Guarded Dreams

by L. J. Evans

  Now, I knew better. I knew what superstar talent sounded like. I heard it every day at Juilliard, and it wasn’t me. I still loved to sing. Loved being onstage now and then, but I was getting more joy out of writing and hearing Brady bring my words to life than bringing them to life myself. Even still, some days I was more accepting of that dream dying than others.

  “Your dad is an asshole twenty times over,” he said.

  “He’s not the reason, Brady.”

  “He is.”

  I sighed. He might have been one of the reasons I’d questioned myself the first year at Juilliard. And he might have been the reason I was opposed to anyone ever having any control over what I did with my life, but he wasn’t the reason I was dragging my feet now.

  “I feel like I’m getting the best of both worlds this way,” I told Brady honestly.

  I could tell he still didn’t believe me. That was because Brady was all about getting to stardom. He craved the chaos. He craved the fame and notoriety. He was also good with it. He was built to be a star. I hadn’t been; I just hadn’t known that at nineteen.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  Brady and I spent most of the next few days in the studio with our production team. We made enormous amounts of changes, arguing over which of the new songs should be added. Our advisor, Gareth, popped in often, hardly ever offering a word of advice but just listening to the dialogue, the music, and the songs.

  On Friday morning, Gareth pulled me out of the studio as the team was wrapping up for the day. “Brady tells me you’re sending the record to a producer at Sony.”

  I nodded.

  “He also tells me that you don’t want to be one of the artists; you just want songwriting credits,” Gareth said, his heavy, salt-and-pepper eyebrows drawing together more than they usually did.

  I nodded again.

  “I think that’s a mistake,” he told me honestly.

  “You’re not the only one who’s said that.”

  “I want you to really think about it before you send the album off. Take some time. Get out of the studio. Go explore the city. Do something for you. Envision what you want for your life once you’re done here in May. Don’t miss out on a life-changing event because of insecurities,” Gareth lectured.

  “I’m not doing it because I lack confidence,” I responded, my hackles up a little.

  “Are you sure?” He didn’t believe me.

  I didn’t respond. I’d battled disbelief my whole life. I knew that continuing to force my case wasn’t going to change his opinion. Just like my dad had never changed his opinion of me being nothing, even when he’d heard my music. Even when my high school music teacher had praised me in front of him. When I didn’t respond, Gareth frowned more and said, “Just think about it.”

  Then he left.

  I spent Saturday thinking about what he said and came up with the same answer. There was so much of the music industry life, that I’d realized with time and exposure, that I didn’t want because it meant giving up too much of myself. And truthfully, Brady didn’t need me onstage with him. He was spectacular all on his own. For any songs that really required a duet, they could find someone already in the music world to sing with him. It would only help Brady and the album. But if Brady wanted my songs, I’d continue to write them for him as long as I could.

  On Sunday, I woke with a flutter of wings in my stomach. I was going to get to see Eli. That made me happier than the thought of a record deal with Brady.

  The New York weather had finally decided to think about spring instead of winter. It was still cool but no longer icy, so when I looked into my closet for our date, my hands slipped to a dress.

  Eli had never seen me in a dress—bathing suit, shorts, and now, buried in clothes for winter, but never a dress. A dress was good for a first date. It was also good for hands to wander after a first date. I pulled a shirtdress off its hanger. It was my favorite shade of purple with tiny paisley prints in teal and green that made me think of the ocean and Rockport.

  I’d had Rockport on my brain a lot since seeing Eli. It made me miss the house there, even though I’d be seeing it after graduation. My plan was to go bury myself in the ocean and the breeze and write. It was the only plan I had.

  I slipped on my cowboy boots with the dress and looped a long, thin belt twice around my waist. I put on earrings that I hardly ever wore, ones that dangled and flipped around my chin with the angles of my hair. Then I spent a long time on my makeup in a way that I hadn’t in forever. Finally, I spent five minutes tossing about the pros and cons of lip gloss.

