by LJ Evans
Mia came up behind them, placing her hand in Derek’s. Derek introduced Lonnie’s parents to his wife and then drew them into the backyard to introduce them to more of the crowd.
Lonnie looked down at Wynn for a second before they followed. “She’s pissed that she’s here,” Lonnie said.
“She doesn’t look pissed,” Wynn said, moving her head toward the door where Rochelle was smiling at all the people whom Derek placed in front of her.
“Trust me. She’s pissed as hell.”
They went out and joined the rest of the party. The two little ones were the biggest hit. Mayson had barely started walking in August, but now he could maneuver around pretty good, and Edie followed him like a big sister, making sure he didn’t fall, holding his hand.
It made Wynn’s heart hurt because if she’d kept her first baby, she would have had a little one pretty much the same age as Mayson. She turned away, drank her wine, and went back for another glass.
She purposefully lost herself in the rhythm of the party. The people she loved. The people who had welcomed Lonnie into the family as if he’d always belonged. Lonnie was comfortable here in a way that Grant had never been. It was wrong to continue to compare them—she knew that—but she couldn’t always stop herself.
Grant had been raised in a world that was probably a lot like Rochelle’s. Money and society putting pressures on who you could and couldn’t be. Who your children could and couldn’t be. What she’d said to Lonnie was true. There was a reason she’d lost the babies. She wouldn’t have wanted to raise them in Grant’s world, and it would have ended badly no matter what. How she could see that so clearly now and not when he’d asked her to marry him, she didn’t know.
Mia called her over to open presents, Edie and Mayson helping open the ones that had been brought for Wynn. Cake was served that Mia had made and that didn’t lean like Wynn’s strawberry one had. People were laughing, happy, a little buzzed. The music in the background was from Derek and Lonnie’s band, Watery Reflection mixed in with a slew of other blues and classic rock songs that Derek gravitated to.
It was perfect. A perfect day with perfect people. Except one.
Rochelle was sitting on a bench, watching the little ones play with a set of monster trucks that Wynn’s daddy had bought Edie. He had always insisted on buying toys that were gender-driven but then giving them to the opposite sex. He said that some of the best construction people he knew were women and that he wanted to make sure that gender stereotypes didn’t get passed down anymore.
Marina was at the food table, starting to bring the leftovers back inside. Lonnie joined her. “Let me get that, Marina. It’s heavy.”
Marina smacked him on the shoulder as he took the platter from her. “What happened to Mama?”
Lonnie looked over her shoulder briefly to where Rochelle was sitting, and Wynn understood even though Marina hadn’t. He’d been uncomfortable calling her Mama when his own mother was there. The woman he’d never called mom.
You couldn’t tell from Rochelle’s face that she had heard any of the conversation. Her smile was fixed in place, but it wasn’t real. Wynn knew from experience. She knew how to fake a smile as much as anyone else. Maybe as much as this woman. Wynn took pity on her. In a place she didn’t want to be, with people she didn’t understand, with her son being encouraged to call another woman Mama.
Wynn picked up two glasses of wine and brought them over, handing one to Rochelle.
“Thank you,” Rochelle said tightly. Wynn sat down beside her.
“Thank you for coming. It means a lot to Lonnie that you’re here.”
Rochelle looked at her, taking her in. “You’re judging me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. You saw a glimpse of my life in L.A., and you’ve listened to Lonnie whine about how he grew up, and you’re judging me.” Rochelle’s voice was smooth, cold.
Wynn gave up. She wasn’t going to be able to convince Rochelle otherwise, and in many ways, it was true. She was judging her because she didn’t understand it. How a mother could let others raise her children. How she didn’t show up when her grandbaby was born. How she refused to help take care of her grandbaby while her daughter was in recovery.
“You look at those little ones,” Rochelle waved a hand at the toddlers, “and you think it’s easy. You judge me for what you think of as walking away.”
