by Tara Leigh
I peered at the clock on my nightstand. A few months ago, I would have been at my favorite early morning yoga class. Since becoming pregnant, I tended to hit snooze instead. Four or five times. And even then, I could barely get out of bed until I needed to make a run for the toilet.
That was it. I was lying in bed, awake even though I didn’t have to be at work for hours, and I didn’t feel sick. In fact—I felt great. Physically, at least. Clearheaded and energetic. All the books I’d been reading told me the second trimester was the best part of pregnancy, but I hadn’t believed them. I’d envisioned week after week stretching out as one long crawl through brain fogs and body aches.
I glanced back at the clock again. I still knew the studio’s schedule by heart. If I hurried, I could make the prenatal yoga class that began in half an hour. Throwing the sheet back, I stood up gingerly, waiting for that light-headed rush I’d been feeling whenever I changed position too quickly. But there was none. No nausea, no dizziness. I felt like a new person, or maybe just the old me. The me I’d been before Landon came back into my life and turned my color-coded world into chaos.
With a determined smile, I pulled my favorite pair of yoga pants out of my dresser. When I put them on, they were a little tight at the waist, just like the rest of my wardrobe, but wearable. Next came a sports bra, which felt like it was cutting off my circulation with every breath. My boobs had definitely grown at a faster rate than my belly. Cursing, I managed to wriggle out of it and into an older one that had been stretched from too many bouts with my unreliable washer and dryer.
I made it to the yoga studio in twenty-five minutes. At the front desk, the receptionist brightened when she saw me walk through the door, scooting from behind it and rushing at me with open arms. “Piper,” Katie squealed. “It’s been ages, where have you been?”
I returned her hug. “Oh, just busy with work. I’m glad to be back.”
She giggled. “You’ve been gone so long, you’ve forgotten the schedule. Your usual class is just wrapping up now. The next one is for mommies-to-be.”
And all of a sudden, I realized I couldn’t take the prenatal class after all. At least, not unless I was willing to admit that I was pregnant. This was one of the most popular yoga studios in L.A., I could easily run into someone from work here. Damn it.
I trilled a fake laugh, an embarrassed blush rising up my cheeks. “Oh jeez, I’m so ridiculous.”
“No worries, I totally understand.” Katie flashed a conspiratorial wink as she glanced at my chest. “It took me a few months to get back to working out after my surgery, too. Your boobs look fabulous, by the way.”
Christ. She thought I had gotten implants. I pulled away. “Ah…thanks.”
The studio door opened, sending warm, incense-infused air wafting into the lobby, along with a stream of sweaty students, most of whom I recognized. Katie gave my shoulder a light squeeze and resumed her place behind the reception desk. I turned away, pretending to retie my sneaker.
“Piper?”
Shit. I pivoted, holding my yoga mat in front of me. “Adam, hi.”
“Hi. How are you?”
“Good, good.” I looked around, gesturing with my free hand. “What are you doing here?”
He chuckled. “I’ve decided to take up yoga.”
“You?” The entire time we were together, I had tried to get Adam come to class with me. Now that we’d broken up he finally decided to start practicing…at my studio?
“Yeah. Funny how life works, huh?” He grinned, but his gaze was focused on something over my shoulder.
I turned slightly, following the trajectory. Not something. Someone. “You brought Brian here?”
“I started coming over a month ago, and this is the first time I’m seeing you. I didn’t think it would be a problem.”
Anger swelled inside of me. Anger at Adam, and Landon, and at my body. “I haven’t been here because I’m pregnant, you jerk.”
Adam’s eyes widened, and he took a step back as if I were contagious. “What?” His chin dipped, trying to see behind the rolled-up yoga mat I was holding in front of me like a shield. “I don’t…Are you…Is it…”
As quickly as my flare of anger had appeared, it was gone. No one deserved to be told they were about to become a parent as if it were an accusation. A punishment.
Not knowing what else to say, or how to fix what I’d already said, I started to back away from Adam, babbling an apology.
