by Mia Josephs
Goose bumps spread across his arms. Right. Corinne. Washington. Not Hawaii. And the only pants he had were the ones he wore on the plane. He jerked them off the floor and shoved them on before standing up. Sweatshirts were stuffed above the hanging clothes, and the warmth was too tempting to pass up. He pulled a few down and slid on a navy blue one that seemed about his size. He’d need to have some clothes sent up and now.
He pulled the shirt over his head, but the cold air still gripped at him. “Holy hell.” He rubbed up and down his arms a few times. She was right in that the room felt like a room on a boat. Cabinets built into the walls, but at the same time, there was a distinct closet-like feel to it. After his massive room, he figured it would feel claustrophobic, but instead it felt safe. Just very, very small. And currently frigid.
Chris stepped back into the small loft where Corinne’s bed was neatly made and sunlight streamed through the two stories of windows on the small cabin. He was still rubbing his arms as he stepped down the stairs. He remembered these damp, cool, mornings. It was one of the reasons he loved California so much—they never happened there.
He scanned the walls for a thermostat when his eyes rested on the wood stove. Was that really all she used for heat?
He jogged toward the stove, the glass window showing only a few smoldering coals. He was out of practice, but he remembered enough to know that lighting a fire from scratch was no easy feat.
He grabbed a few more logs from next to the stove and was about to shove them in when he thought about how carefully he and his brother would stack them to make sure they didn’t put the fire out.
He grasped one log and rested it over the biggest piece of charcoal left in the stove, hoping it would catch, then rested the other nearby. “This is crazy.”
This had to work. It was like hell frozen over inside the house. The floor felt like ice under his bare feet and he jogged into the kitchen, pausing at the edge. Was he allowed to just walk in? The intrusion into the kitchen almost felt more personal than sleeping in her loft. He’d totally invaded Corinne’s house. A large yellow piece of paper was tacked to the front of the fridge.
I don’t drink coffee, but there’s tea above the fridge. I’ll be home a little after four. Tonight is frozen pizza night. Prepare to be wowed.
Chris grinned at her note, and then felt like a bit of an ass again for intruding. He fumbled for tea, and went through four cabinets before he found a mug, and then...no microwave. Finally he found a small pantry, pulled out some Rice Krispies, and sat as close to the stove as he dared to eat his cereal.
His eyes floated over the house again. He’d begged Max’s assistant for Corinne’s information. Found Corinne’s house. Her very tiny house. Where he was now sleeping in a closet and paying her to basically let him stay there so she could be his muse. He didn’t mind the closet, but when the situation was all laid out… It made him ridiculous.
What the hell was he doing?
The phone resting on the counter rang and he jumped nearly spilling his cereal all over the floor and he half tripped on the couch before grasping the phone, the cord jerking the base to the floor. Shit. “Hello?”
And then grimaced because maybe he shouldn’t be answering the phone.
“Grace?” A panicked voice asked.
“Um… I’m sorry. I dropped in to see Corinne, but she’s…” Where the hell was she? “...not in at the moment. Can I take a message?”
His mom would be proud.
“Tell my daughter that her mother called,” —her voice was even tenser than before— “and is very much wanting a phone call back.”
“I will do that… And your daughter is… Grace…?”
“Corinne Grace. Yes. And she promised to help me email some pictures tonight.”
His mind spun and started latching on to words. Phrases. A chorus. He had to find something to write with. Now. He was writing. Corinne wasn’t here and he wanted to write. Corinne Grace. Grace...
“Yeah… uh…” Chris spun around looking for paper, pencils, anything. “I’ll get the message to her.”
The woman said something else and then hung up.
Chris was tangled in the cord from his spinning, and had never felt so out of his element in his life. Or at least not for a very long time. Grace...saving grace...a woman…a man…grace…
He spotted a box of crayons next to a decrepit computer, and snatched them as he stepped out from the phone cord. Under the crayons was a pad of paper that had large kid lines, but it was better than nothing.
