The Wreckage of Us

by Cherry, Brittainy

  “No, no. It’s more than enough. Thanks, Max. You have no clue how much we need this. I appreciate this and everything you’ve done for us. Before I tell the guys, Max, I have a question. I was scrolling through the internet reading articles about the band—”

  He shook his head. “Rookie mistake number one. Don’t read that shit. It’s toxic and will ruin your mood for years to come.”

  “Yeah, but it was one of the interviews we did. The headline read that I was single and something about panties. I never said I was single, so that just rubbed me the wrong way.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sure Amy told the interviewer that to up your sex appeal.”

  Amy was in charge of making us appear as this badass band that women craved. I understood her job, but that felt as if she was crossing a line.

  “I don’t want to send off the wrong idea, though. I have a girlfriend, someone I really care about, and I don’t want her seeing that kind of shit when we’re already struggling with long distance.”

  “Right, of course. I hear you. I’ll talk to Amy about that. But for now, make it clear to your girl that tabloids run on lies. It’s just the name of the game, and clickbait is the easiest way to score points. Now, go ahead and pack.”

  I did as he said, and for a minute I thought about calling Hazel and letting her know that I was coming home, but I stopped myself. I wanted to surprise her. I couldn’t wait to have my arms wrapped around her and her lips against mine again.

  I knew she’d been feeling awful for being so overwhelmed and exhausted lately, but I didn’t think any less of her for it. If anything, it made me fall for her even more. She was the definition of giving. She always gave herself to others tenfold. It was one of her best qualities to me. Though, at the same time, I wished she would give to herself as much as she surrendered for others. She deserved the stars and the moon, yet she acted as if even a spark of light on her was too much attention.

  When I arrived home the day before Thanksgiving, Hazel was passed out in her bed. Her hair was in a wild bun, and her T-shirt looked as if it had a milk-vomit stain on it, and she was still fucking beautiful.

  Rosie was in her crib, staring at me wide eyed. She looked just like Hazel with those large eyes.

  Rosie began to fuss in the crib, and when she started to holler, I was quick to pick her up.

  Hazel leaped up from her sleep, alert and alarmed. “I got her; I got her,” she muttered, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

  “It’s okay; we’re good,” I said, soothing the baby, who was calming down a bit as I bounced her around.

  As realization set in for Hazel that I was standing in her bedroom, tears filled her eyes. I didn’t know if they were from happiness or exhaustion, but she rushed over to me quickly and hugged me from behind as Rosie lay in my arms.

  “I feel like every time you come back to me, I’m going to fall apart,” she whispered into my neck, gently kissing my skin.

  “I feel like every time I come back to you, I’m not going to want to leave.”

  Rosie fussed a bit more in my arms, and Hazel frowned a little. “She’s probably hungry. I can take her from you and go warm up a bottle for her.”

  “It’s fine. I’ll hold on to her. You can go get the bottle. We’ll wait here.”

  She hesitated as if she was going to argue, but instead she murmured a thank-you and hurried out of the room. When she came back up with the bottle in her hand, Rosie and I were sitting in the gliding chair, finding a nice rhythm.

  Hazel smiled our way. “It looks like she’s comfortable with you.”

  “I like kids. I used to help watch James and Leah’s little sister when she was a newborn. Kind of comes naturally for me.”

  “Well, I wish I could say the same,” she joked. “Trying to get her to calm down when she’s hollering is a new kind of hell. Do you want me to feed her?”

  “I can do it.” I reached for the bottle, and once I started feeding Rosie, she began eating like a champion. It was crazy how the first time I saw her, she’d looked so small and broken in that incubator, but now she was growing so fast, making a big turnover from her rocky start at life.

  Hazel sat on the floor in front of us and looked with wonderment in her eyes. “I want to ask why you’re here, but honestly, I really don’t care. I’m just so glad you’re home.”

  I smirked. “Me too. Max surprised the band with tickets home for a small holiday break. He said it was a gift for us hitting the Billboard charts. Which . . . by the way, we hit the Billboard charts.”

