by Leigh Landry
She broke her gaze away from him and focused. Then she snatched her sticks from the resting spot on the snare and straddled the throne to test out the bass pedal, making sure it moved smoothly, but also banging out a few frustrated poundings. She gripped a stick in each hand and twisted her wrists furiously back and forth, warming up her forearms, and bent back her fingers to stretch out her muscles.
The good news was that she didn’t feel sick anymore. Not with the sounds of her favorite people playing their favorite bits of melodies all around her. This…this was home for Kelsey. The home and family she’d never had before. The one she’d been looking for all her life.
But while she didn’t feel like she was going to hurl on her snare, sitting next to Eric filled her with incredible emptiness and frustration. She had accepted months ago that they were never going to be together again. Not in any way that really mattered. Nothing would magically change the fact that she would never be enough for him. Not her by herself.
She instinctively looked down at her stomach, but snapped her head back up.
Fine. She’d accepted that. She just needed to figure out how to get through this next big performance. How to play beside him every week without wanting to throw her arms around him. Because that wasn’t part of her reality anymore. They weren’t a reality anymore.
She just needed to hang on for another couple of months. She’d figure the rest out later.
She dug into a long, loud roll on the snare and ended it with the crack of a rim shot to get their attention. “We ready or what?”
Robin released a last long note on her accordion while Lauren and Natalie dropped their instruments. Kelsey didn’t look to see what Eric was doing.
“So is everyone cool with the set list I sent out for the festival next month?” Robin asked. When everyone nodded in agreement, she said, “Lauren, you good?”
“Yup,” Lauren said. “Still working through some originals, but I’ll have them down after a couple more weeks for sure.”
Kelsey remembered back to that last email Robin sent out over the weekend, and how Robin had asked if they were all free one Saturday afternoon that month. “You said something about a new gig?”
“Oh yeah. Private party. A company crawfish boil. Everyone still good for that next Saturday?”
“Yeah,” Kelsey said. “Just wondering what it was.”
“Real low-key,” Robin said. “I figure we can play mostly standards and a few originals Lauren’s solid on so far. I’ll send out a set list for that one this weekend, then we can run through all of that next Thursday before the gig. Should be fine.”
“Sounds good,” Eric chimed in.
Kelsey forced herself to look at Robin. Only at Robin.
She could do this. One rehearsal at a time. A month and a half. Focus.
Robin cleared her throat nervously. That couldn’t be good. Robin was their rock, the one who kept them all in check and kept the band running smoothly. She was never nervous. At least not visibly.
“I was going to wait until after rehearsal to bring this up, but since we’re talking gigs and all now, might as well throw this out there.” Her eyes switched back and forth between Eric and Kelsey.
Shit.
Robin pulled absently at the ends of her dark, wavy bob that fell just below her jawline. “I was thinking we haven’t added any new songs in a while.”
Natalie swung her guitar to the side and immediately lit up. “Ooh, I like it!”
No surprise there. Natalie was up for anything. Well, anything except whatever she hated that day. But if she was excited about something, she was all the way into it. Foot on the gas pedal. And Robin wasn’t much different—she just got a slower start getting to that excitement cliff.
“But wait,” said Natalie. “No Camille.”
Camille had taken the lead on writing most of their songs, sometimes collaborating with someone else in the band. That someone else had usually been Kelsey, since she’d taken lots of composition classes for her music degree. But Kelsey wasn’t the only one Camille had collaborated with.
Shit.
“Kelsey and Eric?” Robin said. “Up for it?”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Heck yeah.” Eric was firmly in the up-for-anything camp with Robin and Natalie. “Kel, you in?”
She’d had a plan. Get through a few more rehearsals. A couple of gigs. Spend as little time alone with Eric as possible. Face everything in a month or two. By then she’d know if there was still anything to tell him this time.
But this threw a wrench in everything.
Kelsey looked up and saw a room of expectant, hope-filled faces staring back at her. Even Lauren—who had enough on her plate already as newest member and having to learn a ton of songs the last few weeks—had her wide, eager eyes trained on Kelsey, waiting for an answer. Waiting for the same answer they all wanted to hear.
As the analytical, levelheaded member of the band, Kelsey’s designated job was to rein everyone else in with a hefty dose of reality when necessary. Dodging shitty situation after shitty situation most of her childhood, she’d developed a quick, keen eye for when things were headed south, and she felt an obligation to share those warning signs. She was never afraid to cut and run, as they’d all learned pretty quickly when she’d almost bailed on the band last year after her painful breakup with Eric. If it hadn’t been for Natalie begging her to stay, she would have been long gone. No looking back.
Kelsey stared down at the sticks in her hands. She was making peace with the idea that the upcoming festival might be her last big gig with the band for a while, but peace didn’t erase the sting. She would miss playing. Especially playing with these people.
But writing…
She could still write tunes if she was a gazillion months pregnant. This could be her way of being part of things.
Except writing a song meant work sessions. Just her and Eric. Long afternoons. Late nights. Listening to him noodling on the piano. Scribbling heartfelt lyrics. It would ruin her.
And yet, she didn’t know how to say no to any of that.
