by Leigh Landry
This is a kind of shitty thing to do, but it’s what I had to do. It’s what I needed to do. I’m sorry that this is unfair to you, but I had to put myself first. I have to be alone for a while, to figure out what I’m going to do next.
I won’t say that none of that has anything to do with you. That would be a lie. But not in the way you think. Or maybe I shouldn’t presume to know what you’re thinking. I’ll just say that my decision has nothing to do with anything you’ve done or said. The truth is, if I stay there right now, I’ll be too worried about how I’m affecting you and everyone else. I’ll be worried about being a burden. I’ll be worried about if I’m doing enough to deserve your friendship, if I’m enough. And I can’t do that right now. I can’t do that and get well and get my life back on track.
So I’m sorry. I hope you’ll understand and forgive me. One day.
She folded the letter and slipped it back inside the envelope. She’d been right. Reading it didn’t change a damn thing.
Lauren and Robin had both been right, too. Camille needed her friends to be there for her. When she needed them. Not to make decisions for her and hunt her down and drag her back for her own good. That would just be selfish. And it wouldn’t be good for any of them in the long run.
Natalie understood every word Camille said in that letter. It made perfect sense. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell.
But Shane had been right, too. Getting it done did feel better.
She put the envelope in a drawer and went to get ready for work. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen with Shane. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted to happen with Shane from here on out. But reading Camille’s letter was a flashing reminder that she had a track record of shit not working out. Of choosing people who didn’t love her in return.
And she had no reason to believe Shane was going to be any different.
* * * * *
Just before his lunch break, Shane was going over a sound system installation proposal with Charles when the front door chimed. He looked up to see his brother walking through the store carrying a guitar case. His guitar case.
Charles, who’d heard about the situation from Shane back when it all went down, patted him on the back and went to help a customer near the accessory wall.
It had been less than a year since he’d seen his brother, but for some reason Shane had expected him to look different. Or at least seem different. Somehow.
“Randy.” He nodded at his brother.
“Shane.” Randy lifted the case over the counter and handed it to him. “I believe this is yours.”
“Thanks. For bringing it by.”
“Well, it was yours.”
There was an awkward silence Shane wasn’t entirely sure how to fill. Or maybe he was expecting his brother to fill it. Except his brother hadn’t filled that silence in almost a year, so he didn’t know why he was expecting anything.
“I’m about to go on my lunch break. Want to grab a bite?”
Randy looked uncomfortable. Shane was about to tell him to forget it when Randy said, “Yeah. Sure.”
“Okay,” said Shane. “Let me put this up and tell my manager I’m leaving.”
He walked to the back and leaned his guitar against a set of shelves. Then he found Charles and told him he was taking his lunch break.
Charles glanced over Shane’s shoulder at the counter. “You sure?”
“No,” Shane said. “But I’m going anyway.”
After he’d given Natalie her own words back at her, he couldn’t exactly chicken out of doing his own stuff today. Especially after she’d been brave enough to tell him everything she’d shared. No matter what that meant for them, he at least respected her for that and was going to take a confidence boost from her.
His brother offered to drive, and a few minutes later they were eating at their favorite poboy shop. They didn’t talk on the drive there, and they were pretty silent after placing their orders—a whole fried shrimp for Shane and a half ham and cheese for Randy. Shane suggested eating outside, since it was a gorgeous, unusually warm February day. They took their sandwiches and bottles of soda and water to a picnic bench outside.
“I’m glad you called,” his brother said after several awkward moments of sandwich unwrapping and chewing.
Shane’s back stiffened and his mouth froze mid-bite. He forced himself to chew, buying time. There were a lot of things he could say to his brother right then. Most of them he probably shouldn’t say. But for the life of him he couldn’t figure a single thing to say that didn’t make one of them look like an asshole. Not that his brother deserved any protection. Still, they’d gotten this far. They were eating a meal together. No sense pulling the rug on that just yet. Not when they seemed to be making progress.
And he had to admit, his brain was running away with what all of this meant—this lunch, them speaking, everything. What it could mean. Maybe they could find a way back. Maybe they could all be a family again. They couldn’t erase the past, but maybe they could move on from it.
“I’d been meaning to get that back to you,” Randy said. “I just wasn’t sure how or what to say.”
Shane gave a half-hearted laugh. “How about, ‘Hey Shane, sorry I was a dick. Here’s your stuff back’?”
His brother shot him a dirty look across the picnic table. “Who said I was sorry?”
Unbe-fucking-lievable.
“Then why are we here, huh? Why lunch?”
Randy wiped the side of his mouth with a paper napkin. Calm. Cool. “I figured it was time to move on.”
“Move on from what? Have you moved on from thinking I would sleep with my brother’s wife? What exactly should we move on from?” Shane’s gut clenched as he thought of another possibility. “You and Julie…you aren’t—”
“We’re fine,” Randy cut in. “No thanks to you.”
Shane flinched as if his brother had punched him. “You can’t be serious.”
Randy didn’t say a word. He sipped his bottle of flavored water with his eyes glued to Shane. No reaction. No emotion.
