By Degrees

by Elle Casey

“Who said anything about love?” I say, letting him smooth away my sorrow with his silly talk.

  “You don’t have to say it. I know you love me. I’m impossible not to love. Ask all my fans.”

  I try to punch him but he has me wrapped up too tight. “You are so full of yourself.”

  “No,” he says, kissing my head. “I’m full of you. Now go to sleep. Tarin’s tired.”

  “Tarin needs to stop referring to himself in the third person.”

  “Don’t make Tarin upset. He’ll have to sex you into submission again.”

  I smile against his chest. “Oh no. Please. Don’t do that.”

  He rolls me onto my back and we start the game all over again. I can’t stop giggling for the life of me.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  SAYING GOODBYE TO TARIN IS one of the hardest things I’ve had to do since losing Austin. Four days, most of it spent talking and playing in bed is enough for me to fall completely and totally in love, apparently. I’m so afraid of what’s going to happen next. I really don’t do unknowns well at all. I’m a mess by the time he has to leave for L.A.

  “You don’t have to cry,” Tarin says, wiping a tear from my eye at the door.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, wiping my face with a shaky hand. “I know I’m being overly emotional, but part of me keeps wondering if this is the last time I’m going to see you.” I make a lame attempt at a smile. “Stupid, huh?”

  “Stop,” he says, pulling me close, dropping his bag on the ground at our feet. “I’m healthy, I’m clean, I’m working hard and putting all that shit behind me, and Scott’s there. What could possibly go wrong?”

  “Your plane could crash.” I’m not serious when I say it, but as soon as the words leave my mouth, a new kind of panic sets in. Just what I needed. More anxiety.

  “You should be on it with me, then. We could go down together in flames.”

  I pull away from him and steel myself for the goodbye. “No. I have to stay. I need to do the same thing you’re doing but away from L.A. Besides, you’re not going to be there much anyway with your tour.” I look at the floor, embarrassed a little at the deeply personal things we’ve talked about that I’m going to bring up again. I just want him to believe me with no reservations that I’m committed to making this work, even though we’re going to be apart. “I need to get myself back before I can really have something to offer you. I know this.” I reach out and stroke his muscled arm, looking up at him. “Are you mad? I thought you were cool with all of it…”

  “No, I get it. I’m just going to miss you, is all.” He pulls me into a hug and rests his head against mine. “You do your thing here, I’ll do the tour, and then when it’s over, I’ll come back here to Chicago and we’ll figure out our next step. Four months and we’re through it. Just four months. It’ll fly by.”

  I nod. “Sounds like a plan.” I feel stupid talking like this - like we’re entering into some kind of business relationship - but it’s the only way I can move past the awkward and into the routine I’ve planned for myself. While he’s gone I’m going to wake up every day, exercise, write in my journal, and see a therapist a few times a week. Dealing with Austin’s passing the way I did by throwing myself into my lost-boy rescue work was good for the short term, but it really threw off my long term healing. I’m going to get my crap together so when Tarin is ready for me, I’ll be ready for him. I love it when a plan comes together. I just need to focus and work my ass off for myself for a change. I can do this. As long as I have Tarin’s support, I can do anything.

  Jack opens the door from out in the hallway and grins at us. “Ready to go? Car’s downstairs.”

  “Yeah.” Tarin picks up his bag and puts his free hand against my cheek. “After the tour.”

  “After the tour,” I say, resting my hand over his for a few seconds as we stare into each other’s eyes. I back up before he can think to lean in and kiss me. I’ll never let him go if I feel that tongue in my mouth one more time.

  I turn my attention to Jack. “Jack, what can I say? You’re my hero.”

  He pushes Tarin out of the way and grabs me in a bear hug. “Damn straight I am. And don’t you forget it.” After squeezing the life out of me and letting me go, he turns to Tarin. “Drop the ball just one time and see what happens. I gave her away once … I won’t do it twice.” He leaves, jogging down the hallway and jumping up to hit the light fixture above his head by the elevators. My heart pains me a little over the hurt I sense in him. It shows what an incredibly good friend he is that despite losing me to Tarin, he’s still willing to get him to the airport and fly back to L.A. with him.

