Blessed Fate (Blessed Tragedy)

by HB Heinzer

  "Are you heading over there when we get to Comstock?" I looked down at the plate of eggs in front of me. I didn't want her to think I was ungrateful since she had been nice enough to make breakfast for both of us, but my stomach was in knots and I wasn't sure I could eat anything.

  "Planning on it, but I have to see when Mike can come and get me." While I was happy she and her brother were finally getting along, I hated knowing that she was asking him to drive six hours round trip to pick her up and then bring her back. There was a time when it would have been a welcome break for us to jump on the bike for a drive that length to clear our heads.

  "We can grab the bike as soon as we get there." See, desperate fool. If she had wanted me to take her, she would have asked, but she didn't because I was a jealous ass who didn't deserve to be around her.

  "No, that's okay. Mike already said he'd drive over, I just have to find out when." This was the first time she had flat-out refused a ride on the bike and I felt the knife in my heart twist one more time.

  "Rain, that's ridiculous. It'll be cheaper on gas, and I'll find a hotel somewhere until you're ready to come back." I scrubbed my hands over my face. I wasn't sure who frustrated me more: Rain for being so stubborn or me for being such a lovesick fool that I couldn't just let her go.

  "I don't know, Colt. I just can't..." She stared out the window of the bus as we raced down the highway. Volumes were spoken in her silence, and I knew it was unlikely I would ever change her mind about me.

  "Fine, suit yourself. I'm really not the asshole you've conjured up in your mind." I tossed my plate into the sink as I stormed away from her. I couldn't keep banging my head on the wall hoping something would change.

  I stayed at the front of the bus with my iPod, allowing Rain to do whatever she needed to do to get ready to leave. Sometime before we arrived, I finally drifted off to sleep. The bus door slamming shut woke me up, and I was able to watch Rain, once again, walking away from us to go home. This time, I couldn't help but wonder how much more she could take before she cracked and decided that small town living really wasn't that bad and dreams weren't always all they were cracked up to be.

  "You going after her?" Travis asked me as we ate lunch. Jon was still giving me the silent treatment, and Jared was back to living in his own little bubble, leaving Trav as the only person for me to talk to.

  "I don't know man," I once again shoved food around on my plate. Maybe everyone who said I would eventually grow a vagina was right; turning into a woman was the only thing that could explain the way I was reacting to everything. "I tried telling her I'd give her a ride out there, and she shot my ass down. Hard."

  "You really are an idiot, aren't you?" Jared chimed in. Okay, so maybe the wall of his bubble was getting thinner as he grew more comfortable with his fluid status with the band.

  Jon snorted, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back to enjoy his front row seat for what was about to go down. When Jared looked at him nervously, Jon motioned for him to continue.

  "She loves you. You love her. You're just both too caught up in your shit to see it." Jared leaned in closer as if he was preparing to share the meaning of life with us. "You screwed up. You need to work at it to show her you're sorry, and you're not going to give up that easily."

  I glared at Jared. What did he know about Rain and me? Sure, he had seen the fireworks over the past few months, but he didn't know shit about the past five years. "Thanks, kid, but I've already tried that. Didn't work."

  Jared rolled his eyes. "Seriously? You call trying to talk to her when we are all stuck in this alternate reality showing her you're sorry? You need to do something out there," he pointed out the window, "in the real world."

  I looked to Jon, dying to know what was going through his head. He simply smirked and shrugged. Travis was fighting back laughter at the fact that a twenty-one year old kid with stars in his eye schooled me on how to handle women problems.

  Shoving my iPod in my pocket, I pulled on my shoes and left the bus, no longer up for listening to them telling me what I needed to do. Truth be told, I thought we were all in danger of turning into a bunch of old women if we kept talking about the fate of my fragile relationship.

  The longer I walked around the still empty fields that would soon transform into one of the country's largest rock festivals, the more Jared's words made sense. But I still worried it wouldn't be enough. I had given up on apologizing to her for what I had done; she would either have to believe me or not on that because I couldn't keep re-hashing that shit. Now, I needed to figure out what to do next.

