God, I’ve missed you, he wanted to say, but he already felt enough like a fool. He wasn’t supposed to miss her. They’d only had a handful of days together. It was hardly enough time to grow anything that could be missed.
And yet he did.
“Jacques, you know you’re going places, right?”
“What?” He frowned. What the hell was she talking about?
Another sigh. “I mean you and Heroine are going to be big. Soon. I know what I’m talking about. I knew it the moment I saw you play together at Artmosphere,” she said, her voice resonating with truth and conviction. “You have it. You have the magic everybody wants. Everyone’s going to know your name.”
Hearing her say it — hearing her affirm what he so desperately hoped would be true — felt like Christmas morning.
“That would be great,” he muttered, grinning in spite of himself. “But that’s a long shot.”
“No, it is great,” she insisted. “It’s already happening. You can’t tell me you haven’t realized it.”
Jacques shrugged to himself. “Yeah, I mean things are going really well,” he admitted.
“They’ll keep going well. You’ll see. And I’m so happy for you, Jacques,” she said, and he heard the warmth there in her voice. It felt real and deep and sincere. “I just see everything so clearly, and I know where you are going, there’s no place for someone like me.”
“Wait, what are you—”
“This is the part that makes me sound crazy and presumptuous and ridiculous. We aren’t even in a relationship. We’ve gone out on a couple of dates. I really like you, and I’d like to keep seeing you, and I wish I could be the kind of person who could just enjoy us for however long there is an us….” She paused and Jacques could hear her voice change again, dip lower, sounding somber. “…but I’m not that kind of person.”
“What kind of person?” She was the kind of person he wanted to keep seeing. She was the person. If the nine songs she’d inspired him to write didn’t testify to that, he didn’t know what could.
“My life is small, Jacques. It’s so small. If I let you in…” Her voice sounded haunted. “I’m just not that strong. Not anymore. Best not to go down that road at all.”
“You’re not strong enough to let me in?” Jacques asked, refusing to let the disappointment penetrate him like a stain.
“No, I’m not strong enough to let you go, and you’d go, Jacques. You’d have to.”
And as she said it, Jacques saw what she saw. He’d be going soon. Or he hoped he would. The music would open doors he needed and wanted to walk through. It would give him the world, and he’d want to take it. She was right about that, but she was wrong about something else.
“I might go, but if you let me in, I wouldn’t forget about you.”
Grim laughter was her reply. “Trust me, Jacques, I have a lifetime of experience with this. Forgetting is a breeze.”
Jacques didn’t need to be told that she was thinking of her father. His eyes narrowed. The burning in his gut warned him if he ever met the man, he’d have to squash the urge to shove him into a wall.
“I know you haven’t known me long,” he hedged, hoping he could reason with her. “But other than the music, what else do your father and I have in common?”
She was quiet for a moment. “The music’s a pretty big thing.”
“Yeah, but put that aside for just a minute. Are our personalities similar?”
Rainey choked on a laugh. “God, no.”
“Why?” Jacques asked. “What’s he like?”
“Pfft. He’s a cheeseball.”
“Wh-what?” Hesitant laughter shook out of him. Rainey giggled in response. It sounded exactly like bliss.
“He talks like he has a microphone in his hand all the time. He’s not real. I don’t think he even knows how to be real.” The mirth faded from her voice. “I didn’t realize it until I needed him to be real, and then I couldn’t stop seeing it. The phoniness is sort of sickening.”
Jacques thought about his own father who was so real and raw it had cost him his freedom. The man couldn’t disguise or control what he felt for anything. Jacques could keep his emotions close to his vest, but he’d never learned pretense. Not with the kind of mother and father he’d had. And not later with Grandma Lucille and Pal. Two more genuine people never lived.
“Okay, so you should know with me what you see is what you get,” he vowed.
“I know, Jacques. Even on stage, you’re more real than he can ever be,” she said, her voice strident. “And you’re funny. My dad’s handsome, and he’s charming, and he laughs at everything, but it’s a fake laugh. He never says anything funny.”
