Chapter 30
Thirty
DEREK
I’m ending us.
She doesn’t want me. She doesn’t want a relationship. In the morning light, with the marine layer over us, her eyes darken to storm cloud gray. Her shoulders are pushed back and her spine is rigid, her whole body radiates a military stance ready to take on an enemy. Or a person non-grata.
For years, I’ve been that person in her life.
I heard her talking to Mike when I wanted to apologize to James, again.
“You’re running.” The realization heats my blood. “You’re leaving everything because you’re scared.”
“I,” she stabs a finger into her chest. “I’m the one responsible for them. I’ll still be the one responsible, even when you’re out on the road. And you’ll leave us in Nashville without friends. Without family. We have security in Maryland. They have been through enough. I’m not letting James hurt anymore.”
“You can’t keep him in a glass bubble forever.”
She cuts her eyes at me, then looks down the street. “I can help him manage expectations.”
“What is that? Teach him to expect the world to disappoint him? That I’ll disappoint him? It was one time. Once. And you’re ready to run and hand him over to some guy who isn’t his father?” The tightness in my limbs has me balling up my hands. “I won’t let you do it again.”
“It’s for the best.” Her eyes shine and she looks away, blinking. “I don’t need anyone. I can handle us.”
There it was. She didn’t need me. She didn’t want me. She didn’t believe I was enough.
The past twelve hours crash into me like a wall I can’t stop from collapsing. As much as I hope I’m strong enough to hold back the inevitable, I can’t. She deems me nonessential in her life. And therefore, I’m reduced to being in her life on her terms. Her crossed arms and widened stance dare me to argue with her and convince her I am worth another chance. I’ve been the one begging her years ago to believe I could be who she wanted. Truth was, even when she came looking for me, to tell me about James, I’d fucked up. I wasn’t who she wanted. I wasn’t who she deemed worthy.
Fast forward to today, and wasn’t that a pickle, like she said, we’re in the same place as before.
But this isn’t a Nashville hotel, and she’s not married to the Army. I didn’t fight for her to stay then. I’m sure as shit not making the same choice because there’s a little boy and a little girl that own my heart.
I just have to figure out how to convince Emily. With her chin in the air and the walls up around her, today is not the day to attempt to push her to stay.
“You’re leaving.” It’s a shit attempt at pretending the Emily-shaped gash in my heart isn’t bleeding out every hope and dream I let myself have this summer. And by the look she sends me, there is no doubt left in her. A breeze wafts between us, flopping a lock of her dark wavy hair on her face. I reach over, tucking it behind her ear. “I can’t change your mind, but I won’t change mine about James.” I drop my hand. “I’ll visit until he accepts me. We’ll tell him. I’ll have all the rights that belong to me.”
My father’s voice runs through my head warning me to set something up. I open my mouth to add something about making our agreement legal.
Her neck works as her eyes shine with moisture. “I won’t fight what’s fair.” She audibly clears her throat. “He asked last night why everyone called him your son. I wanted him to know. I couldn’t without you.”
I step closer, but she puts her palm up to stop me and adds, “No, it’s my fault. But for the first time, I’d been counting on you being there. You weren’t. I realized I had depended on you and forgot….”
“Forgot that disappointment is part of life?” I say, and her eyes cut away.
“I can’t stay,” she says with finality.
I take a step forward about to remind her I don’t have to live here or in Nashville, and I’ll follow her anywhere.
But she again puts up her hand. “It’s better this way. Separate lives.”
“Is this what you want?”
“It’s what’s best.”
If she gave me another chance, I’d…I’d what? How can I prove to her that this time, it is different?
“Okay.”
“Okay,” she repeats. With one long look, she returns to the house, and I’m left standing on the sidewalk, alone.
I don’t have a clue on how I could ever extricate Emily from my heart. James and Victoria have a home there forever. No number of miles will stop me from building something with them.
And now I have to figure out what I’m going to do about how to be the only father, husband and true partner in their lives.
