Laney
“It’s over, Houseman. Your Grand Man Band Gesture is officially our last post.”
“You’re killing the page?”
“Nope. Just passin’ the torch. Our legacy will live on, baby, but I’m done with it.”
“Why am I suddenly afraid? Who exactly are we passing our torch to?”
“Let’s just say I found someone more than capable of taking over. She’s got the personality for the job.”
“Laney?”
“She’s, uh, well-qualified. Over-qualified if you ask me.”
“Uh huh, and who is she?”
“Don’t get mad.”
“What did you do?”
Laney slowly lifts her phone as a picture of Courtney dressed in her Penn State garb complete with her bedazzled tutu comes into view.
“Are you serious? You gave this woman a hundred and six thousand people to terrorize?”
Studying the picture closely, I see Courtney is lifting a beer, in toast—to herself. The cherry on top is her hashtag.
#somuchbetterthanboysperm #getreadyforepic #youaintseennothingyet #livingmyrealestlifetwopointoh #itson #staytuned #wearepennstate
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!”
“Nope. She was all too happy to take it on, and I was all too ready to let it go.”
He frowns. “Why?”
“When our posts stopped, I was made to feel like I owed everyone an explanation, and it wasn’t their business. They just knew. That’s why I said screw it and posted that I missed you. Some of the comments they made really hurt. But some of the support was overwhelming too. They totally fell for you.”
“They fell for us. And I’m sorry that hurt you too.”
“Well, you’re a stupid man.”
He scowls.
“See how that can cut both ways, like crazy does for me?”
“Yes,” he says dryly. “I like it much better when you say it naked on top of me in the middle of a tornado.”
“Me too, minus the tornado.”
He leans in on a whisper. “We should run practice drills often, just in case.”
“Mmm, we can go run one now, if you like.”
“First things first. I have a date to make up to you.”
“Right,” I say as he threads our fingers and kisses the back of my hand.
“It’s pretty ironic, a few days from now I very well could have posted a picture on the Mediterranean in a thong bikini with a glass of champagne.”
He pulls his brows together in telltale annoyance, and I laugh.
“Getting to be quite the jealous guy, aren’t ya?”
“Recent development. And I’m aware jealousy disguises insecurity. I’m not proud of it. I’m working on it.”
“I love that you aren’t so perfect. I love it that you can tell me that. We can’t ever change this, okay? Promise.”
“I promise.”
“You know, lately you’ve been making me look like a saint.”
He rolls his eyes before he presses a kiss to my temple. “Speaking of promises,” he says, warmth lighting up his eyes. “You ready?”
He leads me down the sidewalk, and my nerves fire off, but I would follow this man anywhere. Still, I can’t hide the excited tremor in my voice. “For?”
He grins. “This isn’t what you think,” he says, leading me past one long barricading branch after another.
“I don’t care what it is, I have my answer.”
He grins apologetically. “Well, I’m happy about that, but I’m not proposing. This really is a promise from me to you.”
“A promise?”
“Yes,” he murmurs, turning to face me once we’re underneath the dark green canopy of the Era Tree. “I love how independent you are. I love it, Laney. I love that you can fill every role in your own life. But I don’t want anyone to ever take mine. So, I want to make you a promise. A promise that no matter what happens between us, good or bad, I’ll be the one man in your life who won’t leave you, no matter what. I don’t want to live a day of this life where I don’t know you. I swear to you, Laney, no matter what happens personally between us, I don’t ever want to know that you aren’t safe in this world. This is my promise for a sense of forever with you, a promise that I will always be there for you. Always. No matter what.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say okay.”
“Okay,” I nod tearfully. “But you will marry me one day, right?”
He lifts one side of his lip in an Elvis curl. “Meh, maybe.”
“You’re an ass,” I huff, taking a step ahead of him and dodging his outstretched hand. “You totally ruined that.”
“If I was proposing, it damn sure won’t be under a tree that a hundred other guys have used for lack of a better imagination.”
“You just pissed all over that tradition harder than a cow on a flat rock.”
He throws his head back and laughs as I narrow my eyes.
“I’m serious. This is sacred.”
“As was my promise,” he says, snatching my hand and threading our fingers.
I see the honesty in his eyes and melt. “You got out of that one fast.”
He grins. “So, what do you want to do tonight?”
“Rock of Love?”
He looks away, and I gawk at him.
“You watched all of the last season without me?!”
“I missed you, it was a coping mechanism.”
“Lies, all lies!” I proclaim, narrowing my eyes. “I can’t believe you did that! Such an ass. Who wins? Who does Brett end up with? NO!” I clamp my hand over his mouth. “Don’t you dare ruin it for me. Gah, I’m so going to kick your ass!”
He rips my hand from his mouth.
“Laney, I don’t think anyone has cursed a man out under the tree. It’s probably bad juju.”
“You are a pig from hell.”
“Ah,” he says, pointing a finger at me. “That’s an Ouiser line. I’m getting good at this.”
“You watched that too?”
He grins. “Yep. Twice. And all of the Madea movies.”
I grip his face in my hands. “You are forgiven.”
