One Song: book two in the one series

by Best, Victoria J.

  “Yeah, yes, I’m fine. Sorry.” I shouldn’t have apologized, but I felt like that was all I did these days.

  “You’ve been dealing with Christopher in the NICU for much longer than I have. I should be the one apologizing to you. I should have been here.” Rhys looked away from me for a moment, to where Christopher lay peacefully in his incubator.

  It was my turn to approach him. I owed him so much more than an apology for keeping Christopher from him all those months. Taking another deep breath, I walked up behind him, placing a hand on his bicep. He pivoted quickly, his eyes falling to where my hand still rested on his arm. Our eyes locked and all of the air in my lungs escaped, making me gasp for breath. How could he make me feel this way with one look? For a moment, I forgot what I was going to say to him because I was lost in the clear, blue depths of his eyes.

  “How is everyone this morning?” The doctor burst into the room, unaware of the tension between Rhys and me, unaware that she snapped us from something we had no business being embroiled in.

  I snatched my hand away swiftly, took two steps back, and cleared my throat.

  “Fine, good,” I croaked out just as Rhys said, “Good.”

  The doctor looked between us, her eyebrows furrowed, but didn’t make a comment.

  “All right,” she began as she walked over to Christopher, opened the incubator, and put her stethoscope in her ears. “I’m going to check a few things and then we’ll talk.”

  Rhys and I nodded, unable to speak as we waited to hear what she had to say. I could feel the panic begin to rise in my chest again. The “what ifs” swirled in my head with all the things the doctor could say were going wrong. Unexpectedly, Rhys grabbed my hand. The gesture was done out of comfort and not lust, but the tingling between where our palms touched was a sensation I wasn’t able to shake off. But I didn’t let go, because until that moment, I hadn’t realized I needed his comfort and strength. For two months, I was doing this alone—the doctors, the hospitals, the scares, and the worry, and now I had someone to share it with. The burden was lessened on my shoulders. I felt lighter though the worry was still there.

  “Well,” the doctor started again, and the extended pauses she took while speaking were maddening. “Christopher has progressed very well over the last two months. He’s gained four ounces in the last two weeks alone, and I can tell he’s fighting the ventilator. That means he’s ready to come off of it and be put on a nasal cannula. We’ll wean him off over the next week or so, to see how he does, but his lung function has significantly improved. Besides the first few weeks when he had the infection and the pneumothorax, we haven’t had any further complications with his breathing.”

  “Are you sure?” I blurted the question as she was finishing up her sentence, unable to keep it from bubbling to the surface.

  “Miss Livingston, the longer preemies are on ventilators, the more lung damage they tend to have, so getting him off the vent if he’s attempting to breathe on his own is a good thing. He’s doing incredibly well for being born just shy of twenty-five weeks gestation. A few more weeks and he will be full-term.”

  Full-term.

  I didn’t think he would make it this far, especially not in those first few days when he was so tiny and fragile and the alarms were going off every few hours. But he was almost three pounds, he was getting off the ventilator, and we were almost in the home stretch of his NICU stay. It didn’t seem real.

  “I just can’t believe we are getting so close to taking him home.” Tears clouded my vision as I spoke, making the doctor blur in front of me.

  Doctor Mason smiled at me and patted my shoulder as she walked past us to the door of the cubicle. “We’ll begin weaning him from the vent today. The nurses will be in soon to explain everything. Your little guy is a fighter, Natalie.”

  I nodded, unable to speak around the lump in my throat. Christopher was a fighter. He fought every day since he came into this world, and I was so thankful we were given a second chance—that I was given a second chance to make everything right by doing the right thing by my son.

  The doctor left, and Rhys and I stood silently in the middle of the small room. When I finally turned to him, he was staring at me, his eyes darkening to a deep blue and his face serious. My heart immediately sped up, making me breathless for a moment. How did relief and gratitude at the doctor’s news suddenly turn into something else? Maybe we were standing too close? Maybe the idea of cheating death left us both feeling like we should live our lives to the fullest? Whatever it was that charged the air in the small room to electric and made me want to collapse into Rhys’s arms, I wasn’t able to fight it this time.

