Sisters in Bloom

by Melissa Foster

  Kaylie shook the thoughts of Treat from her mind. She had Chaz, and Chaz was not only hotter, but he was hers, and he loved her, and she wouldn’t want it any other way. Chaz was her saving grace amid her crashing career. Even if they had flashes of trouble, or if she overreacted and accused him of wanting her barefoot and pregnant, that was the pregnancy talking. It wasn’t what she really felt about him. His stability, his support, and his unrelenting honesty all centered her in a way she knew no other man ever could.

  “They grew up a few towns over. Wealthy family, attended the best colleges, the works.” Marie had a conspiratorial look in her eye. “I should have taken him when I had the chance.”

  “Yeah, like you ever had a chance. You were in what? Ninth grade?” Kaylie teased. “So, what happened on the trip?”

  “Nothing. That’s just it. After the meeting, there was a group of us who met and had dinner. I swear I caught his eye more than once, but then I got all shy and went to bed early.”

  “You loser!” Camille slapped Marie lightly on the arm.

  “You, shy? I can’t believe that,” Danica said.

  Marie dropped her eyes. Her sandy-brown hair brushed her shoulders as it fell forward. “He was intimidatingly hot.”

  “Whatever, so is Chaz,” Kaylie said with pride.

  “That he is,” Camille added.

  Danica lifted her piña colada and the others followed. A cherry bobbed in Kaylie’s drink. “To my sister,” she said.

  “To Kaylie,” they said collectively.

  “Aw, you guys,” she said, happy to be in the center of the conversation again, gearing it away from her memories of Treat. She had wondered how she’d feel surrounded by her friends when they were all drinking and she couldn’t, but she realized, as she sat with them now, it was the camaraderie she missed, not the alcohol. Kaylie didn’t miss drinking, or hooking up. She did sometimes miss that flutter in her stomach when she’d first meet a guy. That wondering of whether he’d talk to her or not, the secret glances, and the excitement at the end of the night of knowing she’d conquered him. She’d had that with Chaz, and she had more with him now, more than she could ever imagine, or than she’d ever known she wanted. She thought back to when she’d come into the living room in her dress earlier in the night. The lust in Chaz’s eyes, his instant arousal. Her stomach gave a little flutter, and Kaylie knew she wasn’t missing a thing. A little feather of guilt tickled her nerves at the way they’d left each other without a warm goodbye, but she’d make that up to him. Oh, would she ever.

  “So, girls, I need some help.” All eyes focused on her. “If you can believe it, I’m not able to get the singing gigs I got before I was pregnant.”

  Camille waved her hand. “Like you even have to work?”

  Kaylie didn’t miss her eyes immediately shooting to Danica, who was scowling and shaking her head. “What do you mean?”

  There goes that look again. “Chaz said from the day you got pregnant that he didn’t care if you worked or not.”

  “She’s right,” Marie added.

  Kaylie eyed Danica, her head bent over her drink, purposefully avoiding Kaylie’s eyes. Her leg kicked up and down beneath the table in her fuck-me Jimmy Choos and short skirt. It was obvious to Kaylie that Danica and her friends had been talking about her losing her singing gigs. She’d deal with her later.

  “Maybe so, but still. I’ve worked too hard to give up my career.”

  “I gave up mine, and I couldn’t be happier,” Danica said with a smile.

  “You did not. You still have a career. Just a different one,” Kaylie pointed out.

  Danica put her arm around her sister and said, “Kay, when this baby comes, the last thing you’re gonna want to do is leave it to sing for strangers.”

  It was like Danica could read her secret thoughts. Kaylie knew she might never want to leave her baby, but she still wanted the option left open. “I think a girl has to be careful. Not be too vulnerable or give up everything she’s worked for, for a man. Look at you. You still have the youth center. You’re not staying home barefoot and pregnant.”

  “But I might be, one day.” Danica sat back, and Kaylie looked at her as if she were crazy. “What?”

  Kaylie huffed. “Okay, here it is, and you know this, Danica.” Did she really need to spell it out again? “I can’t be Mom.”

