Love Exactly

by Cassandra Giovanni

  “Mom!” I squeaked out, but in my mind I was agreeing.

  “So, the reason I came down—I made a big breakfast. There are pancakes, waffles, bacon, sausage and scrambled eggs.”

  Evan leaned his head out of the kitchen. “Did I hear bacon?”

  Mom blinked twice and nodded as she answered, “Yes, and lots of other lovely things. Emma gets her cooking skills from me.”

  “That sounds amazing,” Evan replied, his smile no longer hidden.

  “He’ll put on some clothes first, right?” Mom whispered into my ear and my answer was a smack. “See you in a few minutes?”

  I nodded and shooed her to the door leading up stairs and into their house. I closed the door behind her and leaned my head up against it.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Evan laughed. “For what, exactly?”

  “That…my mom intruding.”

  “I was quite amused by your obvious embarrassment,” he answered as he put his hands on either side of my head and leaned down. “What I’m wondering is why she didn’t know about me?”

  “My parents know I’m seeing someone—they just didn’t know it was you or how serious it is.”

  His breath washed over my face as he leaned into me. “How serious is this exactly?”

  “As serious as you want it to be…hopefully, we’re on the same page.”

  He nodded before pulling away and heading to the bedroom. The lack of comment bugged me and from the look on his face when I glanced into the bedroom while he was pulling on his jeans he knew it. I watched him as he pulled on a plain black t-shirt and ran a hand through his hair. His face suddenly paled.

  “Your dad—is he up there?” he asked as he started to frantically look for his sneakers.

  “You can be barefoot, so stop looking for your hideous Converse,” I replied as I flopped down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling.

  He crawled over me and narrowed his eyes. “You stole them?”

  I shrugged.

  “Seriously? Is your dad going to be up there?”

  I shrugged again, enjoying his sense of panic. “He does live here.”

  “I can’t go up there barefoot then!”

  “He’s not going to be looking at your feet,” I commented as he stood and flicked some lint off his shirt before he grabbed his deodorant and layered it on.

  “Are you okay?”

  He stopped fidgeting and took a deep breath before looking down at me.

  “This is your answer to how serious I am. I’ve never been so afraid of breakfast in my life,” he answered as he looked down at his lion tattoo that wrapped into a full sleeve. He closed his eyes and looked up at the ceiling. “Uh, how does your dad feel about tattoos?”

  “My mom quite loves yours.” I couldn’t help but stifle the giggle.

  “Seriously, what did he think when you came home with that?” He pointed towards my wrist as his face became more and more red.

  I stood and took his face in both of my hands. “Evan, it’s okay. My dad will love you.”

  “Dad’s don’t normally love bad boys, especially when their daughter suddenly comes home with a tattoo.”

  “He doesn’t think tattoos make you a bad person—all he cares about is how happy you make me.”

  “He thinks I make you happy?”

  I tucked my head in his shoulder. “He knows you do.”

  He took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

  “What’s going to be awkward isn’t going to be my dad; it’s going to be my mom’s puddle of drool,” I said as I headed towards the door to the upstairs.

  “Well, she has seen me half-naked,” he teased.

  I turned as I opened the door and raised my eyebrows. “It’s not the first time.”

  I watched as his skin flushed all the way from his collarbone up his neck and to his face.

  I shrugged. “I’m sure my dad has too.”

  “That’s cruel.”

  I shrugged as I headed up the stairs with my back to him. “You’re the one who let them take those pictures and post them where everyone could see them.”

  Before I knew it Evan had caught me up in his arms and was tickling me.

  “That’s cruel!” I gasped through giggles as I struggled to get away from him up the stairs.

  “Paybacks a—” Evan retorted but was cut off as we burst out the door into my parent’s kitchen, both of them stared at us tangled in one another arms with laugh tears rolling down our faces.

  Evan dropped his hands and stepped away from me with a cough. Dad was suppressing a laugh as Mom piled bacon onto his plate.

  “Take a seat,” Mom ordered with her spatula. “Alex, this is Evan, Evan this is Emma’s father, Alex.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you Mr. Walker,” Evan said, holding his hand out.

  Dad shook it with one pump. “It’s Alex—no need for the formalities.”

  “Yes, and you can call me Leigh,” Mom clarified. Her mind had obviously cleared now that Evan was fully dressed and Dad was in the room.

  “I really appreciate the offer for breakfast. It’s been a while since I sat down with family,” Evan said as he took a seat next to me.

  I put my hand on his leg and squeezed with a smile.

  “Help yourself,” Mom ordered as she took her seat across from me.

  “So how long are you here for, Evan?” Dad asked through a mouth of pancakes.

  Evan frowned as he put some bacon and eggs on his plate. “We were taking a break from touring to work on a single, and then decided we should worry about it after the European tour, so about three more days.”

  “How long will you be gone?” Mom interrupted, eying me.

  “About two months. It’s hard to be gone for so long, but once the overseas tour is done we’re going to take a break for a few months. We tried to record the single so we could get something out before we took the break, but it just didn’t work out.”

