by Cari Quinn
“I am too. Nick and I haven’t had a Christmas together for real since we were kids.”
Lila shook her head at herself. Ricki deserved a nice holiday with her brother. Nick needed time with his sister more than he even knew. Perhaps he needed time with everyone, since he’d invited the universe to their intimate Christmas with her family.
There she was again, fretting for no reason. She enjoyed group gatherings. Last year all she’d wanted was to be part of the gang. This year she’d been hoping for a different type of holiday, one where Nick became enmeshed in her close family, but this was just as good.
Better even, because they had forever for him to get to know her parents and vice versa. The whole engagement flop was just a speed bump.
And Deacon would get Nick and Simon to stop sniping at each other and throwing fists. Actually, this was the perfect segue for Oblivion going back into the studio. This way they’d be all warmed up and familiar again when it came time for them to gel behind their instruments.
Christmas magic would lead to magic shooting out from every other damn place.
Lila plastered a smile on her face. “I’m thrilled you’re coming. It’s going to be the best holiday ever.”
16
Nick
“Do you remember that time we broke into that abandoned house on Sulfur Street and used it for our practice space until we got kicked out?”
Sullenly, Nick stared at the wall. “I broke in. I was the criminal.”
“No arguing that,” Deacon said easily. “Just saying we had your back. We sat down next to you and played our guitars just like you did. Simon even slept there a time or two.”
“Better than going home to good ol’ Dad.” Simon’s voice was about as sour as Nick’s own. His gaze was centered on the ceiling, something Nick only saw because he lifted his head long enough to glare at the jerk.
They were spread out around the room, as far apart as three people could be while still contained in the same space. Yet Nick still couldn’t settle. Couldn’t sit still. He wanted a cigarette, needed a shower.
Ached to be anywhere than there.
“And remember Mr. Hatchett? How he’d come outside shaking that broom to chase Nick away when he’d be sitting out on the stoop, smoking. Simon would always come out to distract him, chatting him up about the craziest shit. His houseplants, his cats. He had like twenty, remember?”
“They were nicer than he was. I liked those cats. One of them was named George.” Simon braced his arms behind his head where he was stretched out on the bed. Deak had the chair, Nick the spot by the French doors.
Closest to escape.
“Is that how you named George?” Deak shook his head. “Those cats were all nuts.”
“Sure was. Nah, just required a certain touch. Cats are like women. You stroke them just right, they purr.” Simon jerked a shoulder. “You grab their tail before they’re ready for you to get handsy, they hiss. Ain’t no big.”
“So you think people are like that too? That maybe you gotta ease them in. Can’t come in guns blazing and fix things. You have to use a certain touch.”
Nick swiveled to glare at Deak. “I’m not a damn cat.”
“Who said I was talking about you?”
“It was pretty obvious, Sigmund. I appreciate it. Really.” Nick pushed off the wall and grabbed his notebook and pencil off the table. If he couldn’t smoke, he needed something in his hands. “Just think we’re past that point is all.”
“Are we? Seems like figuring out how to approach a rational conversation would be better than destroying each other before we go in the studio. You were like brothers.”
“Were,” Simon said. “Right, Nicky? You were so quick to say that outside. Were.”
Nick dug his fingers into the coils of his notebook. He didn’t need any more wounds, but he couldn’t just stand there and listen. He especially couldn’t talk about his feelings or some shit. Not with them. Not now.
Maybe not ever.
“You made your choice,” he said evenly once he was sure his voice wouldn’t crack.
The wall inside him was holding too many things back. Losing his father, his band, Simon. Almost all at the same time. Eventually the bricks would give way, and everything would come pouring out.
He only hoped Lila didn’t drown in the aftermath.
Not him. He’d been through worse and survived. He always made it through somehow. But this thing he had with Lila was still so new, and they hadn’t made promises to each other yet. Ones stronger than the flood of bullshit that could break them.
Break him, if he didn’t have her. She was his glue. His harmony. His life.
And he’d let her propose to him without giving her an answer. Without telling her he loved her more than he’d ever imagined he could love anything, including his music. The thing that had made him whole in all the broken places paled in comparison to what he held inside him for her.
“Choices change. You should know that better than anyone. Two years ago, we were still fucking girls together.”
“Maybe we could just stick to—”
“I’m not sure we ever did anything together. In the same space, maybe. You always preferred the front, so the chick could get off to your pretty face.”
“At least I can come without getting all fucking angsty about it. Oh yeah, that’s right. You get fucking angsty about everything. Pussy included.”
“Then there was that time we crashed the winter choral concert. Mrs. Farrell threw us out of the building for trying to get the band to play ‘Stairway to Heaven’ instead of ‘Amazing Grace.’”
“I was your wingman. The support staff to the Simon Kagan show. I liked it. Hell, fucking the girls you were done with wasn’t any kind of hardship. God knows I couldn’t charm them into sticking around like you always did.”
Deak cleared his throat. “Yeah, okay, guess we’re going there.”
“Am I supposed to apologize because women preferred someone who gave them a good time instead of a date with a therapist?”
