My Life as an Album (Books 1-4): A small town, southern fiction series

by LJ Evans

WYNN: GO AWAY!

  CAM: Did you at least get some action?

  WYNN: What? No! Did Lonnie say that?

  CAM: OMG! You little hussie. But no, I didn’t hear anything from Lonnie. I heard it from Keith.

  WYNN: How in the world did Keith know?

  CAM: He was staying at the hotel last night after the wedding. He saw you in the bar. He said he couldn’t stop in because Dylan had him running errands. How he stands being that man’s assistant, I’ll never know.

  WYNN: This town sucks.

  CAM: Then move back to Nashville. You can stay with Blake and me till you get your feet under you again. Mayson would love seeing you every day.

  WYNN: No. Thanks, though.

  CAM: You’re so stubborn.

  WYNN: I learned from the best.

  CAM: Are you saying I’m stubborn? *shock emoji*

  WYNN: Is the sky blue?

  CAM: I hope your hangover lasts all day.

  WYNN: *GIF–tongue sticking out*

  CAM: *GIF–drunk person*

  WYNN: I’m turning off my phone now.

  CAM: I’ll still be laughing at you.

  WYNN: You suck.

  CAM: Love you.

  WYNN: Love you back.

  She threw her phone down on the couch with disgust and a smile. Cam was the one person who could still make her happy no matter what. They’d been through so much together. Love. Life. Death. And now divorce. With a sigh, she turned back to the last goody bag. As she went to fill it, she realized the bouncy ball was missing. She had just enough to put one in each of the bags she’d made.

  With a sense of foreboding that she couldn’t quite shake, she eyed Jane who’d been sitting watching ever so patiently while Wynn made the bags. She’d batted at a few things but hadn’t appeared overly interested in any of it.

  “What did you do, Jane?”

  Wynn got off the couch and started searching the floor, under the entertainment center, and into the kitchen. The kitchen was half in boxes because the renovation was starting on it as soon as Derek and Mia were back from their honeymoon. No ball.

  She was bent over, looking under the side table when someone knocked and then opened the front door. In Nashville, someone entering her house would have scared the bejesus out of her, but here it was expected. No one in this town ever waited for you to say come in.

  She lifted her head, still on all fours, to see Lonnie standing there with a pizza box, grinning like the crazy man she thought he might just be.

  “Wow, that’s quite the view,” he smirked.

  She flushed, realizing just what she looked like with her curvy, yoga-pant-covered rear end up in the air. It took her all of two seconds to stand back up. She didn’t get embarrassed very easily, but somehow Lonnie brought it out in her.

  “What are you doing here?” she snapped and instantly regretted it, not only because it made his smile disappear, but because she owed him for last night. For taking care of her when a lot of guys wouldn’t have.

  “I figured you’d need some grease for that hangover.” He waved the pizza box at her.

  She was humbled by his thoughtfulness, but didn’t know how to tell him that. Instead, she asked, “Is it Tito’s?”

  “I’ve been in this town long enough to know you don’t bring anything else.”

  “Well…thank you.”

  “What were you doing?” he asked, following her into the kitchen as she went to get plates and napkins.

  “Searching for a bouncy ball.”

  “Of all the things I expected you to say, that wasn’t one of them.”

  “That’s because your mind was in the gutter,” she teased.

  “You don’t know me very well to be saying that.”

  “You’re a guy, aren’t you?” she retorted.

  “Last time I checked.” He grinned and went to open the button on his jeans. She put out a hand, trying not to laugh at his grin and his actions.

  “Stop. I’ve already heard enough about your sock monkey. I don’t need to see it too.”

  “Are you sure? It’s a pretty nice sock monkey.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “You would say that. All the guys think their penises are the biggest and the baddest.”

  He laughed, and they settled back down on the couch with pizza and sodas.

  “How’s the hangover?”

  “Better now. Thank you, by the way.”

  “You already said that,” he said with a shrug.

