Chapter 23
Audrey
The migraine starts on a Thursday. The concert is Saturday.
I take the pill as soon as I recognize the signs. Hours later, still no relief. Do migraines grow resistant to medications? I’ll have to ask the neurologist.
By Friday afternoon, I know it's the bad kind.
Not the sort I can thumb into submission against the bone.
This one announces itself behind my left eye, the usual, then takes the whole left side of my skull as territory.
I do the shot Friday night in the locked bathroom, and I wait—waiting for nothing.
Asher comes over after batting practice. He wanted to see Sophie on her big night out. He comes through the front door, takes one look at me and knows.
I'm at the counter laying out drinks and snacks for the drive, sunglasses on indoors, and that's all it takes.
"How bad?" he says. It’s not a question.
"It's fine. It'll lift."
"Audrey."
"It always goes away." I keep rearranging the snacks with hands that aren't steady. I will him not to see, but he sees everything. "I'll get them ready, and once we're there, the excitement'll carry me, and—"
"You're not driving an hour away into a stadium with thousands of screaming fans and a migraine you can't open your eyes through."
"It's her present." My voice cracks on it. "She’s been counting down the days, Asher. I'm not taking this away from her."
"Nobody's taking anything from anyone." He lifts the bag out of my hands and sets it down. "Stay home. I've got it."
I look at him. The room tilts when I do.
"I’ll drive your car. I'll keep them fed and hydrated.
I won't lose either of them in the parking lot.
I know the exits, the stadium, every dang word to that woman's last three albums because Sophie’s had it on repeat and makes me sing the choruses with her.
" He ducks his head to catch my eyes under the sunglasses.
"Let me take them. You just lie down in the dark. I’ve got them tonight. "
It comes up under the guilt before I can stop it—simple and enormous—the primitive relief of not having to do everything. Of someone else handling the night.
"Okay," I whisper.
Something flickers across his face, quick. He kisses my temple, the side that doesn't hurt, so light I barely feel it.
"Go to bed," he says.
They leave an hour later. I hear Asher's low voice asking if everyone used the restroom before the drive, Sophie’s laugh down the stairs, the front door closing. Then the engine out front. Then nothing.
I lie in the dark with a cold cloth over my eyes and let go of the rope.
I don't mean to wait up. I meant to sleep through it and wake to find them already home.
But it's two in the morning, and I'm on the couch in the dark, blanket over my knees, the migraine down from a blade to a dull press, watching the front window for headlights when they swing into the drive.
I get up too fast, and the room swims. I stand still, letting it settle, and open the door for them.
Sophie walks in first, swimming in a tour t-shirt two sizes too big, glitter caught in the fine hairs at her temple, bracelets stacked up both arms.
“How was it?”
"Mom, it was so cool. I think she looked right at me and waved.” Her voice is wrecked to a rasp.
Behind her, Asher comes through the door with Eli dead asleep against his shoulder, one sneaker hooked on two of his fingers. Eli's mouth hangs open. There's a smear of something blue at the corner of it. He's gone, boneless, all seven years of him.
"Lost him at the encore," Asher murmurs. “I’m gonna get him in bed."
"Thank you."
I settle back onto the couch.
He takes the stairs slowly, careful on the third one from the top that creaks. I hear the soft sounds of a small boy being lowered into a bed by someone moving like the kid is made of glass.
Sophie hangs back in the dark living room and holds something out to me. A folded poster. Then a guitar pick on a lanyard. A cup the size of her head.
"He bought me everything," she whispers. "I told him he didn't have to, but he said it was the VIP rules."
"There are no VIP rules."
"That's what I said." The corner of her mouth lifts, just like her too-cool self, except her eyes are still lit up all the way. "It was so cool, Mom."
Asher comes back down. Sophie watches him reach the bottom of the stairs. Then she crosses the room and wraps both arms around his middle and holds on, face turned into his side.
"Thank you for my present," she says, muffled. "And for taking me when Mom couldn't."
Asher goes still. His hands hover for a second, like he doesn't know where they're allowed. Then he settles one around her shoulder, the other on her hair.
Something twists low in my chest.
