Jump Then Fall

by Alyssia Kirkhart

“Thanks, but you didn’t have to—”

  “Stop, Columbus. It’s okay if someone does something for you. Besides, it’s just shoes.”

  “Just shoes,” I parroted like an idiot.

  “Come on.” He grabbed my hand. “I wanna meet your dad.”

  Dad reacted as I expected. Shocked, though he tried to hide it, especially when Lawson didn’t miss a beat, stuck out his hand and introduced himself immediately. Hi, I’m Lawson—Lawson Hill. Nice to meet you, Mr. Evans. Quiet, though I could tell by the way his gaze shot between me and Lawson and back again, he had at least fifty questions. Who, what, when, where and, most importantly, how? How, when I knew no one, went nowhere, save for work and home, did I have two breaths to spare to meet a guy and bring him home?

  “Can I help?” Lawson asked as I started slicing a fresh loaf of French bread.

  “Uh…” I looked at him, the bread, my hands. My cheeks burned. “Sure.”

  “Butter, garlic, Italian seasoning.” He had already found the spice cabinet, a small bowl and a spoon before I’d finished cutting.

  I smiled. “You know what you’re doing there?”

  “Believe it or not, yeah.” He plopped a stick of butter in the bowl, nuked it in the microwave just enough to soften it, then started mixing ingredients for a spread. Our elbows bumped and he looked at me from the side, winked.

  I tucked my chin, tried to concentrate on placing the bread slices on a cookie sheet. Hard to do when he was in my house, in my space, in the same room with my dad, helping with dinner.

  Surreal was the first word that came to mind.

  The next was Keep, followed by It and Together.

  “So, you cook, Mr. Hill?” Dad asked as he was setting the table.

  Lawson glanced at him, diligently stirring the butter and herb mixture. “Yes, sir. Dabbled a bit here and there. When we moved to Nashville, Mom was working two jobs, and I didn’t want her to have to come home and feel as if she had to cook, so…” He shrugged. “I learned how. Started with pasta, didn’t burn it. Boosted my confidence, started experimenting.”

  “Huh. Well.” Dad cleared his throat, and I bit my lip to hide my smile. “That’s admirable.”

  “Thank you,” he said, murmuring a thanks as I handed him a knife and we started buttering the bread. “Columbus—ah, Harper tells me you like to cook, too.”

  Dad wiped his hands with a towel. “I dabble.” He wasn’t smiling.

  I shot him A Look, which he ignored and poured glasses of ice water. I hadn’t brought a lot of guys home to meet him since I started dating, which I never really dated-dated, and I felt silly presuming that’s what Lawson and I were doing, even though it certainly felt that way, but Dad, gosh, Dad had never been this…affronted over a boy I liked. Rude? No, he wasn’t being rude. More like passive-aggressive, which I hated, because one, that wasn’t the John Evans I knew and, two, Lawson did not deserve it.

  Neither did I.

  Nonetheless, Lawson caught my dad’s short, probing questions in stride. He hadn’t taken the first bite of penne when my dad asked, “So, Mr. Hill, what do you do for work?”

  “Dad.” My hand fisted beside my plate.

  If we were dating, which we weren’t, I would’ve grabbed his hand beneath the table. Not that he needed my support. Clearly, Lawson could handle his own. He’d done enough interviews, been asked a plethora of questions, some good, some painfully ignorant. He could take my dad. Could stand the heat.

  Lawson set his fork down. Politely. After all, my dad was engaging him in conversation, regardless the line of questioning felt more like a police interrogation. “I write and record music,” he said.

  “A Nashville musician? Lot of that around here. You perform this music you write and record?”

  “Yes, sir. Sometimes.” Lawson bit into his pasta and his eyes flared. “Wow,” he said, stabbing another forkful, “this is really good, Mr. Evans. The char on the red peppers is perfect. I can never get mine like this. The skin always gets in the way and makes my sauce look, I don’t know, goopy or something.” He took another bite.

  Dad’s guard inched off its axis. He blinked a couple of times, wiped his mouth with his napkin. I hid my smile behind a piece of bread.

