by Eden Butler
The night was cool, hinting that October was only a week away and I wrapped my arms tight around my waist, shooting for disinterest as I stepped out onto the patio and stood next to his chair, my gaze focused on the lake. “Did you guys win?” I asked him, still watching the waves.
“Yeah,” he said, sounding bored. “But you don’t care about that.” There was a laugh in his voice that I hadn’t heard before and when I glanced at him, I blinked twice, trying not to wonder why he was staring at me.
But, he did have me pegged. I really didn’t care that much about football. “Can’t deny it.”
The patio was a little cluttered, a task I’d handle later in the week, and as I ticked off where the towels and barbeque utensils could be stored, Ransom nudged my leg, bringing my attention back to him.
He pointed to the leg rest on his chair, bending his knee to make room for me. “Stop thinking of shit you’re going to work on out here and sit.”
“Nah, I need to get back home. Early class in the morning.”
He sighed, completely ignored me and pulled me onto the chair with a tug on my wrist. “It’s not even midnight. Sit down and talk to me a little.”
And I did, because he’d asked. I did because even then, a handful of voice lessons into our rehearsals, before that kiss in the studio, Ransom had me. He’d had me with a head nod. He’d had me with a smile that I knew he hadn’t meant. I was pathetic and weak and because I was, I sat next to Ransom and we watched the lake together, not speaking much, not doing anything but keeping each other’s quiet company.
“You sounded good on Wednesday,” he finally said when I thought he might have nodded off. “Your voice is so much stronger now.”
“Thanks.” There wasn’t much to say and no need to disagree. I felt like I was better and I knew it was because of him. But, he didn’t need me to stroke his ego.
“You nervous about the audition?” I nodded, moving my gaze off the water and onto his face as he leaned back against the chair. His features were soft just then, relaxed and I didn’t think I’d ever seen him look more beautiful. There wasn’t any worry tensing up his expression and I’d have given anything to keep him that beautiful, that free of the shit dragging him down. “You want me to go?”
“You don’t have to bother, Ransom,” I said, not wanting to ask more from him than he’d already given.
“Hey.” His fingers on my hand, curling around my thumb felt warm, safe and when my gaze flashed to his, I said a silent prayer that he wouldn’t pull his hand away. “I wanna be there. You need a cheerleader and someone to look at when you sing.” He squeezed my thumb and then leaned back, taking that unanswered prayer with him. “You know, now that you can actually look at me when you sing.”
“Shut up,” I said, rolling my eyes at him.
“I don’t mind, Aly. I really don’t.”
I thought I did. I thought him being there, being what I focused on, would distract me because I needed to sing my kontantman. And he didn’t know, not then, not nearly two months later, Ransom had no idea that when I sang, it wasn’t the lyrics or melody that made me sing my joy. It was him. Only him. He was my joy.
“Yeah,” I’d said, watching the water again, too scared that if I looked at him, he’d see everything I wanted to keep hidden. “Yeah, I want you there.”
Present
He didn’t show.
I stood on that stage, bunching up the side of my dress between my fingers, knowing that I’d leave wrinkles, scanning the spattering of people who sat in the nearly empty auditorium. Ransom wasn’t among them. My heart pounded, my stomach coiled and emptied and I thought I’d be sick, that all of this was too much—my walking away from the family I loved, the hatred and rage in Ransom’s eyes when I took off my mask, the accusation in Leann’s tone when she asked why the hell I’d abandoned Koa. The day hadn’t been a good one for an audition that would determine the next four years of my life.
But I come from a long line of fierce women. My grann had been one, had tried to help me unlearn the bullshit my father wanted me to take as gospel. My mother, Grann had told me, had been fierce as well. She loved hard and fought harder to keep that love inside her when her family flung insults at her, when the world around her promised I would never be anything but an accident she couldn’t fix. Those two fierce women, and the hundreds before them who made up the curve of my hips, the green tint of my eyes and deep pout of my lips, those who’d engendered my stubbornness, my talent, that desperate, abiding need to overcome, all spun through my head as I stepped on that stage. They shouted at me to be bold. They told me to forget my fear and the shame.