Wynn held up her hands to interrupt, to call a truce, but Rochelle was upset now. Full of a venom that Wynn knew wasn’t addressed at her but was coming at her anyway from whatever unhappiness and guilt Rochelle did feel for the situation with Lita, and Edie, and Lonnie.
“You know nothing about having babies, especially ones that weren’t ever wanted. And then having to raise two of them. When Lita purposely made herself difficult. You will never know what that was like.”
This pissed Wynn off. Because she did know what it was like to have babies. To lose babies. Maybe she didn’t understand not wanting them. But she did know a lot more than this woman assumed.
“I may not know about raising them, but I know everything about losing them. Losing them before you can even hug them. Before you can see their hopes, and dreams, and smiles. You had all of that and chose to ignore it. So, yeah, I might not know anything about raising children to adulthood, but I’ll always know more than you’ll ever know about loving them.”
She stood and bumped into Lonnie who’d come back out from taking the tray into the house. “Wynn,” he said, heartache in his voice. She instantly felt like shit for chewing out his mother that he was glad to have here. She couldn’t look at him.
“I’m sorry,” she said to him but not to Rochelle.
“Don’t—” he started, hand encircling her arm.
“I need some air.” And she pulled herself from his grasp and took off for the house where there was less air but also fewer people. He didn’t follow.
She went to the bathroom and leaned against the closed door. Breathing in deeply. Heart hammering. Trying not to think of the babies and Grant. She’d told her mama the truth when she said that she felt like the breakup with Grant had been the right thing. She hadn’t felt the heartache and loss this deeply in weeks. Not since she’d allowed her life to be filled with Lonnie and Edie.
But hadn’t that been exactly what the therapist had said not to do? Don’t fill the void, heal it. She wasn’t sure she was healed. She hadn’t meant to fill the holes with Lonnie and Edie; it had just happened. She hadn’t stuffed them into the missing pieces, they’d just squeezed themselves in all on their own. What she did know was that she’d felt like she was part of her own little family finally. And that didn’t feel wrong.
She moved to stare at herself in the mirror. What was she doing still pushing Lonnie away? Why was she keeping up the barrier? She wanted Lonnie. She loved being with him and Edie. Wasn’t that really all that mattered? That they made each other happy right now? She was pretty sure that Lonnie wanted it, too. But did he want the forever and ever, happily ever after? And what would happen to her if he didn’t? If she lost another man and another child? Wynn’s heart tightened in pain at even the thought of it.
She dampened a washcloth that Mia kept rolled on the counter in a guest basket and wiped at her neck and her chest, trying to cool herself off without ruining her makeup. She sat on the toilet seat and breathed in deeply, trying to get ahold of herself, trying to find a calm place again.
It was a risk. A leap of faith. One she hadn’t thought she’d ever be able to take again. Or at least not for a very long time. But her heart had already taken it, hadn’t it? Without her being able to prevent it, her heart had gone on and made the decision for her. She loved them both.
The handle of the bathroom shook. She was jolted back to where she was and flushed the toilet that she hadn’t used, washed her hands, and then opened the door to come face-to-face with Zack.
He smiled and she returned the smile.
&
nbsp; “Zack!”
“Hey, Happy Birthday!” He leaned in, placing a hand on the wall by her head, but she turned her face so that his lips hit her cheek instead of her mouth.
He pulled his head back slightly, looking down into her face, but he didn’t move away. There was disappointment still on his face, almost as much as there had been in his voice when they’d called off their date. “Thank you. I didn’t know you were coming,” Wynn told him.
“Matt let me tag along once I heard it was your birthday party.” He smirked. “I guess I’m a party crasher.”
She laughed. “I can’t imagine the Zack Trudeau I knew crashing a party.”
“That was the boy you knew and not the man.”
She laughed again because he’d meant her to. “Please, I know you are still all Southern charm. You’re gonna make some woman really happy someday.”
