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

by LJ Evans

  “My little dude,” Wynn said, taking him from Cam and squeezing Cam as she did it.

  “He missed you.”

  “I’ve missed him.” Wynn brushed her nose against his. His little face broke out in a smile that matched his daddy’s.

  They were soon swallowed up by others, and she had to let Mayson be passed around while she milled around the people that had been part of her life for as long as she could remember. It was a good thing. It felt like home. She hadn’t realized she missed being here as much as she had. Quite often these days, the Garth Brooks song, the one about “Unanswered Prayers,” would flit through her brain. Dreams and wishes she thought she wanted may not be what was truly her path. Maybe God had a bigger plan for her than she could see at the moment.

  Derek and Mia showed up shortly after her. Mia was still glowing. Wynn wondered absently if she’d ever looked that way with Grant. Had she ever looked so happy that she couldn’t contain it? Like it would spill out of her like a lava cake center? She didn’t think so. She’d loved Grant. She just wasn’t sure why now. She wasn’t sure why she’d made the choice to move in with him and marry him. Had it just seemed like the right thing to do?

  It felt wrong somehow that she couldn’t remember why, or how, or the feelings she’d felt when he’d asked her to marry him. It had been excitement and pride. She’d been proud that he wanted to marry her. Proud that a guy wanted to stick with her instead of leave her? What a joke.

  “You’re deep in thought,” Cam said next to her.

  “Am I?”

  Mia came up to hug them both. “You’re kind of obnoxious, you know,” Cam said with a smile at Mia.

  “What?”

  “The sex is just oozing off of you. You could have at least waited until after the party.”

  Mia turned a thousand shades of red. “I don’t know what you mean.” But she couldn’t make eye contact with them.

  “Tell me that wasn’t why you were late.” Cam wouldn’t let it go. She loved teasing Mia. Wynn thought Cam felt it was her obligation to do it for Jake as much as herself.

  “You’re awful! Leave her be,” Wynn intervened, and Mia flashed her a grateful smile. “You’re not any better, you know,” she added, turning to Cam.

  “What? Do you see Blake and me running into the house to have sex?”

  “No, but I’m sure that’s how your day started. You glow almost as much as Mia does.”

  “You’re just jealous that you aren’t getting any.”

  “Cam!” Mia said, but it didn’t hurt Wynn like it should have. She just laughed.

  “I’m sure I could find a willing party if my goal was just to have sex in the morning.”

  “Like Lonnie!” Mia said, and then she put her hand to her mouth like she hadn’t meant for it to slip out.

  “You denied having sex with him,” Cam said as she shoved her shoulder.

  “What? You heard they had sex?” Mia asked in shock.

  “Keith saw them all comfy after the wedding,” Cam spilled the beans.

  “Oh. My. God! You’re both awful.” Wynn rolled her eyes in that way they had all learned from Cam. “We did not have sex.”

  “He’s still in L.A., but I think he’s coming back soon, so there’s still hope for early morning sex.” Mia smirked.

  “Who's having sex?” Derek asked, putting his arms around Mia’s middle.

  “Besides the two of you? No one.” Wynn said.

  Derek smiled his huge smile that pulled at his cheeks and left a dimple in his chin. The one that Wynn knew Mia loved.

  “Hey!” Cam interjected. “I’m sure that Blake would heartily disagree.”

  “What?” Blake turned his head from the conversation with his grandfather as he heard his name.

  “Wynn just implied that Derek and Mia were the only ones having sex.”

  “Stop! Stop!” Marina laughed, coming up with Mayson in her arms. “I don’t want to hear about any of you having sex. It’s like walking in on your parents. It just isn’t right.”

  All of them shivered in agreement.

  They all moved off to the present table where Mayson tore at the packages and chewed on the bows like any perfectly normal one-year-old. He couldn’t care less about what was on the inside. The package was all he wanted.

