The N Word (Redefining Me Book 2)

by Michelle MacQueen

  She looked up at him. “Do you…ah…remember me asking to talk to you this morning?”

  He nodded. “I don’t forget the words you say.” He gave her a pointed look like she should know this.

  Nari’s mom stepped forward. “Nari, let your father at least relax when he first gets home. He’s probably hungry and tired.”

  Her dad shook his head. “No, Ji-a. If our daughter wanted to talk to us, there isn’t anything else I want to do first.”

  Nari stepped back, nerves clenching in her chest. She wrung her hands together.

  “Well,” her mother said. “Let’s at least sit down.”

  Nari followed her parents into the sitting room. They sat on the couch across from the piano, but she couldn’t still her movements as she paced in front of them, her eyes flicking from them to the piano. What were they going to say when they learned what all the piano lessons they’d forced on her led to? Would they regret them?

  “Nari,” her father said, his voice calm. “Why are you nervous? You know you can tell us anything. Even if you’re…pregnant—”

  Nari cut him off when a laugh bubbled out of her. “You think I’m pregnant?”

  Her father’s brow creased as he looked to her mother. “Well, that St. Germaine kid is rather good-looking.”

  Her mother nodded. “He’s a very handsome boy.”

  Nari almost couldn’t breathe through her laughter. “You two think Avery is hot?”

  Her father shrugged. “We wish you would have waited, but we love you. If you’re pregnant, we will figure it out.” He stood and kissed the side of her head. “We’re not mad, Nari. Just worried about what this means for your future.”

  Nari stepped away from him. He tried to move past her to the door as if the conversation was over, and that was the last straw. “For God’s sake, Bapa,” she yelled. “I’m in a band.”

  He turned.

  “A band?” Her mother said the word as if it was more incredulous than her being pregnant. “Nari, we never gave permission for you to be in a band.”

  Nari rubbed a hand across her face and sank onto the piano bench. “And you gave me permission to get pregnant?”

  Her father let out a loud breath. “How are you going to be in a band when you’re pregnant?”

  “This can’t be happening.” She groaned. Might as well go for broke. “I’m in a band, and I don’t want to go to college.” There. She’d said it. The words were out in the universe.

  Her mom’s mouth opened and closed like a fish.

  Nari jumped off the bench and ran to the front door before they could stop her. Hopefully, the boys were still outside. She sprinted onto the porch. “Becks,” she yelled as soon as she caught sight of them.

  He lifted his head upon hearing his name. “Hey, Narisaurus!”

  “I need you.”

  He said something she couldn’t hear to Avery and then left him. Avery went inside while Becks joined her on the porch.

  “I need you is what every boy wants to hear from a shorty like you.”

  She sighed. “Don’t say shorty, Becks.”

  He grinned. “I’ve always wanted to, and this seemed like my opportunity.”

  That pulled an indulgent smile from her. “Inside this house, my parents are waiting for me to explain what I meant when I just told them I’m in a band.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Yeah, crap.”

  “Come on, Nars, this situation calls for a strong word.”

  “Shut up. They also think I’m pregnant. You have to help me convince them I’m not.”

  He grinned but didn’t agree. She didn’t know if she should be suspicious or not.

  “Will you come sing with me? If they see it, see us, they may understand why I have to go to Nashville with you.”

  He slung an arm over her shoulder. “So, you are coming with me?”

  She shrugged. “I think I need to.”

  He nodded, his expression turning serious. “Let’s do this.”

  When they entered the house, her parents were sitting on the couch talking in low tones. They both looked at her at the same time, their eyes taking in Becks’ arm that was still wrapped around her.

  Her father spoke first. “I thought the St. Germaine boy was the father of the baby?”

  Becks deadpanned them. “You didn’t know Nicky was gay?”

  Nari elbowed him. “They mean Avery, you jerk.”

