by Mandi Beck
Sighing softly, I grab the throw blanket from the back of the chair and cover up with it. I will my thoughts to stop chasing after one another and close my eyes. There’s no way I want to be alone in my big bed tonight, so I settle into the glider and let the soft, even breathing of my daughter lull me to sleep. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I can deal with today.
Stone
I DON’T THINK THAT I slept a minute last night. How could I? All I wanted was to get in my SUV and drive my ass over to Willow’s house. Every thought I had was of Joaquin there with them. With my girls. And it made me crazy. So here I am pacing the presidential suite of whatever fucking hotel I’m in and wait on Judge to call me back. I’m not sure what miracle he had to pull for me to be able to buy a house here, but he did it. For all I know I’m a Canadian fucking citizen. I spent the morning looking at houses online within walking distance to Willow’s. Hell, I might even knock on her neighbor’s door and offer to buy their house. I fired off every house I could find to Judge and he was setting up appointments. I told him I don’t even care what they look like, just to pick one, and he about had a stroke so I agreed to at least look.
Law and Arrow just left to get food after asking me about a thousand times if I was going to be okay by myself. Even made me call Koa and talk to him. Their lack of trust stings a bit but I get it. Talking to Koa puts them at ease and gets them off my back. After Koa I texted my sister who arrived at my place in Austin yesterday just to tell her I have shit to take care of here and would get with her soon. But now I’m waiting, anxious as fuck, and that’s when I find myself doing something as stupid as taking a drink would be. Pulling out the desk chair, I drop down in it and flip open my laptop typing Joaquin Danjou into the search bar. Picture after picture pops up. Some with women, some alone, on tour, award shows. The usual. What stops me cold is the mention of his new album and the song that has hit all of the charts. With dread in my stomach, I pull up the song and play it, listening to the lyrics and knowing without a doubt where he got it from. “Love as fragile as wishes on a string . . .” I look down at my wrist, where my wishing string used to be, and recall the memory.
I watch as she ties the delicate black string around my thick wrist, the little silver feather that dangles from it getting lost in my ink. “What is this, Birdie? You trying to make me look like a pussy?”
I smirk when she huffs out a breath. “No, Stone. It’s a wishing string. You make a wish and when it falls off, your wish will come true. So, make a wish.”
Chuckling low in my throat, “Wills, I’ve got you and I’ve got the band. What the fuck else am I gonna wish for?”
“Anything you want. Just make a wish,” she demands, narrowing her eyes at me. I wasn’t kidding—I have it all as long as I have her and my music. But watching Willow, I see that she wants me to do this, so I close my eyes theatrically and wish for the one thing that would complete me. When I’m done I open up and grin at her, “You wanna know what I wished for?”
I open my mouth to tell her and she slaps her hand over it, silencing me. “No! You know the rule about wishes—if you tell it won’t come true.”
With her soft palm against my lips, I cover it with my own calloused one and swipe my tongue across it, then pull away just enough to nibble on her fingers, making her smile and her whiskey-colored eyes go all warm. “Did you make a wish, Birdie?” I ask her, my voice husky with the need now crashing through me. She nods and flashes me her wrist with her little dangling heart on a black string. “You gonna tell me what you wished for?” I nip the pad of her thumb, my eyes never leaving hers as I soothe the bite with first my tongue and then a kiss.
“No,” Willow says breathlessly.
“Wanna know what I’m wishing for now?” When she nods yes I tell her, “I wish that we were in bed and these perfect lips were wrapped around my cock.” I smile as I watch her swallow deeply. “And I wish that while you had me in your mouth, sucking and licking just how I like it, that you were sitting on my face, riding my tongue just . . . how . . . you . . . like . . . it,” I whisper in a low voice.
With a trembling hand I text Law and tell him I’ll be back. Not a minute later, I shove my arms into a black leather jacket and pull a baseball cap down over my brows. The moment I hit the street, I light a cigarette and wait on the valet to bring around my car. That little trip down memory lane just wrecked my ass. Made me hard and put me on edge. My need to find Wills intensifies. I have no clue where she might be. Not knowing her schedule when for so long I lived it pisses me off, makes me anxious. So much has changed. I’ll try her house first. Then the studio. I’m close enough to walk to The Dirty Bird, but I don’t want to risk being seen. I can’t deal with paps or anything else right now.
I watch Willow sitting at the piano, eyes closed as she plays. Breathtaking in her intensity and quiet calm that rivals my own raging chaos. She’s so entranced, lost in the music that she doesn’t hear me come in. As soon as her fingers still on the ivory keys and the last note falls, I speak,
“Did you give him my song, Birdie?” My voice is thick with the hurt and anger I feel. She startles, her eyes flying open and a hand going to her chest.
“Stone, you scared the hell out of me. What are you doing here? Who let you in?”
