“You can say words to me, Regan.”
I laughed, instantly relaxed. “We stopped using any birth control stuff a few months ago. Not really trying but not preventing. Georgia’s freaked out that she’s not pregnant yet. She melted down last night a little. She was fine by the time we went to bed, but I know her … this insecurity won’t go away until she’s pregnant.”
“Then it will be replaced by pregnancy insecurities and parenting insecurities,” Ember said flatly.
“Helpful.”
“Truthful. Look, Georgia mentioned to me a while ago that you guys were trying. She asked for advice, or whatever, and I told her the biggest thing was to relax and surrender. That’s it. Even if there was a medical issue preventing her from getting pregnant, doctors wouldn’t even take her concerns seriously until you guys have tried for, like, a year.”
My throat went dry. “Could it take that long?”
“It did with Viv,” Ember admitted.
“I didn’t realize …”
“It wasn’t a big thing … but once we decided to have kids we kind of wanted them close together. I mean, look, I’m breastfeeding my 14-month-old while five-months pregnant with baby number three. It seems crazy but we just didn’t want to spend like ten years having kids. Jax was just over one when we decided we were ready to try for baby two. They’re almost three years apart if that tells you anything. Part of it was an ovulation thing—some women ovulate when they’re nursing, some don’t. I didn’t with Jax … apparently I do now,” she laughed, giving a contented sigh and I heard the soft babble of Vivian Rae, apparently through with her breakfast, or whatever.
“So what’d you do? What’d Bo do?”
“It wasn’t such a struggle emotionally because we already had one baby. But, with Georgia … you know she’s sensitive and insecure—even more sensitive than I am. Just be patient. Love on her. Listen.”
There was a long silence between us before Ember spoke again.
“And,” she added, “make sure this is something you both want and are both ready for.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I didn’t say it with any sort of tone, but that sentence is hard to interpret with anything but.
Ember took a deep breath. “It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. But … look … take me, for instance. I was pretty certain for most of my life that I didn’t want kids. Or, if I did, that I’d want to settle all the way down and not travel the way my parents did.”
“Well,” I interrupted, “they didn’t really travel in the conventional sense. They were more … nomadic.”
“You get my drift,” she answered with a chuckle. “All I mean is, who knows what they actually want ever, anyway? It wasn’t until Bo and I were married and kind of stretching out our limbs in our combined lives that we reevaluated where we were at with everything. And we keep reevaluating. Who wants to live the same marriage year after year and call that a life?”
“So what changed?” I asked, shifting my weight from foot to foot.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I guess I kind of grew up and let my assumptions go, and so did Bo. We’re having more kids than I thought I wanted, and traveling more than either of us thought we would. And I certainly never thought I’d be a professional musician. But we just kind of … take life as it comes.”
“You gonna keep traveling once this baby comes?” I admired the pace they were able to keep, but it was so different from Georgia and me because Bo and Ember worked together.
“Probably. I’m due in the winter, which is actually nice, because by the time spring and summer come and festivals start up, I’ll be out of my post-birth haze that usually lasts three or four months. I’m sure we’ll stay local for a while, like we usually do, but we also haven’t figured out what will happen when it’s time for Jackson to go to Kindergarten.”
“Guess that’s more of the reevaluating stuff, huh?”
She chuckled. “Guess so. Well, that’s enough talk of my breasts and ovaries. How’s everything else? CJ seems to be doing well from what we hear.”
I nodded instinctively. “He’s right in his element and is getting even better if you can believe it.”
“You think Yardley will offer him something?” she asked of our manager.
“Hard to say, but it wouldn’t surprise me. He’s filling in for another band’s drummer. Guy got in a bar fight and broke his arm.”
“He still on the outs with Frankie?” Ember asked as if I were one of the girls.
I sighed, then laughed a little. “I guess. I’m trying really hard to stay out of it, but you girls are making that damn near impossible.”