  “Oh, right. I knew that.” His grin widened. “I still can’t believe she’s pregnant myself. I, for one, am excited. I can’t wait to be an uncle. So, they’re a bit young, and Avery is…well, Avery, but the kid will have me, so he won’t need anyone else.”

  Nari scowled at him as her father leaned forward. “Isn’t it a little early to know the sex? She isn’t even showing.”

  Nari opened her mouth to speak, but Becks cut her off. “I’m just hoping it’s a boy. I do not want to change a little girl’s diaper.” He shivered.

  “I’m not pregnant!” Nari’s scream had them all looking at her in shock.

  “Nari, dear,” Becks started. “Don’t get your blood pressure up. It’s not good for the kid.”

  Nari sat at the piano and banged her head on the keys. “What is happening right now?”

  Becks put a hand on her shoulder. “Everyone is just trying to be supportive.”

  She looked up at him, and he winked. The jerk was enjoying himself.

  Turning to face her confused parents, Nari breathed in deeply. “Umma, Bapa… I’m not pregnant. Please believe me. I’m not even dating Avery, so we certainly aren’t having a baby.”

  “But why would your friend lie to us?” her mom asked.

  “Because he thinks this whole thing is funny. He’s not even really my friend. Right now, I kind of hate him.”

  Her father frowned. “That isn’t a nice thing to say.”

  Becks sat beside her and threw an arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay.” He placed a hand over his heart, his voice growing sad. “Even though your daughter hurts me here, I still love her.”

  Nari elbowed him, smiling when he grunted in pain. “What I said before is true, Bapa. I’m in a band. Becks is the lead singer. I play the keyboard and sing backup. Julian Callahan plays guitar, and Becks’ sister is our drummer. We’ve been playing gigs in Riverpass for months.”

  Her mom opened her mouth to speak, but Nari put a hand up. “I need to get all of this out.” She clutched her hands together in her lap. “I’m not…good at a lot of things. School has always been a struggle for me. I don’t draw or play sports. My social anxiety keeps me pretty much out of everything. But this—playing keyboard, singing—this, I can do. For the first time in my life, I feel like I belong somewhere. Not in a classroom. On a stage.”

  She looked to Becks, and he nodded in encouragement. “After graduation, Becks is moving to Nashville. His cousin lives there and works for a record label. She’s letting him stay with her, and she’s offered me a room too. I want to go. No, I think I need to go. I need to do this for me. I don’t know what will come of it—maybe nothing—but that’s not the point. I have to try.”

  Her chest heaved as if she’d just run a lap around the track, and her parents’ bewildered eyes told her they still didn’t understand. But they would. That was why she’d asked Becks to come.

  She swiveled on the bench to face the keys. It wouldn’t sound the same as her keyboard, but it would do in a pinch.

  “What song, Nars?” Becks asked.

  She thought for a moment. “Who I Am.” If they were going to get it, they’d have to see everything she could do. Nari wasn’t confident in most things, but the song she’d had a part in writing was good. They hadn’t performed it, but she showed it to Becks at their last practice, and if she knew anything about him, he’d already memorized it.

  She laid her fingers against the bone-white keys. It was familiar to her. It was home.

  She tested the first note, letting it reverberate through he
r. Without another thought, her fingers traveled over the keys, playing the melody she knew in every part of her soul. It was her song, her story.

  Becks started the first verse, his voice like a warm breeze on an icy day, soothing, the kind of sound that touched somewhere deep inside the listener. At the chorus, Nari joined him, their voices coming together as if they were always meant to be one.

  She’d questioned her decision to go with him, but in that moment, certainty struck her. No matter what happened, she needed to sing with him. It wasn’t love—or at least not a romantic kind of love—but on stage, they had chemistry.

  As the song came to a close, Nari stilled, letting the final notes carry her to a place of peace she only knew from music.

  Counting to five in her head to calm the nerves in her stomach, she turned to her parents. This was it. They now knew she’d been sneaking out to perform in bars and at parties. At least, she assumed they’d realized that.

