Mia’s injuries had been substantial and her recovery was a long process. I couldn’t leave her to go through that with only my parents for support, because they weren’t providing any. My mom wouldn’t even visit her and my dad was still trying too hard to keep the peace between everyone. The argument we’d had in that waiting room hadn’t been the last of our fighting, and as much as I tried to get through to my mother and father, it felt like I was chiseling away at a mountain with a plastic spoon. Ace did his best to keep me sane, listening as I let out all of my frustrations, holding me when I was overwhelmed and taking care of all of our needs while we stayed in that hotel for over two weeks.
I could see the toll it was taking on him. Not only was it difficult for him to watch me constantly battle my parents and come out bruised and discouraged, but the stress that was being piled on top of that by the label and band, was too much. The other guys were trying to be understanding and supportive, but they had commitments to their fans and the label and it was becoming very hard for them to honor those with one band member on the other side of the country.
I knew Ace wouldn’t leave though. He would stay as long as he thought I needed him, but it was incredibly selfish of me to let him give up so much. That was why the day Mia was finally released from the hospital, I asked him to go.
We were getting ready to go visit Mia at my parents’, to make sure things were going okay with her back at the house, but I knew that the next morning the band had an interview for the premier of their latest music video. He’d told the guys he was opting out and just to cover for him, but it was the third appearance he’d declined to make.
“Ace, can I talk to you for a minute?” He was sitting in the living room of our suite, tying his boots and I went to stand beside the couch.
He pulled the last knot in his laces tight and then looked up at me. “Of course. What’s up?”
“I want to talk to you about me staying while Mia recovers,” I began.
“It’s no problem. I expected you would want to. I think she’ll definitely need you a lot in the next few weeks with your mom still coming down on her pretty hard. We can stay as long as you want.” I knew he meant it too, which is why I had to make him believe that leaving was what I wanted him to do. If he knew I was doing this for him, he would never go.
“The thing is, you’re right. She will need me a lot. I know she won’t want to ask my parents for help. My dad has probably already hired a private nurse to come in and care for her, but she won’t want that either. I’m going to need to be there a lot, and I think it will be an inconvenience going back and forth from the hotel so many times a day, since my parents live so much further than the hospital,” I explained.
“Okay … are you saying you want to move hotels?”
“No, I, uh, think it would be best if I just stayed at the house so that I can be there for her all the time.”
“I noticed you said ‘I’ and not we,” he said slowly. “You want me to stay here?”
“Actually, as much as it’s meant to me that you’ve stayed this whole time and been here for me, I think it would be better if you went home.”
I watched as my words sank in and his face pulled into a frown. “You want me to go? You don’t want me here with you?”
“No, that’s not it. You being here has been the only thing that’s kept me going, but I just think that with as much time as I’m going to need to devote to Mia, it would just be easier on both of us. She won’t want you there when I’m having to help her bathe and go to the bathroom, and I would feel so bad if you were just sitting around in a hotel room all day waiting for me to come back. With things still so tense with my mom, I know she wouldn’t be pleasant to you if you were there at the house, and I don’t want to feel like I’m ignoring you. Besides, every spare minute that I’m not with Mia, I’m going to have to devote to keeping up in my classes if I don’t want to drop them.” It was all true, or at least mostly. I’d already dropped the one class I actually had on campus, and now just had the two online, but it didn’t change how difficult it was to ask him to go. If I didn’t know that leaving was the best thing for him, I wouldn’t have cared about any of those reasons. We would have figured it out.
“I don’t mind staying, really. Even if I do just have to hang out in a hotel room. I want to be here in case you need me.”
“I know, and I appreciate that so much, but I can’t focus on Mia and trying to figure things out with my parents if I’m feeling guilty about not spending time with you and distracted by wanting to be with you, and that’s what would happen, because when you’re here, there’s nowhere else I want to be.”
“You’re really sure that this is what you want, what you need me to do?” he asked.
“Yes,” I lied and so of course he left. He’d do anything for me, even something I knew he absolutely didn’t want to, but needed to for his own good. He went ahead and booked a flight out for that evening and we said our goodbyes, which involved a lot of kissing. Afterward, we packed up our stuff and then we both climbed into cabs that took us two different directions.
Love you.
I read the text message inside the cab. It hadn’t even been fifteen minutes and I already wished he would come back. It bothered me more than it should have. We hadn’t broken up, and hopefully in just a couple weeks I would be on my way back home to Boston as well.
It wasn’t just a couple weeks though. Mia had a broken leg, a broken arm, broken ribs, a fractured collarbone and a bad attitude. She was difficult and moody and did nothing to help the situation with our mom, so nothing improved. As frustrated as I was with both of them, I didn’t feel right leaving Mia to deal with it all on her own.
I didn’t stay at the house, that plan had been blown to hell the first day when I walked in to find my mother berating Mia. Of course then I got into it with her and she told me I couldn’t stay there and demanded I leave. I called Uncle Ray who lived on Mercer Island and he told me that I could go stay on his boat that was docked at the marina here. That was how I ended up spending the next two months living on a boat that made me seasick, bouncing back and forth between there and my parents’ house. Things only got better a few mornings later when I walked out to my rental car and found a rather unpleasant note stuffed under my windshield wiper. It was a regular occurrence now. I found one every couple of days. It got to the point that I stopped bothering to read them. They didn’t say anything new, just what a terrible person I was blah, blah, blah. I didn’t have it in me to care anymore.