  She grinned cheek to cheek. “Yeah, I know. I read about that early this morning.” She picked up her phone and showed it to me. “I sent you a text message about it but obviously was too out of it to remember to hit send.”

  “Ha. No worries. You have good reason to be exhausted.”

  “Yeah, but still, I’m so proud of you. Not to sound like a complete creep, but I kind of stalk you guys on the internet like it’s a drug habit.”

  “Careful. You can’t trust everything you read online.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “That’s funny, because before you said believe everything on the internet.”

  “Yeah, well, that was before I saw the dark sides of it.”

  “You mean your single bachelor lifestyle and panty-melting skills?”

  I cringed as those words left her mouth. “I was hoping you didn’t read that article.”

  “That’s the problem with being your biggest fan. I read every article.”

  Rosie finished eating, and I moved her to my shoulder to burp her as I kept gliding in the chair. “Listen, Hazel, that whole article was my publicist’s doing. We hadn’t even known it was going to be run that way until it was up. I talked to Max about it and told him it was uncool. I want the world to know about us.”

  She shook her head. “I’m fine with it being this way. I get that part of being a rock star is having the sex appeal that makes women melt. In the words of the All-American Rejects, I’m fine with being your dirty little secret.”

  I groaned. “But I don’t want you to be my dirty little secret. I want you to be my dirty little public girl.”

  A wicked grin fell against her lips as she leaned forward. “I can do a lot of dirty things privately and publicly.”

  “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

  “Trust me. I mean it. The minute Rosie goes down, I’ll show you.”

  Well, that didn’t sound too awful. As I held Rosie on my shoulder, I felt a wetness moving down my back as realization set in that the baby had thrown up all over my shoulder.

  I held her away from me, and Hazel was quick to grab her. “Sorry about that. Gosh, she’s been spitting up like crazy after eating.”

  “It’s really no trouble. Vomit happens. How about this. How about you try to get her back to sleep. I’ll go take a quick shower from the long flight, and then we’ll talk about those dirty little secrets you mentioned before.”

  She smiled and nodded. “I’ll be here waiting.”

  I dashed out of her bedroom and hopped into the shower. My hands moved all over my body, washing up as quick as possible, so I could hurry and get back to Hazel, wishing, praying, and hoping that Rosie was sleeping already.

  I headed back over to Hazel’s room, ready to do things I’d only been able to imagine for the past few weeks, and all hope died the moment I saw her lying in her bed, completely passed out while Rosie slept in her crib.

  Well then, this is a new hurdle to the relationship.

  Instead of bothering to wake her, I crawled into bed beside her, and without thought, she curled her body against mine, just like the good ol’ days. In that moment, I was happy to have something that made me feel like I was officially home again.

  “I figured she could wear this,” Big Paw grumbled as he stood on the front porch of my house the night before Thanksgiving. He held a turkey onesie for Rosie in his hands, and he looked so mad about it, but the fact that he even was holding a onesie
made him look that much gentler. “I saw it at the store when I went out of town to get some supplies. Figured the girl should have a first-Thanksgiving outfit.”

  “I’ll make sure to pass it on to Hazel,” I promised, taking it from him.

  He scratched at his beard and muttered a bit before looking back up toward me. “Saw you and the boys on TV the other night. You sounded good. Real good.”

  What was that? A compliment from Big Paw?

  Little Rosie must’ve been making him soft.

  “But don’t let it go to your damn head. You aren’t that good, boy.”

  Ah, that sounded more like the grandfather I knew and loved.

  “You, Hazel, and Rosie should come over to our place tonight to help Grams with some food prep. Plus, she cooked a meal for you being back in town.”

  “I’m actually feeling a bit tired, Big Paw. I was hoping to crash for a few hours.”

  “If you can perform for strangers, you can show up for your grandmother,” he said. “We’ll see you in a few.”