  "Colt?" My sister's squeaky voice always made me laugh no matter what was going on in my life. I hoped she would have some good advice for me because the guys weren't helping as much as they thought they were.

  "Hey, Emmer. How are you and the kids?" Even though I called her to talk about my problems, I wasn't about to launch right into that topic. I missed Emerson and her twins, Aidan and Alex. They had moved to Texas with her fiancé almost a year ago, and it hadn't worked for us to spend any time together since then.

  "We're good. The kids are getting huge and asking about you. I've been busy with work and planning the wedding. You're not calling to tell me you're too big and famous to take off for your little sister's wedding, are you?" She was talking about a mile a minute, just as she had always done. I cringed at the fact that I had to think for a minute about when the wedding was. We had been so busy. It was a date in the calendar on my phone but not something I actually thought about.

  "No, nothing like that. Maybe I just wanted to check up on you," I lied. She knew I was lying because I was a shit liar.

  "Bull. What's going on?" Her muffled voice told me she had pulled the phone away from her head as she said something to the kids, so I took the opportunity to think about whether or not I was really going to talk to her about my love life.

  The moment of truth came when she told me I had her attention again and the floodgates opened. I told her everything. And I mean everything. I told her how I'd crushed on Rain from the moment I met her, didn't date because I wanted to keep myself available in case she ever changed her mind, and how close I'd come to giving up a couple times in that time. She had nothing kind to say when I told her about the depth of the hole I had dug in regards to Tanya and the problems it was creating now that Rain and I had gotten together.

  "Do you love her, Colton?" She asked when I finally finished.

  "Like no one else before," I sighed.

  "Then Jared was right. You need to go be with her. Get her dad and her brothers on your side. No girl wants to upset her brothers," she laughed, knowing full well that she had upset me plenty of times with her choice in boyfriends.

  "Her family isn't like that." And I'm pretty sure I'm their last choice if she's talked to them. They probably want her to get together with Garrett-the-Director.

  "How so?" She asked. I hadn't gone into much detail about how traumatic her mom's death, her dad's illness and all of that had been. While it held some bearing on us as a couple, I didn't think it was the type of thing Rain would want anyone knowing, even those closest to me, and I respected that.

  Knowing that Emerson wouldn't let it go, I had to say something. "Let's just say they didn't talk much for a while before her Ma died. Now, they're working on getting to know each other again."

  "Even more reason," she said bluntly. "Look, if you love her, don't waste your time off a few hours away while she's hanging out with this band-geek buddy of hers. Go, show her you're there for her and see what happens."

  It became apparent no one was going to let me wallow on the bus. "Fine, but if this backfires, I'm hiring a polka band for your wedding."

  With every mile that passed as I traveled down the Interstate, I questioned whether or not I was crazy for following Rain to her hometown. The only thing that kept me from turning around and heading back to the bus was the fact that, regardless of whether or not the guys would give me bad advice when it came
to women, I knew I could trust Emerson to give it to me straight. After all, she had twenty-two years of being a female and was a pretty amazing woman.

  Thanks to one colossal dose of second thoughts that led to dinner in a truck stop, it was nearly ten at night when I finally rolled into Lexington. I managed to get lost in a town of fewer than ten thousand people because I wasn't about to stop and ask for directions, couldn't call her, and I'd only been there once before.

  I shifted from foot to foot, shifting my duffel bag on my shoulder as I waited for someone to answer the front door. Hearing music coming from the backyard, I was just about to walk around the house when the front door swung open.

  "Hey, Colton," Matt said, extending his hand to me enthusiastically. Okay, apparently our problems haven't made their way to the brothers. This is good. "Didn't know you were coming out this way." The way he kept looking from me and then towards the sliding door, I wondered if I was interrupting something. He seemed almost as nervous as I felt.

