The Happy Ever After Playlist

by Abby Jimenez

  I sat back in my chair with my beer between my knees. “Jesus. Fourteen months on the road?” I’d never done more than three without a long break between.

  “I told you. Not a good time to have a girlfriend. They’re gonna work you to within an inch of your life. You said you wanna be Don Henley famous and this is definitely the label to get you there, but they do not fuck around.”

  I dragged a hand down my mouth. Well, it was what I wanted. I’d dreamed of making it since I was five and I’d worked my ass off to get here. Ernie was right, though, the timing sucked. The timing really sucked.

  He glanced at his watch. “I gotta get going.” He stood and turned to me. “Hey, I don’t mean to be a downer about the girlfriend thing. I’m sure it’ll all work out and you’ll ride happily into the sunset. I’ve just been around the block a few times and I’ve seen how hard this business is on relationships.” He slapped my back. “But you guys are different. You two are gonna be fine. Just don’t take her on tour.”

  I laughed, and Ernie made his way back to the house, his shoes dangling from his fingers. “Don’t take her on tour, Jaxon!” he yelled over his shoulder.

  Fuck, I didn’t see how I could even if I wanted to. Fourteen months, minus the little break for the holidays—that was over a year on the road. That was a commitment. A huge commitment. A leave-your-life-behind commitment.

  But I was getting ahead of myself. At the moment I couldn’t even get a damn text back.

  For the next few hours I just fiddled with my guitar, keeping my phone close in case Sloan called—which she didn’t. Finally at 8:00 I bit the bullet and I just called her, even though she hadn’t responded to my last text.

  It went to voicemail.

  Now I felt bad for every woman I’d ever left hanging, waiting for a phone call. This shit sucked.

  Tucker and I were quite the pair. I was brooding and irritable and he wouldn’t get up except to raise his head occasionally and whine.

  When my phone finally rang at 10:30, I jumped for it. It was Sloan. Any thoughts of giving her a hard time for making me wait all day flew out the window. “Hey, you’re alive.” I smiled into my phone.

  But there was no reply. Then I heard crying.

  I stood. “Sloan? Are you okay?”

  “Jason.” She sniffed.

  She was drunk. No mistaking the slur in her voice.

  “Sloan, where are you?”

  “Home.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn’t driving or somewhere unsafe.

  “Jason? I was thinking about you today.”

  I felt the weight I’d carried all day in my chest lift. “I was thinking about you today too,” I said gently.

  “You don’t want me, okay?”

  “What?”

  “You don’t. Trust me, you don’t. I’m messy. I’m a mess. I’m in an in-between.”

  I smiled softly. “I like your mess.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Sloan?”

  “Can you come over?”

  I was in motion before she finished her sentence. I grabbed a backpack and started throwing things into it, cradling the phone with my shoulder. “I’m on my way. Sloan? You have to unlock the front door. Do it now, while I’m on the phone.”

  “Mmmkay,” she said. A few moments later I heard the sound of a bolt lock being turned.

  “I’m getting in my truck now. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Tucker jumped in the cab with an enthusiasm that could only come from knowing where we were headed.

  “Jason?” she said as I pulled down the driveway. She was crying again. “You make me want to cook for you.”

  I smiled at the compliment. I understood what that meant to her to say that. Then the line went dead.

  She didn’t answer when I called back.

  Ten minutes later I pulled into her driveway and jogged to the front porch. Tucker had his nose pressed into the crack of the door, and when it opened, he tore into the house like he was retrieving a duck. But I stopped in the doorway with my mouth open.

  The living room looked like a tornado had gone through it. Black trash bags everywhere and stacks of men’s clothing strewn all over the floor. A knocked-over lamp and hangers in a pile, men’s shoes scattered on the carpet.

  Brandon’s clothes.

  A tumbler sat in a small clear spot in the middle of the mess with an empty bottle of tequila and wads of balled-up tissues next to it.

