Stolen Tyme

by S. L. Ziegler

  “You think I care about him?” Because I don’t. If I had known what the last seven years of my life would have been like with her not being an arm’s length away, I would have told him the truth. Looked him straight in the eye and said “yes, I’m in love with your daughter,” and nothing Lock could have done to me would have changed that.

  Consequences gone.

  Friendship scrapped.

  Years knowing him voided.

  I wouldn’t have given a fuck if it would have stopped Naomi from hating me. But I still would have made her go, still made her walk away. Only I would have done it with my arms wide open so she would know she could come back to me.

  But I can’t go back, only forward, keep moving, and I’ll be damned if she doesn’t know the truth from me from here on out.

  She peeks through her falling hair, her eyes welling up with tears. “Just go, Xavier,” Naomi says in a harsh whisper.

  “I can’t leave you like this.” I can’t, not with her still having some of me left in her, sealing part of what I mean to her in there.

  “Please. Go.” The sounds of regret strangle her words. Her eyes are closed; I know she’s locked herself off from me again.

  I nod. The jeans are rough against my skin as I pull them up from around my ankles. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t come here for this. It wasn’t like that for me. It’s more.” So much more.

  Hanging my head, resisting the desire to gather her back into my arms and take her with me where she belongs, I walk out the door.

  But if today taught me anything, I know she’s it. I refuse to walk out of her life. Better or worse, I know the fight to get back in her good graces just started.

  I rap my hand on the counter. My fingers tap out the beat of the music I just wrote that rings out through the speakers in my sound room. For a songwriter, when you hit the golden mark, you just simply…know. You can feel it in the depths of your bones. And I have it right here with what I just put down. This is fucking platinum quality. All because of Omi. Every song I write with the vision of her seems to be. She’s the perfect muse. Now with her taste still lingering in my mouth, it’s magic.

  “Jesus, X, your shit keeps getting better and better,” Callum says.

  Nodding, I respond, “Thanks, man.”

  “Do you think she knows it was really your song she did with Dylan?”

  “Nah, Dylan’s camp keeps that down deep.” Deep, deep down. None of them wants it to get out that he doesn’t write his own songs. To me, it feels like lies, but to the industry, it’s the norm.

  “You should tell her. You ask me, it’s strange she’s singing a song with a total tool about lost love when it was you who wrote it about her.”

  It is. As soon as the song is sold, I have nothing to say about it, but her voice hit a note no other singer could come close to.

  “Good thing I didn’t ask you. She doesn’t need to know that shit. Let her keep thinking it was him along with the rest of the world for all I care. I get my check, and no one knows it’s me but you and Dylan’s group. I’m good that way. Keeps his fans thinking he writes all his own shit, and I’m out of the spotlight. It’s a win for everyone.” Most of all, me. I finally got to hear her voice to my words and that was more important than name recognition.

  And it was magic.

  “I don’t understand how you don’t even want your name listed as a co-writer. I mean, that song won a shit-ton of awards, and you’re letting that jackass take all the credit.”

  “And it’s not your job to understand. I just want to make the music. That song deserved an audience, and I couldn’t give it one. He could—they could. The shit was bottled up for too long, so it works for us all.”

  “Whatever.” Callum rolls his eyes, tweaking with the audio controls on the panel. “Wait…” He turns his head to the side, studying me. As he hears another verse of the song, he declares, “You saw her, didn’t you? Oh hell, you slept with her again? Which mean she’s here. Damn.”

  My muscles freeze up.

  “You nasty dog. You did. Fuck, she’s always the one you break the vow for.”

  “I’m not answering that.”

  “Fuck that, yes you are.”

  “I’m not. What happened between Naomi and me is our business, not yours.”

  Callum takes a deep breath, his brow growing tight as he frowns. “You were fucked up for a long time after that shit blew up in your face. I’ve seen you low, and that shit you went through when she left was worse than the rehab days. Losing her and the friendship with Lock all in one scoop wasn’t the best for you. And now, that’s the only thing I want for you—the best.”

  The tendons in my neck stiffen and the ache in my heart spreads for the wrong choices I made. “It wasn’t like that between us. I can’t just…” My words drift off, because no matter what I say to him, no one will ever get the “what-ifs” that have plagued me every day since I pushed her away.

  “X, listen…I’ll drop it for now because I know you care, but just watch your back—hell, even your front. And let me know if you need anything. I won’t judge you.”

  “Will do… I do have something I need to tell you, and close your mouth, it’s nothing about what happens with my dick. Zoey’s trying to move away and take my daughter with her. Charlie told Naomi about it at dance. That’s why I went to Naomi’s house to begin with.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Fight.” That one word is the understatement of the century. I’m going to damn war for my kid. The worry that Charlie won’t be with me every other week is driving me mad, and the thought of her not being a short drive away isn’t going to work. Zoey is insane to even try to get away with it.

  “Let me know what to do.”

  I nod. “I called a new lawyer on the way home from Naomi’s. He has some stuff in the works. I didn’t want to go for full custody last time for Charlie’s sake, but now…that’s going to be the only option I have. Charlie seems less and less herself, and her with me full time is the best thing for her.”

