Redeem

by Rachel Schurig

  “You know what, I got this,” I say, moving to stand.

  “What?” Paige cries, looking like I’ve cheated her out of a great prize. “You’re not going to let us help you?”

  “I think it will be more meaningful if I plan it myself. And it’s like you said,” I nod in Daisy’s direction. “I do know what she likes.”

  “We can still help you,” Daisy says, her voice cajoling. “If you’re in a hurry you can use a few extra sets of fingers to make phone calls, right?”

  I look between the two of them, their faces painfully hopeful, and laugh. “Fine, you freaks. Here, hand me that computer.”

  I know exactly what I want to do this weekend. And, best of all, I know that Sam will love it, too.

  ***

  “So the first thing you need to know is that I’ve never done something like this.”

  Sam looks over at me before turning her attention back to the view outside the windshield. “See, I was thinking the first thing I needed to know is where in the hell we’re going.”

  I smirk. “I’ll get to that. I just don’t want you to freak out, is all.”

  “Okay, now I am freaking out. What do you have planned?” She clutches my arm in mock panic. “Are you taking me to a sex club?”

  “Silly Samantha. I said it was something I’ve never done before.”

  “Gross!” she cries, hitting my arm as I cackle. “You are gross, mister!”

  I grab her hand before she can hit me again and squeeze it. “I’m joking.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past you,” she mutters, and I can hear the grin in her voice even as she turns to look out the window. “You’re a pretty depraved individual.”

  “Well, there’s no depravity planned for this weekend, sadly. But it is a little over-the-top.”

  “Did Paige help you?”

  It’s my turn to stare at her—a bad move considering I’m driving. “How did you know that?”

  “Because you said it’s over-the-top.”

  I snort. “Okay, they helped a little. Making calls and stuff. But it was all my idea.”

  “Aw, Cash. That’s so sweet.”

  “You know me. Everyone is always talking about what a sweet, romantic, innocent guy I am.”

  She affects a loud, fake laugh. “Stop, stop. You’re killin’ me.”

  I can’t wipe the smile off my face as I continue toward our destination. This was exactly what I was hoping for—just chilling with her. Making her laugh—even a fake, mocking laugh—when I know her day started with a decided lack of laughter.

  When I pulled up in front of her apartment she was waiting outside for me and I wondered if she’d found it hard to stay inside. She’d told me once that the quiet bothered her the most after Wyatt left—was that what had driven her to wait on the cold stoop? Her face was tight and expressionless and it was hard to look at her eyes.

  But now, only a half-hour later, she’s laughing and teasing me. The change in her makes my chest feel all warm, just the way I felt last night when Dad told us how well we’d done. It’s pride, I realize. Pride that I can do that to her.

  And why does that make me so happy? How is it that even with every over-the-top thing I’ve planned this afternoon, this car ride is still the most fun time I can imagine having, the two of us just sitting here, talking. A little voice in the back of my head, that happens to sound suspiciously like Lennon, tells me that it’s pretty obvious why that would be, but I push it away.

  “Are we going to the airport?” she suddenly asks, sitting up straight.

  “Maybe.”

  She turns to stare at me, open mouthed. “Cash…”

  “I warned you.”

  She settles back into her seat, arms crossed, and shakes her head. “I hope you didn’t spend a bunch of money.”

  “I didn’t,” I say quickly, and it’s not a lie. I would classify it more as a butt load of money.

  I follow the directions Daisy wrote down to bypass the normal airport traffic and take us to the hanger of a private jet. She had called our tour manager, Dan, and she assured me he could pull some strings to get us a charter on short notice. I only hope that it’s all gone off as planned—it would be pretty embarrassing at this point to turn around.

  “Holy shit,” Sam mutters, pressing her face to the glass. A sleek jet is sitting outside of the hanger, waiting for us. “Is that what we’re taking?”

  “Sure is.”

