35. 35 Gigi
35
35 GIGI
DON'T SPEAK
“You look like shit.”
I glared at Luke as I walked into the kitchen the next day. “You better have coffee made if you’re going to throw insults at this early hour.”
He arched a dark brow. “It’s one in the afternoon.”
I glared harder as I sat in my usual spot. “Coffee,” I repeated.
Luke put his hands up in surrender and crossed to the counter, getting a fresh pot started. “So,” he said as the kitchen filled with gurgling. “I take it you’re not throwing me a welcome home party?”
“You were gone for a week.” I pulled his plate across the counter and picked up the sandwich he’d made. “I barely noticed your absence.”
“Ouch.” He watched me bite into his lunch, then walked to the fridge, pulling out ingredients to make another sandwich. “Nine days, but whatever.”
I harrumph ed around my bite, barely tasting the turkey and tomato and cheese. A shame, really. Luke made killer sandwiches. “Good trip?”
“It was fine.” He sliced a tomato, perfectly thin and symmetrical, and glanced up. “You, on the other hand, are not fine.”
“What makes you say that?” I grabbed the napkin he’d sat next to his plate and wiped my mouth. “I’m great. ” But even as I said it, my insides were tender and raw. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think. It hurt to exist.
“Liar.” Slathering mayo on a slice of bread, he eyed me, assessing and critical. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened.” I picked up the other half of the sandwich and looked it over. Glistening red tomato, lush green lettuce. The perfect balance of turkey to cheese ratio. Goddamn, it really was a good sandwich. Too bad I couldn’t enjoy it.
Setting it back on the plate, I wiped my fingers on the napkin. “Is it too early for a beer?”
Instead of answering, Luke plopped a soup mug of coffee down before me. “I’ll take that as a yes, ” I grumbled, cradling it between my hands. Despite my desire for something stronger, the heat from the coffee soothed my frazzled nerves enough to at least drag in a full breath for the first time in hours.
“She dumped me.”
I didn’t mean to say it. Hadn’t even formed the words in my mind. Yet, there they were. Out in the open. Bouncing aimlessly between Luke and I like a drunken bumblebee. Saying it aloud stung like an entire nest of the fuckers. Wincing, I gripped my mug tighter.
New sandwich complete, Luke sat across from me. I looked up, eyeing the fixings still scattered on the counter. “You’re not going to put that away?”
He shrugged, as if he hadn’t spent the first five minutes of every meal we’d ever shared putting everything away before he sat down to eat. “It can wait.”
“Shit, I must really look bad.” I took a sip of coffee, not even wincing when it burned my tongue.
Luke picked up half of his sandwich and bit into it, watching me as he chewed. I stared back, what little I’d managed to eat turning to stone in my belly. He was waiting me out, I knew. Waiting for me to tell him what happened. But…I wasn’t even sure what happened.
One moment, I was on top of the world, adrenaline and adoration coursing through my veins. The next…well, the next was the exact opposite.
I’d sat on the bench outside of Heathcliff’s last night, staring after Parker long after she was gone. Willing her to come back. Begging my feet to move, to chase after her. Neither thing happened. Parker was gone, and I’d let her leave.
At some point, Vaughn came outside, finding me there. I knew he’d come to congratulate me, to tell me how good he thought I was onstage. But when he saw my face, he pivoted. Silently, he sat beside me and stared into the distance with me, until, finally, I faced him. And, finally, I broke. Told him things with Parker were over. I’d cried. And he’d let me.
Thinking about it now, I blinked back a fresh sting of tears. I could feel Luke’s eyes on me, but I didn’t look up. If I was going to talk, to tell him what happened, I’d need to do it while staring at the reflection in my coffee mug.
“Turns out,” I started, “I really want to perform again.” My hands tightened around my mug. “I also really, really love Parker.”
It was the first time I’d said that last part out loud. Maybe if I’d said it out loud last night, maybe if I told her how I felt about her, she would have stayed. She wouldn’t have—
“Forgive me for being confused,” Luke said, jolting me from my thoughts. “But aren’t these good things?”
“You’d think so, right?” Taking a huge gulp of still-steaming coffee, I grimaced. “Except, no one knows how to fuck up a good thing better than yours truly.”
“Hmm.” He tapped his finger against his chin. “How’d you fuck it up?”
Eyes glued to my mug, I winced at the playback in my mind. The tears in Parker’s eyes, taking them from a cloudless summer day to the kind of storm that ruined picnics or children’s birthday parties. I hadn’t known what I said then, what I did to put those tears there, to summon the storm.
I still didn’t know.
“She told me to take the gig,” I started, hoping that if I talked it out, it would make sense. Even though an entire night of thinking hadn’t done the trick. “I told her I wanted it, but I wasn’t taking it. That I was choosing her. She told me to take the gig.”
Across from me, Luke remained quiet. So, I kept talking. “I thought it was the right thing, you know? I love her. I don’t want to hurt her.” I shrugged, confusion like a tidal wave inside me. “So, I chose her.”
Luke shifted. I looked up to find him watching me with sharp assessment. There was something he wanted to say. I could sense it. But he was holding back. Now wasn’t the time for that shit.
“Out with it, Lucas.”
Assessment turned to annoyance and, despite my misery, I grinned. Fucking with him never got old.