  We came together like we were separate halves of a magnet, me falling into his embrace so fast and hard, I winced for a moment. But that was short-lived because once I was there, settled into him, I couldn’t focus on anything else but Rhys. His arms, which circled my waist, his chest, where my hands rested and his lips, which were inches from touching mine.

  There was no time to speak or even breathe as his lips came down on mine, gently, barely touching at first. But fire burst inside of me at the contact, previously unfulfilled and jarring. I almost pulled away, almost giving up on the feeling rather than experience it fully, because it was terrifying. The need to save us both from ourselves, to save Rhys from me, built in my chest but I didn’t want to give in to it.

  Instead, I wanted to get lost in Rhys, the way I was lost in his music the first time I heard him sing all those months ago. I wanted to feel the safety I felt in his arms the few times we were together. I wanted to not feel scared or worried or anxious about my life, the way I had been feeling for the last two, or if I was being honest, seven months. The last few years.

  His mouth pressed against mine firmer, with more pressure, his tongue sliding over the seam of my lips until I opened to allow him entry. My hands moved from his chest to wind around his neck, and I delved my fingers into the long hair curling at his nape. I pulled him tighter against me, deepening the kiss until we were so close, our limbs tangled and our breathing ragged, it would be indecent to get any closer.

  “What the hell is this?” My father’s voice from the entrance to Christopher’s room yanked me from the moment, dousing my lust like the ice bucket challenge.

  “Daddy.” I wiped my mouth and took a dramatic step back, bumping the backs of my thighs on the arm of the chair.

  “Natalie, may I have a word with you?” My father had his business face on and I knew he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

  I nodded, shooting Rhys a look while shaking my head slightly, silently asking him to stay put. My dad turned on his heel brusquely without giving me another look and headed towards the elevators. I couldn’t look at him anyway as I followed. For some reason, shame was spiraling around in my head. But I wasn’t ashamed of Rhys. That was the old Natalie, the one who wouldn’t be seen with him at a restaurant where people might know her. The one who walked away from him too many times already after sharing moments like the one we just shared. I wasn’t that woman anymore, and even though I didn’t deserve someone like Rhys, I wasn’t going to let my dad try to shame me into feeling like what we shared was wrong.

  “Where are you going?” I finally asked him, as he led me away from the elevators and towards the stairwell.

  “Somewhere private, where people can’t hear us.”

  “What people?” I looked around, waving my hand with exaggerated movements to show we were the only people in the hallway.

  “There are eyes and ears everywhere, Natalie. Everywhere. You, of all people, should know this. I will support you and Christopher, I love that child, but I will not support this.” Dad pointed back the way we came. He was pointing at Rhys.

  Sighing, I followed him into the stairwell as he stomped down a flight and stopped. He turned on me, his eyes angry and his brow creased.

  “That boy is not right for you. I don’t care what kind of mistake you made by getting yourself knoc
ked up, but you will not be seen with him. It’s not appropriate and we have a reputation to maintain. When you come back to work, we have to sort out how to explain Christopher to the world without the ‘rock star’ being a part of it. What is he doing here anyway?” He was going off on a tangent, making sense but not.

  I took a deep breath, needing to have my thoughts organized before getting into a war of words with my father. Again.

  “Dad, first, I asked him to be here. I called him and told him about Christopher. Rhys had a right to know about him. Christopher is his son. Second, I think the days of you telling me who I can and can’t be with are over. I’m twenty-five and I have a child of my own. Who I’m with isn’t really any of your business.” I paused and took another deep breath, willing myself to get the words out before he interrupted me in the grand Christopher Livingston fashion he always does. “And finally, I don’t know if I’m coming back to work.”

