Body Check

by Alicia Hunter Pace

  “Nothing. Not a thing. I’m going to take a shower and go to bed—alone. The baby needs rest.”

  Apparently, he was too stupid to know what he’d done, but he was smart enough to know he had to fix it and wise enough to know there was no way to do it tonight.

  So he might as well find an empty bed and get in it.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Tradd wakened to knocking.

  It took her a minute to remember the events of yesterday and realize that it must be Lars knocking on her door.

  She sat up and smoothed her hair. “Come in.”

  He was wearing a pair of bright lime green and purple basketball shorts and an Ole’ Miss T-shirt and carried a mug and a plate.

  “Where did you get those clothes?” Not his style at all.

  “Jake Champagne. He lives in the building.”

  “You went to his condo wearing a towel?”

  Lars frowned. “Of course not. I had him deliver.” So his teammates—former teammates—were still willing to jump when he said rabbit. He set the mug and plate on the bedside table. “I brought you tea and toast. I don’t know if it’s right for you, but that always helped Julia when she—”

  A flash of pain crossed his face and he looked at the ceiling. The guilt set in. Of course, he was concerned about the baby. Who wouldn’t be after what had happened to him? She should be grateful that he was happy about the baby. And as far as how he felt about her—well, what had she expected? He hadn’t lied to her and he was treating her well—the diamond mine on her finger and the tea and toast were proof.

  “Thank you.” She reached for the mug. “I’m not feeling sick this morning—at least not yet. This is just right. Sometimes when I get something in my stomach right away, I don’t get sick.” She took a bite of the toast.

  “Good. I’ll see that you have something first thing every morning.” She melted a little. If she would let it, this could be a better way. “I called my family and told them. I didn’t want them to read about it on the Internet.”

  She hadn’t even thought of his family. “How did that go?”

  “Better than with yours.”

  “Wouldn’t have taken much.” They shared a smile.

  “So,” he said, “are you still feeling mad this morning?”

  “No.” She ate some more of the toast and sipped the tea. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m sorry.” It wasn’t altogether true that she didn’t know what had come over her. She knew very well how she had felt; she just wasn’t sure it was fair or rational—though she was very sure that she didn’t want strife.

  He looked relieved and sat on the edge of the bed. “It was a day filled with stress.”

  “One might say that,” she said. “One might shout it from the rooftops and hire a brass band and it wouldn’t come close to illustrating the magnitude of stress.”

  “Still, you were angry and I don’t know what I did. If you will tell me, I will not repeat the offense.”

  I want you to love me, Lars. I want you to want me for me, baby or no baby.

  “Really, it was nothing,” she said. “I was overwhelmed—sneaking off to get married, but not sneaking well enough. My parents. I’m sorry he fired you. I thought there was a possibility that he wouldn’t.”

  For the first time this morning, Lars smiled. “He didn’t fire me. I resigned.”

  “Humph.” She sipped her tea. “Semantics.”

  “It had to happen, Tradd. Let it go. I have.”

  “Having another year was important to you.”

  “I’m getting something better.”

  She would leave well enough alone and not ask what he meant by that. She finished her toast and reached for her phone on the nightstand, only to find it wasn’t there.

  “Have you seen my phone?”

  “You put it on the charger on the desk in the living room.”

  Right. “I bet I have four hundred missed calls and twice that many texts. And most of them are going to be from Carson.” She would be furious that she hadn’t gotten the news first.

  “Do you want me to get your phone?”

  “No. I’ll deal with it after I get dressed. But we do have to go see Carson this morning, like we planned.”

  He nodded. “My agent is flying in early this afternoon.”

  She had to meet with Martel, too. “And after all that, we need to see my parents. My mother called. She said we all need to see each other. Get back on an even keel.”

  Lars groaned.

  “I know. Not at the top of my list of fun things either, but there’s something you should know. I only found out last night. The reason my father is considering selling The Sound is because the doctor has advised him to slow down and reduce his stress.”

  Lars looked concerned. “He’s ill?”

  “No, but he will be if he doesn’t make some lifestyle changes. My mother is pushing him to do it. I’m not sure she’s not right, since there’s no way he’ll delegate.”

  Lars nodded. “It’s hard to think about Nashville without The Sound.” He looked pensive. Not only was he off the team, it was very likely they wouldn’t even be in town anymore.

  “Hey.” She laid a hand on his arm. “You can visit them—go see them play all you want.”

  He nodded. “I guess so. I guess people with nothing else to do can do that.”

  “You’ll find something to do.”

  “I don’t know what. Hockey is all I know.”

  “Soon there will be a baby to take care of. I hear they take up a lot of time.”

  He brightened. “That’s right. As happy as this makes me, it’s hard for me to wrap my head around it. How long do you think it would be before a baby can go on a plane, to a hockey game? To Sweden?”

  She shook her head. “I have absolutely no idea. Maybe we should get a book—some kind of user manual.”

  “Good idea.” They laughed together quietly and his eyes sparkled. “You still aren’t feeling sick?”

