Guarded Dreams

by L. J. Evans

That did cause him to smile. “I knew it! Spill the beans, babe.”

  “No beans to spill.” I smiled up at him. “He was exhausted and hurting. I fell asleep after he fell asleep. End of story.”

  “You keep causing me to lose respect for this guy. He had you in his bed and didn’t make a move?”

  I laughed so hard I snorted. “Brady, he literally just came out of surgery.”

  “I can guarantee no surgery will ever prevent me from making it with a hot woman in my bed.”

  “Even if you’ve just had a vasectomy?”

  He slapped a hand over my mouth. “Curse those words!”

  I laughed behind his hand and licked his palm so that he’d remove it. He grimaced, wiping my spit on my leggings. “You’d be able to have as much sex as you wanted without risking a pregnancy.”

  “Who said I never wanted to get someone knocked up?”

  My mouth fell open.

  His turn to laugh. “Someday I’m gonna be Tim McGraw and have my own Faith Hill, and we’ll have kids that we name Tennessee and Londyn.”

  “Oh. My. God. You’re a girl! Who knew that the sex addict, Brady O’Neill, was actually a girl inside that body of his?”

  “Sexy body.” He pushed me away and stood, stretching, his T-shirt riding up to show his own muscled stomach that had never, ever turned me on the way that Eli’s non-bare one this morning had. “Eyeing me? Didn’t get enough from your military man?”

  I rolled my eyes. “In your dreams, sexaholic. I’m gonna go shower before we hit the studio.”

  “’K. I’ll have coffee ready.” He moved to the kitchen while I went to the bathroom.

  My heart was really full this morning. I had two of the best friends a person could ask for. People that made me part of their lives when my dad hadn’t, and now I had Eli, in whatever shape or form that came to be.

  Some days, reality was better than a dream.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  In the middle of the afternoon, I got a text from Eli.

  MR. GRUMPY: I woke and you weren’t here.

  ME: I told you I had to be at the studio early. Did you find my note?

  MR. GRUMPY: Yes. I’m waiting for our new moment. You also said you’d be back, and yet you aren’t.

  ME: **eye roll emoji. I’m finishing up a couple things for class. But I can leave in a few minutes. Shall I bring pizza?

  MR. GRUMPY: Truck will try to steal you away if you bring pizza, I’m not sure it’s worth the risk.

  ME: Pizza it is.

  MR. GRUMPY: You want to be stolen away?

  ME: If you’re willing to give me up over pizza, you deserve to lose me.

  MR. GRUMPY: I am brandishing my dueling swords even as we speak.

  ME: That will be interesting with you in a cast.

  MR. GRUMPY: It is as you wish it to be.

  ME: How many pain meds have you taken today?

  MR. GRUMPY: None. I was trying to make a Princess Bride reference, but it fell flat.

  ME: I’ll have to teach you the art of quoting.

  MR. GRUMPY: You can teach me whatever you want, just get here already.

  I couldn’t deny that. I wanted to be there already, just so that I could feel the hum of his body next to mine. When I arrived at the apartment, Eli greeted me with a kiss that made me feel like he truly had missed me—more than a day’s worth of missing, more like four years of missing.

  My heart flipped over.

  After filling plates with pizza, we sat back down with Eli and me on the loveseat and his leg up on a side table. Truck hit play on the movie they’d paused. They were watching this movie called Days of Thunder that I’d never seen. As the movie continued, I saw that it was about someone having to give up the thing they loved most. It seemed, somehow, both inappropriate and on point given Eli’s own predicament.

  When Eli went to the bathroom, I said as much to Truck.

  “Preparation, Ava. Preparation is everything,” Truck responded. Semper paratus—always ready. I understood what he meant.

  “Do you really think it's over? His whole career?” My stomach lurched at the thought of Eli losing the thing he loved most in the whole world. The thing that made him think of his dad. The thing he’d wanted since he was a kid. If it hurt me, I couldn’t imagine what it was doing to him.

