The Real Thing

by Lizzie Shane

  “And then what? My car would be stuck down here all week when you and Sadie drive back on Sunday? Besides, I left Edgar with a neighbor. Let’s stick to the original plan. I’d rather sleep in my own bed and Sadie’s too excited to wait until tomorrow anyway.”

  “Thanks for doing this. I could have driven her up. Saved you the trip—”

  “Nonsense. You have your gig.”

  “I can skip one week.” He finished his water bottle, refilling it from the Brita as they’d started doing since Sadie had started worrying about their plastic footprint. “I’ve been thinking maybe I should cut back on the shows anyway. It was dead in there last week. People must be getting sick of seeing my face.”

  She looked over at him, her eyebrows pulling down. “But you love the shows.”

  “Yeah, and I could still do them from time to time, but, I don’t know, it’s not like I’m accomplishing anything by being there. It might have run its course.”

  His mother stopped packing the cooler, studying him. “And you’re okay with that?”

  “Sure. I’m not a kid anymore. I have different things to focus on.”

  She let the words hang for a moment before nodding and turning back to the cooler. “How’s Maggie doing?” she asked, with a deceptively innocent note to her voice.

  Ian grinned, shaking his head at his mother’s oh-so-subtle matchmaking efforts. “She’s good. You’ll be pleased to know she came over for dinner on…I guess it was Tuesday? It’s was nice. And I did the dump run yesterday when the weather cleared.”

  “Nice?” she murmured, a speculative lilt in her voice.

  “Maggie’s great,” he said. “She’s always been great. And she’s still leaving.” He headed toward the master. “I’m gonna grab a shower. You guys gonna still be here when I get out or should I head up and say goodbye now?”

  “Now is probably better. I’m not sure I can restrain her when she’s ready to go.”

  Ian chuckled, changing course toward the stairs. “Noted.”

  “You’ll be up on Sunday to pick her up?”

  “Bright and early,” he answered as he started up the stairs. “Or at least I’ll leave here early. Probably won’t get to you until ten or eleven.”

  “She’ll probably sleep in anyway. Those games can go late.”

  Ian nodded, reminding himself not to worry. This was a perfectly safe, perfectly normal thing for a growing girl to do. He’d talked to Lincoln’s parents and they actually seemed pretty relaxed about the whole thing. They’d pick Sadie up at her grandma’s place in Bellevue and drop her back off again after the game. If Sadie was disappointed not to get a sleepover with her friend in Seattle, she was too excited about the game to care much.

  She would be perfectly safe, he said to himself for the thousandth time. And this was only the first step of many toward watching her grow up and become more independent. He wanted her to be independent. He wanted her to feel strong and confident and know that she could do things on her own. But watching her actually do them might kill him.

  It seemed like five seconds ago she’d been his baby. He’d blinked and she’d been going to her first day of school, racing toward the other kids and turning only to wave over her shoulder at him. He’d blinked again and she’d been a foot taller, begging for a cell phone and wheedling for sleepovers. Any second now she’d be dating and looking at colleges.

  If someone ever invented a way to stop time and freeze a moment in place, they could make a fortune off parents who weren’t ready for their kids to grow up.

  She hadn’t spent a night away from him in nine years and now she was off to Seattle for a weekend. Admittedly, she’d be staying at her grandma’s where he’d stayed with her at least a dozen times when they went up for the weekend a few times a year, but it still felt strange standing in her open doorway and watching her pack her bag to leave him.

  “You look like you’re about ready to go.”

  Sadie bounced up, a bulging duffle bag overflowing on her bed as if she was going backpacking through Europe for a month rather than to her grandmother’s for two nights. “I couldn’t decide which jersey to bring so I put in both the white Griffey one and the teal Felix one. Lincoln likes the current players, but Griffey is like the best and Felix isn’t even pitching tomorrow.”