  "Is it a bad time?" I asked, not wanting to cause a scene and regretting listening to everyone who told me a surprise trip was a good idea. "I can just..." I pointed to the front door as I inched my way back.

  "No, let me go get Maddie for you." He left me standing in the dark foyer rather than inviting me to the deck where there was obviously some sort of party going on. That did nothing for the anxiety threatening to make me lose my dinner all over the marble floor.

  "...I can be friends with whoever I want!" Rain's agitated voice snapped me out of my own thoughts. Who was she talking to? Who was she talking about? Was Matt pissed that I was here? Maybe he did know what was going on.

  Even in the dark, I could see Rain's icy glare as she stomped through the house. "Did you need something?"

  "We need to talk," I said quietly, not wanting everyone to be privy to our issues if they weren't already.

  "I'm trying to enjoy some time with my brothers, Colt. What's so important that it couldn't wait?" Her arms were crossed tightly against her body, it was obvious she would rather I not be there. Fuck.

  "Rain, you're killing me. Can we please go outside and talk?" I motioned to the front door, needing to give us some privacy and knowing we wouldn't get any if we stayed inside. One way or the other, the head games needed to end. If nothing else, we needed to have the fight we couldn't have in front of everyone, so we could get on with our working relationship and not affect the lives of everyone else.

  "This really isn't a good time. Why did you come all the way out here? I told you to stay."

  "Please, baby. There's never a good time to talk to you. You won't talk around the guys. Now, you won't talk here, where no one can hear—"

  As if hearing myself practically begging her to talk to me wasn't bad enough, I made the mistake of looking up when I heard the sliding door at the back of the house open and then close. I expected it to be one of Rain's brothers coming to make sure everything was okay. Imagine my surprise when it was none other than Garrett, the same friend she had gone out with three times the last time she was home, and now, here he was the same night she got back to town. The pounding in my ears was deafening as my blood pressure rose.

  My jaw clenched so tightly I could barely speak. "Guess I know why you didn't want me here. So much for nothing going on, huh?"

  "Fuck you, it's not like that," she screeched as she started pacing back and forth in the small space. "I told you before, he's a friend. That's it."

  "Yeah, a friend who you're here drinking with. A friend you went out with several times the last time you were here. A friend you've admitted had feelings for you." I tried to steady my breath, to tamp down the bitterness I felt seeing Garrett in her house.

  She shook her head furiously before finally responding. "And you really wonder why things didn't work? He's. A. Friend. Take a look at my life. The closest thing I have to a female friend is Angie and I barely know her. I get along better with guys. Whether you like it or not, that's a fact of life."

  "I should go." I reached behind me to open the front door, but Rain grabbed my other hand, stopping me in my tracks.

  "Come on. Have a beer with us. Who knows, you might even realize he's not a threat to you." For the first time in a week, I felt like there was a reason to have hope. If she didn't want things to work out with us, she wouldn't have given a damn whether I saw Garrett Fucking Dietrich as a threat or not. "You need to realize the only threat to us right now is you. You've known me long enough to know I don't do jealousy."

  I buried both hands in my pockets as I studied the floor beneath me. "You're right, but you've known me long enough to know I don't do girlfriends. You need to cut me a little slack here."

  Her voice lacked the hard edge I had been afraid would be permanent when she spoke to me. "No, I can't do that, but let's not talk about that tonight. It'd be an understatement to say I've had too much to drink for heavy discussions."

  I didn't care that, once again, we weren't talking about our issues. She had cracked open the door to discussion, and I had to respect her reason for not wanting to talk. She motioned for me to head out back while she went to the restroom. I tried to ignore the fact that I knew that was the direction Garrett had gone. She couldn't do jealousy, so I needed to find a way to bury those feelings.

  Mike looked confused when I walked through the back door but didn't mention anything. His inquisitive eyes seared my skin as he tried to work something out in his head. I tried to ignore the fact that it was highly unlikely that Rain hadn't mentioned anything over the course of three hours in the car.

