Rock Legend

by Tara Leigh

  His eyebrows arched upward. “Nice. You’re really getting your grip back.” I looked down, seeing my thumb and fingers pressing into his flesh.

  Not tightly. But tightly enough that a surge of hope ballooned within my chest. Maybe this really was only temporary.

  For the next hour I did everything Chris told me to do, tackling each exercise as if it would be the one to finally put drumsticks back in my hands. By the time he said our session was over, my hands and arms were shaking. “I just need to finish this,” I gritted out, completely focused on the task at hand.

  “You sure? You can take them home if you—”

  “I’m sure,” I interrupted, focusing on the thin pieces of wood that were strewn in front of me.

  “Okay.” Chris stood. “I’m going to get things set up for my next client.”

  I gave a grunt as my fingers closed around a stick, successfully picking it up and navigating it into a cardboard container.

  I felt them before I saw them. The pull of a family I’d once known. The family I’d destroyed.

  “Hey there, Jake.” Chris’s pleasant greeting sent ice through my veins.

  Shit.

  Pick-up sticks completely forgotten, I turned in my chair. The last time I’d been this close to Jake was over ten years ago.

  Oxygen deprivation had robbed Jake of the energetic, bubbly personality he had as a toddler. The tween he’d become walked with a lurching, unsteady gait, and there was a flat affect to his face, no hint of the smiles he used to blind me with.

  “Landon.” The harsh whisper had me looking straight into Sarah’s eyes. And then to the man beside her. That she and Mike had stayed together, stayed a family, meant my sacrifice had been worth it.

  “Sorry, I—I didn’t realize.” I stood up so fast I nearly upended the chair.

  Jake had walked straight to Chris, standing close even if he didn’t make eye contact.

  After one last look, I bolted from the room, out into the hall and through the door, swallowing a couple of pills dry. I was fumbling with my keys when I heard my name again. Shit. I needed to leave, to run fast and far. Just like I’d done before.

  But I couldn’t do it. I rounded slowly. “Hey.”

  Sarah was walking, coming so close that I stepped back, flattening myself against my truck. She still didn’t hesitate, getting right into my personal space and cupping my face between her palms. “Landon,” she said again, like she wanted confirmation it was really me.

  I wrapped my hands lightly around her wrists but couldn’t bring myself to push them away. Her face had changed, tiny lines—worry lines—now etched into the skin surrounding her eyes, radiating from the corners of her mouth. “I’m so sorry,” I wheezed, guilt and shame leaching from my pores.

  Sarah didn’t move. “For what?”

  I fought for words to express the enormity of my regret. “For everything.”

  She shook her head. “No, my sweet, sweet boy. If you’re apologizing for running away, I’ll take it. But that’s all.”

  “Stop. Just stop.” Mike had come outside, standing behind his wife, his face a mask of pain.

  I cast a glance at the building. “Jake—”

  “Is fine. He’s with Chris.”

  I clamped my lips shut, not knowing what to say. I knew what I should do. But this time, they weren’t letting me go.

  “I’ve been waiting for this day. Hoping, praying. Not knowing if it would ever come. Do you know we tried to look for you? We called the police, filed a missing persons report.” Sarah expression turned stricken, her memories still fresh after all these years. “But you had only been with us a few years, and were in high school, nearly eighteen. The officers, they didn’t take us seriously. The said you had probably run away and would come home when—if—you were ready.” Sarah’s eyes were big and round, her voice breaking. She released a puff of air on an anguished moan, then continued. “But you never came home. And not long after your eighteenth birthday, we got a call from the police saying that they had confirmed you were alive and they were closing the file. They wouldn’t give us any more information.”

  I winced, remembering the night I’d gotten into a bar fight and been taken to jail. When the processing officer entered my information into the system, she told me about the missing persons flag. But I was eighteen, all she could do was circle back with the cops who had filed it in the first place to let them know I was alive and had been informed. I think she felt bad for me, because I was released an hour later. I went back to wherever I was staying at the time, and forgot all about it.

