Chapter Twelve
I hadn’t realizedwhen Tate had taken me up to his apartment to show me the boxes that he was completely packed and ready to go. All we had to do was rent a moving van and transfer it all over to my place. We did that the very next day.
Ronny wasn’t happy about having to miss a full day of rehearsals, but he used the time off to get drunk and party at Dallas’ place. From what I heard the next day, Ronny and my brother had a “double date”. I shuddered at the image and forced them to not talk about it in my vicinity.
Having Tate and Cara here all the time was amazing. I had never realized how much I loved having something like this in my life. A family.
Growing up, while I loved my own family, I didn’t plan on making one myself. The life of a traveling musician was hard. You missed so much while on the road. As children and parents. We had gone on smaller runs with both of our parent’s bands growing up, but the long ones were the hardest. The ones In which they had to leave us behind. When almost literally half of our families were gone for months to a year. It sucked. There was one leg when my mom toured for almost two full years.
I knew that they did what they had to do, but it was still hard to only see them on TV or talk to them over the phone. It wasn’t the same as having them here.
I mentioned this to Tate one night after I had put Cara down for bed. We settled down in the living room to relax with a beer. Today’s rehearsal had been brutal.
“My parents were gone a lot too. Not to that extent, but even when they weren’t traveling, I still had full time nannies,” he shrugged.
“We did too. Well, only the one, Tabatha. But she was with us for years. She was just as much a part of our family as my aunts and uncles are.”
“I had multiple ones. Mostly women, but I did have a guy once. Alan, he was pretty cool. He was the last one I had before my parents gave up and just let me be alone.”
“How old were you?” I wondered aloud. Tabatha stayed with us until we were almost thirteen. At that point she mostly just cleaned up for us and was a chaperone for stuff, but still. Tate scrunched up his face in thought for a moment. He took a large gulp of his beer and then turned to me.
“Around nine.”
“Nine?” I gasped. He waved off my concerns. The thought of me and Dallas being on our own at nine was insane to me. We needed Tabatha.
“It wasn’t as bad as you think. We still had a full staff to look after me. I didn’t have any friends, so I didn’t need anyone to take me places. I was independent at a young age. I didn’t want someone to play with. I had my books and my music. That’s all I needed.” He tried to play it off like no big deal, but I still felt sad for the little yellow haired boy all by himself in that large house.
“I wonder what kind of person Cara will grow into,” I mused. “Will she be like you, into music?”
“Us,” he said firmly. He had been making a point to call out any time I made my role in her life less than what it was. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get over my insecurities about it, but I liked to think that he was helping. “She’ll watch her parent’s careers and talent and want to be just like us, I’m sure. Or there’s a very good chance if we keep Lola on that she’ll start mimicking... that.” He made a playful grimace, making me laugh.
There was nothing wrong with Lola, really there wasn’t. She was great with Cara. She was just... a lot. The purple haired girl was one of those bright eyed bushy tailed morning people. Every day she came in to pick up Cara, she came in like a cheery hurricane made of sunshine. She didn’t need any sort of caffeine to get her started. She woke up dancing and kept on going all damn day. Her level of energy exhausted me.
I did love having her, Rosa, and Ben of course, around Cara. Seeing my cousins accept her into my family so readily was giving me the confidence to eventually bring my parents and aunts and uncles around.
I knew they knew about her and Tate. I was pretty sure anyways. My parents were currently off... somewhere. I couldn’t really remember what country they were currently in.
“What’s on your mind?” Tate asked. I scooted closer to him on the couch. He raised his arm and let me mold my body against his. He had taken off his shirt before sitting down, his warm body was soft against my bare arms.
“My parents. I’m nervous. Me and my dad have been rocky for a while now. I don’t want to hear a lecture.”
“Lecture about what? I’m not forcing you to do this. You can change your mind at any time.” He stiffened slightly. I peered up at him and shook my head vehemently.
“No, I know that. And I don’t want to change anything. I love what we have. The three of us. It’s perfect. But my dad can be kind of judgmental.”
“Oh, I recall. I don’t know if you could tell but at the meeting we had with our lawyers, I was shaking under the table. I thought he was going to murder me.”
“Same here. He was so mad that day,” I laughed.
“If I can get through that without pissing myself, I should be able to get through a few awkward visits with your family. Eventually they’ll have to like me, right?”
“I mean, they like Dallas, so I guess,” I teased. That got a hearty laugh from him. We reached out and clinked our bottles together. We drank and then he leaned down to kiss the top of my head.
“I hear that. Alright, lets finish these so I can take you to the bedroom and fuck you until my legs give out.”
* * *
That next day we had two good things come about. In the morning Tate was emailed about the article being published finally. It had taken longer than we had wanted, but they assured us it would be worth it. It was. Paired with the pictures of Cara and me, the article was very successful in smashing down any unsavory gossip bloggers that had attempted to dirty his name.