  An attendant motions for me to park several yards from the plane and I turn off the ignition before turning to Sam. She’s staring at me, wide-eyed. “I don’t know if I can let you do this.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s too much.”

  I reach for her hands, wanting her to understand. “Remember what I said, about never having done this before?”

  She nods, her mouth opening and closing several times as if she wants to say something but can’t find the words.

  “I meant that, Sam. I’ve never done anything like this at all. Sure, we travel all the time, but it’s almost always for work. The few trips I’ve taken since all this went down have been with my whole family. Any time I splurge on something,” I swallow, not really wanting to admit the next part, “it’s always been in an effort to party or score.”

  She looks away, and I wonder if there might be a shade of jealousy on her face.

  “So believe me when I tell you that this means something to me, okay? I’m not just doing it to cheer you up, even though I hope it does. I’m doing it for me, too, I promise. The chance to use some of this money to do something that really matters—”

  “Why does it really matter? What makes this different than any other vacation you’ve ever taken?”

  “You’re here,” I say simply.

  She’s silent for a long time, studying my face. Finally she smiles—it’s small and a little shy but it totally takes my breath away.

  “Okay. I’m in.”

  ***

  The flight to Los Angeles takes two and a half hours. I’ve been on a private plane a few times before, usually with bigwigs from the record label, but I’ve never been on a private plane with Sam. She wants to explore every nook and cranny, insists on sitting in each of the seats to find out which one is most comfortable, and laughs hysterically when the flight attendant tells her they’re equipped to make whatever we want for dinner.

  “The last time I flew anywhere was home from the base,” she says. “I was squished between two guys that could have played cornerback in the NFL and one of them fell asleep on my shoulder. The only food they served was a measly little bag of peanuts.”

  I’m so relieved that she’s having fun. I’m having fun. Her enthusiasm is contagious, and I find that I’m very nearly giggling right along with her, a sound I’m sure I haven’t made since I was a toddler. It’s a good thing my brothers aren’t here.

  Eventually she finds her way to the small bedroom at the back of the plane. She plops down on to the plush mattress, giggling when it bounces, and props her head up on her arm to look at me, eyebrows high. “Are you seriously telling me you’ve never done this with any of your groupies?”

  “Done what?”

  “Rented a private plane to whisk them off somewhere.”

  “Nope. Why would I?”

  “Because you like to show off?”

  I plop onto the mattress next to her and she shifts over a few inches so that I can lie down, too. We both lie flat on our backs, looking up at the small crystal chandelier over our heads. “I like to show off, but I’ve never been with anyone special enough for something like this.”

  “Until me.”

  I grin up at the ceiling. “Until you.”

  I feel her hand brush against mine and I turn my palm slightly so that it’s touching hers. It’s only barely holding hands, but for now, it’s enough.

  “How many were there?”

  I turn my head at that to look at her. “How many what?”

  She rolls her eyes. �
�Girls. Groupies. How many conquests?”

  I turn back to look at the ceiling. “I’m not answering that.”

  “Why not? We talk about everything else.”

  “Not that.”

  She sighs, the sound frustrated. “Why?”

  “Because I’m afraid you’ll be disgusted by me.”

  She laces her fingers through mine, squeezing my hand. “Not going to happen, buddy.”

  “I don’t keep track,” I say, my voice quiet. “But if I did the number would be…substantial.”

  “In the…dozens?”

  I nod.

  “But not the hundreds.”

  I laugh. “I’m twenty-five for God’s sake. How many hours do you think there are in the day?”

  She giggles.

  “What?”

  “I just realized that I’m older than you.”

  I turn to her. I’d figured as much when she presented her eight-year-old kid. “You didn’t know that?”

  She shakes her head, eyes bright. “I thought you were like, thirty.”

  I shove her shoulder, faking outrage. “Do I look thirty?”

  She giggles again but then the sound fades away. “Do you regret it?”

  “What?”

  “The…substantial number of groupies.”