“You make me laugh all the time,” Jacques admitted. “I hope you know it’s real.”
“You have a great laugh,” she said, her voice going soft with appreciation. “Everything about it is real. You are nothing like my dad.”
Jacques’s hope grew. “Okay, so why would you think that if I become a successful musician like your dad that I would make the same choices he made? Scratch that,” he said, shaking his head. “The same mistakes.”
Silence stretched between them. He heard her let go of her breath. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Jacques,” she said on whisper. “It’s that I don’t trust. Period.”
“That still means you don’t trust me,” he argued.
“Yeah, but I don’t want you to take it personally.”
Jacques felt like each of her arguments was a wall he had to scale, and yet he wasn’t about to give up.
“If it means I don’t get to see you, I will take it personally.”
She made a little noise that had him listening closer, but she said nothing.
“Let me see you, Rainey.” He used his voice, the strongest weapon in his arsenal. “I’ll come by tonight. I’ll bring dinner. We can just talk.”
“Jacques…” Now she was pleading. But in her plea to leave her alone, she was still giving him the choice, and he wasn’t about to choose to walk away.
“Just dinner. Just talking,” he said, unwilling to relent.
“Jacques.” Her voice was firmer, but he still hadn’t heard no, so he took this as a sign of victory.
“Is there anything you don’t eat?”
“Barbecue,” she said without hesitation.
Jacques chuckled. “The girl with Memphis as her middle name doesn’t like barbecue?”
“Yeah, I don’t have many good associations with Memphis,” she said quickly and with feeling “…but even if it weren’t the barbecue capital of the world, I’d still hate barbecue. I mean, barbecue sauce? Eww.”
She’d done it again. He was laughing, and that was how Kate found him.
“What’s taking so long, Gilchrist?”
Jacques spun to find her standing right behind him. He had no idea how long she’d been there.
“Des has to go to work in an hour, and we need to nail your last two pity party songs before tomorrow night’s show.”
Kate delivered this little speech at full volume and before Jacques could cover the phone.
“Pity party songs?” Rainey asked in Jacques’s ear.
He sent a scowl Kate’s way.
She came back with a suspicious stare. “Who’s that?” she asked, nodding to the phone.
“Rainey, I need to go—”
“Oh, goody. He’s talking to his muse.” Kate’s sarcasm came out in stilted monotone.
He ignored her and tried to lock down plans with Rainey. “But is seven okay? I promise I won’t bring barbecue.”
“And he’s going to see her again.” Kate narrated for no one.
When Rainey didn’t respond, Jacques tried harder. “I can bring enough for your sister. You said things have been rough. You been taking care of her? Cooking for her? Let me take that off your plate tonight.”
“What. A. Guy,” Kate said, rolling her eyes.
Jacques clenched his jaw and gave a tight jerk of his head.
&nb
sp; “Boy, she’s really busting your balls, isn’t she?” Rainey sounded less than amused. In fact, she sounded a little pissed.
Jacques’s jaw unclenched as he remembered their encounter with Casey North. The feeling it summoned made him even more determined.
“I’ll be there at seven.”
He heard her sigh. “Alright, yes. Seven it is.”
His full-strength smile broke free, and he watched Kate’s lip curl a little in apparent disgust.
“Great. I’ll see you then.” Jacques made his goodbyes and glared at Kate as he tucked his phone in his back pocket. “What the hell?”
She cocked a brow and smirked. “You’re welcome.”
“What?” he asked with a scowl.
“You know, I’ve actually learned all the lyrics to the songs you’ve been writing,” she said, looking at him like he was an idiot. “Which means I have ringside seats for this relationship of yours.”
At the word relationship, Kate employed air quotes with a cocky head bob, and then she kept going.
“And so I know that girl’s into you, even if she’s dicking you around for some lame-ass reason. I’ve been standing out here long enough to know she wanted to say yes to your dinner plans, but she just needed a little nudge,” Kate said, almost smiling. “I was getting bored, so I nudged. You’re welcome.”
Jacques stared at her. He’d only known Kate Crawford for about a month, but Jacques was beginning to think she had a sweet spot underneath all that sour.
