The Return (The Comeback Series)

by Marcie Shumway

“Ya know, if you had knocked like a normal person, you wouldn’t be getting an eyeful of my package this morning,” I told him dryly, as I pulled the sheet further up and stuck my hand out for the papers he was holding.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck, handing me the articles, “but you’re going to want to see this so you can put out some fires.”

  “Fires?” I asked, opening one and immediately cringing at the title.

  Hall Buys House in Hometown for New Bride

  “Keep looking, it gets better,” he said, gesturing.

  Dark Roads Permanently in the Dark?

  Cooper Hall having baby with Ex, Molly Trimmer

  Dark Roads replacing Hall after stay in Clover Rehab

  “What the hell is this shit?!” I growled, jumping out of bed to pull on my jeans.

  “They were on the porch this morning when Lexie headed out for her run,” he explained, as I whipped a tank top over my head and stomped out of my room, making my way to the kitchen.

  I found exactly what I knew I would when I got there. Maggie was on the phone, pissed and gesturing like a mad woman, while Matt was cooking breakfast. Lexie must have still been out running because she was nowhere to be seen, and Chris was filling coffee mugs. When he handed me mine, I nodded to him and fixed it the way I liked it before plopping down into one of the kitchen chairs with a frustrated sigh.

  “You knew this was going to happen,” Chris chided as he took the seat next to me. “We all did, given that we just disappeared off the grid, rather than releasing some sort of statement.”

  “Why the fuck do we have to answer to the public with everything that we do?” I questioned, my hands cradling my cup so tightly I was worried I might break it. “Can’t our private lives be just that?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Maggie reminded me, as she hung up and sat down with us. “When you signed on that dotted line, making Dark Roads more than just a high school garage band, you opened your lives to everyone.”

  I put my head down on the table with a thump and groaned. Chris was right; I had known this would happen. It always happened, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. I hated the tabloids with a passion. Maggie, along with our publicist Tracey Deemer, did a lot of damage control. For the most part, we were your typical band; we liked to drink and party. We didn’t get in trouble, per se. No arrests, no videos or pictures of us fighting, no bad blood with other performers. Yet, they had posted untrue stories about us for years. It was all part of the game.

  “Oh shit! Avery!” I bellowed. “I need to go do damage control.”

  “Wait a damn minute,” Chris said, pushing me back into my seat as I tried to get up. “You need to be here with us, figuring things out, before you go deal with her.”

  “I told you, this isn’t just a booty call,” I replied, pushing his hand off my shoulder. “She means more to me than that, and I’m not going to let her read those without some sort of explanation.”

  “Lexie is over there now, filling her in,” Maggie piped up, giving Chris the stink eye. “She went over as soon as she saw those because she knew that we would be dealing with it here.”

  I let out a sigh and sent Chris a glare of my own. I knew he carried the weight of the band on his shoulders, but there was no reason for him to be an ass about my trying to get my life together outside of it. Matt put the pancakes he had been cooking down in the middle of the table, along with a plate of bacon, and everyone dug in. We knew we would need the fuel for the shit show that was about to happen.

  After breakfast, we got to work. Evan brought me my phone while I refilled my cup, and I gave him a grateful smile. Avery was my first concern, so I dropped her a message first, telling her that I would definitely see her later to explain everything, and sent her my own heart. I knew I couldn’t tell her I loved her, even though that was the first thing that came to mind. Once she had responded that we were fine and ended it with a heart, I went back to check the other messages still sitting on my phone.

  Most were from other artists I was friends with, checking in; they had seen the articles and were concerned. I didn’t send anything to them, as I knew that Maggie would have a general response for me to send to everyone that would cover my own ass, as well as the band’s. Next, I listened to the voicemails. All but one was from Lee; basically, he called saying we needed to talk, that the band was counting on me not to fuck up, blah, blah, blah. The remaining one was from Avery and it had come in while we had been eating breakfast. Her soothing voice coming through my phone relaxed me and had the tick in my jaw easing. I didn’t need alcohol when I had her, she brought me down the same way the liquor had.