  Sarah continued. “We would have hired a private investigator, but we just couldn’t afford it. And then, years later, that man, Travis, showed up on our door out of the blue.” She wiped at her wet cheeks. “We never would have taken that money if we didn’t need it for…”

  Jake.

  The second I started earning real money, I’d sent Travis to talk to Mike and Sarah. Offering to take over the payments for Jake’s therapy, to pull strings and have him treated by the best doctors, and cover all his medical bills. With one caveat—not to contact me. Ever.

  I was an asshole like that.

  Shane and I, Jett and Dax, we had bonded over our shared similarities. We were all runaways. Not from the same circumstances. But we’d all left behind family and friends that we’d dragged under our dark cloud. Nothing but Trouble—it wasn’t just the name of our band.

  It was our fucking motto.

  I looked from Sarah to Mike and back again. “I couldn’t.” I pushed out words that felt like shards of glass, shredding my throat before slicing at the air between us. “Not after what I did.”

  Mike came closer. “What I did.”

  “No. No.” I was shaking with the strength of my denial. He couldn’t ruin this. Not now, after all this time. I wouldn’t let him. “It was me. I fed Jake dinner. I took my eyes off—”

  “Sarah knows the truth, Landon. I told her what really happened.”

  Breath bottled up inside my lungs. Staring at him in horror, I couldn’t inhale or exhale.

  Sarah grasped me by my shoulders, forcing my attention back to her. Somehow I managed to suck in a little air, enough to keep me from passing out. “He did. In the hospital. We didn’t know you had left yet, but Mike told me the truth as we sat by Jake’s bedside. The second his condition stabilized, we drove back to the house to get you. To make sure you knew we were still a family—the four of us.”

  I’d only been a couple of inches taller than Sarah when I left, but I was lean and gangly then, and her hugs were like being nestled within a protective cocoon. Now I towered over Sarah, in height and breadth, and yet her arms still wrapped around me, drawing me close. Mike ambled over, looping his arms over our shoulders.

  A family hug.

  Ten-plus years ago, Jake would have been in the mix, too, his delighted chortle bouncing of the kitchen walls.

  But his laughter had been silenced forever.

  A pain that hadn’t lessened with time sliced at my heart, ripping through my intestines.

  I’d been given something precious and I killed it with my selfishness.

  That little boy had been a gift I never thought I would have. A brother. And I’d destroyed him. Proof that I’d never deserved him in the first place.

  I stepped sideways, out of their hold. “No. You asked me something so simple, so easy. Just to watch my baby brother for a few hours. And I couldn’t do that for you?” I shook my head, a fresh wave of disgust and loathing splashing me in the face, drenching me in filth. “You took me out of a group home. Showed me what family was. It makes no difference that I wasn’t the one to feed him dinner. I should have been home, should have been watching Jake for you. Just like you asked.”

  “Landon, you were a teenager,” Mike said. “You wanted to hang out with your friends. I could have put my foot down, but I wanted to be home. I figured I could watch Jake, and the game, and get some work done. Turns out, I couldn’t. I
t was a mistake. A horrible, tragic mistake with irreversible consequences.” Mike’s eyes bore into me, full of remorse, but swirling with sympathy and compassion. I deserved neither.

  “I was off getting high,” I yelled, despising myself for not going home straight after walking in on my girlfriend hanging out with some other guy. “Instead of being the son you deserved, I pissed away time by smoking with some kid I barely remember. You needed me, Jake needed me. And I wasn’t there.”

  “You’re here, now.” Sarah’s voice was firm, and she pointed at the building behind us. “And Jake’s in there, now. He’d love to get to know his big brother.”

  “He should be on a soccer field, or riding a bike. He’s in that rehab center because of me.”

  Sarah wasn’t buying my excuses, I could see it in her face. And when she opened her mouth, she proved me right. “You know what, you don’t get to hoard all the blame. There’s more than enough to go around. I wanted to sing with the choir, was proud to be given a solo. Your father was busy with work and not paying enough attention. And you were a typical teen, doing typical teen things. All of that is true. But so is this—if you hadn’t come home when you did, Jake might not be here at all.”