It wasn’t really a big mystery where they were coming from since Uncle Ray docked his boat at the marina where Clayton’s father still worked, the place we’d initially met. I didn’t actually believe it was his dad leaving them, but I figured he’d probably mentioned to one of his sons that I was living out of the boat, and well, if I had to put money on who my harasser was, I would bet Andre, it seemed his style.
I didn’t mention any of it to Ace when we somehow found time to talk in the craziness that was our lives. The guys had started touring again at the end of February and his schedule was hectic. I didn’t want him dropping everything to rush to my rescue again.
So many times he tried to make plans for a short visit to Seattle to see me, but I always had an excuse ready – Mia was especially depressed that weekend, I’d made plans with an old friend, my relationship with my parents was finally improving and I wanted to focus on that. They were all lies, and that was the biggest one. The truth was that I was lonely and I missed him and wanted him to visit more than anything, but I couldn’t say any of that without him figuring out everything I was keeping from him. He worried enough about me, I couldn’t add to it, but I wasn’t entirely sure that he hadn’t already picked up on how I was feeling. It was getting harder and harder to pretend to be cheerful and positive and it was only going to get harder with the anniversary that was just around the corner.
Just a few more weeks until I could go home. I could do it.
Chapter 35
Ace
It had been two months, or fifty nine days to be precise, since I had seen Sadie. That was about fifty eight days too many. To say that it fucking sucked was a serious understatement. I hadn’t been thrilled when she asked me to leave her. I didn’t like the idea of not being there for her while she dealt with her family, but I hadn’t anticipated how hard the separation would be on me. The guys had all sorts of lovely words to describe my pisstastic mood lately. Ky was the only one who didn’t give me shit. He got it, but at least his woman was at his side. Mine wasn’t and I didn’t know if it was just really getting to me or if something was wrong, but lately things had felt off when we talked on the phone.
If she wasn’t still ending our conversations by telling me she loved me, I would have been worried she was dumping my ass. As it was, that doubt and fear still worked its way into the back of my mind and I couldn’t shake it. Before I’d left Seattle, things between us had felt perfect. Shit with her family had still been, well pretty shitty, but me and her, we were good, more than good. Now I just couldn’t ignore the feeling that it wasn’t so true anymore.
I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was that was off, but Sadie felt distant, almost like she was keeping things from me. I just couldn’t figure out what. I’d ask about Mia, and she’d say she was healing quickly and doing well. I’d ask about her parents and she’d assure me that they were making progress in sorting through their issues. I’d ask her about her classes and she’d tell me that they were keeping her busy, but none of them were too difficult. Those were the only things I could come up with that I thought might be bothering her, yet even though things seemed to be good in all areas, she still sounded unhappy, sometimes even on the verge of tears. She’d claim exhaustion any time I voiced my concerns.
The thought had crossed my mind that maybe she was missing me as bad as I was missing her, and she just didn’t want to make me feel bad about being gone, but in the past two months, I’d tried to fly out to see her four or five times, but she always had an excuse ready – a test to study for, a paper to write, doctors appointments to get Mia to, she’d even come down with the flu. I didn’t want to believe that she would lie to me or that she wouldn’t come to me if something was wrong, but that’s what it looked like. I was more than a little anxious to find out why. She was going to be shit out of luck if she was trying to end things, because that wasn’t happening, even if I had to kidnap her and keep her hostage in my bedroom until she saw reason. I’d Stockholm the fuck out of her if that’s what it took.
At least in a few more hours I’d finally be seeing her, and hopefully face to face I’d be able to tell if something really was wrong. I’d had enough of this being away from her bullshit. We had a break in our tour and I’d be damned if I missed her birthday.
She didn’t know I was coming though, she didn’t know any of us were. The whole gang was coming out to surprise her for her birthday, which was tomorrow. Seeing that it landed on a Sunday, we decided tonight was a better night to take her out to celebrate. I was hoping to have her to myself tomorrow, just the two of us for the day. Mia knew we were coming and was in on the surprise. It was her job to get Sadie to her favorite restaurant tonight under the guise of a small birthday dinner between sisters. We couldn’t all just show up at their house. That would go over with her mother about as well as actual freaking turkey and mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving. Yeah, I still hadn’t gotten over that.
The closer the plane got to Washington, the more anxious I grew. I wanted to see her, and bad, but I was also worried about whatever it was she wouldn’t tell me. A part of me wanted to be mad at her. She was the one who had made such a big deal about honesty and open communication in our relationship, but I think mostly I was just mad at myself for leaving her, even though she’d insisted that was what she wanted. I couldn’t help but think that if I’d just stayed, we wouldn’t be in this position now, with so much distance between us, and I didn’t just mean physically.
“So what’s the plan?” Spade asked from the seat next to me. “We partying tonight after dinner?”
