Before & After (16 page)

Chapter
27
:
Before

“We
should go away,” Lindsay says.

I
look at her, pulled out of my sketch for just a moment. Peyton is half-asleep, her
head on my thigh and my fingers sifting through her hair as I draw.

“Why?”

She
looks over her shoulder, at where Scott is banging on guitar strings. He’s been
in a shitty mood since we came home from Austin two weeks ago. The waiting is
killing him.

I
understand. It’s slowly driving me crazy, and I have the tattoo shop and
songwriting to distract me. Scott only has the music. It’s always been harder
for him.

“Where
would we go?” Peyton asks, sleepily.

“My
parents’ condo.”

“You
know it’s freezing, right?” she asks, a smile in her voice.

“So
we wear sweaters and get drunk in the hot tub instead of bikinis and drunk on
the beach. Come on. It’ll be good to get out of the city for a while, and we’re
on break. It’s perfect.”

Peyton
peers up at me, her gaze questioning. She’s been skittish around Scott for the
past few weeks, since that night in the club—and he’s noticed, even if he
hasn’t commented. Shoving us all into a small condo for a few days will either
cure her of that or make things worse.

“It
sound fun,” I say and she lets out a tiny sigh. “Fine. When do we leave?”

Lindsay
shrieks, a happy noise that makes my ears hurt, and Peyton giggles.

“If
we leave tomorrow, we can put up a tree and celebrate Christmas!”
Linds
says, bouncing off the table and darting to her room.
“I’m calling Daddy!”

***

It
takes less than three hours to get the condo and for Lindsay’s father to
arrange plane tickets—his present to us, and when we argued, the man was having
none of it.

I
don’t like Peyton’s parents, but as parents go, Lindsay did
good
.

The
girls are darting from room to room, stealing clothes and packing and laughing.
Scott lands on the couch next to me, his bag on the kitchen table with mine.

We
don’t need much, and pack fast—a skill I learned in the system that I still
carry.

“Think
it’s a good idea to force Red into this?”

“Why
wouldn’t it be? She could have said no.”

“And
you could have said the room was taken.”

I
go still and Scotty curses. “Dude. You know I don’t give a fuck, but it messes
with shit. She isn’t one of the girls we took home from Barrie’s.”

“I
fucking know that,” I snap. “She wanted to stay. So fuck off. She’ll be fine.”

He
looks at me for a minute, skepticism in his gaze, and I growl softly. “I’m not doing
anything that will fuck up what I have with her. You ought to know that. She’s
all that matters.”

“What
if she doesn’t want this? If the next step is signing with this studio and
moving to be closer to the indie scene? You know the five year plan.”

I
do. It’s always been the plan—work and build our name in Knoxville before we
move to Nashville or Austin.

When
we made the plan, it was just us. Two friends with no attachments and big-ass
dreams. The girls changed that. I glance at Lindsay as she almost runs past
with a sweater and a wide smile. “What about her? Can you let go of her if we
leave and she doesn’t follow?”

“Lindsay
will. She already knows the plan. She’s known from the beginning.”

I
stare at him in shock and he lets out a sharp laugh. “One day, dude, you’re
going to stop being a distrustful ass, and start letting people in. You might
want to do it before Peyton wakes up and realizes how much you don’t tell her.”

He
gets up and follows Lindsay into the bedroom, and I stare at the closed door
for a long minute.

Then
I stand and walk into our room. Peyton is half in the closet, wrestling a dress
off a hanger. She grins at me when she tosses it on the bed, and then stills,
staring at me. Her brow furrows. “What’s wrong?”

“Would
you move with me? To Austin?”

She
blinks, her mouth falling open.

She’s
still so fucking beautiful it hurts. And she’s scared. I can see it in her
gaze, darting away from mine.

“If
this works out, for Scott and me. Would you follow me?”

“Do
you want me to?” she asks, her voice shaking.

I
move, coming off the bed and catching her around the waist, kissing her hard
and fast. “Fuck yes. I love you, Fish. You’re everything to me. I don’t want
you to move with me. I want to marry you. I want you with me forever. I want
every vacation to be this mad dash around while you giggle and plan. You
writing while I draw. I want you to steal my razor and bitch when I touch your
coffee and I want every fucking holiday with you. I want everything, Peyton. I
don’t even care about the music. I love it, and I love being able to do it with
Scott, but if it ever comes down to you or the music, I’m going to pick you.
Every fucking time, I’ll pick you.”

She’s
leaning against me, her head on my chest, and I can feel her shoulders shaking.
When she looks up, her eyes are bright and shiny, but she’s smiling, this
brilliant fucking smile that makes my insides ache. “Did you just propose?”

I
don’t even think about it. “Yeah. You saying yes?”

“You
fucking idiot,” she murmurs, and then she’s kissing me, and every fucking thing
in my world is right, because she’s in my arms.

“Is
that a yes?” I ask desperately, and she laughs.

“Of
course. It’s never been a choice, Rike. I love you—and that means Scott, and
everything that come with him. So yes. I’ll move to Austin with you. I’ll move
anywhere. And I’ll marry you whenever you’re ready.”

“This
weekend.”

She laughs, and she nods before she kisses me.

This.
This is the real shit I’ve been chasing for so long. The family I always wanted
and never had. The friends in the other room. This girl, in my arms.

This
girl. She will always be everything I’ve ever wanted.

Chapter 28
:
After

It's
laughter and little
lessons and heartbreak.

It is never easy.

But.

Easy is empty.

It's bland and boring. It doesn't make my heart

Sing or dance or hurt.