  I followed Tucker’s excited noises through a bedroom and into an adjacent bathroom. Sloan lay crumpled by the toilet on a white floor mat, her cell phone next to her. I crouched beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Sloan? Can you hear me?”

  She groaned, but she didn’t open her eyes. I sighed and scratched my beard. Completely wasted.

  I got a damp washcloth and cleaned her face. She’d been sick at least once. I flushed the toilet and wiped the seat with toilet paper.

  She’d thrown up in her hair. I lifted her and moved her to rest against the bathtub, pushing her shower curtain aside. A cotton ball was taped to the inside of her elbow like she’d had blood taken. I peeled that off and threw it away. Jesus, what had she been doing today?

  I managed to wash her hair with a cup by letting it fall over the lip into the tub. Tucker sat in the bathroom doorway watching the activity. He seemed to know I was helping her. At one point she started to cough, and I turned her to the toilet and held her hair back while she threw up again.

  She muttered some apologies, vaguely aware I was there. Then she went back under.

  I towel-dried her hair and brushed it back as best I could, pulling it into a messy ponytail and carrying her to bed. She nuzzled her face into my neck and clutched my shirt and my heart pounded. I had to laugh. Even sloppy drunk, this woman had me.

  Tucker jumped up and snuggled next to her as I tucked her in. She threw an arm around him and hugged him to her with a soft, “Tucker…”

  No wonder he was disappointed to be home with me. If I got to sleep like that every night, I’d be pissed to be back with me too.

  I walked through the house and locked up, turning off lights and collecting the empty bottle and tumbler, stepping around piles of her dead fiancé’s personal effects. I got a bucket from the garage and a glass of water for her and left them by the bed. I collected her phone from the bathroom floor to plug into the charger on her nightstand, dropping a few pills next to her water for the morning. She’d need them.

  Afterward I went out to my truck and got the parts for her sink. I went about fixing it so I could wash the dishes, checking back in on her when it was done. She slept peacefully.

  A large photograph of Sloan hung over her bed. I couldn’t stop looking at it. It was a portrait of her from the side, naked and balancing on the balls of her feet, with her tattooed arm covering her breasts. It looked like a professional photo, one from a tattoo magazine. Maybe she’d done modeling before. God knows she was good-looking enough. It was a fantastic shot.

  Pictures lined her dresser. Mostly her and another woman, who I assumed was Kristen. Sloan looked like the colorful one of the two, even though I knew she was more conservative than her friend. One frame showed them at Disneyland wearing Mickey Mouse ears. Another was them outside the Pantages Theatre with a Wicked poster behind them.

  There were photos of Brandon too. I recognized him from the picture on The Huntsman’s Wife. He’d been a good-looking guy. He and Sloan had matched.

  He had a Marine Corps tattoo on his forearm. In one picture he wore a T-shirt that read BURBANK FIRE DEPARTMENT on it. There was a photo of him with Sloan on a beach, standing in the surf. Another one in a Tough Mudder frame showed him with Sloan, racing bibs pinned to their shirts. She wore knee-high socks and pigtails, smiling, covered in mud.

  It was ridiculous to feel jealous of a man who’d been dead for two years, but I did. I wondered how I measured up. I was a very different person than he was. Just from these photos, I could see we had lived very
different lives.

  I went back out to the living room and lay down on the couch to spend the night in case she needed my help.

  Who was I kidding? I was staying because I wanted to stay.

  Something must have really affected her today, and I wondered if I had anything to do with it. She’d said she’d been thinking about me. I thought about what she said earlier on the phone, that she was in an in-between. I didn’t care where she was.

  I wanted to be there with her.

  Chapter 14

  Sloan

  ♪ Maybe You’re the Reason | The Japanese House

  I woke up wishing I had died in my sleep. My head felt like a tomato that had been dropped from a second-story building.

  I felt blindly along my nightstand for my phone to check the time. My eyes were puffy from crying, and my fingers knocked into a glass of water. I cracked an eye open.

  Two Advils sat on the nightstand. My phone was on the charger at 100 percent. A bucket was on the floor next to the bed.