  Wynn wondered if that had been her problem with Grant. The package had been so tempting. He’d been good-looking and motivated. He’d been smart and from a family that was well off. She’d had to sign a prenup, for goodness’ sake. Although, she did get half the condo out of the deal. The money from the sale was sitting in her savings account while Grant was surely spending his on his new life in Thailand.

  She, on the other hand, didn’t know what her new life was going to look like.

  After everyone else had left, Wynn stayed to help with the final cleanup. When it was done, and Blake had taken Mayson in to put him to bed, she and Cam settled on the porch swing on the Abbott’s wraparound porch.

  “Hey, in all seriousness, are you and Lonnie an item?” Cam asked.

  Wynn shook her head. “No. He just helped me out with some things while Derek and Mia were away.”

  “He’s hot.”

  “Stop, that doesn’t even sound right coming out of your mouth.”

  Cam shrugged. “It’s the truth. Think of the beautiful red-headed babies you’d make together.”

  “Stop.”

  Cam pushed the swing a little harder. “I’m sorry. I just want you to be happy. I don’t want you to feel…”

  Wynn knew what Cam was thinking about. How Cam herself had felt after losing Jake. Like there was nothing else in the world left when the one thing you’d always wanted was gone. But Wynn had never felt that way after Grant had given her the divorce paperwork. She’d felt more failure than loss. So maybe it was a good thing that they weren’t together. Maybe they hadn’t really loved each other after all.

  “I’m good. I promise,” she told Cam, and she meant it. Which made her think back to Lonnie and how she hadn’t been okay. How he’d pretty much brought her back from the brink with a phone call.

  She was still having a hard time sleeping. Hard, not only because of her thoughts, but because of the lack of pills that she’d come to rely on. She was embarrassed that Lonnie had seen her like that, but she was also grateful that he’d said something.

  “What are you going to do now that you’ve quit your job?” Cam asked, bringing her back to the swing and her best friend, instead of a lumberjack and pills.

  Wynn played with the ends of her hair, frowning. She needed a haircut. Maybe a complete change? But she knew better than to rush into anything sudden when her head wasn’t quite on straight. It was more aligned than it had been a couple weeks ago, but she still had a ways to go. “I’ve started thinking about getting my teaching credential.”

  “Really?” Cam looked shocked. But then, Cam had always hated school. With a passion. Mostly because the time in class meant she was away from Jake.

  Wynn shrugged. “I need to look into it some more, but that’s the way I’m leaning right now.”

  “Ms. Nichols. I like it!” Cam said with a smile.

  Wynn kind of did, too. It seemed better than Nurse Nichols. It seemed to fit her more. For the first time since Grant had walked out the door, she actually let herself get excited about something. About the idea of a something.

  She and Cam spent the next couple hours chatting about nothing and everything. It was good to be with her best friend. It was good to have people in her life that she belonged to, even if it wasn’t Grant. One thing was for sure: Cam would never leave her. She’d always be there like a true friend was, even if the miles between them were great.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  A week later, Wynn swung by Mia and Derek’s house after work. She was helping Mia unpack the kitchen after the work crews had finally left.

  She knocked and let herself in.

  “Hey,
everyone!” she called out because walking into a newlyweds house meant you might not like what you saw.

  “In the kitchen,” Mia shouted back, followed by, “Holy peanuts!” and a clatter that could only mean a ton of pans hitting the floor.

  Wynn rushed in to help and then stopped. The kitchen was gorgeous. It was not the trendy white that everyone was putting in their houses these days, but it was still all farmhouse chic and designed for a family to live in.

  Mia looked up and frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. It’s just… beautiful.”

  Mia stood with a smile on her face, looking around. “It really is, isn’t it?”

  They spent the next hour unpacking and putting away the gorgeous vases and dishes that they’d gotten for their wedding. They put a few on display in the glass-doored cabinets that were the centerpiece of the kitchen cabinets.

  They’d just finished and settled at the new, huge island, drinking sweet tea and gossiping about the dealership, when Derek’s voice interrupted their conversation.