  At six forty-five, my phone lit up with a FaceTime call from Jenna. I answered it, looking into my friend’s brilliant blue eyes with a smile.

  “I want to see the whole thing,” she demanded.

  “Hello to you, too, Girlie,” I laughed. I propped my phone on the dresser and stepped away so that she could get a view of the whole me.

  “You actually wore a dress!” she squealed in happiness. I went back to the phone.

  “What made you think I wouldn’t?”

  “You, being all closed-off you.”

  She was right in that my normal go-to for first dates was not a dress. My normal go-to was enough clothes that it would prevent any hands from getting anywhere fast. But with Eli, I was thinking that even this might not be fast enough once he started kissing me.

  I sat down on the bed. “I’m nervous.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  She was quiet. “It’s just a first date, Ava. It doesn’t have to be everything in one night.”

  “I know.”

  “Just breathe and take it one minute at a time.”

  “’Kay,” I responded, but my heart was already beating so fast I wasn’t sure it was going to last the night.

  “Call me when you get back, and take care of you.”

  “Will do. Take care of you.” I hung up.

  I pulled my essentials from my big slouch bag and placed them in my smaller handbag. Then, I grabbed my leather jacket and headed for the living room.

  Brady looked up from the computer on his lap and whistled. “Damn, babe, breaking my heart here.”

  I rolled my eyes and sat down next to him.

  On the screen was the home page for Nick Jackson’s production company. “What are you doing?”

  “Trolling. Making sure he’s legit, that we want to get ourselves tangled up with him.”

  “That’s smart.”

  “You say that like it’s a surprise, like I’m not usually smart,” he said.

  “Well…” I teased back. He shoved my shoulder with his.

  “What time is lover boy supposed to be here?”

  “Any minute.”

  “Good, troll with me then,” he said as he started reading from the page before moving over to a Facebook page and scrolling through that.

  At fifteen minutes after seven, Brady said what my heart was starting to fear. “Are you sure it was supposed to be seven?”

  I just nodded. There hadn’t been any way I had misunderstood. The truth was, I knew in my heart that Eli wouldn’t be late for any normal reason.

  “You gonna text him?” Brady asked.

  I shook my head. I wasn’t going to be that crazy, needy first date. He was probably just stuck in traffic. Although, I was surprised I hadn’t heard anything from him. Eli wasn’t the type to be late and not let you know. He was a military man. You showed up when you said you were going to show up.

  At seven thirty, my stomach had officially turned from knots of excitement to knots of worry. Still nothing.

  “Text him,” Brady said. “Or better yet, call him and let me chew his ass out.”

  I pulled my phone from my handbag and, with shaking fingers, typed out a text.

  ME: Hey. Everything okay?

  Brady and I both stared at the phone, waiting for a response. Five minutes later, nothing, and my stomach ha
d dropped to the bottom of my feet, dread filling me.

  ME: Please tell me that you just forgot and that you’re okay.

  Five more minutes passed. Nothing.

  “That’s it. I’m hiring Torrance to beat him to a pulp and dump his ass in a dark alley in the Bronx,” Brady growled.

  “I’m really worried,” I told him, heart flipping and fear taking over like I hadn’t been afraid since Eli had told me my dad was on his way to the beach house.

  “Call one of his bozo friends.” Brady was irritated. Not with me. With Eli.

  “I don’t know their numbers. I don’t know any numbers,” I told him truthfully. I didn’t have Mac’s or Truck’s number—had never thought to get them. Never imagined I’d need them. I didn’t even know what unit he was serving in with the Coast Guard. I supposed I could call some general line, but without being a family member, I doubted I’d get any information. I didn’t know what to do.

  “Shit,” was Brady’s response that echoed what I was feeling inside.