“I love you, crazy Laney.”
“I love you too, Grand Band Man.”
Grannism—Your grandfather told me once we were moving north, so I pulled out a map and asked him, ‘Where in Texas is that?’
One year later…
I wake to the sound of missed keys.
Something’s off. Theo rarely ever misses notes on the piano. Playing for him is like breathing. He’s already mastered another four instruments since I moved in with him after coming back from a three-month sabbatical. Hearing Theo’s third attempt, I pad down the stairs past the photos I took of the landscapes on my travels and pause at the picture of the Taj Mahal. That day gave me a real sense of clarity. As much as I missed him, I cherished my trip. The first two weeks were hard. Every day I thought of an excuse to come back home, and every day, I fought with myself to see it through. After a month, I’d grown comfortable with being uncomfortable. It didn’t hurt that my boyfriend FaceTimed me constantly, encouraging me to stick it out. Every day he ordered me to find our new favorite place so that one day we would return, and I wasn’t allowed to come home until I did. I found out a lot about myself. I’m not a fan of foreign cuisine, like at all. I prefer mountains to beaches. Cold to heat, which is unfortunate because Texas is home.
The one thing I was sure of when I boarded the plane home, is that I loved my life and was satisfied with the way things were. I didn’t need to go on some grand adventure to find myself and figure it out. I’d known all along that I loved being at the front line with the people closest to me. Being involved in their lives for the trials and triumphs. I wanted a life very much like those of my heroes. The funny thing about that is, I hadn’t realized just how much of rocks my heroes were when it came to friends and family, until I left. I wanted to be that rock for those I cared the
most for.
And a good rock rarely becomes a rolling stone.
I’m still unsure of what career I want, and the cool part is, I don’t have to figure it all out anytime soon. I have my degree. It’s not going anywhere, and for now, neither are we.
At the landing at the foot of the stairs, I see the obstruction we’ve had a million fights over since he brought the baby grand home and placed it in the center of our living room.
I walk into the room where he sits poised on the bench, his graduation gown pressed and hanging in the laundry room behind him. As it turns out, I ended up being the one to wait on Theo, and my Grand Man is graduating tomorrow summa cum laude.
He dug in deep this year, focusing most of his time on his music while I’ve been busying myself at my job at the flower shop. I hunted for it when I got home from my trip and used the rest of my time to help my mom renovate Gran’s house. She joined a dating app when I moved in with Theo and started seeing someone a little younger than herself a few months ago. My mother is officially a cougar, and it’s given her a little bounce back in her step. Theo gets credit for putting most of that hopeful light back in her eyes. It’s his romantic antics that brought that side of her back to life.
Maybe most of the men in my family don’t last, but everything inside me tells me this man will go the distance.
He stops the recording again, with a “Shit. Shit.” Another false start that has me on edge. Something is definitely wrong.
And then he begins again. The now familiar, “Three, two, one,” sounding out before the recording begins.
It takes me a few seconds to place the opening to “The Luckiest” by Ben Folds and this time he’s playing along with the lyrics.
I slowly make my way toward him as he presses the pedals swaying slightly back and forth, while words fly through the living room, hitting me directly in the chest. Theo’s music might not be my taste, but it’s his language that speaks to me. When his eyes connect with mine, I can see his intent, and I’m instantly shaking with the abundant love I feel coming from the other side of the piano.
The song tells of how fortunate we are to have found each other, in this time in our lives. Of how he’s convinced his soul would recognize mine anywhere in time. Rounding the piano, I gasp when I see the small box sitting on the top of the polished wood. It’s open, a beautiful solitaire sitting below the words, Marry Me?
I lose it then, crying softly as he shakily croons to the music, pledging his heart, his life, and asking me for mine.
In his favorite plaid pajama bottoms, hair askew, eyes bright, he sings off-key along with Ben, of how much he loves me, of how perfectly we belong together. Two oddballs, who aren’t so odd when we’re together.
Years from now, when we tell our story, I know my version.
It will be about a young girl who went from hopeful to a hopeless romantic in a few notes that only her Prince Charming could play. He didn’t show up on a white horse declaring that she hops on before he gallops away. No, this prince got off his horse, fell on his ass, and stumbled in the mud with her until she could mount her own stallion. And then, in one last act of bravery, he gently trotted beside her into the unknown.
I’m sure I’ll throw in a few fire-breathing dragons for drama, maybe a curse of some sort, and of course, Dave in the white Taurus, but it will be the best damn story ever.
My prince plays for me as the last of the keys echo throughout our small living room before he gathers the open box off the piano and kneels before me.
“Jesus, Houseman,” I blubber, my nose running as I try to clear my face. It’s a lost cause. “You keep upping your game.”
“Hope so.” He gently takes my hand and sets the ring around the pad of my finger.
“I thought of a thousand ways to ask you to marry me, but…”
“It’s perfect. It’s us.”
He nods, his eyes shining with love as he looks up at me earnestly.
“I mean it, and I’ll mean it every day. I swear to you. Without setting a foot outside our front door, I’m certain if I search this Earth, I’ll never find anyone else I would want to spend my life with. Will you marry me, Laney?”