  He turned around and walked off, not giving me much of a choice. Then again, he was right. I hadn’t been able to connect with my grandparents much over the past few months, and I’d missed them.

  Sleep could come later; family was always first.

  It didn’t take much to convince Hazel to come with me, and an hour later, we were on our way. The moment I walked in the door, it smelled like Thanksgiving. The warmth of the season filled my grandparents’ house, and I welcomed it. I’d missed them. I’d missed home. After traveling and working nonstop for the past few months, I felt pretty damn homesick.

  “Sweetheart!” Grams said, grinning ear to ear as she walked over to me wearing her turkey apron. She was covered in flour and moving a bit slower than I remembered, but when she hugged me, I felt her love.

  Gosh, I missed Grams’s hugs.

  As she let me go, I rolled up my sleeves. “How can I help you?” I asked.

  She snickered. “Oh, sweetie, I think we are safer with you not in the kitchen.”

  I knew she had to be overwhelmed with cooking.

  Thanksgiving in Eres wasn’t a small event for my grandparents. Just as they did with everything, they thought about the town’s overall enjoyment. Therefore, the barn house was set up with over two hundred chairs for people to show up and enjoy a meal. It worked mostly as a potluck where everyone brought a signature dish to pass around.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to make my grand slam sloppy joe sliders?” I joked.

  She shivered. “No, no. Sliders aren’t made for Thanksgiving.”

  “They can be. I’ll even add a few slices of cheese to make them fancy.”

  She shot that down fast.

  What a shame—a nice can of sloppy joe could go a long way.

  Just then, Hazel popped her head into the room. “Do you need any help in here, Holly? Big Paw is holding Rosie for a while.”

  Grams reacted completely differently to Hazel’s request to help. She beamed ear to ear and waved Hazel into the kitchen. “Yes, yes, honey. I’d love the help. Please, come on in.”

  Hazel wandered into the room, and Grams gave her tasks instantly, and I felt personally attacked. “Are you kidding? I can help!”

  “You’re better helping Big Paw,” Hazel said. “He’s requesting your presence in his office.”

  I headed toward Big Paw’s office, and when I walked inside, I snickered a little at the image of him holding little Rosie in his hands.

  “That’s a good look for you, Big Paw,” I joked, but he didn’t laugh.

  He nodded toward the seat across from him. “Take a seat, Ian.”

  “What is this? A godfather moment?” I joked.

  “Sit your ass down,” he ordered.

  I swallowed hard at his tone and took my seat. The sternness of his voice threw me for a loop and shot me back to my high school days when he used to scold me for being a dumbass kid.

  He cradled Rosie in his arms—and to be clear, it was still hilarious to watch—and he narrowed his eyes toward me. “What are your intentions with Hazel?”

  I chuckled, completely thrown off by his words. “What? What do you mean?”

  “I mean exactly what I said, boy. What are your intentions? Do you see a future of some kind with her, or are you just playing the field out there on the road? Because that’s a good girl with a hard work ethic who is raising her sister, and so help me, if you hurt her, I will kick your ass so hard you’ll become a soprano.”

  “What the heck, Big Paw? I’m your grandson, not the other way around. Shouldn’t you be giving Hazel this talk about her intentions for me?”

  “I already did,” he stated matter-of-factly. “She’s a good girl who sees a future with you. But I can’t have you out there playing with her emotions. She’s a great human being, Ian. This world doesn’t get many great human beings, and she’s already been through a lot in her short lifetime, so if this isn’t something you see yourself going with, if your career is the main focus for you right now, that’s fine. But if that’s so, let her go now before she falls deeper. Don’t drag her along if you don’t want something more. So I ask you again—what are your intentions?”

  I clasped my hands together and leaned back in my chair, looking straight into my grandfather’s eyes. “It’s the kind of thing you have with Grams,” I said, feeling it deep in my gut. I wanted to make a million memories with Hazel. I wanted our grandchildren to witness our love story firsthand as we grew older with one another down the line. I wanted her to sass me for the rest of forever.