“You let her walk away?” Charlie shakes his head at me as if I were an incompetent idiot. I may be.
We’re sitting outside of a coffee spot in La Jolla, facing the cove and waiting for Tyler who agreed to share details of his fight with Amy. I was in the helicopter when I called Emily to apologize. I wasn’t leaving LA without my brother. And it took everything in me to cancel the ride and instead help Charlie search for Tyler. When we found him, we sat, looking down at the Hollywood sign until Tyler was ready to walk back to the car so we could take him home. In the dark, I missed a step, and lost a fight with a bush. Then we sat in the car for hours because Tyler didn’t want to go to his house, to Charlie’s, or anywhere.
“I can’t force her to change her mind. She’s stubborn.”
“If I had a woman like her, I would throw myself at her feet. Beg her forgiveness.” Charlie grins at me like he knows where his words land.
I don’t answer because my brain snags on what he’s not saying.
“What?” Charlie goes on like he heard me ask something. “You’re not thinking straight. She’s one of a kind. Even Bailey fell in love with her. And she chose you, and you let her walk away. She always chose you.”
My entire being shudders, and my eye twitches. “Are you trying to tell me I’m an idiot or that you want her?” The last part has me practically hovering over him, ready to put my fist through his stupidity.
He laughs like I’m the one losing my mind. “I’m saying if I were the one letting her go, it’d be lying in the dirt, dying with a sword raised in the air. I’d fight for her ‘til the end.”
“Are you declaring your love for her or something?”
He curses. “Get it through your thick skull. You need to show her there is no other man for her. That you love her. That you’ll fight for her, side by side, like you did for your son, and you’ll never give up on her.”
My mind replays, in vivid detail, memories of the summer, searching for moments when I may not have showed her I never stopped loving her or I wasn’t there, like Charlie said, sword in hand fighting by her side. My brain scrambles. I take another sip of my coffee.
“Hey.” Tyler approaches with his hair disheveled and his face looking like he’d had no sleep for a week and a day’s growth on his face. We wait until he sits. Charlie offers to buy him a coffee, but he shakes his head.
Tyler stares at his hands. “Funny. I spent two hours packing up my shit. Two hours. It was as if I didn’t live there. I didn’t exist in her life anymore.” He runs his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t see it. It’s like…” He takes in a deep breath. “It’s like we fell apart over time, and I didn’t notice.”
Charlie and I glance at each other.
“Offer stands,” Charlie says about Tyler staying with him. Charlie has plenty of room.
Tyler nods. Then looks at me. “Need me to apologize to Emily and James?”
Shaking my head, I assure him, “No need. All squared away.” We’re not here to talk about me, so I’m keeping details in for now.
“Fuck.” Tyler shakes his head again. “I guess no matter how long you know someone, you only know what they want to show you. Fourteen years is long enough to know someone, right?”
I sip on my coffee, hoping it will wash away the thickness in my throat. I replay the few moments Emily opened up, let me see everything inside her. There was no doubt I was peering into the depths of her fears, and like a prophecy, I did exactly what she expected.
“Maybe talking about it would help,” Charlie addresses Tyler. Would it help? What would change? Amy made a decision, and Emily has, too.
“Feels like coffee wouldn’t be enough.” Tyler gives us a half smile. “Need alcohol.”
It’s a bad idea all around, but none of the excuses we shouldn’t come to me .
“I know where we can go.”
I convince them to meet me at Santos, where menu prep is happening. When we arrive, Mark is behind the bar, working with one of his newest hires.
“This one is called The Flaming Pickle.” Mark sets a short glass filled with ice and a faint green liquid with something red floating on top in front of me.
I laugh. “We’re not naming it The Flaming Pickle.”
He waggles his brows. “Try it first.”
I lift my glass in a cheer to Tyler and Charlie, and they hold their own flaming pickle in front of them.
It’s smooth, refreshing, and with a subtle cucumber flavor and spice. It’s not overly sweet and the perfect amount of heat lingers. The taste is almost addictive. “Holy fuck, this is good.” I take a second sip.