She said it to make a point in the softest way she could. She didn’t want to date Zack. Had no desire to resurrect what they once were. There was no chemistry with him. It was only Lonnie that lit her up like a sparkler nowadays.
“So, if I were to ask you out again, I’m guessing I’d be declined.” But he said it as if he already knew the answer.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Is that because of the redhead that Mia calls idiot?”
Wynn smiled, biting her cheek so she didn’t laugh, and then nodded. It was because of Lonnie. Because she wanted him. All of him.
“I should have realized it when I saw you the first time.”
“I don’t think I realized it then,” Wynn said with a weak smile.
He looked into her eyes. “I think you might have. I think it’s why you were glad I cancelled on you.”
She just stared up at him, not sure how to respond.
“Wynn,” Lonnie’s voice pulled her from Zack. They both stood away from each other, and she became painfully aware of what it must have looked like. Lonnie had Edie in his arms. She was passed out on his shoulder, hand wrapped around Mask the Bear and the cape.
“Edie passed out,” Lonnie stated the obvious. “Are you ready?”
She nodded and made her way down the hall to Lonnie, hoping he could somehow see that, between the backyard and the bathroom, she’d made him her choice. She only looked back at Zack because her Southern manners kicked in. “Goodnight, Zack. I’ll see you later.”
When she turned back, Lonnie’s face had tightened. His cheeks taut, his lips straight in a way they rarely were. She’d seen him goofy, and sad, and calm—resigned even—but she’d hardly ever seen him truly angry. She felt like there was some of that in his look, and it made her heart jump, filling with hope that maybe, just maybe, he wanted that forever happily ever after as well.
“Did you want me to grab the rest of the stuff?” Wynn asked.
“Derek already helped me load it into the truck.” His voice was as tight as his face.
“Oh, okay. Let me just say goodbye to everyone. I’ll be right out.”
He opened the door and stared at Zack for a moment before heading to his truck. Wynn made her way out to the backyard. Mark and Rochelle were gone. The crowd had thinned in the few minutes she’d been in the bathroom. She hadn’t thought she’d been gone that long, but maybe she had. She’d had an entire world-changing set of revelations while she’d been in there.
She said goodnight to everyone, squeezing Mia extra hard for throwing the party for them. For her and Edie. And then she went out to where Lonnie had Edie tucked into her car seat and was waiting by the driver’s door for her to slide in.
“Are you coming home or to your parents’?” he asked as he pulled out of the driveway.
“My parents,” she said quietly, wanting to add that her parents’ place was her home, but she knew it was a lie. Home was with Lonnie and Edie. And she needed to figure out just what that meant. The hope for a relationship that might end up like all her other relationships, except this time there was a little girl in the mix who didn’t deserve to be hurt. She needed time to adjust to her bathroom revelations and corral her emotions before she was alone with him again. She needed to figure out if he wanted this as much as she wanted it.
They were silent on the way to her parents’ house. When she risked looking at him, she could tell that he was thinking as hard as she was, trying to put everything together.
When they pulled into her parents’ driveway, he had to get out to let her out. She slid down the seat and started to walk away, but he grabbed her hand, the bracelet catching between their palms. He looked down at it and rubbed his finger over it and her palm. Goosebumps coursed across her skin.
“I’m sorry about what I said to Rochelle,” Wynn said quietly.
Lonnie frowned. “You think I’m mad about that?”
“You should be.”
“Wynn. Everything you said was true. I was mad at Rochelle. For being her normal, self-justifying, bitchy self. I don’t even know why she came. I told her she should just go back to the hotel. Mark heard and took her away.”
Wynn swallowed hard, afraid that she’d put another brick in between Lonnie and his parents just as Mark had been trying to remove them.
He seemed to read her. He pulled her up against him and hugged her. “It was inevitable. Please don’t be upset at yourself. Nothing with Rochelle ever ends well.”
“But Mark is trying,” Wynn said.