  Truck looked down at his empty plate and then looked back up with weariness and sadness in his eyes. “Yes.”

  “Do you really think they’ll be that strict?”

  “They won’t enlist you if you have a knee injury like that. It isn’t any different once you’re in. But back when I thought my career was over before it began, Eli and Mac wouldn’t let me give up. So, I’m trying to prepare him for the worst but not squash his hope, you know what I mean?”

  I nodded.

  “Hope can work miracles,” he said quietly.

  I believed that, too. Hope was a huge motivator, but I also felt like the truth was better than giving someone false hope, even if I didn’t think you needed to watch a whole movie rubbing it in your face. “You know what Buddha says?”

  Truck’s confused expression was priceless. I smiled.

  “He says, ‘Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.’”

  Truck took that in. “Maybe, but I’m not going to be the asshole that delivers the cold, hard facts to him. Let the hope keep pushing him like he always pushes himself.”

  That made me sad and happy. That Eli had people in his life that wanted things for him so much that they wouldn’t dare to tell him to stop trying. That they wouldn’t let him give up. I was also glad that I was here, though, because I’d had one dream end. I knew what that felt like, and I had a feeling Eli would need someone at his side that knew that feeling firsthand if his ended, too. Maybe my dream had ended on my own terms, but it had still been painful.

  After the movie was over and Eli started to fall asleep again because he had taken pain meds, I kissed him gently and said I’d see him again soon.

  “Tomorrow,” he said groggily.

  “Maybe.”

  He pulled my fingers into his. “Tomorrow,” he said again.

  “We’ll see.”

  But we both knew that I wanted to come back. He could see it in my smile. I could see it in his.

  When I got back to the dorm, Brady was waiting up for me once more. Or maybe he was just sitting up late, working, as he always did, on his music. On our music.

  “You really are acting like a parent with a teenage daughter.” I couldn’t resist the tease, landing beside him on the couch.

  “About time someone acted like a real father in your life.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “How was Eli?” Brady asked with an undertone that was all innuendo that I ignored.

  “Brokenhearted and trying not to show it.”

  “Is his leg really a game ender for him?”

  “I guess so. Yet nobody wants to say it to him. I mean, no one is saying he has a chance at keeping his commission, but no one is saying he won’t either.”

  “That’s good. He’s got a lot of healing to do. Why kick a man while he’s down? Let him have the possibility hanging out there to get him through the dark days and all that,” Brady said, agreeing with Truck while I struggled with it.

  “But…don’t you think the truth is better? Like ripping the Band-aid off. Help you deal with it right away? Get it over with instead of continuing to dream about something that isn’t ever going to happen?” I asked.

  “I feel like we aren’t talking about Eli anymore.”

  “What?”

  Brady sat up, taking my hand and pulling it to his heart in a way that had felt sexy when Eli did it in the hospital but just seemed over-the-top dramatic when Brady did it.

  “Ava, you’re at Juilliard. One of the toughest schools in the world to get into for choral music. You are talented enough.”

  I sighed. I k
new I was talented enough to be here, but I also knew there was way more talent than me ready to sing the words I wrote. Brady had proven that to me from the first day he’d snuck one of my songs to sing. It had changed my world.

  I’d entered the quad, and there he was, with a pile of Juilliard students listening to him with all their hearts, and it had been my song. At that moment, I’d known: he was going to bring my songs to life in a way I never could.

  “Is that really why you won’t sign the deal with me? Because you still think you aren’t good enough? Gareth thinks that’s the case,” Brady continued.

  I pulled my hands from his. “Gareth needs to mind his own business.”

  “Ava. Seriously. Why won’t you do this with me?”

  “Remember Ashton?” I asked.

  “Um, hello, who could not remember him? He went on to win The Voice!”

  “Do you remember what he told us when we saw him the next year, after he’d spoken at graduation, and we all went out to the bar?”