“Be careful, Crawford,” he said, fighting his smile. “Someone might think you’re a romantic at heart.”
Her raspy snicker was almost demonic. “Not a chance.”
Chapter 14
“None of them?” Rainey pressed the phone to her ear and felt the floor shift under her feet.
“I’m sorry, Rainey. It’s disappointing,” said Dr. Lambert. “We were all really hoping one of them would be a match.”
“Not my dad? Not even Holi’s mom?” she asked, unable to accept the truth.
She heard the doctor sigh. “I’m afraid not.”
Rainey felt the breath leave her. “And nothing’s turned up in the registry?”
“Not yet, but new people are added every day, so we can only hope that—”
“Hope? That’s our only option? Hope for a donor? Hope my sister doesn’t get another infection?” She knew she sounded ungrateful, and Dr. Lambert had been nothing but warm and capable in caring for Holi, but if hope was all they had to hang onto, Rainey was going to lose it.
“No, there is a drug trial I think she’s eligible for, and I’d like to see about enrolling her in it.”
“A drug trial?” A swell of fear rose in her throat. “As in an experiment?”
“Yes, it’s for leukemia patients and other aplastic anemia patients like your sister who don’t respond to bone marrow stimulants,” Dr. Lambert explained. “She’s young. She’s had no problem taking transfusions, and we’re running out of options. I think they’d take her.”
The mention of vanishing options made Rainey’s knees go weak. She sunk down onto the couch, and Archie, as though sensing something was wrong, hopped up beside her and put a forepaw on her thigh. With her free hand, Rainey stroked his back, seeking the comfort he offered.
“Yeah, but… a drug trial?” Rainey’s voice sounded weak and squeaky. What were the risks involved? What about side effects? When would this happen? A heap of questions loomed like an avalanche.
“Unless we find a suitable donor, it’s her best option right now,” Dr. Lambert continued. “If it isn’t something she wants, we can keep her on steroids for a little while, and antibiotics when we need them, though those come with their own risks, but we’re just buying time now.”
Rainey tried to steady her shaking hand in Archie’s forgiving coat. “And if this drug trial works, she’ll be cured?”
Silence overtook the line for a full ten seconds before Dr. Lambert spoke. “It’s a maintenance drug. A bone marrow stimulant like Neupogen or Neulasta. So far, the only known cure in cases like Holi’s is a transplant.”
“So if she joins the trial, and the drug works, Holi will have to take it for the rest of her life?”
“If the FDA approves it, yes.”
“Holy fuck,” Rainey muttered. She closed her eyes and let the scope of all Dr. Lambert had told her sink in. She’d need to absorb each blow and let them do their worst inside her before she could pull herself together and explain it all to Holi who was upstairs asleep.
And Jacques was coming in ten minutes with dinner.
Rainey didn’t think she’d be able to eat. Maybe never again. And why had she agreed to let him come over anyway? She couldn’t have picked a worst possible time.
The moment that thought crossed her mind, a knock sounded at her front door. Rainey made herself get to her feet as Archie ran ahead, barking once.
“I know it’s a lot to digest. If you need me to explain it all to Holi, I can do that during her next transfusion,” Dr. Lambert offered. “That’s just a couple of days from now.”
Rainey shook her head, even though Dr. Lambert couldn’t see her. No, she had to be strong enough to explain all of this to her sister. “I’ll talk to Holi, and we’ll bring you our questions on Monday.”
“You know you can call my office if you need to before then,” Dr. Lambert said gently.
“Thank you, Dr. Lambert.”
They ended the call as Rainey moved across the room. She was fully prepared to apologize and send Jacques away until she opened the door.
“No barbecue,” he said, holding up two takeout bags and stepping over the threshold. “I hope you like Chinese.”
Rainey had to move back from the entrance before he collided with her. “I-I love Chinese,” she stammered.
“Good, because I got enough to feed you and your sister for about a week.” Jacques filled the foyer and seemed ready to continue into the kitchen, but he stopped beside her, leaned down, and kissed her cheek.