He doesn’t matter right now, I heard my Grann whisper. You do.
And so I didn’t look at the audience when I sang. I didn’t do anything but smile at the small table in front of the stage and the men and women who held clipboards in front of them. I sang about wild horses, because I was one. I sang from my belly, because that’s where my passion burned the deepest. I sang with my head held high, with my voice sharp and loud and lulling because that’s what Ransom had taught me. I didn’t sing for him or those judges. I sang for me and the tomorrow I wanted.
For the first time in my life, I sang with a joy that was self-induced.
And I was good.
When the clapping and cheers died down and I’d returned the smiles given to me at that front table, I left the stage feeling good, better than I had in days. I had nailed that audition. I’d nail the dance audition the next week. But reality loomed and I needed to be back at the studio for my first practice with Tommy. It was my hurry and that leftover accomplishment drunk that distracted me when I walked to the parking lot and saw Leann sitting on the hood of her car.
I’d blown her off the other day, not really eager to confess what I’d done to Ransom or why. Leann loved me in her own, bitchy, smartass way, I knew that. But she was still just my boss and Ransom was her blood. I knew where her loyalties would lie if I’d made my confession to her. I didn’t want to risk that, not before. Now it looked like I didn’t have a choice.
“Hey,” she said, pulling her attention away from her phone as I approached. “That was fucking glorious.” She nodded toward the auditorium.
“You heard my audition?”
When Leann only tilted her head, dropped her phone on the hood of her car like it was the least important thing to her in the world, my mouth fell open, surprised by her shock. “Aly, of course I heard you. Did you think…” she exhaled, offered me her hand to help me onto her car. “Something I don’t think you have ever quite gotten is that I love you, kid.”
“Leann…”
“I don’t say that just to say it, you know.” My body swayed a little when Leann pushed me with her elbow. She looked over at me, knuckle on her chin and smiled, like I was simple, a little ignorant how she felt. “Keira got pregnant with Ransom before we were even twenty. I followed her lead the next year. You think I don’t know how hard it is, struggling on your own? You don’t think I get that you want to succeed and do whatever the hell you can to get your head above water?” She took my hand and held it on her knee. “Sweetie, no one wants you to kick ass more than I do. No one will scream louder for you when you do that ass kicking.”
I couldn’t look at her, not directly. My eyes had gone too blurry. “I thought, maybe you were mad at me, because I quit on Keira.”
“Oh, Aly, I know why you quit.”
“No, Leann, you don’t.”
That smile was wide, a little wicked. “You love Ransom. He loves you but he is such a knuckle head and can’t let go of the past and you, sweetheart, aren’t the type of woman who likes walking behind shadows.” She squeezed my hand. “Or ghosts.”
“I really screwed up,” I told her, ignoring the frown she gave me. “I screwed up bad, Leann.”
She didn’t give me an invitation to explain and I didn’t wait for one. Instead, I told my boss everything. I glossed over the year and a half of me pining after Ran
som like some stupid groupie. She knew that part already. But I confessed about the dance—God, not everything about it—and him kissing me, twice and the last dance that I promised her I’d ever perform at Summerland’s. When I was done, I didn’t feel the weight of my fear leave me. Not immediately, not until Leann’s eyes relaxed and her grip on my fingers tightened.
“Well,” she started, releasing a breath. “I’m not happy about you messing around with Ironside. That man is disgusting bottom feeder and he likes to take advantage of young, pretty girls. That was something I’d asked Misty to watch out for when she called me to ask after you for the choreography gig.”
“You know her?”
Leann’s laugh was light, but sounded generally amused. “Honey, New Orleans isn’t that big of a city. Yeah, I know her. She’s smart, a little ruthless, but still smart.” She nodded once, as though answering her own silent question and then continued. “I don’t want you to go back there.”