He caught up with me in the parking lot, just as I was fumbling for my keys. “Piper, please. You can’t just leave without being straight with me. Am I…”
Tears stung my eyes, overflowing in an instant. Yesterday I had cried at a commercial for boil-in-a-bag rice. I sniffed, wiping at my face. “Yes. You are.”
“But…” Adam’s voice was breathless, confusion radiating from every syllable. Sounding much like mine had been. “I don’t understand. You said you were on the pill.”
“The pills you probably should have returned after I threw them at your head. Apparently they’re not effective if you stop taking them in the middle of the month.”
He raked a hand through his hair, which was not something I’d ever seen Adam do before, and exhaled loudly as he sagged against my car.
I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. “This isn’t your problem, it’s mine. I’ll be fine.”
After a minute, Adam wrapped his hands around my wrists, pulling them away from my face. I blinked at him. Blinked again. Why was he smiling? Not just any smile. No, he wore one that nearly split his face in two. “Adam? Why are you looking at me like that?”
In the next instant, I was airborne, and he was spinning me around the parking lot. I grabbed onto his shoulders for dear life. “Adam! What are you doing? Put me down,” I shrieked.
He did. “Sorry, I just—” He broke off, looking as if he’d just swallowed a helium balloon. Beyond elated. “This is just so great.”
“Great?” I said the word slowly, tasting it on my tongue like an exotic spice.
“Yes, don’t you see? It’s like the best of all possible worlds. I’ve finally come out of the closet, and now I get to have a baby with the only woman I’ve ever loved. The woman I still love, actually.”
I swallowed. “Adam, you don’t love me.”
He nodded frantically. “I do, Piper. Of course I do. Just not…you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” He just didn’t love me that way.
“But I love kids. And after things ended between us, I figured my chances of ever having one of my own were pretty slim. But now—”
This time, I interrupted. “But now you get to be with Brian and have a baby that doesn’t involve adoption or a surrogate.”
And I have to share my baby with a man who will never again share my bed. I didn’t realize I started crying again until Adam was peering at me with concern. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
This time I couldn’t wave off my reaction with an I’m fine. Instead I answered honestly, before breaking into sobs. “Everything.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Landon
My self-imposed deadline for playing drums again, giving up painkillers, and getting over Piper had long since passed.
And only one of those things had come to true.
I was playing drums again, although my right-hand grip still wasn’t as tight as I wanted it to be, and if I played longer than fifteen minutes, I invariably lost one of my sticks. But my progress had been steady.
My failure to accomplish the other two were related. I wasn’t taking pills to ease my nerve pain anymore. I was taking them because every cell in my body still ached for Piper. And I didn’t know how to fix that. Pills were the only thing that helped.
Pills, and spending time with Sarah, Mike, and Jake. Sarah and Mike had helped me see Jake’s accident differently. I hadn’t forgiven myself exactly—that would probably never happen—but I’d realized I didn’t have to carry the burden alone anymore.
And now that I was back
in my house, I’d invited them over for an afternoon barbecue—the exact opposite of the kind I had in mind when I’d sent that drunken text all those weeks ago. And it was great. Giving Ana and her husband the day off, I grilled steak and corn, and spent hours playing in the pool with Jake. There were no backflips, this time. Just food, family, and a kind of contentment that was just shy of perfect.
Because it was missing something. I was missing something. Someone.
Piper.
Sarah must have picked up on it. “So, do you really like having this big house all to yourself?”
Mike and Jake were in the pool. I was slicing a watermelon and Sarah was arranging the triangles on a tray. “I have Ana and—”
“That’s not what I mean, Landon.” She gestured at the pool, the house, the lushly landscaped grounds. “Do you have anyone to share this with?”
I wished I’d been wearing sunglasses. Mirrored Ray-Bans that would have hidden my thoughts from Sarah’s too perceptive gaze. “I’m sharing it with you guys now. Why, you want to move in? I have enough room.” I said it jokingly, but it sounded pretty damn good.
