Full Tilt Duet Box Set

by Emma Scott

  “She was bleeding in the parking lot,” Dena said. “The pain was enough to make her pass out. Theo, I don’t…”

  “She was bleeding?” I sat in silence for a moment, trying to process this.

  Dena gripped my hand harder. “I don’t know what to say, Theo. I’m sorry. I’m still…kind of in shock.”

  I sat back in the seat as if I were being pushed by a huge, heavy weight. It was crushing my chest, crushing the life out of me. Time ticked on and on, with no sign or word from anyone who could tell me what the hell was going on. My parents arrived with Oscar, and I left it to Dena to tell them what she told me. My mother came to sit next to me. She held my hand but I didn’t hold back. I sat in the chair, staring at nothing.

  If something’s happened to her…If I lose her too…

  If I lost Kacey, I was going to lay down on the floor and not get up. I was done. Nothing left. I’d finally reconciled losing my brother. I couldn’t survive losing her too.

  “Are you here for Kacey Dawson?” a voice asked.

  A doctor stood there, his face grim. Here it was. The moment. In another ten seconds this man was going to tell me how the rest of my life was going to be.

  Stand up for her, I told myself. Stand up, one last time.

  I found my armor. The old suit of mental chain mail. It was like slipping on an old coat. I stood up and pushed forward on leaden legs, my heart thudding a dull, heavy pang in my chest.

  “I’m here for her,” I said.

  The doctor was young man, early thirties maybe, with sharp blue eyes behind glasses and tanned skin.

  A wimp, my tortured brain declared. No way this guy is going to destroy me. I’ve faced down doctors before and their bad news. I can take this guy.

  A pathetic bravado but it was all I had to stem the tide of terror ripping through me.

  “I’m Dr. Barron. I’m the head of Obstetrics and Gynecology. I was among the surgery team to assist Ms. Dawson.”

  “And?” I said. “How is she?”

  “She’s doing well. Stable now. She suffered a ruptured fallopian tube due to an ectopic pregnancy. Are you familiar with the term?”

  My brain was hugging doing well and stable and screaming in relief. I nodded and sucked in a breath, tried to listen over the rush of blood in my ears.

  “The embryo never made it to her uterus. It implanted in the left fallopian tube and began to grow. The tube then ruptured, which necessitated surgery to fix the rupture and stop the internal bleeding. She’s not out of the woods quite yet, but her prognosis is promising and her vital signs are strong. I see nothing to indicate she wouldn’t make a full recovery. We’ll keep her here a few days, at minimum, to ensure there are no further complications.”

  The doctor’s face took on a grave expression and he looked at me. “Are you her husband?”

  “I’m the father,” I said softly. “Was…the father.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Dr. Barron said. “Ectopic never has a happy ending. It’s almost unheard of for a fetus to survive tubal implantation. On the other hand, a ruptured fallopian tube is a serious medical emergency. At this time, I’m confident Kacey’s going to be fine, and most likely she’ll still be able to have children.”

  She’s going to be fine. I clung to those words like a drowning man in a hurricane. My pulse slowed, anchored down now by the other half of his news.

  “Can I see her?”

  “She’s being moved from post-surgery to recovery. I’ll have a nurse tell you when she’s ready, though she’ll likely be quite groggy from the anesthesia.”

  I sat back down in the chair, my leg jumping.

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” my mother said.

  I didn’t look at her or anyone else. I kept my gaze fixed on the nurses’ station, following them as they went about their business, inwardly commanding one of them to come and find me and tell me I could see Kacey. So I could tell her the baby was gone.

  Goddammit, she’s lost enough.

  Finally, one nurse separated herself from the desk and came toward me.

  “You can see her now.”

  My beautiful girl looked to be asleep as I pulled a chair beside her. Her face was pale against the white pillow. But her eyes fluttered when I took her hand. My chest was filled with a relief so profound, it made me dizzy, even as my heart broke for her. For both of us.

  “Hey, baby,” I said, my voice gruff.