  Maggie and Chris moved to the living room once the kitchen was cleaned up, while Matt bailed out to grab a few things at the store – he never handled the publicity stuff very well – and Evan and I escaped to the front porch, plopping down into the rocking chairs I had recently purchased. The sky was cloudy, threatening rain, reflecting my mood perfectly. I cringed when Evan handed me the full articles to read. I didn’t want to, but I figured I should know exactly what was being said about us.

  The one titled Hall Buys House in Hometown for New Bride was exactly what the title implied. It was about me moving back to Maine to buy a house for my supposed new wife. I was floored that they listed my ex-girlfriend Molly Trimmer as the woman I had married in secret. Why were there two articles about her? We had split more than a year ago, when I’d found out that she only wanted me for my money because of her failing career. Her ability to quickly find another singer to bed confirmed that she never cared about me the way that I had cared for her.

  The second one, Dark Roads Permanently in the Dark? was a full page write-up, questioning whether or not the band was still together. It quoted people that said we had all gone our separate ways and that we were no longer talking. They were also claiming they had seen a blowout amongst us that had ended in a couple of the guys being hospitalized. Who the hell were they getting their information from?

  Cooper Hall having baby with Ex, Molly Trimmer was the one that had me fuming the most. I hadn’t touched the woman since we had split. I had always been diligent about protection, and she certainly hadn’t been pregnant when I last saw her, flinging back drinks at a mutual friend’s Christmas party. If she was now, it sure as hell wasn’t mine.

  The final article, Dark Roads replacing Hall after stay in Clover Rehab, had my stomach churning. Part of the reason the guys hadn’t dumped me at a facility was because they didn’t want to feed the media more than my stupidity already had. We had tried to keep everything on the downlow, but obviously my drinking problem hadn’t been as secret as I thought it had been.

  Putting the magazines down in my lap, I closed my eyes and sighed. Why was all of this happening now? Just when I seemed to be getting somewhere with Avery, when I was finally at a place where I wasn’t reaching for or craving a drink every time I turned around; when I had finally found peace. The whole Molly thing bothered me. Our breakup hadn’t been bad, at least I hadn’t thought so. I had called her out on the money thing, and she quietly slunk away, only to turn up less than a month later, wrapped around Earl Frank, an up-and-coming singer climbing the charts. We would run into each other at functions and nothing had ever been sour.

  “Why do I have a feeling that Trimmer is at the center of it all?” Evan asked, after some time had passed.

  “I wondered the same thing,” I agreed, opening my eyes and turning to face him. “But what would she have to gain? We haven’t been together in a long time.”

  “You know how the industry works,” he chuckled. “Even stories that aren’t true bring in money. Her career has totally tanked, so I’m betting she is pretty desperate.”

  “Why the fuck couldn’t she have done this before?”

  “Before what?”

  “Before I started trying to convince Avery that we were meant to be together.”

  His eyebrows instantly shot up. I hadn’t been com
pletely honest with the band. They knew that I was trying to get back into her good graces, but they didn’t know that I planned on moving back to Maine, permanently. I wasn’t sure I was ready to leave the band for good; however, I was ready to settle down a bit. Especially if it meant with her.

  “Holy shit!” he exclaimed, an ear-to-ear smile filling his face. “It’s about damn time you smartened up.”

  “Now, I just need to get her to believe me when I say I’m not going anywhere,” I told him, watching carefully for his reaction.

  “It’s not her we need to work on, it’s Chris,” he reminded me. “Dark Roads isn’t done yet, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t all have a little more personal time.”

  “We?”

  “If you stay, I stay,” he informed me nonchalantly.

  “I don’t need…”

  “Yeah, I know, you don’t need a damn babysitter,” he interrupted, waving his hand. “I’m ready to come back to Maine too, and having my brother here as well just makes it that much better.”