  I prayed it had been Kristen. I scoured my blank, foggy, hungover memory for a drunken call to Kristen. Hell, I’d even settle for Josh. But then I saw Tucker curled up on the other side of the bed and I groaned. I looked at my last call, squinting at the impossibly bright screen. I’d drunk dialed Jason.

  I. Drunk. Dialed. Jason.

  I leaned back onto my pillow and put an arm over my face.

  He wouldn’t have left his dog here. At least I didn’t think he would have since he’d just gotten him back, so I was pretty sure Jason was somewhere in the house.

  I sat up gingerly, trying not to jostle my head. I downed the water and the pills, holding the glass with both hands. Then I stumbled to the bathroom and took the longest pee of my life. I brushed my teeth three times, practically drank mouthwash, and turned on the shower. When I went to pull my hair from its ponytail, I realized with horror that it was damp.

  Someone had washed my hair.

  Jason had washed my hair.

  Sweet Jesus, just let me die.

  After I’d showered, just to prolong the inevitable awkward first encounter with Jason since the hair washing, I turned on the faucet and ran a bubble bath.

  Thank God for my new water heater.

  I folded a cold wet washcloth over my eyes and sat in the tub with Tucker curled up on the shaggy bathroom mat.

  Someone tapped on the door.

  “Sloan? Mind if I come in? I have your coffee.”

  Jason.

  The lock on my bathroom door was broken, like every other stupid freaking thing in the house. Ugh.

  “The door’s unlocked,” I mumbled. The bubbles had me covered from the neck down. I dragged the washcloth from my eyes and lolled my head toward the door.

  Jason let himself in, leading with a Starbucks cup. “I figured you wouldn’t want to wait for this,” he said, looking at the wall.

  “Thank you,” I rasped. “You can look. I’m covered.”

  He turned to me and put the coffee in my hand. Then, instead of leaving, he put the toilet seat lid down and sat on it, grinning at me.

  I smelled the top of the cup. I didn’t care what kind it was. It was coffee. I felt a caffeine headache lurking behind my hangover and I’d take anything. I took a sip, closing my eyes. Sweet nectar of the gods, it was my drink! A triple grande vanilla latte. How did he know?

  “I saw an old cup by your easel. The drink was written on the outside,” he explained. “When I heard the shower go on, I ran out to get it for you so it would still be hot.”

  I think I fell just a little bit in love with him in that moment. I got a murky vision of telling our grandchildren about the day Grandma almost drank herself to death and Grandpa saved her with espresso.

  “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted,” I said, my voice husky in a way that told me I’d been vomiting.

  “How are you feeling?”

  Deathly? Mortified? Heartsick?

  “I’ve felt better.”

  Jason wore a gray Muse T-shirt and jeans. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his sky-blue eyes searching my face. I was puffy and hungover and this talented, sexy man had just brought me my favorite coffee after spending a night washing barf out of my hair.

  Jaxon Waters washed barf out of my hair.

  I was too sick for the embarrassment to truly settle in my bones. I accepted this information with a shallow understanding of how fucked up it all was and the knowledge that I’d dwell on it obsessively later while applying the appropriate mortification.

  This was the end for us, I was sure of it. He had probably stuck around to make sure I didn’t choke to death on my own vomit. Now that he’d seen that I was alive, he’d collect his dog and leave, and I’d never see him again.

  I was a disaster, damaged, a hot mess, and now he truly knew it. My living room was covered in my dead fiancé’s clothing, because yes, after two years I still had all his clothes. I’d called Jason while sloppy drunk and said God only knew what. What was there to like?

  “I’ll make you some breakfast,” he said, pushing up on his knees. “Take your time.”

  Then, to my shock, he leaned down and, with the biggest grin, he tipped my chin up and kissed me.

  “Did you take the Advil?” he whispered, hovering just above me, looking at me with an amused smile.

  “Um, yeah?”