  Kacey turned her head to me, and smiled a funny, pained smile. I could see the anesthesia was still dragging at her, clouding the usual sharpness in her eyes.

  “He says…she’s fine,” Kacey mumbled. “She’s safe. We don’t have to worry…”

  “Shh,” I said. She didn’t know. I wouldn’t tell her now. Not while she was half asleep. “Just rest,” I whispered.

  I held her hands as she drifted back into sleep. Staring at the white sheets, listening to the machine that monitored her heart, I felt the weight of it all—the relief, the grief, the guilt she had to suffer another loss. All of it pressed down on me, cracking my armor, stealing my air. I felt dizzy with the tempest of emotions that battered me like a hurricane. I had no Tarot card, no silly toy to shake and give me an answer. It was too much. So much easier to push it down, lock it all back up. I needed help. I needed my brother…

  Kacey’s head moved weakly against the pillow. “Jonah,” she said.

  I swallowed hard. “It’s Theo, honey.”

  It’s me. Not him. I’m here now. Don’t you remember?

  She opened her eyes. They were clearer now, and the corners of her mouth lifted in a funny little smile. Not doped-up but patient. “Jonah says she’s safe.”

  Her hand reached up to touch my face.

  “Jonah?” I whispered.

  “She’s safe with him, Teddy…”

  The smile still on her face, she fell asleep again.

  I fell asleep with my head on the sheet, and woke to Kacey whispering my name. She was fully awake now, the grief shining in her eyes. We held each other, her tears falling to stain the hospital sheets. I felt each one, each shake of her body against mine, like a knife cutting me, leaving scars I’d carry for the rest of my life.

  “I’m sorry, Kace,” I said. “I’m sorry you had to go through this. I’m so fucking sorry.”

  “Don’t, Teddy. She was ours. Together. Don’t try to take it all. Not this time.” She clutched my hand in hers. “Stay here with me.”

  I nodded, let it go on a ragged sigh before it could bury me again. “Okay, baby. I will. I’m here.”

  She smiled then, the most heartbreaking sight I’d ever seen, as tears spilled down her cheeks. “We can’t go back to how it was before. We have to say everything in our hearts.” She turned her head to me on the pillow. “I was so happy for this baby. Thinking it could show you how much I love you. I was so afraid you’d never know how much. How deep it runs. Worried some small part of you would always doubt or wonder.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t wonder. Or worry. I love you. You’re my fucking world.” I started to come undone again. “You’re my entire world. My …”

  “Universe,” Kacey whispered, her fingers brushing my cheek softly. “You’re my universe. I love you, Teddy…”

  She sighed then, as if content, her eyes closed. “He was right about everything,” she said. “We have so much love in us. No end to it.”

  She slept then, and I held her hand as my tears fell unheeded.

  Love had no end. She was infinite. She was a universe, my universe, and I was hers.

  Love had no boundaries, no rules, no favorites.

  And no limits.

  Kacey

  I stared at the hospital ceiling, my room quiet but for the heart monitor they attached me to. I had forced Theo to go the cafeteria and eat something. He’d left, reluctantly, and Oscar and Dena, Beverly and Henry had taken turns visiting me, offering me sweet words and their love, but I was grateful when they left.

  My lower abdomen felt hea
vy from the surgery; a deep ache that protested when I moved.

  How can it feel so heavy when there’s nothing there?

  A pall of sadness hung over me, but it was nebulous and shifting. A shred of a memory from the fog of anesthesia kept trying to find me, but every time I grasped for it, it retreated back. I wanted to remember…because it was good. It brought me a peace, even the whisper of it I managed to catch.

  Jonah…

  My door opened and a nurse, Carla, peeked her head in. “Are you up for one more visitor? I was going to tell her you needed to rest but she said she’s your mother.”

  I stared, my fingers curling around the sheets. “My…mother?”

  Carla pushed open the door. I saw the flowers first, columns of blue bonnets nestled with baby’s breath. My favorite when I was a little girl.

  My mother stepped into the room, holding the bouquet. Her eyes met mine and whatever had happened between us, however many years of separation were all erased. I just wanted her.