  Brady shook his head. Brady had probably been drunk or involved in some girl’s skin while I’d been all eyes and ears, listening to Ashton’s experiences. “He told us—or me, I can’t remember. Anyway, he said that his whole life was controlled, from the time he woke up until the time he shut his eyes, by managers, publicists, agents, and the studios. He said his social media accounts had blown up so much that he had a personal assistant that was responding to all of it, acting as if it was him and saying shit that he’d never really say.”

  “I’m missing your point here. This is a good thing, right?”

  “Maybe for you. I don’t want anyone controlling my life like that again. I had that for nineteen years. I want to make my own choices about every single thing in my daily life—big or small. I don’t want to be on someone else’s schedule, with my life and words being dictated for me.”

  “It would still be your choice. You don’t have to do what ‘your people’ say,” he said.

  “Do you really believe that?”

  He tilted his head, thinking, before he spoke again. “Maybe not in the beginning, with your first deal. Maybe then, you have to listen to what the people around you say. But once you’ve gotten a couple records under your belt, and you’ve built a successful platform, you get more say.”

  “That’s a lot of maybes.”

  “If we were in it together, we’d be able to support each other against the throng of people telling us otherwise.”

  “What if they told you the best thing for you was to lose me?”

  He was shaking his head again. “You’re saying that because you don’t believe in yourself.”

  “Maybe you believe in me too much.”

  We were both quiet, letting our words settle in. His words were kicking my nineteen-year-old self in the gut, trying to bring back to life the dream I’d just said was dead. The dream I’d carefully wrapped in tissue paper and put away because I honestly thought it wasn’t mine anymore.

  “We haven’t finished the album. We haven’t sent it to Nick. We have time, and I’d really, truly like you to consider doing this with me—being a duo. Our chemistry is killer because we trust each other. I’m afraid that if I lose you, I’ll lose some of what makes me good enough,” Brady said honestly, his normal ego in check as he said it.

  His words both lifted me up and depleted me. I loved that he thought that I was talented and that my being with him made him better, but it also made me sad. Sad that he thought he couldn’t do it without me when I very much knew he could.

  “You’re a gazillion times better than me at this whole professional singer thing,” I said.

  “Just think about it. Please.” He still wasn’t doing his normal bragging Brady thing, so I knew he was more serious than ever about what he said.

  I nodded.

  “Thank God.”

  “I didn’t say yes,” I told him with a frown.

  “At least you’re considering it instead of being your stubborn ass self.”

  “You want me to do something gross to your guitar?

  “Babe, you’d never.”

  “Don’t push your luck.”

  That night, I lay, staring out the window at the New York City lights that always made it feel like daytime in my room, and thought about Eli, and me, and our dreams that we’d wanted back in Rockport. How they’d happened and not happened. How they’d been pulled apart. How Eli’s were crumbling around him still, and how mine were trying to build themselves back up. I didn’t know where either of us would land. I did know that it felt right, somehow—almost predestined—that this time we weren’t walking away from each other while we were trying to figure them out.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Eli

  I RUN TO YOU

  “This world keeps spinning faster

  Into a new disaster so I run to you

  I run to you baby

  And when it all starts coming undone

  Baby you're the only one I run to.”

  —Performed by Lady Antebellum

  —Written by Kelley / Haywood / Scott / Douglas

  The day after I got out of the hospital, I woke up and Ava was gone. Even though she’d told me she was leaving, I found my heart giving way a little. Then I’d found her note, and the cracks had slowly sewn themselves together again.

  I’d wished that she could sew my knee and my career back together so easily. By late afternoon, I couldn’t stand my own thoughts and Truck’s sympathy, so I sent her a text begging her to come back. It was begging. I knew it for what it was, but she answered my beg, and I was grateful.

  Truck had put on Days of Thunder before she arrived. Another old classic from his grandparent’s collection. Although, I didn’t miss his point in choosing that particular film. He might as well have chosen all the “fallen star” movies. It was his way of telling me what he thought about my career without saying it out loud.

