Our Song

by Savannah Kade

  The guys would be home until the day after Thanksgiving, and Kelsey had two free mornings of their time to shoot everything she needed. She had a JD moment right in front of him, “There’s not enough time to really plan this out! I just-”

  “I understand exactly how you feel.” He gave her a sad smile across the dinner table that night. “But we’ll give you our best. Hell, Craig even trusts you, and that’s rare.”

  “Daddy, don’t say ‘hell’.” Andie speared another broccoli and shoved the whole thing into her mouth. Kelsey debated whether or not to correct a child who was eating her vegetables.

  “You’re right, baby.” And JD just let the slip go by. “So I wanted to have Thanksgiving at my place.”

  “You’re going to make a turkey?” Kelsey speared her own broccoli and twirled it on her fork. She hoped she looked like she was eating it, but her kids weren’t that stupid.

  “Is that disdain I hear?” JD shot her a look of half-hearted offense.

  “Just surprise.”

  “So you’ll help me?”

  That made her bust out laughing. It was good to know they were invited. She was getting so accustomed to her life not just being about her and her kids. That had to be a good thing, right? “Of course. Who are you inviting?”

  “Not you guys.”

  “What?!” Daniel had apparently been paying attention. “We don’t get to come?”

  JD smiled at him. “Yes, you do. You don’t get an official invite, because you don’t need one.” His gaze shifted from Daniel to looking at her. “You’re family.”

  That satisfied Daniel, who went back to pestering Allie and Andie.

  Kelsey couldn’t help what she felt inside. “Thank you.” She beamed, she knew it.

  “It’s true.” He shrugged it away, but he could afford to. Kelsey, on the other hand, had no other family than those at her dinner table.

  JD didn’t let her get too introspective. “I’m inviting TJ and Craig, and Alex and Bridget, although I don’t think they’ll come. I suspect they’re having Thanksgiving with his family. That should be plenty.”

  “Sounds like.” She hoped Alex and Bridget would come, she hadn’t even met the girl yet, and Thanksgiving was only a week away. “Are we doing traditional? Potluck? What?”

  “Potluck is scary with TJ and Craig, maybe we could make them bring rolls or something.”

  She smiled, “Can they make the little yams with the marshmallows?”

  Shaking his head, JD speared a slice of ham, “No way, if TJ makes it, all three kids will be diabetic before the end of the night. If I make Turkey and Ham and Pies, can you bring veggies?”

  “Of course, do you need me over there to help watch the turkey?”

  JD’s plate cleared during the conversation. As was usual with him, it was as though a wind had simply swept it away, but he’d eaten the whole thing. Thanksgiving with three, if not all four, guys was going to mean a lot of food.

  JD stood at the counter helping himself to another serving, just like family. “When does the turkey go in?”

  “Depends on when you want to eat and how big the turkey is.”

  The look he gave her said he had no idea about either, so she ball-parked if for him. “Between seven and ten.”

  “A.M.?”

  She nodded, “A.M. I’ll be there.”

  “Thank you.”

  “That means the kids will be running around your house all day.”

  He just shrugged, “That’s what Thanksgiving is.” He sat back down with another heaping plate, and it was all Kelsey could do to keep her eyes in her head. Would she ever get used to the amount of food the man consumed? His voice distracted her, “What’s stupid is that’s exactly what my mother wants: a house full of grandkids on holidays. She could come and have that, but she’s so stuck on having it be just so, that she’s missing the whole thing.”

  Chapter 25

  Unfortunately, the days Brenda gave Kelsey to get the photos were back to back. The first morning was a total waste. It was a waste of film, time, and effort. JD was the only one who tried, and as good-looking as he was, he was a terrible model.

  She couldn’t capture the way his smile lit him up because he was working so damn hard at it. Craig was stiff, and TJ and Alex were like puppies. She was sorely tempted to roll up a newspaper and whack them with it.