“I don’t know man, it’s whatever Sadie wants. If she doesn’t want to go out then I won’t be partying. You guys can do your own thing tonight if you want.”
“Yeah, alright, and you’re sure little sis hasn’t ruined the surprise? She really doesn’t know we’re coming?”
“I don’t think so. Mia promised, and it was kind of weird actually, but Sadie hasn’t even mentioned her birthday. I thought I was going to have to come up with some excuse why I couldn’t fly out to see her, but she never even brought it up. I almost got the feeling she didn’t want me to know it was her birthday.” I turned to look at Jax who was in the seat across the aisle. “Did she mention it to you at all?”
She gave me a sad smile. “Well she knows I know it’s her birthday tomorrow, but Sadie isn’t big on celebrating it, so I’m not surprised she didn’t tell you, and I wouldn’t get your hopes up about clubbing tonight.”
I frowned. “Why doesn’t she like to celebrate her birthday?”
Jax chewed her lip while I watched her internally debate whether or not she should tell me, then she let out a resigned sigh. “I don’t think it’s something she was intentionally keeping from you, I just think she probably didn’t want to bring it up because she still has such a hard time with it, but Clayton died the day after her birthday.”
My heart sank in my chest and my head fell back against my seat. Shit. It was no wonder she didn’t want to celebrate and I felt like such an ass for not knowing. All the times we’d talked about it, or even when I’d looked into the incident on my own, the date had never stuck out at me, but it should have. I can’t believe I’d never paid attention to it before.
“That’s fucking rough,” Spade muttered, and then I heard something like, “Too many fucking brothers,” quietly pass his lips. My insides were in so many knots, I couldn’t even say anything to agree with him, but I did. Too many. Clayton was one of way too many soldiers whose families were left with a folded flag and maybe some medals. Sadie didn’t even have any of that. It all went to his parents. This anniversary would mark four years since she’d lost him and she had planned to spend it alone. That didn’t sit well with me, but the sadness that I thought I’d heard in her voice made so much more sense.
“What happened to him?” Spade asked. I knew the story, Sadie hadn’t been able to give me too many details, mostly because she didn’t have them all, and the ones she did know hadn’t been easy for her to relive. I’d contacted one of my old commanding officers for the rest of the story. Spade wouldn’t need to hear it all though, he’d know enough from a shortened version and with Jax listening, well nobody needed all the details.
“His unit was helping with an evac, getting civilians out of hostile areas. It was mostly women and kids holed up in some little slice of hell. They got most of them out but the numbers weren’t right, some kids were missing. Clayton’s unit went to find them, but they were ambushed. He and three others went down so that their buddy could get those kids out of there.”
“Kids. Fuck.” He just shook his head. Unfortunately it wasn’t anything new to us. It wasn’t the only story like that out there. Too many times kids were put right in the middle of war. The worst times were when you didn’t even know what side the people you were trying to help were on, but in that instance, they’d been right to go for the kids. They’d been innocent. Three boys, all under the age of thirteen, and they’d survived that day in exchange for the lives of four American soldiers. Was it a fair trade? I didn’t have a fucking clue, but I’d bet that in the moment, those soldiers had thought so.
Unfortunately Spade and I knew from experience that as hard as it was to face the death of our soldiers – our brothers – it was even harder to stomach the sight of tiny bodies, bloody and broken and too innocent to be damned casualties. For those who want to say there’s no honor in war … well fuck, after some
of the things I’ve seen, I don’t know how much I could argue it. With so much death and loss and so little resolved by it all, it’s hard to see a point to it sometimes, but I know there was honor in what Clayton and those men did that day. There’s honor in a soldier’s service, his willingness to lay down his life, if the time comes, for a random stranger, for a brother, for his country.
Jaxyn curled into Ky’s side, he’d also listened and I could tell he wasn’t unaffected. Even Spade was quiet for a change. The rest of the guys behind us carried on with their conversations like everything in the world was right, but the mood between the four of us remained somber. Spade didn’t bring up partying again, but I guessed he was reliving some of the memories we carried with us out of those places and brought back home.
When the plane landed, the atmosphere changed. There was no time to dwell on the ugly realities of the world as we made our way through the airport, and with every step that put me closer to Sadie, I grew more excited. We had just enough time to drop our bags at the hotel and change before it was time to meet Sadie and her sisters at the restaurant. I hadn’t mentioned to Ky yet, that all of her sisters were coming. It would be fine though. Really what could go wrong with all of us there? I should have known better than to even think those words. They always precede a lot of shit going wrong.
When we stepped inside the restaurant, the first thing my eyes did was seek her out. When they finally landed on her, at a table in the back, it felt like coming home. She was my home, and she looked beautiful in her black dress, with her curls falling softly down her back. Mia and Cait had seen us come in, but it took Sadie a minute to spot us. When she did, she leapt out of her seat and the next thing I knew, I was holding her. My entire body relaxed in her presence, except for maybe my heart which stopped altogether and then took off like a hummingbird on crack. I held her a little tighter and felt her shudder in my arms. She pulled away smiling and took in the group surrounding her
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