37. 37 Gigi
37
37 GIGI
3 A.M
Three days later, I was neck-deep in paperwork when Dante leaned in the office doorway.
“You got company, boss.”
My heart leapt. Whirling my chair to face him, that brief flicker of hope dropped straight to my ass when I saw the look on his face. Not Parker, then.
It’d been radio silence since I let her walk away Saturday night. I’d lost count of how many times I reached for my phone, to call her or text her, to apologize, tell her she was right, beg her to come back. Because, yeah. I was not above begging. But each time I opened her contact info on my phone, I stared at her picture—a selfie together from our last Netflix marathon, Parker in her glasses and topknot, nose crinkled with laughter as I nuzzled her neck—and I died a little inside.
Because I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell her she was right, and I couldn’t ask her to come back. I wanted her to be right. I wanted to believe her when she said I could have it all, that it wasn’t either/or. But…
But.
Reigning in my cacophonous emotions, I nodded at Dante. “Who’s here?”
“Little Drummer Girl,” he said, and my stomach sank further. I wasn’t in the mood for anyone, but least of all Halle. The root cause of all that was wrong in my life, even if it was only by association. Reading my expression, Dante added, “She knows you’re back here, or else I’d tell her you were sick. Shitting your brains out or something.”
I let Dante take my hand and pull me up from my seat. “I appreciate that,” I told him, “but I’ve gotta deal with my shit eventually.” I paused, then added, “Figuratively speaking.”
He tilted his head, a smile crooking his mouth. “I gotchu.”
We paused in the doorway then. Me, procrastinating. Dante, letting me. We hadn’t talked about what happened with Parker. We didn’t have that kind of friendship. But he knew something was up. Parker hadn’t been here in days, and I was even crankier than Vaughn was that time he had to fish soggy buns out of the steamer. The signs were hard to miss. He hadn’t asked, though. Just let me know in his most Dante way that he was here. I appreciated that.
Now, with Halle waiting for me, and Parker doing the exact opposite of waiting for me, I froze. Paralyzed. By the choices I’d made and refused to make. The ones I still had to decide on.
Turning to face Dante, I searched his face. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure thing, girlie,” he said without hesitation. The most Dante-like response ever.
Exhaling, I glanced over his shoulder. Kai was slicing tomatoes while they danced to a beat only they could hear. I smiled to myself and forced my focus back to Dante. “You know she’s gonna ask me to join the band, right?”
“Far as I know, she’s already asked.”
I nodded, huffing out a quiet laugh. “Yeah. A few times.”
“You keep saying no.”
“I keep saying no.”
Dante let that marinate in the space between us before firing off his next question. I knew before he asked what it would be. It was what everyone wanted to know.
Why?
I opened my mouth, prepared with the litany of reasons I’d damn near memorized by now. But instead of asking the question old as time, Dante hit me with something new:
“You know we don’t need you, right?”
Speechless, I snapped my mouth shut.
“Don’t get me wrong, I adore your crazy ass. You brought something to this place that it’d been needing for a long time. Your brother is the happiest I’ve ever seen him.”
“Yeah, that probably has more to do with getting laid regularly than with me,” I drawled.
He laughed. “There’s that, too.” Then, he shook his head. “My point is, we’re good. He’s good.” His dark eyes found mine and seemed to see right to the soul of me. “You feel me?”
My chest tightened. I squeezed my arms around myself harder and dropped my gaze to the floor.
“And, hey,” Dante continued, placing his hand on my shoulder. “If for whatever reason you gotta come back?” He dipped his chin, finding my eyes again. “We’ll be happy to have you.”
Air left my lungs in one huge whoosh. My knees weakened, my eyes burned. “What—”
“Girlie, I got your number.” He pulled me away from the doorframe and wrapped me in a hug so tight whatever breath I had left was gone. “There’s no undoing what you’ve done here,” he said, his chin atop my head. “We’re your home, no matter how far you go or how long you’re gone.”
I let his words absorb into the deepest, most frightened parts of me. I didn’t know how this magical human pinpointed something I hadn’t even pieced together on my own yet, but…here we were. I knew he was right. From Vaughn’s encouragement to take the gig to Luke’s pushier tactic, to Parker…
To Parker.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
They all wanted me to be happy.
And they’d all be here when I came back. I wouldn’t have to fight and claw my way back into their lives. Not again.
Well, I thought, pulling away from Dante’s embrace. I might have fucked things up with Parker, but I can still get this part right .