  I was floored. Sure, Evan and I had been the closest in the band growing up, but I had never imagined he would move back with me. Then again, the thought of moving back to Maine permanently hadn’t crossed my mind until I had seen Avery again. I thought I would just buy a house, flip it, and move back to Nashville. Evan was an only child and had spent most of his time at my house with me and my brothers, so it made sense, in a way, that he wanted to be where I was.

  “Man, listen,” I started, slowing my chair to a stop. “I don’t want you to come back and end up being unhappy. I would feel so fucking guilty.”

  “Coop, I don’t need a babysitter any more than you do. The choice would be mine,” he said, his voice taking on a slight edge that surprised me. “You’re not the only one ready for some fresh air and time away from the hubbub of city living.”

  “My bad,” I chuckled, putting my hands up in defense. “It would be pretty awesome to have you right here, so that I can call you any time I need help on the house.”

  My friend’s smile and laugh were quick, all tension out the window. That was one of the great things about Evan; he didn’t get angry very often, and his aggravation always dissipated quickly. It was the reason I had let him stay when he met me at my front door the day I came back. With his blue eyes sparkling, he leaned over and motioned for me to do the same.

  “So, how do we tell Chris that his dream for the band is about to change?”

  The bright tabloid colors taunted me from across the table. I shifted on the lawn chair that I was sitting in on my father’s deck, and held my mug of hot chocolate more tightly. Shivering, more from nerves than temperature, I took a sip of the hot liquid. I closed my eyes as I swallowed, and let it soothe me from the inside out. Unfortunately, when I opened them again, the magazines remained. They hadn’t been just a figment of my imagination.

  All I had done the night before was toss and turn. Finally, at 4:30 a.m., I gave up on any thoughts of sleep. Climbing out of bed quietly and donning a hoodie over my tank top, I’d made a drink to calm my nerves and decided it was time for a little reflection. The next few hours were mine before I had to take my father in for treatment.

  Lexie had been amazing when she had shown up days before, with all the articles in hand. She explained everything to me in detail, including the situation with Molly and the fact that the pictures were a couple of years old. Cooper couldn’t even take credit for her coming over; it seems she had taken it upon herself. That group was a well-oiled machine when it came to this kind of stuff, and fiercely protective of those around them.

  I sighed as I zeroed in on the article that bothered me the most. Cooper Hall having baby with Ex, Molly Trimmer. The others were merely annoyances, but this one struck me to the core. Marriage and relationship rumors were forever buzzing around celebrities of all kinds, it was expected. Yet, the idea of Cooper having a child with another woman made my heart ache, and took me back to how I felt when he walked out on me at eighteen.

  “I thought I told you to burn those damn things,” came a whispered growl from the doorway, that nearly sent me backwards in my chair.

  I placed the mug down on the table before I could spill anything on me, and turned to look at the man who had been racing through my mind. Cooper came over the night before to talk. While he trusted Lexie with everything in him, he had wanted to assure me himself. The talking hadn’t lasted long. My need to feel him, touch him, and show him how I felt, took over.

  He padded over to me, barefoot, in his worn work jeans that were full of holes, and wearing a Dark Roads tour shirt from a few years ago. His hair was spiked from me running my hands through it and he scratched at his beard when he drew near enough to see the one that I was looking at. Eyes narrowed, he pulled out the chair next to me, and turned it so that when we sat, we were knee to knee.

  “Avery, we talked about this,” he said quietly, taking my hands in his as he rested his elbows on his knees.

  “I know we did, but that doesn’t make them go away.”

  “I understand that,” he replied. “However, you have to trust me here.”

  “I get this is part of your life,” I stated slowly. “You have to remember though, it’s not part of mine.”