  “I’m not going to drop this ball,” Tarin says to me in a quiet tone.

  I smile, warmth crawling over my heart and enveloping it in a feeling of security. “Yeah, I know you won’t. I believe in you, Tarin. Just believe in yourself and we’ll be fine.”

  “Same goes. Bye, babe.” He kisses me quick on the cheek and then he’s gone.

  I watch his broad shoulders shift as he moves his bag from one hand to the other. The thin cotton of his tight t-shirt leaves nothing to the imagination, and neither do his tight jeans. He has lean muscles everywhere that up until just a couple hours ago were resting naked against my body. I sigh, shutting the door behind him and resting my back against it. My stomach has a whole contingent of butterflies inside it and they’re fluttering around like mad. My future is bright and scary and full of all kinds of things I have to get done if this is going to work. And I so very much want it to work.

  “Time to get busy,” I say out into the room. And I smile. For the first time in almost a month, the idea of getting to work sounds like fun, and for the first time ever in my life, I’m going to be working on me.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  I DIAL SCOTT’S NUMBER, TRYING not to be nervous. It’s pretty much impossible, since my stomach is in knots and I have a cramp in my neck. It’s the stress that’s killing me right now. The stress of not knowing. The therapist’s calming exercises I’ve mastered over the past three and a half months are not working. Nothing can penetrate the wall of fear that’s risen up to block my view of reality.

  “Yo, Scar, what’s up, my sistah?”

  “Hey, Scott. Why are you so damn chipper?”

  “I’m not. I’m totally faking it because I know why you’re calling. We’re at defcon five over here.”

  I let out a long breath. “Tell me. What’s going on? Why hasn’t Tarin returned my calls or emails or texts? I haven’t heard from him in five days.” Tarin and I are almost four months into our long distance relationship and everything was going fine, or so I thought. I’m supposed to pick him up from the airport next month. Two weeks from today, our new life is supposed to start.

  “Don’t freak, okay?” says Scott. “I don’t know a whole lot, just that he was finishing up his last two shows and then he just disappeared. I was there for the one before he left, but I came back to L.A. to work on some projects he has going, so I wasn’t there when the doo hit the foo.”

  “What?! Why am I just hearing this now?!” I run across the apartment with my phone pressed to my head. Still in my sweaty workout gear from my earlier 5k run, I’m not ready to go jump on the plane that I hope Scott has already reserved for me.

  “Because, it’s happened before and we just thought maybe this would be like the other times. But he’s been gone longer than normal, and he missed the Berlin show entirely. He’s never missed a show before. Major fucking problems are a-brewin’ in Deutschland, let me tell you. Ticket refunds are a fucking mess. Mel’s lost all the hair he put into his comb-over. It’s very sad.”

  “Scott, this isn’t funny.” I’m practically crying with my panic. “What do you mean he’s done this before?”

  All I get back is silence.

  Now I’m crying for real. “Scott, you’re my brother and the only family I have left in the world that’s worth anything. Please, for the sake of all that’s holy, tell me what
you know and stop hiding shit from me!”

  “First of all, relax. I know that’s easy for me to say and impossible for you to do, but do it anyway. I haven’t been hiding anything from you. Tarin’s helping Jelly. You know that. He told you, you were cool with it, everything was copacetic. Last thing I heard, he was going to visit Jelly. I know his plane landed and he’s not shark bait floating on the waves, so don’t go flipping out over a plane crash. He’s somewhere in L.A.”

  “Did you book me a flight?”

  “Do you really need to ask me that? You leave in three hours. I hope you can get to O’Hare by then.”

  “I will. What else do you know?”

  “She’s been having problems. Jelly, I mean. She’s not a good pregnant person, apparently.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I put the phone on speaker and leave it on the bathroom counter so I can strip down and jump into the shower.

  “Tarin thinks she might be using again.”