  I shrug against the mattress. “Sometimes. Sometimes I regretted it even while it was happening.”

  “So why did you keep it up?

  “Probably for the same reasons that you had to fight to not have a meltdown this afternoon.” I pause. “Sometimes I don’t like myself very much. Sometimes I’m lonely. Sometimes I’m just bored. Most of the time I think I’m looking to make my life a certain way.”

  “The carefree rock star.”

  I nod, turning to look at her. She’s facing me, too, her eyes steady and calm. “It never really turned out the way I thought it would.”

  She squeezes my hand again, smiling slightly. “Then it’s a good thing you met me, huh? If too much sex was your problem, hanging out with me has been a great cure.”

  I groan. “You have no idea.” An image of her long neck arching under my lips flashes through my mind. “Though the last time I got some was so freaking amazing it’s been enough to keep me going for quite a while.”

  I think she might blush but she surprises me with a little smirk. “Damn right it was.”

  I laugh, wishing the flight would never end. Since Ransom took off I’ve probably been on hundreds of flights, flying for hours, all over the planet. But laying there on the bed with her, our fingers entwined, her laughter ringing in my ears, I’m pretty sure I’ve never flown so high.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sam

  I keep checking my face—like, literally putting my fingers up to my cheeks—to make sure I’m actually smiling. It just seems so shocking to me that I can smile, that I can even laugh, considering the way I was feeling just a few short hours ago. But I am smiling and I am laughing and there’s nothing insincere about it. Cash has somehow managed to take what would have been one of the worst days of my year and somehow turned it into something entirely different.

  I had walked into the Warners house for lunch that afternoon feeling so positive about everything. My conversations with Penny and Cash the day before had bolstered my confidence. For the first time in I couldn’t even say how long, I felt sure of myself. Felt like I not only might get what I wanted but that I actually deserved it, too.

  We had a good lunch, Wyatt wanting to hear all about the concert the night before. After his peppering of questions he moved onto catching me up on what had happened with him since our last meeting. There was a new kid on his soccer team that he thought might be better than him, so he wanted me to promise that I’d help him practice his corner kicks this week, which I happily did. As he went on and on about his team and school and the frog he had found in the backyard the week before, I chanced a glance at Alice and Bruce. They were listening to his silly, constant chattering with interest and slightly bemused smiles on their faces. I wondered if I looked like that when he talked.

  He’s got every one of us wrapped around his fingers, I thought, feeling somehow bolstered by it. They would want what was best for him. They would hear me out.

  I guess I should have been more nervous. I guess I should have spent the lunch hour strategizing, coming up with rebuttals for their arguments. Because when Wyatt went outside to play so we could enjoy our coffee, my naive hopes that this would be easy were shattered.

  They didn’t think I was ready. That was the long and short of it. “We’re not saying that it will never happen,” Alice told me gently. “We just think you need more time, sweetie.”

  I felt an immediate rush of blood to my face. I knew I was blushing. Her tone might be gentle but her words cut me deep. Not ready. In other words, we don’t trust you to not freak out again.

  “Why can’t we just try it?” I asked, my throat dry. “How will we know if I’m ready if we don’t try?”

  They shared a glance that somehow had me feeling like a parasite. “Wyatt is so attached to you,” Bruce finally said. “We just don’t want him to be disappointed if…things don’t work out.”

  I gripped the side of the table, feeling dizzy. “Why do you think things wouldn’t work out? Do you think…do you think I’ll mess it up?”

  “It’s not that,” Alice said quickly, reaching for my hand. I kept it firmly on the edge of the table and she retreated hers, looking slightly abashed. “We’re so proud of how far you’ve come, Sam. We really, really are. But if you start having more regular time with Wyatt, and it ends up becoming too difficult for you, that would be really hard on him.”

  “We don’t want him to get his hopes up until you can be a little more sure that you’re ready,” Bruce added.

