Under The Same Sky (Horseshoe Bay Book 1)

by Tamsyn Bester

  “Fuck yes,” Fletch says. “I’m more than keen to stay here for a few months, at least until we’re ready to hit the studio again.” He looks around, and Benji and Carson nod their heads in agreement. “I’m in,” Benji adds. “I’d rather spend a few more months here with you fuckers than go back to my place in L.A. alone.”

  “You don’t have to stay here just for me,” I tell them. “I’ll be fine with,” I swallow, and inhale a breath, “Reese.”

  Fletch lifts his meaty fingers. “Firstly, we’re not staying on your account, we’re staying because we need the fucking vacation, and secondly,” he holds up his index finger, “is anyone else going to comment on how fucking sexy Reese looks? Je-sus, but time sure has been good to her.”

  I lift my hands and grip the door frame between the entryway and the expansive living room, but it’s Benji who responds first. “Shut up, fuck knuckle. You had no fucking clue who she was until I told you, and you didn’t even know who she was back in high school, either.”

  Fletch frowns. “Yeah I did, shitface. She was…” he trails off, and looks to me for help. I shrug. “Benji’s got your digits on that one, fucker. The only time you knew who she was in high school was when Jessica did something to embarrass her.”

  I watch as the cogs turn in his brain, no doubt trying to figure out who Reese really is. Then it clicks, and his eyes widen. “What the… are you shitting me? That’s the same girl Jessica called Fatty Patty and Peppa Pig? The girl whose locker she filled with them Super tampons?” I nod, although that’s the absolute tamest of the things Jessica did and said to Reese. Carson and Fletch may not remember it now, but when Jessica pulled one of her shitty pranks, or called Reese a name in the school hallway for everyone to hear, they laughed too. It was only Benji and I who stayed quiet, and watched from the sidelines. And damn if I don’t regret it. The summer Ryan came home from college, before Reese and I started our senior year, he beat my ass senseless. Reese told him everything. Thank God the guys were all too drunk to remember the night of senior prom. I shake the images of that night from my head. After today, I can’t deal with more. Not right now, at least, and not until I’ve had a chance to speak to Reese. Penelope steps up to me, tapping me on the shoulder.

  “Can we speak for a moment?” she asks timidly. Penelope doesn’t do timid. She’s all fire and brimstone and take-no-bullshit. She has to be to survive the hurricane that is our band. I shrug. “Sure.”

  I lead her into the kitchen for some privacy, and luckily Mom isn’t here because I know exactly what this is about, and I’m not going to let Penelope off the hook that easily. She may be one of the best band assistants ever, but she fucked up, and I have yet to forgive her for it. “I, uh…” she fiddles with the hem of her dress, and then a lock of her red hair, and then looks up at me. “I wanted to apologize. For what happened with Reese.”

  I lean against the kitchen island and cross my arms over my chest. “I appreciate it, Pen, but I’m not the one you should really be apologizing to.”

  “I know.” She nibbles on her lip. “Alex told me who she was. Is.”

  I raise my brows. “Did he, now.” Alex knows less than the band does, but enough to know that she was an important part of my life before I royally fucked things up. He doesn’t know why Reese and I lost contact though, because I never felt right talking about it. I never felt like it was just my story to tell.

  “He told me she’s important to you, and Thorin, please believe me, if I’d known who she was when she called me, I would have told you immediately. I was just doing my job.”

  I expel a heavy breath because she’s right, she was just doing her what we pay her to do. I drop my arms, and give her a hug. “We’re good Pen, I promise. But like I said, I’m not who you should be apologizing to.”

  She squeezes my mid-section, and takes a step back. “I was actually going to speak to Reese now, but I wanted to make sure you and I are okay first.”

  “It’s done, Pen. We’re fine.” I kiss her cheek. “And thanks for being there for me today. I know you didn’t know Ryan, but I appreciate having you here all the same.”

  “I would do anything for you, Thorin. For all of you, you know that.”