“I won’t. Don’t worry.” No way I’d step foot in that place again. I was sticking to the college thing and depending on what the judges thought of my performance, keeping to CPU as often as I could. Besides, Summerland’s held too much bad for me and I was full up with that shit.
Leann stretched her neck and I thought maybe she was done with our conversation, but then she glanced at me, holding her elbows on her knees and kept her eyes in a squint and I knew the lecture was coming. “As for you quitting on Keira, I’ll be honest, it hurt them. Koa especially. He misses you. You should go back.”
“Leann…”
She wouldn’t let me finish, shook her head to cut me off. I didn’t put up much of a fight and I doubted my weak explanation would make much of an impact anyway. “Sweetie, I love Ransom like he’s my own kid and I love you too.” She nudge me again, Leann’s form of affection. “Whatever happens between the two of you, will happen. Maybe you can mend things with him and try to be his friend. Maybe you can’t, but Keira and Kona need you and no matter what happens with Ransom, you don’t run out on people who need you. Especially if you love them.”
And I did love them. They meant a lot to me in a very short time. But I thought walking away would be for the best. I thought not being around anything or anyone that reminded me of Ransom would help me forget that expression on his face or the obvious hatred in his eyes before he left me alone in that private room.
“Sometimes,” Leann continued, “we have to take one for the team.” I had no idea what she meant, but let her continue. “Sometimes, though it hurts us, we have to walk through shit to get the people we love to the shore.”
“You saying I shouldn’t let Ransom keep me from helping out Keira?”
Leann smiled and winked at me. “Pretty, talented and smart. Look at you, Miss Triple Threat.” She ignored the quick finger salute I gave her and moved the smile from her face, giving me that quiet, serious stare I’d only seen from Leann a couple of times. “Do what you think is best but remember, sweetie, you are loved, you are needed and, hell, you shouldn’t just walk away. Not from us.”
18
Kona Hale is a stubborn, pigheaded bull sometimes. No more so than when his wife is sad and mopey. And if you’re the unfortunate jackass that Kona decided had put his wife in that particular mood, then you got threats. Even if you were his kid. Let’s be honest, they weren’t real threats, more along the “You are pissing me off” variety but I caught the meaning. He wouldn’t lay a finger on me, I knew that. Since he’d returned to our lives I could count on one hand the times my father has yelled at me. He was getting damn good at the fatherly anger, though, and today was Yell-Number-Three.
“Koa has not stopped crying since Monday. Monday, Ransom and your mom is completely worn out. You go make this right and then bring Aly to me. I want a word with her.”
“Why is that my job?” I’d regretted the question before it left my mouth, but still asked it anyway.
“Because she’s your friend and because if Keira doesn’t smile soon I’m gonna be without a job for making a scene at Leann’s studio.”
“Dad…”
“No. Don’t even try it,” he’d said, his voice so loud over the phone that three girls passing me in Kenner Hall laughed at the sound. “This shit would not have happened if you…”
“You’re putting this on me?” I’d stopped in the middle of the lobby then, not caring who watched me or how stupid I looked screaming into my phone. “You don’t even know what went down.”
“Because you don’t tell us shit anymore!”
Dad’s breath was heavy, it matched mine but neither of us spoke for a few seconds. Instead, I looked through the glass doors, scuffing my shoes against the molding. My father wasn’t wrong. I kept myself to myself because I didn’t want to add to the worry my parents already had, all because their son had screwed up again. My silence had hurt them, I’d known that but I’d never understood how deeply that hurt ran or how frustrating I’d become.
“Dad…”
“Look, keki kane, I’m sorry.” I believed he meant that apology. “I shouldn’t scream at you, but you’ve got to understand, we can’t get through to her. None of us. Leann is trying but Aly’s still wary. Please, for the sake of my sanity, go see her. Work this shit out.”
Kona Hale had tackled the best quarterbacks in the league. He was a massive mound of muscle and intimidation. But put a weepy Keira in front of him and throw in his anxious toddler and you’ve got the makings of the one thing that could topple him: an unhappy family.
