Too bad chocolate made him think of Claire, and thinking of Claire made him feel fucking miserable.
Too bad literally everything made him think of Claire. Which meant everything made him want to punch a wall or curl up in bed for the rest of his life.
Preferably with a handle of vodka. Or three.
But he knew there was no way he’d ever get Claire to let Maya have any contact with him again if he fell off the wagon now. So he chugged his coffee, stuffed his face with sugar, and tried to act like he was happy to see his manager instead of devastated to be preparing to face a room full of music executives and hotshots, all of whom used to seem important to him.
None of whom mattered right now because there wasn’t a single one among them he wanted to kiss. To hold. To have in his arms for the rest of his life.
“Hey, Earth to Thomas.” Eddie snapped his fingers in front of Ryan’s face. “Pound your coffee and get over that jet lag. We have worked to do.”
“Right,” Ryan said, issuing his brain a strict no-fly-zone over anything related to Claire, kids, family, love, or happiness in any way, shape, or form.
“I need to know you’re here. With me. Ready to do this, okay? Otherwise I got other people. I got Cold Shark blowing up my door, I got Ace and Arrow—they’re going to be big, man, you’ve got to give them a listen—”
“I know, I know.” Ryan held up a hand to stop Eddie from yammering so loud in his ear. He willed the caffeine to work faster. He’d barely slept on the flight, but he knew Eddie well enough to know what he was getting at.
Eddie was the only manager to return Ryan’s calls when he got out of rehab. He was the only one to actually pick up his demo and give him a chance after everyone else had dropped him. And he was the one who was here now, still talking to Ryan even though he’d been blowing off this whole industry for weeks with no explanation, just canceling plane tickets and putting everyone on hold.
“So, you’re good?” Eddie’s eyes scanned Ryan’s face.
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “I’m good.”
He wasn’t, but jet-lagged and devastated were outside his manager’s concerns.
“If you need anything,” Eddie started, then paused meaningfully.
Ryan just looked at him.
“If you need me to talk to anyone. Set you up anywhere.”
He blinked, confused.
“Ed. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Eddie’s mouth set a hard line. “Since you won’t be straight with me, I’m just going to lay it out for you. I’ve covered your ass, Ryan. I’ve put my reputation on the line, swearing up and down that you’re sober. That this isn’t going to be a repeat of your first touring disaster. If Little White Lie gets so much as a whiff that you were off the wagon and hiding out to dry out”—Eddie got up in his face, bloodshot eyes and coffee breath and flecks of muffin in his beard—“You can bet your ass they’ll drop you back into the gutter you came from. And this time”—he shook his head—“I don’t know if I can drag you out of it on my own.”
Ryan stared at him.
Then he burst out laughing.
It felt so good to laugh. To remember he was even capable of laughing.
“You thought I was drinking,” he said when he could finally speak again.
Eddie looked at him skeptically. “You weren’t?”
“I swear to God, man.” Ryan held up his right hand. “I may have fucked up big time while I was away. But even I didn’t fuck up that bad.” He lowered his hand. “I can’t believe you’d think that. I can’t believe you don’t trust me.”
Eddie didn’t. Claire didn’t. Was Ryan a fool for believing he’d changed?
“Come on, Ryan,” Eddie said. “It’s not about trust. Some things are bigger than we can get through alone. You disappear, cancel these meetings, brush me off, stop taking my calls, won’t come home, won’t tell me a goddamn thing—what was I supposed to think? You’d joined a monastery?”
Ryan slid into a seat across from Eddie’s desk.
“Save it,” Eddie said. “Whatever shit you’ve been up to, hold it in. We gotta go.”
“Hang on,” Ryan said. “I have to show you something.”
He pulled out his phone and opened up his pictures. He swiped to one of Maya on a swing, dark hair streaming over her shoulder, a big, wild grin on her face.
He passed the phone to Eddie. “I’m sorry I disappeared, but something came up.”
