A Rocker and a Hard Place

by Keane, Hunter J.

  I watched as he dismounted the ladder and tossed a hammer into a toolbox. My neighbor, Glenn, said something to him and he grinned. Suddenly, I wasn’t looking at a mystery man anymore. I was seeing my best friend Tyler, thirteen and undamaged.

  I didn’t talk to him at all for a year after that fight. The day after he saved me from the bullies, my mother was killed in a car accident. My entire world was changed in an instant.

  For months, I didn’t talk to anyone. Summer came and I locked myself inside my bedroom, reading books and writing in my journal. I avoided calls from friends, picked at meals, and didn’t smile or laugh a single time.

  But something else happened over that summer. Puberty came and unlike most kids, my body responded well to it. No acne and frizzy hair for me. My blond hair grew long and shiny, my skin dewy and unblemished. I grew several inches and my lack of appetite burned off the baby fat. I even miraculously grew breasts.

  When I headed back to school in the fall, my newfound beauty was enough to get me an invitation to the cool lunch table. I was suddenly hanging out with cheerleaders and jocks. No one seemed to remember nor care that my mother was dead. It worked out well for me, because I couldn’t bear to talk about it.

  You can see why I didn’t have time to make friends with the awkward boy that had defended my honor so selflessly.

  I still smiled at Tyler in the hall. He would return it with a shy one of his own. But we never talked.

  Tyler’s mother had run out on the family when he was just a toddler. His father was a good man and did the best he could. Tyler always had a decent packed lunch and clean clothes, but they were shabby and out of style. His hair was washed, but poorly styled. None of that had ever bothered me while we were growing up.

  What did bother me in those first few months of eight grade was that Tyler had also gotten lucky during the hormonal shift. He sprouted about eight inches seemingly overnight. Since he spent the summer helping on his uncle’s farm, he’d also developed muscles and a deep tan. Simply put, he was a hottie.

  The girls that I sat with at lunch often gossiped about Tyler, prodding each other to ask him out. Never mind that a year earlier they wouldn’t have been caught dead talking to him. But I didn’t call them out on their hypocrisy. I sat quietly and nodded, all the while thinking about that day when I had walked Tyler home. What would the girls say if they knew that I had kissed Tyler on his front porch?

  A month after school started, Tyler came into the store to pick up a part for his father’s truck. I wasn’t officially old enough to work there, but I helped out stocking the shelves after school. Dad was busy helping another customer and he asked me to ring up Tyler’s purchase.

  I entered the numbers into the register without saying a word. When he handed over the money, I noticed that his fingers were raw.

  “What happened?” I asked, surprising myself.

  “Oh. I’m teaching myself how to play the guitar.” He smiled shyly. “I’m not very good yet.”

  “I could teach you.” The offer came out quite naturally. My mother had loved music and she had put me in piano and guitar lessons when I was just a small child. “I’d be happy to show you a few things.”

  “That would be nice.” Tyler and I made eye contact for the first time, his icy blue eyes inescapable. “Tomorrow after school?”

  “Meet me here.”

  We met every day after that. The store had a stockroom in the back where we could play without disturbing anyone. At first, I showed Tyler how to play basic chords. Then we learned a few easy songs. Before long, we were writing our own lyrics.

  I no longer sat at the cool table at school. Instead, Tyler and I would huddle together at a table in the corner, writing music and laughing at inside jokes. Besides music, we both also loved to read and swim in the pond when the weather got nice. We were also both motherless, being raised by good men that were in over their heads. In many ways, it felt like we were destined to become friends.

  Six months after our friendship began, we finished our very first song. We had written every note, every word. Like proud parents, we smiled at the resulting music sheets. Tyler and I both sang the words, but he was a much better performer. He had a natural gift, something that couldn’t be taught. My own voice complimented his nicely, but could never stand on its own.

  As we strummed the last chord, I felt happier than I had since before losing my mother. Tyler saw the joy on my face and grinned. “You have a beautiful smile,” he said.

  I think that was the moment I fell in love with him. I just didn’t know it yet.

  Now he was grinning again, but this time I wasn’t on the receiving end of it. It was strange to see him back in Salvation, mingling with the locals and looking perfectly comfortable in his former life. I had never expected him to return.

  I thought about running away, just as he had earlier at the store. It would be a lot easier on both of us if I avoided him. But I still didn’t know why he had returned and how long he might stay. Avoiding him for the day would be easy, but it was a small town and I was bound to run into him if he was planning to stick around for a while.

  Billy and T.J. returned in the forklift, laughing and yelling as they hurried by. I watched them carefully, making sure that T.J. was safe. When I turned back, Tyler was staring directly at me. Now that we had made eye contact, there was no going back.

  I waited for him to come to me, watching his familiar gait with nostalgia. His smile had faded, but his eyes still held an enticing warmth.

  “Emma Wellington,” he said, with a voice that was deeper than the one I remembered.

  “Tyler.”

  He looked at me earnestly and asked, “What are you doing here, Emma? You don’t belong here.”

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  So long ago, both of us had sworn to leave Salvation for good. I had gotten out for a few years, even finished college. But after T.J. was born, it was more important to make him a good home than worry about chasing my childhood dreams.

