Chapter Sixteen #3
It was a while before I had time to. The Queen’s day was full, and it wasn’t until pub sing that I was able to broach the subject.
While Dex and the bagpipe guy harmonized in a ballad about…
well, it was an old Irish folk song, so it was likely about drinking or fighting or dying at the hands of the English, I sidled up to Lulu.
“What’s it really like?” I asked. Her brow furrowed as she turned to me, a question in her eyes, and I’d done it again—had a whole conversation in my head that hadn’t included her at all.
“This whole life-on-the-road thing,” I clarified.
“That’s how it is when you’re in a relationship with someone like that, right?
You go with them? Follow their schedule?
” My heart sank even as I asked the question, because I knew it wasn’t going to work.
I didn’t want that kind of life. This whole line of questioning was a waste of time.
“Not really,” Lulu said, and my brain skidded to a halt.
“What?”
“We’re not on the road full time, you know.”
“You’re not?” I hung out with Lulu and Mitch a little more than other members of Mitch’s family during holiday gatherings; she was the cousin Mitch was closest to, and we had the ren faire thing in common.
But that was all I knew about her life with Dex.
“How does it work, then? Does the whole band take time off or something?”
She shook her head. “It’s not just the three of them.
There’s another fiddle player, Todd. He lives up north with his wife and their kids.
He joins them when they’re up that way, does some of the fall shows to give Seamus a break.
And Patrick…he’s Frederick’s partner. He has this whole wandering bard schtick he does at some stops, but when Dex is home with me he takes over on guitar for the Kilts.
” A smile tugged at the corner of her lips.
“It’s not the easiest life. There’s a whole system with spreadsheets and schedules.
Daniel complains about it, but between you and me he loves scheduling things, so I think he’s in heaven. ”
“That means you’re home, what, a few months a year?”
“Something like that,” she said. “I still have my day job, but it’s more contracts and estate planning than litigation. It’s a lot less stress, and I can do most of it remotely. Dex and I live with my grandparents, help take care of them. You’ve been to their house.”
I nodded. She and Dex were always part of the Malone holiday gatherings, but I’d just assumed they were visiting from wherever they were on the road.
Lulu continued. “Dex goes out and does a couple festivals without me, then I join up with him and we do a few together before spending the winter back at Grandma and Grandpa Malone’s place.
We spend half the year living his life, and the other half living mine.
” She was talking to me, but her attention was on the stage, hearts still in her eyes when she looked at Dex.
“His idea, you know. Our lives were so different that the only way to be together was to have one foot in each one. That guy, I swear.” Her voice was low, almost dreamy, and if I didn’t know better I would have thought she was talking to herself.
“The very definition of ‘if he wanted to he would.’ ”
I loved that for her, but I couldn’t get my head around the idea. As uncertain as a life on the road was, this seemed even more fragmented. “That’s…that’s a lot,” I finally said.
“Maybe. It’s probably not for everyone. But if you ask me, relationships are about communication and compromise.
And this is what works for us. That’s the point, you know,” she said.
“Of relationships. Of life. It’s ours, no one else’s.
As long as you’re not hurting anyone else, you really don’t owe anyone an explanation for how you live. ”
“Huh.” I turned over her words in my head as I let my attention wander to the stage.
Alex had joined the performers onstage for “Rattlin’ Bog,” and unlike the weekend before, this time he seemed in it to win it.
He seemed to feel my attention like a tangible thing; as soon as my gaze landed on him, he looked up, smiling around the chorus, and wow. Now I had hearts for eyes aimed at me.
Was this a bad idea, even thinking about a long-term future with Alex?
We’d been back together all of, what, a week?
Did he even want that? Did I even want that?
A few roses, some chicken tenders, and some earth-shattering sex did not a commitment make.
It was a terrible idea, but with every passing day, the thought of letting him go became more and more impossible.
Communication and compromise. I turned those words over in my head.
Sounded like something people in real relationships did.
I wasn’t starry-eyed anymore, full of assumptions and hope.
I was an adult. And if Alex and I were actually fumbling our way toward something real, I needed to act like one.
Communicate. Tell him how I felt. Hope he felt the same.
That was a lot for an armored heart to take.