“Well, Georgia, ” he started. I lifted my chin, refusing to take the bait. “I think I’m missing a very important piece of this puzzle.” Planting an elbow on the counter, he leaned in closer. “Why?”
“Why, what? Why—”
“Why do you have to choose? Why is it the band or Parker? Why not both?”
I stared at him, body abuzz with confusion. I couldn’t understand how what was clearcut to me was not to anyone else. How could they not see? How could they not see what joining the band would do to everything else—every one else around me?
“You weren’t there,” I started, dropping my gaze. I picked at the crust of my sandwich. “You didn’t see the damage I caused the last time I—” I swallowed against a sudden swell of tears. “The last time I was so selfish.”
“What was so selfish about what you did?”
My eyes shot to his, disbelieving. “What do you mean? What wasn’t selfish about it?”
“You were a kid, going after what she wanted. You were a kid, starting her own life.” His gaze locked on mine, blue eyes burning. “You were a kid .”
“Yeah, but—”
“You couldn’t have known what would happen.” Shadows played behind his eyes as if memories of his own came a-knocking. He shook them off and continued. “You cannot tell me that your brother is okay with this guilt prison you’ve locked yourself in.”
At the mention of Vaughn, I thought about the last few conversations we’d had. Luke was right; my brother was not okay with it. But my brother was also a goddamn saint who would do anything for the ones he loved, including encouraging them to go after their dreams, even at the expense of his own.
No. I shook my head. “He doesn’t get a say,” I told Luke. “He’d peel his own skin off and give it to me if he thought it’d make me happy.”
Luke’s face paled. He looked from me to his sandwich, then pushed his plate away. Despite myself, I smirked.
Shaking his head, he stood. “Seems to me,” he started, “that you have two choices.”
“Yeah,” I said, but it sounded more like no duh. “I know. The band, or Parker.”
He frowned. “No.” He put the bread back into the breadbox on the counter, then faced me again. “All or nothing.”
“What are you talking about?” I shook my head. “Weren’t you even listening?”
“I’ve been listening for months.” Opening the fridge, he grabbed the mayo and lettuce and put them inside. “I’ve heard everything you said—and everything you didn’t say.”
“Would you stop talking like a hippie-ass yoga dude and say what you mean?” I snapped. “Enough of this talking in circles shit, please.”
He shut the fridge and faced me. “Fine.” Brushing his hands over his pants, he pinned me under his stare. “For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve been ignoring your own wants and needs. Everything you have, you’ve thrown into the bar. Which, don’t get me wrong, as an investor? Big fan.” I scowled. He grinned. “But as a friend?” His eyes warmed. I squirmed beneath the compassion there. “It’s been hard to watch.”
“How else was the bar going to succeed?” I slid from my seat and marched across the kitchen, refilling my mug with the remaining coffee. “Vaughn could’ve done everything, sure. But he’s been doing everything for years. And I’m here. Finally, I’m here. So, yeah.” I faced Luke, mirroring his stance. “I’ve been busting my ass so he didn’t have to. I’ve been busting my ass so you could succeed. I—”
“What about you, though?”
“What?”
He tucked his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “What about you?” he repeated. “You’ve been working so hard you’ve forgotten to be happy. Or you’re not letting yourself be happy. I haven’t quite figured out which it is.”
I blinked, his words triggering a replay of something Parker said last night.
You can’t get out of your own way long enough to let yourself be happy.
“I…Luke, what the fuck?” I sank back against the counter, wind knocked out of me.
He leaned next to me, close enough that our shoulders brushed. “I’m not saying this to be an asshole. I’m not trying to make you feel bad.”
I scoffed. He narrowed his eyes. “Fine,” I relented. “Then why?”
“Because, when you sang with the band, you lit up. After that first performance, you were singing all the time. While cooking, or doing laundry, or even scrolling your phone.” He looked over at me, shaking his head. “I’d never heard you do that.”
Luke’s words stopped me cold. “That can’t be true.”
“You’ve been living with me for almost a year, and I’ve never heard a single note of music from you. You listen to podcasts in your car, audiobooks around the house.” He paused, a grimace on his face. “By the way, could you maybe use earbuds when you’re listening to those?”
“What’s the matter?” I shot back. “Do my steamy romance novels get you hot and bothered?”
“Yes,” he said without missing a beat. “And it’s awkward as hell.”
I snorted at the thought of my stuffy roommate getting a stiffie from my audiobooks. “If you wanna borrow one sometime, let me know.”
He glared but didn’t rise to the bait. “Over the last couple months, I’ve watched you become a different person. First, with the band, and then with Parker.” He shook his head as if in awe. “Gigi, you were happy.”
“Are you saying I wasn’t happy before?”
He didn’t answer. Not with his words. Instead, he flattened me with a glare that said everything. My shoulders sagged under the weight of his correctness.
“I don’t know what happened with Parker,” he continued, “or the band, for that matter. But if either, or both, can be fixed, I suggest you do what needs to be done to make it happen.” Pushing away from the counter, he added, “Because mopey Gigi is so much more annoying.”
He moved out of my reach before I could punch his arm, and grinned. I glowered at his retreating back as he left the kitchen, dooming me to be alone with my thoughts.