Whiskey Lullaby

by Keren Hughes

When we finally got around to having lunch, it was a taste I won’t soon forget, but not nearly as much as Caleigh herself is.

  She had to go and get Hardin from school, and though I’ve already met him that once in the street, I didn’t want to hang around to meet him as more than just the guy with the funny name. We’re not there yet, and if I’m honest, we never could be.

  I said I’ll meet her later when she’s working in the pub, under the guise of going in to see if Damien wants a drink, so we don’t start some kind of rumour mill. Stupidly, and completely unlike me, I’ve already chosen what to wear so that it looks like I’m making an effort without making too much of an effort. Like I said, stupid really.

  My phone chimes as I’m reading the second book in the series I started. I went back to One More Chapter and saw Ted, where he laughed and said I should have known to buy all the books at once. I’d also passed by Strings and Things again and looked longingly at the Stratocaster.

  I pick up my phone in the hopes it might be Caleigh. No such luck though.

  >Brent, dude, have you seen the news?

  >Nah man, better uses of my time. What’s up?

  >They’re saying you boarded a plane; someone took a picture of you in the airport. There’s speculation as to where you are and, of course, that now means nobody is buying the story Gordon fed that you’re ill.

  Fuck. Thanks for that, Ash.

  >Well I’m not sure what I can do about that now, Ash, man. Gordon will have to douse the embers of that story before it becomes flames.

  >Gordon is freaking the fuck out, man. He’s gone ballistic at the rest of us, saying we must know where you are or have a way of contacting you. He’s demanding answers.

  >And what have you told him?

  I start to get mad as I wait for a reply. Finally, it comes through.

  >We covered for you, man. Even Evan, albeit begrudgingly in his case. We said you’ve cut us off just like you have him. Told him we’ve had complete radio silence. He said a man of your age cannot possibly go without a phone this long, so he reckons you bought a new one.

  >Did you tell him anything, and I mean ANYthing?

  >Nah man, we got you. We’re your brothers, we’d never tattletale to ‘Dad’. You promised us you’d email him though. You need to keep your head down though, dude. Having your face splashed everywhere won’t help you keep your anonymity wherever you are.

  >I know I said I’d email him, man, but I’ve been busy. And don’t worry about me, I’ve dyed my hair.

  >Busy chasing tail? And WTF, dyed your hair?

  I chuckle at his question, but then find myself offended. Caleigh is not “tail”. She’s special. But Ash doesn’t know that. It’s not like I’ve told anyone, even them, about her.

  >Nah, none to be found, more’s the pity. And yes, dyed my hair and haven’t shaved. I’m staying in a small town where, hopefully, nobody will recognise me.

  >Don’t try and play me, player. I know you’ve probably got a different girl for every night of the week. I’m not knocking you man, just making conversation.

  >I seriously haven’t. No word of a lie.

  >Man, you’re the worst liar I know, even by text.

  >Shut up, Ash. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

  >So, tell me…

  For god’s sake. I should know by now that Ash is the worst of us. He’s like a dog with a bone. I consider telling him another lie, but he’s just too persistent. So, I choose to tell him a version of the truth.

  >There has been one woman since I’ve been here.

  >One as in you can’t get more or you don’t WANT more????

  I scrub my hand over my face as I swallow hard. Deciding honesty is my best bet, I tell him the truth of it.

  >I haven’t wanted or needed more.

  >Wow, Brent, my brother, are you losing your touch or just getting old? ;)

  >No, just…

  I begin typing, then delete it and try to put my thoughts into words.

  >Look, Ash, I’ll level with you, okay? But please, for the love of God, just accept it at face value and don’t ask any more questions because I don’t want to argue with you

  I hit send.

  >Shit, you’re serious about her??!! What’s her name?

  >I haven’t known her long enough for it to be “that” kind of serious, but I do really like her.

  >You really gonna leave me hanging like that, bro?

  >I said no more questions…

  >Bro, all I wanted to know was her name.

  >It’s Caleigh…

  I run my hand through my hair as I consider what I’m about to tell him. I trust Ash though. I would trust Evan and Jude with a lot of things, but Ash gets me on a different level, and I know he won’t open his mouth to anyone about it.

  >She’s a single mum. She has a son who is five. His name is Hardin. But dude, you can’t tell anyone, especially Gordon. I don’t want him trying to use that information to find me.

  I finish typing the text and hover over the send button. Taking a deep breath, I hit it before I can reconsider.

  It’s a long moment before he responds. I bet he’s sitting with his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. I’m never serious about a woman, like, ever. Much less a single mum. I don’t have a bias against single mums at all, it’s just that I don’t do relationships, and kids add an extra level of complication that I’ve tried really hard to avoid because I don’t want people getting hurt.

  Any woman I normally sleep with knows it’s a “one and done” deal, and we’ve normally moved onto the next stop on the tour before they can try for a repeat anyway. They may have even had kids, but I wouldn’t know because I don’t ask anything beyond their name and age.