  Mike jumped in. “Do you know Jake loves music? A few months ago, Jake discovered the unopened drum kit we bought you for Christmas the year you left. It’s his favorite thing to do, and he’s pretty good. Music gives him an outlet for the language that’s trapped in his head.”

  I blinked. “He—he plays the drums?”

  He nodded. “His beat’s a little slower than yours, but he’s taught himself a few Nothing but Trouble songs. You’re his favorite band.”

  It shouldn’t have meant so much to me, I didn’t deserve a damn thing from that sweet boy except his hate. My head lung low, heavy on my neck. “I have to go.”

  “Oh no, you don’t. You’re not hiding behind lawyers and wrought-iron gates anymore. Jake’s session is nearly over. You’re going to come home with us. Get to know your brother, maybe even play drums with him.”

  A bitter cackle tripped from my throat as I held up my hands. “Of course. That’s the one thing I can’t give him right now.” I pinched my fingers and thumb of my right hand together, showing them how weak my hold was. “The one thing you want from me, and I can’t give it to you. It’s a sign. Let me go.”

  Just then, the automatic doors opened and Jake appeared at Chris’s side, walking past me to stand by Sarah. “He did great,” Chris announced, looking between all of us, his posture changing as he picked up on the tension in the air.

  “Thanks for fitting us in today, even for a shortened session,” Mike said.

  “Ah, sure.” He backed up. “See you next week.”

  I was staring at Jake, my heart pounding against my ribcage. He made a strange sound, kind of like a bark. Sarah ruffled the hair on his head, then lightly squeezed the back of his neck. “You want to go see the doggies?”

  Jake nodded, glancing quickly at me for half a second before looking down at the ground again. He made another noise, this one more garbled, and then began flailing his arms. Mike grinned. “Yes. That’s Landon. The drummer. He’s going to play with you, but not today. Today we’re going to see the doggies. Together, would you like that?”

  I swallowed heavily as Jake nodded again. Mike started to explain about the therapy dogs that came to the rehab facility, and that they were based not far from here. “Harmony’s Dog Sanctuary,” I said.

  “You know it?”

  “Yeah. Harmony’s a friend.”

  “Great. We’re going to get Jake his own dog soon, but for now we’ve been visiting her after Jake’s sessions.”

  I didn’t admit I already knew that. That I’d been keeping tabs on them but had purposely kept my distance.

  “You’ll come with us?”

  No. But what came out instead was a mangled, “Sure.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Landon

  There was a quick upward twitch of Harmony’s wiry eyebrows as I walked into the barn with Sarah and Mike, but her expression brightened when her gaze slid to Jake. As he had done with Chris, he didn’t offer a greeting, merely walked up to Harmony, positioning himself at her side, leaning in but not actually touching. But when she casually draped her arms around his shoulders, he allowed her to lead him into the puppy pen.

  “He can spend hours here,” Sarah said, gratefulness weaved within her words.

  “So can I,” I responded, thinking of Piper and wishing she was here, too. But then I remembered why she wasn’t, and was smacked with that same sense of betrayal and rejection I’d experienced when I showed up at her door.

  Sarah glanced from my hands to my face, then at Jake. “Is this part of your therapy?”

  “Not…officially. I’ve been volunteering here for a while.” I felt uncomfortably transparent. Those two pills had barely taken the edge off my unease, and I shoved my hand in my pocket, sweeping a finger over the tin containing more pills like it was a security blanket.

  “A while.” Sarah repeated, her brows pulling together. “How long?”

  I shifted on my feet. “A few years now.”

  “You’ve been keeping tabs on us, haven’t you? You didn’t forget about us.”

  There was a hopefulness to her tone that I didn’t have the heart to bulldoze. It was the truth, after all. “I didn’t forget.”