“That’s because we can’t talk to him like a normal human being, so we gotta go through you. I like Frankie. This breakup hasn’t been easy on her.”
I huffed and laughed at the same time. “That’s what Georgia said. I didn’t realize you and Frankie had gotten that close.”
Ember sighed. “Well when you took off to Cali-friggen-fornia, I had to befriend CJ.” She paused, chuckling. “Just kidding. He’s actually not terrible, and was far more palatable when he was with her. And I like her a lot. She’s smart and not in the industry, which is good for him. Maybe it’s good for all of us to have someone around who’s not steeped in our world.”
“I guess, though it must also be nice to share your complete passion with Bo, huh?”
“Sure, but we also each have our own things. He doesn’t bother me with yoga, and I’ve taken on a more supportive role at DROP.” DROP was the name of Bo’s drug prevention organization started while Rae was still alive. She’d struggled with drug abuse in her teens, and their parents used some of their millions to fund the program. When they died, the program was in Bo and Rae’s hands. Now everything was on his shoulders.
I should call him more.
“Regan? Where’d you go?”
“Is Bo doing okay?”
“He’s fine,” she answered almost dreamily. It warmed my heart to hear the love they had for each other, even when I was three thousand miles away. “So. To recap. Don’t panic about the baby thing. Be patient, loving, and listen.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
“Love you, Regan.”
I smiled, in need of a hug. “Love you too, Ember.”
When I returned to the room, Georgia was sitting up in bed, looking around, confused.
“Did I wake you?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No, but where’d you go?”
I nodded to the door. “I was talking with Ember and didn’t want to wake you.” I slid off my T-shirt and removed my jeans, sliding into bed next to her.
She nuzzled into my chest as soon as we got settled, and breathed deeply, already half asleep.
“They doing okay?”
“Yeah,” I whispered, kissing the top of her head. I didn’t want to draw too many questions from my conversation with Ember, since I’m a terrible liar. “She said Frankie’s a mess. Like you said.”
Georgia clicked her tongue against her teeth and shook her head. “Well,” she yawned, “maybe it will be good for both of them to be apart for a while and decide if being together makes them better people, or worse. Brian and Randy are separated,” she added, sounding further and further into sleep.
“What?” My tone was a little loud for the quiet, darkened room, but Georgia didn’t startle. She just nodded, and yawned again.
“Big dreams, all coming true … you know … where was their relationship in all that? Hey … you were out of bed around midnight with the light on at the desk. Everything okay?”
I nodded, preparing a non-lie. “You know me. I can’t sleep sometimes when I’ve got music in my head. I was just jotting it down for later.”
Until I got more information on Brian and Randy’s separation, and Georgia’s state of mind, there was no way I was going to worry her with an insignificant, non-project I was working on for Yardley in my spare time. Because I don’t know how, in her emotional state,
I could make Georgia believe that it wasn’t me being a workaholic and avoiding starting a family or, at the very least, delaying it.
Because that wasn’t it.
It wasn’t it at all.
This was just something my boss was asking me to do to help her out. And I’d be getting paid—well. And, since I had a lot of non-partying time on my hands while on the road, why shouldn’t I take on some side work?
I was tired, but couldn’t fall back to sleep.
Be sure it’s something you both want.
Ember’s words bounced off the walls of my mind as I tossed and turned. At some point, I looked over at a sleeping Georgia, and a swelling feeling of contentment filled my chest. Our marriage was solid and we loved each other deeply and uniquely. I felt a sense of completeness with her that I didn’t think I’d been missing before we got together.
Maybe that’s what this whiff of anxiety was all about for me. Maybe I just didn’t know how wonderful it would be to have kids until we had one. I never dreamed of having kids. Hell, I’d never sat around and dreamt about being married either, but here I was, madly in love with a fantastic woman who I got to spend the rest of my life with.
And, Georgia and I never really talked about kids before we got married. Nothing negative or positive to say about it—it just didn’t come up.
How did it not come up?
