My phone lights up less than three seconds after the call goes through.
I don’t answer it.
Then comes a flow of text messages. Short one-line commands: “Pick up the phone” “Talk to me”
I don’t answer those either.
Then finally it peters out with a last message. “Okay, I’m getting ready to go on stage. I’ll give you a day to cool down. But we’re going to talk about this, Purple. That ain’t a fucking request.”
I don’t answer.
* * *
“Are you okay? You look like I feel,” Josie says when she comes down for breakfast two days later.
“I’m fine,” I lie to her. “I just slept poorly.” Tossing and turning with dark dreams filled with Beau and Colin, twisting together and apart, so it was difficult to tell one from the other. “Bad dreams.”
“Me, too,” Josie says, rubbing at her own dark circles. “Supposedly they’re currently investigating who called in the bomb threat to the shelter last night, but since I’m pretty sure it was Mike Lancer, I have a feeling the investigation isn’t going to get too far.”
Another name from my past. All I need now is to have my mother show up, and the nightmare will be complete.
I pour Josie a cup of coffee to hide how uncomfortable this conversation is making me. Not because Mike is turning out to be the worst kind of psycho, the kind you can’t go after properly because he’s too well connected, but because of Josie’s steady refusal to tell Beau any of this.
She always has an excuse whenever I try to bring it up with her. The last time it was because Beau had a big event for his own non-profit, which organizes sports programs for blind children, coming up. But that event has come and gone with over six figures raised for Beau’s charity. So I try again as I hand her a mug.
“You know, Beau might have some good ideas about how to handle Mike.”
“Yeah, and they would all involve hiring a hit man,” Josie mutters. “Or even worse, going over to Mike’s house himself.”
I’ve seen some of the brutal moves Beau throws down on the punching bag during his daily morning workout, and I have no doubt Beau can handle himself. But I secretly love Beau, too, so I understand. I don’t want him to get hurt any more than Josie does.
Still, I’m concerned. This was all supposed to be over once Josie got Mike’s ex-wife and children out of the state, which she did a few weeks ago. But Mike is still making trouble for Ruth’s House. I’m becoming afraid Mike’s going to go even harder now that he doesn’t know where his ex-wife is. And I’m wondering how this is all going to end.
But before I can bring up my concerns, Beau comes in, dressed in the mesh shorts and ‘Bama t-shirt he wears for his workouts. He doesn’t have his high-tech walking stick on him, but he finds his seat beside Josie at the kitchen’s island easily, hopping into it with athletic grace.
“Bad news,” he says to Josie. “Kitty just texted me. She says she’s coming in tomorrow for your appointment to try on wedding dresses.”
“What appointment to try on wedding dresses?” Josie asks.
“She said she emailed you about it.”
Josie groans. “She probably did, but I’ve been so busy at the shelter and she sends so many.”
“You’re the one who said we should let her plan the wedding.” He turns toward me, to tell me, “My mom caught us getting busy in the foyer after Josie agreed to marry me, and Josie’s still trying to make it up to her.”
Josie shields her face with an embarrassed hand. “Will you please stop telling people that story, Beau Prescott?”
Beau grins. “Kyra’s not people. Like I said yesterday, she already feels like family, which is why you should probably ask her about a certain situation sooner than later.”
I look to Josie, wondering what Beau is talking about.
Josie answers my questioning look with a sheepish smile. “Beau and I have been talking about plans for when the baby comes, and I know this isn’t what you signed on for, but we were wondering if you’d be open to becoming our nanny.”
I blink. This is the last thing I expected. And the thought of Beau introducing me to people as his baby’s nanny turns my stomach with a painful wretch.
“Um… I’m so honored,” I say, stalling.
“Of course we’ll raise your salary. We know it’s a lot of extra responsibility,” Josie says.
“It’s not that…”
I shake my head, not knowing what to say.
And Beau frowns. “You don’t like kids?”
I wish I could say I didn’t. It would make it easier if I didn’t. But babies are adorable and I treasure each and every one of my cousin’s babies. Only ever handing them off when they need diaper changes.
I latch on to that last thought. “No, it’s not that I don’t like kids. But it is a total career change, and I don’t even know how to change a diaper.”
Josie chuckles. “From what I hear, the first few times it’s hard, but you get used to it. And you’re smart. I’m thinking if you can figure out how to work one of those hospital machines, you can figure out how to change a diaper.”
I swallow. My throat suddenly dry as a desert. “Um, can I have some time to think about it?”
“You’ve got six months to make a decision,” Josie jokes.
But Beau’s eyes have slitted, and even though he’s not staring at me, I recognize the look from the first time we ever talked to each other. The real first time. He’s trying to figure out if what I’m saying is legit.
“It’s just a big decision…” I say to Josie, but really to him.
“We understand,” Josie assures me with an easy smile.
But I can see Beau doesn’t.
The sound of my phone vibrating against the island counter interrupts the awkward moment.
I pick it up and look at the caller ID.