  “Hey, Little Bird...” Derek stopped as he came around the corner and saw Wynn sitting there. He kissed Mia’s cheek and then gave Wynn a hug. “Hi, Wynn.”

  “Hey.”

  Derek turned back to Mia. “Lonnie texted. He said he needed me to pick him up at the airport tomorrow night, but I was already going up to Nashville to talk to Asha about our tour schedule. Do you think you could—”

  “I can pick him up,” Wynn heard herself say before she even registered the thought to herself.

  Derek and Mia exchanged a look that Wynn just ignored.

  “What time is his flight?”

  “Seven.”

  “Okay.”

  “He said not to bring Mia’s little car because he has some stuff with him. I don’t think it’ll fit in your Audi,” Derek said with a frown.

  “I can borrow my mama’s car. She’ll love it because she likes driving mine. She keeps saying she’s going to sell hers and buy one just like it.”

  “I can’t see your mama in a sports car,” Mia said.

  “I know. All I’ve ever seen her in are SUVs with dance gear shoved in the back.”

  “She had to pay for your ballet lessons somehow,” Mia teased.

  “You were a dancer?” Derek asked, surprised.

  “Why does that surprise you?”

  “You’re just so… tall,” he continued.

  “What you mean is that my ass is too big to be a ballerina,” Wynn teased him.

  He looked shocked. “Um…no…that’s not—”

  “It’s okay. I was a good dancer. But you’re right; my curves didn’t fit the mold. Way too round and way too tall.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay to pick up the idiot?” Mia asked, eyeballing Wynn.

  “Yeah. Sure. I’m off at five, so I have plenty of time to get to the airport.”

  “How much longer do you have with Doc Morris?” Mia asked.

  “Just two weeks.”

  “What’s your plan for after that?” Mia continued to grill.

  “Giving me the third degree, Mama?” Wynn replied and Mia blushed. Wynn answered her anyway. “I’ve enrolled in an online teaching credential program.”

  “What? Really? That’s awesome!”

  Wynn smiled at Mia’s enthusiasm. Even to her, it felt like a good smile. A real smile. Like slowly she was coming out of the pain, and the numbness, and the despair she’d felt before. It had only been a month since Lonnie had found her with the pills, but it felt like she’d traversed a huge fissure to the downhill side of recovery. There’d still be bumps, but she was starting to believe that Lonnie and the therapist were both right. That she could start a whole new life with a whole bunch of new firsts and do them better than she’d ever done them before.

  Sippy Cups & Car Seats

  SHOW ME THE WAY

  “And I feel this empty place inside,

  So afraid that I've lost my faith.

  [Please] show me the way.”

  Performed by Styx

  Written by Peter Frampton

  I laid my head back against the seat of the plane in exhaustion. I was so fucking tired. My arm was going numb, and I tried to wiggle it without much success. I peeked down at the little body lying in my arms and tried not to feel completely, one-hundred-and-fifty percent overwhelmed.

  Maybe I should have stayed in L.A. Maybe I should have waited for Lita to be released from the rehab facility. But I’d been all alone there. It was so incredibly messed up that, even though L.A. had been my home until this last year, and even though our parents were there, it was Tennessee I was running to for support.

  When I’d gotten the call almost a month ago now from CPS, I’d been in shock at first. Manny, one of the people I’d put feelers out to, had found them. Lita had been holed up with Edie in a pay-by-the-day motel off the strip. Some dive that could hardly be called a motel.

  Lita had been high, passed out. Edie was dirty, sopping wet with pee, crying. Manny hadn’t known what else to do. So he’d called 911 and taken off before they’d gotten there. I’m sure it was because he was high himself. The EMTs had called the cops, who had called CPS. Lita and Edie were both admitted to the hospital, and CPS had gotten my number off of Lita’s phone.

  Anger filled me every time I thought about the conditions Edie had been found in. I’d tried so many goddamn times to get them into an apartment. Each time, all Lita had to do was show up and sign the papers. Each time, I had the rent covered. But she didn’t even bother to show up because she was too proud to have me paying for her. Too proud…but obviously not too proud to lose herself to drugs while her daughter went hungry. Lita’s logic would forever escape me.

