The Return (The Comeback Series)

by Marcie Shumway

  My body quivered from the exertion of my orgasm and I once again had to brace myself against the wall to keep from falling over. The now warm water soothed my aching muscles and washed off the residue. Shaking my head to clear the bewitching woman from it, I quickly washed my hair and body. When I turned the water off, I could hear banging around upstairs as the household started waking up, and the smell of bacon coming from the kitchen quickly filled my nostrils. My stomach cramped with hunger. Evidently, now that my erection was mostly gone, my stomach decided it was time to regain control.

  Chuckling, I dried my body off and grabbed a pair of worn ripped jeans from the floor by my bed and a clean tank top from the top of my bureau. Once I had my boots on, I made my way out to the kitchen, whistling along to a tune playing in my head. Maybe it was time to start writing again; creating my own songs had always been something I enjoyed. Hell, our first album had been all originals. When the women and the booze had started to catch up to me, I hadn’t been able to put a lick down on paper.

  “Good mor….” I trailed off as I came around the corner to the kitchen to greet Maggie and Lexie, finding them locked in a steamy embrace. “Oh man, seriously?”

  Most men would be turned on by two women going at it, but for me, it was like watching my sisters, so it totally caught me off-guard. Maggie never moved from her position between Lexie’s legs, while her wife did all she could to wiggle off the counter.

  “Just reminding you who she belongs to, Hall,” Maggie teased, finally letting Lexie down and sending her scurrying with a pinch to the behind.

  “Not to mention the racket out of your room this morning, Coop, was enough to have us all needing cold showers,” Evan piped up from behind me. “Did Avery sneak in after we all went to bed last night?”

  “If she had, you would have needed more than a cold shower,” I snarled at him, feeling my temper bubble at his mentioning her.

  “I was just teasing, man,” he laughed, nudging me slightly out of his way. “You know I have the utmost love and respect for your girl.”

  I froze, one hand on the back of my chair to pull it out. Any anger was quickly replaced with a tirade of other emotions. My girl? She hadn’t been that since I had walked away from her ten years prior, but oh, didn’t it sound good to hear her called that again. Did they know that we were hooking up?

  I looked over at Evan, who was now filling his mug with coffee, and he threw me a wink with a knowing smile. Matt and Lexie were putting food on the table while Maggie nursed her cup, and none seemed any the wiser. Yet, Chris was leaned against the counter, waiting for his cup to be filled and was watching me like hawk. Well, it looked like the cat was out of the bag to at least two of them. Dammit.

  “So, I’m going to ask you again,” Chris started in as soon as everyone was seated and their plates full. “When are you coming back to Nashville?”

  I had a fork full of scrambled eggs halfway to my mouth when he dropped the bomb. Looking around, I realized that they were all watching me expectantly. They had done this on purpose. It was another damn intervention. My mood immediately shifted, and I clamped my teeth together in an effort to keep my mouth shut against the things I didn’t mean.

  “I told you,” I ground out. “I’m not sure what is going on, and that I will go when I am good and ready.”

  “I know what you told me,” he snapped, “but we have a contract to uphold.”

  “Fully aware of that,” I told him. “We will meet the deadline. If we don’t, it won’t be on me.”

  “We are heading back at the end of the month,” he informed me, our food and the others long since forgotten as the air became thick with tension. “You. Will. Be. With. Us.”

  “When did you become the all-powerful Oz, dickhead?” I questioned, my hands now in fists, clenching and unclenching under the table.

  “It’s not just your dream, you fucking asshole!” he finally exploded, shoving back his chair and standing up. “It’s all of ours! It’s our fucking lives you’re messing with.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” I retorted, “but it’s that, and my livelihood!”

  I could see a smartass remark working its way out. His eyes were dark with anger, and he was leaning toward me with his hands braced on the table. The others were quiet, but hadn’t moved from their spots. They were blocking us from taking swings at each other, however I don’t think they realized that it wouldn’t have mattered. We would get to each other, whether they were there or not.

  “I’m just getting to the point that I can handle life sober. Hell, there are days that I want a shot so bad I can taste the alcohol,” I reminded him. “I’m not ready to go back to that life yet.”

  “No, that’s not it,” he snorted. “You aren’t done fucking Avery. That’s the problem.”

  I saw red. I had always heard about people saying they saw colors when they experienced extreme emotions. Until that point, I had never had it happen to me. Nor had I ever blacked out without liquor.