  There was nothing I could do. Nothing but wait to see if I got a text back. Wait and see if the man that I’d thought I’d never see again would call or if I was, once again, going to lose him to a world that had different plans for us.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Eli

  JUST A KISS

  “Just a kiss on your lips in the moonlight

  Just a touch of the fire burning so bright

  And I don't want to mess this thing up

  I don't want to push too far.”

  —Performed by Lady Antebellum

  —Written by Davidson / Scott / Haywood / Kelley

  I felt like my whole leg was being ripped from my body. The pain and accompanying nausea hit me so hard that it dragged me from the blackness until bright lights hit my eyes, making me close them again quickly. I threw an arm over my face while trying to get my brain to focus, to stop the dizzy swirl that was the world I’d briefly seen.

  Where the hell was I? What happened?

  Slowly, my brain started filtering in the answers. An image of a stupid harbor seal, stuck in a net, hit me first. It was tangled, drowning. My stupid ass jumping into the ocean with a couple of my crewmates, determined to save its life.

  I remembered getting slammed against the boat by the seal’s panicked movements. My knee. My fucking knee. It had been shattered. I’d known as soon as the pain had gone through me. We’d gotten the fucking seal out of the net and off to its family. Then, my crew had pulled me on board while I tried not to scream every curse word that existed as pain crawled over my knee and my body.

  The crew had given me a shot of something from the first aid kit. The world had gotten fuzzy, and everything had been waves of nausea and blackness. I vaguely remembered being put on a gurney, driven to the hospital, and loaded into the surgical ward. That was the last thing I remembered.

  I gradually moved my arm away from my face, blinking into the lights. It was day. Sun filtered in the windows of the hospital room, joining the fluorescent lights above me. Fucking pain shot up my leg as I moved to find the remote that would allow me to raise the bed into a sitting position.

  “Hey, asswipe, what’re you doing?” Truck’s voice drew my eyes to him coming through the door of the room.

  “Sitting the fuck up. What time is it?” I growled.

  “About one,” Truck said, sitting down in the chair beside me.

  “Thank God,” I uttered. “Hand me my phone.”

  “I don’t have your phone,” he said.

  “I have six hours until my date with Ava. I’m not going to have her think I stood her up; go get my phone,” I demanded.

  Truck’s face fell. “Shit.”

  “Don’t shit, just go get my phone.”

  “Dude. It’s Monday.”

  My heart fell to the pit of my already nauseated stomach and then pounded in panic. I’d missed our fucking date. She was going to hate me. She’d think I’d forgotten. She’d think the worst.

  “I totally forgot. We were just worried about you.” Truck was already up out of his chair, spilling the coffee from his cup in his hurry.

  I looked down at my leg for the first time, wrapped in a cast from mid-thigh to mid-calf. My stomach clenched for a different reason. All the things a shattered knee could mean for me hitting me for the first time. Truth slipping in and out of my brain. Nausea for a whole new set of reasons. My curse word was quiet, fading into nothing like my career. “Shit…”

  Truck looked at me, saw my eyes scanning the knee, and sympathy came off him in droves. It was the sympathy that got to me the most. Stupid. I’d been fucking stupid, and it was likely to cost me everything.

  After barely getting what I’d wanted.

  “They said—” Truck took a step back toward me, but I cut him off.

  “Go get my phone. Everything else can wait.”

  My comment surprised him, but he took off in the opposite direction. I couldn’t deal with the enormity of the broken knee right now. Strangely, the pain in my heart over Ava thinking I’d stood her up hurt worse than the pain in my knee or the pain in my stomach over my career.

  When Truck left, I took my emotions out on the nearest thing, which was the bed rail. I hit it with such force that it jarred my whole body, including the fucking knee. I was tempted to swear loudly and vehemently, but instead, I just bit the inside of my cheek.

  Frustration bloomed in me. I’d been stupid for two reasons. Stupid over the seal, and stupid because I hadn’t memorized Ava’s number instead of relying on ridiculous technology. If I’d memorized it, I could pick up the phone on the side table and call her right now instead of waiting impatiently. It was killing me to not know what she was thinking.

