by Andrea Hurtt
She sat in her seat. She wanted to leave. Hope wouldn’t enjoy the rest of the show.
Next Step took the stage again, and it was time to leave.
She wasn't doing anyone, especially herself, any good by being there.
Hope really wanted to go home.
This wasn’t the life for her.
Or her baby.
Two hours later, Blaze’s deep voice reverberated through her as he yelled at her through the hands-free bluetooth in her car. “What the hell, Hope? Why did you leave?”
She’d called a cab to get her back to the hotel, packed her bag, and left.
Hope didn’t care it was almost ten p.m., and home was a four-hour drive. She needed to get away.
“I can’t do it, Blaze. I can’t let him hurt me all over again.”
“You didn’t even give him a chance! I knew I should’ve given him a hint! Told him to keep an eye out. He knew you lived close to Tacoma. When I called him on Thanksgiving, I told him to invite you. Did he?”
“You called him?” Anger spiked, and she hollered back. “It wasn’t your place to tell him!”
“I didn’t tell him about the baby. I only said you were going through something and he should reach out to you.”
“Well, he didn’t.” Her heart slid to her feet and tears stung her eyes for the hundredth time that night. She took a sharp breath so it wouldn’t show in her voice. “So that tells me everything I need to know, I gotta go, Blaze. I’m driving. Give Grace my love.”
She disconnected the call before he could say anything else.
Then she turned off her phone.
Hope didn’t want any distractions while driving the mountain pass in the dark. It was December, and the road was covered in snow.
She didn’t need more tears in her eyes and to crash the car.
Chapter 24
Tacoma had been the hardest show he’d done the entire tour to date. She lived close, but Nick had never reached out to her.
He was afraid of the rejection.
Could she be out there somewhere in the audience?
He was afraid to find out.
So Nick avoided all eye contact with the fans. If he didn’t look, he couldn’t see.
Blaze had been abnormally cheerful, and that didn’t bode well for him. He’d said nothing to Nick, but it put him on guard.
Nick had done well, putting on the show the fans needed. Until halfway through the night.
One song did him in.
They sang of heartbreak, loss, and not knowing where they belonged. When he got to his solo verse, even he’d heard the break in his voice. Nick did everything he could to hold himself together.
Why was the song hitting him so hard?
He’d sang it a million times, and not once had the lyrics affected him this way. When Dwaine took the bridge, it gave Nick a moment to pull himself together.
They had one more song before he could exit the stage.
When the concert was finally over, all he wanted to do was shower, get on the bus, and pass out in his little, dark, bunk.
Blaze came bounding over like a kid on Christmas morning.
Nick sighed inside and took a deep breath so he wouldn’t say something he’d regret.
“Where ya going, Nicky?” his tattooed buddy teased.
“I’m hitting the shower. Just like you should,” he said.
“Well, don’t go too far. I need to show you something.”
Nick shook his head. He loved Blaze; the man really was a brother to him. All the guys in the band were. He was the baby of the band, which had been hard for him in the beginning.
Going from the eldest sibling in his family, to the youngest in the band, with a gap of almost ten years between him and Scott, hadn’t been easy.
He didn’t need or want a big brother right then.
He just wanted sleep.
Nick slipped away to his bus while Blaze was busy chatting on the phone.
His buddy didn’t look too happy, and he didn’t stick around to find out what was up.
Wasn’t any of his business.
Blaze was in a nasty mood the following days. Whatever that phone conversation had been, it hadn’t gone well.
Nick avoided his bandmate as much as possible, spending every spare minute working out.
A week later, they completed touring for the remainder of the year. The only thing left was an appearance on New Year’s Eve.
He could handle that.
Grace and Blaze had invited him to spend Christmas with them.
Nick politely declined, and informed his immediate family he’d be unavailable during the holiday.
He just wanted to be alone.
No tree, no decoration, no presents.
He spent the time catching up on sleep, taking hour long showers, spending hours in his gym, and finally, beginning to write again.
It’d been so long since he’d penned new lyrics.
Everything in Nick encouraged him to pick up a bottle, but that’d been his past. He’d never let himself sink that low again.
This time, he couldn’t explain it, but it truly was the lowest point in his life.
He’d never felt so lost.
Yet, there was something holding him back from complete self-annihilation. Nick needed to find another outlet. He couldn’t work out all the time. He picked up his notepad and pen and let the words flow.
Refuse to exit now,
Refuse to walk ‘way from it,
Refuse to clash some more,
Can we still get over it?
What ‘bout what we had?
Let’s get back to it
What do you need from me
What do you want to do
This is not the life,
I want for me and you
This can’t continue on
Being kept apart,
These tears are still my guilt
These tears are still my guilt
The music filled his head, as the lyrics found their place on the paper. Each line hit him where he hurt.
It helped ease the pain.