  Dad’s eyes went wide and he took a step towards me. “What do you mean, you don’t know if you’re coming back to work?” The words roared out of him, echoing off the walls of the stairwell.

  I took a step back, crossing my arms over my chest defensively. This was the first time I had voiced the words that had been running around in my head for weeks. Running the company didn’t feel right anymore. Not after Christopher. Not after I felt like a completely different person than I was a few months ago.

  “I’m sorry, Dad, but I don’t feel like it’s right for me anymore. Give the position to Jason or Jessica. They’re really good at it and want the job. I don’t want it anymore. I don’t know what I want anymore.” I shrugged and turned around because I didn’t want him to see the tears collecting in the corners of my eyes.

  “Dammit, Natalie. Is this about the musician? Did he say something to you?”

  I shook my head, not trusting my voice to be steady.

  Dad let out a heavy sigh. “I stand by what I said. You shouldn’t be in a relationship with the likes of him. I raised you better than that. And if you decide not to come back to the company, and that being with the musician is what you really want, I will be forced to cut you off.”

  I whipped around, all the blood draining from my face. “What?! Cut me off? Dad, what about Christopher’s medical bills? I have savings, but I can’t pay for them all on my own. I was counting on my inheritance to pay for it.”

  Would my dad really be so cold and unfeeling, he would let Christopher suffer for my choices? He couldn’t.

  “I’m not talking about the bills, Natalie. I’ll cover those. But your apartment, everything else, that will all be gone if you choose this path. I told you long ago that I wanted you to take over the company when I retired. Christopher’s birth has been a minor setback, and I’m willing to stay on a little longer while you get settled with him at home, but I’m still retiring and I want you to take over.” He threw his hands up after he finished speaking, pushing past me to ascend the stairs, and exited through the door.

  I was left speechless and shaking in the stairwell, unsure of what would happen to Christopher and me if I followed what my heart was telling me to do. Up until this moment, I had been the good daughter, following in my father’s footsteps at the cost of all else. What if I didn’t want to give up everything else to be like my father? Because he was a lonely, bitter old man, and that was not the path I wanted for myself. Covering my face with my hands, I sank down onto the steps behind me. What was I going to do?

  22

  Rhys

  Natalie’s father was a little scary. After they walked out of the room, I sat down in the chair in front of the incubator, a little shaken from kissing Natalie and feeling like I was a teenager caught making out in my girlfriend’s room. It was an odd feeling and for a while, I sat and stared at my son as he slept, to try to gather my thoughts. There was no hiding Mr. Livingston thought I wasn’t good enough for Natalie. That much was clear. But my mind wouldn’t settle and the embarrassment was replaced with anger and irritation. Who the hell did he think he was to tell Natalie who she could be with? She was a grown woman and I was a grown ass man.

  Standing, I paced the tiny room, waiting for Natalie to return. I was putting together an indignant speech for the elder Christopher Livingston in my head when Natalie silently re-entered the room. Her eyes were glassy and red, and she had her arms wrapped protectively around her middle. I looked behind her to see if her dad was following, but she was alone.

  “Are you okay?” I asked as I flew to her side.

  Natalie shrugged and put her hands out. “I don’t know. He gave me an ultimatum. If I didn’t come back to work at the company and pretend that you weren’t Christopher’s father, he would cut us off. No inheritance.”

  “What? Because of me and some stupid job?” My mind wandered to my own mother and what she gave up for me to go to college. Her reaction to me dropping out could have been like Mr. Livingston’s, but my mother was a far better person than he was.

  Natalie shrugged again. “Yeah. That’s what he said. But I don’t want to go back to the company. It was sucking the life out of me. I can see that now. But what will we do if my father publicly disowns me? He has so much power in this city that I’ll never get another job here again.”