Eddie looked at the picture. Looked at him. Looked at the picture again.
“This your niece or something?”
Ryan shook his head.
“Cousin? Long lost sister?”
“No and no.”
Ryan leaned over and scrolled through the pictures so Eddie could see. Maya on the jungle gym. Maya clutching her favorite dinosaur. Maya with her mouth smeary with melted chocolate. Maya sitting in Ryan’s lap, his hands covering hers, playing the guitar.
Maya and Claire.
Claire, and Claire, and Claire.
Ryan took the phone back. Darkened the screen. Slid it into his pocket. They were just memories now. No sense torturing himself with the past.
“I got busy,” he said. “But it’s over. I’m back now. You can count on me not to fuck up this reunion any more than I already have.”
Eddie stared at him.
Like, really stared. Hard enough and long enough that Ryan started to wonder if he had something on his face. An extra eyeball. Devil’s horns.
“You have a kid?” he sputtered. “You have a girlfriend and a daughter and you never once told me?”
Ryan had expected Eddie to be pissed. He’d started this meeting pissed, and now he knew the magnitude of what Ryan had been keeping from him.
But Eddie didn’t look pissed. He looked almost…hurt.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” he said.
“I’m telling you now. But this is between us, okay? The guys in Little White Lie don’t need to know.”
“Are you crazy?”
“It’s over, all right? Claire and I—we’re over. Maya doesn’t even know I’m her dad, so it’s not like I’m going to be dropping everything in the middle of a set to see her soccer games or dance recitals or whatever.”
He needed to stop talking. He needed to shut his trap right this fucking second, or else he’d wind up sobbing like a five-year-old in his manager’s office, showing up to prove he could handle a reunion tour with bloodshot eyes and nothing but lies.
He took a deep breath. “Come on,” he said to Eddie. “Let’s go make a few million.”
He tried to laugh, but Eddie folded his arms and pointed to the chair.
“You. Sit. Whole story. Now.”
“They’re waiting,” Ryan protested.
“They’ve already been waiting for you. They can handle another ten minutes.”
So Ryan told him. Everything. How he’d loved Claire. And lost her. And found her again.
When he finally finished, Eddie whistled through his teeth. “Ryan,” he said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but what the fuck are you doing here?”
“Were you listening to anything I just said? Claire never wants to see me again.”
“Yeah, I got that part. But you just left?”
“Of course I did!”
A beat, and then Eddie said, cautiously: “You’re telling me you didn’t even try?”
The words slammed into his chest. He wanted to shout that of course he’d tried. He woke up every damn day, and all he did was try. To make music. To stay sober. To be worthy of a good woman’s love.
But Eddie was right.
He’d let Claire go the first time. Sure, he made a few phone calls. But did that even count?
And now here he was again, still not fighting.
Why would she want to go through life with him, in sickness and in health, through all the inevitable ups and downs and turns along the way, if he didn’t show he could handle a single curve?
“Do you love her?” Eddie asked.
Ryan looked up from his hands. “Like it’s her own heart beating in my chest.”
“And the girl?”
“Is everything to me.”
“Did you even tell her any of this?”
Ryan opened his mouth. Of course Claire knew how he felt. She knew, and she told him to get lost. She called him her “friend” and wouldn’t tell Maya the truth and didn’t hesitate to send him packing.
But then he closed it again.
“I can’t,” he said. “You don’t understand.”
“You’re right,” Eddie said. “I absolutely don’t understand. I know I’m the greatest thing to ever happen to you”—Ryan snorted out a laugh—“but I honestly have no clue why you’re here with me right now.”
“I thought you wanted me here,” Ryan said.
“When I was afraid you were drinking again and needed someone to drag your sorry ass home! I’ve never seen you look like this, lighting up like when you just showed me those pictures. Seriously. I thought your facial muscles were atrophied into permanent grouch, and now I discover you’re capable of genuine happiness?” He shook his head. “Get out of here, man. Go to Washington. Don’t let this one go again.”