Taking a deep breath, I rolled to my side, draped my arm over Georgia, and kissed her shoulder. I couldn’t fool myself into thinking that I’d figure out the parenting thing once I was a parent. I knew too many screwed up families to take this as anything less than seriously. But I needed to figure out exactly what the hell I was feeling before it was too late.
My tongue felt like it was swelling as the anxiety worked its way into my throat. People divorced over this—miscommunication of life goals and dreams. If I got to a place where I was certain I didn’t want kids, would that non-desire be strong enough to risk losing Georgia over? The last thing I wanted for either of us was to end up in a resentment-filled relationship around a child who didn’t ask to be born in the first place.
I couldn’t think about this now, and Georgia wasn’t in town for long enough to justify me bringing this up in the next several hours. Instead, I let the rhythm of her soft breath lull me back to sleep.
Eleven
CJ
“What?” I asked a fired up looking Georgia as she stood in the doorway of my hotel room.
Truth be told, that was an unfair assessment of her look. She always looked fired up in one way or another. This morning, though, the comic gleam in her eye relaxed me.
“Anyone in here?” she exaggerated craning her neck to try to peer around the door.
“For your information, no,” I answered, rather proudly. Which was odd.
“Good. Dress yourself and come with me. Unless you want to walk the streets in your boxer briefs?” Her eyes didn’t move from my face as she talked, which was rare for women in my half-naked presence. Georgia and I almost dated for like half a second in high school before settling into the friendship roles we were much more comfortable in.
Still, I gestured to my body for good measure. “What? You don’t want a piece of this?”
She snorted with her trademark genuine and berating amusement. “As if.”
“My cousin may be your husband, but I could bench-press four of him without breaking a sweat.”
She rolled her eyes. “And he could out-romance four of you before breakfast. Get dressed and meet me in the lobby.”
I playfully smacked her round bottom with the back of my hand as she turned to walk away. This earned me both a yelp and the middle finger.
We were marching toward the coffee shop in the damp morning fog when Georgia killed my decent mood. “I’ve been thinking about you and Frankie.”
I growled, rolling my eyes and my head back. “Why,” I said, long and exaggerated.
“About how it’s none of my damn business.”
I nearly tripped over my Doc Martins. This was a startling and suspicious development—interfering was Georgia’s thing.
I furrowed my brow at her, and resumed my pace. “What tricks are you up to?”
Georgia adjusted the red bandana around her almost white blonde hair and eyed me cautiously. “It’s not,” she repeated. “We’ve known each other for so long that I forget we’re not two banged-up hooligans hanging at my dad’s bar in Provincetown anymore. We’re adults, God help us, and you deserve to be treated like one. So, if you say your relationship with Frankie is over, then that’s it. I can’t decide otherwise for you, as much as I like her and what she used to bring out in you.”
My stomach dropped a little. “Okay …” I finally said.
“But know this,” Georgia continued, waving her index finger in front of my face. “Frankie and I have developed a nice little relationship apart from you that I want to maintain if she wants to.”
“Of course,” I answered quickly. “Why wouldn’t she want to?”
“Maybe it would keep the wound a little too fresh, having me around. She might just want a fresh start, away from the hurt.”
It felt like the sidewalk slid away from underneath me as we reached the door of Grind, a small coffee shop recommended by the locals. I’d told Georgia and them that I’d let Frankie go—giving the illusion that I’d dumped her. Letting her go wasn’t a total lie. She drove me to the airport the day I left for San Diego, which was decent of her all things considered. I was sorry at that point for everything that’d happened the week before, but she didn’t want to talk anymore. Frankly, neither did I. So, I did let her go, once she asked me through tears to stop staring at her that way before I got out of the car and onto the plane.
I’d become someone—something—I never thought I’d wanted to be. I still managed to hurt someone even after working hard to make sure I didn’t. I thought I’d given my all over the last three years, but she wanted more and I panicked. And, in turn acted like the ass she didn’t deserve.
I was never good at long-term relationships because I’m not a long-term kind of guy.