  Silent tears slid down her face, and I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her against my chest. Natalie stiffened at the contact, something having shifted between us in the last ten minutes, but she didn’t pull away. I worried she would take her father’s words to heart and cast me aside like the loser he thought I was. Christopher Livingston II was a bastard. An idea occurred to me as I held her. Letting her go, I put my finger under her chin and tipped her head back to look at me. I was met with a pair of watery hazel eyes.

  “Come back to California with me when Christopher gets out of here.” I didn’t care that we barely knew each other. It didn’t matter that we had no place to live but my tiny studio apartment. I wanted her. I wanted them.

  Natalie gazed up at me, her tears drying up and her eyes wide. I wanted to kiss her again, but now was not the time. She would spook. I could tell my words shook her. That she was ready to say no, her lips pursed with the word on the tip of her tongue. But instead, she dropped her head, giving it a slight shake.

  “I don’t know, Rhys. My life is here. I have nothing out there. And besides my savings, I have nothing. Not after he cuts me off.” Her shoulders slumped and she sobbed. I pushed her chin up again so she would meet my eyes.

  “We’ll figure it out, Nat. We can make a life out there. You, me, and Christopher.” I wanted this more than I thought I would ever want something. More than I wanted my music career and it scared the shit out of me. It also filled me with something I hadn’t felt in a long time—hope.

  I could tell she was thinking about it, rolling my words around in her head to see if they made sense. The light behind the depths of her eyes was shining as she thought about a future where we were a family. I was holding my breath for her answer.

  “I can’t, Rhys. I barely know you. The reason we’re here is because I made a rash decision with a man I barely knew, in an alleyway one night when I was feeling insecure and lonely. I can’t.” She whispered the last two words, as if they were painful to say and just as quickly as the light was turned on, it went out.

  Stepping out of my embrace, she turned her back to me, looking down at Christopher. “I have to think about him. Every decision I make affects Christopher now. I was careless with my decisions for so long.” Her words trailed off at the end and I wondered what she meant by them besides our tryst in the alley, which she so obviously seemed to regret.

  Foolishness filled my chest as I listened to her words. I risked it all to ask her to take a risk on me. I put my life on hold to come out here to be with her and the baby who, until two weeks ago, I didn’t even know was mine. And she regretted us, me, everything. I had made a mistake.

  “Never mind. You’re right. It would be risky to leave New York right now. Besides, I
have to get back soon and pick up with the band anyway.” I cleared my throat. Cleared my irrational thoughts.

  Natalie pivoted at my words, searching my face for the reason for my shift in attitude. She wouldn’t find it because I closed down the emotions I was feeling seconds before. Maybe I had overstayed my welcome. Ignoring the ache in my chest, I started to back out of the room.

  “Are you leaving?” Her voice sounded shaky and unsure.

  I didn’t let that change my mind. With a nod, I stepped further away from her. “Yup. I think I’m going to schedule a flight out first thing, actually. There are a few promotional events the band has going on next week that I don’t think I can miss.” It was a lie because they rescheduled. “Update me on Christopher’s progress, and let me know when he’s released. I’ll come back to help you get settled. The doctor’s news was reassuring, and I don’t think you need me breathing down your neck any longer.”

  I was now fully out of the room, having slowly backed away, like I should have done days before.

  “Rhys, you don’t have to go.” Natalie followed after me, calling to me in a loud whisper as I started through the NICU and out to the elevator.

  I saw her stop and look back towards Christopher’s room before she continued approaching as I stabbed the down arrow to summon the elevator.

  “Are you leaving because of what I said?” She placed her hand on my forearm. I closed my eyes against the sensation of her touch and she removed her hand quickly, as if my skin were an open flame.

  I shook my head, lying again. “It makes sense for me to leave now. Christopher is doing well and the band needs me. I can come back when he’s home from the hospital to help, and stay for a couple of weeks. Let me know.” I kept my voice neutral, without feeling. Natalie furrowed her brow at my words but nodded in response.

  “Okay. Have a safe trip back to California. I’ll call you with any news.”