“You earned every fucking penny. Those songs wouldn’t exist without you. You tell me, right now, from memory, which lines are yours, and which are mine?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Exactly. Because we blended them all together. A little lyrical DNA milkshake.”
I laugh. And then look at the number again, and my stomach flip-flops. It’s starting to hit me now. “You mean… this is real?”
“It’s real. How does it feel to be a self-made millionaire?”
I look at our joined hands. At the cushion-cut engagement ring on my finger, a replacement for the cherry ring pop. At the barn we're standing in with the mountains visible through the open doors and our son talking to his pony ten feet away.
I think about a ten year old girl in an empty house making a promise to herself. Staring down a future that looked like her mother's and deciding it wouldn't be.
I think about every summer job, every tutoring session,every book I read instead of going to parties, every choice I made.
Everything it took to get from that doorway to this one.
Not that far if you had to walk it.
But a whole world away.
I did it, I think. I actually did it.
Not quite the way I planned. Better.
And then I throw up all over Walker’s boots.
He blinks up at me. “Well. That’s one way to take the news.”
I clap a hand over my mouth. “Oh God. I’m so sorry. I’m just…”
I run to the grass outside and throw up again.
Walker is immediately by my side, pulling my hair away from my face, rubbing my back. “Baby? Are you sick?” His green eyes are filled with worry now.
“Must be.”
After kicking off his poor, wrecked cowboy boots, Walker helps me to the bedroom and gets me set up with ginger ale and the saltines we keep around for when Jonah is sick.
For the next twenty four hours, I alternate between getting sick and sleeping, trying to get over this crazy stomach bug.
Then, at five in the morning, I wake up with a ravenous craving for beef tacos with spicy salsa, which I rarely eat but now inexplicably want for breakfast, of all meals, with the passion of a thousand fiery suns.
Walker is already up, just coming out of the bathroom and getting ready to head out on the ranch when he sees I’m awake.
He pushes my hair back from my forehead and drops a kiss there. “Still no fever. That’s good. Anything I can get you, darlin’?”
“Yes,” I say, and then explain my taco craving in greatdetail, telling him exactly how I want the shredded lettuce and sour cream and extra spicy salsa.
He listens calmly. “Okay. You sit tight. I’ll be right back.”
Thirty minutes later, he’s returned with the tacos of my dreams. He sits by my side, watching me devour them in bed like an animal.
“Feeling better?” he asks.
“Much.”
“Good.” He smiles, then goes to the little plastic bag he got from the pharmacy and pulls out a small cardboard box. He presses it into my hands. “Given your symptoms, we might want to see what this has to say.”
