True Divide (2 page)

“Give me a minute, sweetheart. I missed the whole goddamn thing, so let me stand here for a second and just look at you. Both of you.”

Kate's hand drops limply to the bed, but she fixes her eyes on his and waits.

Any second now, Trevor or Kate or both of them are going to start crying, I can feel it. I want to look away, but it's practically a Hallmark card commercial, so I can't. Finally, he drops his arms from the doorjamb and starts toward her. He reaches the edge of the hospital bed, pulls one leg up onto the mattress, and kneels toward Kate, taking her face in his hands, leaning in until his nose is touching hers. In his broken whispers, I can hear just enough, even though it's probably too much. Apologies and endearments, with a few soft curse words to color all the reverence and make it clear we're still dealing with Trevor, after all.

Kate lets her lips touch his for a moment and then pulls away so Trevor can see his baby up close. At that second, I start for the door because my heart is swelling and breaking at the same time. How those two got here, to a place where they're both whole again, is a mystery and miracle. Because if you tried to understand how a brainy, overthinking novelist from the middle of nothing landed squarely in the heart of a ghetto-born, reformed-thug musician, you might spend a lifetime and never be able to find the logic in any of it.

Kate murmurs their son's name. Nicholas Duke Jenkins. His first name in homage to the brother Trevor lost years ago and the middle name in memory of our long-passed father. In the smallest whisper a grown man can muster, Trevor says hello.

“. . . Hey there, Nic.”

I turn to sneak in one last look and find Trevor holding Nic as Kate lets her head fall back against the pillows, eyes closed and resting finally. Because Trevor being here does what it always has. He reminds Kate that she isn't alone, that it's safe, and whatever burden she has, she doesn't have to shoulder it alone.

And the sight of such unburdening is so wonderfully raw and tender, I want nothing more than to know what that feels like.

As I amble down the hallway, I notice all the nurses craning their necks blatantly toward Kate's room. When one of them sees that I've caught her staring, she drops her gaze and pretends to look at a chart. The move sends cold hackles up the back of my neck and every mama-grizzly component of my familial loyalty rises up inside me. I stop and turn purposefully back toward Kate's room and pull the door shut. When the nosy nurse looks up to see what I've done, I send her a look I hope conveys that if she tries anything shady, I'll have her for lunch. I consider the ol' draw-my-index-finger-across-my-neck motion to emphasize the point, but decide that the nonverbal threats can wait. She'd better pray we don't get to the verbal ones.

Honestly, can people not understand how intrusive it is to hover over someone's private moments like that? Even if that someone happens to be newsworthy? Before Kate met Trevor, I used to eat up every trashy gossip magazine out there, relishing the way a celebrity fiasco made my own simple yet stable life seem just peachy. But ever since the time my sister
became
the fiasco, I can't much enjoy the diversion of them.

If Kate and Trevor were a little less humble, a little more self-absorbed, they would have locked down this side of the hospital and sent in a team of attorneys to secure nondisclosures from everyone, the nurses on down to the janitors. But their lives in Crowell are typically low-key—only when we venture out of our tiny town and into the greater county do people really gawk. When people call out to greet Trevor across Crowell's town square, it's not because he's Trax, it's because he's Kate's husband. So our townsfolk's disregard of his big-deal-ness means that Kate and Trevor don't think about protecting their privacy the way they probably should.

Once I've satisfied my need to send everyone in the vicinity a silent message to stay clear of room 121, I make my way back to the waiting room. Because Kate is a hometown girl and Trevor has practically been adopted into our rural family, the relatively small room is nearly overrun now. Kate's neighbor Sharon is here, making small talk with Kate's old coworkers from what used to be our family's newspaper, Herm and Rita. Even the weird British guy who owns the local cycling shop, Abe, has made an appearance, because he's Trevor's bestie here in Crowell.

Segmented off and standing a few feet away is the LA contingent, including Trevor's mom, Marilyn, and his manager, Damien. Simon, his bandmate, is laughing at something and grinning and looking so good, it makes my jaw ache a little.

For one night—admittedly, it was the night of Kate and Trevor's wedding, which probably explains exactly how lovelorn and misty I was feeling in the first place—I was wickedly close to him, and those gray eyes of his were nearly delirium inducing. We never got past a few glancing touches and a smattering of soft smiles, but I still think about what it would have been like had we crossed that line.

“Shut the fuck up!”

Devon's voice, for all that it sounds like a screeching car wreck to me, is actually annoyingly feminine, with just the slightest husky rasp to it, so everything she says sounds seductive and sexy, even to my straight-girl hearing. I don't recognize the man she's talking to, his back to me, but from the dark dress pants and white uniform shirt topped with navy-blue-and-gold-striped epaulets at the shoulders, he must be the guy who leisurely steered the private plane here. A dark gray knit beanie covers his head, with a few unruly tendrils of hair peeking out from around the edges, all of it lending a casual edge to the rest of how he's dressed.

Given that he's not sporting a proper pilot's hat, and seems to have made himself at home here chatting up Devon, he's not much for professionalism and probably spent too much time flirting with her to focus properly on getting the plane in working order. Shouldn't he be back at his plane already? Doing whatever slacker private pilots do before flying back to LA? A little more efficiency and a little less drooling on the pilot's part, and they might have gotten here in time for Trevor to welcome his first baby into the world.

