Bo & Ember

by Andrea Randall

  After all of the reunion hugging quieted down, we all stood across from each other for a few silent seconds. Georgia had a curious look on her face as she tilted her head.

  “Whoa,” she said inside of her exhale.

  “What?” I looked around.

  Georgia grabbed my suitcase and started walking toward the exit. “I don’t know what the hell happened to you two, but someone better call Grounded Sound and tell them to change the name of your album from ‘Bo and Ember’ to ‘Bo and Zenber.’ Seriously, you’re, like, floating across the floor.”

  Bo gripped my hand and winked at me as Georgia tossed my suitcase into the trunk of her car. Bo placed his in and shut the trunk. Georgia stood with her hands on her hips and smiled.

  “Whatever it is you guys have been doing, keep doing it. You’re all … glowy and shit. To go through what you’ve been through the last month and to look like that? You’re doing something right.” Georgia moved to the driver’s seat, and the rest of us got in the car.

  I, for one, was grateful to have the baby ice broken. They didn’t need to know all we’d been through in what we’d later call ‘the dark month.” They just needed to see we were where we were. Bo and I committed to each other, in the confines of Dr. Bittman’s office, that we wouldn’t share all the negative pieces of our relationship with even well-meaning family and friends. While it was acceptable—and sometimes necessary—to vent, Dr. Bittman had reminded us, it was also our responsibility to make our relationship our own, and not one governed by outside opinions. The more people we let into our relationship, she’d said, the harder it would be to keep it our relationship.

  “You guys are staying with Willow, right?” Regan drummed his thumbs on his legs as he spoke.

  “Yeah, but she’s going to bring us back there after our session today,” Bo answered.

  Despite just getting off a six-hour flight, we were all headed directly to Grounded Sound’s West Coast offices for a meeting with Yardley. Willow would be there, as she’d been promoted to assistant sound engineer, and her first project was Celtic Summer’s debut album.

  “She’s really good,” Regan entered in the middle of my thoughts.

  “Yeah, people can be surprising, huh?” Georgia said as she looked in the rearview mirror and winked at me.

  Georgia had the day off, so she was going to be able to hang out with us at the studio. As soon as we arrived, the tanned and toned surfer receptionist—a far cry from Brielle in NYC—whisked us into the conference room, where Yardley and her assistant waited.

  “You look well,” Yardley said as we hugged.

  I nodded and pulled a smile from deep within. “I’m feeling better all the time. Thank you for the lovely flowers. And for that mention in Entertainment Weekly!”

  Yardley cracked a grin as we all took our seats. “We wanted to keep that a surprise. Looks like it worked, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Bo scoffed jokingly. “A huge surprise at thirty thousand feet.”

  Shortly after, Shaughn and Chris joined us, while Georgia ran out to grab lunch. Yardley updated us on what had been going on behind the scenes over the last several weeks. Celtic Summer had finished recording their album, and both of our albums were in post-production.

  “We’re ready to talk about publicity.” Yardley nodded seriously as she handed out sheets of paper peppered with dates and events. “You’ll see that our PR team has carefully crafted the build to your album release. Bo and Ember, your album will release at the end of April, and Celtic Summer’s album will drop two weeks later. We want the anticipation at its peak by the time tickets go on sale for the tour, which will be the third week in May.”

  My heart raced with excitement. Several months ago this was all “in the future.” Now, it was real, and the wheels were turning.

  Yardley continued, sounding slightly excited herself, “The tour will start July first on the East Coast. I’d like you all to look at July fourth, please.”

  I scanned past the various Internet and radio interviews, dates where our in-studio recordings would be released, and finally landed on the Fourth of July.

  Central Park.

  “Are you serious?” Bo’s tone was breathless as he looked up with as shocked a face as I’d ever seen.

  “Jesus,” Chris mumbled.

  Regan and I eyed each other with gaping mouths.

  “Get it out of your system, kids,” Yardley said with a smile. “You need to be on your A-game.”

