Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
Girl down
Dixie
I have to cancel.
Again.
Jesus fucking Christ, why can’t I do this?
The church is full of people who’ve come for our big dress rehearsal the night before the talent show. So many people. Crowds of them. Not showing up isn’t an option, so here I am.
Slate looms at the back of the choir, looking like he wants to murder someone except when he has Dee in his line of sight.
Then I’m pretty sure he wants to discuss her baked goods.
In great, sexy detail. She can’t sing for shit, but like I told Jack, my song doesn’t require perfect pitch—it just needs heart.
Toby’s practicing his stomping pattern, while someone else whose name I’ve forgotten because I’m a bad, bad person is the self-appointed wardrobe mistress and handing out cowboy hats and bandannas to lean into the country vibe.
Unlike me, they’re all working hard and singing their hearts out. They’ve shown up.
Exhaustion, my old nemesis, you win. Insta-cure for numbing exhaustion, I google. And also: menopause crushing fatigue in twenties?
It’s only been five, maybe six months since my last flare.
I’d driven to a music festival in South Carolina and then hadn’t been able to drag myself out of the Motel 6 for three whole days.
That particular booking coordinator will never work with me again.
Sure, it had been an excused cancellation because I’d been legitimately sick, but I’d lost my fee (no singing means no cash) and it had cemented my flaky rep.
The bookers and promoters my agent works with are understandably hesitant because I don’t always show up.
Apparently, I can learn my lesson because here I am, standing in front of the Wickham Hollow Chapel Choir, clapping the beat with zero enthusiasm while twenty people belt out “Hallelujah for the mess we are!” with varying degrees of success.
Mostly, I fantasize about lying down on that wooden pew over there and passing out.
I can’t even throw the reins to Jack because he texted earlier that he’d be an hour late as he’s at the hospital.
At least I’d remembered to check that he was okay, had all his limbs, and wasn’t lying in an ER somewhere bleeding out.
He’s fine.
Me? Not so much. My fingers have been transmuted into lead.
My joints scream. A furnace burns in my forehead and a spike in my temple pulses in time with the organ.
But I keep smiling (it may be more of a grimace), keep clapping, keep pretending this is all just peachy keen because what kind of leader bails the night before the big performance?
Someone somewhere says something. About the bridge? Don’t care. Just keep singing.
“Are you okay?” Dee slants a cautious smile my way. I have a lot to apologize for after they win the talent show because I might have snapped at Dee. And the tenors. And, okay, the entire choir with the exception of Toby.
“I’m fine! Let’s take it from the top.”
Our performance is scheduled for six o’clock.
That means I only have to finish this run-through, drive ninety minutes tomorrow to a rural fairground on the opposite side of the state, and lead my minions through an energetic rendition of “Hallelujah for the Mess We Are.” Just hold it together for approximately twenty-three more hours. I can do it.
The music stops.
Or maybe it’s me.
Yeah, the problem is definitely me.
“I’m good.” My voice cracks halfway through the sentence. “Just need a sip of water.”
I march toward my bag. Back pew. Not that far. My water bottle is in there, so I’ll just sit for thirty seconds and hydrate.
I land hard in the front pew instead, legs buckling before I can cover and pretend they haven’t.
Slate rumbles something.
“What?” I snap, opening my eyes. When did I shut them?
He’s crouched in front of me, a crinkle of worry digging into his forehead as he holds out a glass bottle of something dank and green-looking. Poison. Garden fertilizer. Don’t know, don’t care. It’s green. I hate green.
“Tell me it’s alcoholic.”
“Juice.” He shoves it into my hand, then forcibly raises my hand to my mouth. I’m his puppet.
“Jesus. That’s foul.”
It actually isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever drunk. Light, refreshing, tastes like apples and lawn mower clippings with a hint of mint. Slate guides it to my mouth like I’m a helpless, blind kitten. I’ll have to kill him.
I put it on the list for Future Me to deal with.
“Maybe we should wrap?” That’s Dee popping up at the end of the pew.
Please go away. I need to lie down. This wooden pew is better than a top-of-the-line Sealy Posturepedic.
“Give me five,” I growl.
The world swims in and out. I must nod off because the next thing I know, I’m horizontal, the church has gone blissfully quiet, and the choir may have been struck mute. My body is a war zone, joints stiff as cinder blocks, and someone is talking way too loud nearby.
“…she didn’t want to leave. Said she was fine.”
Dee, my brain supplies.
The grunt is Slate’s.
“She’s not fine.” Jack. Jack’s voice, low and certain, very worried. “Dixie?”
He doesn’t need to overreact. I just need a nap. Sorry I fucked up your choir rehearsal.
I try to share that thought with him, but what comes out isn’t any kind of a word. Shit. I try again.
“What’s up?” Jack crouches down beside me, all flannel and beard and those absurdly gentle eyes.
“Is rehearsal over?”
His mouth curves up in the smallest smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Choir’s gone. I stayed behind. You fell asleep sitting straight up. That’s some talent.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I know.”
I try to push myself upright, to stand, to pretend I have this handled—but my joints are on strike and a fuzzy pattern messes up my vision.