  After lunch at a nearby burger joint, she tried getting a neat shot at the river. Of course, it turned out Alex was afraid of bridges—not heights, just bridges. She’d never heard of anything so nuts.

  Next, she suggested a hike. Anything to get them moving naturally.

  “Hiking?” That was Alex.

  “Are you afraid of hiking?” She hadn’t meant to be so harsh.

  “Fine!” They went, bewildered, while Kelsey followed, camera in hand.

  Eventually, the guys wandered back to a small clearing, and she showed herself, telling them to set up and play. They did, doing an oddly updated version of the old ‘King of the Road’. She wandered around taking photos from all angles. There was hope for those photos. It sure couldn’t be worse than this morning.

  She made JD drive her while Craig, TJ, and Alex followed in Craig’s car. With a wild flourish that nearly made JD wreck, she got him to pull into the first of two open spots on the side of the street. Craig barely managed to tuck in haphazardly behind them, before getting out and asking, “What the fuck was that?”

  “Abbey Road.” She pointed to the cross walk down the street.

  “It’s been done.” He pointed out.

  “Because it’s good.” She shot back. After five tries, while they’d been bickering and complaining about the chill, she’d enlisted a swarm of high-school girls who’d just gotten dropped off at a nearby bus stop. They were in knee socks, white shirts, and navy blue skirts. She couldn’t have planned it better.

  “Walk again!” She yelled down the block, her camera aimed to take the photo.

  About forty shrieking teenagers went chasing down the street after the guys, who broke form, looked scared as shit, and ran. Kelsey almost laughed too hard to get the shots, but she got all of them. Until Craig spotted her laughing and pointed her out to the guys, who then turned and charged her.

  She warred between fleeing and getting the shot. But, deciding bravery was a necessity, she planted her feet and snapped off what she could before they stormed her, JD swooping her up and slinging her over his shoulder. The girls came up right behind them.

  “You did a great job, ladies!” Then she looked down at the guys from her perch above JD’s shoulder. He held on tight to her, his arms wrapped around her legs. “Would you gentlemen care to give these nice young ladies some autographs?”

  She was drowned out by questions from the girls. “What’s the name of your band?” “Where did you go on tour?” “What’s the name of your next single?”

  She snapped shots from up high until JD realized he couldn’t balance her and sign autographs. It was almost a full thirty minutes before the girls had gotten all the autographs they wanted. They were all excited about maybe appearing in the album photos. When the last one left, the guys turned on her, but it was JD who spoke. “There’s going to be payback.”

  She stepped back. “Payback? I just made you a ton of new fans!”

  “Payback.” It was just a statement, but he moved too fast for her to get out of the way, and he’d slung her over his shoulder again, camera and all.

  From hanging upside down she complained. “You know the only thing I can get a photo of from up here is your ass.”

  “Feel free.” He called over his shoulder. “Guys, I think we’ll see you tomorrow.” And she saw the sidewalk rotate and slip past as he walked off with her.

  She tried hollering out, “Tomorrow, nine o’clock!”

  “Yeah, yeah.” They hollered back at her. She was pretty sure TJ waved. She was too far away to yell before she finally gave up, and sank down.

  When he set her on her feet
without warning, all the blood rushed the wrong way and she swayed just a moment until she felt the car behind her and JD’s hands through her jacket. With a deep breath, the world righted itself, except for the part where JD was practically in her face. “What was that Kelsey? School girls?”

  She shrugged, “I’m sure some of them were almost legal.” She didn’t know where that had come from, and she tried to ignore that she had mistakenly steered the conversation that way.

  He was looking right at her, into her, “I don’t want a school girl, Kelse.”

  Her breathing stopped, all of her braced. He looked like he might kiss her. So she panicked. Without thought, she started jabbering. “The pictures are great though!” She pulled the camera up in between them, pushing buttons until she had the slide show on the screen.

  They were great photos, but she wasn’t sure what she’d just done.

