by Mia Caldwell
Monique blinked at me slowly, looking dazed. Her eyes kept darting from me to the baby, from the baby back to me. "I'm..." she began...
Just then, LeeAnne swore loudly. "Holy shit, is that you, Monique?"
Chapter Thirty-Five
Monique
I was certain I was still dreaming. LeeAnne Colfax's voice outside of my hotel room door was most certainly the product of some bizarre dream my subconscious was trying to frighten me with. It was the only explanation.
I woke up with my heart in my throat, and rolled over to the side of the bed, ignoring the spinning in my head.
My suitcase was right there, a mess as always. I could never seem to pack it properly...whatever I needed was usually found at the very bottom of everything. That was especially true right now, as I dug, and dug and dug, my heart beating more frantically at each moment that passed by.
Finally I located the little plastic case and popped it open. I stared at the blister pack and counted back on my fingers. Today was Thursday and I should have been starting the sugar pills.
But my period wasn't here. And there were still pills in the packet.
I had missed...a lot of pills this month.
I stood up in a daze and dragged my fingers over my tummy. "Fuuuuuuuck," I whispered out loud.
This was a dream still. It had to be a dream. I never missed my pills. I had been taking them in one form or another for years now, and had always been near religious with them.
What the hell happened?
I was still pretty sure I was dreaming as I stood there in the doorway. That is until Tanner came and placed his warm hand possessively at the small of my back. The tingle that went down my spine was all too real.
I had almost told him, Even before I was positive of it myself. I hadn't even taken a test yet. I could just be late. It really could be the road food not agreeing with me. There were a million other reasons for my dizziness and nausea besides it. I wasn't sure...but I was pretty sure.
And when I saw him being such a natural father, with that chubby little girl in his arms, the words had nearly escaped. I had never seen such softness around his eyes as when he looked down at her scrunched up little face and offered her his finger to gum. The words "I'm pregnant" had leapt right to the tip of my tongue.
But the voice I thought I had dreamed spoke up to save me. LeeAnne Colfax's voice broke the moment and I swallowed the words right back down again.
I stepped quickly around Tanner and stared. "LeeAnne?"
As was the shock on LeeAnne's face when she saw me. "Mo?" she asked, wonder and hope and confusion all competing for real estate on her wide open face.
My feet felt rooted to the spot. But LeeAnne seemed to have the opposite problem. She came rushing at me in a flurry of gasps and fluttering hands. I clenched my fists and watched her warily as she circled around me. "Is that really you? What are you doing, here??"
"You two know each other?" Tanner sounded just as confused.
"Hell yeah we do, or we did at any rate." LeeAnne made a little sniffing sound. That sound she always made right before she said something cutting or sarcastic. "Before she disappeared one day and I never heard from her again."
"LeeAnne...." My heart was thumping so hard I was sure everyone could hear it. The panic that flooded my mouth with its bright copper taste made my already queasy tummy roil. I couldn't seem to find words, only whispers. "I'm sorry about that, I wanted to call, I just...couldn't...."
LeeAnne regarded me sharply for a second. I waited for her scorn, waited for her to yell at me. Instead she heaved a sigh. "I missed you," she smiled and opened her arms.
The only real friend I ever had folded me into her arms. As I hugged her back, I marveled at how solid she was, how real. She even smelled the same, that lemon scented body-wash she discovered in high school. Back when she befriended the shy, scared new kid with skin darker than anyone she had ever seen before. LeeAnne didn't care then, and apparently she still didn't care now. "What happened?" she asked me as she pulled back from the hug. "I was so worried."
I shot a look at Tanner who seemed to understand at once. "I told these boys the only way they'd get tonight off is if we have a rehearsal for a few hours today. You ladies stay here, catch up. Don't worry, LeeAnne," he leaned over and kissed her cheek, "I won't work him that hard. He'll still be frisky tonight...."
LeeAnne let out her trademark honking laugh as I stared at my past and my present interacting. The disconnect was driving me crazy.
And it must have been driving LeeAnne crazy too, because the minute Blake took the baby from her and deposited her into the car seat, she whirled on me, her eyes blazing. "Now, tell me. What the fuck?"
I bristled. "That's how you talk to me after all these years?"
She planted her hand son her hips. "It's what I've been thinking, all these years. You know how many people I told the story to by now? I could recite it in my sleep. 'My best friend in high school was this girl Monique Williams. She was the only girl I ever met with a sharper tongue than mine and together we were unstoppable. At least 'til she disappeared off the face of the fucking planet."
"Okay, I get it, I should have called you."
"Yeah." She sounded more sad than angry now. "You really should have."
I closed my eyes. "Okay LeeAnne, you want the story?"
"I think I deserve it."
I swallowed. "Well, remember how I was always tellin' you about all the places I lived?"