  “I love your mother,” Chelsea said without hesitation.

  “Me too,” Marie added.

  “Kaylie, what do you mean?” Camille asked. “What about your mom don’t you want to be?”

  Kaylie leaned forward, thankful that someone wanted to hear her. “Mom stayed home, never had anything for herself besides us.” She looked at Danica, who nodded and shrugged. She must be tipsy, the way she was bringing up the subject of being barefoot and pregnant and then turning around and agreeing about their mother. “Then, when our father left, she had nothing. She was…broken. And broke.”

  Camille reached across the table and tapped it with her fingernail. Her white silk blouse dropped to the side, exposing the milky skin of her breast. “I hear what you’re saying, Kaylie.”

  “What? I’d give my eyeteeth not to have to work, even if I had nothing left fifteen years later.” Chelsea looked at Kaylie like she was crazy.

  Camille continued. “I haven’t been working. I gave up my job to focus on the new house. I’ve been buying furniture, setting it up. I never realized how much work there would be to do, and I get it. I mean, it was really fun at first, and I know Jeff likes knowing I’m there, but I’ve got no kids at home, so sometimes I feel like I’m wasting my time.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Kaylie said. “What’s your plan?”

  Camille shrugged. “I’m not sure. We’re not going to have kids right away, so I might go back to work. But every time I think of that, it feels weird, like, let’s say I went back to being an assistant director of human resources. Do I work really hard to become the director? What if that’s when we decide to have kids? Then I’ve wasted my time growing a career I might not continue with.”

  “See? This is what I mean. There’s no easy answer.” Kaylie turned to Danica, who was remaining suspiciously silent.

  “What?” Danica asked.

  “Come on. Be a therapist already,” Kaylie urged.

  “No way.” She shook her head and her ringlets bobbed. “I know better than to make your decisions for you and get blamed for them later.”

  “See? Even my sister won’t help me. What am I gonna do?”

  Chelsea set her glass down hard on the table, causing all eyes to drift to her. Her cheeks were pink from drinking and her straight brown hair hung thick and full to her shoulders. She blinked twice and then pointed a pink fingernail at Kaylie. “The real question is, what do you want to do? What does your heart tell you to do?”

  “My heart is so messed up right now,” Kaylie admitted. “I wanna be with my baby, but I also don’t want to lose everything I’ve worked for.”

  Chelsea sat back and threw her arms up in the air. “Well, there you have it. You need to do something that you can do from home.”

  “In the music business,” Camille added.

  “Oh, we can so figure this out,” Marie said with a nod.

  “Chaz suggested that I write, but—”

  Marie cut Kaylie off. “Yes! That’s it! You’re always singing to the radio and changing words.”

  “I think you should try,” Camille agreed.

  “I don’t know. I’m not a big writer.” Can Chaz be right? She remembered how angry she’d been when he’d suggested it, and that feather of guilt created another nagging itch.

  “Kaylie, you know you can do anything you try to do,” Danica said, her eyes on her drink.

  Write? I should write songs? Maybe I can write songs. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try.” Kaylie yawned, and then covered her mouth in embarrassment. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Do we bore you?” Marie teased.

&n
bsp; “I’m so tired all the time,” Kaylie answered.

  “I was hoping for karaoke tonight.” Chelsea stuck out her lower lip.

  Kaylie’s eyes lit up. “Really?” She looked around the bar, and her pulse picked up speed. She pushed out her chair and stood. “Who else is up for it?”

  “Me!” Marie jumped up and pulled Chelsea along with her.

  “I can’t be left behind, but only if we sing something I know,” Camille said, pushing herself up to her feet. “Come on, Danica. You have to do it, too.”

  Danica shook her head. “Kaylie’s got the voice. I’ve got the…advice.”

  Kaylie pulled Danica to her feet. “Oh no, you’re not. Come on.” Kaylie walked behind the girls, who were swaying on their sky-high heels, laughing as they climbed the stairs to center stage.

  The bartender had known Kaylie and Danica for years, and he never turned down Kaylie when it came to singing. He flipped on the karaoke machine, and a hush took over the room.