  The second day, they worked all day. For lunch, she gathered them in a booth in an old-time restaurant with a mini-jukebox at the table, then asked them how they got started together.

  Pulling up a chair, she snapped more photos to add to the heaping pile she already had. She ignored her own food as it grew colder, fascinated by the story, and the view she had of it.

  JD pointed across the table. “Craig and Alex were in another band. What were you guys called?”

  “Roadrage.” Alex had the grace to look a little sheepish.

  Putting in her own two cents, Kelsey stayed behind the camera. “What happened to that band?”

  “Band fight.” Craig supplied around a bite of burger. “There were songs about murdering people, and . . .”

  JD picked up the thread of the story again. “I was here, songwriting, and looking for a band. I was actually walking down the street with my guitar in my hand, as though someone might stop me and ask me to play.” He shook his head. “I’d been here a year, and played the Bluebird, thinking I’d made it. Then I played again, and again, and got a card from a distributor, looking for new writers. Mostly I got my music ‘on file’ and not very often picked up.”

  “We literally ran into each other.” Alex laughed. “Craig and I were storming out of the studio. We packed everything we could and bolted.”

  “Smack into JD.” Craig grinned, “This sweet little country boy from Texas.”

  JD barely stopped his eyes from rolling, “They were so punk, Craig had a bleached Mohawk.”

  “Turned out we all lived in the same building with a bunch of other starving wannabe musicians.” Alex shook his head. “JD was the only talented one. So we decided we’d just practice together until we each found a better match.”

  JD threw a French fry and turned to Kelsey, “After a while it was too much work to make fun of each other, and we just kind of melded. About six months after that, TJ said he wanted to come out. I told them TJ had a better voice and better front-man personality than me, and since we still were figuring we might go our separate ways, they didn’t care.”

  “I’m the glue that holds this little ragtag band together, ma’am.” TJ smiled at her, and Kelsey couldn’t help but laugh.

  Craig shrugged, wadding up the paper wrappers littering the table in front of him. Without effort or thought he chucked them over two, thankfully empty, tables making clean shots into the trashcan. Kelsey caught that, too and Craig added, “It worked, it just fused. I haven’t heard anything else out there like us. I like that. You just know when something clicks.”

  Apparently they all did. Just then, by some unspoken agreement, they all got up and began clearing the table. JD set her forgotten food aside for her to bring in the car, and in a few minutes she was nibbling the less-than-stellar burger in his passenger seat.

  They made a roundabout tour of town, stopping in a few key places Kelsey had already scouted, and a few she hadn’t. Finally, the light was starting to dim, and they all sat on the courthouse steps, exhausted and trying to look casual and a bit rebellious. TJ was the only one who pulled it off with any measure of skill.

  They squirmed one way, then another, trying to appear comfortable and relaxed. They looked anything but. Finally, she gave up and called off the dogs. All the guys moaned in relief, and like the true band they were, they all collapsed across the steps, exhausted.

  With a grin, she caught what would be the last photos of the shoot, walking in closer until she was standing directly over them. “Come on guys, look sexy.”

  TJ raised one brow in a too-good mockery of a soap actor. Craig just shook his head and grinned. “Darlin’ I always look sexy, can’t help it.”

  She and JD laughed.

  Alex’s cell phone chose that moment to ring, and he answered it, still lying on his back and looking up at the sky. “Hey, baby.”

  It was clearly Bridget. If she hadn’t heard the words Kelsey would have known anyway by the sharp pierce of envy she felt. Alex’s whole body changed. His voice softened, every part of him was aware only of who was on the other end of the conversation. His eyes lit up.

  Kelsey pulled her gaze away. Alex was younger than her, and there he was, all in love. It didn’t seem fair. After Andrew, she knew everything there was about life not being fair. Case in point, the remarkably sexy man helping her gather her stuff. He was just a nice guy, and didn’t need her clinging to him.