  When I’d gotten to L.A., I’d driven straight to the hospital. They wouldn’t let me see Lita. They said it was part of the recovery program that they were admitting her to, but I knew the truth. The truth was that Lita didn’t want to see me. She was embarrassed, as she always was, when she’d gone this far off the rails. She wouldn’t want to talk to me until she was clean. Till she’d been sober for long enough to be filled with regret. And that regret would send her off the edge again. Like it always did. In a vicious cycle.

  It still hurt that she wouldn’t see me, though. But it also pissed me off. It pissed me off even more once I’d seen Edie. Edie had always been little, and at not quite four years old, I wasn’t expecting to see a giant, but what I saw scared me. She looked like she was all skin and bones. There was not one ounce of the roundness that a toddler should have on her face or her body.

  That was what had ticked me off the most. That Lita had let her baby girl pretty much starve while she’d gotten high. Because it cost money to get high. But it wasn’t just Lita I was mad at. I was also full of anger at my parents for washing their hands of her when Edie needed grandparents who actually cared. And I was pissed at myself for leaving. For chasing after Derek when I’d known I couldn’t leave Lita this long. She needed someone to check on her. Edie had needed someone to check on them both.

  So, when I sank down at Edie’s bedside, I was full of guilt, and anger, and sadness. She was sleeping in a hospital bed that somehow made her look even smaller. She was wearing a hospital gown with a Wonder Woman cape tied over it. I rested my head on the bed rail, trying to hold back tears.

  “Nonnie?”

  Her little voice brought my eyes up. She smiled at me. I was surprised she even remembered me. I’d hardly seen her this last year. I’d been too focused on me and my life in Tennessee. I’d done what I told Wynn to do, not let other people’s crap weigh you down, but that wasn’t what this little girl had needed. She’d needed someone, one fucking adult in her life, that wasn’t selfish. It hadn’t been me. Or her mother. Or her grandparents. She’d had no one.

  New holes tore my insides apart. Holes that I knew I wasn’t going to be repairing for a long time.

  “Hey, Chicken Lips,” I t
ried to tease her with the nickname I’d given her long ago when she used to pout at everything, but my voice was a tangle of emotions instead.

  “Mommy?”

  “She’s not here right now, kiddo. But I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  And I meant it. With every fiber of my being.

  In a whirlwind of paperwork with CPS and the hospital, Edie was released into my care. I was now legally responsible for an almost four year old. I tried not to think too hard about what that meant.

  Between the hospital charity bag and a quick trip to a Target, I had a car seat and some basic supplies. I didn’t realize just how basic those were until I was doing laundry every goddamn day.

  The only thing I couldn’t wash was the Wonder Woman cape. I couldn’t take the damn cape off without the loudest scream you’d ever heard coming out of a little body. So I just left it on her. Just like the hospital had left it there. No one was ready to fight that battle.

  I didn’t have a place to stay in L.A. because I’d given up my apartment when I’d moved to Tennessee with Derek. I debated checking in to a hotel, but then, like an imbecile, I drove to our parents’ house. Because I thought that maybe, just maybe, Mark and Rochelle might change their tune. That they might help take care of their grandchild.

  But honestly, I’d known better. After all, Mark and Rochelle had never really even taken care of their own children. Lita and I had had a house full of nannies, and housekeepers, and au pairs that raised us instead.

  At least they let Edie and me stay in the guesthouse while I waited for Lita. While I tried to figure out what the hell to do next. Mark had even come by a couple times to say, “Hi.” He’d give her an awkward pat on the head and then leave to go play golf or meet up with the museum renovation committee or whatever shitty committee he and Rochelle were a member of at the moment.

  After almost a month, I knew I had to leave. Lita was still in rehab and would be for many more weeks. And I needed help, and Derek would be there for me more than my own goddamn parents were. I hated that I was in this position. I hated my parents. And sometimes, I hated my twin.