  They think I’m going to lose it again. They think as soon as I start having him around me I’m going to fuck it up and leave him more confused and hurt than ever.

  They don’t think I’m good enough.

  I felt like crying, right there at the table. It was like everything I had done for the past few years hadn’t been enough. Like it was all pointless. I was finally finishing school, finally making some plans, some ambitions for the future. I’d even managed to stop my monthly screw-ups—I thought about the night before, how Cash and I had hung out at that club without getting wasted, which would have been unheard of only a month ago. I had come so, so far.

  And it still wasn’t good enough.

  I stood up, my knees shaking, knowing that I was going to lose it if I stayed for a minute longer. You should be fighting, a voice in my head whispered. That’s what Cash would tell you to do. You should sit back down and argue with them until they’re convinced.

  But I couldn’t. And maybe that proved that they were right. Because even now, I couldn’t fight for Wyatt.

  “Sam, don’t go,” Alice said, her voice pained. “Sweetie, we’re not criticizing you, we aren’t. We just need to think about what’s best for Wyatt.”

  “I’m his mother,” I said, my voice shaking. “I love him. And he loves me.”

  Bruce reached for me. “We know that—”

  “You’re wrong,” I whispered, wiping at my eyes. “You’re wrong about all of this.”

  And then, before I could burst into tears right there, I turned and walked out of their house. It was the first time I didn’t say goodbye to Wyatt in years.

  I went back to the apartment, a storm of emotions battling for my attention. I was angry at myself for being unable to fight them, angry at them for not believing in me, angry at the whole fucking world for taking Doug away all those years ago and putting us in this position.

  But mostly I felt guilty. Because I had given them reason to say no. I had proven time and again that I couldn’t handle him, that I wasn’t worthy of my own kid. And I didn’t know if I had it in me to ever change that.

  I lasted about an hour in my apartment before I pulled out the bottle of tequil
a. I set in front of me on the table, staring at it, fighting a battle in my head. It wouldn’t help me long term, I knew that. It was basically what the Warners expected me to do—react to a difficult situation by numbing myself. I’d done it a million times and it had never helped.

  But I wanted it anyhow. I wanted that soothing fire in my throat, the warmth in my chest that might take away some of this guilt. Even if it was worse tomorrow, even if it didn’t last, I wanted it now.

  And then Cash texted me. Another battle in my head—he could help me get through this, keep me from opening that bottle. Or he could provide a different kind of distraction, like he had done that first night we met.

  In the end, he surprised me. I set the bottle aside so that I could go pack as he had requested. I can always get more wherever we’re going, I told myself. Or switch to Plan B. He had said we’d be together overnight…

  But then the moment I saw him pull up, the strangest thing happened. My chest loosened, the desire for a drink fading a little. He put my bag in the trunk, helped me into my seat, leaned in close enough for me to smell his familiar scent, and the desire faded more. Maybe this would be enough, just being with Cash. Maybe he could distract me without making me numb.

  And he’d proceeded to do just that. A private jet. I still can’t believe we’re on a private jet. And the strangest thing is that Cash seems just as giddy about it as me. He swears he’s only flown on one with executives from the label and I believe him. There’s just no way he would be so excited if it was old hat to him.

  “I think we’re landing,” he says, peering out the window. We’ve been playing Grand Theft Auto for the last half hour or so, which I’m terrible at. It’s a good thing Wyatt is completely forbidden from this game or he’d beat me every time.

  The thought sends a little shot of pain through me, but then Cash grins over at me. “Aren’t you going to look out the window? I thought you would be dying to know where we are.”

  I wasn’t sure how long we’d been flying and had honestly stopped thinking about where we were going to end up about ten minutes after boarding the plane—that’s how much fun I was having. But now I feel a thrill of excitement and I scramble to the window. It’s growing dark now, and the light of a massive city stretches as far as the eye can see. There’s a line in the distance where the lights seem to cut off abruptly—water, I think.