He sat on the floor, his back to the heat of the fire, and thought about Grace and saving and love and rescuing souls. He knew before he got through the chorus that it would be the first single on his first solo album.
In that second everything clicked. This was why he’d come up. He had it back. And it was because of her. Worth every penny and every awkward moment for this. His crayons flew across the paper and then his fingers flew along the guitar. Yes. This song. This was it.
In the middle of tweaking the chorus, Chris’ phone beeped.
His sponsor. You missed your call.
He’d missed his call?
Chris had never missed a call. From the first cup of coffee in the morning, which now lacked Daniels or Baileys, he needed those morning chats.
Chris wrote back with a quick All’s well. Promise. Writing. Will call once muse leaves for the day.
And Iris wrote back almost immediately. Go you.
Yeah. One night here and he’d taken about a million steps in a good direction. The trip had definitely been a good idea.
Corinne took slow yoga-breaths in as she wound her way up the long driveway to her home. Jonah chattered in the backseat about his day in kindergarten, and she listened half-detached, wondering about too many things to process.
The phone call from her mother about a man answering her phone also hadn’t gone well. The disapproval over Christian Meyer following her to Washington had tainted every carefully placed word.
The small rental car still sat parked next to the sprawling porch of her tiny log home and she released a deep breath as her truck shuttered to a stop.
“Whose car is that?” Jonah asked.
“We passed it this morning,” Corinne answered not sure what to tell him, but she had to come up with something. There was a man in her house she wasn’t sure how to explain.
“His name is Chris. I’m writing songs with him for…” They hadn’t really discussed how long, only that he was there. “...for a few days. Okay?”
“Best behavior, I know,” Jonah said. “Is he the man who was here last night?”
She stepped out into the frosty air, realizing she’d need to do something about the lack of wood in her shed, and soon. “That’s the one.”
When she and Jonah walked in the front door, she froze.
Papers littered the floor between the couch and the stove. Chris was hunched over her guitar and wearing what looked to be her ex-fiancé’s sweatshirt.
Chris spun around on the floor to face them. “Oh.” He glanced back at the mess. “Crap. Sorry. I wasn’t keeping track of time, and all I could find were crayons, and—”
“Pens are in the drawer.” The look of worry and shock on his face was enough to bring a smile to hers. “Pizza night tonight. Jonah’s choice with the first day of kindergarten.”
He started gathering papers in the frantic sort of way a teenager would after having been caught doing something they shouldn’t. “So, you’re Grace?” he asked.
“Oh.” She stopped. “My mom wanted me to be Grace, my dad wanted a Corinne. He won the coin toss, but she called me Grace the whole time I was growing up, and Dad called me Corinne. They don’t have a typical relationship.” And then she clamped her mouth shut because that was probably way more information than what Chris needed to have.
“I know this whole situation of me being here is sort of crazy, but it worked!” He paused for a second, a small handful of colorful writing on pag
es in each hand. “I got a ton down.”
“Color coding?” she teased, relieved he hadn’t asked more about her name or parents.
He chuckled. “Not exactly. Every time I slowed, or got stuck, I just changed color, and…”
“Crayons are cheaper than plane tickets, Chris.” She didn’t know how she meant it, which meant he probably didn’t know how to take it.
Chris grimaced. “You know, I can help. With whatever.”
“From what I can tell from Max, you heat up scones for food.” Again, she didn’t know how the words came out because she didn’t know how she meant them.
Chris gathered the remaining papers and stacked them on the coffee table.
“Christian,” she said softly. “We’re good. I’m just…”
He turned to face her, less panicked and more sorry. “Private. And I ruined that.”
It wasn’t just that she was private. It was that being around Chris made her realize how much she’d missed actually living instead of just getting by. The realization slammed into her hard. She’d been just getting by. “It’s not ruined.”
Just compromised.
There was a part of Chris that knew he should walk out and never look back, but the other part of him looked at the stack of papers of his writing. His lyrics. His songs. And he wasn’t ready to give it up. He’d have given Corinne any amount of money she asked for to let him stay.