  “Good.” And he kissed me again, lingering for a moment. Then he winked and walked out of the bathroom.

  “Oh. My. God,” I breathed, grabbing for my washcloth and dragging it back over my face.

  I finally came out half an hour later, wearing a sweatshirt and leggings, no makeup, wrapped in a blanket and holding the bucket Jason left by my bed in a zero-fucks-given effort at not looking the way I felt. I figured I’d gone this far, why not go all in?

  Jason sat waiting on the sofa. His face lit up when he saw me.

  The scene was almost ironic. I would have laughed if I still didn’t feel so crappy. There was Jason, surrounded by an ocean of Brandon’s things, trying to be a part of my ridiculous, sad universe. And the funny thing was all this chaos was for him.

  After our date and the kissing—which, let’s be honest here, was so out of this world it had probably ruined me for all other men—it had occurred to me that at some point, I might want to invite him home. That if I ever wanted to ask him inside, he’d spend the night in my room and use my bathroom.

  Then I looked at my life through Jason’s eyes, and all I saw was Brandon. Brandon’s clothes in the closet, Brandon’s toothbrush still in the bathroom. The last beer he had, still sitting on his workbench in the garage, evaporated and empty. And I thought about what Kristen had said, about my life being a shrine to him, and I realized I was still living with another man.

  And that man wasn’t ever coming home.

  So for the two-year anniversary of his death, I did the healthy thing. I paid my visit to his grave, gave blood in his memory, and started cleaning. I put on some upbeat music and tried to make it something positive.

  Things had started well. I packed up all Brandon’s hunting gear and brought it to Josh. That had been easy. I knew that’s what Brandon would have wanted me to do with it. Then I threw away his toiletries and cleared out the medicine cabinet.

  But when I started on his clothes, the situation went south.

  Some of his clothes still smelled like him, and they reminded me of places we’d been together. Like the T-shirt he picked up in Venice Beach on our second date, and the jacket he wore when we rented that cabin in Big Bear that one winter. I started a pile for a few items I wanted to keep, things that had sentimental value for me, and after a while that pile was bigger than the donation pile.

  So I grabbed some tequila, had a shot of liquid courage, and started moving items from the keep pile into trash bags. And I was actually getting through it, until I found a receipt in the pocket of his favorite jeans. A receipt from Luigi’s, the stupid Italian place in Canoga Park we
liked. The last place we ate together.

  That’s when I’d lost it. The rest of the night was a lot of drinking, crying, and, as evidenced by Jason’s presence in my living room, drunk dialing.

  I sat on the sofa with him and crossed my legs under me. Tucker jumped up next to me and put his head in my lap.

  Jason smiled, handing me a weird silver package from the coffee table. “Breakfast.”

  I wrinkled my forehead. “Is this…camping food?” The package read Backpacker’s Pantry, granola with milk and bananas. It was warm.

  He handed me a spoon. “This is my favorite oatmeal. I buy it by the case. It’s great for a hangover. Plus, no dishes.”

  No dishes was good since I still didn’t have a working kitchen sink. The top of the bag had a zipper seal. I pried it open and tasted it. “This isn’t half-bad,” I admitted. “I’ve never had actual camping food before.”

  “You’ve never been camping?”

  “Well, yes. But we drive in. There’s an electrical hookup and running water. We bring a cooler of food and we plug in the griddle and cook on it.”

  He looked amused. “That’s not really camping. That’s hanging out outside.”

  “Oh, I forgot. You’re a camping purist.” I smiled weakly, my head throbbing. I closed my eyes as a mild wave of nausea rippled through me, and I let out a breath through my nose.

  “You’ll feel better in a few hours,” Jason said behind the spinning darkness of my eyelids.

  “So, what else do you cook?” I asked, picking up my bag of oatmeal again.

  “Grilling and boiling water for dehydrated food are about all that’s in my wheelhouse.”

  “Oh. Well, if you can boil water, you can make coffee.”

  “I make amazing coffee,” he said. “I use a French press.”