Easy is empty. And you.

Are everything.

(
Rike’s
poems to
Peyton)

The
day it happens starts like any other. I’ve been home for two weeks now, and
although we’re all working to bring Lindsay out of her shell, to get her to
trust us and trust what she and Scott have, it’s not working. We can feel her
slipping away, and feel him sliding into a deep depression. Rike is fighting to
keep him, and Lindsay is vanishing before our eyes.

Rike
pops into my studio early this morning, with another cup of coffee and a
toe-curling kiss that pulls me instantly from the paints I’m laying out.

I’ve
apologized to my clients, a furious backlog in my inbox that took me a full day
to work through. Some I wrote off completely—I couldn’t remember enough about
the work and the client to put together a solid piece. Others, I offered a
discounted price and an apology with a new delivery date. And most were
understanding—those who weren’t were people I didn’t want to work with anyway.

“What
are you working on today?” he asks, leaning over my shoulder. He shaved
recently, and the beard has since been replaced with an ever-present scruff
that I love.

“I’m
doing a painting of a wedding photo. They were married in in ’62. How long is
that?”

“A
long fucking time?” he offers, and I laugh.

Look
at him over my shoulder. “Do you think we can do that? Be together that long?”

His
expression gentles. “Fish. We’ve been through hell the past three months, yeah?
If we can get through this, we can get through anything. Fifty years is a piece
of cake.”

I
nod, and he kisses me again before he steps away. “What about you?” I ask.
“What’s the plan?”

Rike
shrugs. “We’re meeting the band about song selection for the next album. Since
Scott canceled the tour, they need to get that going to keep the momentum.”

“See
you tonight?”

He
nods, and leans in to kiss me. “See you then.”

***

I
switch on the radio, and spend the next few hours painting. It’s easy to get
lost in my art, and it’s when I feel closest to the girl I was. Around
lunchtime, I go downstairs and make lunch with Lindsay. She seems alive when
I’m the only one home, the depression and walls she puts up when Scott is
present melting away until she’s laughing and alive.

I
make us cold cuts and join her at the table. She’s got her computer open and
she glances up at me as I sit down. “You’re a mess,” she says, wrinkling her
nose.

“You’re
one to talk,” I tease. “What are you doing?”

She
flushes and that piques my interest. “What?” I ask, lowering my sandwich.

“Setting
up gigs,” she mumbles.

I
stare at her and she shifts in her chair. Slaps the laptop shut and glares at
me. “Quit staring at me with those accusing eyes. This is for him.”

“
He
doesn’t want gigs, you idiot. He
wants you.”

Her
lips compress into a tight line. “We aren’t doing this,” she say sharply.

“Why
the hell do you get to tell me that I need to come home and to get my head out
of my ass but when I say the same thing, I get shut down and yelled at? Do you
want to explain that to me?”

“I
want to smack you.” She snaps back, “But to do that, I need to walk and we all
know the likelihood of that happening.”

I
let out my breath slowly, and reach for her hand. “Babe. I know why this is
scary. But you have a man who loves you. Who wants to be with
you.
Don’t throw it away because you think it’s what he
needs. Be brave, sweetheart.”

She
snorts, a disgusted noise. “Like you have been? You’ve run as far and as fast
as you possibly could.”

“I
came home for you,” I say quietly. “And I woke up and realized everything we
have. I’m not ashamed of that. You can’t make me feel guilty for being happy.
Not when we were both happy and can both
be
happy.”

She
looks so sad. Miserable. “He deserves better.”

I
stand up. Disgusted suddenly with all of it. With her.

“Who
the fuck are you to decide what he deserves? Scotty chose you. He loves you.
After all the people who threw him away, all the shit that they both went
through—he opened up and trusted
you.
And you’re going to decide that he’s wrong for making that decision? Fuck you,
Lindsay.”

I
stalk away before she can argue. Before she can fight back at all. Retreat to
my studio. The wedding picture is sitting on my table still, quietly taunting
me. Emotions are still thrumming through me, all of the fury and frustration. I
want to shake her and I want to put our family back together.

I
want to know everything I lost.

I
reach for a piece of charcoal, and knock over a little curved dish. It clatters
as it hits the wood of my studio floor, metal rattling around as it bounces and
rolls.

Curious,
I pick it up and glance inside.

A
small ring clatters there, a brilliant fire opal shining from the center,
surrounded by tiny, perfect diamonds. The band is worked with scrolling
designs, elegant curves and twists that make my knees weak.

It
slips, so, so easily, onto my ring finger, and I stare at it, I start to cry.
Tiny tears that slip silently down my cheeks, and fall into my hands. Onto that
ring that means everything.

A
song is playing. My radio is off, but I can hear it. A song that he sang in a
dirty bar, a lifetime ago, to a girl who was scared and running from a family
she wanted to forget. I remember sitting in that bar, Lindsay at my side and
her telling me to lock him down. The pride and envy in her, the happiness in
his best friend’s eyes as he found me across the bar. And his voice, crooning a
truth I couldn’t believe.

I
remember falling in love with him that day, and never once looking back. I was
his sea, but for me, he was the sun. The light that always guided me home. I
couldn’t look away from him, because he was everything.

I
scramble for my phone. Grab it from where it’s sitting on my desk and type the
message while the memories crash over me.

Me:
I remember

Rike:
What??

The
phone rings, and his voice is frantic in my ear, demanding. And I’m sobbing,
laughing, the world crashing down around me. “Everything, Jokes. I remember
fucking everything.”