  “I think you should wear whichever one you like best.” He didn’t know why Sadie’s need for Lincoln’s approval in all things made him so nervous—they were just kids and he tried to tell himself it was harmless, but it still got under his skin.

  He walked into the room that always seemed cluttered no matter how many times Sadie “cleaned” it. Low bookcases overflowed with books. Her hammock overflowed with stuffed animals. And her desk overflowed with a mishmash of papers so disorganized it was a miracle she always managed to turn in her homework on time. He hooked an arm around her shoulders, squeezing her in a side-hug. “Have fun with your grandma and with Lincoln and call me any time you want, for any reasons whatsoever.”

  She tipped her head back, smiling innocently. “It’d be easier to call you if I had a cell phone of my own.”

  “Nice try. You can use Grandma’s when you’re with her, and Lincoln’s mom promised you can use hers to call me any time you like.”

  Sadie pulled a face. “I don’t know why I can’t have a phone.”

  “Because your father is a troglodyte.” At her frown, he added, “Look it up.” He gave her one last squeeze, dropping a kiss on the top of her head, and trying not to choke up again. “Have fun. I love you.”

  “Love you too,” she said, but her attention was focused on her duffle bag, the excitement radiating off her telling him that she’d already put him out of her head.

  When he came back downstairs, his mother caught the expression on his face and smiled sympathetically. “This would be easier on you if you’d let her go to that camp last summer.”

  “She was too young.”

  “Eight is a perfectly normal age to start or they wouldn’t allow eight-year-olds in—and Sadie’s very confident, very social. You should be proud that you’ve raised her to be so independent.”

  “I’ll be proud later. Right now I get to freak out.”

  His mother smiled. “Fair enough. I’ll text you when we get home.”

  “Thanks,” he mumbled, retreating to the master bedroom and the shower that beckoned—so he wouldn’t have to watch his baby leave.

  How did parents do this? How did they not panic? How did they get used to the silence that seemed to echo in the house when he got out of the shower and they were gone? A silence that seemed so different somehow, so much more ominous than the comfortable, easy quiet that happened when she was at school.

  Empty. The house felt empty.

  Ian scrubbed a hand down his face and went to grab his guitar case from the front closet. He’d be early if he left now, but the empty house was going to drive him crazy if he stayed. Better to be surrounded by the familiar noise at the Gull. Better to drown in music so he stopped worrying about Sadie for five seconds.

  As if that was even possible.

  * * * * *

  Maggie headed through the dusk toward the Summer house. On the plus side, she’d stopped obsessing over Aunt Lolly’s legacy to her. On the negative, she had definitely started obsessing over Ian.

  Ever since their conversation beside his truck the other day, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him and what he had said. It was good advice, picking the things that really meant something to her and holding everything else against that standard. When her grandmother passed, less than a month after her grandfather’s funeral, she’d gone back to El Paso for the funeral, using Bree as a decoy in LA so no one knew she’d even left town—but she’d had a shooting schedule to get back to, so she hadn’t stayed after the funeral. Mel had taken care of it, hiring an assistant to box everything up and put it into storage so Maggie could go through it later.

  Bu
t she never had. It was still in a storage locker somewhere. She wasn’t even sure where. It had been easier to keep everything, but look at none of it. Because she’d missed them too much and she hadn’t had the time to spare for grief.

  It had been three years now—maybe four—and she still hadn’t taken the time.

  Maybe that was why she’d latched onto the idea of coming up here when she’d learned about Lolly’s death. Because on some level she had needed this, needed the chance to grieve not just for Lolly, but for her grandparents as well.

  Though she still hadn’t cried. Shouldn’t she have cried?

  Maybe Ian would have some advice on that as well.

  She climbed the steps to his house with her flimsy excuse for dropping by clutched in her hands. She’d found Lolly’s old VHS copy of Beaches and brought it over, unsure whether it was a gag gift or a desperate attempt to resurrect the conversation they’d had the other day before he drove away. The conversation where she’d felt like possibility was sizzling just beneath the surface.