  Five minutes down the road, JD’s hand found her shoulder. “Something wrong?”

  Everything. “Nothing.”

  He clearly didn’t buy it, but let it slide, and in a few minutes they had pulled into the parking spot under his condo. Without thinking she went around back to the trunk and gathered up the camera equipment she had. Then she grabbed a small case. “What’s this? Violin?”

  A wicked grin spread across his face, effectively erasing her lingering melancholy about Alex and Bridget. “Baby, I’m from Texas. It’s not a violin—”

  She grinned, too, and joined him for the last three words. “—it’s a fiddle.”

  “Will you play for us?”

  He nodded, grabbing the guitar as well. “I usually sing Andie to sleep when it’s just us.”

  She was walking away, grateful that her face didn’t show. She was suddenly jealous of Andie. All this time he’d been singing to his daughter and Kelsey hadn’t managed to hear him.

  While she heated up leftovers and ate her dinner, conversation stirred around her, and she sat in a bubble of her own little sadness. It wasn’t really self-pity, it was just . . . lowness. And it was familiar. She’d felt this when Andy was diagnosed, even though she’d been too young to categorize it. Then again when he’d disappeared at 17. She’d lived in it for so long after Andy had died. But here it was again, and so she kept her mouth together through most of the meal, nodding here or there, and not participating much.

  The kids left in a flurry of activity and she got up to clear the table. But JD was around to her side, stopping her, his hand gentle on her arm. “Kelse, what’s wrong?”

  She tried to say ‘nothing’, but it was too much of a lie.

  He leaned down, looking in her eyes, clearly worried. “Baby, you look like you’re about to cry.”

  She was appalled to find that he was right. Even as she shook her head, fat drops welled in her eyes, and spilled over. She didn’t know where this had come from. This life she had now was so much better than the one she’d lived just a year ago. But now she felt, and she felt so keenly. What had been missing didn’t matter before, but now it did.

  His arms slipped around her, steady and sure, and only a fraction away from what she really wanted. Leaning in the doorframe, he pulled her between his braced legs and folded her against his chest. “Can you tell me?”

  She shook her head ‘no,’ feeling his soft t-shirt against her cheek.

  “Is it me?”

  Yes. “No.” Her voice was tinny and hollow.

  For a few moments he just held her there as she cried. Not great heaving sobs; she didn’t have the energy for that. She hadn’t lost anything. She just wasn
’t going to get what she wanted. And for the first time in her life she didn’t think she could just chalk it up to fate.

  His hand stroked her hair and his cheek rested against the top of her head. It was almost perfect, but almost wasn’t close enough.

  “Are you thinking about Andrew?”

  She nodded to that one, copping out. It was true, just not the truth.

  After that he didn’t say anything, just held her until she had it together enough to pull away. Then he looked at her, his hands smoothing her hair. “Feel better?”

  She nodded, wiping at her face. “I don’t know where that came from.”

  The front of his shirt was wet from her face, and she pointed at it. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’ll dry.” He shrugged, and set about clearing the table. They worked in a companionable silence, with him bringing the dishes from the table and her putting food away or rinsing dishes and loading them in the washer. It was so domestic, she almost cried again.

  When they had the table cleared and everything put away, he grabbed his guitar. “It’s getting close to bedtime. Andie won’t get up in the morning if I don’t get her into bed by eight.” He paused, “But you probably know that as well as I do.”

  “Yeah.” A smile graced her lips.

  “So, let’s go have a sing-a-long. Would that cheer you up?”

  “Absolutely.” Trailing him down the hall, she hollered to the kids, “Clean up! JD’s going to sing for us!”

  JD hollered, too. “Everybody’s going to sing!”

  The door to Daniel’s room opened and Kelsey sighed. It looked like a tornado had struck, and she warred with herself about making them clean it up before JD played. She finally decided just to make them pick up what was necessary to have enough room to get to Daniel’s bed. “Let’s all go into the living room then.”