Why are you still so wrapped around me?
Hope had taken him by complete surprise.
She wasn’t the type of woman that would walk out of his dreams. She’d been everything he hadn’t known he needed.
Nick had let her get away.
Maybe I should reach out to her?
He picked up his phone, pulled up her name, and her last text filled his eyes.
HOPE: Thank you for everything, Nick. You changed my life in such a short time. I will forever be grateful. I’ll be home soon. Gonna crash hard.
He read it repeatedly.
Nick had been right about what she’d meant, right?
She was saying goodbye.
But…
What if she was simply saying goodnight?
Did I screw everything up?
Christmas came and went without further incident.
Hope avoided all calls from Blaze, even declining correspondence with Grace. She loved her best friend, but couldn’t handle dealing with her and the advice she’d give.
She focused on the changes her life was about to take. She worked on building a nursery in her small home, painting the room a lovely shade of pale yellow, with a white crib and other furnishings.
Hope had been going to her doctor appointments regularly. Her midwife had given her a due day of May second.
Deep down, that math was wrong, but the midwife was convinced she was right. Hope was convinced otherwise. The baby would be born closer to the fourteenth.
The date of the baby’s conception was burned in her memory, rather than the date of her cycle, which had never been regular anyway.
“Most women conceive on the fourteenth day from the start of their period. I have seen the rare case of an eighteen or twentieth day conception, but those are very few.”
“I get that, but there was no chance it was prior to this date.” Hope pointed
on the desk calendar to the day in August when she’d first been with Nick.
She couldn’t help but recall the perfect way his hard body fit behind hers as he’d shown her how to play pool. Or the delicious way he’d made her parts sing when they made love in the bathtub.
Her cheeks flushed hot when she began vibrating with need.
“It’s okay, honey,” the other woman said, putting her hand on Hope’s. “The rush of hormones is perfectly normal. Pregnant women can have an orgasm just by thinking about a sexual encounter. I had a client once tell me she’d orgasm if she stood too close to the dryer.”
Hope blushed hotter. “This is normal?”
“Completely. Now, let's look at this little one.” She took a bottle and squirted gel across Hope’s small, but growing belly. She rubbed a wand back on forth, ticking away on the keypad in front of the ultrasound. “Oh, look at those little fingers!” The midwife stopped and pointed to the screen.
Her heart swelled. It was one thing to hear her little bean’s heart, but another to see it growing inside her.
Little fingers. Followed by little toes.
The midwife moved things around again, getting a good profile image of her baby's head.
They could see the baby’s nose and mouth.
“I wonder who’s nose this little one will have.”
Hope didn’t reply.
“Did you want to know the gender?”
Did she want to know?
“No. Let’s keep that a surprise, please.”
The midwife laughed. “You’re not alone. A lot of parents nowadays are optioning to not find out until either a gender reveal party, or the birth.”
“I never understood why people have gender reveal parties. I mean, the sex of your baby, and the gender of your baby are not the same thing,” Hope said.
The woman looked at her quizzically, but didn’t press.
On New Year’s Eve, Hope sat on her couch, flipping back and forth between the major networks showing parties in various places, like New York’s Times Square, New Orleans, and Los Angeles.
She put her hands on her growing belly, watching as Razor’s Edge took the stage at the IHeartRadio NYE party in L.A.
Nick looked good. Rock hard. His hair had gotten longer in such a short amount of time.
Her hair didn’t grow for shit.
“Maybe you’ll get your daddy’s hair,” she whispered to her little bean.
Her time with Nick had been a dream, one that she’d never forget.
Hope rubbed her stomach, where Nick’s child grew.
She could do it, raise a baby. It would be hard, but she was strong. Hope would cowgirl up and deal with it. A baby would change her life, but it would be another grand adventure.
The band finished their song, and Blaze stepped forward, grabbing the attention of the camera. “I’d like to ask my girlfriend, Gracie, to come join us for a moment.”
The cameraman scanned to the side, where Grace stood, her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment.
Blaze rushed to her side and pulled her to the center of the stage, where the rest of the band was standing.
Gasps and hollers came when he dropped to one knee and reached for her hand.
He’d passed off his microphone to the closest bandmate, which was Nick.
The blond man held the mic close to Blaze so everyone could hear.
“Baby, you’ve brought me so much love and passion in such a brief time. But I can’t imagine my life without you. I don’t want to. Grace Harrison, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Hope could feel tears slipping down her face, as she watched her best friend crying, too. Her eyes darted across the screen from Grace launching herself into Blaze’s arms, to Nick’s face.
It was emotionless.
Except for his blue eyes.
Chapter 25
Nick had no idea it was coming. His best friend’s proposal was a shock to them all.
He was more than shocked. It hurt him. This was something he should’ve known about, something he’d been a part of.
He tried to hide his disappointment from the world, not to mention his brothers around him.