  “No. The toast and tea did the trick.”

  “Well, then.” He pushed her hair off her face. “Do we really have to go see Carson right now?”

  Chills went over her. “It can wait a bit.”

  “That’s good news.” He stripped off his shirt and let his shorts drop to the floor, exposing his semi-erect penis.

  “You weren’t wearing any underwear.”

  He laughed. “Sparks wouldn’t lend me any. Though come to think of it, I wouldn’t have wanted them. There is no guessing where they have been.” He ran his hand under the covers and up her nightgown. “Ah. You aren’t wearing any either.”

  His penis rose a bit more as he stroked her thigh. “You have a magnificent body,” she said.

  “Not as magnificent as yours.” He removed her gown and let his mouth drop to her erect nipple. It felt incredible.

  “Is your mouth well enough for that?”

  He raised his face to look at her. “Not really.” Then he moved to her other breast and sucked there for a moment. “But I don’t care. I want to taste you. All of you.” Then he began to slide down her body slowly, letting his tongue make a trail of magic as he went. By the time he kissed her hipbone, she was trembling and breathing audibly.

  He looked up, brought his hand up her rib cage, and down again to the inside of her thighs. “Lie back and enjoy,” he said. “I want this to be all about you.”

  When he lowered his head, she raised her hips to meet his mouth—and it was all about her over and over again for a long time.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Tradd was crossing the lobby of the Star View on her way to meet Martel when her phone rang. Pickens. She considered letting it go to voice mail, but things were bad enough. She ducked into a little alcove near the elevator.

  “Hello, Daddy.”

  “Sister. I was calling to see if you’re okay.” He sounded humble, which didn’t mean he was. It just meant he wanted to settle things, and that was good. She wasn’t going to
make it too easy for him, but not impossible either.

  “No, you aren’t. You’re calling to see if I’m okay with you.”

  “Partly,” he admitted. “But I do want to know how you are.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Not sick? Your mother was sick every day with you.”

  She had to smile at him leaving out the phrase when she was pregnant. He made it sound like she and Mary Lou had been constantly ill for the last thirty-two years.

  “I’m not sick today. I have been from time to time.”

  “Good—good that you are feeling well today. I’m sorry how things happened last night.”

  Sorry wasn’t a word Pickens gave away easily. “Yeah. Me, too. I didn’t intend for you and Mama to find out that way. We were going to tell you today.”

  “We just need to put it aside and move on. We’ve got a baby on the way—and that’s a blessing. Mary Lou is already talking about setting up a nursery here for when he spends the night.”

  There was excitement in Pickens’s voice and Tradd couldn’t help but smile. “Or she.”

  “Or she,” he agreed. “I will buy her a pony.”

  “Will you? You never bought me a pony.”

  “You never indicated that you wanted one. Do you? I can still buy you one.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “About Thor …” Pickens said.

  “What about him?”

  “We’ll be all right. Hell, you know how I feel about him. There’s nobody I’d rather have for a son-in-law. It would just have been a lot neater if y’all could have waited until he’d played his last season.”

  “It didn’t work out that way.”

  “Then we’ll just have to work it out from here. I was pretty mad—and I wouldn’t say I’m completely over it. But he bought himself a lot when he said he wouldn’t take you and the baby away from Nashville.”

  “It would have only been for a year. You know how important playing that twentieth year was to him.”

  “I do and it’s too bad. But you come to a crossroads sometimes and you take your chances. It’s done. I like to think in the end he won’t have any regrets.”

  She would like to think that, too.

  Pickens took a deep breath, which meant he was about to change the subject. “Your mother told me she had asked the two of you to stop by tonight. How about if y’all come for dinner? I’ve got some steaks for the grill.”

  She was already tired, and there were still things that had to be done today. Having a night with nothing to do would have been her first choice, but her parents needed this. Maybe she and Lars did, too.

  “Mary Lou’s going to get that salad with the peaches and stinky cheese that you like.”

  “From Contralto?”

  “I think so.”

  “Tell her to get a banana pudding cheesecake.”

  “You know I will. See y’all about six?”

  “All right.”

  “I love you, Tradd.”

  “And I love you, Daddy.”

  “You must be kidding.” Tradd was seated across from Martel at Eat In, the restaurant on the ground floor of Star View Towers.

  Carson had been annoyed that she had not been the one to break the news of Lars and Tradd’s marriage—though she didn’t blame Tradd. She blamed cell phones with cameras, the Internet, social media, and “idiot vigilante gossips who take the dissemination of information into their own hands.” But they had let her break the pregnancy news. After all, Lars had reasoned, why keep it a secret? They had nothing to be ashamed of and people would soon know anyway. But Tradd got the feeling that Lars just wanted the world to know.

  “I wouldn’t kid—not about this.” Martel helped herself to the seafood nachos on the table between them.

  “Tell me the details,” Tradd said. “Tell it all, from the beginning.”

  Martel nodded. “I talked to the folks at Tone Records. Told them you’d married Lars Eastrom, you were pregnant and deliriously happy about it, but there was no way you could do the Chesney summer tour.”