“Not what I meant, either.” She reached for the pieces I’d just cut. “Fine, if you don’t want to tell me about your love life, I won’t push.”
I gave a rueful snort. “Not much of one to tell.”
Sarah frowned. “You know, there are successful musicians that have regular lives, too. Families, friends. Maybe when you meet the right girl—”
I dropped the knife, and not just because my hand was trembling from the effort of cutting through the rind. I was cutting through it though, which was more than I would have been able to do just a couple of weeks ago. “I met the right girl, Sarah. The only girl.”
She wiped her hands on a dishtowel and looked back up at me. “Why isn’t she here?”
I could spend the next year trying to answer that question, but three words summed it up best. “I fucked up.”
“Oh, Landon.” Her expression softened. “Don’t you know by now? Nothing worth having comes easy.”
The night I met Piper again, Dax had said the same thing to me. I should have listened.
“What are you waiting for?” Sarah added. “Go win her back.”
And she was right. So fucking right.
Why did it take Sarah’s reminder for me to realize it?
Six years ago, I thought I couldn’t have a career and Piper at the same time. And maybe, back then, I couldn’t have balanced both to be successful at either. Six weeks ago, Piper had come back into my life, but by the time I got my head out of my ass and realized I’d be a fool to let her go a second time, uncertainty that I’d ever overcome my injury made me question everything all over again.
After spending time with Sarah and Mike, and getting reacquainted with Jake, my perspective had been flipped on its head. At first, all I’d seen were the obstacles and limitations to Jake’s life. But he didn’t. To Jake, life was an endless pursuit of joy. Sure, it might take him ten minutes to tie his sneakers—but then he could spend hours strolling through a farmers market, sampling ripe berries and fresh honey. When Jake fell down, he would roll over and stare at the clouds in the sky, enjoying the feel the sun on his face. His laugh might not sound the way it used to, but now that I knew what to listen for, I heard it all the time. Jake was happy, and he was loved.
Piper was my joy. And even if I never made it back on stage, it didn’t mean that I couldn’t find other ways to fill my life with music in a meaningful way.
My injury wasn’t the insurmountable obstacle keeping Piper and I apart.
I was the asshole getting in my own damn way.
Nothing worth having comes easy.
But if I gave up, I’d got exactly what I deserved. Nothing.
I couldn’t leave right away—I’d promised Jake a jam session after he’d had his fill of the pool—but I got in my truck as soon as Mike pulled out of my driveway.
It wasn’t until I’d arrived at Piper’s apartment complex that I realized I had so much to say—and not the first clue where to start. I was still trying to figure it out when her front door opened, the paper bag in her hand no doubt filled with plastic salad containers and empty Vitamin Water bottles. She was a creature of habit, always taking out her recycling before going to bed.
Piper Hastings. Would this woman ever stop wreaking havoc on every one of my senses?
I’d seen with my own eyes how quickly I’d been replaced, and yet I didn’t care.
It should have been enough to destroy the ridiculous pipe dream I had of finding my own forever with Piper.
But it hadn’t. I missed the fuck out of this girl. Felt like a hollow husk of myself without her. The womanizing asshole I’d been for the last few years—Landon Cox, a legend on stage and off—he’d disappeared, too.
Replaced by a pill-popping pussy.
I couldn’t blame Piper for choosing someone else. Anyone else.
Didn’t make me want her any less.
And tonight, I’d be damned if I couldn’t get her back.
I got out of my truck. “Piper.” Her head perked up, and beneath the lights in the parking lot, I watched as her expression slid from recognition to anguish.
Tension thickened the air between us as her shoulders tensed, her mouth pursing with the start of a protest. “What are you doing here, Landon?”
That Piper cared enough to react to me, at all, was a good sign. “Thought we should talk.”
“It’s been over a month, and I haven’t heard from you. Not even once. What’s there to talk about?”
How much I miss you.
What an ass I’ve been.
Us.
