my arms around myself, shielding me from further pain.

  “Legally, what are you to my son?” he finally asked.

  “I’m his guardian. My parents must have convinced Alexis to make a will.” My parents had also been listed as guardians, for all the good that had done Logan.

  Jared scrubbed his hand against his face. “So even then, in the event that she died, she couldn’t be bothered to admit the truth and list me as his legal guardian? She was willing to risk my son’s future for her idiotic charade? And what would have happened to him if you’d been in the vehicle? Who would’ve taken care of him then?”

  “He would’ve been placed with children’s services and put up for adoption.” At his darkening expression, I added, my anger equaling his, “What, you thought it would’ve been better for Logan to be handed over to you? You could have been on tour then, for all she knew. Then what would you have done?”

  But even my own words sounded hollow. Deep down, I knew Jared would’ve stepped up when he needed to, but I had allowed my sister to sway me, the way she always did. The more time that had gone by, the easier it had become not to contact Jared after my sister’s death and tell him about his son. And besides, Logan was the only family I had left. I needed him as much as he needed me. I couldn’t let Jared take him away from me.