  Best for both of us.

  It wasn’t always the case, but now, Charlie is my number one priority in life. Through all this, after so many mess ups, I’ve found that proving it to myself is the greatest achievement I could have made.

  Chapter 6

  Naomi

  I absentmindedly set the plate of food down on the table. The smell of the roast wafts through the air, but nothing can distract me from what I did yesterday, the thing I let happen so willingly.

  My gaze lingers on the spot where Xavier took me. It was wrong, on so many levels—a mistake. Opening the door to X opened the floodgates of things I buried deep within so long ago. It’s left my emotions in a whirlwind. I know the decision to tell him about Charlie was the right one—I promised her I would. He deserved to know, and she deserves someone to fight in her corner—Xavier will do just that. But I should have pushed him away, closed the door, and ran the moment his eyes tore me from the inside out. I wish I could have forgotten his touch, his lips, his everything over the course of my absence.

  But I didn’t—I hadn’t. I wish it was just in my imagination how good it was…only it was better, fireworks better.

  With one touch, I opened a part of me to the game that had long since been over.

  The game he plays deep in my soul. The one in which he is still the reigning champion.

  Dropping the fork on the plate, my stomach coils in knots. “Pops, can I ask you something?”

  The faint smile touches the corners of his lips, just like it had every time I’d called him that over the last few weeks. “Yes.”

  “Do you regret not having a someone?”

  The silence between us grows while I wait for him to answer.

  Worry lines crease his forehead before he responds. “Not for one second. I didn’t want to bring someone into my life that wasn’t the right fit for both of us. I never met a girl I could see that happening with.”

  “B
ut don’t you get lonely only having me around? And what about the years I wasn’t here? That couldn’t have been easy.”

  “Omi, trust me, I’m anything but lonely.”

  Gross. Now I need a shower—a long one with scalding hot water.

  “Pops, I don’t want to hear about the biker girls.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. Wait…how did you know about them?”

  “I’m not blind. I’ve known about them since I was ten.”

  The smile drops off his face. “Shit, you’ve never said anything.”

  “What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, when Penny dropped me off after school one day, I saw you screwing a girl on the back dock at your job’? Yep, that would have gone over really well.”

  “Fucking A. No wonder you fucked my best friend. You had one hell of a role model with me.”

  Like a flick of a match, the air was now charged with fiery tension between us.

  “That’s not why I was with him at all. You don’t want to believe it, and that’s your choice, but I loved him. A lot.”

  “And he didn’t love you.” His words are a sword, but the hard truth usually is. “That was on me, too. I knew something was different about you that summer. Before you met him, you were so excited and so ready to leave that nothing would have stopped you. Hell, you never shut up about it, but then he came and you were…you were silent all of a sudden. I should’ve seen it. I was too busy thinking things about the burlesque shit that I didn’t see what was staring right at me…right in front of my face.”

  I carefully massage the back of my neck. “I wasn’t thinking about anyone except the person in front of me.”

  Feeling the heat of his stare, I surmise he doesn’t need to know all the things I was willing to give up to have Xavier in my life. Because I was willing to give it up, give up the relationship with my own father for X.

  “You know why I sent you away? It wasn’t because I was mad or disappointed in you. It was because you needed that time. Your eyes, Omi…they broke me. You broke me. You were broken. That wasn’t you. The night of your party, when I found out, hearing him say he disregarded the cardinal rule and didn’t love you—then hearing your sobs turn to screams, the hyperventilating rang out through the house. It’s something no father wants for their daughter. The fucker who did that shouldn’t have been the one person I was able to trust you with. Naomi, you wouldn’t let me close enough to offer any kind of help, or hell, anyone else for that matter. Everyone just made you worse. I knew you had to get away. You wouldn’t have been able to heal here with him still around. But I don’t think you really healed, did you? So I was wrong again.”

  My memories from the first few days of my heartbreak are vague. It was like my mind chose to forget the hurt—to lock the pain away for safe keeping. But hearing the confirmation from him about how wrong I was about us destroys something in me—something that was demolished the night he said he never loved me.

  The corners of my eyes burn with unshed tears. “I ran from it, never really dealt with the reactions of that summer. So when I saw him...”

  “Like it was a punch in the gut.” Lock interrupts me, placing his rough hand around my wrist. “Reed told me. If I knew he was a member, I wouldn’t have sent you there. I want you a million miles away from that idiot.”

  “It wasn’t even that. I would have seen him sooner or later…Charlie’s in my class.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yep, damn. But I got my closure, and I think it’s best if I leave it at that.”

  Best.

  If only it felt like closure.

  “I’ve never been in love, but I don’t think you ever get closure if the ending isn’t what you want. And, Omi, I don’t think any ending with him is what you really wanted.”

  I smile, but even I know it’s incomplete. The ending wasn’t the dream, but it’s the only one I have. Now it seems like the worst because it’s only the prologue to the inevitable. A heart that is so crushed it can’t let anyone else in to mend it.