  I doubted that she’d think I purposefully skipped out on our date. No way. It was obvious as hell I wanted to see her again. That I wanted her. But would she be worried? In that way that my mom worried? Crap. My mom. I needed to call my mom.

  A nurse entered the room. “Your friend said you were awake. How’s the pain?”

  “Pain. What can you tell me about this?” I threw a hand at the cast, the stab to my gut returning.

  “I’ll let the doctor know you’re awake and ready to chat. I can bring you some more ibuprofen unless you think you need something stronger?” she responded as she took my blood pressure. It was probably high. I was stressed to the hilt about multiple things all at once.

  “Ibuprofen is fine,” I told her. No way I wanted anything more clouding my brain and making me fall asleep when I had people to call. People to reassure that I was okay.

  She left, and the doctor came in her place. She was smart, young, and pretty—if I was into noticing pretty. At the moment I only had one woman on my brain. A sexy, dark-haired one with eyes that didn’t match.

  “Broke your patella bone, your kneecap. We removed some of the smaller pieces, and wired and screwed up the rest. Cast will be there for about two to three weeks at a minimum. You can start rehab after that,” she told me.

  “How long will I be out?”

  “Off duty? Probably eight to twelve weeks.”

  I took that in. Eight weeks. It was the longest downtime I’d had since I was in elementary school. Since before my dad.

  “Honestly?” Her voice interrupted my thoughts.

  “Yeah?”

  “They might not put you back out in the field,” she told me, watching my face to gauge my reaction.

  Pain coursed through me again. Through my heart and soul this time. To hear someone else confirm the thoughts that had been in my head. To have visions of my Coast Guard career flying away like clouds after a storm. It was too much to think about without going crazy. The thought of everything I’d strived for being gone because of one careless moment.

  I had to push it aside for now. It would be up to my recovery and a medical review board. I’d do my part to make sure that I was fit, that my physical strength sur
passed every goddamn one of their standards. It was the best I could do. Push my body to the brink, like I always had, and hope that it was enough to save me from the fate the doctor and I both suspected waited for me.

  Once the doctor was assured that I wasn’t going to take my own life at the news she’d given me, she left. The nurse came back and gave me the over-the-counter pain meds, and then she disappeared, too, with a promise of scrounging up food. I wasn’t sure I wanted any yet. My stomach was still lurching in uncomfortable ways.

  While I waited, I picked up the phone and dialed the number I did know by heart: my mom’s.

  “Eli!” Mom greeted happily, and I hated myself for having to take that happiness and squash it.

  “I’m okay,” I started with, because I knew she’d flip out if I started with anything else.

  Unfortunately, this didn’t necessarily help her either. She was quiet for a moment. “What happened?”

  “I fucked up.”

  “Don’t cuss.” You could hear the worry in her voice. I felt like a selfish bastard adding stress to her life. Getting the visit about her husband had been horrific. I knew. I’d been there, in the hallway, while she’d sobbed at the news. Getting calls about your son wasn’t any easier. It was the thing I was always trying to protect her from as best as I could given the career choice I’d made.

  I told her about the seal and my knee. I didn’t have to tell her that it might mean the end of my career. She understood. She’d been a military wife, and she knew how little it took for someone to be discharged. I didn’t think she’d be exactly happy about it, but I also knew that my not being in the line of fire would add a layer of relief to her life.

  “I’m sorry…so sorry,” she said gently.

  “It’s on me. I know better than to get in between the boat and a seal. It was a rookie mistake.”

  There was nothing she could respond to that. It was true. I’d screwed up. One fucking moment. It was all it took. Hadn’t they drilled that into us enough? Sure, they’d meant one moment and a gun could end you, but this was equally painful. A mistake with a harbor seal still ending my life. My career life. The pain in my chest wasn’t something the ibuprofen could fix.