Chapter 3
Kiki
Being a mom was weird.
Not good, not bad, just weird.
She’d just come out of me, all seven pounds, eight ounces of her. She had a shock of white-blond hair that seemed to be standing straight up most of the time, cloudy blue eyes that the nurses assured us would clear up, and a big pimple on her chin. Poor baby, getting acne right off the bat. She also had perfectly shaped berry-red lips, pudgy little cheeks, and the cutest, tiniest little toes. I spent far too much time staring at the different parts of her body, knowing Noah and I had created her but suddenly unsure what to do with her.
Thankfully, she didn’t cry much the first twenty-four hours, so I slept and Noah held her. I’d made the decision not to breastfeed, because once Noah was gone, I’d be on my own and I needed to be able to breathe. I had to eliminate any possible stressors and that felt like the easiest. It wasn’t the most cost-effective decision, but I had breast implants, so there was a fifty-fifty chance I wouldn’t produce enough milk anyway.
“Hello, my sweet Elizabeth.” Noah had the baby in his arms as I woke up the first morning we were at home, and it was so obvious he was enthralled with her. He’d gotten up with her overnight, so I’d managed to sleep seven straight hours, which was amazing.
“Good morning,” I whispered, getting out of bed and joining him by the window of our bedroom.
“Good morning.” He smiled, the sun glinting off his shaggy, gold-blond hair. When we’d first gotten together, it had been long, stringy, and dull, his meth addiction killing him from the inside out. More than a year later, it was full and healthy, and I loved running my fingers through it. I loved everything about him, really.
He was a quiet, gentle soul who’d suffered so much in his twenty-four years on earth. His parents were useless—they hadn’t even met the baby yet—and though Bri was amazing, there had only been so much she could do when they were growing up. The car accident that killed two of his best friends and made a quadriplegic out of his then-girlfriend had hit him hard. He hadn’t been driving but waking up to find two of his friends had died had been a lot for a sixteen-year-old.
After that, it had been all downhill.
Until we got together.
I’d known it would be a hard road, loving a man with internal demons I couldn’t see, fix, or understand, but the heart wanted what it wanted, no matter what my brain was telling me. And I loved him so much, but I was struggling with the way things were. What kind of relationship could we have if he was never home? And how was he going to be a father that way? At the same time, how could I ask him to give up the one thing he’d become so good at in such a short amount of time?
Asking him to choose between his job and his family seemed wrong, even to me, but I hadn’t been happy the last six months and I didn’t see any kind of light at the end of the tunnel.
“Kiki, she’s perfect.” Noah looked at me. “You did good.”
“We did good,” I said, leaning over to rest my head on the side of his arm. “And yes, she’s perfect.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to go back to work,” he whispered. “Leaving you guys is going to suck.”
The moment of magic was gone, and I sighed. “We should talk. Let me throw one of the casseroles Marla brought over in the oven and make coffee.”
“Casserole is already in the oven,” he said, chuckling. “I was hungry. Five more minutes. And I made coffee.”
This right here was one of the many reasons I loved him.
Noah gave one hundred percent in everything. Whether it was work or play or our relationship. He was present, interested, invested. That dedication had been a problem when it came to his situation with drugs, but it was awesome when it came to how he treated me. Always thoughtful, gentle, loving. That was partly why I missed him so much when he was gone.
“I need to apologize,” Noah said once we’d put Elizabeth in her bouncy chair and had steaming cups of coffee in front of us. “I know I haven’t been as attentive as I would’ve liked, but all I wanted was to save up enough money for you to stay home with her while you heal.”
“Sometimes it’s like you forget about me when you’re on the road,” I said quietly.
“You and the baby are all I think about,” he said, frowning.
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
“I’m sorry I work so many hours, but I was saving up for her.” He motioned to the baby. “And for us. So when our little rebel got here, you could relax and not worry about money.” He pulled an envelope out of his leather jacket, which was on the back of his chair.
“What’s this?” I asked, opening it. I stared. There were a lot of hundred-dollar bills in there. “Noah, where did you get this?”
“Working.” He met my gaze. “Babe, I was working eighteen-hour days, doing my normal stuff for Nobody’s Fool and then helping Z out at night with some special projects Onyx Knight has going on.”
“This is four thousand dollars.”
“I know. It’s for my beautiful little rebel girls.”
He’d always called me his little rebel because of my piercings, tattoos, and crazy hair colors. But I hadn’t felt like much of a rebel lately. Not with swollen ankles, short nails, and my natural blond hair color. I’d been dying my hair jet black since I was seventeen, but I hadn’t hesitated to stop when the doctor had suggested I not dye it during the pregnancy. Then I’d decided to save money by not getting my nails done anymore and I’d slowly morphed into the mommy version of myself.
And she was someone I didn’t know at all.
“I’m not her anymore, Noah. The rebel you fell in love with.”
“Sure you are.” He reached for my hand, holding it tightly. “This is an adjustment period. New baby, all the hormones and shit… it’s going to settle down.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I whispered.
“We’ll figure it out together.” He inched his chair closer to mine.
“How?” I asked. “With you on the road and me at home? How are we going to figure anything out?”
“If I don’t go back on the road, what will we do?” he asked. “You can’t work yet. And Beth is going to need you.”
“She’s going to need you too.”
“She also needs parents who have a purpose in life.” He frowned. “You really want me to move home to Vegas and go back to bussing tables? Making minimum wage and tips? Is that what you see for our future?”
“What do you see?” I asked the question though I was dreading the answer.
“I see us having a house in the suburbs where we don’t have to worry about whether or not we have money for our daughter’s new bike. Or for you to fly out to see me on the road. Or to go to the doctor.” He paused. “What do you see, Kiki? Us living in an apartment, always worrying about how we’re going to pay bills, wondering how we’re going to afford health insurance? You not being able to take days off because you don’t get paid if you don’t work?”
“I don’t have those kinds of visions!” I snapped impatiently. “Mine are about us. Our love. Our family. I don’t care about that stuff as long as we’re together!”
“Love doesn’t pay the bills,” he said.
“And paid bills don’t make a family,” I responded.
“I don’t want to be poor anymore,” he said, his voice tight. “I’d like to do more than work a dead-end job with nothing to look forward to.”
“And I’d like a husband I’m actually going to see more than once every few months!”
We stared at each other.
“What do you want me to do? You want me to quit?”
“I don’t know.”
“I love you,” he said softly. “But I can’t just walk away from our future. It’ll be a short-term sacrifice for our long-term goals. I won’t be doing this forever.”
“No?” I countered. “What else are you going to be able to do? Roadies only make money on tour. Once you stop, we’ll be right back to square one.”
He didn’t respond, and I had nothing else to say.
We’d reached a stalemate, and I was too afraid to think about what that might mean.