  She hit the doorbell, squirming on the front porch as she waited, but when the door popped open it wasn’t Ian standing there but his mother. “Mrs. Summer!”

  “Lori, hi, sweetheart. You just caught us. Sadie and I were headed up to Seattle when we realized she’d forgotten her glove and we had to swing back for it.”

  Maggie closed her eyes for a second, kicking herself for not remembering “Right. The big game. Of course.”

  “Were you looking for Ian? I think he’s already down at the Gull.”

  “Oh, I just, um…” She tucked the tape against her side, hoping Mrs. Summer wouldn’t notice and ask about it.

  “You two seem to be getting along,” Mrs. Summer said with an optimistic smile.

  “Well.” Maggie felt the blush rising up her face. “He’s a great guy.”

  “You must be missing your life in Hollywood.”

  “Oh, you know, it’ll be there, when I get back…”

  Footsteps pounded down the stairs behind Mrs. Summer and she heard Sadie shouting, “I got it, Grandma!”

  Maggie took a step back. “I should let you get going.”

  “The Tipsy Gull,” Mrs. Summer said. “That’s where Ian goes. You have a good night, hon!”

  The door closed before Maggie could protest that she had no intention of following Ian on his night out. She hurried down the steps, her face flaming at Mrs. Summer’s matchmaking efforts.

  She’d forgotten it was Friday night and that Ian apparently went out every Friday night to some bar called the Tipsy Gull. Doubtless out drinking and being a guy. Because men have needs and all that shit.

  She had needs too, thank you very much. And yes, part of her had sort of thought that Ian might not go out carousing this weekend. That maybe he would rather stay in with her. That maybe they could spend another night by the fire or watching the sunset together or… something else.

  But no. He was out at some bar called the Tipsy Gull. Probably surrounded by women, because Ian Summer was a catch any way you sliced it. Handsome and wry and kind. He was one of the good ones.

  Which was why she really should steer clear. She was a relationship wrecking ball. Nothing good ever came of her getting involved with a guy and it was always her screwing it up. She was off men. Because she was a one woman emotional demolition team. Ian deserved better than to be sucked into her hot mess.

  She was not going to go to the Tipsy Gull.

  How would she even find it? There were probably a dozen bars called that. Nope. Not going. She was being mature. She was making good choices. She was staying away from men.

  She was, damn it. No two ways about it.

  Maggie Tate was not going to the Tipsy Gull.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Tipsy Gull was pretty much exactly what she’d expected.

  The one-room cement-block dive bar was surrounded by a gravel parking lot and advertised live music Friday and Saturday nights on a marquee at the edge of the road. It looked like the kind of place that didn’t serve drinks with more than two ingredients unless they were Long Island Iced Teas. Where hard-working men and women came on Friday nights to spend their paychecks and escape the reality of the rest of the week—at least that’s what it would have been in one of her movies. She’d never actually been in a dive bar. In her early twenties she’d been waiting in long lines trying to get into the trendiest places in Los Angeles, to be seen with the right people.

  Maggie had to circle the crowded parking lot before she found a place to land the pink convertible. As soon as she turned off the engine, she started second guessing her decision to come here. In her vision of how tonight would go, she’d pictured the place as almost entirely empty and Ian sitting at the bar alone. She’d found her Dodgers hat and wore it along with the leggings she’d brought with her and a fitted sweater from Lolly’s closet—but what if someone recognized her? She didn’t have security with her and a bar full of drunken strangers didn’t exactly sound like the best place to lay low.

  But she’d come all this way and she saw his truck on the other side of the parking lot—and the same crazy part of her that had always been willing to jump into the deep end of a lake for Ian wouldn’t let her leave without at least seeing him.

  Before she could lose her nerve, Maggie climbed out of the car and strode purposefully across the parking lot toward the door. She threw it open and stepped inside—into an atmosphere that was nothing like she’d expected based on the exterior.