  “Well, you, ah…you should put the peppers in a paper bag to steam after you pull them out of the oven. Helps loosen the skin.”

  “What? Seriously?” Lawson shook his head. “Brilliant.”

  Wow, I thought, crisis and supreme humiliation at the hands of my father successfully averted. But no. Dad wasn’t finished.

  “How did you meet my daughter?”

  Lawson had a mouthful of bread, so I answered, “Savana. You remember Savana.”

  “Your library coworker,” said Dad.

  “Yep.”

  “She’s a friend of yours?” he asked Lawson.

  Lawson nodded. “Yes, sir. I met her shortly after I moved here. Her dad, he owns a lot of local businesses. Gave me a shot—a lot of shots, actually, at performing for his customers. Savvy and I hit it off pretty quickly. Guess you can say she was my first real friend in Nashville.”

  “Huh. Where are you originally from?”

  “Louisiana.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Dad.” My face heated.

  “What?” Dad’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m just trying to get to know your friend here.”

  “You’re interrogating him as if he’s on a witness stand, not a guest at our dinner table.”

  “Speaking of which,” said Dad, “did Harper tell you she’s going to law school? At Cambridge?” There was such pride in his voice, the temperature on my anger dropped a fraction.

  Still, this wasn’t going well. I didn’t know what was happening between Lawson and me, but I wanted more of him. More of his time, his stories, his passion for music, his passion for life. After tonight, though, I’d be lucky if he didn’t delete me from his phone. Pretend like none of this ever happened. File me away with all the other crazies he’d met and move on.

  “Dad, please,” I said. “Can’t we just eat?”

  “Harper, if you choose to date a man, to bring him home to meet me and sit at our table, he should know your intentions. He should know your goals.”

  Lawson choked, set down his fork and grabbed his water.

  Humiliation replaced the blood in my veins. Suddenly, I was having an out-of-body experience. Watching from above as all my internal organs shut down, bones turned to yogurt, and I slid off my chair into a puddle on the floor.

  “And she should know yours—I should know yours,” Dad insisted. “Starting with why you want to date my daughter.”

  “Starting with?” I demanded, surprised I had the ability to speak. This was so not salvageable. If magic were real, if I was a badass Hogwarts graduate, I’d’ve laced my fingers with Lawson’s and disapparated us both to safety.

  Then watched through a veil of tears as he ran in the opposite direction.

  “It’s my job to look after you, Harper,” said Dad.

  “No, it’s not. You don’t have to—”

  “I’m twenty-two.”

  My dad and I turned attention to Lawson, and I think both of us were surprised he was still there with a half-eaten plate of pasta, much less speaking up in the middle of our family argument.

  “And, yes, I’m aware of Harper’s acceptance into Cambridge and that she intends to go to law school.” He smiled a half-smile that somehow put my anxiety to rest. His eyes met mine. “She’s smart, confident, and I have no doubt she’ll do well, no matter what she sets her mind to.”

  I smiled, too. “Thanks,” I whispered.

  He pulled in a breath, released it, slowly. “As for why I want to date her, well…”

  Dad’s cell chose that exact moment to interrupt Lawson, mid-sentence.

  NO! I wanted to scream. Wasn’t this exactly what always happened in pivotal moments? Rom-coms where a boy met the parents for the first time and a big revelation was about to ha
ppen in front of God and everyone and—

  “Excuse me.” Dad rose from the table, retrieved his phone from its docking station. “Hello? Yes. This is he.” He left the room, murmuring in low tones.

  “God, Lawson.” I felt faint, appetite lost. “I am so, so sorry.”

  “You don’t have to apologize.” His eyes were sincere. “To be honest, I’d’ve been surprised if he hadn’t given me the third degree. He is your father. Fathers are supposed to be protective of their daughters.”

  “Yeah, but he’s not usually like this.”

  “Usually? You bring a lot of guys home?”

  My mouth opened and closed. “N-no, not at all, that’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Harper.” He took my hand in his beneath the table. He was so warm, and I wanted to curl into him, hold him and never let go. “Stop fretting, okay? I’m fine.”