  “Were they mad?”

  Martel shook her head. “They’re business people, Tradd. They don’t have time to get mad. They deal in facts. First, the presales on your album are great. Second, the publicity from you marrying a Nashville Sound star will serve them well. Third, you can’t go on tour. They still want you to promote the album, so they got on the phone and got this new offer, which sounds better for everyone—especially since you would actually be touring on the release date next week.”

  Tradd took a piece of paper and a pen from her purse. “Tell me the details again.” The only thing she’d taken away from the first telling was that she had the opportunity to open for Jackson Beauford—the coup of the century. “I thought he had stopped touring.”

  Martel shook her head. “He doesn’t tour much. That’s why this is perfect for you. Five shows in nine days—all on college campuses. And Beauford has a plane, so you wouldn’t be on a bus for hours on end.”

  “Are you sure he knows about this? His cousin hates me.”

  “He knows. I talked to his manager, Ginger Marsden. I doubt very much if Jackson Beauford got where he is today by worrying about who his cousin does and does not like.”

  “This is perfect.” She could not believe her luck.

  “Originally, he wasn’t going to have an opening act, but Ginger said the right one had come along.”

  Tradd’s eyes filled with tears. “This is amazing opportunity.”

  Martel nodded. “But you have to leave in two days. Monday. Can you do that?”

  “Absolutely, I can.”

  “I can’t go,” Martel said. Tradd wasn’t surprised. She was not Martel’s only client. “But I’ll coordinate with the Beauford people. Don’t worry about your equipment or the band. I’ll take care of it all.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Is your husband going to be all right with this spur of the moment change? You have one of those now, you know.”

  “Lars will be fine with it.”

  Who knew things could go so well?

  “You said you’d do what?” Lars could not believe this. And everything had been going so well—but it was seeming more and more like when a Davenport was involved, so well could turn into hell on earth really fast.

  “I’m leaving Monday to tour with Jackson Beauford—Jackson Beauford, Lars! Can you believe it?”

  “I don’t care if it’s Michael Jackson and all the Pips. You can’t go traipsing off across the country pregnant.”

  Her joyful excitement evaporated and she shook her head, clearly exasperated. Well fine; she couldn’t be as exasperated as he was.

  “Michael Jackson is dead, and it’s Gladys Knight and the Pips. Michael Jackson didn’t have any Pips. Neither does Jackson Beauford.”

  “So now he wants you to be a Pip. No.”

  Then something happened to her face. It got scary. And she put her hands on her hips. Then there was silence, scary, scary silence. “What did you say?”

  He needed to reinvent the past really fast. “I said you aren’t a Pip.” What the hell was a Pip anyway?

  “No. But I am leaving on the midnight train to Georgia.”

  “What? You say you are going on a tour to perform on Monday and now you are leaving tonight? At midnight? That’s crazy.”

  “Never mind. Apparently, you have no frame of reference for music. Not tonight, and not Georgia. Not on a train. It’s actually Monday, on a plane to San Francisco.” She made a little squealing mad sound and put her hands on her head. “I sound like Dr. Seuss.”

  He was not going to be distracted about that Dr. Seuss reference. He needed to reason with her about this trip. “It will be too hard on you. You are not well.” You might lose the baby.

  “I am perfectly well. And Jackson’s manager said since I don’t have a staff that his will help me with anything I need.”

  “Hmm. Is anyone on Jackson’s staff a doctor?”


  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Then how will you be taken care of if something does happen to you?”

  “Well, let’s see.” She looked at the ceiling like she was trying to think. He did not care for the sarcastic edge to her voice. “We’re going to San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Berkeley. If something happens to me, I’m pretty sure all those places have hospitals.”

  His scalp prickled and ice spread throughout his body. He might need some tea and toast. The very thought of Tradd in a California hospital was the deepest part of hell. The feelings returned. Lucas had lived three hours.

  “I’m very sorry,” the doctor had said. His boy. He and Julia had held hands and descended into despair. They had reminded each other that they still had Sofia and she was a fighter. She could not fill the void left by Lucas’s death, but cold comfort was better than none at all. Then three days later, the doctor was, again, very sorry, and there was no comfort at all. And there was no comfort when he and Julia realized there was nothing left between them.

  “You can’t go,” he said firmly. “How would it look after being married four days if you leave?”

  “How would it look? I think it would look like I have a career. Have you and Mary Lou been having tea and pondering appearances again?”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Are all Europeans so literal or is it just you? So, riddle me this. If my father had not fired you—”

  “I resigned.” Would she never get it right? “You could do with a little more literal in your life.”

  “Okay. If you had not resigned, would you not be leaving with the team for Minnesota for the first round of playoffs? When is that game? Oh, it’s Tuesday. Would you be leaving on Monday?”

  She had a point—not a very good one, but a point. “That’s different. I am not pregnant. Besides, I would have been gone for only four days—two games. Then the team would return here for the next two games. Then, depending on the win/loss record—”