  Evan studied my face from the corner of his eye as he answered. I swallowed my pancakes and reached for my coffee. Two months? He hadn’t told me that, but we usually went three weeks without seeing each other. It wouldn’t be that bad…maybe.

  “That sounds good,” Mom commented with a weak smile as she watched me eating my food without response.

  “I get to see a lot of places, which is great, but after a tour like this we’re all seriously wiped out and ready to get back to our families.”

  “Paul, the bassist is married with two kids,” I interjected. I didn’t know why I had said it, as if to validate it was possible to have a relationship like ours.

  “Yeah, actually, I’m the only one who isn’t married,” Evan clarified as he sipped his coffee.

  “Your band has been together for a long time…?” Mom asked with her eyes still watching me.

  “It’s a miracle; honestly, we’ve been together for about fourteen years, since I was sixteen.”

  Mom choked on her pancakes a little as she did the math in her head. It was math I never bothered to do myself. It meant he was seven years older than me, which in the scope of things wasn’t bad. It was the fact he was thirty that was going through my mom’s head as she looked up at him. He didn’t look it.

  “Most bands don’t last over five years. That’s quite an accomplishment, plus how many Grammy’s have you received?”

  Evan sighed before answering, “None, actually. We’ve been nominated a few times, but never any Grammy’s. We’re hoping that the CD we’ll be working on next will do it.”

  “I just realized that we’re overwhelming you with questions,” Mom interjected. “So sorry!”

  Evan wiped his face with his napkin and smiled. “It’s no problem.”

  “There’s something I’m curious about,” Mom continued her probing. The way she was looking between us made me drop my fork, but Evan nodded for her to ask, “How long have you been dating?”

  Evan smiled over at me. “About eight months.”

/>   It was both my parents’ turns to choke as they echoed, “Really?”

  “It’s flown by with all the traveling between here and wherever I’m supposed to be,” Evan explained as he looked between my parent’s and me.

  “Yeah.” Mom cleared her throat. “That makes sense.”

  I suddenly found my voice, “Why?”

  She took a deep breath. “That’s about when I realized we finally had our Emma-bear back.”

  I bit my lip and looked away from the table as the tears pricked in my eyes. I felt Evan’s hand find mine underneath the table and squeeze.

  “She’s helped me find my passion in music again. It’s a lonely place to be; money and fame sound easy, and it is, but it’s hard when everyone is after that very thing,” Evan commented, and I looked over my shoulder at him.

  He smiled and kissed me on my forehead. When I looked at my parents they were both grinning at us.

  “I think you two will face whatever challenges you get placed in front of you, and I hope you do,” Dad finally said with a nod of his head.

  “That means a lot to me,” Evan replied; “to both of us.”

  “Anything that gives our daughter her soul back is worth it.”

  The rest of breakfast was spent explaining what happened over the first months of our relationship and talking about my childhood. I cringed at some of the things my parents said, but the smile on Evan’s face was worth it. He even divulged some embarrassing truths about him as he grew up that left me in fits of laughter.

  Chapter 20

  My parents didn’t disturb Evan and I the next day, and I figured it was because they knew he would be leaving soon. Sometimes it felt like he was always leaving soon. I knew my mom wouldn’t be able to resist the opportunity to ask me a thousand questions about him as soon as he left, and I was trying hard to not wallow in my self-pity. It was hard, though, because I knew I wouldn’t hear from Evan for at least another week. He texted me when he landed, and I was already counting down the days until he would land in Connecticut again. I sighed and dipped my feet deeper into the muddy edge of the lake. The heat of the summer was finally here, and I could feel the sweat beading down my back as I lifted my face towards the warm sun. Even with my eyes closed I knew there was a shadow blocking out the sun and instinct told me exactly who it was.

  “Mom, you’re in my way,” I huffed without opening my eyes.

  I felt her slip my sunglasses over my face. “No point in going blind. It’d be a pity if you couldn’t see Evan’s gorgeous body again.”

  I opened my eyes and rolled them at her even though I knew she couldn’t see it. I suddenly felt like a teenager.

  She sat down beside me and placed her head on my shoulder. “So…”

  “So?”

  “You’re dating a rock god…I mean—you didn’t think we should know?” Mom mocked sadness as she pouted at me.

  “I thought it might make Dad have a heart attack,” I replied, pushing her away with a light shove.

  “Well, you could have told me,” she retorted as she dipped her feet in as well. She made a face as the mud squished up between her toes and clouded the water.

  “I suppose I could have, but that’s one of the benefits of being an adult—I don’t have to,” I teased back.

  She narrowed her eyes at me before continuing, “How did you meet him?”

  “I rammed into him and spilt coffee all over the place…so he offered to buy me a real cup across the street,” I explained with a shrug.

  “Meeting a famous musician was never that easy in my day,” Mom muttered with a smile. “So how are you coming to terms with it?”

  “With what?”

  “The rock holiness and all,” she answered, her brow furrowed as if it was the most obvious thing on the planet.

  I picked up a pebble and thrust it into the water. “I’m having more trouble coming to terms with the drool that was dribbling down your chin when you met him.”