  His brown eyes met mine and I saw emotions flicker through them so fast that I couldn’t keep up. I knew this couldn’t be easy for him because it seemed he truly was trying to change his life. But how was I supposed to completely trust someone I thought had loved me, that had walked away without looking back? My heart and my head were so conflicted. It hadn’t helped when the actual magazines showed up on my doorstep the day before, so I knew that Jen was putting in her two cents.

  “Baby, I’m sorry,” he apologized. “None of those are true. I’ll tell you as many times as you need to hear it. I’m also not going anywhere. Maine is going to be my home base again.”

  “You have to go back to Nashville. Who’s to say that you aren’t going to go back, find another girl to warm your bed, and decide that you missed being there?”

  Letting go of my hands, Cooper sat back in the chair in frustration. He covered his face and let out a groan before dragging his hands down and setting them in his lap. The hurt showed in his face. The night before, I had alternated between holding him as close as I could, not wanting to let go, and rolling over to put my back to him. When the time came that he normally would have left – I was still pretending my father didn’t know about us – I had wrapped myself around him and asked him to stay.

  “That’s not going to happen,” he argued. “Everything I want is here. You are here.”

  “It didn’t stop you before,” I snapped, quickly slapping my hand over my mouth.

  “You’re right,” he agreed, “it didn’t. Now is different. I’m older and, I’d like to think, a little wiser.”

  He shifted his chair back slightly and moved as though he was going to get up. Feeling like a piece of crap for having let my fear turn me into a bitch, I got up and curled myself up in his lap. His arms came around me without hesitation and he kissed my forehead.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I was an asshole when I was a kid. If you had been smart, you would have never taken up with the likes of me, or you would have moved on to some business man that could run circles around me,” he muttered.

  “No one ever said I was smart,” I joked lightly.

  “You are, and before you realize that you can do better, I’m going to head home,” he told me, squeezing me tight and kissing me on the head one more time before helping me to my feet.

  “You never give yourself enough credit, Coop.”

  “We all have our things,” he reminded me, cupping my face in his hands.

  I leaned into him when he moved to kiss me. It was meant to be a mere brushing of lips; however I tugged at his belt loops to bring him close, and I took it deeper. I knew he only needed to hear a little moan from me and he would take control of the situation.
Doing just that, his hands slid from my face down my arms and ribs, to move around and cup my ass through my shorts and bring my hips flush against his. As his tongue dueled with mine, I slid my hands under his shirt and scraped my nails against his abs and up to his pecs. This time, it was his turn to make a noise and I smiled when he pulled away, hissing.

  “Your dad is going to be up soon, and I need to get out of here before he does,” he said, his voice low, forehead pressing against mine.

  “It’s too late for that, Hall,” was my dad’s retort from behind him, causing us both to jump. “Why don’t you stay for coffee?”

  “Morning, um, sir,” he replied, turning slightly to nod to him. “I should probably head home and make sure the rest of the band didn’t burn my house down while I was gone.”

  The excuse was a weak one, but it made both my father and I smile. With a slight wave, my dad turned, and I could hear him shuffle to the counter to make his cup of tea and some toast. With less than two weeks left to go in his treatments, he still didn’t have much of an appetite, yet he was very good about eating a least a little something before we headed to the hospital.

  “Since I now feel like a teenager caught making out on the living room couch,” Cooper muttered, “I’m going to head out.”

  Kissing me quickly on the lips before I could grab him again, he turned and headed into the house. I laughed at his retreating form and moved to pick up my mug. The hot chocolate was still slightly warm, so I drank it without looking at the table.

  “Come sit with me,” my father requested softly. I jumped at the sound of his voice. I hadn’t realized that I had been staring off into space for a while.

  I sat back down in the chair and shuffled the magazines into a pile. I liked to think my father was oblivious as to what was going on, especially since he was dealing with his illness. However, when his hand came down on mine to still my movements, I knew otherwise.

  “Talk to me, girl,” he pleaded.

  “Everything is fine, Dad,” I told him. “I promise.”