  I wanted to grow old with that girl who’d helped me open up my heart.

  “All right, then.” Big Paw smiled with the corner of his mouth, and he nodded once and only once. “No matter the fame and success you find, you keep holding on to that girl, all right? No matter what, you don’t let her go.”

  29

  HAZEL

  “Please tell me that you got the godfather talk from Big Paw, too, and he wasn’t just saying he gave it to you?” Ian asked as we drove back home late that evening from helping his grandparents.

  “Oh, I received the talk and the threats that went along with it.” I glanced back to Rosie sleeping in her car seat. If there was anything I could count on, it was Rosie falling asleep on car rides. Lately, when she was too overwhelmed, I’d pack us up in Ian’s truck and drive around for as long as it took to soothe her. “The threats from Big Paw seem a little tamer when he’s going gaga over Rosie, though.”

  “He’s obsessed with her, huh? It’s funny seeing him that way. Who knew it would take a baby to make him gentle? I thought only Grams could do that.”

  “There’s not a day that he’s not checking in on her. I swear, he comes to the ranch a lot more now that Rosie is around. She’s a special thing, my little sister.”

  “She must take after you.”

  I smiled toward him as I laid my head against the headrest. “Can I tell you a secret?”

  “You can tell me all your secrets.”

  “I worry a little about your grandparents working so hard at their age. They do too much for others, and they should really ease back. Holly is still working day in and day out at the Farmhouse, and Big Paw is pretty much running the town. It can’t be good for their health. Plus, when I was cooking with Holly tonight, she seemed to get winded quite fast.”

  “I know. I’ve been telling them to slow down for the past few years, but they don’t listen. It’s as if they don’t know how to take breaks from the grind of it all. They’ve done so much for this town. It’s time they take a step back. I don’t know what it will take for them to pull back any. They aren’t really the type to take help—they are more into giving it.”

  “That makes me sad for them. They deserve a break, time for themselves.”

  “Says the girl who doesn’t take time for herself.”

  I laughed. “I know it sounds crazy, but I feel more like myself than ever since I started working at
the ranch. I never thought I’d be able to say that I loved a job like this, but I do. For so long I’ve been thinking about running away from this place, and the more time that passes, the more I think about how nice it would be to stay and teach Rosie about the ranch when she’s old enough.”

  “Big Paw was telling me how good of a worker you are. It’s hard to impress that man, so you should be proud of yourself.”

  “I am. I mean, it’s hard, especially with Rosie, but somehow I’m keeping my head above water. I’m remembering to swim.”

  He put the truck in park in front of the house and shut off the engine. “I guess this isn’t the point I should ask you to come on tour with me for a few weeks, huh? In my mind it sounded like a great idea, but now that I see how much you’re loving your life, I’d feel awful pulling you away from everything.”

  “I don’t know if the team can handle me leaving for a long period of time. After losing the Wreckage on the ranch, we’ve been trying to train new guys to be as good as you four were.”

  He smirked. “Good luck with that.”

  “I do want to see you in concert, though. I want to see you in your new world. It just might take a while for me to be able to get there with Rosie and all.”

  “She’s always welcome to come, you know.”

  “Soon,” I agreed, taking his hand into mine. “I promise we’ll come see you soon.”

  Just then, Rosie started crying, and I glanced back to her. “Do you think we can do once around the dirt roads to get her back to sleep?” I asked.

  Ian turned on the truck and put it into drive. Within five minutes, Rosie was sleeping again.

  “Did you ever see yourself raising a baby at nineteen?” Ian asked. His right hand was still laced with mine, and I loved the warmth his touch sent through me.

  “I actually fought really hard for this to not be my reality, and yet here we are. Truthfully, I don’t regret it. Rosie is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. If you’d asked me if I would be dating one of the biggest up-and-coming musicians, I would’ve called you crazy too. But I guess that’s the thing about life—it just happens.”