I let out a steady breath, trying to ease the anger and jealousy warming my blood. It didn’t matter if Jessie Byrd tried getting with Reagan again. What mattered was Reagan thought about me the whole time. While I thought about her.
“I don’t understand how you could perform with her when you knew that everyone knew about you two. But you couldn’t perform with me.”
“Because I was trying to protect us. Going out on that stage together was inviting the media in, and the worst thing that would have happened would be that I would lose you, and I didn’t want to lose you, Blair. I went on stage with Jessie because I don’t care if she’s pushed out of my life. Probably for the better anyways.”
Okay, she kind of made sense there.
“And somehow, I still fucked it up even without the media,” I said shamefully.
“You were hurting, Blair. I know now that all the anger was just from you hurting. Maybe that’s why I was so hurt because I saw you transform into someone you weren’t.”
“Look, Reagan, I’m in a better place than I was before,” I said and closed the space between us with one more step. Now we stood close enough that it took zero energy to grab her fingers loosely. When I did, her eyes immediately fell as her fingers hooked through mine, and man, that was the best feeling in the world after all the things we put each other through. Even if our raised voices from moments before still echoed in the bus, our fingers still found a way to latch on to each other. “I did it mostly for me because I was so tired of feeling like crap. But I also did it because I wanted to get you back. I want to be with you, and you deserve the best person, and I feel like I’m finally on my way to being the best version of me. I’m nowhere near being perfect, but I like myself a lot more than I use to. I know I was an asshole, and I really wish I could show you how sorry I am. Do you want to know why?”
“Why?” she asked shyly, almost as if afraid of the answer.
“Because I’m in love with you.”
Her eyes opened and deepened at the same time my chest swelled as the words echoed. There was nothing truer than what I said. Reagan made me feel things I’d never felt before. I didn’t want to sleep because I wanted to be with her. I wanted to kiss her forehead all the time, and she made me realize that “Annie’s Song” wasn’t lame at all. All the disgusting things couples did, I wanted to do with her.
“You love me?” she asked as if she wasn’t sure if she heard me correctly.
“I definitely love you. So much. I think I’ve known it since Thanksgiving.”
“Thanksgiving?”
“The whole night, I wanted to kiss your forehead, then I told myself I couldn’t do that because that’s an intimate thing to do.”
“Kissing a forehead?”
“Yes! You don’t do that to someone you’re just fucking. It’s way too intimate. After we slept together that night, you kissed my forehead and that’s when I knew.”
She smiled. “I kissed your forehead?”
“You did. Maybe back then I didn’t know what my feelings were exactly, but I know what they were now. It was the moment I realized I was falling in love with you. Actually, it was the moment you gave me the Winnie-the-Pooh book. That’s the first moment I wanted to kiss your forehead.”
She looked down at our fingers still intertwined. She gripped them a little tighter before her eyes met mine again. “I think I knew that I loved you when you left the tour without saying good-bye, and it tore me up in a way I never felt before. I was so heartbroken about the things you said, what you were doing to yourself, knowing there was nothing I could do to fix you. Just seeing you crumble in front of me—and us. Blair, those four days you were out of it, you had this look in your eyes I can’t forget. After the Indianapolis show, there was nothing there. Your eyes were blank. That was so scary. I thought I was gonna have to take you to the hospital. I was so worried about you. It was like you were all hollowed out, nothing else left in you.”
“I’m so sorry, Reagan. I really am.”
“I’ve never seen anyone that obliterated before. Seeing you miserable made me miserable. Seeing you hurt made me feel it too. I officially knew that I loved you when you were gone, and nothing made me feel better except seeing Miles and hearing that you were sober and doing really well. Then it made me feel a little better. It made me feel less broken. And I’m sorry that I wasn’t there for you. I should have been there to encourage you to get better and to help you through something I didn’t fully understand. But because I didn’t understand it, I got angry and ran away from something really scary.”
“None of that was your fault, Reagan. It was something that was a problem long before you. You wouldn’t have been able to fix me.”
“Yeah, well, I should have tried a little harder.”
I rested my hand against her cheek as the pain that still lingered inside her resurfaced in her watery eyes. “Reagan, it wasn’t your fault.”
“It was just awful to see you in so much pain. I was falling in love with you and seeing how amazing a person you were, and you couldn’t even see it for yourself.”
“No, because I was an idiot. A selfish idiot who hurt you.”
“But you’re not a selfish idiot. Far from it. You hurt me, yeah, but I still want to be with you because I believe in you—in us. It’s because I love you too.”
I smiled. “You love me?”
“I sang it in my song, didn’t I?”
Hearing someone tell me that they loved me was the best feeling. I’d never heard it before. Well, I guess I did from Alanna, but maybe her words never sat well with me because I didn’t feel it back. My chest didn’t feel as if it sank into a soft bed after running a grueling marathon. My heart didn’t flutter. My mouth didn’t involuntarily form a grin. None of that happened with Alanna. If anything, it felt like dry swallowing a pill. I felt guilty that she felt that way about me and I didn’t feel that way about her.
But all those things did happen when Reagan admitted it.