  “No. Not for the pizza…” she trailed off, fiddling with a piece of pepperoni. “For last night. Not many guys would have been as…”

  “Stupid?”

  “Gentlemanly.”

  “If you’re thinking I would have taken advantage of a drunk woman, you really don’t know me.”

  Uncomfortable, she switched the topic of conversation back to him and away from what could have happened between them. “But the girls you take home are usually drunk, right?”

  “Nah. Maybe a little tipsy, but not so far gone that they don’t know that they’re saying yes.”

  She grimaced at the thought that she was so far gone that he wouldn’t even have had sex with her. The only way she could make herself feel better was by knowing that she’d earned that drunk. She’d earned it in every possible way.

  “Well…thank you again,” she said, trying not to blush. Trying to brush it off like getting drunk with unknown men was something that she could handle, that she was accustomed to.

  “You’re welcome. Anytime you need a wingman, just call. I’ve got your back.”

  They sat eating in silence until he really registered the bags that she had on the coffee table. “What’s all this? You having a birthday party for a five-year-old or something?”

  “Ha ha. No. A lot of times, the older kids whose siblings are in the neo ward don’t have a lot to keep them occupied. Their parents are focused on the newborn, and they’re left twiddling their thumbs. I like to be able to give them something to get their mind off what their family is going through.”

  Lonnie turned, taking her in, and she looked away, unable to meet his gaze.

  “So, you make these bags up with your own money and give them to the kids?” he asked.

  “It’s not that big of a deal,” she protested.

  “It is. I bet it’s huge to them,” he responded, and she couldn’t help but hear the admiration in his voice. In all the years she’d been with Grant, he hadn’t once said anything about the bags she made.

  The quiet settled down amongst them again as they continued to eat. Wynn didn’t know what to say. It felt like they’d crossed off all the items they possibly could have in common to talk about.

  “So you lost a bouncy ball?”

  “I’m sure Jane ran off with it.”

  As if to prove her both right and wrong, Jane started heaving. But nothing came out. That feeling of foreboding stole over her again, and she glanced at Lonnie with a sudden fear. Hoping that she was wrong. Hoping the cat hadn’t decided the bouncy ball was food.

  “Shit,” Lonnie said, and Wynn’s stomach fell, knowing he had the same thought she had.

  Wynn tossed the rest of her pizza on the plate and got on all fours, searching the floor again. Determined to find the ball anywhere but inside the cat that she’d been left in charge of.

  “Cats heave all the time. Furballs. It doesn’t mean she ate the bouncy ball,” Wynn said, trying to convince herself, even as her stomach twisted once more, dreading that it was too late.

  “We are talking about the same cat that got her tail cut off because she crawled into the engine compartment of a car,” Lonnie said, skeptically watching the cat as it laid down on its side lethargically.

  “Help me look for the ball?”

  He joined her on the floor, and they did a thorough search of all the areas of the house that Jane could possibly have taken the thing if she’d been batting it around.

/>   By the time they made it back to the living room, Jane was heaving again.

  Wynn’s panic increased. Jane was a very special cat. Derek and Mia had fallen in love with each other at the same time they’d fallen in love with the little creature. If anything happened to her on Wynn’s watch, she’d never be able to forgive herself.

  It was four o’clock on a Sunday. There was no way the veterinarian clinic was open, but Wynn knew Doctor Morris from when she’d been in ballet with his daughter. She searched through her phone for the number, thanking God that it was another thing about this town that was true: you never removed someone’s phone number from your contacts.

  “What are you doing?” Lonnie asked.

  “Calling the vet.”

  “I don’t think you need to do that. Most animals just pass whatever they eat. When I was a kid, I once ate an army man, and he came out just fine.”

  Wynn stopped and stared at him. The visual of a young Lonnie cheering as the army man appeared in the toilet bowl was almost too much for her. It almost took her mind away from the frantic phone call she was making.

  “You’re gross. Why would you eat an army man?”