I was my father’s son and though it took me stuffing down my pride and that promise I’d made to myself to forget about Aly as though she didn’t matter at all to me, an hour later, I found myself standing outside of Leann’s studio, trying to ignore the voice screaming in my head.
She doesn’t matter. Don’t you dare apologize. Don’t be weak.
That voice was full of disgust because I could not hate myself for wanting Aly, for wanting to feel anything other than guilt. That voice was loud, so livid that I didn’t bother trying to block it out. I knew that every insult, every complaint she leveled, I deserved. I was everything she’d accused me of being. Emily’s father had reminded me with those roses, as though I could ever forget what I had done. And walking away from Aly, disregarding the attempt she made at healing me only proved that I was what Emily’s father thought I was. If I was that low, disgusting cretin, then I may as well live the part.
But for my family, I’d do anything. Even try to smooth over the shit I hadn’t created. Not directly. The voice continued, niggling hard, like some sort of wicked conscience that I’d grown used to hearing. There was so much doubt, so much hatred in that tone that I knew I’d created it myself. Emily would have never spoken that way to me. She’d have never fed my doubt.
The open door beyond the lobby flooded the entire building with music. Leann wasn’t here, I’d made sure of that and had caught the sing-song tease in her voice when I asked where I could find Aly on her own.
“Studio. She’s working on her routine.” I hadn’t trusted that tone or the way my cousin laughed, but as I approached the opened door, I understood what had her so amused.
Motherfucker.
Aly was dressed—if that’s what you want to call it—in a crop-top shirt pulled in a knot at her back and a pair of tight dance shorts that barely curved around her round ass. This wasn’t surprising or anything I hadn’t seen before. Most of the instructors wore very little when they rehearsed, keeping their limbs free from anything that would distracted the hard work of their routines. But the muscle in Aly’s legs flexed and her calves were rounded tight as she moved around the room in high heels, as though she’d been at it for a long while.
This would be easier if I wasn’t so attracted to her. Or if, you know, whoever that fucker was dancing with her didn’t have his hands all over her ass.
“Saida!” he said, laughing as they moved, working Aly across the floor with barely a breath’s space between them.
“Good, beautiful.”
He was way better at the Kizomba than I was, moved with a swagger I’d never have. I’d give him props for that. Then he lifted her up, ignored Aly when she gasped. “Damn, I don’t remember your ass being this round.”
Right. Fuck that guy. He doesn’t deserve my props.
“Tommy, grow up,” she said, pulling his hand off her ass. “Keep to the rhythm.”
“You are no fun.”
Tommy. That asshole I’d heard her Skyping with. I still didn’t know who he was to her and right then, didn’t much care.
Aly stopped dancing and I counted it as some small victory that she wasn’t laughing with him, that she hadn’t cracked a smile once since I’d been watching them dance. “We have less than a month. We have to get this right and you are still not close enough.”
My fists ached from how tightly I curled them when this Tommy prick grabbed Aly’s waist and pushed himself flush against her. “Well, let’s go up to your apartment, see how close we can get.”
“Would you stop…” whatever Aly was going to say died on her tongue when she looked around Tommy’s shoulder and right at me. There was surprise on her features, her eyebrows arched, her lids wide, and sweat dotted over her top lip and on her forehead.
Tommy followed her gaze, looked over his shoulder at me and that jackass’s smile only got wider. “For fuck’s sake,” he said, stepping back from Aly.
“Ransom.” She nodded once, a small grin moving her lips, then, as though she remembered how I’d treated her, what an asshole I’d been to her that night at Summerland’s, that grin vanished quick. “What are you doing here?”
“Good question,” Tommy said, resting a hand on Aly’s hip. “We’re kind of in the middle of something.”
I wanted to break each of his fingers as they rubbed against her.
What the hell is wrong with me? I thought, coming to myself as I stepped further into the studio. “We need to have a conversation.”