  “Even Alex?” I smirk. Sure, he’s got a few years on her, but when they bicker, the sexual tension is so damn obvious to the rest of us. But to them? Not so much. Or maybe they’re just ignoring it. Penelope slaps my arm, but I don’t miss the way her cheeks redden. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen Penelope blush, and she’s seen enough blush-worthy shit being around us.

  “I have to tolerate him, Thorin. It’s an occupational hazard, unfortunately.”

  Alex chooses that exact moment to step into the kitchen. “What’s an occupational hazard?” He glances up from his phone, looking between me and Penelope. She ducks her head, and mumbles, “Nothing.” Her blush deepens, and I bite my lip to stifle a laugh. These two can barely stand each other on a good day, and now Penelope is blushing? Priceless.

  “Just talking about what a colossal pain in the ass you are,” I tell him with a grin, and wink at Penelope.

  “Yes,” Alex murmurs, tucking his hands into his suit pockets. “Your bank balance says otherwise.” He glances at me, and then at Penelope. “You ready to head out?” I don’t miss his tone. It’s gentle, and the absolute opposite of how he speaks to us. Then again, Penelope isn’t a twenty-something-year-old man behaving like a little shit, which is how we tend to behave. Sometimes.

  “Yes.” Penelope straightens her shoulders, something akin to defiance dancing in her eyes.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Alex tells me. “I should have a house secured for the guys by then.”

  “Thanks, just don’t get a place too close to me, yeah? I’ll kill them if they’re here all the damn time.” He knows I’m only half-teasing, and the guys will give me space. Hell, even without the current circumstances, I think we could all use a breather after a long ass tour, and constantly being in each others faces. Alex nods once, and heads toward the open front door with Penelope trailing behind him. I shake my head, finally allowing a laugh to slip through.

  “What’s so funny?”

  I spin and see Mom coming down the stairs.

  “Our personal assistant has a lady boner for our manager.”

  “Thorin!” She admonishes. “Must you be so crass?”

  “I’m a rockstar, Mamma, comes with the territory.”

  With a shake of her head, she goes back into the kitchen, and minutes later, the guys are all making their way upstairs to get cleaned up and change. It’s not as late a night as we usually pull, but we’re all tired. Fuck knows I’m tired, right down to my bones, but I have one more thing to do before I call it a night. When I emerge from the bedroom, freshly showered, and dressed in a plain white t-shirt and grey sweats, Mom is still in the kitchen, sitting at the island with a cup of tea in her hands.

  “Where’s Reese?” She disappeared some time ago, probably to take care of the nephew I haven’t met yet. I didn’t want to bulldoze my way in, despite my right to meet my brother’s newborn, but I’m cognizant of just how much Reese has had to deal with.

  “At her house, sweetheart,” Mom replies. She sniffles, and wipes her nose. She’s been a pillar of strength, just like Reese, but now I see the toll losing Ryan and Melissa is starting to take. I wrap her in my arms, and kiss the top of her head, feeling an ache in my chest. “I love you,” I whisper. “You did a good job with me and Ry. You have to know that.”

  Mom leans into me. “Thank you, baby. Just makes me wish your daddy was here to at least meet his grandson.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” I let her go. “Speaking of, I think it’s time I met the little guy myself. Will you be okay while I step out?”

  “Of course,” she replies, and then quickly adds, “but don’t be an ass to my Reese, Thorin.” Her expression is all business. She’s been protective of Reese all our lives, especially when things went horribly south with Reese
’s parents. They were assholes, probably still are, and as far as I’m concerned, don’t deserve a daughter like Reese. Not that I deserve her either.

  “I won’t,” I promise sincerely. I don’t want to risk an ass-whooping from my mother like the one Ryan gave me.

  Thorin: 17 years old

  Ryan punches me, and my head whips to the side, pain reverberating through my jaw and up to my skull. Fuck. “You promised me, Thorin!” He bellows, holding me up by my shirt. This is the third blow. He has one more before I pummel the fuck out of him. “You promised me you’d take care of her, and you fuckin’ lied, you asshole!” His face is red, his eyes filled with rage. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Ryan so angry. He lets me go, and roughly pulls both hands through his hair. We’re conveniently hidden behind the barn, and both Mom and Dad are out—I suspect that’s why Ryan waited to ream my ass. I spit blood from my mouth, and slowly stand. “Care to tell me what I did to deserve this?” My temper boils beneath my skin, but I keep it restrained, caged. Ryan never loses his shit, especially not to this extreme, which means I probably fucked up as good as he thinks. If his irascibility is anything to go by.

