Chapter 24
Birdie sat on her bed, her phone in her hand.
She could hear her grandma’s gentle snores, almost certainly aided by the pain meds she’d taken earlier.
Wes had left almost as soon as he’d helped get her in the house. Wesley Moffat, hockey superstar and currently suspended for the first four weeks of the season due to an off-ice brawl he’d incited at the end of the previous season.
She flipped the phone back and forth in her hand. She’d been searching on the internet since her grandma had fallen asleep. Reading every article she could get her eyes on, and they all said basically the same thing. Wes snapped at the end of the season. He’d been involved in several unnecessarily rough scuffles, even for hockey, on the ice, and the last brawl, outside a downtown Richmond pub, had sent two people to the hospital.
He had been the one who had instigated it all.
Because of his previous behavior, his penalty had been huge, and the Icebreakers had talked about trading him.
No trade had been made, and he was still set to start the season suspended until October.
She tried to reconcile the person she read about online to the person that she knew and had been hanging out with for the last two weeks. Kind and funny, gentle and sweet, he’d just helped her grandmother in and out of the emergency room, for goodness’ sake .
He lived with his gramps. He ate supper at their house every night. He went to church. He was going to help her cover her gram’s obligations.
She couldn’t think of a bad thing to say about him.
But all of the stuff online looked terrible.
She just couldn’t square the two things, and she hated that.
She was going to have to talk to him, particularly because she saw him looking at the billboard. She hadn’t realized it was there. She hadn’t seen it on the drive there, anyway.
One of those billboards that was lit up on both sides.
Regardless, she was going to have to think up what she was going to tell him about her... Or maybe not.
She fingered the other list that she had in her hand, the paper list that she had made out.
It listed all of her obligations for the week.
They were unending. Times and dates and what she had planned. Taken directly from Gram’s planner. Birdie had copied it herself. Under Gram’s supervision of course.
She balked at taking meals to shut-ins. She couldn’t cook.
But her grandmother assured her that she would sit there and tell her what to do. Give her instructions on anything. And when she balked again, Gram said it was fine, her leg didn’t hurt that much anyway, and she could stay on it long enough to cook a meal.
Of course, at that point, Birdie had said that she would do it, because what choice did she have?
Are you still up?
She looked at her phone as the text came in.
Wesley.
She stared at the text. Smiling despite herself. She didn’t want to talk to him. Didn’t want to have that conversation, didn’t want the fairy tale to end.
Yes.
It’s nice outside. Take a walk?
He wanted to take a walk? It was one o’clock in the morning .
She liked that, though. She liked that he didn’t want to wait until morning, he wanted to see her now. Although, maybe it was because he wanted to tell her that he couldn’t have anything to do with her anymore. Or maybe he decided she was worth a lot of money, and he wanted to put that ring on her finger right now.
She tried to scold herself for her negativity, but she remembered that he had said that she deserved to be a little bit cautious, because of the way she’d been hurt in the past. The people who had used her. The way people had latched onto her because of her fame and money and benefited from that, shamelessly.
Still, Wesley wasn’t like that. She was sure.
She remembered what he had said about going to the Bible for the answers, about marrying another Christian.
For too long, she’d left her Christian roots behind while she’d sought fame and fortune.
Was that how God felt about her? That she’d left Him, not caring about what He said, while she benefited in every way possible.
She didn’t want to think about the way she treated the Lord. Except, she needed to apologize, repent. Pastor Garnet talked about repentance in the sermon not long ago, and his message had resonated with her. Turning from her wickedness, turning from her sin. Even realizing what the person was doing was sin and going back to the Lord. She didn’t even always notice that.
It had been a good sermon all around, and between that and Wesley’s comment the other day—did she have to do what she was doing? Was there a way she could do less or not do it at all? The idea of giving up her career would be unthinkable to the majority of Americans, but just because it was unthinkable to some didn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing for her.
Her phone buzzed again with a reminder that she hadn’t answered his text.
Okay .
She would go. She would talk. She would put her hand in God’s hand and trust that He knew best.
She stood up, shoving her phone in her pocket, and her gram’s snoring stopped.
“Birdie?” she asked.
“I’m right here, Gram. I was going outside for a little bit. ”
“I heard the neighbor’s door slam closed. He must only care about the screen door to our house. He’s a good man.”
Her grandma turned her head, and before she started snoring again, Birdie said, “I’m going to go out to walk with him.”
“He’ll marry you. I’d do it if I were you.”
Gram never said that to her before about any of the men she’d been with. Not that they were good, and not that she should marry them.
“I don’t know if he’ll have me, Gram. There is a lot that comes with me.”
“You’re worth it,” Gram said softly.
“Go on back to sleep. I won’t be long.”
“I trust you with him,” Gram said easily, and then it wasn’t two breaths later she was snoring again.
Birdie smiled. Maybe that was the sign that she needed. Wesley had said that God didn’t just speak through the Bible but also through trusted advisors.
Maybe that was God’s trusted advisor.
