Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Lacey had been staying with Jenna for over a week.
She hadn’t intended to stay that long. Just a few days so she could cool off and Sam could figure himself out. But in those few days, Sam never reached out. No calls, no texts, no random photos of Daisy. And then Jenna had called off her wedding with Houston, and they’d been clinging to each other like the only available pieces of driftwood in the middle of the ocean.
They were their own little Heartbreak Hotel. They lounged in their pajamas, watched too much TV, ate dessert for breakfast, and ordered take out for dinner. Jenna was a good distraction. She almost kept Lacey from wallowing about how Sam was spending Christmas in Crane Cove surrounded by people who loved him. He probably hadn’t thought about her at all.
Lacey had to go home eventually. She missed Daisy, and all her stuff was at Sam’s house. Plus, her car was in Crane Cove. She would need to drive that back to Los Angeles before tour rehearsals started in January.
She’d read somewhere that humans were just complicated houseplants, so she was trying to soak up some sunshine by Jenna’s pool in a futile attempt to perk herself up while she looked at flights.
Jenna joined her, two steaming cups of coffee in her hands. “Here,” she said, giving one to Lacey before lowering herself into a lounge chair. “This is about all I can cook.”
“The mountain of menus in no way tipped me off,” Lacey said, blowing on her coffee. “Thank you for everything, by the way. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”
“Have you talked to Sam yet?” Jenna asked, adjusting her huge sun hat to protect her face.
Lacey shook her head.
Jenna sighed dramatically. “That boy. I swear…I love him like a brother, which means right now I want to throttle him like a brother.” She squeezed Lacey’s arm. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”
“You keep saying that. I don’t know if you like my company or you’re afraid to be by yourself.”
“Both.”
“I’m sorry about Houston.”
Jenna flicked her wrist dismissively.
“Over him so soon?” Lacey raised her eyebrows when Jenna shrugged. “Why’d you say yes?”
“Because he asked.” Jenna stared into her coffee like it was a crystal ball. “They ask, and I can’t think of a reason to say no. I don’t know if my expectations change or if the ring rips off the rose-colored glasses, but as soon as it’s on, all I can see are the problems. I want to be married. I want kids. But I can’t seem to find someone I want to see at the end of the aisle. What made you marry Sam?”
It was on the tip of Lacey’s tongue to give the obvious, flippant answer: money. But she’d said no to other proposals that would’ve gotten her to the same place .
“Because he’s kind. And generous. And funny. He’s a great cook and a good listener. Whenever I’ve needed him, he’s been there.” A lump formed in her throat as the past few months danced through her memory. “I could have said no, but I didn’t want to. I love him.”
“Would you take him back?”
“In a heartbeat. But I have to know he wants me half as much as I want him.”
Jenna nodded. “How’s looking at flights?”
“Awful. But I found one tomorrow afternoon.”
“So soon?” Jenna pouted. “Can you push it back one more day?”
Lacey laughed. “Jenna, I’ve been here forever already.”
“Just one more day. I’ll put you in first class.”
“Using my love of champagne against me. You’re an evil genius. Sold.”
“Perfect.” Jenna brightened considerably. “I want to take you out tomorrow night. I’ve got a thing and you’re going to be my date.”
“A thing? What thing?”
“You’ll see.” Jenna sipped her coffee a little too nonchalantly.
“I don’t have anything to wear unless it’s an activewear event.”
Jenna wasn’t deterred. “You can shop my closet.”
“I’m not really in the mood for people,” Lacey protested the next night as they pulled up to the curb. She peered out of Jenna’s tinted window and frowned. “The All-Nighter?”
“You know it?” Jenna handed her keys to a valet.
“Yeah. My ex-boyfriend used to play here.”
Lacey had a lot of memories of sitting at the bar of this particular club, watching Jace play, dreaming about what their life would be like when he made it big. The All-Nighter was one of those venues in LA that musicians played when they were close to making it big, or had slipped off their pedestal. It had a classic dive bar atmosphere while also serving expensive drinks.
Jenna linked her arm with Lacey’s and marched her inside.
“We’re going to have fun,” she insisted. “And I need your help. I’m scouting a second opener for my tour.”
“Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?”
“Oh, look, there’s Grim. Grim!” Jenna shouted and waved at the man Lacey had met once. He waved back. His jacket reminded her of her grandmother’s couch.
They squeezed through the crowd. Whoever was playing must be good, because it was standing room only. Lacey wished she’d checked the marquee before they entered, but Jenna had rushed her inside.
“I was getting worried you weren’t going to make it,” Grim said, rising off his seat to give Jenna a hug and a kiss on her cheek. He gave Lacey a one-armed “we don’t know each other well yet” hug, and then sat back down. He pulled out his phone, typed something, and then slid it back into his pocket.
“Oh, you know, traffic,” Jenna said with a flippant wave of her hand.
Lacey frowned. They weren’t late. Not according to the time Jenna had told her. She opened her mouth to point that out, but the lights dimmed and the crowd erupted in excited screams. The energy was palpable and damaging to her hearing; Lacey covered her ears.
“I should’ve brought ear plugs,” she shouted to Jenna, who was whooping and hollering and clapping her hands. She hadn’t forgotten ear plugs. Lacey could just see them nestled into her ears. Someone tapped her on her shoulder and held a pair of orange earplugs under her nose.