Salsa music turned on in the kitchen after Corinne slid the pizza in the oven and Chris watched her dance with Jonah. Where was the kid’s mom? His dad? Was Jonah here full time? She was practically his mother if that was the case. Hell, he didn’t even know what she did for work during the day. No wait...yoga. Ha! She taught yoga. He watched her body move. Remembered her strength, flexibility… Yes, the yoga had done very, very nice things to her.
He should have cared more that she didn’t want him to know about her life, should have had more respect for that. And Chris wasn’t about to dig, but he did want to find ways to get closer to her. Maybe starting now. He stepped around a worn chair and past the tiny table into the opening of the kitchen.
Jonah giggled as he and Corinne did an awkward salsa.
“Can I cut in?” Chris asked.
Corinne paused. “You dance.”
He nodded once. “Mom taught ballroom.”
She shook her head. “Well, then you’ll put me to shame.”
Chris wanted to be close enough to her to dance with her. Close enough to maybe break down some walls. Close enough to make fresh memories of how their bodies fit together.
“Yes!” Jonah clapped his hands, and she relented, stepping into Chris’ arms, which were positioned at the ready.
His fingers clasped hers, and his hand rested just over her hip, in that perfect dent made firm by her toned muscles.
In seconds she moved with him easily and he watched her face as she concentrated on their feet, but as the music continued and their movements continued she began to relax and a smile spread across her face that was more real than maybe any emotion he’d seen from her.
“I’m going to spin you,” he warned just before twirling her around, keeping his hand on her waist and pulling her body against his at the end of the turn.
He expected her to laugh him off or shrug him away, but she kept moving with him, her hand tightening its grip and him breathing in the smell of her again. He was thinking a lot less about the feel of her dancing in the kitchen than about their night together. About what it would be like to have a lot of nights together. Her bare shoulders, breasts, legs… He mis-stepped, and she paused with her wide-eyes on him. His breath caught, and the timer on the oven went off breaking the moment.
She spun away from him, her dark hair flying. “I gotta get that.”
But the idea of her had been planted, and he watched her pull the pizza from the oven and Jonah’s small hands clapping in excitement as he hopped up and down. For the first time that Chris could remember, he actually wanted something more in his life that had nothing to do with music. Something...permanent.
She had this kid here, and this life with a house that she loved… He could see it. Coming home to someone like her. Having family pizza nights, movie nights… Wow. He missed his family. Thought about his dad’s puzzles, and his mom’s dancing and cooking. He hadn’t missed his family in… Well as long as he’d been able to not think about them.
“Pizza?” She held a plate toward him and he wondered how many times she’d asked.
“Thank you.” He took the plate still a little stunned from his realization. This… This every day stuff had never been part of his plan. Ever. And now he couldn’t imagine why.
Chris sat on the floor in the kitchen, just outside the bathroom while Jonah stood on a stool brushing his teeth.
“Auntie Corinne grew me in her tummy,” Jonah said as he continued scrubbing. “My mom told me.”
The room spun. Chris coughed twice before finding his voice. “Really? Are you sure?”
His heart sped up at the realization that this kid might be willing to clue him in to her since she still seemed so closed off. She’d politely asked about lyrics after pizza and dancing, and he’d been vague, wanting the songs to be a little more solidified before he asked her to step in and help. Also not wanting her to think what he’d done was good enough to send him away. And he wanted to surprise her with Saving Grace anyway.
“Yeah. And I lived with my mom and dad, but my mom and dad was Corinne’s sister and her husband.” Jonah scrubbed some more, toothpaste crawling up the brush toward his small hand.
Chris watched Jonah’s eyes get huge as he looked in the mirror and scrubbed his molars with his brush.
“I see…”
“But they died.”
Chris’ heart stilled. He’d lost his father a few years ago, and the thought of it sometimes knocked the wind out of him.
“And so did Corinne’s boyfriend. They were in an airplane that broke. Corinne was going to get married.”