  “You’re not nervous?” I pressed his hand. “I’m nervous. I’m nervous as hell right now.”

  “Of course, I’m nervous. But I’ve gotten so used to being nervous all the time, I’ve just kind of learned to embrace it.”

  “There’s no way you’re nervous all the time. You always seem so…I don’t know…” I searched my mind for the right word, but my hand in his was muddying the pages of my mental dictionary. “Cool.”

  “Yeah.” He laughed. “Okay.”

  “It’s true!”

  “Well, I appreciate that, but really…always nervous before I go on stage, before and during an interview, meeting new people…”

  I was shaking my head, mesmerized by him. His ease, his vulnerability. “How do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Get up there and, like, not be a hundred and fifty percent nervous?”

  “Columbus,” he said, brow furrowed, “were you not listening?”

  “No, you said before you go on stage, but once you’re up there—”

  “Nope. Still nervous. Whole show.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. When I first started,” he said, “I tried all these different methods, you know? To get over the jitters, so to speak. Nothing worked. And then a buddy of mine, Easton…You met him that night at The Shed. I asked him if he’d learned how to get past the nervousness, to just get up there, do what you gotta do, and get over yourself, right? And he said he once asked Vince Gill the same thing.”

  “Wow.” Vince Gill, I knew. His was one of the few concerts I’d been to back in Ohio. “So…did you figure out the great mystery of killing stage fright?

  “Nope.” He looked at his plate, used his fork to push a pepper around a piece of penne. “Vince said to embrace the nervousness, because that means you care. So,” he said, his shoulders lifting, “that’s what I’ve done ever since.”

  Silence.

  After a few heartbeats, I whispered, “You’ve won Grammys, Lawson.”

  He nodded, didn’t look up. “A few.”

  Seven. He’d been presented with seven. Solo performance, record, album, music video. The last few years had been good to Lawson Hill, as far as accolades. And that wasn’t even counting all the other award shows he’d left with a full sweep. His acceptance speeches were always humble, giving thanks to God, his mom, and to the team of people who made his dreams possible. He never faltered, never lost his element of surprise when his name was called. And his name had been called so many times I wondered if other artists automatically assumed that if Lawson was in their category, they didn’t stand a chance. Don’t even bother reading the other nominees, someone on YouTube had commented, just give it to Lawson Hill.

  “Write and record music,” I said, quoting him, “kind of undermines what you’ve accomplished, don’t you think?”

  He looked at me then. “Do you think it does?”

  I stared into his eyes. His beautiful, bottomless eyes.

  My heart began to beat hard again.

  “I think there’s a lot more to you than you want people to know,” I said softly. “I also think that particular part of you has nothing to do with how many awards you’ve won or how many stadiums you’ve sold out.”

  We held each other’s gazes for seconds. Breathing. Waiting. Silently replaying each moment we’d had together since the first night we met. At least, that’s what I was doing. How could I not? Twenty-two years old and the man spoke as if he’d been around the world a hundred times, which he probably had, and experienced more than most would in a lifetime, which, I reminded myself, he probably had. I wasn’t completely oblivious. I knew celebrities lived crazy-different lives than everyone else, that they hardly ever stopped, and one city blurred into the next and the next.

  “Wanna know what I think?” he said, his thumb grazing my knuckles.

  “Shoot.”

  By the way his brows rose, my succinct response must have surprised him. He took a breath, as though he needed to recompose. “I think I wanna know a lot more about Harper Evans.” Another breath. His eyes fell to my lips. “If that’s okay.”

  A sack full of butterflies opened up inside my chest. I licked my lips and he inhaled.

  “It’s more than okay,” I said, after taking a breath of my own. Everything about us had felt like we were moving at warp speed, yet nothing in me wanted to pause longer than that single inhalation. “It’s—”

  “Right?” He read my mind. Leaned toward me, nodded. “It’s right, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I breathed as his fingers touched my cheek. “Yes, it is.”

  “Harper?” Dad.

  Lawson and I jerked apart, and I stood abruptly, almost sending my chair to the floor, which Lawson caught, because he’d apparently acclimated himself to my clumsiness.