  I held my arms out to my mom, and she quickly set the flowers down while Carla softly closed the door behind her. My mom bent over me, holding me carefully.

  “Oh, my sweet baby,” she whispered against my hair. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry”

  I cried against her, inhaled her. She smelled of Shalimar perfume—her favorite. My arms remember what it was like to hold her and be held by her. I was thrust back in time to other moments when I’d been a scared little girl who’d wanted nothing more than to be comforted by her mother. And she’d been there…until she wasn’t.

  My mom pulled away, and sat in the chair Theo had been living in for the past day and a half. She dabbed her eyes with a tissue from the box beside my bed, and huffed a deep breath.

  “I have so much to tell you, to explain,” she said in her feathery voice. “You deserve the truth. I wanted to tell you, so badly, when you were there, in our house. I couldn’t believe you were really there. The years….” She shook her head. “Once so much time has slipped by, it becomes easier and easier to let it. But when I saw you…I felt every second of those seven years, and it nearly crushed me to know you’d felt them too. I made plans that very day to fly here, to find you. I told your father…” She swallowed hard, her eyes remembering the moment she spoke of, “I told him enough was enough. That I was going with or without him.”

  Hope flared in my heart. “Is he…?”

  She shook her head. “He’s walled himself so deep and so thick, I don’t know that he’ll ever find his way out. “

  I nodded. “What happened to us, Mom? What happened with Dad…?”

  She cast her gaze down to her hands twisting in her lap. “He never wanted children. We agreed when we got married that we wouldn’t. I was a shy young woman, and he was the first man to show me any interest or love. He was my only chance, my father kept telling me, and I knew he was right. But I loved Jim too. I did. I agreed we wouldn’t have children but deep down I wanted one. I wanted you.”

  She shook her head. “But even after five empty years of marriage, I was too weak to say I’d changed my mind. I didn’t sabotage him. He thought I did, but it just happened. You happened and I was so happy.”

  “He acts like he hates me,” I whispered.

  Tears spilled over her eyes. “He doesn’t. I know he doesn’t. He’s afraid. He married a woman—me—whom he never had to fear would leave him, and he kept you at arm’s length your whole life, so he wouldn’t have to feel anything real. There is a piece of him that is broken, but I still have hope that it can be repaired. Some day. In the meanwhile…” She smiled at me, brushed the hair from my eyes. “You have me. I’m sorry. I hope that’s enough.”

  “Yeah, Mom,” I whispered, reaching for her. “It’s more than enough. It’s everything.”

  Kacey

  They released me from the hospital a week later and for the next month, Theo threw himself into his work, remaking the old Vegas Ink into something entirely his. His vision. His legacy. The one he could keep after the other had been lost.

  The ache of losing the baby hung between us, and I knew despite what Theo promised, he was retreating into his armor, rebuilding walls.

  He loved me. I felt it in every beat of his heart against mine. It kept me warm when I slept wrapped in his arms. His grasp on me never loosened, not even in deep sleep. Always on guard. Always vigilant. He took on everything, shouldering the burden alone so those he loved didn’t have to.

  Early one morning, I woke and the first feeling that hit me—the one Yvonne said held the truth—settled on the still-bare skin of my shoulder. The space that belonged to Teddy, empty and waiting.

  I woke him with a kiss. “The shop is done, isn’t?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Finished yesterday.”

  “I’m going to sing at your reopening,” I said. “Grant and Phoebe said the press release was getting a ton of buzz. You’ll have a huge crowd.”

  “Of course,” he said. “You’re so talented, babe. They’ll line up down the block to see you.”

  “And you,” I said. “Your art is astonishing. It’s you, your heart and soul.” I traced the tense line of his jaw, wishing I could make the hard edges melt away. “I know what tattoo I want.”

  “You do? What is it?”

  I sat up, tugged his hand. “Come on. I’ll tell you when we get there.”