  But there was no disappointment on their faces. Instead, tears dampened her mother’s eyes. Her father sat impossibly still, a look of pure awe on his face.

  “Please say something.” Nari twisted her fingers in the hem of her shirt.

  Her father moved first, standing and crossing the room. He pulled her up and into a hug. “I’m sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell us, Nari.” He pulled back and glanced at his wife. “But we are so proud of you.”

  Her mother nodded. “I always knew you had talent. It’s why we pushed you into piano lessons. You just seemed to understand the instrument in a way we never could. The day we had it delivered, you were three. You walked over to it and pressed a key down so gently as if you thought you’d break it. When the note rang out, a look of pure joy shone in your eyes. I’d never seen anything like it.”

  Nari sniffled, trying to hold back her own tears. “But I don’t want to play classical music, Umma. I want to play the songs I write.”

  Her mom’s eyes widened. “You wrote that?”

  Nari nodded and gestured to Becks. “With him.”

  “It was beautiful.”

  Becks jumped in. “I asked her to come with me to Nashville not because I can’t do this on my own—I probably could—but because she makes me so much better. I promise we will take care of each other. I’d never let anything happen to Nari. She’s like a second sister to me, and I love her.”

  Few people ever got to see the serious side of Becks. He showed the world his smirks and his winks but never the depth in his eyes or the courage he had in going after what he wanted. It was a long shot, but one he would take no matter the odds.

  She reached over to take his hand. “I’m going to go. A few months from now, I will drive out of Twin Rivers for something that terrifies me.” Her eyes drifted back to her parents. “And I want your blessing. I want you to tell me not to be afraid, because if I fall, I’ll always have somewhere to come back to.”

  Her mom stood, stepping up beside her dad to face her. “Nari, we love you. A parent only ever wants their kids to be happy. That’s all. Maybe we’ve put too much pressure on you, but we’ve wanted you to be the best Nari Won Song you could be.”

  “This is how I do that, Umma.”

  Her father nodded. “We know that now. No one could hear you two and think otherwise.”

  A sob escaped Nari’s lips, and she fell into her mom’s open arms. Her dad encircled them both in a family hug.

  Becks got to his feet and joined them, wrapping his arms around the outside of her family, and probably feeling no awkwardness about it at all. That was just Becks.

  Nari laughed as her parents released her. “You’ll get used to him,” she told them.

  Her dad smiled. “We’ll support you in this, Nari. But we want you to have a backup. Online classes at least. Not full time, but I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t want you at least working toward a degree.”

  She nodded, realizing it was a compromise. “I can do that.”

  “Good.” He wiped the moisture from his face. “Well, it has been quite the exhausting conversation. I think I’ll retreat to my study for a bit.”

  Her mom followed him from the room.

  Becks met Nari’s gaze. “What now?”

  She looked to the door, knowing who she wanted to share her excitement with. As she started toward it, she called back over her shoulder. “I need to tell Avery.”

  Becks laughed as he followed her. “Be careful. I don’t want to have to tell your parents we were wrong about the pregnancy after all.”

  She only shook her head as she took off running down the front porch steps and across the brick wall separating their yards. Mrs. St. Germaine’s car wasn’t there, so she burst right into the house without knocking.

  Nicky appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, a sandwich lifted halfway to his mouth. “Nari?”

  She searched each room, not finding Avery.

  “Nari, he’s in his bedroom.” Nicky followed her, stopping when the door opened again and Becks slipped inside.

  Nari paid him no mind as she ran up the staircase.

  “His room is the third on the left,” Nicky yelled up after her.

  “I know,” she called back. There was a time she’d spent hours upon hours in Avery’s room playing video games and GI Joes. He’d even let her bring her Barbies. The last time she’d climbed these steps was years ago.

  New pictures hung on the wall in the hallway. A different color carpeting muffled her steps. Yet, it felt the same.

  Avery’s door stood open, and he rose from his desk chair when he saw her. He started to ask a question, but she kept moving, running into his room and launching herself into his arms.