  Matt handed me a beer, and I took a seat on the small loveseat across from them. Garrett gave me a dirty look when he rejoined the group, but he didn't say a word. When Rain came out, she sat next to me on the loveseat, but there was an uncomfortable distance between us as we tried to crawl into our respective ends of the furniture.

  Within thirty minutes, Garrett and Matt had both excused themselves with half-hearted excuses, leaving Mike, Rain and me sitting on the deck. Not so coincidentally, that's when a stifling silence fell over the clear night.

  When no one else was talking, Mike leaned in to us. "Why did I drive six hours today if he was going to come out here?"

  "Because she's pissed at me," I admitted. Granted, if Rain hadn't mentioned anything, it really wasn't my place to, but I was a desperate man. The little bit of my brain that was working figured Mike might be the one person who could help me get through to her that I was truly remorseful and prayed like hell she'd give me one more chance.

  Mike leaned back in his chair, propping his ankle over the opposite knee. "What did you do?" He laughed. Rain's temper was no secret, and I figured either he had probably been on the receiving end, or he had seen it enough to know how to best deal with it.

  "Well..." I paused, really not wanting to tell him what a dumbass his sister was dating, or had been dating until that one drunken night. "Don't get me wrong, she has every right to be upset, but damn Mike, your sister holds a grudge better than just about anyone I know."

  "Hey, remember me?" She sounded like a petulant child, and I had to resist the urge to laugh. "I'm right fucking here. And Mike, you don't want to know why I'm pissed at him."

  Both of us turned, giving Rain our undivided attention. Mike, more than likely, wanting to know what I had done, and me waiting to see how much she was going to go into.

  "He seems to think I'm screwing Dietrich. He thought that tonight, too. Oh, but not just Garrett, he accused me of fucking Jon, too." Well, that pretty much summed up the extent of everything. So much for hoping I would get her brothers' blessing any time before Hell froze over.

  Rain started to jump up from her seat, so I reached for her arm and pulled her back down. I hated putting her brother in the middle of this, but she was the one who threw the door wide open in front of him.

  "I was fucking drunk, Rain. How many times do I have to apologize? I was a jealous, miserable prick. I was wrong. I'm sorry." I leaned forwa
rd, tugging at my long blond hair, pissed off that we were, once again, rehashing the same fight.

  "Yeah, and most drunks I know are their most honest with a little bit of liquid courage." She curled into a ball at her end of the loveseat, her voice suddenly small. Now that she was showing an emotion other than rage, I felt like we really were making progress.

  I looked over at her brother, noticing that he seemed to be enjoying the live show in front of him. I supposed it was amusing from the outside looking in, but I was tempted to slap the smirk off his face. This was one of the most serious situations I had ever found myself in, and he was fucking smirking at me. Cocky bastard.

  "Okay, you two," Mike interrupted about the same time I realized we weren't going to resolve anything. "Colton, my sister is drunk right now. So, given the fact that your problems all started because one of you shot off while under the influence, I think it's time to table this conversation. Why don't you come to my place for the night, and you two can talk tomorrow. If I have to, I'll sit here and mediate because you're both in the wrong."

  I stood to grab my bag and follow Mike to his place when Rain reached out and stopped me again. "No, he can stay here." Her voice sounded unsure. I looked at her, and she squeezed my hand, reassuring me that it would be okay.

  Mike hugged his sister tight, whispered something in her ear and then motioned for me to follow him. As much as I wanted to stay, I wasn't about to do anything to further jeopardize Mike's seeming acceptance of me.

  She wrapped her arms around my neck, burying her face in my chest. It was the first real physical contact we'd had since before our fight, and it did nothing to help me walk out the door. I wanted to sit there taking in the combination of strawberries and vanilla that I loved. "I guess I'll talk to you tomorrow. Leave the bike here."

  "I'm fine," I huffed. Secretly, I loved the fact that she was bossing me around like old times. Even if it was because we had both been drinking, it meant there was something still there.