“It’s a Tennessee number. I should answer this, just in case it has anything to do with my grandma.”
“Of course,” Josie says.
“Hello,” I say as I walk out of the kitchen. Supposedly to get out of earshot, but really just to get away from Beau. For someone who can’t see, he sometimes makes me feel like he can see right through me.
“I’m not this guy.”
I nearly stumble. It’s Colin. Colin calling me from an unknown number.
“What are you doing calling me from a number I don’t know?” I say.
“I’m not the guy who chases the girl,” he tells me. “I don’t like games, and if a girl tries to play them with me, I cut her loose, because I’m not that guy.”
I shake my head. “But you’re calling me after I told you not to…” I point out.
“Because you’re making me that guy,” he bites out on the other end of the line. “The kind of guy who borrows his guitar tech’s phone, so the girl who’s not returning his calls will pick up. The kind of guy who’s thinking psycho shit, like ‘Maybe I do need to get a detective. Track her down. Show up at her work.’”
The thought of Colin showing up here at Beau’s house stops my heart.
“If you do that, I’m not ever going to forgive you.”
“Then talk to me!” he yells on the other side of the phone. “If you don’t want me to act like a psycho, talk to me!”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I say back as fiercely as I can, considering I have to keep my voice down. I step all the way outside to put an extra layer of protection between me and Beau. Shivering in the blustery wind, I say to Colin, “We had a weekend. It’s over. It’s time for both of us to move on.”
“That wasn’t the deal,” he says. “What happened to the deal we made? The promises?”
“I changed my mind,” I answer, my voice as corrosive as acid. “Sometime between being covered up with a blanket by your assistant and getting back to the real world where I don’t have to do things like get snuck off somebody’s property.”
“So that’s what this is about?” he asks. “You
’re upset about the way things ended? Listen, I can control a lot of things, but I can’t control the press—”
“I’m not asking you to,” I tell him, annoyed with his explanation even before he makes it. “Believe me, I’m not. But you said you recognized me from before, back when I was stupid enough to date Mike Lancer, right?”
A pause. “What does Mike Lancer have to do with you and me?”
A lot, I think. And I give it to him straight. “You know I dated Mike Lancer, so you also know I already did the secret girlfriend thing. And I’m over it.”
Silence drops like a bomb over our conversation.
“Purple,” he finally says. “I’m a very private man—”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that,” I answer. “So feel free to go get yourself another secret girlfriend. I release you from our deal.”
“Okay, let’s talk about this.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve said all I’m going to say on this. Now you need to let me off this phone, because I need to get back to work.”
“No, we need to talk about this. Take a half-day. I’ll pay your missing wages.”
I figure now was as good of time as any to let the poor boy who became rich know money doesn’t solve everything. “Don’t call me again,” I say.
“Don’t hang up on me,” he practically growls through the phone. “If you hang up on me—”
I hang up on him.
A few seconds later, a text comes through. “Just so you understand, I haven’t released you from our deal. See you when I get back to Tennessee.”
26
See you when I get back to Tennessee.
Colin might as well have said, “See you every single day until I get back to Tennessee.”
He didn’t call. And so far, no detectives had turned up, sniffing around. But that didn’t mean I was rid of him.
The next two weeks are brutal. Filled with avoiding any baby conversation with Beau, trying to keep thoughts of Colin out of my head, and a difficult ten-day visit from Beau’s mother, Kitty.
The good news is when it comes time to turn down the nanny position, I can easily use Beau’s bossy mother as an excuse. She is straight out of a pre-Civil War novel, and it’s all I can do to keep a polite tongue when she orders me about like I’m her assistant, not Beau’s.
By the time she leaves, I’m not surprised Beau Sr. died of a heart attack early into his retirement. Living with Kitty twenty-four-seven had to be a lot for any soul to take. Putting up with her was worse than putting up with my worst patients, and she doesn’t even have any ailments to use as an excuse.
But even worse than Kitty Prescott are the nights I spend in my little attic room. My brain is all the way done with Colin. It knows I’ve made a good, sound decision, solidly based in not being an idiot over a dude like I used to be when I was fifteen, because I’m grown now, and it’s not like I don’t know any better.
But my body is a different story. My body burns with thoughts of the way Colin completely possessed me that last night in his cabin. Whenever I’m lying there alone in bed, my body goes crazy. Makes me wonder if dignity is all it’s cracked up to be. Questions if being someone’s dirty secret is really such a terrible thing. It gets so bad that the only way I can calm myself down is by thinking about my mother. Her constant drinking and spiraling every time she got dumped by yet another one of her married boyfriends.
The thought of my mother is almost enough to cool me down. Almost enough to make me forget about Colin. Like I want to. Like I really, really should.
Almost.
One night instead of trying to sleep, I pull out my guitar and start working on a song about a no-good guy. It feels appropriate, and every writer knows songs about no-good guys never go out of style.
I’m making good headway on it, picking out a melody to go along with the lyrics, when Colin’s voice pops off inside my head.
“I don’t think that song’s what you think it’s about.”