The couple was congratulated, and the band left the stage to mingle with the other guest stars, as the night wound down to midnight.
The alcohol was flowing like water, but he kept plain ginger ale in his champagne glass.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4…
Nick heard the countdown, but wasn’t really listening.
They blew the party horns; the confetti dropped from above, and people all around him were kissing.
Someone grabbed him, a robust blonde woman, stealing his breath with an unwanted kiss.
Someone else ripped him from her embrace, turned to his left, and he was kissed again by someone new.
This wasn’t the first New Year’s Eve where he’d been passed around like sacrificial wine at church.
In the past, it’d been a hell of a party he’d never wanted to end. Not tonight.
Not anymore.
Nick didn’t want to be touched by them.
It was another’s touch he craved, but couldn’t have.
He didn’t want to be there.
The days following the New Year’s Eve event were spent at Blaze’s place, discussing wedding plans.
They gathered in the kitchen, books, and magazines about weddings, covered the table.
“I’d sat down with Sarah a few weeks ago and tried to figure out our schedule before I popped the question. I wanted to have a date already in mind. You know how our lives are. It was hell for Dwaine and Evey to get a date in between everything going on,” Blaze said.
“So, what’s the date?” Nick looked back and forth between Grace and his buddy.
“Valentine’s Day,” she said, her cheeks flushed pink.
“Seriously?”
How cliche…
“It’s the only time we could get off,” Blaze said, with a bit of irritation bordering in his tone. “And, there’s more,” he continued. He looked over at his new fiancée, and she nodded.
Great. What could be worse than a Valentine wedding?
“We want you to be my best man.”
Nick’s heart skipped a beat. “Are you for real?”
“Uh, is that a yes?” Grace asked.
“Shit, yeah! I’d be honored!”
“I should tell you then, I’m gonna ask Hope to be my maid of honor. Will you be okay with that?” The sadness in Grace’s voice tore at his heartstrings.
Even if he had a problem with it, Nick would’ve told her it was fine. He really liked this woman, and still carried a great guilt over what his little brother had done to her.
Truthfully, he was excited Hope would be there. This meant he had to face the music. There would be no more excuses for putting off reaching out to her.
She’d be there, in the flesh, face-to-face. It'd be worth the rejection to see her again.
“Yeah, that’s cool. So what does a best man do? What can I help with?”
Grace laughed, the sound filling him with a glimmer of happiness, the first he’d felt in a while.
“Not a lot right now. You two will be back on the road soon. And Blaze was telling me something about them adding after-parties? Are you looking forward to that?”
He’d completely forgotten about that meeting. Management wanted Dwaine and Nick to host after-parties in select cities once the new year started.
No, he really hadn’t been looking forward to them. It was just another part of the job.
“They’ll be interesting, that’s for sure. But what about you and the theater?” Nick switched subjects. “I’m assuming, as a newlywed, you’ll want to join the tour, at least after the wedding.”
“I’d love to. But I’m not sure I can get away. I’ll talk to Richard and Jason next week when I head back to work. Since I’m still just doing PR stuff, I’m sure I can Telework.”
“When do you think you’ll ge
t back up on stage?”
She shook her head, and the flush in her cheeks faded. “Not anytime soon. I’m not ready yet. But someday.”
Nick glanced at his buddy.
Blaze’s scrunched eyebrows told him to shut the fuck up.
It was still a raw wound.
“Did you pick out the wedding colors yet?” Nick asked, to distract them all.
“That was easy. We have a love of the same colors.”
“Let me guess… Black and red?”
“Black and red,” Blaze and Grace agreed in unison.
“Please stop ignoring me, Hope. I really need to talk to you,” Grace's voice came through the voicemail. “It’s important. Call me back. If I don’t hear from you in the next hour, I will keep calling, all hours of the night, until you take my call. Just make our lives easier, and call me back!” The last sentence was a yell.
Hope had watched Blaze propose. So the call would be about the wedding, or the news of it to come.
It’d been weeks since she’d talked to Grace. She missed her friend.
Grace was the one she always went to when she needed a pick me up, a little help, or just someone to vent to. However, between the trauma Grace had endured with Charles, and her trying to put a fresh life together, Hope didn’t want to bother her friend with her own drama.
She had to remind herself, that was what friends were for. To hold her up when otherwise she’d crumble.
Hope couldn’t help Grace, if she didn’t let Grace into her life to help her.
She took a deep breath and called her friend back.
Grace answered on the first ring. “It’s about time you answer my damned calls! What the hell is going on, Hope?”
“I love you, too,” she teased. Her eyes teared up. She was so sick of crying. She silently sniffled and damned pregnancy hormones to hell, since Grace had said the words first.
“Why have you been ignoring me?”
“I’ve been ignoring everyone, Elvis. Don’t take it personally.”