  Tyler, on the other hand, had been true to his word. He had left town at eighteen, built a hugely successful career as a musician, and never once came back. Until now.

  “I wanted to see if I could help with the recovery,” Tyler explained, gesturing to the chaos around us.

  “Will you be staying long?” I didn’t know what answer I wanted to hear. As hard as it was to see Tyler, part of me still felt happy to see him. I hated that part of me.

  Tyler shrugged, unconcerned. “As long as I’m needed.”

  “Well, I guess I will be seeing you around then.” It was going to be impossible to avoid him. “I should go.”

  I had walked a few steps away before Tyler stopped me. “Emma, wait.”

  “Yes?”

  He stared at me, mouth opening and closing a few times. “Do you want to maybe get dinner later? We could catch up.”

  “That’s a nice offer,” I said, mouth dry. “I can’t.”

  “Okay.” He nodded, clearly disappointed. “I’m sure you are busy. It’s just really good to see you and-”

  “Mom!” T.J. came barreling toward us, cheeks flushed. “That was awesome! Did you see me?”

  “I did.”

  “Billy needs me to go help him unload everything. I’ll be right over there.” He pointed a finger toward the far side of the parking lot.

  “Just for a few minutes, okay? We need to go home soon.”

  “Alight,” he agreed before running away again.

  When I turned back to Tyler, his face registered awe. “You’re a mom,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t know.” He sounded annoyed, which was ridiculous. He hadn’t reached out once in over ten years and now my life was suddenly an issue for him.

  “A lot has changed, Tyler.”

  “Son! I could use your help.” Glenn was trying to lift an especially large piece of lumber and staggered under the weight.

  “I should go,” Tyler said,
making no attempt to move. “Just a second, Glenn!”

  “You really should. He has a bad back.”

  Still, neither of us moved.

  “Mom! Come check this out!’ T.J. was about to climb on top of a questionable looking pile of cement blocks.

  “T.J. stop climbing. That’s not safe.” I turned back to Tyler. “It was nice seeing you.”

  “Yeah, you too.”

  I was several yards away when he added, “See ya around, Em.”

  My heart thudded and soared at the same time. All these years later, Tyler Cole still had control of my heart.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tyler

  From the moment I’d heard Emma’s name in the hardware store, I’d been thinking about how our first conversation would go. Would she be angry, upset, or indifferent? How would I feel, seeing and talking to her again?

  I had loved Emma. More than she ever knew, probably. But still, I’d broken her heart. I had chosen my new, extravagant life in Nashville and Hollywood over a perfect, boring life with her. How could she not hate me?

  But in all of the scenarios that had played in my head, I had never given any thought to what her life would be like now. I had certainly never pictured her has a mother. It made sense- we were in our 30s now. People got married, had kids, and settled down- except for me. Somehow I had lost that memo, or just thrown it out without reading it.

  Now, a million questions ran through my head. Emma had a kid, but was she married? Or had she been married and was now divorced? If so, was she in a new relationship? Who was her kid’s father? He had her green eyes, but his dark hair had come from a different set of genes. Why had Emma moved back to Salvation after college? Was it because of the kid? Or had she fallen in love with someone in town?

  I knew that I didn’t have a right to get the answers to those questions, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to know. I wanted to know everything about Emma’s life since the last time we had seen each other.

  That wasn’t going to happen tonight. She had rejected me, and with good reason. But I knew where to find her tomorrow.

  In the meantime, I had work to do.

  The cleanup work was halted when the sun began to set, and I was glad to head home for a shower. I was exhausted, and it felt like I had pulled a dozen muscles, some I hadn’t even known I possessed. I worked out six days a week, but manual labor used muscles I hadn’t activated in years.

  I let myself into the old house, the front door swinging with a familiar creek. Somehow, even after all these years, the house still smelled like home.

  My first order of business was to open a window and let in some fresh air. Then, I started the water in the shower, letting it run for a while before stepping inside. It took a bit of time to scrub the grime from my skin, but the water was hot and felt good on my tired body. With no food in the house, I put in an order at the only pizza delivery place in the area and padded around the house wearing only a towel.

  The house was still furnished, but I had packed away most of the décor and mementos long ago. A picture of my parents on their wedding day still hung over the fireplace. Dad had left it there long after Mom left us, and I couldn’t bring myself to take it down. I sat on the old leather couch and studied the photo.

  I’d gotten my blue eyes from my mother, but the rest of me was pure Cole. Dark hair and skin, wide smile, lanky body. Dad had been a manual laborer and therefore more solidly built than myself. It’s also what had driven him to an early grave. Though at the rate I was going with my reckless lifestyle, I might not be far behind him.

  The pizza arrived and I answered the door, momentarily forgetting that I was only wearing a towel. It was lucky that the pizza boy was a forty-year-old man. He appraised my near nudity and sighed.

  “Ten bucks.”

  I took the pizza and handed him a fifty. “Keep the change.”

  Three bites of pizza later, I was done eating. I had completely lost my appetite.

  Emma was a mom.

  Emma’s life had moved on without me in it.