  “It was a dare.” His eyes flashed with something that he didn’t share, and then he got quiet. She wondered what that was about, but the thought disappeared when Doctor Morris picked up.

  Wynn tried to stay calm as she explained who she was and what she thought had happened. He agreed to meet her at the clinic.

  “The advantage of living in a small town,” Lonnie said after she’d hung up. “In L.A., your vet would have sent you to an emergency clinic, and they would have charged you an arm and a leg.”

  “He’s still going to charge me an arm and a leg, but at least it’ll be someone who knows Jane.”

  Wynn grabbed her purse, the one from the wedding that she still hadn’t switched out, and searched the house for the kitty carrier. She found it in the laundry room and came out to find Lonnie had the cat tucked up in his arms.

  Wynn stopped dead in her tracks at the picture they made. The orange and white tabby had almost the same color hair as Lonnie did. But the cat looked like a mouse compared to Lonnie. He was huge. Tall and muscular in all the very best ways. A lumberjack just like Mia called him.

  She shook herself out of her stare and opened the carrier so he could put Jane in. When Wynn headed for the door and he followed, she turned to him in surprise.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Coming with you.”

  “I can take care of this.”

  “I know, but I kind of need to tag along.”

  “I’m the one in charge of the house and the kitten,” she told him.

  “Yeah, but Derek would still find a way to blame me for it if something went wrong.”

  She didn’t have time to argue with him, so she just let him come. He tucked himself up in the passenger seat of her Audi. He looked ridiculous. Like a gorilla in one of those circus cars.

  She placed the carrier on his lap, and they took off. The whole way there, her heart pounded at the thought of anything happening to the little kitten that had been the cupid’s arrow in Mia and Derek’s relationship.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  They’d been at the vet for so long that Wynn’s nervousness had clicked to an almost unbearable level. Doctor Morris had taken x-rays and was consulting with another vet he knew via phone. Wynn was about ready to keel over from anxiety.

  Fear and failure overwhelmed her. She couldn’t seem to take care of anything these days… mother anything. Her throat closed on those anguished thoughts. No one should ever leave her in charge of their children or their pets again. She wasn’t even sure she should continue her stints at the hospital after all of this. It proved that she wasn’t in a very good place.

  “You’re overthinking,” Lonnie interrupted her thoughts.

  “How do you know?”

  “I can just feel it. This stuff happens. Could have happened to anyone.”

  “I’m the one who brought the bouncy ball into the house,” she said dryly.

  “This cat has gotten into all sorts of stuff. It ate a string of floss when it was first touring with us. While it still had its tail bandaged up.”

  “Stop trying to make me feel better,” she huffed, regretting her tone but too full of misery to stop herself. “I shouldn’t be left in charge of anyone’s little creatures.”

  She hadn’t meant to say it aloud. Hated herself for opening up to him. When he looked at her with sympathy instead of confusion, she knew that she’d told him about the babies…when she hadn’t told anyone. God, not even her mama knew. No one except Grant knew. She was too embarrassed. Too hurt. Too sad.

  “I was thinking about what you told me last night.”

  She wanted to stop him. Wasn’t sure she could handle whatever he was going to say. But he was nervous, and she knew she was responsible for sharing her truth with him in the first place. So she just stared at him, waiting for whatever he was going to say about the babies to hit her in the heart like it always did when she thought about them.

  “I was thinking about how I’d heard Blake and Cam’s baby was a surprise. That must have been real hard on you. To have them have a baby without effort when you’d…” he trailed off.

  She laughed with relief because it was easier to talk about Cam than her own painful memories. She could tell her response surprised him. She shrugged at him. “That’s just Cam being Cam. Doing babies like she does everything else. Without thought and with ease. She doesn’t mean anything by it. And she didn’t know about the miscarriages. No one does.”

  She hoped he got the point. That she didn’t want him talking about the babies to others.

  “Still had to have hurt like hell,” he said quietly.