  “We’re a sad family. I’m the mess of all messes, and you’re a forty-five-year-old biker who can’t seem to settle down with a nice girl.”

  “We’re screwed. But fuck, at least we have each other. And I want you to know…wherever you decide to go, and who you want in your life, is your choice and yours alone. I won’t stop you again. I’ll support it, keep my big mouth shut, and love you. I may say I told you so if shit gets real again, though.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything else. Pops, that means more than anything you could ever give me. I hope you know that.” And it does. I just wish I could have had that prior to all this jumbled mess. Things could have been different.

  “We need to stop having these talks. I wasn’t kidding about needing tampons if we keep it up.”

  My legs shake and my heart beats rapidly against my chest. But my body is smiling. This is what I love about choreographing new dances. It starts from nothing to something, and then to more. It’s the more—the parts people will pay to see—that people will gain something from.

  It’s my kind of fairytale. I didn’t think this show would ever be finished. But it all changed the night after my conversation with Lock. The dreams that very night were so vivid—so alive.

  It was on point with everything I wanted to put out there for the world to see and feel on the stage.

  I could do nothing but write this story, to tell it so it could be born. Some may hate it; it’s different from the others I have written. Darker. Morose. Angry. The ending not a true happily ever after. But it’s the realest piece I’ve ever done.

  And the ending is genuine. That will be my closure. At least I hope.

  Tara’s name flashes on the screen of my cell. “Hey, you.” I’ve missed her since she’s been back in New York dealing with everything I don’t want to handle.

  Heavy breathing comes from her end. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news today, but I heard something when I was out to dinner with some friends.” The tone of her voice draws all my attention.

  “Okay…”

  “Did you know Dylan didn’t write the song?”

  “What song?” I wipe the remaining sweat off, totally spacing out from what she’s saying. I’m riding my own high.

  “The song that you sang, and the one he got a Grammy for writing—that song.”

  “No, I always thought he had a co-writer but never asked who it was. I think it’s pretty common for artists to take all the credit. But from the sounds of it, you’re thinking I should have, though.”

  Stepping back against the wall, the feeling of dread breaks through the line.

  “This is juicy, so I hope you’re sitting down. I mean, this could ruin Dylan forever, and I hope it doesn’t take you down, too. Because if it does, I’ll kill him. I mean, gut that stupid boy and hang him up by his skinny jeans.”

  “Tara, please just get to the point. This is scaring me.” Terrifying me more like it.

  “Remember Twisted Tyme?”

  I swallow hard as my heart sinks to my toes, the high from finishing my dance vanished with one sentence. “Yes,” I stammer out.

  No.

  It can’t be.

  That wouldn’t happen to me.

  Not after everything I went through.

  “You know the lead singer that went AWAL a while back? Xander maybe?”

  My pulse races. “Xavier?”

  Nope.

  Not him.

  “Yes! That’s his name. It was him. Xavier. Someone leaked it, and man, I feel for Dylan. It’s spreading like a blazing inferno with no firefighters in sight. This guy apparently has been ghostwriting a lot of Dylan’s stuff, if not all of it. Word going around is he’s done it for a lot of other musicians too, so people are digging down deep to see who else he’s done work for. I would bet my paycheck they give him the big dollars to keep his mouth shut. Don’t you think?”

  She rambles more. On and on. Only it sounds like gibberish.
/>   It can’t be him.

  No.

  The very words I’ve sung time after time replay in my head. And without a shadow of a doubt. I know. Single silver band holding us together. The only thing we have left of the time we shared.

  The rumors are true.

  X wrote that song. A song about me. Us. That shithead and that stupid fucking ring he gave me.

  I trip over every emotion rushing through me. Surprise, anger, and a rush of adrenaline hit me all at once. Questions swirl around my mind, but by sitting here, I won’t get any answers to them. Only one person can provide those, and I’ll be damned if he’s not going to start talking.

  “Tara, I have to go.” Even to myself, my voice isn’t convincing.

  “Why do you sound really pissed?”

  “I’ll call you after I deal with this first.”

  “Please don’t get in trouble.”

  I let out a bark of a laugh. “No promises.” When it comes to my emotions today, I can’t make them. He crossed over the proverbial line. “Keep your phone on you just in case.”

  “In case of what?”

  “In case I need bail money.”

  “Naomi—”

  I hang up before she can finish her sentence. I don’t need to feel guilty—I don’t want someone calming me down. All I want to do is scream at the top of my lungs. And I will get what I want. Right here and now.

  X deserves the wrath I plan to unleash on him today, and not a damn thing is going to stop me.

  My hand throbs with each pound I give his damn oak door. I wish it was his face I was pummeling. I want to put bruises on his perfect fucking features.

  Before the door is even open a crack, I storm my way through. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you? This whole thing was planned.” I speak before I can even give him a glance. My inner voice demanding the answers on its own, the ones from his very lips.

  X doesn’t move, startled by my appearance. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about you writing for Dylan. The song you wrote, that I sang, you fucking wrote it. I sang words about the damn ring and didn’t have a fucking clue. Did you tell them to hire me? Did you have your hand in everything I’ve ever touched?”