  The music started quietly, and then grew louder as the girls sang Taylor Swift’s “Love Story,” off-key, missing words and giggling as they leaned on one another, with Kaylie in the center of the group, perfectly pitched and never missing a beat. She belted out the words with perfection, pointing at one handsome man after another, like she was singing directly to them. Her cheeks hurt from smiling, as her vocal cords vibrated and the words sailed from her mouth like a gift. One by one, the other girls fell into fits of laughter, leaving Kaylie alone on the center of the stage, her dress climbing to the middle of her thigh, her belly arcing out beneath her breasts, singing as if her life depended on it.

  The music ended and she put her hands out to her sides and curtsied, enjoying the rush of the moment like a crack addict finishing a rock. God, she missed the thrill of an audience and the rush of feeling the beat of the music through the vibrations of the floor. The way her lungs burned with every deep note and tickled with the high ones. This, the stage, the thrill, was oxygen to Kaylie. How could she give this up?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chaz’s head throbbed when the alarm went off at one thirty a.m. He lay on his back staring at the ceiling, his arm spread across Kaylie’s side of the bed, trying to put together the pieces of the night before. Why on earth was he up at one thirty? Hawaii. Red-eye. Shit. Why did he feel like his blissful existence had turned to chaos in the span of twenty-four hours? It wasn’t chaos, was it? Kaylie sure didn’t seem to act like it when she left the evening before, but then again, she didn’t know about Lea. Chaz realized that he hadn’t even touched the tip of chaos yet. Kaylie hadn’t called…and Lea awaited.

  He dragged himself to the bathroom, forgoing his razor, and stepped into a cold shower to shake off the fog from his brain. As the cold water beat down on his shoulders, he thought about the day ahead. Hours on an airplane and facing Lea Carmichael. He really was in hell. He dressed quickly in jeans and a button-down shirt, and then went to the living room to find his cell phone and see if Kaylie had texted him back.

  There were no bars on his cell phone, so he headed for his office, but quickly realized he couldn’t call Kaylie at one thirty in the morning. Max came out of the hall bathroom fully dressed and much too peppy for so early in the morning.

  “Hey there, sleepy. I wondered if I was going to have to drag your butt out of bed.”

  Chaz scrubbed his face with his hand. “Thanks for taking me home last night.”

  “You’re lucky I was there. You know better than to drink and drive. What were you thinking?”

  That I should have told Kaylie about Lea. “I wasn’t thinking.” Chaz was thankful that Max had been at Taylor’s. Who knows if he’d have made it home okay or not. Max. Reliable, efficient Max. She was the best assistant he’d ever had, and she wasn’t even an assistant. She was a sponsorship coordinator, but she took care of all of his loose ends. Max was like having a really great older sister around. He knew she’d always have his back.

  “Do you want to tell me why you were at Taylor’s last night?” Chaz asked.

  “I don’t know. I feel like this thing with Lea is my fault. I should have never told you she wanted a sponsorship. I should have just hunted down other sponsors and then you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  Chaz knew how conscientious Max was, but he never imagined that she’d take the blame for something that was clearly his fault. “Max, you can’t really believe that.”

  “It’s true. If I had just turned her down flat, we’d be fine.”

  “The festival would be canceled, Max. You did the right thing. Just like always,” he said, patting her on the back.

  “I made you coffee.” She nodded to a travel mug on the counter. “We’ve got to be at the airport in forty minutes.”

  Chaz was used to Max being shy around compliments at times, while other times she ate them up. He was pretty sure he’d never figure out the way women’s minds worked. Luckily, the only one he really needed to fully understand was Kaylie’s. He packed a quick bag, and as they headed out the door, he promised himself the second he heard Kaylie's voice, no matter what else was going on, he’d tell her the truth. He owed it to her. He owed it to their unborn baby.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Moonlight streamed in the window of Danica’s den, where Kaylie sat in her pajamas and fuzzy slippers. She loved this room. The sofa folded out to an enormous king-sized bed, and it reminded her of when she and Danica used to have sleepovers at their grandparents’ house. Danica was asleep upstairs in her bedroom, and Camille and Chelsea had claimed the guest bedroom. Marie had passed out on the pull-out couch in the living room, while Kaylie’s mind ran in circles about her career options—or lack thereof. Unable to sleep, she’d tried to write songs, as the girls and Chaz had suggested, but everything she wrote was crap and she’d given up. She’d had such high hopes when they were at Bar None, too.