  She covered her mouth in shock. “Who me?”

  “Tattoos are nice,” I mocked her.

  She answered with a shrug. “They are on him.”

  “Believe me, I know.”

  She put her hand on my knee, and I knew the mood had changed to a serious one.

  “I’m sorry I ever insinuated he would be anything like…Eric,” she said.

  “I know when I’m stressed I don’t act normal, and believe me I know this relationship is anything but normal—or easy…but it’s worth it. It really is.”

  I looked up at her mocha eyes framed by her gray hair and she smiled at me with a nod of her head.

  “I can see that…but you have to understand why those signs scare us. We didn’t know before; you didn’t tell us. I still can’t understand how it all happened so quickly—how everything went bad in an instant. One moment you were a normal teenager, and the next moment—” her voice broke, and I knew she wouldn’t continue.

  “I can’t apologize enough, Mom. You know that.”

  “What are you apologizing for, mhmm? You’ve never had to apologize to us for what happened. We’re sorry we didn’t see the signs…and I’m sorry that now I look for them even more. Your father and I misread this one. Evan is a great person,” she explained, taking a deep breath before continuing, “We can see how happy you are—just don’t let the stress of this kind of serious long distance relationship get to you so much. Evan wouldn’t be happy if he knew it was stressing you out so much that you weren’t eating.”

  I bit my lip. “It’s not Evan—or this stress. I can handle him being away. I’ve been alone for long enough that it doesn’t bug me,” I looked at her face and rushed the rest of the sentence because she didn’t look like she believed me. Before I knew it the words were tumbling out of my mouth, “Its Eric who’s the problem.”

  Mom’s head shot back in surprise. “What about him?” she hissed.

  “Evan kind of punched his lights out a bit…and then it just brought everything rushing back to the surface and Evan convinced me to write again. You know the reason I stopped was Eric. I’m scared I’m not good at it anymore,” I admitted.

  She took a deep breath and put her arm around my shoulder. It was a quick squeeze, because we were both sweating a bit more than was comfortable.

  “I think you can do it.”

  “I just know Evan will want me to publish it once I’m done.”

  “Do you think that’s a bad thing?” Mom suggested.

  “I don’t want to disappoint Evan if it sucks and can never be published.”

  She started to stand, and then held her hand out to help me up. “I doubt that will happen, just keep writing it. When you finish Evan will be just as proud as we are of you. Now, I think we should head to our favorite ice cream shack?”

  I nodded and she stuck her arm in mine. “Dad’s going to be very grateful for this—he’s been begging me for a heath bar crunch sundae for days!”

  My laughter mixed with my mom’s, but in the back of my head all I could wonder was if she was correct. I wanted to be able to publish my novel—I just wondered if it was something that Eric had taken away from me forever. I wondered if the passion that would allow me to have the strength to publish was lost forever in the abyss that was those bruises and cruel words. The irony was that words that were useless were keeping me from healing my fractured soul with words that mattered.

  Chapter 21

  When Evan returned from the tour the break that the band had scheduled never happened. Instead the recording of the album was switched from the West Coast to the East Coast and was crammed into a month long session at a Boston recording studio Evan had rented. It meant I was seeing him on the weekends when they took breaks, but he was also stressed and tired. They wanted the album to be out in time for them to qualify for Grammy nominations and were willing to sacrifice time with their families for Evan. Paul explained to me it was because they had been doing this for years on their terms because Evan never had anyone else, and now
that he did they wanted to give him a chance to do it on his terms and that meant Boston.

  As I slipped on my favorite ballet flats I heard the engine of the Audi Evan had rented this time. It seemed louder than it had last Friday, so when I went to the front door and saw it was anything but his typical Audi, I was in shock. I wasn’t even sure what it was, but when I saw Evan already leaning against the hood, I couldn’t help the smile on my face. His whole composure showed he was anxious; his angry veins were bulging and his shoulders were tense.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked as I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him.

  His hands slid into mine as he pulled away. “Nothing, nothing at all.”

  “I’m not sure I believe you,” I said with a shake of my head as I looked at the blue-green circles from lack of sleep beneath his eyes.

  “We finished the album—everything…all the songs are done and we picked all the cover art and promotional art,” he explained, the smile on his face creased his cheeks in small dimples.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why are you acting so suspicious?”

  He shrugged before nodding over his shoulder and saying, “I’ve got somewhere special I want to go. It’s in Boston, though, are you up for the drive?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  We spent most of the drive talking about the new album and the tour it would take the band on. The idea made me sick to my stomach because this tour was even bigger than the last one he had been on, and the shows were scheduled much tighter together. It didn’t seem we would be seeing each other much at all, and I had gotten used to seeing him while they recorded the album. Evan was avoiding my questions about the songs and the artwork they had chosen from the album, and his tapping of his thumb against the steering wheel to an imagined beat only got stronger when I pushed for more answers. I gave up about half-way through the drive.

  “So how’s that new novel going?” Evan asked.

  I looked over at him and smiled. “I finished the first draft last night.”

  “Really?”

  I nodded and he leaned over to kiss my cheek. “That’s amazing!”