  >Dude! WTF? I mean, no offence, but how can you be involved with her when you’re planning on leaving? Won’t that affect the kid too? I mean, shit, dude!

  >Look, I’m going to tell you this and then I really mean it, NO more questions.

  >I’m sorry, buddy, I really don’t mean it negatively. You can’t help who you like, but man, kids make it hard in terms of attachment and leaving. He’ll be crushed when you have to go.

  >I’ve only met him once, in the street, and we just said hi. Caleigh and I have been secretive about meeting up and we only see each other while he’s at school. He doesn’t know me as someone Mummy is seeing, he just knows me as the guy with the funny name.

  >Oh, I see. Well in that case, good for you. But man, if you’re serious about her, it’s going to make leaving that much harder.

  >Trust me, bro, I know that. I haven’t been here long, but already I know it’s going to be hard to come home. I’m going to miss the peace and quiet, the solitude of the place I’m staying in, cos I’m enjoying sitting in my room and reading. But most of all, I’m going to miss Caleigh, and if I stay much longer, it’s going to hurt that much worse.

  >I don’t mean to piss on your parade bro, you know that, right? Man, I can’t believe it though. Brent Lachlan Ryder can do real feelings.

  >Yeah, well, just don’t tell anyone, not even the guys. Please Ash, I’m not asking for much, just a little longer without having to answer a million and one question

  ns.

  >Asher Richards knows how to keep a secret, man.

  >Dude, stop talking about yourself in the third person. It’s an annoying habit. The only person capable of pulling it off is Terry Jeffords!

  >Man, I haven’t caught up on the latest season of Nine-Nine. Too busy busting my balls on tour. You know they asked me to step up as lead singer, right?

  >No, nobody told me that. But it’s a good call, dude, you’ve got what it takes. I could retire and it wouldn’t matter. Oh, and I’ve not caught the latest season yet either.

  >You’d retire? Man, this woman must really have you mooning like a lovesick teen if you’re considering that bold a move.

  >I’m not hanging up my Stetson, bro. I just need some space and time. I’ll be back, I just don’t know h
ow soon.

  >You’ve always been the one out of us that likes the limelight the least, which is funny considering you’re the lead singer. Do you miss your guitar?

  >Oh yeah! I saw a Fender Stratocaster in town and was practically drooling.

  But I left mine behind on purpose. I’ll be honest, Ash, I feel stunted or something. I can’t quite put it into words properly. All I know is I haven’t written anything new in months. I’m struggling to find inspiration. It’s like the well has dried up or something. As for the limelight, I’m just a bit fed up with it. It was great when we were younger, but now I’m getting older, I’m less than thrilled with chicks thinking I’ll screw them so they can sell their story to the paper.

  >That has happened to all of us at one time or another, dude. Gordon does what he can to put out the flames in those cases. As for inspiration, yeah, I feel you. I know what it’s like, you know that. Either way though, dude, I’ve got your back.

  >Thanks, man. Look, I’ve got to go, but I’ll be in touch. And yes, before you say it, I’ll send Gordon an email, but not before I’m ready. He’ll only hound me about when I’ll be back and I don’t have an answer, so …

  >I know, man, and we’ll do what we can to keep Gordon off your case. Speak later bro.

  I don’t know what compelled me to tell Ash all that, considering I didn’t want to spill the details to anyone. But I admit, it was nice to be able to tell him without the level of crap I’d anticipate from the others.

  It makes me question how I truly feel though. I haven’t really thought much about it until now. I mean, I’m a man, and some men might think that it shows weakness to open up about emotions and all that shit, but the way I see it, if you can admit to your feelings, if you can show that you actually do feel like any other person—then that’s a goddamn strength.

  Chapter Nine

  Caleigh

  I swear to god, every time the pub door opens, I look up in the hopes it’s Rhett. He said he’d be in tonight but didn’t say what time. I think Damien might have noticed my clock watching, and I know he’s seen me look up at the door because he’s caught my eye a couple of times. I keep trying to resist looking up, but I can’t. Lord help me, I’m like a lovestruck teenager mooning over her crush. But I’m not either of those things. For one, I can’t be lovestruck because I’ve only known the guy for five minutes. For two, I am definitely not a teenager anymore. I haven’t been for a long time now.

  I shouldn’t even care whether he comes in tonight or not; it shouldn’t matter to me one way or another. But I can’t help it. There’s something magnetic about Rhett. He’s handsome, smart, funny. He makes my afternoons that much sweeter when he comes to visit.

  I’m not reliant on someone else for my happiness, far from it. But I learned a while back that liking someone and having them in your life doesn’t necessarily make you co-dependent.