Grateful, Lacey pushed them into her ears and looked to thank her savior.
“Annie!” Tears flooded her eyes as she wrapped her friend in a tight hug. “What are you doing here?”
“Just enjoying a show,” Jordy interjected, and pointed toward the stage. Lacey looked right as Sam walked out onto the stage and the decibel level in the club rose.
Her heart hurt, like someone had reached inside her chest and was twisting the important organ like a wet rag. She missed him, but it was easier to miss him when he wasn’t close enough that she could throw a beer bottle and hit him.
Sam waved bashfully, his favorite guitar hung around his body, and he made his way to the lone stool in the center of the stage.
“Hello,” he said as he sat down, “I’m Sam Shoop.”
Lacey put her hands over her ears, and saw Annie do the same out of the corner of her eye. Their cheap earplugs were no match for the screaming power of Sam’s fans.
Sam picked a few notes on his guitar and the room began to quiet down, and then it settled into a waiting hush.
“I’d like to thank you all for being here tonight. I know this show was very, very short notice.” He laughed in that charming, self-deprecating way he had, and Lacey saw a woman about her age burst into tears. “I’ve been wanting to do a show like this for a while. If I had my way, all my shows would be like this. But I’d either never stop playing shows, or no one would be able to see me play.”
Sam made a small adjustment to one of his tuning pegs. “I have a new album coming out—” He was cut off by a wall of sound, and he waited patiently. Or as patiently as Sam could wait. He started talking before the noise died down. “I have a new album coming out next year. We haven’t nailed down an exact release date yet, but I can tell you that it’s been recorded.”
He squirmed on his stool. “This album is, um, special to me. You see, I’ve been creatively blocked for a long time. I’d sit down with my guitar or at my piano to write and nothing happened. Then I met my wife, my sunshine, my sweet Lacey, and that all changed. Only a few songs on the album are purposefully about her, but she inspired all of them by simply existing.”
Sam began picking notes again, and Lacey recognized the skeletal structure of a melody he’d played with at their house.
“The funny thing about me—and anyone who knows me would agree—is that I’m very good at writing songs and making lyrics, but I’m not very good at using my words. I sometimes struggle to tell the people that mean the most to me how I feel. I hurt people that matter to me unintentionally. And that’s what this first song is about. It’s called ‘Morse Code.’”
Lacey waited on her old stool at the bar. The All-Nighter had cleared out. Jenna, Grim, and Annie and Jordy had all gone home for the night.
She was waiting for Sam.
He’d played for about an hour, working through the track list for the new album, just him and his guitar or the piano. Sam explained most of the songs, but some he didn’t. When he sang “Daisy,” he waited until the end of the song to tell the crowd that the love song was about his dog.
Lacey wanted to burst with pride and cry until she flooded the place with her tears because she loved that man so much. “Morse Code” had broken her heart wide open because it was true. Sometimes it was like they were speaking in Morse code but missing the signals.
She wanted to be better. She wanted to make their relationship work.
A gentle tap on her shoulder made her jump. Sam took half a step back. Lacey pressed a hand to her chest.
“What the hell,” she gasped, trying to catch her breath.
“Sorry,” he said, “I guess this kind of ruins any ‘Hello, gorgeous, do you come here often?’ pickup line.”
Lacey couldn’t help herself; she grinned. “Not in a while, but I think I might need to start coming back more often.”
Sam took the stool next to hers. His expression was so earnest and broken that she wanted to smother his face in kisses.
“Lacey, I am so, so sorry. I?—”
“Sam, it’s okay,” she soothed, putting her hand on his knee. “We all make mistakes.”
“Can I finish?” he implored. “I am so proud of you. You have been so strong and worked so hard to get to where you are. Even though it caught me by surprise, I should have been more supportive. Asked some questions while I figured myself out. I don’t know. I just know that I fucked up so bad.”
“I don’t want to get divorced,” Lacey blurted. Relief washed over Sam’s face, erasing the anxiety.
“That makes this next part so much easier,” he said, and dug awkwardly into his back pocket and pulled out a ring box. At least she thought it was a ring box. It could be earrings. She’d been fooled that way before.
“Lacey Finch, I love you. I love you so much that I’ve filled up a notebook with songs about how much I love you. I really meant it when I said that marrying you was the easiest decision I ever made.” He opened the box and through the tears clouding her eyes, Lacey saw a stunning ring. She started to cry. “This was supposed to be your Christmas present. ”
“You bought me a ring,” she bawled, and flung her arms around his neck.
“And a dining room table. So you don’t have to eat at the counter anymore.”
That made Lacey cry harder.
“Does all this crying mean that you’ll be my wife?” Sam asked, and Lacey laughed.
“I am your wife,” she reminded him, using a few scratchy bar napkins to dry her face and wipe her nose.
“Yes, you are. But I want you to be my wife because I want to be married to you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to cook for you, travel with you, and come home to you. Lacey Finch—” Sam rose from his stool and picked up the ring box.
“Don’t kneel on the floor, it’s so gross!” Lacey shouted, and all the employees who had been doing their closing duties stopped and stared.
Sam chuckled as her face flamed. He stayed standing. “Lacey Finch, please be my very real wife.”
Her smile broke through her tears like sunshine on a cloudy day. Lacey nodded as hard as she could. “Yes. Absolutely yes.”