Nick tossed aside his notebook. “Yeah, well, funny thing is, you’re the one who ended up at a therapist. At least according to the Tattler. I wouldn’t know, of course, since you tossed me out of your life.” Simon paled under his tan and Nick had a moment of regret before he squashed it under the urge to strike. To harm as he’d been harmed. “Was that supposed to be a secret? Oopsy.”
Simon’s jaw turned to granite. “They’re full of shit. I never saw a therapist. I worked with a coach for my voice. It was a physical ailment. Beyond my control.”
“Sure thing, Pavarotti. Lord knows you couldn’t have any emotional stuff going on. You’re too well-adjusted, right? That kind of thing belongs to me, the fuck-up.”
“When you came to school with a cut lip, Nick had me punch him in the eye so you could tell everyone you two had been in a fight rather than the truth. That your father had hit you. Again.”
Nick crossed his arms. “Yep. I did that.”
“And when you were trying to put together your first band, Simon cashed in every favor he had to try to get people to join because you’d gotten in fights with half the school.”
Simon kicked out his feet. “It took a lot of favors. Most people hated the broody fuck.”
“When Snake started using again, and we were sure that Oblivion was done, when I was sure it was done, you two wouldn’t let me believe it. You were going to rule the world. Everyone else could just go eat worms.”
“Pretty sure we didn’t say that.”
“Toddler speak kicking in,” Simon muttered.
“You always had each other’s backs. Against everyone and everything. Never against each other. If someone had asked me who I thought would always be friends, it would’ve been the two of you.”
Nick said nothing. What could he say? He’d once thought the same.
“We already lost one of the guys we grew up with. The kind of lost that has no second chances. There’s no coming ba
ck from that.”
“Don’t. I can’t think about Snake right now. That maybe even without meaning to, I did to him what—” Nick broke off and cracked his knuckles. “I can’t.”
Simon cursed under his breath. “You were going to say what I did to you, weren’t you?”
“I didn’t make time for him anymore. I cut him off.” He didn’t say the rest, because Simon knew.
Everyone knew Simon had walked away from the band and their friendship and at this point, even talking about it felt redundant.
“You make it all about you. It wasn’t.” Simon shoved to his feet. “I fucking bled out right on stage. What if it happened to you? What if someone severed your fucking hand? If you saw everything you’d ever worked for stain the floor and not know if you’d ever begin to get it back?” He gulped in a breath and stared at the ceiling. “I thought I was done. If I can’t sing, I’m not anything. I’m less than nothing, because everyone keeps reminding me of what I used to be.”
“But you can sing.” When Simon didn’t respond, Nick pressed on. “Right? You have your voice back.”
Simon didn’t answer. Didn’t even look his way.
“Nick was right at your side. He stood with Margo and waited for news. We all did, but it was different for the two of them. He got your blood on him. If that doesn’t matter more than whatever grievances you have with each other, then maybe there’s nothing else to say.” Deak dusted off his hands as if he was putting the whole matter to rest.
Nick wished it was that easy for him.
“Look, it’s Christmas. If you can’t figure shit out now, maybe just table it. We gotta go back in the studio soon. The brass at Ripper are going to be watching. We’ll be under the microscope. Bringing this into the box will just contaminate everything for all of us.”
“All right by me,” Simon said.
“So push it under the rug.” Nick nodded and braced his hands behind his neck, cracking his knuckles. “Sure. Fine. I’ve got more important stuff to deal with anyway.”
Deacon rose. “Important stuff like Lila?”
“Yeah. Last night was a shitshow. I gotta fix it.”
“I suggest flowers and chocolate.”
“Or a night of romance.” Simon waggled his brows, but it didn’t have the usual punch.
They were all acting, and it couldn’t have been more obvious. But what the hell. The band was getting back together. He had Lila. The situation with Simon wasn’t resolved, and maybe it wouldn’t ever be.
And maybe he’d just have to live with that.
“Not gonna do it this time. I have to step up to the plate in a big way.” Nick stood and paced to pick up his notebook. He’d thrown the pencil too. Like a kid having a temper tantrum.
And he really thought he was ready to spend forever with someone? To build a family?
Fuck yes, he was. So he wasn’t perfect. Neither was Simon or Deacon, and they both had committed relationships. So did Gray.
Besides, he and Lila had made it for a year, right? Only another fifty or so to go.
He folded the notebook in his good hand. “Thanks for the talk, man. Appreciate it.” He spared them both a glance. “It’s the holidays. Let’s be merry and shit.”
Deacon rose and clapped Simon on the back. “Guess that’s our cue to go.”
“Yeah.” Simon waited until Deak had left, then he raked a hand through his hair and turned back. “If you’d rather Margo and I not be here, we can go. I’ll make up some excuse and no one will know any different. This is your deal. Your family’s place.”
He nearly gave his standard answer. I don’t have a family. That was what he’d always said back when he’d been estranged from Ricki and his pop and he hadn’t had a steady girlfriend unless he painted red lips on his right hand and called it Susie.
But Simon was right about one thing. A lot had changed in the past two years. He wasn’t running away, and he wasn’t going to pretend he had no one to love or who loved him.