She looked up from her sticks to Robin and nodded. “I’m in.”
* * * * *
When they shut down for the night, Eric packed his bass into its gig bag in a hurry. He’d been trying to figure some reason to talk to Kelsey alone all week. Some reason to drop the news that he’d broken up with Bria. That no amount of hook-ups or old flames would ever help him forget what he had with Kelsey. That he wanted nothing more in this world than to be with Kelsey again. To earn her trust and love again. For good this time.
Robin had dropped a gigantic gift in his lap with this songwriting thing. Although Robin wouldn’t think it was such a gift if she knew what he had in mind. Or maybe she did know what she was doing. Probably why she seemed so nervous to ask them in the first place, considering how their breakup had rocked the band.
By the time he zipped the bag shut and turned back to the drum set beside him, Kelsey and her sticks were gone.
“Kel, wait!” he shouted at her back. She didn’t hear him, and the studio door shut behind her and Natalie. Eric lifted his bass and shuffled across the room to catch up with them, but he wasn’t making any ground navigating the gigantic instrument around chairs and stands.
Finally, he cleared the now-empty room and squeezed through the door in time to see Kelsey and Natalie already at their cars. He trotted toward them, praying he didn’t trip in the grass, and shouted again. “Kel, wait up!”
She froze at her car door, and for a second he though she either didn’t hear him or worse—she heard him and was leaving anyway.
He could tell something had been bugging her all night. For weeks he’d gotten the sense that she was avoiding him, but for the life of him he didn’t know why. Sure, he’d given her a lifetime worth of reasons when they’d broken up, when they’d lost more than just each other. Losing her had nearly destroyed him, especially knowing she was hurting too. At the time he’d though
t he was doing the right thing, but now…now he wasn’t so sure he hadn’t done more harm than good.
Still, he thought they were moving past that. Things were easier between them again. Or at least they had been until recently.
Kelsey turned and waited for him to reach her car. She was beautiful illuminated by the moonlight. He wanted to reach out and run his hand along the smooth skin of her face, to kiss her soft, glossy lips under those stars.
Instead, he leaned his bass against the back of his van parked beside her. “Wild, right? You and me writing something. Just us. Without Camille.”
Her pale skin looked paler than normal. Maybe even a little greenish. Her face was missing any trace of the spark he was used to seeing. That bright-eyed, determined spark of hers that he’d fallen in love with. Over and over.
Her signature purple streak fell away from the rest of her straight, raven-black shoulder-length hair. He wanted so badly to reach out and brush it away, to tuck it behind her ear, but he kept his hand at his side.
“Yeah, wild.” She still wasn’t making eye contact with him.
Something was definitely up. More than even the semi-normal awkwardness that had wormed its way between them these last few weeks. But it didn’t look like she was going to tell him what was bothering her. And as much history as they had, he didn’t have any right to demand answers. He didn’t deserve anything from her, really.
“Maybe we should set up a quick meeting to touch base. Just to throw out some ideas. You got plans tomorrow night?”
“No.” Kelsey tilted her head and finally looked at him. “You don’t?”
He had plans to tell her all about why he didn’t have plans on a Friday night. But he wasn’t about to tell her that now. Not in the middle of Robin’s front lawn. “No. Want to come over tomorrow? I’m done with lessons around five. I could pick up Chinese so we could get started early?”
Her skin turned even greener when he said that. “Uh, yeah. Sure. I guess I’ll meet you around six then?”
“Sounds good.” He stepped away, reluctantly, and opened the back of his van. Her little red hatchback reversed into the driveway and rolled away as she gave him an awkward wave from the window, blasting Evanescence into the night air.
Something was definitely up with her. He wished she felt safe enough to tell him whatever it was. What he really wished was that he hadn’t caused that. He’d let her down, and he’d never forgive himself for that. Frankly, he wouldn’t have blamed her if she never spoke to him again.
But she had. And for some reason she continued to.
Eric slid his bass into the back of his van and closed the trunk. He waved to Robin on the porch and drove away, his head scrambling for ways to earn back Kelsey’s trust. He couldn’t erase their past or his mistakes. But he sure as hell could try to earn her back now.
And thanks to Robin and this song she wanted them to write, he now had an open door to do exactly that.
Chapter 2
Kelsey flipped through a bin of records with a green apple sucker hanging out of her mouth. Every corner of the little store she worked in was stuffed with records—bins, wall shelves, boxes on the floor, loose vinyl hanging from the ceiling. She was looking for a particular album someone had called about: Nirvana’s Bleach. It wasn’t in their system for some reason, but Kelsey knew for sure she’d seen it recently. She’d been digging through bins whenever she got a chance all week to see if it got misfiled or missed getting logged in.
As she flipped past each album, she felt a sort of tranquility that was often missing in her life, despite living alone. The albums had a comforting scent, like old books, but with the scent of plastic in the mix. Scanning each title and each album’s cover art was a form of meditation. It was one of the reasons she loved working there so much. Seeing all of those unwanted records, those hidden gems, carefully filed and displayed filled Kelsey with hope. Most of them would find new homes, new purpose, and those that didn’t would remain loved and fawned over in the shop. It was a sort of home for misfit vinyl.