Devon is wearing a skintight black tank top paired with black yoga pants, because that is what she always wears. Not even for the reason most normal women wear yoga pants, because we're feeling too lazy or bloated to put on regular pants. In her case, it's because she does approximately nine hundred hours of yoga a week. Hot yoga, power yoga, blah, blah, blah. She even sucked Kate into the vortex and now they both have those lean, ripped yoga arms that don't wing around when you wave at someone. The rest of Devon's body matches her arms, no flimflamming anywhere. She's beautiful and self-assured in the way some women are, those who take space in the world without apology and never hesitate to expect respect. It's a quality I've worked on for the last few years, figuring out how to be more for myself and nothing less for anyone else—but for Devon, it seems to come naturally. The freedom that comes with that must be so damn liberating.

Her green eyes flicker over to mine, coolly composed, and I see her stretch one arm out and shove her fingers into the back pocket of Simon's jeans, where he stands less than a foot away, talking to Damien. Without even turning to look at her, he reaches back and untucks her hand, then wraps his fingers in hers. Another glance from Devon my way, to make it absolutely clear that she's marked him as private property for her enjoyment only.

Jesus. Duly noted. Like I was even planning to try to seduce him, anyway.

OK,
fine
. Maybe a small, tiny, practically imperceptible part of me would consider it. Maybe I wanted to have a man look at me like that again, the way Simon did that night at Trevor and Kate's wedding. Even for a couple of hours. Because it's been a long time since I indulged in the distraction of a man and some flirting that may or may not lead anywhere. And I miss it. I miss letting a guy focus on me, doing all those things men do that make it seem as if you're all that matters. A few hours wasted that way might convince me that being both desirable and self-reliant isn't just a ridiculous fantasy.

Sharon sidles up next to me, gently tugging on the end of my shirtsleeve and allowing my attention to focus elsewhere. “How is she? Better?”

Nodding, I smile a little and let everything else fade away. Perhaps now I can escape the cloud of heavy-handed emotional stuff in this hospital for a moment and catch a breather outside. After that I'll be holed up here—until I'm positive Kate doesn't need anything else—trying to decide which pathetically out-of-date magazine in the waiting room to read first. Perhaps I'll start with the self-esteem-damaging women's mag that's trying to masquerade itself as a fitness journal. The cover shouts of a workout that will give me skinny-jean-worthy thighs in six minutes a day. I like skinny jeans, don't love my thighs, and consider six minutes to be the right amount of time for a workout.

Backing out of the room, intent on a few moments of fresh air, I smile. “She's perfect now. I'm going to head outside for a bit, so make sure no one interrupts them for a while, OK? I'm sure Trevor will come out once they're ready for the ambush of cooing and tears.”

I catch a glimpse of the pilot again just as I turn to leave the room. When he chuckles at another witticism from Devon, I suddenly want someone to punish for Trevor's absence, and this guy makes the perfect target. He's leaning in toward Devon and speaking quietly, in a rich, resonant tone that is far too easygoing for my taste right now.

“Plus, Trevor needs a few minutes alone with her and the baby.” I raise my voice deliberately. “Since fancy private planes apparently travel at the speed of molasses, he missed out on everything.”

The room immediately turns silent. Simon manages to ease the tension slightly by snorting out an uncomfortable laugh. I saunter away and step around the corner. No more than five steps beyond, there is a door leading to the outside. My hand lands against the door, but when I start to push it open, a loud voice emerges from the waiting room.

“Aw, come on, Shoelace. Don't go getting yourself all tied up in knots. I got him here in one piece, didn't I?”

I halt in place. The door has one of those industrial-style push bars on it, and when I pull my hand back slowly, it squeaks loudly under the release. Finally, the door clicks shut and the weight of it against my hips threatens to toss me off balance. I keep my fingers against the cool metal of the door for a moment, trying to decide if I'm hearing things.

Shoelace.

Only one person in my entire life has called me that. The world's lamest nickname. People have called me Lace for years; my father called me Lacie-Gracie, riffing off my first and middle names. But “Shoelace” was the invention of a boy who liked to rile me up and kiss me down after he did, and ended up tearing my teenage heart in two when he walked away without even saying sayonara.

As my feet shuffle across the five long steps back to the waiting room, heart thudding angrily in my chest, I would swear my lungs are losing traction with every inch. I tip my head to the side and peer into the room.

Sweet Jesus.

Not possible.

Jake Holt. Live and in person. Standing there with the same crooked smile he used to give me when we were seventeen. The same blue eyes. The same dimple in his left cheek.

“Hey, Lacey.”

The same voice, every recognizable twitch of mischief and longing in his inflection. Just like he used to lay on me when we were alone and doing things I thought we shouldn't but wanted more than anything.

Reckless things. Half-naked things. Semi-illegal things.

Slowly, Jake slips the gray beanie off his head, chin tilted down a bit so he can peer cautiously at me with only a small smile, and runs a hand through his hair. It's different now; the last time I saw him it was longer and straggly, and one hunk would flop over his right eye every time he leaned forward to kiss me, obscuring the eyebrow ring he once had. When he did that—kissed me or put his face right next to mine to whisper something—the ends of his hair would tickle across my eyelashes. Now it's shorter, less bright blond and absent of the green or blue streaks he used to dye in occasionally, cut into a shaggy but grown-up style.

And, good God, the rest of him grew up, too. The pilot's uniform cuts close to his body, and he's crossed his arms over his chest, a chest he actually has now, so I can tell that somewhere along the last decade or so, Jake Holt went and traded in his gangly, rangy body for one that is still lean but rife with dense, compact muscles. Everywhere, I'm pretty sure.

I don't know what to say in response. A returning “hey” or “hello” doesn't feel right, too casual for this moment. Probably because ten years ago, we never said good-bye properly. All I can manage is a stage whisper, but I get the words out somehow.

“What the hell took you so long?”