Chris scooted off the wall and turned to see Jonah better. The grief… He couldn’t put words to the thought of it. “How long ago?”
Jonah put his toothbrush away. “I think I was three.”
“And now you’re five,” Chris said calculating timing.
Jonah grinned, his missing front tooth even more apparent. “Yep. And now you check my teeth. Make sure I got all the sugar bugs off.”
His body felt weak as he slid over to inspect Jonah’s mouth, and he tried to find some sort of kid-friendly voice. “You got ‘em.”
“Okay.” Corinne stepped back into the kitchen from the small room behind it. “Laundry is finally started. You get the sugar bugs off?” she asked Jonah.
Jonah turned to Corinne. “Chris says they’re all gone.”
She smiled wide, and suddenly the resemblance hit him. The kid was so much paler than her, that they hadn’t even looked similar, but they definitely had the same smile. How had he not seen that first thing?
“So. You got to play tooth inspector. How’s that helping your writing?” she teased.
Chris didn’t know what to say. He looked up at this woman, whose presence and strength he didn’t fully comprehend, and thought about what Jonah had said.
Her face fell. “Whatever he told you, no. No, I don’t want to talk about it. I should have guessed. His mom started the sugar bugs thing. I’m going to read books with Jonah. You write. That’s why you’re here, yeah?”
Chris closed his eyes briefly, and crawled off his spot on the floor. He should go home. Leave her alone. The brief times when he felt it was okay that he was there, maybe weren’t worth it for how he felt in this moment—like he’d once again broken down walls she wanted up.
Corinne’s life had been harder than he could imagine, and she was doing a million times better than him. How pathetic was he? He came crawling to her doorstep because he thought his life was over simply because he’d lost his ability to write. He hadn’t lost three people close
to him. Hadn’t given up a son, only to have him return… It was as if his insides were toppling over each other in a race to drag him down.
She stepped into Jonah’s room, closing the door between them.
His fingers twitched at the release he craved. Thought about checking the medicine cabinet for a Percocet or a Vicodin or the pantry for wine, or… He shook out his hands and rested his hand over his pocket to pull out his phone and call his sponsor, but stopped. They’d talk the following morning. He’d send her a text that night. Chris could get through. He just had to stay busy.
He walked back toward the living room. The coffee table was littered with the crayons and papers from earlier that afternoon, and Chris sat on the couch, defeated.
He ran his hands through his hair again and again.
“Want tea?” Corinne asked as she pulled two mugs and set them on the counter.
Time felt warped because he swore she’d just stepped into Jonah’s room, and at the same time it felt like a lifetime of want. It was a sure sign he might be headed to a bad place.
“About before,” he started.
Corinne froze, her back to him. “It’s not something I talk about. It’s not something I can talk about. Sometimes it all still hurts like it was yesterday.”
“I just—”
She spun and faced him over the counter. “Chris. Please. You’re writing. This is what you wanted. Let it go.”
“I want to be friends. Shit…” He paused. “I sound like an idiot. Why can’t we blur that line a little? Between paid songwriter and friend?”
“Because blurring one line, blurs other lines, and I just… Please. I’m okay with you here. I want you to be writing again. I’m okay with being part of that. I just… I have friends. I have family. I have people.”
“I don’t.” The words left his mouth before he had time to stop them.
Corinne paused in her movements, and he wondered if he’d accidentally played a dirty trick in getting her to sympathize with him. Her mouth opened as if she was going to say something, but she clamped it shut again.
“I’m an asshole to my family because I didn’t know how to deal when my dad died. I pulled a ridiculously stereotypical rock star bullshit move and came to his funeral high on cocaine with a girl. My brother took care of my mom. Took care of everything, and I sat next to them high out of my mind with a girl I barely knew in ridiculously over-priced shoes I bought for her along with a bunch of other shit that I probably bought for her, and I haven’t talked to them since. My band were my friends, but they had to save their own asses, so when I bailed, we just don’t… It’s not the same.”