  “Are you shitting me?” His expression is a fine balancing act between vexation and incredulity, as if I’ve lost my damn mind and he has no clue who I am. Hell, I haven’t changed that much since he left. Right? The look in his eyes not only tells me otherwise, but also tells me how disappointed he is. In me. Parental disappointment is one thing, but disappointment from my big brother, the guy who’s been my hero—alongside my dad— all my life? That’s something else entirely. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, he has a reason. “You seriously don’t know?”

  “No, Ryan,” I bite out, refusing to cower. “I don’t.”

  “Reese.”

  With one word, my stomach plummets.

  “What about her?”

  Ryan growls in frustration, and then steps closer. He’s got a good three inches on me, but I meet him head-on. “You promised me you’d look out for her after I left, Thorin. You promised me.”

  “And I have.” The half-lie tastes like asphalt in my mouth. I kept my promise for the first year Ryan was away, but things changed. Somewhere.

  “Don’t you dare lie to me. I know you haven’t. You’ve been too busy partying it up with your new friends, I know you hardly see her.”

  I tilt my chin. “And you’d know this how, exactly?”

  “Because Reese has been calling me in tears for weeks, you dipshit. Things at home are worse for her, and to top it off, your new girlfriend is making her life a fucking nightmare. You talk to Jessica about that, huh? Because last I checked, Reese was your best friend, and that means she’s off-limits to whoever you’re fucking.”

  My brows furrow, a mixture of confusion and guilt making my guts twist uncomfortably tight. “She hasn’t said anything to me.”

  Ryan throws his hands up, completely exasperated with me because, apparently, something’s not clicking in my head. “Why the fuck would she? You’re never around. You never return her calls,”—he lifts his hands when I try to protest—“and don’t fucking deny it because I know our girl, she would never lie to me.”

  He’s right, Reese would never lie, but a part of me wants to believe that she’s exaggerating. I haven’t been as bad as she says. Have I?

  “You gonna say something?” Ryan asks, his hands planted firmly on his hips.

  “I…” My words trail off, and something sets Ryan off because one minute I’m searching for words, a plausible lie or explanation for my asshole behavior, and the next, his fist connects with my face.

  Right hook.

  K-fucking-O.

  When I come to, it’s almost dark out. I roll over, and come to a standing position, leaning on the side of the barn until my head stops spinning and the urge to puke subsides. Mom and Dad don’t ask questions when I walk in to the house, eye swelled shut, dry blood caked around my nose and mouth, but I can tell by their expressions they think I deserve what I got. Great. That means Ryan told them what I did, or in this case, what I haven’t been doing for weeks now. Before I grab my cold dinner—yep, I know my family is pissed when they have dinner without me—and head up to my room, I shower, eat the cold food, and then reach for my phone. I dial Reese’s number, and it rings, and rings, and rings, and then goes to voicemail. I try again, and again, not giving up, and on my fourth—maybe fifth, I’ve lost count—she finally answers.

  “Hello?”

  The uncertainty in her voice guts me. It’s like she has no clue why I’m calling. Shit.

  “Reese,” I exhale, “It’s me.”

  There’s an uneasy silence, and I wait with bated breath, trying like hell to find the words to tell her I’ve screwed up, big time, and I’m sorry. So fucking sorry.

  “What do you want, Thorin?” Her hostile tone has me choking on my breath, holding back the urge to fucking punch myself, or maybe ask Ryan for round two. Because that tortured, broken crack in Reese’s voice? I put that there.

  “I wanted to see how you’re doing.” It’s as pathetic as it sounds. Really.

  She huffs, and I can almost hear her eye-roll through the phone. “Let me guess, Ryan put you up to it, right?”

  “No.” But his ass-whooping sure as hell did. “I just…I miss you.”

  “You’re lying,” she replies. “You just feel guilty because Ryan told you I’ve been calling him.”