“Reagan, this hasn’t been easy at all. It’s actually the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever done, but if I want you and Miles back in my life, I know what I need to do. It’s the only thing that’s really been getting me through it. But I want to get better. I’m still trying to at least. I’m committed to this, and I’m going to try everything in my being to stay sober. I promise. I don’t want to hurt you or Miles or my mom or anyone else again.”
“Blair, you’re not perfect,” she said. “And neither am I. Far from it. We’ve been focusing on all the wrongs we did for the past couple of months; I think we need to focus on all the rights because there are so many more of them. I mean, you wrote me a whole book of love songs without even intentionally doing it.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I guess I did. And you bought me a first edition Winnie-the-Pooh.”
“I did. And you brought me a whole kitchen to our hotel room for a romantic dinner. You gave me my first romantic dinner.”
“And you bought me a birthday cake when you hardly even knew me.”
“And you took me in for Thanksgiving when the stupid weather ruined my plans.”
“And you offered to FaceTime my mom when I was so upset that I didn’t have family at Madison Square Garden.”
Her smile grew. “And most importantly, you put sunscreen on my back even though it’s your biggest phobia. Now that’s love.”
I laughed, and the space that separated us officially evaporated. “Only for you, though. I don’t wanna touch anyone else.”
“I’ll gladly accept the role. Whenever you have that urge, I volunteer.”
“So, does that mean you forgive me? Does that mean we can try this again? The sunscreen applications…and us? Because I really wanna try again. I’m still working on me, but I feel like I’m on an incline for once in my life, and there’s no one else I want by my side other than you.”
She slowly nodded, as if giving herself the chance to think about it one last time. “I wanna try this again too. More than
anything.”
I softly grazed her cheek with my thumb as her eyes held mine. “I love you, Reagan.”
She grinned. “And I love you, but can you stop talking and kiss me, damn it.”
I cupped her face and quickly pulled her in. I couldn’t wait anymore. She kissed me back, and no time was wasted letting our lips take hold of one another’s, deepening the kiss, our tongues dancing in sync, still having each other’s rhythms memorized. Our accelerated breathing in between kisses only encouraged me to push her against the wall. How she softly moaned into my mouth made my brain so dizzy. As she grabbed a fistful of my hair, I snuck my hands under the hem of her tank top so they could be reacquainted with her warm, soft skin. The second my fingers touched her sides, the tiny bumps that broke out on the surface spelled out how much she missed me, and if I had any doubts about that, skimming my hands across her sides and to the small of her back reminded me.
After we kissed long enough to almost make up for three months of lost time, the kiss simmered into an unhurried rhythm, so I could take her in all at once, kissing each atom that made up her lips, fully taking in the taste of her mouth. A taste I never wanted to forget again. The more we kissed, the less I wanted to throw her on the bed and have my way with her, and the more I wanted to take my time, making sure I touched her whole body so that the goose bumps on her skin never got a break, that every part of her was kissed so that our time apart didn’t matter anymore.
“Can we go to the back?” I said, the breaths seeping out of me quick and thin. “I want to show you how much I love you and missed you.”
“I can’t say no to that. Can we utilize a VIP lanyard?”
Chapter Fifteen
The sun cast its strong morning rays right on me. I stirred in bed and let out a tired moan as I stretched my limbs. Reagan had the most comfortable bed in the world.
When I heard the grand piano downstairs, I smiled. Reagan was in the middle of writing her fourth album, and over the past few weeks practically living with her, I had gotten to wake up to the sounds of the grand piano or Reagan humming melodies beside me as she wrote in her own journal all the lyrics that came to her. Even better, she’d nudge me awake since she was always the first one to wake up to ask me how a certain lyric sounded.
Those became my favorite mornings.
As I walked down the stairs, I found Reagan sitting in an oversize T-shirt and her underwear, her hair in a sloppy, messy bun that tilted to the side and would come undone with a simple shake of her head. She was scribbling lyrics in her journal propped up on the piano’s music stand. Next to the music stand was a plate of the baklava Reagan convinced me to make a few days ago. I wasn’t stressed at all, so baking something as difficult as baklava really wasn’t on my list of things to do. But Reagan begged and pleaded, and I couldn’t say no to her. Plus, teaching her how to bake and spending all that time with her gave me a new incentive to bake.
I wrapped my arms around her back so I could kiss the column of her neck which smelled like her and morning. She stopped playing so she could crane her neck and fully enjoy all the kisses I had to give her, all while I marveled at the touch of her toned, smooth legs that had been freed from awful, useless pants.
“Hey, beautiful,” I said. “You still eating baklava for breakfast?”
She twisted around on the piano bench and wrapped her smooth legs around mine to hold me in place. “Yes, when it tastes like that, I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Does that mean I can ditch the salad today?”
“Mmm, no. But nice try,” she said before she kissed me.
“You know how much I’m gonna miss these mornings?”
“I have an idea, but how about you just tell me anyway?”
I kissed her lips. “Okay, for starters, I’m going to miss this whole no pants routine.” And then another kiss. “And your piano playing.” A third kiss that lasted a little bit longer because her smile kept growing, and that was my weakness. “And the smell of a full pot of coffee and waking up to you writing songs.”