Until she started working there, Kelsey had no idea how much she could relate to a bunch of old records. But she did. She even started thinking of herself as some sort of misfit vinyl in search of a home. The home she’d been looking for ever since she was a kid bouncing between foster homes. Working at this store and rehoming these albums gave her unexpected joy and a surprising sense of purpose.
The bell on the front door jangled, and Kelsey looked up to see Natalie walking in. Nat wore a light sweater over a silky blue blouse and black trousers with her hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail. Her downtown librarian uniform. A stark contrast to the tight tanks, tighter jeans, and cowboy boots she rocked on gigs.
Kelsey waved and continued to flip through the albums in front of her. “I thought you were working today.”
“I am,” Nat said. “What? I can’t visit my friend at work?”
“You can. You just don’t,” Kelsey teased. She was always the one to visit Natalie at the library a few blocks away. She usually needed a walk and a break from the dark inside of the record store more than Natalie needed to escape the bright, cheery children’s department.
“I took an early lunch. I was afraid you would chicken out and wouldn’t stop by today.”
“Chicken out from what?”
“From talking to me.”
“Now why would I avoid you?”
“Because you still haven’t told me what’s going on with you.”
And she didn’t intend to tell Nat either. Not yet. In fact, she was hoping to bail on lunch today. It wasn’t as if she had an appetite or could hold down food anyway. And the last thing she needed was Natalie reading into that.
“Nat, it’s been less than twenty-four hours.”
“And?”
“And you’re impossible. You know that?”
“Pfft. Go complain to Camille about that. Shane would probably agree with you, too.”
“How’s that going, by the way?”
“Uh-uh. Don’t change the subject. Shane and I are good. I’m here about you.”
“I’m great.” Her voice wavered.
As expected, Natalie wasn’t buying it. She frowned, then softened her expression. “Shane’s working a gig tonight. Why don’t you come over? Cadence and I have big plans for a movie and popcorn. Probably even ice cream. With sprinkles. You can hang with us, and we can talk after I put Cadence to bed. More ice cream maybe?”
Kelsey loved hanging out with Natalie and her daughter, Cadence. And as hard as it had been on all of them to lose their original fiddle player—who happened to also be Nat’s best friend—to rehab, stepping in as a substitute bestie for Nat had been a nice, unexpected bonus the last couple months.
“Can’t,” she said. “Meeting Eric to work on that song.”
Natalie cursed Robin under her breath.
“We’ll make it work,” Kelsey said. “It’s only a few sessions. I’ll write most of the lyrics on my own. We’ll just meet a few times to line everything up. It’ll be fine.”
Natalie shook her head. “Jeez, you’re a horrible liar.”
“How about…I’m gonna make the best of it?”
“I don’t see how there’s a best here.” She looked down at Kelsey’s stomach, then back up at her friend’s face and raised her eyebrows. “Does he know yet?”
Kelsey tried to keep her expression loose and cool. To completely ignore the alarm bells going off in her head. She didn’t want to let Natalie sniff out the fear percolating inside her.
She took a long drag on her sucker. “Know what?”
Natalie lowered her eyes and crossed her arms, determination set firmly in her face. “Does he know you’re pregnant?”
Being the decent friend that she was, Natalie kept her voice low. But they couldn’t have this conversation in the record store, and she clearly wasn’t going to let this slide.
Kelsey sighed, walked to the office in the back, and told her boss she was ta
king an early lunch while the store was quiet. Not that she had any plans to actually eat lunch. She had a sleeve of saltines and a plastic bag of almonds behind the counter that would get her through the rest of her shift.
She nodded toward the front door, and Natalie followed her outside into the bright, fresh spring air. They turned left and strolled down the sidewalks. The dwarf azaleas lining the curb were in full bloom along the road beside them. Southern Louisiana in all its March glory.
Natalie broke the silence. “You keeping it?”
Kelsey had weighed all of her options for a few brief minutes after she’d found out she was pregnant. She would never put a kid, especially not her own, into the foster system if there was another choice. Sure, there were lovely families taking in kids, but she’d grown up in the system. She’d been bounced around and had seen enough of the ugly side to know she didn’t want any kid of hers in foster care. Adoption meant she had no control whether or not her kid ended up in the system later, so that was off the table, too.
And while she knew it was ultimately her decision and that Eric’s complicated religious beliefs were his own to deal with, she also knew that ending the pregnancy would tear him apart. The last time had been out of her control. She couldn’t intentionally inflict that kind of pain on him. She couldn’t inflict that kind of pain on herself. She was grateful to have options, but only one choice made sense for her in this situation.
“Yes,” she said, emphatically.
“Okay,” Nat said. “You plan on telling him at all?”
“Eventually.”
“Any reason later is better than now?”
Kelsey took a deep breath and grounded herself. Felt the pavement through her Converse soles. Acknowledged the cool breeze hitting the hairs on her forearms. Focused on the present. The here. The now.
She was safe downtown with her friend. She wasn’t in a dark, sterile exam room looking at an unmoving image in the center of an ultrasound screen.