  “How…” Shaughn trailed off as she shook her head, a mischievous grin on her face as always.

  Yardley took an assured breath. “Several artists are starting their tours in June. I was able to speak with a few labels, and we coordinated a one-day event where you’d all get to play. Not an official festival, just—”

  “A one day bad-ass gig?” Regan blurted out excitedly.

  Yardley smiled. “Precisely.”

  The room erupted into cheers and chatter.

  “That’s going to be a huge crowd.” Chris’s eyes bugged out as he stared at the sheet.

  Yardley nodded. “It is, but it’ll feel bigger because of the close quarters. You’re scheduled at larger venues through the summer.”

  I zoned out while Yardley ran quickly through the rest of the dates and venues of the summer tour, which was going to end mid-October. I tried not to, but I started thinking about the baby. For a couple of weeks I had been so nervous about breaking the pregnancy news to Yardley. I worried how it would affect the tour and the other groups. There I was though, discussing the tour as planned, with the unplanned pregnancy no longer an issue for anyone in the room except for me.

  I needed some air. I wasn’t on the verge of a panic attack, but I was on the verge of being on the verge. I just needed a minute. Standing slowly, I tried to slink inconspicuously from the room, which was a challenge in a room of only seven people.

  I heard the room go silent as I slipped through the door, but pretended like no one saw me. I made it to the main door before Bo snuck up behind me, gently placing his hand on my shoulder.

  “Hey,” he whispered. “What’s going on?”

  I turned around and took a deep breath. His eyes were concerned, urgent by way of empathy and not panic. The genuine pull of his eyes made me tear up more than my escape-inducing emotions did. It was the look I’d wanted to see in the days we’d returned home from the hospital. Regardless, it was there now.

  “I just needed some air.” I swallowed hard and tilted my head to the side.

  “Talk,” he commanded as he pushed the door open and ushered us outside, where we sat on a stone bench.

  My lips twisted. “I was just looking at the tour dates and thinking about the baby.” There was no reason for me to beat around it, even if I’d been quick enough to find a way.

  Bo nodded and pulled my hand from my lap, interlacing our fingers. He looked like he was ready to say something, but I cut him off.

  “I’m okay, though. There’s … everything’s fine. I just needed to take a minute to breathe about it, you know?” I gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.

  “I know, but I need to talk about it for a minute.”

  “Oh.” My voice dropped to a whisper as I watched his eyes fall to our hands.

  Bo spoke softly. “You know that when we get home from this trip, we’ll be able to pick up the ashes from the funeral home.”

  And, suddenly, there we were. Discussing the baby, the ashes, and all of the shit we’d avoided during a few dark and damaging weeks both of us would probably like to forget if it hadn’t been for how much closer it made us in the end.

  I bit my lip. “I know.”

  “I’ve been thinking about what we should do with them. We don’t have to talk about it now, but I wanted you to know that I’m ready to talk about it, whenever you are.” Bo leaned in halfway and arched his eyebrow, pulling me in the rest of the way.

  We shared a tender, calming kiss in the middle of a busy complex filled with people carryin
g around their own brands of ashes.

  “Wanna go back in?” Bo pulled away and ran his hand down my cheek.

  “Does everyone think I’m cra—? Never mind, I don’t care.” I gave him a quick kiss on the nose and we headed back inside to discuss the details of the Indie Tour.

  As I set my hand on the door to the conference room, I took one more cleansing breath, reminding myself that while sometimes we’re granted all of our dreams, rarely are they granted all at once. I was ready to sing, ready to tour, and forced myself into a place of gratitude for the insane opportunity that lay before me.

  Bo

  “Did Georgia say how long they’d be gone?” I asked Regan as we fumbled our way around Willow’s kitchen.

  He shook his head. “Nope. And, I was told not to ask. Girl stuff.”

  “Somehow, with the three of them, that makes me nervous.” My eyes widened as I diced the chicken.