  My dad stood in the kitchen doorway, his face flushed, eyes skating from me to Lawson. Usually I could read his expressions, gauge his tone before he opened his mouth. But this one wasn’t just the typical overprotective father mentally counting the steps to his shotgun. There was something different. Something off. Something that had nothing to do with whether or not he saw me and Lawson almost kissing.

  Holy crap, we’d almost kissed.

  “Say goodnight to Mr. Hill,” Dad said, and there was a strange twisting in my chest. “We need to talk.”

  chapter nine

  “So you’re going back to Columbus for…?”

  I’d said goodnight to Lawson, promised I’d text him later, and followed my dad up the stairs to his room, where he grabbed a suitcase and started packing.

  “A few days, possibly a couple of weeks. I don’t know.” He meticulously placed socks and boxers in one corner of the case. “I’ll keep you informed.”

  “You’ll keep me informed?” I folded my arms across my chest. “Can we start with why you have to leave? Who was that on the phone?”

  He shook his head. “Nobody. Just the, ah, school. The new teacher they hired for the position, they need me to show him the ropes, you know?”

  “No. I don’t know. Why can’t another teacher do that? Or maybe the principal?”

  “Beats me.” He pulled a couple of button-ups from the closet. “But I told them before I left that I’d help any way I could, if they needed me. I can’t back out.”

  “What about your job here? I mean…” I handed him a couple of white tees from his top drawer. He never wore a dress shirt without one. “Isn’t that kind of irresponsible?”

  He paused, glared at me. “Don’t talk to me about irresponsibility, young lady,” he said, incredulous, and my head popped back. It’s not that Dad never got firm with me, but he’d been on a roll all evening. With Lawson, with me. “We’re not finished talking about that boy you brought home tonight.”

  There it was. The pasta I loved was settling bad in my stomach.

  Dad continued rifling through his closet. “Without telling me, I might add. You don’t know him, don’t know his past, don’t know if he’s a rapist or a serial killer.”

  “A serial killer? Really, Dad?” Shoving out a sigh, I gave in and found hi
s spare pair of dress shoes, plucked his favorite tie from its revered place on top of the dresser. “You shouldn’t watch so much ID channel. It’s bad for the brain.”

  “Hand me that belt, would you?”

  So, this was the way it was going to be.

  “Dad?” I said, folding a pair of his cotton sleep pants.

  “Yeah?”

  “You know Lawson’s not a bad guy. Right?”

  “I can’t say I do know that, seeing as I’ve neither seen nor heard of him before this evening.” His hand hovered above the hanger of his black sport coat. “I also don’t know what you believe will come of spending any time with him,” he murmured and selected the navy jacket, instead. It was softer, less structured. I wondered why he was packing suit pieces, when he always wore slacks and polos. “You’re leaving and he’s clearly…well. I don’t know what he is.”

  Famous, Dad. He’s a superstar. And yet he hadn’t uttered a word about his success at the dinner table. He didn’t have to. His kindness shone like a beacon. Lawson was probably the most talented person I’d ever met, yes, but kindness kicked talented’s ass in every competition. Funny, thoughtful. Generous and unassuming. There were a million things I could’ve said about Lawson to plead his case to my dad.

  But I didn’t.

  In the end, I kept my silence and helped Dad pack, buy a plane ticket online, and then I drove him to the airport.

  “I was thinking maybe you could ask Savana to stay with you, while I’m gone?” he said as I pulled up to the curb.

  His suggestion threw me a bit after the snide comment about bringing home a stranger without giving him notice. He’d met Savana, yes, but he didn’t know her. Ordinarily, I’d have put voice to such thoughts, but the unexpected rush of activity around us made for a serious Squirrel! moment. It was just past nine o’clock, dark, but the combination of airport and city lights gleamed and there were people everywhere, some arriving, some taking late flights like Dad.

  “She seemed nice enough,” he said, “cheerful. You work together. You could walk to work together. Or drive, which I’d prefer, since you’ll have the car. Besides, I’m not sure I like the idea of you staying alone while I’m away.”