Nobody's ever thanked him for showing up before.
"Anytime, kid." His voice isn't quite level. "Happy birthday."
She pulls back, suddenly shy of it, and is up the stairs before either of us can make it bigger than she knows what to do with. Her door clicks shut.
Then it's just the dark, the quiet, and us.
He turns to me. Even without the lights on, I can see him taking inventory—the sunglasses pushed up into my hair, the tension I’m holding in my neck and shoulders.
"Migraine still there?"
"It's down." I try for a smile and don't quite get there. "You should've seen yourself just now. With her."
"Don't." He shakes his head and crosses to the couch instead, crouching in front of me, hands coming to rest on my knees. "Down doesn’t mean it’s gone. How bad is it?"
"A four."
"It's a seven." Not annoyed. Just sure.
I don't answer, but he reads me anyway.
He's quiet for a moment. Then one arm slides behind my back, the other under my knees, and he stands. I come up off the couch like I weigh less than Eli.
"Oh. The kids—"
"Probably already passed out." His mouth is at my hairline. "We'll be quiet."
"I can walk."
"I know you can."
He carries me up the stairs and shoulders the bedroom door shut behind us. Lays me down in the dark on the side that doesn't hurt, careful, and lowers himself over me. The pressure behind my eye is still there, but my body turns toward him anyway—like it has since that barbecue almost a year ago.
His mouth finds the sensitive spot on the side of my neck. The heat and wetness make my pulse flutter, and the pain gives, just a fraction.
He drove an hour and sat in a parking lot off the highway so no one would see his car at my house.
His hand spreads flat over my stomach, fingers fanning down, slipping under the fabric.
He memorized her songs. He knows the third step from the top creaks.
I turn my face into his throat and sigh into the crook of it. His pulse is steady under my lips, the rhythm picking up, skin growing hotter as I reach for him, a moan escaping me.
"Quiet, doll,” he breathes against my ear, almost laughing, and his hand slides lower. The breath that leaves me comes out too thin.
I could do it.
My grip tightens on him.
I could stand in front of all of them. Let them talk. Let them think what they want.
The whole congregation in their pews, the women who'd lean their heads together, the ones who already think they know how a widow's supposed to behave.
His fingers find me, and I bite down on the sound against his shoulder.
I could stand there with the league's reformed playboy waiting in my driveway and let them think whatever they want. I'm strong enough now. I know I am.
His fingers curl inside me, bringing stars to my vision. There’s not enough air.
He pumps, in and out, and as soon as his thumb finds that sensitive spot, the pain behind my eye lets go all at once, a clean release that rolls down through my jaw, my neck, the knot at the base of my skull coming undone.
My head goes clear for the first time in days. And in the quiet it leaves behind, the thought is just there, whole, like it's been waiting for the noise to stop—
I love him.
His hand stills against me. He lifts his head, finding my face in the dark, and for a moment neither of us moves. His breath comes ragged. Mine is worse.
I love him.
I wait for the part of me that doesn’t let me want things.
It stays quiet.
He eases his hand free and draws the last of my clothes down and off, slowly, like there's no hurry to any of it now.
He shoves his own down. When he settles back over me, the hard length of him drags hot and bare against my thigh, and I swallow the sound that catches in my throat before it carries.
I could give him what he asked for. What he’s wanted for so long. To finally be in the daylight, completely, unapologetically.
My fingers clutch at his shoulders, pulling him closer, breath breaking against his throat.
I’m not afraid for me anymore.
His mouth comes crashing back to mine, swallowing the moan I can’t help.
I feel my insides tense, outside of what his kiss is doing to me, the realization stirring.
Because it’s not all about me.
I’m afraid for them.
For Sophie.
For Eli.
I can't promise it stops with me. I can't promise the whispering won’t reach the lunch table, a carpool, even the walls of a church where gossip is sin.
They're mine to protect.
His weight settles into me, and the thought goes thin and bright, unfinished at the edges.
If this keeps them safe—
He moves, and I lose the rest of it.
I give him as much of myself as I can—in the dark, in pieces, in the space no one else gets to see.
And I hate that it has to be enough.