  “We should probably start pouring the wine now.” Regan laughed as he searched for the corkscrew.

  Ember and I were staying at Willow’s tiny beach house during our time in California, and we invited Regan and Georgia up for dinner. We knew we’d have plenty of time to hang with the other members of Celtic Summer, but Regan and Georgia were some of our closest friends with whom we hardly spent enough time.

  We’d had a busy—but exciting—day at Grounded Sound’s studio. After the briefing with Yardley regarding the summer tour, we were then given the opportunity to interview with reporters from various media outlets. We’d talked with just about everyone from the local newspaper’s arts and entertainment section through representatives from different satellite radio stations.

  The interviews hovered around our experiences recording our albums, excitement about the tour, and a bit into our histories with music. The last bit had made me feel like a bit of an outcast in the company I was keeping. Ember and Regan’s deep roots in music were no surprise to me. I’d known Chris’s parents weren’t as supportive as mine were with his musical interests, but it was news to me that he’d made huge sacrifices in the name of art—including moving out of his parents’ home and not speaking to them for almost a year. Finally, Shaughn’s history was scattered between the UK and Chicago and encompassed everything from private lessons with several-hundred-dollar-an-hour instructors, to sneaking into after-hours nights at local pubs.

  While I had a number of successes under my belt, and music had always come naturally to me, I found myself in awe at the raw, industrious talent around me. I was certainly looking forward to honing in my talents while I was given the chance to work with all of these wonderful artists.

  “So,” Regan started hesitantly, pulling me to the present, “how are things with you and Ember? Really.”

  Guys don’t normally talk about stuff like how things are going. I know this, because I am one. But, I also know that I’m different. So is Regan. And, frankly, I needed another dude to process with. Even if he hadn’t been through the same loss I had recently, we’d been through enough together to prove to me he had the guts to handle just how things were going.

  “Better. But,” I puffed out my cheeks as I exhaled, “it got fuckin’ brutal there for a while.”

  Regan bit the inside of his cheek. “I thought so. Ember wouldn’t say anything to me, but she seemed … just…” He shook his head and diced some peppers. “What are we making anyway?”

  “Fajitas,” I answered. “Don’t use the same cutting board for the veggies as the chicken, though. The veg-heads will castrate you.”

  Regan switched cutting boards and seemed to pick up where he left off. “Like, I knew she was talking to me about how she was feeling about the miscarriage, but there was nothing about you two in there. And any time I talked to you it was the same. I wasn’t there to see you, but—”

  “No one was,” I cut in. “It was kind of the perfect storm in the worst way. We had nothing going on and kind of wrapped ourselves in that house. I honestly have no idea how many days Ember spent without leaving the property.”

  “Ten,” Regan mumbled.

  I huffed. “That’s about right, I guess. I went back to work right away. Which was kind of mistake number one.”

  Regan shrugged. “There’s no playbook for this shit. I get wanting to escape.”

  I set the skillet on the stove and added the chicken. “Yeah. It’s that damn fight or flight thing. I couldn’t fight the grief, so I tried to run from it.” I shrugged as Regan tossed in half the veggies. “I mean, it’s not like I’ve never grieved before, but, I’ve never fled from it.”

  “Doesn’t work.” Regan’s tone was dry, but his grin was sympathetically playful.

  I clapped him on the shoulder and chuckled. “No, brother, it doesn’t. Not even for a second.”

  “Yeah,” he snickered, “sometimes it even makes it worse.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I think it always makes it worse. A hundred percent of the time in my case.”

  “So,” Regan eyed the uncooked veggies curiously, “are they just … gonna … eat the veggies and … nothing else?”

  “You basically lived with Ember on the road, dude. You know she’ll add some soulless protein when she gets here. I’m just not allowed to cook it.” I held up my hands in defeat. “I screw it up. Also a hundred percent of the time.”

  Regan shout-laughed. “Soulless?”