She wasn’t sure, but she had a good feeling. A feeling like this was the right thing. A feeling she’d never had before with anyone else.
She opened the door and did not allow the screen to slap as she exited, smiling at her gram waking up over the neighbor’s screen door slamming.
That was such a gram thing to do.
“I almost thought you weren’t coming.”
“I sent a text,” she said as she stepped off the porch. He was standing right at the bottom of the stairs, right where they had found Gram just hours earlier. She stopped at the bottom.
“You figured out who I was.”
“I did.”
“And?”
What did she say? She wasn’t sure. How did she tell him that she didn’t exactly understand, but she didn’t hold it against him? Was that what she said?
“I think I love you.” There. That wasn’t expected, but it was true.
There was dead silence, and then he grunted and took a step forward, wrapping her in his arms and putting his head down next to hers, his lips by her ear, as he held her tight.
She wrapped her arms around him and held just as tight .
“I love you, too. I wasn’t expecting to. I...didn’t come here for this.”
“Sometimes God works in ways we don’t understand. And definitely in ways we don’t expect.”
“Polly? Am I right?”
“Yeah.” She waited. What was he going to say?
“The internet has a lot to say about you.”
She laughed. “It has a lot to say about you too.”
“What do you say about you?” he asked.
That was a new question. What did she say about herself?
“I’m thinking about quitting. You put the idea into my head and... It’s almost unheard of for a singer to walk away at the height of their career, but I’m seriously thinking about it.”
“There was some country superstar that did that before, didn’t they? Walked away when they were the most famous? Because of their family.”
“Maybe, but I don’t even have a family, it’s just because...I want one.”
“I sure hope you’re thinking you want one with me. Because that’s what I’m thinking.”
“Yeah. Did you bring the ring?”
“Are you asking me to marry you?”
“I don’t know. This is new territory for me. I guess I feel comfortable with that. But I can’t get out of the tour that starts in January and goes through next June. I just can’t. Too much money has been spent, too many people are on the hook for it. I can’t cancel.”
“Then don’t.”
“But you have hockey. You’ll be playing games starting in October.”
“I was thinking about retiring after the season. I don’t need the money, I’ve been playing for the fun of it, but it’s not even like that anymore. Plus, Gramps needs me.” He paused. “Plus, I have a relationship I want to work on, and playing hockey doesn’t give me a whole lot of time for relationships.”
“So if we can make it until June, then...?”
“No. I don’t want to wait until June. Not unless you demand it.”
“I’m not gonna demand anything. I think there’s two of us, and I think we should talk it out. It should not be me telling you what’s going on.”
“All right then, if you’re going to ask me to marry you, I’m gonna say yes, and I’m gonna suggest we get married right away. And we’ll make it work. Somehow. ”
“How? I don’t understand?”
“We just make it. We’re not going to allow things to come between us. We’re not going to get upset over stupid stuff. We’re going to spend as much time together as we can. I can’t get out of hockey, you can’t get out of performing, and I assume, the things that you were writing were songs?”
“Yeah. For my new album.”
“Can you have albums without touring?”
“Sure. But you’ll not make nearly as much money, and you gain more fans through touring.”
“Could you just write songs and put out albums?”
“Yeah. That’s kind of what I’ve been thinking. Other than maybe just giving it up completely. I don’t want to have my attention pulled off my family. I don’t want to lose my family because something else was more important.”
“Me, either. Are you sure you want to take a chance on me? I did some pretty questionable things after my grandma died.”
“I think you can be excused for your grief, but I’ll say after knowing you, you’re taking steps to figure out what went wrong, make sure that it doesn’t happen again. Weren’t you the one who was telling me that we needed to be prepared for these things?”
He laughed. “Are you throwing my words up in my face?”
“It’s a bad habit I have. Does that bother you?”
“I love you, whether you have bad habits or not. Or maybe, your bad habits make you human, and I love that about you.”
“It’s funny, so many people look at Polly and think that she is perfect. That there couldn’t be anything wrong with her. I appreciate knowing that you’re cognizant that I’m going to screw up. Lots probably.”
“I think you can expect the same from me, but hopefully not on the scale that I did last spring.”
“I can’t imagine how hard that must have been. To lose your gram, who was like a mother to you, and have to continue to play, dealing with your gramps, seeing his grief.”
“That was probably the hardest thing. Seeing him grieve, not knowing how to help him.” He pulled back a little, and she looked up into his face. “I’d like to kiss you. Is that okay?”
She smiled and nodded. “Maybe I should ask you to marry me first? ”
“Hurry up.”
She laughed. “I’m only going to do this once. I better get it right.”
“All right. I’ve been waiting all evening for this. I suppose I can wait a few more minutes while the woman ponders a sentence that should be very easy—will you marry me?”
“I’m an artist, I’m a creative, I put words together for a living. It has to be just perfect.”
“All right. I want to kiss you first, and then you can ask me later.” He started to lower his head. She realized he was absolutely serious.
And then she realized, she was perfectly okay with that.