  The ceilings were low and so was the lighting, but other than that it broke all her expectations. Instead of a rowdy crowd on the dance floor, the patrons were clustered at tables facing a small stage, like devotees at a jazz club. Even the customers seated at the bar along the far wall were all twisted to give the man on the stage with his guitar their full attention.

  The very familiar man on the stage with his guitar.

  Maggie had heard Ian play before, more times than she could count. She’d thought, over the years, that her teenage infatuation must have exaggerated his talent. That she’d only thought he was a mind-blowing rock god because she’d been so far gone for him.

  She’d been wrong. He was better than she’d remembered.

  Maggie froze just inside the doorway, caught along with the rest of the audience by the spell Ian was weaving with the song.

  It was a cover, a familiar song, but he’d slowed it down and made it sound new, made her hear things in the lyrics she’d never heard before as his voice rasped over the words. She couldn’t move, her breath going short as she stared at the stage and goosebumps rose on her arms.

  He’d always been an attractive man, but put a guitar in his hands and he transformed into unbelievably sexy. It was like taking off sunglasses and staring straight into the sun. Unfiltered. Undiluted. Pure, raw sex appeal. The stage lights haloed him and she couldn’t breathe, her skin tingling.

  He was dressed as casually as the rest of the crowd—a t-shirt beneath a flannel button down, well-worn jeans, and a Mariners cap that had seen better days—but she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

  When the song ended and the crowd erupted into applause, Maggie jerked out of her daze, realizing she was standing conspicuously by the door. She searched for an empty chair, threading through the crowded tables to an open space all the way at the end of the bar farthest from the stage.

  She slid onto the stool and the bartender jerked his chin at her to let her know he’d get to her, his hands full mixing drinks halfway down the bar. A few other patrons glanced her way, one or two doing stealthy double takes, but no one came over to ask her for a selfie or an autograph. She wasn’t sure how long her anonymity would last, but she planned to enjoy it as long as she could. The vibe in the bar was casual, relaxed—or maybe that was just the atmosphere inspired by Ian’s music. He was so easy on stage, so comfortable and chill that it almost seemed impossible to feel any stress as he introduced the next song as �
�one of his” and launched into a ballad that wrapped the entire bar in that lazy, easy feeling.

  His music wasn’t strictly Country—but then it never had been, for all that he’d run away to Nashville. He’d always been more attracted to acoustic, emotion-driven songs. He’d called it “the sweet spot”—where blues, classic rock, country, and folk all intersected.

  What was he doing here?

  He was brilliant. He’d said he’d had some success in Nashville before he moved back here and she could see why. She just couldn’t see why he’d never gone back. He could have been famous. She knew he said his dreams had changed, but they obviously hadn’t changed that much if he was still playing every week. Why would he keep working as a handyman when he could have been the next Ed Sheeran?

  The bartender came over during the break before the next song and Maggie ordered a cider she could nurse for a while without getting tipsy. She watched the rest of Ian’s set, wondering over and over again why he was hiding himself in nowhere Oregon.

  When Ian announced a break, Maggie sat up a little straighter on her stool, nerves suddenly whispering through her. Would he be glad to see her here? Or annoyed that she’d followed him here?

  She watched him descend the stage and maneuver through the crowd, stopping again and again to chat with people along the way, his progress slow. He hadn’t seen her yet and she peeled the label on her bottle, waiting for him to look to the back of the bar. He reached the opposite end of the long oak bar and the bartender reached through the patrons clustered there to hand Ian a beer. Ian nodded his thanks, lifting it to his lips, his gaze tracking down the room—and landing on Maggie.

  She smiled nervously, lifting her bottle in a little toast, and Ian’s smile kicked up on one side. He lowered his bottle and began weaving through the crowd again, this time making his way to her side, his gaze never leaving her.

  There wasn’t another stool by her, but Ian slid his body into the space between her stool and the wall, propping his elbow on the bar beside her. “Lori Terchovsky. What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”