  “What? Why the hell didn’t he tell me? Why am I hearing this from you?” I try to think back to the last time we discussed Jelly and realize I haven’t asked him about her in probably two months. I’m aware he’s helping her financially, but knowing the baby isn’t his makes me not care that much about what she has going on. I’ve been too busy worrying about myself to worry about bimbots. Besides, that’s Scott’s job now. He’s the babysitter, not me.

  “You’re hearing it from me because I bothered to ask Tarin about it. It’s my business to know all, to see all, and to be the omnipotent one.”

  “Scott, I’m so not in the mood for this right now.” I turn on the water and step into the shower before the warmth kicks in. I don’t care that I’m now freezing my ass off. I soap myself and shampoo my hair in record time.

  “Fine, you want mister businessman? Here you go. I’m mister three-piece suit now.” Scott uses his telephone automated message machine voice. “At approximately eleven a.m. Berlin time, Tarin stepped onto a KLM flight out of the Berlin airport, and after transferring at JFK, arrived in L.A. about twenty-two hours later. Ricky the chauffeur picked him up at LAX and drove him to his house in Beverly Hills. Tarin then took the keys to the Chevy SUV and drove off. He hasn’t been seen or heard from since.”

  “How long ago was that? What day?”

  “It was four days ago.” Scott’s back to using his normal voice, so maybe I won’t have to slap him when I see him again.

  “That’s the last time I heard from him,” I say, rinsing the soap out of my hair and off my face and body. Shutting the water down, I listen to Scott’s response.

  “What did he say to you?”

  “I can’t remember.” I climb out and grab my phone. “Hold on, I’m checking. If this thing cuts you off, I’ll call you back.”

  “Holding…” He whistles while he waits. It’s the theme from Snow White where the dwarves are working. I’ve changed my mind. I will be slapping him when I see him again.

  Looking at my texts, I find the last one from Tarin.

  Hey babe. In Germany. Gotta take a quick side trip. No big deal. Talk soon.

  After reading it out loud to Scott, I think about Tarin’s choice of words. At the time I’d thought he meant some sort of sight-seeing thing. He and the band had been doing that pretty regularly on the tour, so there was no reason for me to question him. Had he been vague on purpose to keep me from asking questions?

  “I’m getting a really sick feeling about this,” I say, my throat closing up a little at the idea of it.

  “He didn’t really say much, did he?” asks Scott. “I wonder why.”

  “Because he didn’t want to have to explain himself,” I say, getting angrier the more I think about it. “If his plan was to go to L.A. and see Jelly, he should have just put that in the damn text.”

  “What would your reaction have been?”

  “I would have asked why. I would have argued against it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s in the middle of a tour! Because she’s not his fucking girlfriend anymore and he shouldn’t be jumping around and being at her beck and call!” I yank a brush through my hair, taking my anger out on my poor scalp.

  “Maybe that’s why he didn’t say anything.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

  “Wellll, it might mean that you’re overreacting a little. Or not.”

  “Honestly, Scott. Do you really think it’s overreacting for me to be upset about Tarin leaving in the middle of his European tour to fly halfway around the world to be with a pregnant ex-girlfriend, who would do just about anything to get her claws into him including lying about him impregnating her?”

  “I have a better question,” he says, completely unruffled by my anger and hysteria. “Do you really think that the guy who’s spent the last almost four months living, eating, breathing, and pooping Scarlett Barnes, getting his life on track, playing his heart out and filling up stadiums with his enthusiasm for his music, would dump it all for a bimbot dingo like Jelly Summers, a drug-using ho-bag who’s about to give birth to some other guy’s baby she doesn’t even know who? Does that sound like the dude you love so much that you got your shit straightened out for?”

  I can’t respond for about thirty seconds. When I finally do, I’ve lost a lot of my steam. “You’re such an asshole sometimes. I hate when you do that.”

  “I know when you say asshole, you mean angel, so thank you. Better get your bags packed or you’re not going to make your flight.”

  “I thought you said I have three hours.”