She jolted at his touch. It was gone before she could blink, but Rainey was left with the overwhelming desire to throw her arms around his neck and hug him for a solid hour. She hadn’t seen him in more than three weeks, and he’d been hard to resist even in the abstract.
But here in the flesh, resisting Jacques Gilchrist was quite impossible. All thought of sending him home evaporated. He contrasted sharply with the rest of her life in a way that beckoned her. She wanted to see him. She wanted to talk to him. And even though she knew she shouldn’t, Rainey wanted to be near him.
So, stunned speechless, she followed him through the house.
“Will I get to meet your sister tonight?” he asked, setting the takeout bags along the kitchen bar.
Rainey swallowed and tested her voice. “If she’s feeling up to coming downstairs. If not, I’ll fix her a plate, but knowing you’re here…” Rainey angled her eyes to the top of the stairs in hopes Holi couldn’t hear her. “…I’m betting she’ll make an appearance just to meet you.”
Jacques’s brows lifted at this. “She knows about me?”
“Of course she knows about you. You’re the first guy to take me out on a date in years,” Rainey blurted. Immediate regret nearly made her wince. Why had she needed to say that? Even if it were true? Even if he already knew it? It just made her seem so pitiful.
His brows rose a fraction higher, but otherwise, Jacques betrayed no reaction to this. “I hope I get to meet her. How’s she doing today?”
This time, Rainey did wince because his question brought to mind the latest of their setbacks. Of course, Rainey never forgot Holi’s illness. Not completely. Not ever. But sometimes she could push it to the back of her consciousness and lose herself in a crochet pattern or a book.
Jacques’s arrival had definitely succeeded in tucking her worry away, but his question called it forward again, and, again, she was faced with the grim state of Holi’s health and her inability to do anything about it. In spite of herse
lf, Rainey told Jacques everything.
“I was just on the phone with her doctor when you arrived,” she said, unable to bring even a fake smile to her lips. “We got some bad news.”
He frowned. “How bad?”
Rainey closed her eyes, wanting to pull away from the sinkhole that had claimed her hope of finding a match for Holi. But before she could open her eyes again, she felt Jacques’s hands close around her own. She raised her eyelids to find him peering down at her, his expression full of gentle regret.
“That bad, huh?”
She nodded and swallowed. “She needs a stem cell transplant, and we don’t have a donor. No one in our family is a match, and, so far, there isn’t one in the national donor registry either.”
Jacques gave a slow nod. “That’s a lot to absorb,” he said, his deep voice rumbling through her. “Do you want me to go?”
Rainey was shaking her head even before she spoke. “No.” It was the truth. As much as she needed to get on the phone and start calling family, the thought of letting him leave suddenly made the oxygen in the room thin out.
Jacques squeezed her hands. “Tell me what I can do to help.”
The statement — the sentiment — was so novel in her life, it almost knocked her backward. Rainey pulled a breath deep into her lungs and felt capable for the first time in weeks.
“Thanks, but I need to make some phone calls, and I don’t really think you can help me with those.”
He nodded then scanned the kitchen. His eyes landed on the wine chiller next to the refrigerator. “How about I put the food in the oven so it’ll stay warm, find a bottle of wine that will go with Kung Pao Shrimp, and pour you a glass while you do what you need to do? I’m not working tonight, so I’ll have one too.”
The suggestion sounded so divine, Rainey stifled a giggle. “Yes, I’d love that.”
At her smile, Jacques gave her a grin. “Good.”
With reluctance, Rainey pulled her hands free of his grip and grabbed her phone. “I’m just going to go out to the porch. You can come join me whenever you’d like.”
“Sure,” he said, nodding again.
She called Archie to her side, stepped out onto her front porch, crossed the floor, and sunk into one of the two cushioned settees. Rainey loved the space. Surrounded by her terracotta pots — now overflowing with petunias and impatiens — the porch was a cheerful riot of color. The matching settees could comfortably hold four people. Their deep, gray cushions, and their sunbelt orange pillows often welcomed Rainey, Holi, and Ash to lounge for hours.
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