Chapter 37 Tate
TATE
“Shall we go and tell Daddy you’re ready for bed?”
Molly nods, her dark curls bobbing as I take her empty milk cup from her and place it on the counter.
I walk with her toward Sullivan’s home office.
He said he had a call to make to Jones, but he’s been gone the entire time Molly took to drink her milk, and I haven’t heard the low rumbling of his voice carrying down the hallway in a while.
Molly opens the door and barges straight inside, running over to him, sitting at his desk.
“Hey, Sweetheart.” His eyes snap up from his phone and he tosses it onto the desk and pulls Molly up into his arms.
“Sorry, it took longer than I thought,” he says to me, his eyes falling closed as he sinks his face into Molly’s shoulder and breathes her in.
I glance at his phone. The screen is still lit up, showing his call list. Jones is the second one down. But the most recent is a number with no name.
The same number repeats over and over down the list. Whoever it is, he must call them multiple times a day yet chooses not to save their name.
“It’s okay.” I glance up to find Sullivan watching me over Molly’s shoulder, his gaze sharp. Heat creeps into my cheeks like I’ve been caught snooping.
“Let’s get you to bed,” he says to Molly.
He reaches out and presses the button on the side of his phone, turning the screen off, then stands with her in his arms.
“I’ll wait in here for you,” I say as we walk into the living room. “Good night, Molly.” I ruffle her curls, and she gives me a sleepy smile.
I watch Sullivan’s retreating back as he leaves the room, then drop onto the sofa to wait. I can’t bring myself to play the piano tonight. My mind’s too busy, even though playing might help to distract me.
The last few days have been a whirlwind.
I didn’t dream about Liberty Records, despite wondering if my mind had made it all up. Their contract is fair, and I’m actually getting a great deal for a first-time artist. Sullivan insisted that Jones look over it for me, and he made a few adjustments that were in my favor.
Ashley has already covered my shifts with someone Huck knows, and my father can’t stop telling Larry how excited he is that he gets to join me for the whole four months of the tour.
It’s all booked and paid for. Our plane tickets are sitting in my email, and my suitcase is half-packed in my room at home.
But aside from practical things that Sullivan’s asked about to reassure himself that I’m prepared, we haven’t spoken about me leaving.
He’s either avoiding it, or he doesn’t care.
I pray it’s avoiding, because the alternative makes every cell in my body ache. He can’t not care. Not with the way we are together. Not after all these months.
We have something, I know we do.
“Tate?” Sullivan calls, pulling me out of my head.
“Yeah?” I stand and head toward Molly’s bedroom. The two of them are lying on her bed together, Molly beneath the covers, and Sullivan on top.
“Come and read?”
I must have misheard.
“You want me to read with you?”
“We want you to read to us,” Sullivan says softly.
“Yay!” Molly grins.
“Okay, sure.” Somehow my voice sounds natural, hiding the way my heart is thumping in my chest. This is Sullivan and Molly’s special time. He never asks me to join them.
I walk to the bed and Sullivan shuffles Molly over so there’s space for me to lie on the opposite side of her. I climb on and stretch out beside her.
She smiles up at me as Sullivan passes me a book.
“Ooh, your favorite,” I exclaim to Molly, taking the illustrated jungle cover with the dark-haired explorer on it from him.
I settle down and read. The character is on a search for lost treasure and has to figure out a clever way to descend a waterfall without being swept away. He uses a rope from his backpack and manages to craft a zipline that he whizzes down using his shirt as a hand strap.
“He’s quite the adventurer,” I remark, coming to the end of another page.
“More like a risk taker,” Sullivan mumbles.
I look up and his gaze is cast down on Molly, who’s fast asleep between us.
“Risk taker?” I echo.
Sullivan’s brow creases and he strokes a curl back from Molly’s forehead.
“It’s what I called my brother as a joke. He did some crazy stunts.”
I close the book and study the character on the front. Dark hair, blue eyes, a giant I-can-do-anything grin on his cartoon face.
“Do you read this because it reminds you of him?”
“Molly likes it.” He frowns.
“What was he like?”
Sullivan rarely talks about his mother and brother, but I’d love to know more about them. The press stories all center around their deaths, not who they were when they lived.
“He was the fun brother. And he’d also argue that he was the better looking one.”
I rest the book against my chest and turn toward him, studying the groove between his dark brows. In the photos, his brother wore his hair longer, his smile wider. There was a freedom in him—a lightness Sullivan never seemed to carry, even in the pictures taken before the loss.
“I happen to find scary CEOs the best looking. Maybe even irresistible.”
He arches a brow. “Really?”
“Really,” I whisper. “Do you want to talk about him? And your mom?”
A shutter slides down behind his blue eyes, like a cloud passing in front of the sun. “I can’t, Tate,” he breathes.
I nod, ignoring the sudden lump in my throat that he doesn’t want to let me in.
Maybe he’s just not ready. “I found it hard to talk about losing Mom those first few years. I thought if I pretended she was away on a trip, and that she was coming back one day, then it would be easier. I guess, I denied it, hoping I could escape the grief.”
“And did you?” Sullivan asks, holding my eyes.