Mark grins triumphantly. “The ladies will love it.”
I can’t believe I’m going to agree. “What’s next?”
Mark takes our glasses to dump them, but Tyler sucks on the straw, draining the glass and still wearing the deep scowl he walked in with. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
When Tyler finally lets go, Mark snickers. “Thanks for the compliment, drummer boy.” And winks. Tyler looks like he could murder Mark.
Tyler turns his body toward us. “She’s fucking some hot shot L.A. lawyer.”
What the—? The fear I’d been carrying about Emily finding someone else sucks all hope out of me.
“I’m sorry,” Charlie says.
“The only thought I had was to go get tested.” Tyler grabs the water Mark sets in front of him with a mumbled thanks. “Then it fucking hit me. Was she trying to get pregnant by just anyone? I asked her, and you know what she fucking told me?” He runs a hand through his hair. “She changed her mind. She doesn’t want kids. She doesn’t want to be married to me anymore. She’s not the Amy I knew. It’s like, it’s like… Fuck. ”
We wait for him to process his thoughts. He drinks more water.
“It’s like we’re strangers, and I didn’t even see it happen.” He scoffs. “Should have known the matching panties and bra weren’t for me.”
Was Emily ending things now a better option? Would it happen to us? How well do I know her? She’s kept things from me, and as much as I’ve opened up, has she truly been honest with me? I can’t shake the feeling there’s something she’s not telling me.
Tyler groans in frustration. He gave up his career for his wife. As much as I want Tyler on the road with us, Rip is under contract.
“Let’s talk to Aiden about bringing you back,” I offer, but he shakes his head right away.
“Can’t make any decisions, because I don’t fucking know what’s real and what’s not.”
Tyler’s in for a rough future. I’ll be there for him.
He levels me with so much intensity, I lean back. “You and Emily okay?”
Not at all, and it’s all because of her stubborn fears and my mixed-up priorities. A deadly cocktail.
“Working things out.” And to draw attention away from me, I nod at Mark. “What else you got for us?”
“I’m ready.” Tyler taps the bar with forced enthusiasm. We roll with it, even if it’s not the wisest decision, and change the topic.
By the fourth drink, we’re no longer sticking to tasting. We’re guzzling. Mark has to yank them out of our hands, but hey, he’s pouring a full glass, claiming it’s the only way to get the right ice to alcohol ratio. I think he’s trying to get us to say yes to putting all these concoctions on the cocktail menu. I’m sold because the guy has talent.
By the sixth, I’m barely aware we’re supposed to give Mark feedback .
“What you put in these things?” Tyler slurs a little too loudly. “Crack?” Then he bursts into laughter that somehow becomes way too contagious. When we sober, Tyler grins and points a finger at Mark, then me, “This fucker has it all.” Drunk Tyler curses.
“Me?” I point at my own chest and look around. “What the fuck for?”
“He’s got the woman he’s always wanted. Cute as fuck kid. A little girl that melts everyone’s heart. The love of his fans. And now you, ugh, I mean this fucking monster of a place that’s going to have a line out the door every night.”
“You jealous he has me?” Mark grins at Tyler who scowls with confusion, and I laugh. Mark shrugs a shoulder and shoots me an innocent look. “Can’t help it.”
“He’s got it all. Well deserved. No one fucking takes care of everyone like this guy. You’re lucky you got him as a boss.” Tyler’s waxing poetic which means it’s time to cut him off. “He’s living the life.”
“What’s left of it,” I mutter, but fuck. I don’t want to lie to him. “She broke it off.”
Tyler stares at me as if looking for any humor as if I were joking. His face falls. “Why the fuck did you come looking for me?”
I could yell at him for being ungrateful, but I’m the one who lost as much as he did. “You’re my brother.”
Tyler ducks his head. “I’m sorry I didn’t leave you a choice. Now we’re both dumped.”
“Time to get these fools out of here,” Charlie says.