“Yes!”
His smile is blinding as he wraps around me, and I tug at his thick hair. He kisses me thoroughly before I pull away, admiring the ring on my finger briefly.
“Oh God, the decisions I’m going to have to make…”
“Don’t you dare start,” he interrupts.
“I’m just sayin’.”
“Laney…”
“Okay, I’ll sleep on it.”
“Not quite what I was hoping for tonight,” he says, dragging me through our living room cutting off the lights as we go.
“Oh, don’t worry. You’re going to get it, so good,” I declare at the foot of the stairs. “And you’ll be gettin’ your graduation present early tonight too. I just need ten minutes to set up and find the batteries I bought.”
“And I’m now terrified.”
“First, I need to call Momma! And Devin. I bet this news will break her water!”
“They know.”
“Oh,” I say as he leads me up the stairs. “Well, damn.”
“They went ring shopping with me. And it’s two a.m.”
“Right, that’s awesome. Y’all did it together. And naturally, I wasn’t in on it.”
“That would defeat the purpose,” Theo says, glancing back at me with a smirk.
I grunt in agreement while following him step for step. “Theo?”
He pulls me to him at the landing, wrapping me up tightly in his arms and looking down at me with amused eyes.
“Yes?”
“You know I love you, right?”
“Shhhh,” he presses a slow seductive kiss to my lips, “QT, baby.”
“And I think you’re the most amazin’, most talented man I’ve ever met.”
Another kiss in an attempt to silence me.
“Truly. You’re my rock of love.”
He sucks my bottom lip. “Mmhmm.”
I pull away and see his eyes pooling dark as he lifts my T-shirt and discards it on the floor.
“Okay,” kiss, “well,” kiss, “don’t take this the wrong way,” kiss, “but I need a promise.”
He pulls back giving me his full attention. “Okay?”
“Promise me if we decide to have kids, I’ll be the one to sing them to sleep.”
THE END
Listen to The Guy on the Right playlist link on Spotify
For the little people in my life. When you’re old enough to read my books, I hope you see how your big little lives inspire me. And how beautiful I think all of your colors are.
Your loving Aunt Katy
Listen to The Guy on the Left playlist on Spotify
Clarissa
Flipping down my visor mirror, I apply one last coat of gloss and then tousle my hair for a little volume. I spent hours this morning picking out the perfect dress, before bronzing some of the morning sickness out of my complexion. Somewhat satisfied, I smooth my hand over my dress, caressing my bump.
“Here we go, Peanut. Do me a favor, and let me keep that granola parfait down. Okay? Just give me half an hour. But if you can swing it, a full day would be greatly appreciated.”
Nerves firing, I gather my purse and lock my car, darting my eyes around the parking lot before making my way toward the building.
The next twenty minutes will be life-altering. Mustering up my courage, I send up a last-minute prayer as I enter the school with a belly full of butterflies, the culprit responsible for this champagne buzz hard to pinpoint today.
And though some of the details are still fuzzy, I can’t credit the baby for all this nervous excitement. It’s a memory that has some of this anticipation thrumming. Those eyes, those lips, that night. It would’ve been hard to forget, even if I didn’t have a constant and growing daily reminder.
I’m romanticizing and have been for the last few days. While I
’m sure it has a lot to do with the hormones, I can’t credit it all to the pregnancy. It’s the memory of him and the hours we spent—eyes locked, skin slick, hearts pounding. It was easily the hottest night of my life. But the truth is, no matter how often I fantasize about it, it was a no strings attached hook up.
Well, it was supposed to be, until the faulty condom listened to that feisty little sperm and staged a coup, which will result in his or her arrival in a little under five months. The first month I’d been oblivious, too caught up in the start of my career as a teacher. The next month, I’d spent in denial, though I’m not the type to avoid any situation. I take pride in the fact that I’m a planner, though my best friend, Parker, would say I’m an organizational freak, which I think is a plus considering my profession. But once I’d dealt with steps one and two—denial and shock—I decided confrontation could wait until I’d successfully completed my first trimester.
Before confrontation was acceptance and that’s when the wooing started, a sure sign that he or she takes after their father. Because I’m already in love.
With the baby, not the father.
No, when it comes to him, the reality is I’m mortified. But today, I decided to let hope reign. And my hope is that maybe we can get some of the spark back from that night, form a connection of some sort, even if it isn’t romantic, for the baby’s sake. At least that’s what I told myself this morning when I’d polished my body and painted my lips. It’s a real possibility that I’ve waited too long. Because here it is over four months into the pregnancy, and I haven’t worked up the courage to tell him yet. But that ends today. I know guys like him don’t often stay single, and if my memory serves me correctly, he was a rarity. The idea this news may ruin something personal for him sinks in as I guilt myself for waiting too long. I bat that worry away, determined to see this through.
“No matter what, we’ll be okay,” I murmur, running my fingers along my belly before gripping the glass door and pushing my way into the reception area.
The Underdogs: The Complete Series Page 27