Nodding, to myself and to Dante, I took a bracing breath. Then, before I could overthink or chicken out, I marched up front to find Halle sitting at the bar.
“Hey.” She looked up as I entered. “How’re—”
“I’m in.”
A few days later, I was backstage at Mumbo’s, a small-ish club outside of Port Agnes, with the entire band, warming up for our show. It’d been a chaotic few days. From the moment I said yes to this very moment, I’d been on the move. Between preparing Dante to hold things down at the bar while I was away, reworking the schedule to account for my absence, and rehearsals in Ryan’s basement studio, I had barely had time to breathe, let alone think.
Which was the biggest blessing I could ask for. Because when I thought, it was about Parker. It was a flashback reel of memories. An onslaught of regret and hurt so sharp it took my breath away.
Not thinking was the best thing for me right now.
Closing my eyes, I dragged in a lungful of oxygen and let it out slowly.
“Nervous?”
I opened my eyes to find Halle standing next to me. She had her long hair pulled up today, with the trademark ’90’s two pieces of hair framing her face. Combined with her brown crushed velvet baby tee and low-cut jeans, she looked like she walked straight off the pages of a Delia’s catalogue.
Tonight was my first official show, and so the first time I’d gotten to dress to theme. I’d gone with a plaid miniskirt and tucked-in turtleneck. It was very Rachel Green, if Rachel’s curves existed outside of just her bra.
Realizing I hadn’t answered Halle’s question yet, I shook my head. “I don’t get nervous. You know that.”
She narrowed her eyes. I grinned back. The heaviness that’d sat on my chest for the last week lightened a titch as I let myself feel something akin to excited.
“Parker coming tonight?”
Aaaaaand there went the excitement.
I folded my arms across my chest to muffle the sound of my slamming heart and tried to look nonchalant. “Nah.”
Halle looked me up and down, clocking my every awkward vibration with ease. When she met my eyes again, it was with a shrewd stare. “What happened?”
Squeezing myself tighter, I held my expression statue still. “What do you mean?”
“I haven’t seen Parker since your last show, is what I mean.” She mirrored my stance, only hers looked more confrontational, less self-preservational. “It’s weird.”
Everything inside me throbbed like a fresh bruise, but I shrugged. Oh-so-casual. “We’re both busy.”
“Uh huh.” Her eyes narrowed on my face. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with your meltdown, would it?”
At that, my facade broke. “I didn’t have a meltdown,” I said, arms dropping to my sides.
“You kinda did, though.” She said it with softness and I looked away so she couldn’t see the sheen of tears threatening to fall. “And that’s all right. You’ve been through some shit, Gi. It’s okay to not be okay sometimes.”
“I’m fine, though.” I straightened, shoulders back. “I’m great.”
There was a pause, a beat of loaded silence, before Halle spoke again. I braced myself for another lecture. Another soul-tearing talk about why I deserve good things, or another stark look in the mirror. I braced myself to keep it together while yet another one of the important people in my life told me to get my shit together. If conversations were Pokémon, I’d have damn sure caught them all by now.
But, instead of launching into a lecture, Halle nodded. “M’kay,” she said. “Well, then you better fucking kill it tonight.”
My lungs deflated with the breath I’d been holding. I shot her my best grin to hide the relief that threatened to buckle my knees. “You know I will.”
And I did.
I killed it the following night, too. I killed at every show for the next two weeks. By day, I was buried in invoices and schedules and spreadsheets while I kept up on the behind-the-scenes shit at Heathcliff’s. By night, I spilled my guts out onstage for all to see. Well, hear. And the moments in between? Well, I tried to fill them with as much as I could. So I wouldn’t have a spare minute to think. A quiet second to feel.
I did not want to feel.
By the end of each night, I was so exhausted that I hit my pillow already half-asleep.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t figured out how to control my subconscious yet. Each night, I was haunted. I awoke from dream after dream after dream, heart racing as I reached for the empty space beside me.
She wasn’t there. She never would be again.
Fuck, I missed her so fucking much.
I flopped onto my back and breathed in, slow and deep. When I let it out, I closed my eyes against the too-familiar burn of tears. It had to get better, right? This ache inside me? It had to dull with time, didn’t it? Eventually, I’d forget the sound of her laugh, the feel of her skin beneath my fingertips. Someday, I could pull on my flannel shirt and not think about it wrapped around her instead.
One of these days, the smell of strawberries wouldn’t break my heart.
Today, however, was not that day. Pulling the pillow she always used tight against me, I inhaled the almost-gone scent of her shampoo. And I cried.