“Did you? Did you give him a song that you wrote for me?” I demand. I know the answer. I want her to say it. Our music was always ours. She wrote songs on her own for other artists but never songs about me, our love . . . our hurts. Those belonged to us. She let him have a song that was mine. Ours. Doesn’t matter that every word is a knife to my heart, tearing at an already festering wound. That every chord and chorus bleeds me dry and leaves me raw. I hear her pain in every verse. Hear what I did to her, to us. Regardless of how it kills me, it’s my song and she gave it away.
“I gave him my song, Stone. A song I wrote. By myself,” Willow tells me firmly. “It had nothing to do with you.” Standing she comes around the piano, gathering her things to leave.
I shove my hands into my pockets wishing like hell I had a cigarette and pull out a lolli. Silently unwrapping it, I point it at her. “That’s a lie and you know it, Birdie. That song has everything to do with me.”
Not denying it, she meets my gaze, her tired eyes staring into my tortured ones, “What do you want, Stone? Do you want me to say I wrote it about you, for you?” She plants her hands on her hips. “I did. I wrote it as I lay alone wondering where you were, who you were with. If you’d finally gone too far and killed yourself with the poison you loved more than me.”
“That’s not true either, Birdie. I never loved anything more than you. Not even music,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Well, you have an incredibly fucked up way of showing that then. For the first time in your life your actions spoke louder than your words,” she tells me, resigned. “You made your choice that night and every night before, and we’ve both paid . . . dearly. Own your mistakes, Stone. Isn’t admitting you have a problem one of the first steps of the program?” Her tone is gentle, voice pitched low, but the accusation in the words loud. Deafening.
“I admit every fucking day that I’m weak. Every time I seek out a meeting to get me through the day, I admit it. To myself and to a room full of strangers just as fucked up as I am. I admit it when I play my guitar and pour my heart out to an empty house because you’re not there to sing to.” I throw my arms out to my sides, “I have more problems than a man in my position should. I acknowledge them because it’s a reminder of what my weaknesses cost me. I’ll continue to until I convince you that you are my strength. You and music are what has me admitting just how fucking weak I am.” When she won’t look at me, I shift to the spot she’s staring at just to my left.
“Everything he has, everything you’ve given him, is mine. You, my daughter, my song. All mine. He’s not me. None of it belongs to him,” I tell her, the heat in my voice building.
“You’re right, he’s not you. That’s the whole point, Stone. He deserves al
l of it. All of me. He’s not you. He won’t throw me away, because he cares about me. About us,” she accuses.
I flinch at her words, each one of them like a blow. They cause me physical fucking pain. “He may care about you, but he’s not in love with you, Willow. I know what that looks like. I know what it does to a man to love you so fucking completely that he can’t breathe without you. So much that the sun doesn’t shine bright enough and the dark is too encompassing, ravishing an already ravaged soul because you’re not there to hold. I know what loving you looks like. I see it in the mirror every single fucking day. I know.” I shake my head and give a little shrug. “It ain’t him.”
That shuts her up. But knowing Willow, not for long. I’ve just stunned her a bit. I mean every damn word though. Before she can argue that with me, before she can slice away at my soul with ugly fucking words about how he's not me and remind me of what I threw away, I move closer to her. Reaching past her, I notice when she sucks in a breath at my nearness and brush my fingers over the keys of the piano. Imagining that I’m able to feel the touch of her hands underneath mine on the ivories. Without taking my eyes off my own fingers I demand huskily, “Play it for me, Wills. Sing me my song.”
She shifts away from me just slightly, drawing my eyes to her. Willow shakes her head, “No.” Her voice is strained and I can see that she’s fighting herself but I’m not sure what she’s fighting. So I push for more of a reaction. Because if she’s feeling, even if it’s anger, I’m getting to her.
“You want me to? I listened to it on the way over here. Over and over again. I can tell he didn’t change it. It’s all you. All me.” My eyes fall to her throat when I see her swallow tightly. “Should we play it together? Just like we used to? You know how that will end though, don’t you, Birdie?” I taunt. When she doesn’t say anything I go on. “It will end with me fucking you on this piano just like I have on the one at home so many times before.” I allow my fingers to dance over the keys, making them tinkle softly throughout the studio. “I’d play you just like this baby grand. With fingers on your skin, inside you, making the sweetest fucking music, just me and your body.” With a half smirk, I look up at her through the hair that’s fallen into my eye. “Come on, Birdie, sing it with me.”
Watching her, I slide the sucker in my mouth, rolling it around before popping it back out. “Mmmm, watermelon. My favorite. I can still taste you every time.” A slow grin touches my lips at her flustered appearance. Feeling. Feeling is good.
Just then Judge steps into the studio. Looking at first Willow and then me. “Hey guys. We okay in here?” he questions.
“Take your friend home, Judge. Back to Austin. Please,” Wills demands.
Pulling the stick free, I ask, “You coming back home?”
“This is my home,” she says heatedly.
“I thought you'd say that. Let's go look at those houses, Judge.” I turn and slap him on the back, a second away from walking out.