"Braggin', more like. You loved to lord it over me that I had never lived anywhere but Holcum." She tossed her hair over her shoulder at this, and I mentally cringed.
"Well I shouldn't have. Because all the moving we did when I was a kid, it wasn't something I had any say in. And the reasons were not anything to be proud of."
Her gaze softened a little. "Okay, I'm listenin'."
The memories that I tried so hard to suppress came flooding back. Keeping our bags packed. Never putting pictures on the wall. Leaving at night, early morning...in the middle of the school day. Moving, always moving.
So my Daddy could stay one step ahead of the law.
"The night we left, we left my Daddy behind. We got to comfortable, stayed in Holcum too long. Long enough for someone to notice my Dad's picture hanging in the Post Office. They arrested him that night, LeeAnne." I wasn't even looking at her, I was back there instead. Watching them cuff my father in his bathrobe and duck him into the squad car. Then turning to my mom as she clapped her hands together like that was that. "Get your things, girls," she had declared, her voice tight with betrayal. "Time to hit the road."
"She wanted us to just move on," I told LeeAnne. The horror on her face was too hard to see, so I shut my eyes again. "Put it behind us just like that. Like we could just erase seeing our Daddy carted off in handcuffs." I swallowed, hard. "And as far as she's concerned, we did just that. In fact, this? Right now? Is the first time I've ever really talked about it."
"Oh. Mo." She paused and tapped the baby's car seat. "It sounds like...like you could have really used a friend."
Words got jammed up in my throat and sent me to coughing. LeeAnna patted my back while I choked and gathered myself to gather again. "I never considered it, isn't that sad? But yeah, I could have used one."
"Let's start over again," LeeAnne smiled. "Sounds like you're good at it."
"The best," I nodded. But it didn't feel like a point of pride anymore.
Chapter Thirty Six
Monique
That night, I took my position on the side of the stage, just like I always did. After two weeks of being on the road, this was completely, amazingly normal to me. Just another day in Tanner's weird, wild life. There were only two things different about tonight.
The first was that LeeAnne was perched on the chair sitting next to me. She was watching Blake's pre-show prayer ritual with happy tears in her eyes. It was strange seeing her without the baby in her arms, but little Maddie was back at the hotel, under the ca
re of a babysitter Leo had found after running an extensive background check.
The second thing was that this would be my last night doing this.
In the rental car on the way over here, I had casually suggested to LeeAnne that we stop and grab some snacks. Bless her unobservant little heart, but she somehow didn't notice the pregnancy test mixed in with the Combos and pork rinds.
She also just nodded when we arrived at the green room and I claimed to need the bathroom. She was too busy touching everything left back there. "It's so...different..." she exhaled, trailing off. "From what I was expecting," she then clarified as I paused in the doorway.
"It is," I agreed, swallowing back the lump that appeared in my throat.
I peed on the test and then set it carefully on the sink. Staring at it wasn't making the results come faster, so I turned to face myself in the mirror.
"What the fuck are you going to do?" I asked out loud.
I wasn't ready to be a mother. And more than that, I wasn't about to be a single mother. But that was the only way I could see this panning out. Tanner, even if he wanted to stick around, was tied to the touring life. It was never going to stop. He was a bona fide star and with the talent he had...I couldn't be responsible for holding him back. He was too good, too gifted, and too necessary to all of the people who depended on him.
I had been in his life a grand total of a month.
I had no right to tie him down.
When I looked back down at the test, it was with resignation, not shock. The little blue lines stared back at me, and I knew what I had to do.
But actually doing it was going to be the hardest thing I had ever done.
The house lights dimmed, and the crowd went wild. Tanner and the boys bounded out onto the stage and crashed into their opening number. I grabbed my camera out of habit, but just held it in my lap, and watched him instead. The man that I loved.
He waved to the screaming throng with the same smile he smiled at me. He could never belong just to me.
I could feel tears pricking at the edges of my eyes.
When the song ended, I fired off a few shots. Tanner turned to the wings and looked right at me.
It was superhuman how he could act so normal about something so surreal. But he just flashed that damn grin at me.
I grinned back and caught him with my camera flash. He flicked a middle finger lazily upward at me and I laughed out loud and for a moment everything was perfect.
"This one is for all the ladies out there," he drawled into the mic, to protracted screams. "And the ones back here too," he added, staring directly at me.
The whoops and cheers drowned out the sound, but in the harsh lights, I could read his lips. "Listen up," he mouthed.
"Okay," I nodded back.
He struck the first ringing chord. Fitch kicked up the beat and Carter's fiddle whined. "This one's a new one!" Tanner called over the intro. "It's called, 'Strictly Business.'"