  I have to admit, the fact that she reached out to him pisses me off. And it hurts, because I know it’s my doing. Ryan has always loved Reese like a sister, and before he left for college, he made me swear I’d look out for her. He knew her parents are assholes, that Reese is terribly insecure about her weight and how she looks, but I never thought she’d turn to him for help before she came to me. She was my best friend, mine.

  “Reese, I’m…sorry. I fucked up.”

  “Whatever, Thorin. See you around.” The line goes dead, and I stare at my phone. Reese has never spoken to me like that, or hung up on me. But, I haven’t exactly given her reason to do anything else. Ryan’s right. I’ve changed, and in the wake of it all, I unintentionally left Reese to fend for herself. I can fix it though, I can make it right. I have the entire summer to fix it, and then our senior year will be different. I’ll take her to senior prom like I promised just before our freshman year—Jessica will pitch an almighty fit but right now I can’t bring myself to care—and we’ll go back to how it always was. Except, I never saw Reese that summer, and Ryan wouldn’t tell me where she was. She never took my calls, ignored my texts, and just about disappeared. I knew Ryan saw her, but she never came to the ranch, and I had no fucking idea where to find her. It drove me insane, to the point where Jessica and I fought constantly, I was out every night getting shitfaced, and come morning, I’d slip further and further into a hole I didn’t know I’d started digging. It was affecting my family too, because Mom and Dad missed having her around, and one morning Mom slipped up and said Reese stopped by before I got back from wherever the hell I was the night before. Told me Reese looked sick, and that made me worry, but what could I do when she refused to take my calls? It wasn’t until school started that I found out Reese’s parents—actually, her batshit crazy mother—sent her to some fucked up camp for overweight kids. Rumors about it were rife at school, and when I saw her the first day of our senior year, her head cast down, the forlorn expression on her gaunt face, I walked over, wrapped her in a hug, and fought like hell to get my best friend back. Too bad it just wasn’t enough.

  Chapter Six

  Thorin

  The screen door opens as I’m about to step out, and when I look up, Reese is standing there, dressed in a pair of brown knit Uggs, skin-tight leggings, an oversized sweatshirt that hangs off one shoulder, and her chestnut brown hair in a messy bun atop her head. In her arms, my nephew moves around.

  “Hi,” she breathes, her blue eyes wide as if I’ve startled her.

  “Hey.” I stare, unmo
ving, because I can’t help it. I drink in the sight of her, mentally noting how different she looks. It’s hard to see, though, because her baggy sweatshirt hides it. Before my ogling reaches perv level, the guys are bounding down the stairs behind me, a calamity of loud footsteps.

  “Can I, uh, come in?” Reese asks, shifting on her feet.

  “Yeah.” I clear my throat. So smooth, dickwad. I step aside, and when she walks past me, I catch a whiff of her vanilla scent. The familiarity of it stirs something in my gut, but I shove it aside when she turns to face me.

  “I needed to bath, and feed him, but I figured it was time you met your nephew.” I’m aware that we have an audience, but my attention flickers between Reese and my nephew. Benji ushers everyone into the living room, giving us at least a little privacy. Carefully, Reese places the little guy in my arms, and when he looks up at me, all I see is blue eyes, a tuft of brown hair, and a tiny version of my brother.

  “Thorin, this is your nephew, and godson.” Reese twists her fingers. “Elijah.”

  I snap my gaze to hers and my throat constricts. “You named him after Dad?”

  She nods. “I think Ryan and Mel would have wanted that, for a boy.”

  “That’s…” I shake my head. “Dad would have loved that.” I fight to keep my voice controlled, but fuck, now I wish my old man was here, too.

  “‘Eli’ for short,” Reese adds. “Eli Thorin Decker.”

  My heart skips a beat. “Thorin?”

  Reese nibbles her lip, and looks away.

  “Would Ryan and Mel have wanted that, too?”

  “No.” She won’t look at me. “That was me. I chose his middle name.”

  Something in my chest cracks, and without thought, I reach for Reese and pull her into my side. She’s always been short, always fitted right into the crook of my shoulder.