“What the hell do you mean, Stone? What the fuck are you playing at?”
“Oh, Birdie, I'm not playin.' If you're staying here with my daughter, this is where I'll be,” I assure her calmly.
“She's my daughter, Stone!” Willow huffs out, thoroughly exasperated with me. “Lyric’s mine. Go back to Austin.”
“You keep telling yourself that, I've done the math. You're stubborn but you're no cheat.”
“No, that's all you,” she spits out at me. And I can't even fucking argue. I was a piece of shit boyfriend when I was high. And I did her dirty. But that's all done and I have a lot of making up to do.
“That's not who I am anymore.” Truest words I've spoken in a long time.
“Come on, Judge.” I walk out into the sound room while Judge stays behind to calm a totally pissed off Willow. I don't want her mad, but if it's all she's gonna give me, I'm gonna take it.
Waiting by the door of the studio for Judge, sucker firmly in my mouth, I watch him come toward me, a frown on his face. He’s already ditched the tie; I can see it dangling from the pocket of his suit jacket. I get all-business, band manager Judge today. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
“She still mad at me?”
“Mad is an understatement. Are you sure you want to push her so hard right now, Stone? I mean, she wasn’t happy to see you as it was, and now . . .” He trails off.
We step outside where I trade my sucker for a cigarette, inhaling deeply and exhaling before turning to him. “Can’t make her happy; mad is all I’ve got right now. I fucked up for months and then had to take nearly a year and a half to get my shit right. She’s pissed as hell with every right to be, and now she has a boyfriend. A boyfriend, Judge. That shit ain’t right.” With another drag I look away before speaking again, staring off into the distance. “She’s all I’ve ever wanted, I just lost sight of that, ya know? And now she’s got my kid. And I’m doing my best to not be mad that she didn’t tell me, because I didn’t deserve to know. But now I’m clean and I need them both.” Glancing at Judge who stands quietly with his hands in the pockets of his pants, rocking back on his fancy shoes, and I shrug. “So, mad is better than nothing, bro. It’s the nothing that I can’t take.”
He nods in understanding, “Then let’s go buy you a house.”
Two hours and eight houses later, and I’m the proud new owner of a detached—who knew that was going to be such a fucking issue—four-bedroom house about three blocks from Willow. Farther than I wanted, but as close as I could get.
We are just walking out of the lawyer’s office when I get a text from my sister.
Scar: You can stop avoiding me. I know you guys broke up. I just want to talk.
Me: Sorry I didn’t tell you. Shit’s fucked up. I’ll call tonight.
Scar: You better xoxox
“Was that Lawson?” Judge asks, as he fires up the rental.
“No, Scarlet. She figured out that Wills and I broke up.” I hate that word. Hate saying it out loud. It makes it all too fucking real.
“So now what?” He steers the SUV onto Queen and back toward the hotel.
“Not sure. I’ll call her tonight and see if she wants to come hang here with me now that I have the house or if she wants to just stay in Austin where she can be alone.”
“Is she all right?” he asks, clearly concerned.
“I’m not sure. She says yes but Addy said something’s going on but that Scar doesn’t want to talk about it.” Popping a lolli, I say around the stick, “I can barely deal with my shit right now; she might want to stay in Austin.”
“Hasn’t she been in London for the last few years? Is she just visiting or what?”
“She’s been there the last three years, a nanny. And the way she’s talking, I think she’s back permanently. At least, that’s what I’m picking up on.” I shift in my seat to face him, “What’s going on with the knocked up model?”
He cringes. “Still knocked up. Swears it’s my kid and I told her I’d pay for all of her care, but I don’t want a paternity test ’til after the baby is born.”
“Why not? What if you pay all this money and it’s not your kid, Judge?” I ask him, confused. Judge is a meticulous, brilliant business man. This is unlike his ass.
“What the hell is it gonna cost, Stone? I mean, seriously.”
“True, but it’s fucking principle.”
“It’s dangerous for the baby. I’ve been doing some research.” He shrugs. “I’d rather wait. The money doesn’t matter to me. But hurting the baby just to get some answers now that I can get in a few months,” he shakes his head, “I’ll just wait.” Judge looks over at me. “Speaking of babies . . .”
Blowing out a long, heavy breath, I shake my head, “I’m trying not to push her, ya know? I mean, I know Lyric is mine, and I just want to hold her and love on her.” I smile ruefully. “But I can’t get Wills on board. I’m just going to keep on poppin’ up every fucking where she is. Something’s gotta give eventually.”
“And Jo
aquin?” Judge asks hesitantly.
“Fuck him. He knew who she was when he went after her. I’m coming at them both with everything I got and I’m not even a little sorry about it.” I dig my Zippo out of my pocket for something to do with my hands and start flicking it open and closed over and over. “He couldn’t be any more different from me if he tried. Does that make him better for her?” My question hangs in the air for a moment too long and suddenly I just want to snatch it back. Finally, Judge speaks.