  “Her word. Not mine.”

  He shook his head, eyeing the ceiling. “That girl and her one-liners, man.”

  “Things with you and Georgia … good?” I changed the subject.

  “How are you feeling?” Regan changed it back. “Like, about the miscarriage itself. Not just you and Ember stuff.”

  I turned down the heat on the stove, plopped the lid on the skillet, and leaned against the counter with my beer in hand.

  “Honestly? It’s hard to say. In the span of a few days everything was changed a hundred and eighty degrees and then spun off in a whole other direction. I barely had time to get used to the idea of being a dad…” I trailed off, but started again as I watched Regan eye me suspiciously. “Who am I kidding?” I sighed. “I was so excited. I knew it was the wrong time professionally but, hell, it’s not like we couldn’t have still sold a record, you know?”

  Regan nodded. “It really freaked Georgia out.”

  “Huh?” I lifted my chin, surprised.

  “I mean, we’re obviously not even engaged yet or anything, but we talk about that stuff. The wedding, house, kids … anyway, a few days after she heard about the miscarriage she didn’t talk for like half a day. Out of nowhere. Then—and don’t tell her I told you this—but she burst into tears when I asked her what was going on.”

  I took a swig from my beer, shocked at Georgia’s emotion regarding our situation.

  “Yeah,” Regan continued. “I was weirded out, too. We’ve dealt with some serious shit, and cried a lot, but it was always about us stuff, you know? But she was freaked out about what would happen to us if we went through something like that, and she was really freaked out about you guys.”

  “Really?”

  Regan opened his beer and leaned next to me, both of us staring at the stove. “That was after she’d texted with Ember for a couple days, remember. She said the same thing I’d noticed … that she was only talking about her and what she was feeling and how she was perceiving it. Even though she rips on you guys, it wigged her out to not see you two holding onto each other.”

  “We almost blew it,” I agreed.

  “What happened? How’d you get out of it?”

  I set the beer bottle down. “She called me an asshole.”

  “Yeah, so?” Regan shrugged. “Georgia does that on the daily.”

  I laughed. “Let’s just say that was the tip of the juicy “Behind the Music” segment, huh?”

  “Nuff said.” Regan held up his hands. “Have you talked about when you want to have kids now?”

  I took a deep breath. We hadn’t talked about it, but I hadn
’t stopped thinking about it. The first time Ember and I had slept together after the miscarriage was the night of the gala, a few days after Christmas. That was the first night we’d felt like a couple in weeks. Ember had been nervous, worried that it would bring up a whole host of shitty feelings. We kept reminding each other to be gentle. More for ourselves than the other person. It went smoothly and we both cried. We didn’t talk about why we were each crying because, honestly, by that point we were exhausted from talking about our feelings.

  The next morning, though, was different. Peaceful, beautiful. Like the third step after putting one foot in front of the other.

  “Save your answer for another time, dude. Here come the girls.” Regan pushed off the counter and pulled down three wine glasses.

  I silently hated when he did considerate things before I could get to it. Didn’t seem manly to get into a fight over who was pouring wine, though, so I let it go.

  Willow did a quick scan of the room when she walked in. “Well, it’s still standing, so you couldn’t have screwed up dinner that bad.” She winked as she set down a box of pastries from Sweet Forty-Two.

  “Went to La Jolla, did ya?” I clapped and rubbed my hands together as I stared at the box.

  “Yes,” Georgia snickered. “I was a tool and went to my own bakery to bring things back here. Thank God it was just my mom there. I used to hate working at places where the boss would come in on their days off to get food, or whatever.”

  Georgia slapped my hand away and pushed the box to the back of the counter. “I still can’t believe you live in this house, Willow. What a fuckin’ dream.”

  “I’ve seen your place, Georgia. Neither of us are doing too shabby.” Willow graciously accepted a glass of wine from Regan and stuck her head in the fridge, undoubtedly looking for non-animal protein.