“You forgot the kiss,” she said and tapped her lips.
I placed my hands on her cheeks and kissed her again, lingering a little bit because I knew once Miles and I hit the American highways yet again for our first ever headlining tour, I was really going to miss all the moments I could have kissed her but didn’t.
“You know, you’re really sappy, and that’s so not rock ’n’ roll,” she said. “Your sleeve tattoo is misleading.”
“Guess what? I don’t care anymore.”
“Good.”
I made myself a cup of coffee and then plopped on the cushioned patio chair that overlooked the skyscrapers poking behind the Hollywood Hills to my right. The view was even better at night when the whole city sparkled.
She followed me outside, clutching what I could only guess was her fourth cup of coffee, given that it was going on eleven o’clock. Her butt pushed my stretched-out legs over so she could join me on my chair.
“So, have you given any more thought about your Louisville show?” she asked and glanced down at the steam billowing from her cup.
After thinking really hard about my life and where I wanted to go from here, asking that question didn’t trigger me like it would have in the past. I thought a lot about my dad randomly appearing backstage, everything he said to me, analyzing why he did it. Thinking became a real hobby of mine ever since I dropped out of Reagan’s tour. I didn’t like all the anger that had accumulated inside me, anger from my grandparents dying to my dad shaking up my broken life even more. That was the one thing I really thought about while I was trying to get sober. My dad and the words he told me as to why he wasn’t in the picture. The words that rang so true to me: removing yourself to prevent others from hurting. I didn’t think it was okay for him to abandon Mom and me, and I never would think it was okay, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be empathetic. I removed myself from Alanna, I removed myself from Reagan’s tour, and sure, I wouldn’t ever straight up abandon my pregnant girlfriend or child, but hearing his words made him more human than villainous. It made him human because I didn’t consider myself a villain for dropping out of the things that I thought I would just make worse. My experiences humanized Jason Hines.
I learned over the past few months that everyone had their demons. Everyone made mistakes, and everyone deserved a second chance if they apologized and truly meant it. I spent my whole life pointing fingers at my father as the biggest villain in my life, then I’d lied to my grandpa and jeopardized Reagan’s tour because of my own pain and stupidity.
I guess at the very least, Jason Hines deserved a second chance. He deserved to redeem himself because who I was at twenty definitely wasn’t who I was at twenty-four, and I knew that who I would be at forty-five wouldn’t be anywhere close to who I was now. At least, I hoped. Maybe Jason Hines was a shitty person when he was twenty, but maybe he was a really great person at forty-five.
Also, it was really tiring to hate someone, and if I wanted to live a happy life, I had to shed as much anger as I could, and that started with giving Jason—I mean, my father—a second chance.
“Yeah, I have,” I said.
“And?”
“And…” I let out a sigh as I prepared for the words to make it official. “I think I’m gonna give him a chance.”
Reagan lowered her mug. “Seriously?”
I nodded, trying to take in my decision myself, just as shocked as she was. “I wasted too many years hating him, and now that he’s fought so hard to make amends, just for me to pile shit on him, I don’t think it was fair because that showed a lot of strength and courage. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy thing at all, and maybe if he would have found me at a better moment of my life, maybe I would have reacted better than I did. But I’m tired of constantly wondering about him and what my life would be like with my father in it. I think because I lost my grandpa, I have so much room for other people in my life, or maybe now that he’s gone, I’m des
perate for more. I mean, what do I have to lose? I spent twenty-four years without him; the worst that would happen is that we go our separate ways, but I can survive without him. Look at everything I have right now.”
Reagan gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. “You know I support whatever decision you choose.”
I kissed the back of her hand. “I know.”
“When do you think you’ll reach out?”
I shrugged and took another sip of my coffee. “I don’t know. Last night I was kinda thinking about today.”
“Today?”
She sounded as if I told her something crazy, but the reality of the situation was that Miles and I kicked off our twenty-show tour in a week, starting in Nashville, and our Louisville show was the third show. I couldn’t wait until the last minute to call him. Actually, I think I was already hovering in the last-minute territory.
“The show is in a week and a half. I’ve been putting it off long enough, and today, it doesn’t scare me as much as it did a few days ago.”
“Do whatever you feel is right, love. I’ll be right here if you want me to be?”
I nodded, kissed her hand, gave my body another sip of coffee, and reached for my phone. It was time to pull off the Band-Aid.
With my brain teeming with reflective thoughts, the majority of them concerning my family and my dad, I made myself really familiar with his business card, studying each letter and number as I weighed my options of what to do with it. His phone number was already printed inside my memory, and I already practiced over and over what I was going to say to him, the words I’d say if he was interested in coming to the show, the words I’d say if he wasn’t.
As I finished typing his number, my chest dove into my stomach. “Okay, I’m gonna do it now,” I said.
Reagan pressed her lips together in a nervous smile as she tightened her grip around my hand.
I let out the last deep breath, clasped her hand to get me through this call, and then I pressed the red phone button.
Hammers, Strings, and Beautiful Things Page 26