“But the meeting,” Ryan started.
“Get out your phone,” Eddie said. “Pull up that picture.”
Ryan did.
“Now, look me in the eyes and tell me getting Little White Lie on tour is more important than that.”
Ryan scrolled through his photos to the last one he’d taken, before Claire left for her conference in Seattle. It was a silly-looking selfie with him, Claire, and Maya at the kitchen table, Maya in her pj’s with syrup on her face, all of them making funny faces. As soon as Ryan took the picture, Claire had turned and kissed him on the cheek before ushering Maya to the sink to clean up.
He looked at Eddie. “I can’t tell you that,” he said quietly. His voice hoarse, practically breaking.
“Then go.”
“I don’t know what to say to her.”
“Ryan, you have to find a way to do this. Or else you’ll lose her—and this time, she won’t give you another chance in five years. She won’t change her mind and let you suddenly become part of Maya’s life. Trust me, man. I have an ex-wife. I have two daughters, and the only reason I see them at all is because I have a fucking court order she can’t dispute. I regret everything about the shitty husband and father I was. I’ve worked my ass off to do things differently. But my ex? She has no reason to see me that way, and I can’t blame her for protecting herself. Even if it pisses the hell out of me. What I’m saying is, don’t be like me. Don’t act like the cards you’re dealt are the only hand you have to play with. Don’t act like you don’t have a say over what happens to you.”
“She’s already made up her mind,” Ryan said.
“Because you left. Because you didn’t show her you’re anything other than the guy who fucks up and leaves. What else is she supposed to think when that’s the only information you’ve given her?”
Ryan wanted to protest that he’d given her plenty of other signs about himself. He’d taken her rock climbing and away from the never-ending grind of daily life. He’d shown her how to have fun again, how to let go. And he’d been around, too—been helpful. He’d picked Maya up from school, helped around the office, made dinner. Cleaned up.
Wasn’t that enough?
But he looked at Eddie, and he knew the answer.
Actions mattered. When he’d been with Claire before, he’d told her he loved her a thousand times. And then he’d turned around and done whatever the hell he wanted.
But words mattered, too. If he never told Claire how he felt, if he never bared himself to her, if he walked away instead of telling her how much she meant to him—
Then how was she supposed to believe him? How was she supposed to know that taking her rock climbing didn’t mean Your life is boring. That picking Maya up didn’t mean You’re overworked. That making pancakes didn’t mean I had a great time fucking you last night.
Rock climbing meant I love you. Chasing Maya through the park meant I love you. Making pancakes meant I love you so much that it hurts.
He hadn’t left that hospital because he was done, it was over, and Chicago was waiting. He left because he was so damn overwhelmed by his love that he was terrified of how hard his heart would break if he let it all in.
Leaving was something he knew how to do. It was all he’d seen his dad do. It was in his blood.
But it didn’t always have to be that way.
He was aware that Eddie was staring at him. This was the moment, the last second he had to decide. Chicago, or Gold Mountain. His music, or his family. His career, or his heart.
But it wasn’t a decision. Not when he already knew what he had to do.
“I promise, Eddie. I’ll find a way to make it up to you.”
Eddie nodded. “Fight for her,” he called as Ryan ran out the door.
Chapter Thirty
“Mom, Mom, listen to this!”
Maya pressed her small fingers to the neck of the guitar and used the other hand to strum the strings. Lord help her, her kid was a natural.
“That sounds great, sweetie,” Claire said, looking up from the stack of bills she was going through. Maybe one of her friends could babysit a few nights in the coming weeks so she could squeeze in a few more clients. She felt bad asking them to do more for her when they had their own lives, their relationships, would soon be wanting to have kids of their own. She needed someone else who could help her…
But thinking of help made her think of Ryan.
And that wasn’t going to help her at all.