  She wished she’d gone back home last night instead of staying at Danica’s. Chaz was leaving on the red-eye, and she missed him already. Her mother had left her another message, and Kaylie was glad she’d missed the call. She wasn’t ready to deal with her mother’s new lifestyle yet. First she had to deal with her own transitions.

  Kaylie felt a little lost, and she didn’t like it one bit. She’d always had the world at her fingertips, and now she felt like a failure. Who was she if she wasn’t a singer and the life of the party? She’d known that things would change as her body did, but what she hadn’t planned on was how it would make her feel. What made it even worse was that she knew she was messing up the only good thing in her life—her relationship with Chaz. He didn’t deserve her crazy mood swings, and she had no way to control them. Even her doctor was no help. It’s only nine months. It’ll all be worth it.

  How many times had Danica told her that she couldn’t have a happy relationship until she was happy with herself? A zillion, that’s how many. And although she was sure Danica didn’t think she ever listened to her advice, she not only listened, but she memorized that particular piece, even if she didn’t heed the value of it. The trouble was, Kaylie always thought she was happy. But now she was beginning to realize that it was all an illusion. She liked being pretty and getting noticed, and singing breathed new life into her every time she stepped on stage. Without the lights shining on her, without the roar of the crowd when she hit those high notes, or the leers from men when they thought their girlfriends weren’t looking, she was left being just another average girl. She had to be more than average. Danica wasn’t average, and she’d be damned if she’d be anything less.

  She pulled the crumpled papers out of the trash can, flattened them out, and looked over the ridiculous lyrics. It made her sick to her stomach to realize that she wasn’t capable of doing what Chaz thought she could so easily do.

  Kaylie read over the lyrics again and again, hoping she’d see something worth saving, some hint of excellence. Crap. They were all crap. She sucked at writing. She’d never find anything else to do with her life.
If she couldn’t sing, she might as well work in a record store, or a restaurant. None of it mattered. If she couldn’t sing—and she clearly couldn’t write songs—she didn’t care what she did.

  She turned the radio on low to clear her head, and then she went into the kitchen and quietly poured herself a bowl of cereal. If she couldn’t sing, and she couldn’t write, she might as well eat. She hummed along with the music, being careful not to be too loud, although she was pretty sure that the girls were down for the count. They’d had more than their share of drinks. Before she knew it, she was dancing to Taylor Swift’s, “I knew You Were Trouble.” Suddenly, she stopped midspin, in the center of the kitchen, with her cereal growing soggier by the second.

  “That’s all wrong,” she whispered to the empty room. “It’s not all him.”

  She headed back into the den, snagged a piece of fresh paper and a pencil from Danica’s desk as she sank into Danica’s chair, and then she began to write.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Danica’s cell phone rang, and she hoped it was Kaylie. Kaylie had still been sleeping when she’d left for the youth center, and the other girls all had somewhere they needed to be, so they left a note on the counter for her and locked the condo on their way out. She’d already tried Kaylie’s cell phone three times, and every call had gone to voicemail. She looked at the phone. Mom. Danica realized that her heart wasn’t racing at the sight of her mother’s phone number. She wondered what had changed, and the therapist in her provided the answer. Mom’s finally happy. You don’t have to feel guilty for moving on with your life anymore.

  “Hi, Mom.” Danica hadn’t realized how much she’d avoided her mother after her parents’ separation. She’d still seen her and talked with her every few weeks, but the weight of her mother’s unhappiness had weighed heavily on Danica every time she’d heard her mother’s voice. The guilt she’d carried since she graduated from college, for striking out on her own rather than going home to help her mother heal, dissipated with her mother’s new lease on life.