  I had sworn that I was done drinking until I passed out. So many times I’d promised myself I would get my life together. This last time, after starting a fight with my bass player for no reason, I had been resolved to stop drinking for good.

  But in my father’s house, alone, I felt a familiar itch beginning to build. I tried to distract myself by exploring the empty rooms. I saved my old bedroom for last, the place that still held every memory from my youth.

  An old guitar in one corner, a basketball in another. My old t-shirts in the dresser drawers and CDs stacked next to an old stereo. In the corner of the mirror, a faded photo stopped me cold. A youthful Emma grinning uninhibited at the camera, blond hair blowing and green eyes sparkling.

  Even then, I had hated having my picture taken. In all those years together, I’m not sure we ever took a picture together. But I remember the day I took that picture of Emma.

  We had taken a long drive out into the country. At the end of a dirt road, we sat in the back of my pickup and watched the sun begin to set over the pond.

  In a time before camera phones, I dug a cheap disposable camera from my pocket. She had laughed and asked what I was doing.

  “You are so beautiful right now, I just want to have this moment forever.”

  She had laughed again while I took the picture and teased me for being such a dork. Then she’d whispered that she loved me and my heart had never been so full. I broke her heart two weeks later.

  I grabbed the picture, tearing the corner slightly, and went downstairs. A questionably old bottle of scotch still sat in the back of Dad’s liquor cabinet. I didn’t stop to think about if I should drink it- I poured two fingers in a glass and tossed it down my throat.

  It burned- in an all-too-familiar way. I poured more into a glass and took it and the bottle with me into the living room. For the next hour, I took a hard trip down memory lane, staring at Emma’s beautiful face and throwing back half of the bottle of scotch before my world started spinning.

  Opening my eyes the next morning was painful. Harsh sunlight streamed through the open windows. A hammering noise outside compounded the assault on my hangover. I opened my front door to find Glenn hauling away pieces of my damaged porch.

  “Sorry, pal. Didn’t mean to wake you.” If he noticed my sorry state, he didn’t say anything. “You mentioned that you were planning to start working on this today and I thought you might need some help.”

  “You’re a good man, Glenn.” I wasn’t being facetious.

  Salvation was full of men like Glenn that woke up early on a Sunday to help a stranger fix his front porch. I didn’t even know the name of my neighbor in Malibu, and my house in Nashville was behind an iron gate to keep strangers away. “Just let me grab some coffee and I’ll be out to help.”

  Some pain meds, a liter of water, and two cups of coffee did the trick. Before long, Glenn and I had managed to drag all of the damaged wood out to the curb.

  As we appraised the empty hole where the porch used to be, Glenn said, “I saw you talking to Emma Wellington yesterday. You two have a history?”

  Glenn was a perceptive guy.

  “You could say that.” I wasn’t sure I trusted Glenn enough to open up to him, but it also occurred to me that since he was Emma’s neighbor, he might be able to give me some information. “Emma and I used to date in high school. We haven’t seen each other in a while.”

  “Ah. First love.” He smiled knowingly. “You picked a good girl for that. Emma’s just about the best person I’ve ever met.”

  “I remember.” I certainly hadn’t been in love with her all those years for no reason. “What’s her story these days? She’s a mom now, I saw.”

  “Yeah. Little T.J. is a clone of his mama. Sweet boy. I think he’s about eight? Goes to school with my nephew.”

  “Does his dad live in town? Are he and Emma married?”

  Okay, I was starting to sound like a stalker.
I had no right to pry into Emma’s life like this, but Glenn didn’t seem to mind.

  “Nah, no one quite knows who the father is. Emma never talks about him. Rumor around town is that it was a guy from college who took off when she got pregnant.”

  “Is that why she moved home?”

  I hated to think about someone else treating Emma so terribly. It was bad enough that I had done it, but this other jerk had left her while she was pregnant with his kid. I wanted to punch him.

  “Actually, no. Her daddy got sick. She came home to take care of the store.”

  “That’s too bad.” It was such an Emma thing to do. She worshipped her father. “She ever get married?”

  “Not yet. I’m not sure there’s anyone in Salvation good enough for Emma. But that’s just my opinion. She has been dating some guy, though. He lives a couple towns over. Seems decent enough.” Glenn mopped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. “Sorry to take off, but I promised the wife I would be home for lunch.”

  “No worries, Glenn. I appreciate all the help.” And the intel on Emma’s life. “I need to pick up some supplies before I can start repairs anyway.”

  “You need any help, just give me a ring. Name’s in the book.”

  Glenn sauntered down the road, hands in pockets and whistling through his teeth. I was really starting to like him. Not only had he given me information I wanted about Emma, he’d also given me a good reason to see her again.

  After a quick shower and change of clothes, I was standing in front of Wellington Hardware for the second time in as many days. I smoothed down my hair with shaking hands, remembering the last time I had been this nervous to see her.

  We had been best friends for over a year. All through eighth grade, we’d formed a bond that baffled everyone around us. When freshman year rolled around, I was nervous everything would change. We were headed to a new school. Older boys would be in the picture now, and Emma would be a prime target for them. I didn’t have any claim on her- we were still just friends. But I wanted to be more.