  The next thing I knew, I was straining against Evan’s arms that were locked like a vise around me. Chris was bleeding from his mouth and one eye looked like it was already swelling shut. Despite the injuries, he was doing all he could to get Matt to release him. I must have gotten off a couple punches, but I couldn’t recall it. The kitchen table had been shoved off to the side, along with the chairs, and the girls stood backed up against the counter, looking at us with wide, angry eyes.

  “Take it back,” I whispered, rage consuming me.

  “No. You’re thinking with your damn dick again, and to hell with the rest of us. Once you have it out of your system, you’ll be ready to jump ship and come back, but it will be too fucking late.”

  “You ass. You know better than anyone how I feel about her,” I hissed, leaning as much as I could against Evan’s hold.

  I saw the flicker in my band leader’s eyes as he too remembered a night, not so long ago, where I opened up to him. Where I told him everything I was feeling and thinking. The worst night of coming clean, both physically and emotionally.

  “Man, I’ve never seen anyone puke so much,” Chris said, amazed, as he leaned against the bunks outside the bathroom door of our tour bus.

  “I don’t know how I still have anything left to come up,” I replied, shivering with the chills as my stomach continued to cramp.

  “You’ve done good, you must be just about clean now,” he reasoned, gingerly touching the new stitches lining his head.

  “Dude, I’m ssssooorrrrryyy,” I told him, as my body convulsed in shivers. “You should have just dumped me in a clinic somewhere.”

  “I never would have done that. We’re family. We will get through this together.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said, dragging myself up so I could lean against the cabinets and wrap myself in the blanket he handed me.

  “You would do the same for me,” he shrugged, handing me a water as well. “Now you can tell me what you are trying to forget with all the alcohol.”

  “A woman, what else would it be,” I chuckled bitterly, the bile threatening to rise again.

  “Just one?” he joked lightly.

  “The. One.”

  “Apologize,” I growled.

  “Christopher, even you know that was a low blow,” Lexie reasoned from her spot. “Cooper has always carried a torch for her. She isn’t one of his groupies.”

  I could see his body relax with a sigh, and Matt cautiously released him. Still holding his hands out on either side of Chris, in case he had to grab him again, he backed up a step. Evan let up on me as well, but I could feel the heat of him at my back. He too was ready, should things escalate again. My friend approached me, hand out, blood still dripping onto his shirt.

  “I’m sorry. You’re right. I do know how you feel about her, and I shouldn’t have said that.”

  I gripped his hand in mine and brought him against my chest, so I could pound on his back with my free hand. When I felt him return the favor, I stepped back a
nd gave him a shove toward the living room so he could head upstairs and clean himself up. Not ready to deal with anyone else, I followed him through the kitchen and veered off and out the front door.

  My legs wobbled as I tried to sit down on the stop step and as soon as I rested against the pillar, I found my hands shaking as well. Anger, confusion, and dread all surged through me. Closing my eyes, I took deep breaths and Avery’s face instantly popped into my head. Only it wasn’t the woman that I knew today; it was the girl I had fallen head over heels for as a rebel child. The quiet angelic brunette with the soft smile and huge heart. The one person that had always calmed me after a fight.

  The adrenaline finally slowed leaving me feeling like I had been hit by a bus. Though Chris hadn’t gotten any shots in, one of my hands throbbed from where it had connected with him. Stretching it a bit, I heard the door click and was surprised when I opened my eyes and found Maggie with a bag of ice in her hand.

  “I figured you could use this,” she said, tossing it to me and taking a seat against the pillar on the other side of the steps.

  “Thanks,” I replied, putting it against the spot that pounded along with my heart.

  “You know he didn’t mean that, right? What he said about Avery?”

  “I do,” I told her. “I also know that I am causing him a lot of stress.”

  “It’s not all you,” she assured me. “The label is panicking, and they keep getting on Lee. Shit rolls downhill, so-to-speak.”

  “I get it. I didn’t exactly tell them where I went or when I would be back.”

  “No, but that’s your prerogative. They might own your music, but they don’t own you.”

  “Oh, but they think they do, and they have for the past ten years. I’m done with that. I can’t live like that anymore,” I admitted, putting my head in my hands.

  “Sounds like you have some big decisions to make,” she theorized, getting up and putting a hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t you come in and let us know what the first step is going to be, so that we can help you through it.”

  I squeezed her hand and heard her sigh as she went back in the house. Before putting the ice back on my injury, I checked out my hand. Nothing felt broken, but it was a little swollen and red. Flexing, I felt a twinge of pain, yet nothing significant. I guess three weeks would be enough for it to heal.