Well, maybe some emotion. Resentment, maybe.
None of it was Shane’s fault, though. He knew that. What he didn’t know was how his own brother could blame him for that. Or Julie.
“You still think I’m lying,” Shane said. “Hell, you still think Julie is lying.” He laughed. Of course. “And you’re willing to forgive us both for it. To be the bigger man to be better than us. That’s it, right?”
Still no answer.
Shane crumpled the last bites of his sandwich in the wrapper and stood, stepping over the picnic bench and grabbing his sweet tea from the table. “Well, fuck you, man. I’ve never lied to you. I never betrayed you. And the fact that you still think that…seriously? Fuck. You.”
He tossed his trash in the nearby bin and started walking down the road. It was at least a mile back to the store, but Shane didn’t care.
He sure as hell wasn’t riding back with his brother. He had no plans to speak to the asshole ever again, if he could help it, much less ride in a car in traffic with him.
A long walk was a much better option. Besides, it was going to take him a while to calm the hell down before he had to deal with customers again.
He made it about a block when his phone beeped with a text. It was from Natalie, asking him to call her when he got a minute.
Natalie had been the whole reason he took a chance and reached out to his brother. It wasn’t her fault his brother was an asswad, but he didn’t want to talk about it.
He put the phone back in his pocket without responding. After this thing with his brother blew up in his face, he wasn’t ready to test his shitty luck today with Natalie. He didn’t know what she had to tell him, but it clearly wasn’t something simple enough to tell him in a text. Which meant it was more than he wanted to deal with right now. Or maybe ever.
Chapter Eight
When her shift was over at six, Natalie went to the front of the
library to wait for Kelsey. They were going to grab a bite to eat and ride over to Cajun Field together, so they could set up quickly for their sound check. She glanced at her phone again.
“What’s that face for?” Kelsey asked as she pulled up to the front and Natalie climbed in the car with her guitar and a change of clothes.
“It’s nothing.”
“Liar. What’s up? Something with Cadence? Is Eddie being a douche again?”
Natalie shook her head. “No, Cadence is fine. It’s not Eddie.”
Kelsey pulled up to a stoplight and looked at her friend. “Oh, damn. I know that look. Did you see Shane again? Spill it.”
“Yeah.” Natalie debated how to explain it without explaining everything. “He came over last night. And now he won’t respond to my texts.”
“Seriously? Shit. What a shithead,” she said. “Sure he’s not just busy?”
“I asked him to call me when he got a minute. I forgot to tell him to keep things quiet around Robin. No need stirring up shit.”
“Well, she doesn’t own your vagina.”
“No, but I did promise her I’d keep things professional until after this week.” Plus, Natalie felt bad about stirring up stuff during rehearsal the night before. She knew Robin had enough on her plate pulling the group together for these gigs.
“Maybe he just hasn’t had a chance to call yet,” said Kelsey. “Or maybe he isn’t getting his texts for some reason.”
Natalie had been telling herself that all afternoon. It wasn’t the most convincing argument. Certainly wasn’t very reassuring. And Kesley didn’t know what Natalie was really worried about, that he’d only been pretending to be okay with her confession that morning. That after he’d had some time to think about it, he’d freaked out. That she’d been right all along. She never should have let this go beyond fling status.
And as much as she’d been convincing herself for years that she didn’t care what anyone thought about her or her sexuality, deep down she was a dirty, stinking liar. She did care what her friends thought of her, which was why she hadn’t told most of them yet. And somehow, despite her own self-warnings, she’d grown to care what Shane thought, too.
Kelsey pulled into the parking lot of the new taco place they both loved, and rolled down the windows a crack. “I’ll grab us some tacos. You stay here and make that phone call. You’re gonna feel like shit until you do, so just get it over with. Grilled shrimp with everything?”
Natalie nodded and handed Kelsey some cash. Then she stared at her phone for a second.
Kelsey was right. She needed to talk to him before the gig. And it had nothing to do with Robin anymore.
She hit the call button and held her breath.
* * * * *
Shane stared at his ringing phone for a second while he stood beside his truck. He’d just gotten off work, and he’d completely forgotten to call Natalie.
Or maybe he hadn’t entirely forgotten.
Either way, he was still pissed about that lunch with his brother, and he wasn’t sure he should talk to her while he was raw and angry from that. But he couldn’t ignore her forever. They were going to see each other in a little while anyway. He might as well find out what she needed to tell him.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” she said. Her voice was low and jagged over the phone. “Bad time?”
“No, I just finished loading up. Sorry, it was busy today.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “So, listen, I just wanted to catch you before tonight.”
“Okay…”
“I’d really like to keep this thing with us quiet around the others. For tonight.”
Shane hadn’t known what to expect, but it sure wasn’t that. His neck tensed and his jaw firmed up. Maybe he was just paranoid from his meeting with Randy, but this didn’t make sense. “Wait…why?”
“It’s really mostly Robin. We’ve had some…issues with the band before. It’s complicated. Sort of. But I can explain later. Can you just do that for me tonight?”