“No. You can’t escape it. It’s always waiting for you.”
He clears his throat, his gaze sliding to Molly.
“Sweet dreams.” He kisses her on her forehead and rises from the bed.
I kiss her in the exact spot Sullivan did and get up too. He takes the book from me and looks at it for a few seconds before putting it on the nightstand.
“Come on.”
He holds his hand out and I slide mine into his and follow him from the room. We walk into the living area, but a part of me is still in Molly’s room, watching her sleep, listening to her innocent little breaths as she dreams of whatever almost three-year-olds dream of.
Daisy chains and explorers, maybe.
Sullivan lets go of my hand and walks to the kitchen, taking out a bottle of whiskey. He lifts the bottle in question, and I shake my head. I’ve never seen him drink after putting Molly to bed before.
He pours himself a glass and knocks back a large mouthful.
I sit on the couch, waiting for him to join me. “I leave in a couple of days if I go on this tour—”
“You’re going.” His deep voice travels across the space between us, reaching me before he does. He sinks into the couch beside me and leans back, widening his knees and sighing.
“Sull—”
“You’re going, Tate. There’s no if about it. It’s an incredible opportunity.”
“I’ll be gone for four months.”
“And three days,” he adds, tipping his head back and drinking more of the whiskey.
“And three days,” I echo. “Will you… What will that mean?”
“It will mean you’re following the path you’re supposed to.”
“I mean for us?”
“Tate…”
He looks at me, his eyes red-rimmed from tiredness. They soften as he exhales. The sigh leaving his lips is gentle, but it might as well be a nuclear bomb for what it means.
We’re over.
It’s written all over his face.
I turn away, blinking rapidly. I fight not to shiver from the iciness that’s rushed through me. He cannot be serious.
I take deep breaths, unable to face him, afraid of what I’ll see if I look into his eyes.
The piano sits across the room, illuminated by New York’s twinkling lights behind it. Its surface is the same glossy black that I once thought looked like ink. Now it resembles tar. The kind that will suck you inside it. Devour you. Drown you silently.
“It’s four months. I’ll be back before you know it. You and Molly can come and watch me perform. It’ll be fun for her,” I force out brightly, like if I ignore the ominous tension that’s surrounded us suddenly, it will disappear, and everything will be fine again.
I keep staring at the piano.
“Tate.” He sighs again.
“I don’t understand. Do you want me to choose?
” I spin to face him, ready to throw the tour out of his skyscraper window and watch it shatter on the street below if that’s what it takes.
“Because there is no choice. It’s you and Molly for me.
It always has been. I’ll stay here with you both. I don’t need to sing.”
His eyes are glassy and he looks at me with a sad finality. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“Why is it? Who says it has to be?”
“I won’t hold you back, Tate. It’s not fair. You deserve more. Go and sing. You have to.”
“I don’t want to unless you tell me you’ll wait for me.” I sniff, not caring that I sound like I’m begging.
Because I am.
I’ll beg until my voice deserts me if that’s what it takes. I love him. And I love Molly.
He puts his glass on the table and takes my hand, lifting it to his lips. He screws his eyes closed and kisses my fingertips one by one before dropping his forehead to them.
“My life changed the day they both died. I will always be in New York. For my family. Your career could take you all over the world, but I will never leave here. And you’ll never have more than this with me.”
“It’s enough. It’s more than enough,” I urge, a bubble threatening to burst in my throat and bring a barrage of ugly tears with it.
“It shouldn’t be.” He shakes his head. “You shouldn’t have to give up your dreams for us.”
“The night I heard my song on the radio, you said you were right here, that you weren’t going anywhere,” I say, searching his face for a hint of surrender, but he’s as cool and collected as he is at work, CEO poker face well and truly in place.
“And that’s true. I am right here. And I was there for you that night. But I will always be here, Tate. With Molly. You don’t see it, but we have to stay as we are. Me and Molly.”
“What about you, me, and Molly? I lov…”
I bite back the word before it slips out, hating how pathetic I sound.
He pins me with one of his intense stares. The ones that usually make me weak at the knees.
This time he brings me to them.
“I’ll never marry you, Tate. I’ll never want kids with you. You will never be more than a girlfriend who I hide my daughter from seeing first thing in the morning.”
The bubble detonates spectacularly, and I choke out a sob.
His voice is so soft, so caring.
But his words are brutal, shredding my heart to pieces.
“I’m sorry. That is all I can ever offer you. Nothing more.”
“You’re not in love with me,” I breathe, my bottom lip trembling. “Why don’t you just say that?”
The first hint of emotion flashes in his eyes and they pinch at the corners.
“I can’t love you. Not the way I want to.”
“What does that even mean?” I yank my hands from his and swipe at my eyes, hating the look of pity that’s growing in his.
“It means tonight is our last night together. Cliff will drive you home now if that’s what you want.”
Silence stretches between us. I give him time to take back his cruel confession. Time to retract the last five minutes and start over.
To make it all good again.
He just watches me with those damn eyes that I can never seem to look away from.
“What other option do I have?” I snap.
“You can stay,” he says. “You can give us one more night. Please.”