The bottom dropped out from under me as he sang the words right at me. My stomach roiled and heaved. "Oh shit," I gurgled and tore off in search of a toilet.
Chapter Thirty Seven
Tanner
I'll tell you something, when you pour your heart into a song you wrote just for your new lady, the last thing you want to see when you sing it to her is her turning green and running to the bathroom.
"Hold 'em for a sec," I mouthed to Blake, who nodded and kicked the boys into a loud jam session. I ran offstage. "Where'd she go?" I yelled at Busy Tim, who pointed towards the maze of corridors. I sprinted blindly, when I heard the loud, echoing sound of retching and stopped short.
"Monique?" I called.
A faint groan let me know I was right. I tapped on the door as a formality and pushed my way into the room.
"I think I'm done," she croaked, looking at me wretchedly over the bowl.
"Come on, hon," I said, gently hauling her up, "you're gonna catch something foul if you touch that thing. I don't think it's been cleaned since Jonny Cash was touring."
"Isn't he dead?"
"That's the point," I smiled. "You okay?"
"Nerves?" she said helplessly.
I bent to kiss her and she shied away. "My breath."
"I don't really care," I informed her, but settled on nuzzling her neck. "If you want to head back, I'll see you later."
"I don't want to miss your show," she moaned.
"I'll give you the highlights tonight. Go, baby,"
"Knock 'em dead."
"Always do."
"Arrogant ass," she smiled and I squeezed her ass one last time for good measure. The color was returning to her face, and her wide eyes were bright again. Maybe it was just nerves, I hoped. Without knowing what to do, I sprinted back to my set.
By the time the afterparty rolled around, Monique was looking her usual beautiful, determined self.
She sat on the couch in the green room, clutching her camera so tightly that her knuckles were white. I recognized that look, and I didn't like it.
"Hey beautiful," I said, sliding in next to her.
She darted a quick glare up at me and then looked away.
"Aw hell, you're pissed at me?" I teased, poking her in the thigh. "What'd I do?" I paused. "No, wait, I know this." I slung my arm around her stiff body and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. She softened slightly, like she wanted more, then caught herself and stiffened back up again. Yup, she was definitely pissed. "I left you alone all day when I said I'd spend it with you," I guessed. I did feel bad about that. "That was a dumb thing to do and I'm sorry babe. Rehearsal ran later than I thought." I smiled brightly. "But hey, at least you know why it was late. I was writing a song about you!" I paused, "...even though I guess you didn't get to hear it."
"Yeah," she said shortly.
Well, that didn't work.
"So did you and LeeAnne get a chance to catch up anyway?" I asked. It was a dumb question, they had been left alone the whole day, what else would they be doing besides gossiping and painting their nails or whatever chicks do when they're together. I was feeling slightly desperate though. A deep foreboding had taken up residence in my stomach.
Jimmy stomped by and pressed a beer into my palm. I opened it gratefully.
"Yeah. We talked," Monique said tightly.
I took a long, desperate swallow of the sudsy beer. "You know, it feels so eerie to me. Here you lived so close, and I never knew. I never met you until last month, and even that was a fluke. If you hadn't come to take my picture, I would have had no idea you existed Monique..." And now I couldn't imagine my life without her.
"Tanner," she blurted. "Have you ever thought about stopping?"
"Stopping?"
Her eyes blazed and I knew this was no time to be joking around. "Touring. Have you ever thought about stopping?"
I took another long pull of my beer and sat forward, resting my elbows on my knees. She slid back into the couch, nearly disappearing into it, and hugged herself. She looked absolutely miserable.
"Well now," I swallowed. "Truthfully?"
"Truthfully," she said firmly.
I put my hand on her knee and gently rubbed her thigh. "Of course I've thought about stopping," I said, watching my hand as it traced slow circles on her jeans. She was so warm underneath my touch. I could smell her, feel her...and I wanted to taste her but she was freaking me out. "I think about it all the time, honestly."
That was truer than anyone could imagine.
"I mean, I don't need the money, never have, really. At this point, I got all the money in the world and barely any time to spend it. More than that, it'd be nice to write a song without having to get it approved by some label suit before I send it out into the world. Writin' songs to please just myself sounds mighty fine to me." I looked at where she was sitting and watching me warily. "But it ain't just me I'd be stopping," I said, as carefully as I could. "There's all the guys. They've got mortgages and bills to pay. Blake's got the new baby. And it's even more than them. It'
s Leo, and Keith. All the roadies. Dale, my guitar tech. All the sound engineers."
"Gus who drives the bus," she added faintly.
I sat back into the couch. "Gus has twins, you know. A boy and a girl. Gonna be starting senior year in high school in a few days. I can't pull the rug out on him right before they head off to college."
I turned to her. "I have a responsibility to them. And I take my responsibilities very seriously."