Sure, that sounded reasonable. If he didn’t suspect there was more to this than what she was telling him. And Shane could only think of one reason why she’d want to keep their relationship a secret. “This is about Camille, isn’t it?”
She paused for a second, then gave a firm, sharp-edged, “No.”
“Then why? I thought we were past this whole fling thing. I thought you were serious about wanting more than that now.”
“I am,” she said. “Or I was.”
“Yeah, well, I was, too.” He’d been completely serious about her. About them. He’d even been willing to put his on heart on the line, knowing she still had feelings for Camille. But that meeting with his brother reminded him how bad an idea that was. “I don’t like secrets or drama or whatever this is. I’ve had my fill of getting caught up in other people’s messes.”
“Messes,” she repeated.
He regretted the pain and venom reflected in his word choice, but he wasn’t sure he should take it back. If she was still hung up on this Camille person, this was all just a heartbreak waiting to happen for him.
“Well, maybe we should keep things quiet anyway. For good.”
“For good.” She exhaled, long and slow on the other end. “All right then.”
“I think it’s—”
But she’d already ended the call.
Shane stood outside his truck for a minute, kicking at weeds poking through the pavement cracks. Every cell in his body urged him to call her back. To tell her he was an idiot. To take whatever crushing blow was in line for him down the road.
But he just couldn’t do it. Because he’d known from the moment that he’d first spoken to her last week that this wouldn’t end well.
No use prolonging the inevitable. No matter how much it stung.
Chapter Nine
Natalie helped Kelsey unload the last of her kit from the back of her car and onto the stage. The stadium parking lot smelled like cheap beer, stale vomit, and hot funnel cake. And it was only early Friday. Good thing the band wasn’t on the Tuesday lineup.
At least the smell matched her mood. She’d been ripe the whole drive there, and grateful for the physical activity of setting up to release some of her frustration.
Her messes.
She knew exactly what he meant by that. Fuck him and his mess-aversion. She’d known better than to start anything with this guy. But after a week with Shane—feeling seen, feeling less alone than she’d ever thought possible, feeling like maybe she could take another chance on love…one day—she’d never expected this kind of disappointment.
She should have expected it.
As Kelsey drove off to find a parking spot, she caught sight of Shane walking to the sound stage. That was Natalie’s cue to find a quiet corner to warm up and pretend he didn’t exist.
She placed her gig bag down near the back of the stage and pulled her phone out of the outside pocket. She texted a series of hearts to her ex’s number for Cadence. Sure as hell wasn’t forgetting that again. A smiley face and a dinosaur appeared on the screen a few seconds later, so Natalie tucked the phone back in the pocket and unzipped the bag with a smile on her face, thankful for that dinosaur and the little girl who sent it.
After she slipped the guitar over her head, Natalie wandered off behind the stage to pluck and strum and loosen her fingers and wrists. Once the sun had dropped below the horizon, the pleasant day transformed into a clear, crisp night, but they’d all warm up soon enough during the performance with the hot stage lights and jumping around. A buzz of crowd energy built up as people arrived after work and prepared to kick off their long weekend of festivities. Music and parades and drinking and food in a fuzzy haze of consciousness. Not really her scene anymore, but it went on like clockwork, every year, with or without her.
The new girl arrived, fiddle case in hand, and walked toward Natalie and the stage. She’d been doing a great job so far, but this was easily the biggest gig she’d played wi
th them yet. Lots of people. Lots more pressure.
“You ready?” Natalie asked.
“Ready as I’m gonna get,” the girl replied. She was clearly nervous, as much as she tried to hide it. Whether she was nervous about the gig or about Natalie potentially giving her a hard time again wasn’t clear.
“Hey,” Natalie said.
The girl had just passed Natalie, so she stopped and turned to face her. “Yeah?”
Natalie gave her a reassuring nod. “You’re gonna do great, Lauren.”
It was the first time she’d called her by name. And it was long past due.
Lauren smiled and said, “Thanks,” before turning and climbing the steps to the stage.
Natalie went back to strumming with her back to the rest of them. Shane was across the dance area over with the mixing boards. Everything was already set up for this gig, since the store he worked at set up the sound equipment for the whole fair weekend. Robin never really had anything to worry about, but she was always nervous about things blowing up after the last Kelsey and Eric disaster. So Natalie went along with it. As much as she and Robin butted heads sometimes, she knew Robin took on a lot of stress managing everything for the group, and if she could ease Robin’s mind in any way, she was willing to go along with that.
“Nat!” Kelsey shouted down at her from the stage. “Sound check.”
Natalie gave a thumbs-up and headed toward the stairs. When she reached the top, she found Kelsey bickering with Eric about how he was set up too close to her, and Eric insisting he didn’t have enough space to move over because of a speaker.
Robin got to them before Natalie did. “Everything all right back here?”
“Just dandy,” Eric said.
Kelsey rolled her eyes and turned away. She looked, in fact, like she wanted to throw up. She’d mentioned to Natalie that she wasn’t feeling well a few days ago, a stomach bug or bad food or something, but Natalie was beginning to wonder if something else was going on.
“I will be,” Kelsey said. “Let’s just do this.”