“I’m not a babysitter,” he’d told her. “I’m her father. Trust me, we’re going to be fine.”
But she had trusted him. And it hadn’t been fine.
Maya was back to her usual routine, running around as though nothing had happened. But for Claire, it was harder to forget.
So she’d better stop imagining some alternate universe in which everything worked out and Ryan magically grew up and got his shit together and stopped dragging her daughter to bars and paid attention and put himself second and came back to Gold Mountain and loved her.
Because that was the worst part about it. After everything that had happened, she still wished he would come back and love her.
Maya looked up from her guitar. “Mom, why are you crying?”
Claire wiped a tear that had escaped down her cheek. “It’s nothing. Play me another chord, okay? Which one do you remember?”
Maya went back to the guitar, frowning in concentration, making things up that would have made Claire’s ears cringe except that any sound coming from the guitar was better than her daughter seeing her cry.
She thought she was in the clear, until suddenly Maya stopped, looked up, and said, “When’s Ryan coming back?”
Claire’s heart sank. She’d hoped Maya had finally stopped asking. Every day that she came home from school, she walked through the door with hope written all over her face, like she thought today was going to be the day. Claire knew that look, and she knew that feeling. She’d kept Ryan away precisely so her daughter never had to go through that rollercoaster of emotions, the crash and burn that came from loving someone so hard and then finding them gone.
“Ryan’s in Chicago, remember?” she said.
“How come?”
“Because that’s where he lives.”
“But can he visit?”
And then they had to go through the whole spiral of questions again—why Ryan wasn’t here, why he wasn’t coming back, why they couldn’t go and see him.
“What if you just told her the truth?” Sam suggested the next time they got together at Mackenzie’s, when Maya was at a sleepover with friends.
“That Ryan’s her father, I loved him, he almost killed her, and I sent him away?” Claire shook her head, aghast. Sam was always the practic
al one, thinking through every angle. But it was clear the woman didn’t have a five-year-old.
“I know I’m a monster for not saying anything in the first place,” Claire said. “But I was hoping I could wait until she’s eighteen to make her kill me for lying. Right now, I just don’t think she could process that much information.”
“She’ll get over it,” Mack said, laying a hand on Claire’s shoulder. “She’ll forget about him soon. Trust me, in another year, it’ll be like he never existed.”
Claire knew Mack was speaking from experience. She’d been in and out of foster homes for almost her whole childhood. She more than anyone knew what it was like to let go.
But the thought of Maya forgetting Ryan altogether—as though he’d never come into their lives, never taken Claire rock climbing or whispered in her ear or held her as if she were the most beautiful, most important person in the world—made her feel even worse than a thousand questions about where he had gone.
She sighed. “I’m just tired of feeling miserable.”
“I know,” Sam said. “But the way I see it, you have two options. Number one is to do nothing. You miss Ryan, Maya misses Ryan, but time passes, and eventually you feel better. Or you don’t, but you accept being miserable as your default position.”
“I don’t think Sam likes option number one,” Abbi said wryly.
“Option two,” Sam went on, “is that you do something.”
“Like what?” Claire asked skeptically.
“Like call Ryan. Tell him that you love him. Give him another chance.”
Claire could feel the blood draining from her face.
That was definitely not an option.
That was an option for crazy people. Reckless, irresponsible people who thought, Gee, wouldn’t it be fun to touch this hot stove again? And again, and again, and again?
“Option two is the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
“Then I guess you’re stuck with being miserable and forcing yourself to get over him.”
“I should never have let him into our lives,” Claire grumbled.
“Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on yourself?”
Claire raised an eyebrow. “Tell that to my credit card debt. Insurance covered most of Maya’s hospital stay, but I still have the deductible, the ambulance ride, plus I wasn’t able to finish the courses I needed to renew my license, so now I have to figure out how to fit that in so I can keep my practice open.” The list went on and on.
Make Me Yours (Men of Gold Mountain) Page 17