The words clogged in my throat and what came out instead was a frustrated, “Everything!” My voice was louder than I’d intended and I glanced around, expecting to see someone pointing a camera phone at me. But the night was quiet, no one in sight. “Please, can I come inside?”
She shook her head, then started to walk toward the little house that sat in a corner of the parking lot, housing the garbage and recycling bins for the residents. She tossed her bag into the chute and walked back toward me, her flip-flops lightly slapping the pavement with each step.
She came closer than she’d been before, but still out of reach. “It’s not a good idea.”
The thin strap of her tank top slid down one shoulder, and my fingers twitched with the need to touch her. The shirt was too big on her, although it hugged her breasts in all the right places. Breasts that seemed bigger, fuller, than I remembered.
As I stared, Piper’s nipples hardened into twin peaks, pushing against the thin fabric. Jesus. I wanted to bite them. Devour every last bit of her until she was a part of me.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Piper’s voice was husky, as if she knew exactly what was going on inside my head.
“Like what?” I snapped back to her face, noting her flushed cheeks and glittering eyes.
She worried at her lower lip, the heat from her stare setting my blood on boil. “Like…” Taking a quick breath, she rubbed the frown pulling at her brows. There was a war going on inside her mind. Her lips pressed together, a last line of defense against whatever she wasn’t sure she should say. A beat passed, then two. But finally her mouth opened, and she looked back at me. “Like I’m yours, Landon. Stop looking at me like I’m yours.”
She may as well have aimed a Taser to my chest. My bones ached from the force of her stare. “Pippa, you’ll always be mine.” The words came out on their own, hitting my ears and brain at the same time. Probably the most honest sentence I’d ever spoken.
She looked stricken, her flawless face contorting with a mix of anger and grief. “Goddamn it. You don’t get to say things like that to me.”
“You want me to lie? Say we don’t belong together? That we should be fucking friends? Is that what you want from me—lies?”
She remained silent, and I wanted to reach into her soul and pull out the answers I
was so desperate to hear. Answers that would have us rushing toward each other, a two-bodied tangle of heads and hearts and limbs, fused at the center.
Wind gusted, and her sweet scent nearly made me groan with longing. I was flooded with memories, drowning in them. The smiles she saved only for me, the noises she made when I was buried deep inside her, the way the morning sun kissed her skin. I was burning up, sick from the loss of a woman standing just a few feet away from me.
Because I had lost her. I could see it in the tortured curl of her lips, in the downward cast of eyes reluctant to hold mine.
Panic clutched me by the throat, squeezing tightly. Suffocating.
She started backing up. Small steps of escape.
Two feet became three, then five. Another and she stepped onto the curb.
“I fucking miss you, Piper.” My voice broke free, emerging scratchy. Like an old vinyl record. I covered the distance between us before she could even blink. With Piper up on the curb, and me still on asphalt, we were nearly eye to eye. And she was shaking.
I reached for her, needing to enfold her in my arms, when she jumped back. “Don’t touch me.” Even her voice was trembling.
Piper’s fear was a sharp blade, slicing deep. Shredding my soul at her feet. “Christ, Pippa. I’d die before I ever hurt you.”
She eyed me fearfully, regretfully. “What do you think you’re doing right now?”
“What am I doing? I’m trying to get you back. I don’t know what you think you saw, or why you felt the need to retaliate by getting back with your ex. I’d rip my fucking eyes out if it meant never having to see what I did that morning. But I don’t care. I just want you back. You’re mine, Pippa. And I’m yours.” Frustration pinched my shoulder blades, and I tried to dredge up the confident guy who could strut across a stage—any stage—as if he owned it. “We belong together. You know we do.”
“It’s too late for us.” Her throaty whisper was haunting in its certainty.
I slowly shook my head as I stood up on the curb, my boots toe-to-toe with Piper’s flip-flops, drinking in her glistening eyes, swirling with emotion. Emotions, plural. Too many to count. Turning calm ocean blue into a riotous cobalt sea. I put my hands on either side of Piper’s face, her tears sliding along my thumbs.