Lonnie just nodded, the scent of him enveloping her, easing the twists in her stomach, making her wish she’d told him she’d go home with him. She pushed away, and he let her. She’d taken two steps toward the porch when his words stopped her. “Are you going out with him again?”
She looked back at him. There was no need to ask who he meant. “He asked—”
He cut her off before she could get further. “You’ve already done that.”
“What?”
“You don’t need to go backwards. You need to move forward.”
“I don’t—”
His frustration showed clearly as he cut her off once more. “You’ve already dated him. I’ve decided that it can’t count as your first-after-the-divorce because it was more like a redo than a first. You were reminiscing about old times.”
“Lonnie—” She tried to tell him that she’d never dated Zack, but he continued to interrupt her.
“You need a first date.”
“And who would you suggest?” She crossed her arms, irked at his interruptions, glaring at him at the same time her heart was leaping at what she thought was coming. At the thought that he wanted this, too.
“Me.” He closed the little distance she had put between them. “Me. I should be your first.”
“Lonnie—”
He put his fingers on her lips.
“Just think about it.”
She pulled his fingers away and frowned up at him. “If you’d just stop interrupting me, I could tell you I don’t need to think about it.”
He froze, and she could see that he was worried that she’d say no. That she’d tell him she wasn’t going to date him. It made her frustration disappear because it was obvious that he was as uncertain of her as she was of him. They’d put up their barriers too well.
“You’re right, Lonnie. You need to be my first.”
He went to pull her to him, and she knew it would end in them kissing. The passionate, soul-consuming kisses that they’d shared the other night. But she knew she wouldn’t be able to step back if she let herself start that tonight, so she moved away again.
“Call me in the morning.”
“Wynn.”
She waved off the complaint in his voice. “We need to do this right. Just call me tomorrow.”
He didn’t say anything, but he watched her as she walked up the porch steps and let herself into the house. She knew he watched until the lights came on and she texted:
Go home.
She waited until she heard his truck start up and drive away
before she climbed the stairs to her room. She looked around, feeling excited and expectant for the first time in a long time. Like she had when she’d first gone to college. When she’d known she was leaving her room and never coming back, or rather, knowing that when she came back, she’d be different. She wouldn’t be the same person. That feeling was exciting, and terrifying, and oh so tempting.
She fell asleep with thoughts of goosebumps, touches, and amber eyes.
Diners & Caves
WOMAN, AMEN
“This world has a way of shaking your faith,
I've been broken again and again,
But I need all the cracks in my shattered heart,
'Cause that's where her love gets in.”
Performed by Dierks Bentley
Written by Bentley / Kear / Copperman
I couldn’t sleep after I’d dropped Wynn off. I’d tucked Edie into her bed after sliding her into her pajamas and gone back out to slouch down onto the couch with a beer.
Four months ago, I would have drunk myself into oblivion, but now, with Edie, I was always on call. Single parents still amazed me as much as they had after that first crazy plane ride from L.A. to Tennessee where Edie had spilt water all over herself and me.
I hadn’t been a single parent. I’d had Wynn along with me pretty much every step of the way. And now she’d agreed to go on a date with me. It seemed rather childish. A date. After everything we’d been through, we seemed much further along than a date, and especially further along than a first date. But I also knew that this was the step we both needed. To acknowledge that our relationship was more than friendship. To acknowledge the truth that our bodies already knew and had expressed in our first kiss. The one I still hoped was her first one after the divorce.
I wanted to be all her new firsts. Every single one. But I also wanted to be all her lasts. It was cliché. It had been said before, but I couldn’t help it from being true. First and last. I’d written a goddamn song about it and beautiful-eyed girls. My first and last song for my first and last girl. Derek hadn’t stopped giving me shit about it, but he’d also loved it. We were set to release it as a single in January and were adding it to the playlist for the tour. I was both nervous and excited at the thought of Wynn hearing it for the first time, unsure if she’d realize it was about her.