  As if she knew the toll my admission had taken on me, Sarah didn’t comment on it. Instead she pointed toward the two puppies I recognized as Shania’s, although I didn’t see Shania herself. “Harmony said we could take home one of them in a month or so.”

  I nodded, glancing at Jake. He wasn’t smiling, but there was a brightness to his expression that hadn’t been there before. “That’s great.” I’d spoken to Harmony hundreds of times about Jake, but I’d never seen him up close, actually interacting with any of the dogs. They were crawling all over him, jumping on his legs, licking his hands, putting their paws on his back and chest and trying to sniff his neck.

  Mike gave my shoulder a light squeeze as he walked past me, leaning his elbows against the rails of the enclosure and peering down at his son.

  “So, how did you find out about this place?”

  “Uh…” I shifted on my feet, not wanting to explain how I accidentally discovered Harmony’s because I’d been following them to and from RHC, just to get a glimpse of them walking from the parking lot into the building, and noticed that they would often stop at the sanctuary on their way home. “I met Harmony at the birthday party of a friend’s kid.” My mouth tasted sour as I pushed out the lie, substituting Piper’s story for my own.

  I was at least ten feet away from Harmony, maybe more, and my voice was quiet, but she turned around from where she stood beside Mike, frowning as if she’d heard me.

  “I should go,” I said, looking down and nudging a stray tennis ball with the tip of my boot.

  Before I could follow through, Sarah grabbed my arm in a tight grip. “Landon, losing people you love doesn’t hurt any less just because you leave them first.”

  Something inside me deflated, and I raised a reluctant gaze to meet her penetrating one. “It’s for the best.”

  “The best for who?” she prodded. “I can see in your face that you’re not happy. And as for me, there’s a hole in my heart just your size that no one’s ever been able to fill. Don’t you dare leave us behind again and think you’re doing us a favor.”

  Tears gathered in Sarah’s eyes, one shaking loose as she blinked up at me. “Landon, you are our son, just as much as Jake. Please let us to be your family again.”

  My throat clamped shut, and I couldn’t say a single word. But I managed to make some kind of sound, and gave Sarah a squeeze.

  Instead of walking away, I took a step forward, then another. Together, we watched Jake play with the puppies.

  Piper

  I woke up this morning feeling…different. Laying in bed, I tried to figure
out what it was, running a tentative hand over my belly. My waist had thickened, though it was still relatively flat. At least, when I was lying down.

  It had been five weeks since I realized I was pregnant. Five weeks since Landon showed up at my front door and assumed the worst of me. At first, I didn’t think I’d make it through one day without him. But then one day became two became three. The first week slipped by, then another. The truth was, I’d passed most of the time sleeping. Time moved faster when you were unconscious for twelve hours out of every twenty-four.

  Even so, not a day went by that I hadn’t picked up my phone, pulled up Landon in my contacts, and stared at his face on my screen until tears blurred my eyes.

  Travis had signed a new client—Verity Moore, a disgraced pop princess who had the potential to become a huge star in her own right. If she didn’t flame out first.

  With Landon back in his own house, and staying out of trouble, I’d been reassigned to Verity.

  There was no reason for me to talk to Landon, or see him at all, but it took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to drive by his house, or call his number.

  Recently, instead of avoiding places we’d gone together, I found myself retracing our steps, as if I could step back in time. Shania and I walked every trail I’d walked with Landon, and we visited Harmony’s on the weekends. I ate so many meals from Lupe’s food truck that she’d started setting aside scraps for Shania, too. Lupe had only asked about Landon once, and she’d clucked like a mother hen when I broke down in tears. Of course, that only made me cry harder, remembering Landon calling me a chick.

  That’s exactly how I felt. Like I’d just poked my way out of a shell and had no clue about anything.

  Not my past, or my future. I was merely marking time, trying to survive the day.

  I was nearly at the three-month mark, and so far my first trimester had been a blur. Nausea and absolute exhaustion. Heartache over Landon. Joy at this new life growing inside me. Guilt for bringing a child into the mess I’d created.