“Nope.” Jack’s arms come around me. “This is me ignoring that you’re a strong, independent woman for a second.”
“Caveman Jack.”
“Yeah. I do a pretty good barbarian, too.”
He’s warm and solid. Smells like cedar. Instead of protesting, I lean into him.
He carries me effortlessly, cradled against his chest like a damsel in distress from a really great romance novel. I hate how good it feels.
“Put me down.” I make a token protest. Please ignore me. “I can walk.”
“Nope again.” He says something to Dee and Slate—who seems to be using actual words and even full sentences now—and I zone out.
The walk back to the rectory takes an eternity. My entire life has been reduced to Jack’s arms around me, my head on Jack’s chest. Trying not to fall asleep. I have stuff to do.
I must say that last one out loud, because he looks down at me and growls. Jack Carter growls. It’s a red-letter, groundbreaking kind of night.
“You have one job,” he says. “Taking care of yourself.”
He sounds like he means it.
“Are you firing me as your choir director?”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Because you should know that you have the performance of a lifetime tomorrow. I think you need me.”
“Yeah, I do.”
By the time we’re inside, I’m shivering. Stupid RA. It makes me feel like I have the flu.
He sets me down on his bed and covers me with the ugliest handmade quilt I’ve ever seen. It’s offensively bright orange and green, patterned with cartoon pumpkins and something that might be turnips.
“Dee brought it. Said it was comforting and autumnal.”
“It’s spring.” I bet she puts her Christmas lights up in August, too.
“She’s bringing herbal tea and chicken soup later. Consider yourself warned. You okay letting me look at your meds? You’ve got something for the pain, right?”
When I nod, he disappears into the bathroom where I keep a ridiculous pharmacy of bottles. After he returns, he has ibuprofen and my menthol rub. “This?”
“Yeah. But I already took some before rehearsal. Can’t take more for a few hours.”
He nods, sets the bottles down, and settles beside me. The silence stretches. It should feel awkward, but somehow it doesn’t.
“I shouldn’t have pushed it,” I say finally.
“You wanted to do right by the choir.”
Yeah. “I also wanted to prove I’m not weak.”
Or lazy. Unmotivated. Self-indulgent.
Suck it up, my dad’s voice says in my head.
“Needing help isn’t weakness, Dixie.”
“Says the man who tried to fix the roof himself during a thunderstorm.”
“I had Deacon with me and that was different.”
“Sure.”
Jack leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’ve been in pain for days, haven’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“Why not say something?”
So many reasons. “It’s not something I like talking about.”
“You’d rather pass out in a pew than admit you need help?”
“I didn’t pass out. I just powered down a little.”
His laugh surprises us both. “Powered down?”
“Like a Roomba. Hit a wall and stopped moving. It was a nap, not cardiac arrest.”
Jack rubs his face with one hand, half amused, half exasperated. “You’re impossible.”
“Thanks.”
We lapse into silence again.
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not fine.”
His eyes meet mine.
“I try to be.” Let the record show I’m protesting.
“I try real hard. I push and smile and flirt and lead choirs and make jokes, but sometimes my body doesn’t get the memo.
And I hate it. I hate feeling like I’m letting people down.
Like I’m broken. Like the RA is winning and that means I’m losing. At life. At whatever.”
“You’re not broken.” He sounds like he believes it, too.
“You don’t know what it’s like.”
“No. But I know what it’s like to feel like you have to carry everything alone. You don’t have to prove anything to me, Dixie. I don’t need you to be perfect. Just real.”
“Real me isn’t very glamorous.”
“Good thing I’ve never been into glamour.”
I let Dee’s super-ugly quilt cocoon me and close my eyes. Jack doesn’t move, but just in case—
“Stay?” I ask.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I sleep for what feels like hours. At some point, Jack tucks an army of hot water bottles into the bed with me. He reads to me from the orc romance I just downloaded onto my e-reader. And he stays. Solid. Steady.
The next time I wake up, the pain is better. Not gone, but it’s more manageable. Jack is sitting beside me, reading something non-orc-related.
I’m sure he’ll need time to recover from what he found on my Kindle.
“How long was I out?”
He sets his book down. “A couple of hours. You scared me.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I just hate seeing you hurt.”
“You know I can’t do the show tomorrow, right? I should have given you some warning, but who wants to admit that they’re a quitter? ‘Oh, hey! I have to let you down!’”
“You’re not letting anyone down,” he says. “You carried this thing farther than most people would have. The choir’s ready because of you.”
“It’s still quitting.”
“It’s not. It’s knowing your limits.”
I watch him for a moment. “You’re kind of amazing, you know?”
He smiles—and there’s that strip of pink on his cheeks that I love. “Don’t let the beard fool you. I’m just a guy trying to do right.”
“You definitely did right by me.”
My eyes sting, but I refuse to cry because I hate it. “I’ve been alone with this for a long time.”
“You’re not alone anymore.”
I don’t know who moves first—I’m Team Tie—but suddenly he’s holding me and I’m holding him right back.
“Thank you,” I tell his shoulder. It’s a really great shoulder.
“For what?”
“For staying.”
He presses his lips to the top of my head. “Always.”