“It’s exactly what I think it’s about,” I answer the imaginary voice in my head. “All it needs now is the right melody.”
I work on the melody for a few minutes. Finally get something decent worked out, only to have Colin start up again.
“Nice tune. Too bad about them lyrics.”
“My lyrics are fine,” I answer.
“Alright, I guess you’re cool with fine. I thought you wanted great, but if ‘fine’ is all you’re after…”
The voice trails off.
And I think, Good, now I can work on my song in peace. Which I do. Except I can still sense Colin, lurking in the back of my head like a green cartoon cricket, who thinks he knows better than me.
“I know what the song is,” I tell him.
“Sure you do. It’s your song. Feel free to ignore the guy who’s racked up over two dozen number ones. That’s cool.”
“It’s not really you,” I say to him, feeling like a crazy person. “You’re just a voice inside my head. A voice I really don’t ever want to hear again.”
“Is that why you keep lying to yourself about what that song is really about?”
“I’m not…”
“Because if you’re okay with using your free time to lay down a mediocre song, just cuz you don’t want to admit its really a song about missing me, then you go on ahead and do that, Purple. I’ll shut up.”
My hand tightens around the guitar’s neck. “I don’t miss you.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t… I shouldn’t.”
“Now that sounds like the start of a promising lyric.”
Goddammit. I picked up my journal and the words start pouring out of my black felt pen so quickly, I can barely write them down fast enough. It’s ugly work, and in the end, I find myself looking at two pages of barely legible mania scrawl. Nothing like the pretty penmanship of the well thought over songs on previous pages.
I squint, not knowing if I’ll be able to read the words, much less match them to the melody I’ve worked out.
But when I play the completely rewritten song, it comes out of the oven, piping hot. Raw and simple. A song about a girl missing a guy. Another perennial favorite. One I have no doubt I could have sold if I wasn’t on the blackball list of one of the biggest names in country.
I think about his hotel room threat the day I chose Beau over him. He isn’t the kind of guy who makes threats like that lightly. And now, I’ve refused to be his secret girlfriend. There is no way he’s going to let me get anywhere near a country label exec, especially with a song about missing him. When I really shouldn’t.
Sighing I set aside the guitar and walk downstairs. Josie and Beau are in the living room, curled up on the couch in front of the fire, listening to an audiobook. They’re such a good-looking couple. Like looking at an ad for high-end sweaters that only beautiful rich people can pull off.
“I’m going out,” I tell them, trying to tamp down my jealousy, because neither of them deserve anything less than the perfect love they’ve found. “Can I bring you back anything?”
“I’m good,” Beau calls back.
Josie throws me a worried look from her position in Beau’s lap and asks, “Where are you going?”
“Just to the twenty-four hour drugstore for some snacks,” I answer. I know she’s worried about me going out this late at night with Mike Lancer still posing a threat.
“In that case, I could use some ice cream and maybe a jar of green olives if they have them,” she tells me. “If you don’t mind…”
“I don’t,” I assure her, and then I turn to get out of there because I’m technically off the clock, and the last thing I want to do is spend my personal time with a couple who are not only best friends, but also a walking reminder of what most guys want at the end of the day. Someone kind and beautiful. Someone with flawless skin and no visible scars. The kind of girl you’re proud to call your wife.
Colin wanted Josie, so he could be normal. He settled for me.
And
that’s what I really need to remember about Colin, I think to myself as shame and regret wrestle inside my head. Instead of writing songs about how much I miss him, I have to remember why he chose me. Because I’m dirty. Because he knew he could be as messed up as he wanted to be with me.
I pause at the front door, a decision suddenly becoming clear inside my mind.
“Hey, Josie,” I say, coming back to the open archway that separates the front room from the front entrance. “What color do you think I should dye my hair this time? Blue or green?”
27
After the night I dye my hair blue, I decide to leave my guitar alone for a while. I know one day I’ll be able to pick it up again without inviting Colin right back into my head, but that day isn’t any of the ones that have come so far. And I have a feeling it won’t be coming for quite some time.
I keep myself busy, running errands for Beau. And Josie now, too, because she’s not only pregnant, but busier than she’s ever been, running the Ruth’s House Alabama location by herself.
Colin, to my great relief, doesn’t call. Then eventually the weekend before Columbus Day rolls around, and Colin continues not to call, so hooray, I guess. We’re on the same page. I don’t want to be his secret plaything, and he’s accepting no for an answer.
Instead of moping around, I spend all Saturday and then Sunday morning, too, helping Josie register for both her wedding and baby showers. I’m supposed to be off weekends, but it’s not like I have anything better to do, especially now Colin’s temporarily possessed my guitar like a poltergeist.
“I don’t understand why we have to do a combined wedding and baby shower next weekend. It feels like Mrs. Prescott is just being mean with that call,” Josie complains as we scan items onto her shower registry at the closest big box baby store.
She then waves her hand at the five-page long list we downloaded from the internet earlier in the morning.
His Pretend Baby Page 47