  My heart swelled with pride as Theo unlocked the door of the shop and I stepped inside. Vegas Ink was no more. Theo had knocked down the wall between it and the nail salon, creating a wide entry. The black-and-white checkered tiles and red walls were gone, replaced by gray hardwood. The entry walls were covered with darker gray wallpaper with a repeating fleur de lis pattern. On them were hung large glass displays of tattoo samples, framed in tomato red. An overstuffed vinyl sofa in the same red color sat against the wall beside the reception desk.

  I picked up the Magic 8 Ball there gave it a shake. “Has Teddy become a believer in messages from the Other Side?” I watched for the reply and turned it toward him: It is certain.

  He smirked. “It is certain that ball belongs to Vivian.”

  I smiled, then tugged his hands. “Show me the rest.”

  He took my hand and led me further into the space. The hardwood floors continued to four tattoo stations, each with a black reclining chairs and smaller, matching chairs for the artist. Prints by Ann Harper and Ted Gahl were interspersed on the dark green walls with more tattoo samples displays.

  The entire place was elegant but edgy, masculine to reflect its owner, but not intimidating.

  “It’s beautiful.” I wrapped my arms around his neck. “I’m so proud of you. Have I said that yet?”

  “Once or twice.”

  His tone was teasing but his smile faded quickly. He led me to his station, and readied a paper and blue ink pen, from his desk.

  “So,” he said. “Do you want…” He cleared his throat. “Something to do with the baby? Or maybe Jo—”

  “I want your blue butterfly,”

  Theo frowned, and his eyes looked away, toward the past. “You mean the blue butterfly from that old story? When Jonah and I were kids?”

  “The imaginary butterfly that got away.”

  He sat back in his chair. “Why?”

  “Because it’s everything you are. You’re strong and brave, and you’d take all the pain if it meant making those you love feel it less. You shoulder that burden by yourself. You put on armor and put up walls. But inside, you have this gentle, loving soul. A goodness running down the core of you, all along that steel strength. I want that on my body. The essence of you. I love you, Teddy. I want your love with me, imbedded in my skin for all the days of my life.”

  “Permanent,” Theo whispered.

  I nodded. “For always.”

  Before he could say another word, I climbed into his lap and kissed him hard and deep. He responded with a small intake of breath, and I felt the tension coiled in his body fall away. He kissed me with all his f
ire and the passion. I felt it come roaring back to life, warming the parts of me that had gone cold after what we’d lost.

  “Kacey,” he breathed. “I love you. God, I love you so much.”

  “I love you,” I said against his mouth, my hands reaching to undo the buttons on my blouse. I stripped off my shirt, then unclasped my bra. I kissed Theo a final time, then let my clothes fall to the floor and lay facedown on his tattoo chair.

  “I’m ready.”

  He frowned. “I have to sketch it out. Show you…”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to see it.”

  Theo’s eyes widened. I saw the pulse dance in the hollow of his throat. “You want me to tattoo it on you, sight unseen?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Why?

  “I want that butterfly exactly as you imagined it. Nothing from me to alter or change what it was. No sketch. No stencil. I want your art, Teddy. I’m your canvas.”

  He stared at me a moment more. “No stencil. Freehand?”

  I smiled. “Are you this difficult with all your clients?”

  “Only the crazy ones,” he said, and in his laugh I heard that he was going to be okay.

  I waited while he put on his plastic gloves and stack of soft cloths to wipe away excess ink and blood, readied his needles and inks. I turned my head so I wouldn’t see the colors he chose. A few minutes later, I heard his chair groan as he stood, and I felt him over me. Soft lips pressed a kiss to my shoulder blade.

  “Ready?” he said, his breath hot on my skin.

  I turned my head. I wanted to watch him work. “I’m ready.”

  Theo leaned over me from his chair, the gun buzzed, and I felt his hand rest on my skin a split second before the sharp bite of the needle. It had been years since I’d had a tattoo, but the pain was familiar. A deep, stinging ache. A good tattoo artist new exactly when to relent, to wipe the blood and excess ink and then go again.

  Theo was more than good.

  I watched him, watched his eyes—intent on my skin—his movements sure and steady, his own tattooed arms holding the gun, muscles tight against the short sleeve of his shirt.