Chapter 50 #4
I fold forward with one hand over my mouth because I can’t contain it upright, and Nora catches me around the shoulders, laughing and crying into my hair.
Through the blur I find Mama sobbing, Dean crying beside Monica with Owen wedged between them and Lily half out of her seat, clapping above her head like volume is a competitive sport.
Beckett’s mother has one hand over her mouth as Lila leans into her, Matt clapping with Theo perched halfway in front of him, Evie jumping hard enough that I’m fairly certain somebody will be discussing concussion protocols later.
Caroline is crying too. Beckett stands farther back, near the side of the stage, tears on his face and absolutely no attempt to hide them.
Six rows behind him, Daddy’s chair is only a chair.
I don’t sing another song. People ask for one, but I smile, wave and leave with the room still on its feet, because learning when to stop has become part of learning how to live.
Backstage collapses into arms and tears.
Mama gets to me first, grabs my face and kisses both cheeks, Dean lifts me clear off the floor until Monica orders him to put down “the recently reconstructed vocalist,” and Owen immediately informs him he is going to get in trouble if he breaks my throat again.
Lily wedges herself against my side before anyone can stop her, crying hard enough to deny it later, and Nora insults my mascara with tears running through hers.
Beckett’s mother hugs me when the others finally loosen their grip, holds me by the shoulders for a moment and says, voice shaking, “I wish your father could’ve seen what you did in there.
” My throat closes around a laugh that isn’t really a laugh.
I glance at Daddy’s Martin resting safely in its open case. “Me too.”
Maybe memory put flesh around love for three minutes because I needed it. Maybe grief can get that vivid. Maybe my father found one night in Nashville important enough to be difficult about the rules. I don’t need to decide.
Beckett never pushes through the crowd to get to me, so I notice when he disappears. I find him ten minutes later in a side hallway lined with black-and-white photographs of dead country legends, hands in his pockets, studying one as if he’s been assigned homework. His eyes are red.
“You hiding?”
He turns. “Nora threatened me.”
“Smart woman.”
“She said family first.”
My chest aches so sweetly I’ve to breathe around it. I hold out my hand. “Come here.”
He does, and I pull him into me, kissing him in an empty Ryman hallway with half of Nashville calling my name through the wall.
He kisses me carefully for approximately three seconds, still pathologically committed to preserving my throat, then gives up when I grab his shirt and make my displeasure clear. When we part, I’m laughing.
“You cried.”
“No.”
“I saw you.”
“Lighting defect.”
“Beckett, your face was wet.”
He gives me a flat look. “It was emotional in there.”
I laugh again, and the feeling sitting underneath every ordinary day with him, every hand he waited for me to take first, every door he left open, every time he loved me without turning love into another job, rises into my throat without any of the terror I thought would come with it.
“I love you.”
Beckett’s lips part, but what he meant to say never makes it out, and the hand resting at my waist curls into the fabric of my dress. The words scare me only after they exist, but I don’t take them back. I’ve spent too long not saying them.
“I love you,” I repeat, my voice rough from the song.
“I’m not asking you for a ring. I’m not asking for a house or forever or one of those terrifying five-year plans I know you keep somewhere.
” Tears blur him again, and after everything I’ve already cried out of myself tonight, I realize I still have more.
“I don’t need you to promise we’ll never change.
I don’t even know who we’ll be five years from now.
I just know I love you now, Beckett, and I don’t want to be afraid to say it just because I can’t promise what comes after. ”
Beckett cups my face, his expression wrecking what’s left of me. “You think I need forever to love you?” His forehead comes to mine. “I don’t need a guarantee, Laurel. You have all of me, baby. Every part.” His voice breaks on the last words. “I love you so much.”
For a second neither of us moves. His thumbs brush the tears from beneath my eyes, and a small smile finally finds him. “You’re ruining your makeup.”
“I don’t care.”
“There she is.”
Daddy’s words come back so suddenly I stop breathing for a beat.
There she is, my baby girl. Beckett has no idea what he just echoed, no idea those same words crossed six rows of the Ryman only minutes ago from a man I’d give anything to hear say them again.
I stare at him until his smile fades into concern.
“What?”
I shake my head. I can’t explain it without crying all over again, and I’ve done quite enough of that for one night. Instead, I take one of his hands between mine.
This man has spent months waiting for me to decide when I want to be touched, when I want him in my house, when I want his number on a hospital form, when I want him beside me and when I need room to stand alone. He has never confused loving me with having a claim on me.
I turn his hand over, lift his knuckles to my lips and kiss them slowly. “Now we’re even.”
Beckett smiles, takes my hand and kisses the same place on mine. “Not even close.”