  Ava was a welcome distraction. She didn’t stay long enough for me to really lose myself in her. I wasn’t able to forget everything. It was probably a good thing. I didn’t want to use her like someone would use alcohol and drugs to dull their senses and their memory. I wanted to lose myself in her for all the good reasons. Because we belonged together, not because I was drowning. I wouldn’t pull her under with me. I wanted to buoy her up. She was just starting to show little bits of the old Ava. I didn’t want that to disappear again.

  The next afternoon, our commander showed up at my apartment. Truck was on duty. It was just me, wallowing in layers of pain. It wasn’t normal for a commander to take much interest in some low-level officer, but Stan had been keeping an eye on me since I was little, especially when I’d shown interest in becoming a member of the Coast Guard, too. I was pretty sure he was the reason Sector New York had been my first assignment.

  Stan told me what I already knew. I wasn’t allowed back on duty until I’d passed the physical exams all over again and had my case presented before the medical review board.

  “Your dad was a good friend,” Stan said. “I’m going to do everything I can for you.” What he didn’t say spoke volumes. What neither of us would say aloud. What no one but the doctor had said. It wasn’t likely I’d be on active duty ever again.

  The ache in me at the thought of giving up what I’d worked so hard for filled me to the breaking point. A breaking point that none of my physical training had ever pushed me to before. This…this felt almost as painful as losing my dad.

  “I have a friend. He runs a civilian company that we work with all the time. They help train and run emergency preparedness operations for local, state, and federal agencies. Phil is a good guy. He’s hired a lot of ex-military on his staff,” Stan continued.

  “You’re telling me I’m done.” I said it calmly while the torture in my heart increased until I thought it would burst out of my chest. I’d only served four years. Four fucking years. I was due to reup. Due for a promotion. D
ue to be reassigned.

  I didn’t have a goddamn clue what I’d do without the Coast Guard. It was all I’d wanted. Years of going with my dad whenever they’d let me on board the ship. Years of dressing up as a Coast Guard for Halloween. Years of working out at the academy in New London whenever they’d let me on the field.

  It was all I’d ever wanted. It was all that I had left of my dad.

  I clenched the arm of the chair and looked away from Stan, swallowing hard, trying to rein in my emotions in front of this man whom I respected.

  “I’m not in a position to tell you anything, Lieutenant. That will be up to your doctors and the review board.”

  “But you’re telling me to be ready for it.”

  “It’s our motto, son.”

  I nodded. Semper paratus. My heart squeezed again, threatening to cut off air, tears threatening to leak. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t face the fact that the Coast Guard was falling away from me. I didn’t know how.

  When he left, I took my crutch, walked to the bathroom, and stared at the bruised face that looked back at me. I’d fucked up. So badly that it was going to be the end of me.

  I was struggling for more than one reason. I’d never fucked up like this. It wasn’t in me. I worked hard, kept my nose clean, took the safety precautions. None of those things had helped my dad either. He’d still ended up with a bullet through him. I should be thankful that it was a harbor seal and not something worse that had attacked me. Yet, I couldn’t find any relief in that at the moment. Only pain.

  My phone buzzed.

  THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY: I’m going to be late in the studio, but I could bring dinner again? Chinese? Or Mexican?

  I didn’t respond right away. I was trying to reel myself in from the cliff. Ava had brought color back into my life. I’d had momentary visions of her being the one waiting for me when I got off the boat each time I was done with a shift. I’d had visions of her filling the part of my life that wasn’t the Coast Guard. I just hadn’t thought that the piece without the Coast Guard would be my entire life. I didn’t want it to be my entire life. It was who I was.

  I heard Truck coming in. I gave myself one last pitiful look before limping my way out to the sofa. Truck was still in his uniform. It ripped more holes in my heart after Stan’s words. It also made me realize that the months Truck had had to wait to retake his class and reapply to the military had probably been harder than I’d ever thought. Like everything he’d worked for would never come true. For me, it was like my life that I’d wanted was being slowly washed away.