* * *
Grace, four years old
He waves. I giggle and wave back at him.
Then he smiles, and I smile too!
He comes over all sneaky-like, tiptoeing and putting his finger on his lips. But he is smiling so big, so I giggle and smile back at him again!
He is so silly. I like the reindeer on his hat. Then he pats my head and leans over, his breath so warm that it tickles my neck! He whispers something in my ear.
“I’m going to kill your brother.”
* * *
33
RORY: HUDDLE UP
Iwished Quinn had never told me. It would’ve been so much less stress if I hadn’t known Grace was coming to rehearsals, and we’d just happened upon each other instead. We’d do the customary awkward dance around the issue, and that would be that. But no, Quinn had to make a huge ordeal about me getting to practice early so I could talk privately with her. About what? Me leaving the band? I didn’t think so. Quinn had asked me to join, not the other way around. As far as I was concerned, this was a family matter, and they could leave me the fuck out of it.
Besides, it wasn’t my job that was on the line, especially not now that I knew the set inside and out and had been solidly embraced by the other members of the band. As long as my head didn’t spontaneously explode, I was going on tour with them, so Grace needed to get on board real damn fast. Only problem was, I couldn’t tell her about the chastity pact I’d made with Tucker. Somehow I didn’t think she’d appreciate the nitty-gritty details, nor the fact that Tucker considered me a more valuable asset than her. She had a hit song under her belt, yet she would have to yield to me, a drummer with zero touring experience. I could only imagine how that would go down. No, it was up to me to keep our relationship strictly above the belt. There would be no side-by-side couch cuddles. No enclosed spaces. No seven-minute breaks. All we had to do was keep it professional and we’d both have the careers we’d always desired.
The only real wild card here was Grace herself and whether she’d come in here guns a-blazing, demanding I quit the band. And maybe I would have, back in my bleeding-heart days where I put everyone before myself, but I was done living my life to accommodate others. I’d come this far, on the verge of my stadium dream coming true, and I wasn’t going to quit for anyone. Not even for her. Really, she should think of this as on-the-job training. Grace was a songwriter, and thus it was her job to deal with dickhead musicians, so if she couldn’t find common ground with me, maybe she needed to rethink her own professional goals.
Speaking of being a professional, she was late. I sat on my stool, spinning around. The metal frame didn’t move; it was me doing the spinning. At times like this I sort of wished I still had my tics. In many ways they had been comforting, my feet and hands bobbing like a jackhammer. But anxiety medication had largely taken them away once I’d become Rory Robinson. He was respectable, after all. He even took fictional family vacations. Couldn’t have the Boy Scout of the Year suffering from little dog shaker syndrome.
My god, where was she? I just wanted to get this over with.
On my fourteenth spin around, she appeared in the doorway—my Nantucket dream girl, her arms crossed in front of her, an amused look on her face. All my bravado faded away. The desperate promise I’d made to Tucker seemed foolish now. How the hell was I going to stay away from her?
“That looks fun,” she said.
“It is.”
“Are you self-powered, or do you have an engine in there I never knew about?”
Gah, she was trying to kill me with cuteness. “I was entertaining myself because you were late.”
“Yes, well, you try telling time by the placement of the sun and the moon.”
Using my lines back on me. Made me wonder what else she remembered about our time together. If she was anything like me, it was everything. I’d had my fair share of hookups over the years, even one short-lived relationship, but none ever sparked like Grace and I had.
“I hear you want to talk to me in private.”
“I do,” she said. “Can I come in?”
“Did you go through the metal detector downstairs?”
She opened her arms. “I didn’t beep once.”
“Good for me.”
“Yes.” She smiled. “Good for you.”
There was a weird vibe in the room—an incredible familiarity, yet at the same time, I didn’t really know her at all. Five years she’d lived her life away from me, and time had changed her.Ihad changed her. She seemed more cautious now, no longer the impulsive girl who led with her heart.
“Can I just say one thing before we get started?” I asked.