  “I lied. It’s more like two.”

  “Scott!”

  I shriek as he disconnects the call.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  THE HEAT HITS ME FULL in the face as soon as I step outside the air-conditioned baggage claim area of the airport. Ricky’s waiting at the curb for me, all smiles. I wish I could return the emotion but I’m too worried and upset to do anything but grimace. The jeans and t-shirt I chose to wear are better-suited to Chicago’s cooler air than this muggy awfulness. I’m glad I packed shorts.

  “Miss Scarlett! So glad to have you back!” Taking my bag from me, he ushers me to the front of the car, holding the door open for me. I’m glad he’s not putting me in the backseat this time. I really need to have my friends closer than that.

  “Glad to be back. Kind of. Have you heard from him?”

  “No. But Zach has.”

  My heart skips a beat. I wait until Ricky has the bag loaded and is in the car with me before I grill him further. “Where? When? What’d he say, and what’s going on?”

  Ricky smiles. “Easy now. I don’t know a whole lot, just that Tarin called, he’s okay, and he needed Zach to bring him a few things.”

  “Things?” My voice is coming out too high so I clear my throat and try again. “Things? Like what things?”

  “Zach didn’t say.”

  “Holy crap you guys are terrible at this!”

  Ricky doesn’t even look at me. “Terrible at what? Babysitting a grown man?”

  “Yes. Exactly. You should have gotten more details.”

  “Tarin doesn’t need that anymore,” he says softly. “He’s his own man now. He’s on his own two feet, standing proud, making a good life for himself.”

  Real physical pain hits me from inside. My chest actually aches. “Sounds like you mean he’s made a life without me. Is that it? Is that’s what’s going on?” I look over at Ricky, tears making my eyes yucky, but I can’t help it. I feel way too vulnerable right now.

  Ricky looks at me with pity. “Hey, now, I didn’t say that. Why are you leaping to that conclusion?”

  “I don’t know,” I sigh out. After I think about it for a little while, I answer as honestly as I can, even though it sounds ridiculous. “I guess when things go really good for me, I start wondering when it’s going to go bad. This just feels like the answer. This is when things go bad … when Tarin leaves me to go be with Jelly.”

>   “Well … huh…” Ricky seems to be mulling what I said over before he finishes. “I don’t know how he can be leaving you, though really, when you weren’t even with him. Know what I’m sayin’? You were in Chicago, remember?”

  There’s censure in Ricky’s voice, but I ignore it. I’ve decided I’m not going to speak to him for the rest of the drive. What does he know about my life? He doesn’t know that I couldn’t be here in L.A. I never bothered to explain to anyone but Tarin that Austin’s ghost lives here. That he might have died that night in Chicago, but this is where he lived. This is where we lived. Ricky doesn’t know that I need to be whole again before I can deal with being in L.A. on a permanent basis. It just figures I’d get here just as Tarin decides he’s tired of waiting.

  I try not to be mad at Ricky’s judgment of me. He isn’t in the loop enough to know what my messed up head is thinking and needing. But Tarin is. He’s part of that loop I’m in, so the fact that he’d do this tells me things are going very, very wrong. Or I really, really misjudged him and his commitment to us.

  “Do you want a suggestion from a friend?” Ricky asks.

  “Not really,” I say, looking out the window.

  “Okay, then.” Ricky says nothing else.

  I make it about ten blocks before I cave. I hate feeling stress between us. Ricky’s such a nice person and has always been a good friend to Tarin. I know I should listen to whatever he has to say. “Fine. What’s your advice?”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions about what’s happening. Wait until you talk to him before you decide how to react.”

  “That would be ever so much easier if he’d just answer my calls, texts, or emails,” I say in a bitchy tone. I can’t help it. I’m so frustrated right now.

  “He told Zach to apologize to everyone for him, that he’s just really busy.”

  I snort bitterly. “Whatever.” Too busy to call me? That must be really, really fucking busy. I don’t even want to know what he’d be doing to be that busy with a girl who’s almost nine months pregnant.