  She looked away, out the window. It had hurt. When she’d found out that Cam was pregnant. It had been shortly after her first miscarriage, when she’d still been so sad that she’d been unable to talk to anyone. But then she’d gone from hurt to desperate longing, to wanting to try again so that maybe her and Cam could have little ones that ran around together like she and Cam had done.

  When she’d told Grant that she wanted to try again, he hadn’t agreed. Thought it was too soon. But she’d pushed it. Her own need to fill her loss overcoming everything until he acquiesced. She guessed her body had agreed with him. That it had been too soon, because she’d lost that baby even sooner than the first one. It had barely had a heartbeat when she’d lost it.

  Grant had absolutely refused to try again after that. He said they needed to wait. But looking back, she was pretty sure that was the start of the end. Maybe it was his own way of grieving. Or maybe he’d realized he was lucky to not have had any kids after all because he didn’t really want to be tied down to a desk job at the college and a marriage to a defective redhead. Who knew?

  Doctor Morris came out at that moment, and Wynn was glad because it meant she didn’t need to finish the conversation with Lonnie about what she’d lost. To relive those moments. But then the Doctor told them they’d have to cut the kitten’s tummy open in order to remove the ball, and she wanted to cry all over again.

  She was a walking disaster. Mistake after mistake after mistake. She couldn’t wait to get home. To lose herself to a sleep that she’d have to force with a pill. To be able to escape, for a short while, all the screw-ups in her life.

  They had to leave the cat with the vet, and he said he’d call after the surgery first thing in the morning. She left her credit card information, crossing her fingers that she wouldn’t have to pull money from savings to pay for it. Lonnie tried to help out, but she wasn’t letting him pay for her carelessness. Not now. Not ever.

  The Dairy Queen & Stories

  TAKE YOUR TIME

  “My heart is pounding but

  It's just a conversation…

  You don't know me

  I don't know you, but I want to.”r />
  Performed by Sam Hunt

  Written by Hunt / Osborne / McAnally

  As we left the vet’s office, I could tell that Wynn was beating herself up all over again. It wasn’t written on her face. No, that had turned into her normal, unreadable mask. I could tell by her silence, by the way her hands gripped the steering wheel so hard that the knuckles turned white.

  “I’m hungry as hell,” I told her, trying to bring her back to the car, and the drive, and me.

  “We just ate Tito’s,” she sighed.

  “That was a couple hours ago. And we didn’t even get to finish the pizza.”

  “I think there’s still some left.”

  “Now I don’t want pizza.”

  She threw me a frustrated glance that at least was an emotion again. “Well, let me take you back to your truck, and you can go get whatever it is you want.”

  “Hamburgers and fries. That’s what we both need. And a milkshake.”

  “I definitely don’t need all of that. After the tequila last night and the pizza today, I’m already going to need an hour at the gym tomorrow.”

  I somehow doubted that. She looked like the kind of woman who could eat a whole pizza every day and still stay tall and slender with curves in just the right places.

  “Show me the best place to get a burger,” I told her. I could tell that going back to Derek and Mia’s would just mean more time for her to beat herself up, feeling worse than she already did. And I didn’t want that for her.

  Damn if I could figure out why I felt responsible for her, but I did. She wasn’t my friend. She wasn’t Derek’s friend. She was Mia’s. But somehow, after last night and learning her secret about her divorce that she hadn’t told anyone else, well, it just seemed like I was responsible for her in a way I didn’t need. Or want. Because I had enough to be responsible for. But it was still how I felt.

  “You already knew Tito’s was the best pizza place, so I’m assuming you already know the best burger place too,” she said, doubt and exhaustion filling her voice. If she went home, she’d likely just wallow in sorrow. That wasn’t going to happen on my watch.

  “The Dairy Queen is the only place I’ve been told, and that just doesn’t seem right. There has to be a better place than the Dairy Queen, right?” I asked her, prodding at her with my pretend disdain.