  Hopefully it was just a bruise, otherwise Chris would really kill me if I couldn’t play. I chuckled at the thought. I was ready to finish our album. The idea of going back to Nashville for that didn’t bother me one bit. Hours upon hours locked away from everyone, with just the guys and our instruments. I could handle that. The press, the paparazzi, the parties, and the questions. That was what I wasn’t ready for.

  And there was Avery. I wasn’t ready to leave her yet. We had just started. Started what, I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t want to leave before I found out. Damn, if that woman didn’t still put my head and my heart in a tizzy. I wanted to explore her body head to toe, and I wanted to be the one she turned to when she needed support through her father’s illness.

  Decision made, I got up and went into the house. Everyone was back around the table, plates full, trying to eat and act like nothing had just happened. Taking my spot, I smiled and accepted the juice Lexie handed me. Evan was telling a story about someone recognizing him in town and how he didn’t need the band to be popular. Hardy, har, har. When he was done, I piped up.

  “I’ll be ready to leave with you guys at the end of the month, but it’s not permanent, so you’d better be ready to work your asses off.”

  Mmmm,” I moaned as a hand massaged my insole with their thumb.

  “Pressure good?”

  “Perfect,” I whispered, leaning back and slowly feeling every other muscle in my body relax.

  “Jeez, maybe we should have gotten you laid rather than a pedicure.”

  My eyes popped open and I turned my head to narrow them at my best friend sitting beside me. Shrugging with a slight smirk on her face, she turned her attention back to the magazine in her lap. I shook my head at her and sighed again when the woman working on my feet switched sides. Abby and Jen had decided that a girl’s day was needed. I had argued very little when Jen showed up, her mother in tow. Betty Richardson had had a thing for my father for as long as I could remember, and was more than happy to be there if he needed anything for a few hours.

  “There she is!” Jen exclaimed, as Abby finally came through the front door of the salon, coffee and doughnuts in hand.

  “Sorry, ladies! Rough morning,” she apologized, dropping her purse in a chair, along with the doughnuts, so she could hand us our coffees.

  “You feeling okay?” I asked quickly, inspecting her from head to toe.

  “Other than not being able to get out of my own way, I am just fine,” she assured me.

  Her bump was still barely there, but anyone that knew her would have to be blind not to figure out something was up. She looked so content and literally glowed. I don’t know how many times I had heard that it happened with pregnant women, but I had never witnessed it until my sister-in-law. She and Keegan had finally told her mother, and from what I’d heard, she was over-the-moon excited for them. This would be her first grandchild and Abby was her only daughter, so there would be an extra level of sweetness in that.

  “When are you telling Dad?” I asked, nodding at her belly as she handed us our doughnuts.

  “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that,” she said, getting comfortable so the cosmetologist could get started on her pedicure. “We’re thinking breakfast tomorrow morning? Just us?”

  “Perfect,” I told her. “He seems to do better in the morning, and gets more worn out as the day goes on.”

  No sooner had we made the plan did she and Jen dive in to baby talk and the fact that they were officially on vacation. I listened for a bit and chimed in here and there; but, my mind started to wander. This was the first time, outside of the benefit, that I had gotten out since my father had started his treatments. Many people had offered to stay with him, so I could run errands and such, but I had taken just a few friends up on their offers to grab groceries for me or medications from the pharmacy. I felt like he was my responsibility and I didn’t want that on anyone else.

  I hadn’t even seen Cooper since the prior weekend. Dreams of a tattooed drummer had filled my nights on those when I actually got any sleep. Those hands, that mouth. I had woken up more than once, wet and ready for him, only to find myself alone. It was only supposed to be sex, nothing more, yet the feelings he had drawn out of me were unreachable with any other man. They were feelings I thought I had long ago buried. I would have chalked it up to lust and a dry spell, but I knew in my heart that wasn’t the case.

  My phone vibrated against my leg where it sat on the chair, and when I saw Cooper’s name flash across the screen, my heart skipped a beat. So, it wasn’t just physical. The text messages we had been exchanging that week had assured me of that. There had been a particularly long night with my father earlier in the week, and I had been tired, emotional, and ready to break. With tears streaming down my face as I sent the message, and a simple Do you need me? response, every wall I had erected against Cooper Hall had crumbled away.

  I looked down at his new text.

  C: Getting all prettied up for me?