Frankie didn’t stand a chance when it came to my uncanny ability to self-destruct.
So why do I feel like shit?
“Hello?” Georgia snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Anything to say for yourself, player?”
But she dumped me …
I shrugged, plastering on the most apathetic face I could. “What do you want me to say, G?”
Her bright blue eyes stared into mine curiously, as if in disbelief. “Nothing, I guess,” she finally said. “I just … I thought she was going to be, like, the one for you.” Easily, Georgia slid back into pure friend mode. One where she was less girly and more tolerant of my “bullshit ways,” as she always put it.
“Can we just get some fuckin’ coffee? I’d also like a cigarette, so can we sit outside?”
She rolled her eyes, nodding. “I’ll get your usual. Large, three creams, six sugars, and some insulin.” She winked after reciting my guilty pleasure order and turned for the counter.
Once alone on the sidewalk, I put the end of the cigarette in my mouth, clicked the lighter, and took one deep, long, slow drag. And forced myself not to cough. I hadn’t smoked regularly in over two years, save for a few now and again on weekends. Frankie hated the taste; said she didn’t like feeling like she was licking an ashtray.
Well, screw her …
When I blinked I saw Frankie in her bed—one I’d stayed in almost every night for two years. And I saw her. To-die-for curves I grabbed onto every chance I got, delicious nipples, and that mouth …
I quickly shook the thoughts from my mind. She’s the one who ended it. Not that I begged her not to. I wasn’t equipped with begging skills or desire, which let Frankie slip right through my fingers.
As soon as Georgia returned, rolling her eyes at my nicotine habit, I took a swig of hot, sweet coffee and stared into the tree line in the distance.
I took one more long drag before saying anything as I exhaled. “You know she dumped me, don’t you …”
She was quiet for a second, then sighed. “Yes.”
“Why aren’t you consoling me then?” I asked, only half-kidding.
“Because I don’t blame her,” Georgia answered, flatly if not a little reluctant. “It was a long time coming.”
“Fuck you?” I said it like a question to lessen the sting.
She shrugged, unaffected by my crassness. “What the hell, CJ? You wanted a six-month free pass, for fuck’s sake. This isn’t high school, or even college, anymore. She’s ready for the next phase. One that, at one point, probably included a life with you. And you didn’t give a damn.”
Now I was angry. “Didn’t give a damn?” I snapped. “Didn’t give a damn. Interesting. I sure as hell gave a damn when I entered into the relationship, didn’t I? And gave a damn when I brought up to her us moving in together, too, I’d say. You might be interested to know she shot down that idea.”
Unaffected, still, by my tantrum, Georgia looked up at me. “When did you ask her to move in together?”
“A year or more ago, I guess. What? Your new BFF didn’t tell you that?”
“Grow up.” Georgia’s face turned sour. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“She said she wasn’t ready then. What else did she need? We’d been together for more than a year by then.” I shook my head, taking the last drag of my cigarette, stomping it out, and lighting another one.
“Easy there, Marlboro Man. Don’t you think she wanted something a little more than a roommate with benefits who probably wouldn’t sleep around?”
“And, to set the fucking record straight, I never asked for a pass on anything. I just wanted to talk about where we were before I left.”
Georgia leaned forward, holding her head between her hands. “Do you have any idea how heartbreaking that had to be for her to hear? Her boyfriend of three years asking where are we?”
I sucked hard on the cigarette. “For the last three years I’ve done nothing but be a better person for her. I didn’t sleep around with other girls. Not once. And don’t do much more than a wink or a flirt here and there—and even that’s when I’m performing. You know, persona.” She nodded, understanding, and I continued. “I spent less time smoking and more time eating right and working out. I focused on computer stuff for a while; taking an interest in the companies I have stock in. For fuck’s sake, Georgia, she was like the only person besides you and Regan to know about that social media app, and all the money that went with it. I gave her everything I had in me.”
Chasing Kane Page 10