  There was a time when I thought that having relationships took something away from you, from your independence. I thought it meant losing part of yourself. There are these lyrics of this one song that Angelo used to love, that talk about it only being when you lose yourself in someone else that you find yourself. But I think I interpreted those lyrics differently or maybe just disagreed with the words. To me, it isn’t in someone else that you find yourself. You need to stand tall, on your own two feet, to find yourself. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you lose a part of yourself if you’re in a relationship. I don’t know, maybe I’m not making any sense.

  I don’t know whether I believe in destiny or fate or whatever people call it. I think you are the master of your own destiny. You are the one behind that wheel, steering your life where it’s meant to be. But I do believe that the people that you meet along the way are part of what shapes you. Whether it’s something good or bad that happens to you, it has an impact on your life, though to what degree, you won’t know at the time.

  Maybe meeting Rhett has taught me that I can be open to finding and accepting love again. But it doesn’t have to mean that if I have a relationship I have to lose my independence. I don’t know whether relationships equal co-dependency, or whether it’s just a matter of there being a degree of independence you give to the other person when you give them your heart. Like, you agree—in an unspoken way—that you are both dependent on each other to a degree, but you both still know how to stand on your own two feet. You don’t rely on the other person for every little thing in life, every little moment of happiness, because then you really are likely to lose yourself, and if you do that and then you split up with them, how do you start to pick up the pieces?

  If you’re in a relationship and it ends, you need to know that you are fully capable of being independent again.

  When I lost Angelo, it took a long time to accept he wouldn’t be around anymore, that I would never see his face again, or hear him laugh or read Hardin a bedtime story. I had to stand up and be strong for both myself and my son. I had to do everything for Hardin that Angelo used to. But that’s part of being a parent. But when it came to me, I had to learn to adapt or be engulfed by my grief. I had to learn to do a lot of things again, and that’s what made me scared of relationships going forward.

  However, I learned along the way that relationships with people might help define you, be it a relationship with a man, a friend or a family member. But helping to put you on the right path, to help define you as a person, to learn things from those relationships, that isn’t a bad thing. You’re still you, you’re just forging a path to becoming the best version of yourself that you can be. So no, in my opinion, you don’t lose yourself, your sense of identity, by being in a relationship.

  The door opening pulls me out of my thoughts as my eyes snap up to meet that cerulean blue gaze I’ve come to love staring into. They say eyes are windows to the soul, and if that’s true, then what I see is a pure and beautiful soul, untainted by the world around it. I’m sure he’s been hurt, but if he has, he hasn’t let it colour who he is as a person. He hasn’t let the world leave its cruelty imprinted on his soul.

  “Hey Caleigh,” he says with a wave as he approaches the bar, “is that boss of yours in tonight?”

  “Hey, Rhett. Yeah, he’s through the back sorting out a supplier issue. They didn’t bring us enough barrels. I’m sure he’ll be out once he’s done on the phone.”

  “I’ll take a bottle of beer while I wait then, please.”

  He sits at the bar and I turn to grab him a bottle from the fridge. Budweiser seems to be a favourite of his, so I take off the cap and hand it to him.

  “Thanks. How are you?”

  “Good, thanks. You?”

  “Yeah not too bad. Got my head stuck in a book, otherwise I might have been here earlier.”

  “Must have been a damn good book.”

  “It’s the second book of the series that the Netflix show The Witcher is based on.”

  “Ooh does it have pictures? I do like Geralt.”

  “No, but there is a series of graphic novels. But you do know the drawings won’t be of that Cavill? It was written by a Polish author, Andrzej Sapkowski. It was originally a series of novels and short stories and then a video game, if I’m right. I don’t know whether the game preceded the graphic novels or the other way around though.”

  “Damien says you guys binged the whole series in one night,” I say with a smile, already knowing everything he’s telling me, but unable to give the game away at work.

  “We did. It was a long night. I only planned to stay for a couple of episodes, but it was so good that I didn’t want to be left hanging for the next one. Damien told me as much before I started watching, but I have to be honest, I’m not one for hype over things, be that books or TV shows.”

  “Oh? And why’s that? Surely hype is good and lets you know something is worthy of reading or watching.”

  “Nah, not me. I might be in the minority here, but if there’s that much hype about something, I give it a wide berth in case it falls short
of my expectations. I know everyone can’t like the same things, otherwise it would be pretty boring if we did, but I’ve been burned several times with the whole ‘oh my god, this show is amazing,’ only to watch it and wonder to myself whether or not I’d watched the same thing. When the buzz dies down, I will decide whether I want to watch or read something on my own.”

  “I guess that’s a good way of being, actually. I never thought of it like that, I suppose.”

  He chuckles, and the butterflies in my stomach begin to take flight.

  “Like I say, we aren’t all wired the same. Are you the kind of person who reads reviews before buying a book?”

  “Umm … I mean, sometimes, yeah. Though not always. Depends what it is, I suppose. If it’s by a favourite author, I just one-click on Amazon without reading the blurb, never mind reviews. But if I’ve never read anything by the author, then yes, I’ll read a mix of one and five-star reviews.”