  He caught her with a surprised grunt, holding her against him.

  “Avery, I did it.”

  He pulled back to look at her. “Did what?”

  “Told my parents about the band. After graduation, I’m going to Nashville with Becks, and they’re letting me. I never thought…” A tear tracked down her cheek. “I can do this. It feels like the beginning of something big.” Still in his arms, her eyes shifted between his gaze and his lips.

  There was no one she wanted to tell more than him. Every time she felt happiness, she wanted him to be a part of it. When she was sad, she wanted him to pull her back to the surface. He’d saved her that first day he kissed her. Even if none of it was real, it had broken the shell she’d been living in, allowing her to climb out.

  But that was the thing. It had been real, at least for her. She was moving to Nashville in a few short months, and the only thing she could think of was how good Avery’s arms felt around her.

  His room no longer looked the same as when they were kids, but it still made her feel like they were connected. Back then, she’d thought they’d be friends forever. Then the accident happened and Cooper died. They broke.

  But maybe they needed to shatter in order to be put back together as something new. To move past comfort and on to… She kissed him. With everything she had, she pressed her lips to his. If she had the courage to tell her parents about the band, she could tell Avery how she felt—or show him, at least.

  After only a moment of surprise, Avery held her tighter against himself, taking control of their kiss. It was different from the others they’d shared, and she realized why.

  It wasn’t about who would see them or what other people would say.

  This kiss was real.

  Nari lost herself in the feel of him, in the knowledge that it was her first true kiss. But it wouldn’t be her last. She wanted to kiss Avery again and again every day for as long as he let her.

  He groaned, breaking contact to catch a breath. “Nari,” he breathed. “What…”

  She’d never seen him speechless before. She laughed, running a finger over his swollen lips. “This friends stuff is shit.”

  His lips stretched into a grin. “Did you just curse for me?”

  She matched his smile. “I figured you’d appreciate that.”

 
He shook his head. “No, Nari. I don’t want you to change anything. Not for me.”

  “Can I change one thing?”

  “What?”

  “The things I said. I don’t want to just be your friend, Avery. That was stupid. I was just scared and didn’t think you wanted me the same way I wanted you.”

  He leaned his forehead against hers. “God, Nari, I want you so much I can finally breathe.”

  Confusion clouded her eyes. “Don’t people usually say someone makes them not be able to breathe?”

  “For so long after Coop’s death, after being in the accident, I’ve felt like nothing I do makes sense, like I couldn’t force breath into my lungs to keep me alive.” He cupped her cheek, running his thumb in slow circles. “But with you… With you, I can breathe. You make me breathe, Nari.” He kissed her again, taking his time to taste her.

  When he pulled back again, he sighed. “I have a confession. I never wanted Meghan back. At first, I wanted to pretend to date so people would stop looking at me like I was wounded even though I’d dumped her. It was stupid, but I couldn’t help it. Then, I just wanted to keep spending time with you. To keep holding your hand and kissing you. I never meant to break your trust or go all jealous asshole on Julian. I read your No BS posts because I couldn’t stop myself from getting a look into the thoughts I knew you’d never share. You were so cautious with me.”

  She stepped back out of his arms. “I wasn’t used to people wanting to know me.”

  He stepped forward, taking her hand to stop her retreat. “Get used to it, because I’m not going to stop, Nars. I want to know everything.”

  “My little virgin ears can’t take any more of this,” Becks said from the doorway.

  Avery and Nari both jumped, but their hands didn’t part.

  “Virgin,” Avery scoffed. “If you’re a virgin, then I’m—

  “A douche?”

  Nari laughed. She loved how close Avery and Becks were. It reminded her of her friendship with Peyton. Although, Peyton was nicer than Becks.

  “Maybe if you didn’t eavesdrop, your virgin ears would be fine.” Avery dropped Nari’s hand and crossed his arms over his chest.

  Becks gave him an affronted stare. “Then how would I hear what’s going on? It’s Nicky’s fault, really.”