“Yes, it is. You’re family too.” Nick swallowed hard. “No matter what, you’re still family. Until the day Oblivion ends.”
He waited for Simon to say Oblivion would never end, but no answer came. The next time he looked at the doorway, it was empty.
He set down his notebook and pencil on the table. Grinding his palms into his eyes didn’t make the blurriness fade, so he grabbed his bottle of prescribed painkillers.
Way too appropriate for this situation, really.
That was what family did. Leave bruises and marks and inflict pain. Some visible, some not. Some temporary, some oh so fucking permanent.
He shook out a couple pills and swallowed them dry. Then he strode into the bathroom, shedding his jeans as he went. He wasn’t going to sit around and mope like some jackass. He was a man of action. A damn warrior wearing badges of bandages and bruises.
On the way into the shower, he grabbed Lila’s handy travel shower radio. He scrolled in an attempt to find something palatable but all he could get in clearly was eighties music. Eh, whatever. He could handle it.
Turning on the water on high and hot, he stepped under the spray. And started to sing along with the radio, loud enough to block out the voices in his head.
The ones that told him he couldn’t do this. Couldn’t do any of it.
Because this time he could. He would.
He was going to get himself engaged, for fuck’s sake.
17
Simon
His head felt like a cantaloupe in a vise. He knew Deacon had only been trying to help. It was his nature as diplomat and friend. Even if they hadn’t been treating Deacon like a friend for a damn long time.
How the hell had they gotten to this?
It wasn’t just his damn voice—though that was a huge portion of this fucked-up situation. But they’d just faded out of each other’s lives way too easily. He understood that a kid and a wife was a major factor in how life changed drastically.
But the trip down memory lane had felt like it was for another person. And he wasn’t. Not really. He knew the difference between a silk blend and an old concert tee—and he still preferred wearing the concert tee, thank fuck—but other than that, he thought he’d stayed pretty much the same.
Now he really wasn’t so sure.
Could a year away from his best friends create an ocean this freaking large? Evidently so.
The lodge had become home base for most of the craziness that was Christmas. He climbed the steps to his room with Margo, tugging his sweater over his head as he opened the door.
“Don’t stop on my account.”
Simon pulled the sweater over his head the rest of the way. “My favorite pain in the ass. How’s it going, Juliet?”
His sort of sister-in-law was sprawled across their bed, her feet swinging as she lay on her stomach flipping through a notebook. “Pretty good. Merry Merry and all that happy horseshit.”
“Merry Christmas to you too, pita.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Where’s Mags?”
“Good question. Oh, and even better one, how’d you get in here?”
“It wasn’t locked. I let myself in.”
“And you don’t see the error in your ways there?”
She licked the tip of her finger and turned the page. “Nope.”
He crossed to the trunk that he’d stashed his bag on and pulled out a thermal shirt. Normally he didn’t care what he was wearing around anyone, but Juliet screamed trouble.
He snapped it out and she grinned at him. “Lookin’ good.”
“Inappropriate.”
“Like you’ve had an appropriate day in your life.”
Simon shrugged. “Truth.” He pulled the red shirt over his head and down over his belt. Voila, festivus. He nodded to the notebook. “You don’t seem the Dear Diary type.”
“You would be right.” She flipped the pages and he noticed that it was definitely more of a lyric book. A bit more girly than the one he kept, but one just the s
ame. “It’s Molly’s song book.”
Right in one. “And she let you have it?” He put his hands on his hips. “You didn’t take it, did you?”
“No, asshole. I’m here to actually talk things over with my sister, but you’ll do.”
“Gee thanks.”
“Well, you were a rockstar once upon a time, right?”
Simon swallowed the snarl. “Once upon a time, yes.”
She looked up from the notebook and he caught the wince before she slapped on one of her sassy smiles. “Anyway. She got me thinking.”
“Never a good plan.”
“Har-har.”
He sat down on the couch across from the bed. “So, thinky thoughts…”
“Right. Well, the band—Moll’s band.”
She liked to think so from what he heard, but Simon didn’t disabuse Juliet of the idea. Molly already had a bit of lead singer’s disease. He remembered the side effects very clearly.
“Well, they lost their bassist. He kinda walked.”
“There’s no kinda, Jules.”
She rolled into a seated position and crossed her legs. “I think it was a mutual thing. Dude thought he was Geddy Lee, and he so wasn’t.”
Simon’s eyebrows shot up. “You know who Geddy Lee is?”
She squinted at him. “Dude, everyone knows who Geddy Lee is.”
He wished that were the case, but he let it go.
“Anyway. They need a bassist and so…”
He sat back and stretched out his legs. “You play?”
She shrugged. “I play everything.”
“That’s a broad statement.”
“Piano, guitar, violin, harp,” she ticked them off on her fingers, “harpsichord, flute, ukulele—”
“Ukulele? Really?”
Margo opened the door. Her lips pursed as she looked from her sister to him.
“Good enough for Eddie Vedder.” She shrugged. “So I learned one afternoon. Hey, Mags.”
“And you could play it in one day?”