Sweet Forty-Two (19 page)

“Ah, yes,” I laughed, “must be the different philosophies you operate under.”

CJ scoffed. “And what the hell does that mean?”

I sighed, thankful for the shift in our conversation. “Oh, you know, he believes in love, and you were a signer of the declaration of one night stands.”

He laughed, and I could almost see him throwing his head back. It made me smile. “Oh, G, how glad I am you’re not here to mess up my game tonight.”

“I kind of am, since you’re not in pledging your allegiance to miniskirts right now and you’re stuck in your car.”

“So...” CJ hesitated for a moment. “He told you about Rae?”

“Yeah, a little heads up would have been nice before that letter showed up on his doorstep.” I lifted off my seat to check my mascara train wreck in the rearview mirror.

“What letter?”

“Huh?” My heart actually skipped a beat.

“You said
before that letter showed up on his doorstep
. What the hell are you talking about?”

Son of a bitch.

I responded by not responding.

“G...”

“Please don’t say anything to him, okay? Shit, I figured he would have told you. I’m sorry!”

“You know I’m not going to say anything, but, what letter?”

I groaned. “There was this envelope addressed from New Hampshire. It had a letter in it that I didn’t read, but also it had a card addressed to Regan, unopened, sent from Rae Cavanaugh.”

“Shiiiiiiit.”

I’d bet anyone a hundred dollars that CJ’s head was on his steering wheel.

“What did it say?”

“I don’t know. He was going to leave it at the bar. He got shitfaced and walked away. I took it and put it in my backpack.”

“Has he read it?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I still have it.”

“He hasn’t asked for it?”

“No.”

CJ sighed. “Christ.”

“Should I make him read it ... or something?”

“God, I don’t fucking know. But ... if he does ask you for it, stick around while he reads it, okay? He went off the deep end in a flee-the-country kind of way when she died...” CJ trailed off, having expressed more concern over another human being besides myself than I’d ever witnessed.

“I promise.”

“G?”

“Yeah?”

“Regan’s a good shit. Tell him about your mom, okay? He’s just ... he’s a good listener.”

CJ hadn’t ever suggested I tell anyone about anything. I started to protest. “Ceej—”

“Georgia, come on. It looks like your mom is going to do what she’s going to do. You’re going to need support. If Regan is trusting you with something from Rae, reciprocate it.”

“Reciprocate? You okay?”

“Ha ha. Fuck off.” His tone was playful, but a little flat. “Love you.”

“Love you, too. Come back out here soon, k?”

“I’ll try. Bye, babe.”

“Bye.”

I tossed my phone onto the passenger seat and eased my way back onto the highway. It was nearing four in the morning, and I was wired from all of the emotional electrocution. Sarcastic pun intended.

There was only one logical place for me to be at that hour, in this state, and Regan already knew about the bakery, so it was safe. As long as he stayed the hell out this time.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t tell Regan about my mom—that would be the easy part of the conversation. It was the ramifications of that that were strewn about my life that gave me pause.

Maybe it was his music, as Lissa suggested. Maybe it was the unfettered trust he’d shown me, and that I’d shown him earlier in blindly renting him my apartment. Whatever it was, I knew that I had to tell Regan something, so he knew why I wanted to kiss him.

And why I couldn’t. Ever.

“That was perfect. Do it one more time.” Willow clicked her mic off from the recording room.

I groaned internally. It was four in the morning and we had been in the studio since 9:00 PM due to some scheduling conflicts that presented recording problems. Last year I could have easily kept up a schedule like this, but Ember’s parents and her friends had trained us to operate on a “normal” schedule, as they called it, and this all-nighter was bullshit.

“If it was perfect,” Ember snapped, “why the hell are we doing it again?”

She chose not to groan internally.

“Ember,” her mother, Raven, cautioned.

Ember sighed. Apparently she wasn’t yet over Willow’s attempt at seducing Bo. I didn’t really know the details of it, and I hadn’t mentioned to Bo or Ember that I knew about it, but it was clear that now wasn’t the time to interject my opinion.

“Let’s go, Em. We can do it one more time, even better than perfect.” I elbowed her and smiled.

Bo mouthed a
thank you
to me as the rest of the Six let out a collective sigh of relief. The track we were cutting was one between just Bo, Ember, and myself. The band wanted to give us some space on the album, to highlight some of their new talent. Their words, not ours. I was grateful for the opportunity and didn’t have any reservations about playing the song for the
900
^th
time.

So, we played the song again. And, one more time.

I’d been drugging myself on rosin and Chopin for the last week. Drowning myself in my craft kept me deaf to the telltale heart thumping away somewhere in Georgia’s apartment. A card. From Rae.

No, I couldn’t do it. Not yet, or, maybe ever.

I was grateful to Georgia for hanging on to it. I assumed she still had it, but I honestly hadn’t given much thought to if I cared what she did with it or not. As usual, I hadn’t seen her much during the days following our talk in her bakery. I hadn’t smelled anything signaling her use of the kitchen in a few days, and I’d long since finished the last of those delicious blueberry muffins. I wanted more.

Not even more of the muffins, though that was a sweet benefit. I wanted more Georgia. She didn’t have a shred of innocence left in her eyes, and that made me trust her. I wasn’t worried about harming her glittery view on the world, because it was clear she didn’t have one. And hadn’t for a long time.

Despite the whimsical appearance of her bakery, I sensed there was something dark underneath it ... even if I hadn’t been freaked out by the Cheshire cat eyes painted in stark green, above an equally jarring white smile, on the black crown molding in the cafe area. The desire to kiss her never really left me after the failed attempt weeks ago, even though I’d already apologized.

I didn’t mean the apology. Because I’d wanted to kiss her in that moment. I shouldn’t have taken the apartment, really, since I wanted to kiss her. That’s a standard bad idea. But I just trusted her. And, she seemed to have exactly zero interest in me beyond
friends.
Really, I was fine with that. She had some heavy secrets that weighed down her smile, and even if she didn’t want to tell me what they were, I had to be there for her. I’d promised CJ, if nothing else.

We finished our final cut of the song, and I played a couple more notes, lost in my swirling, exhausted thoughts.

Bo placed his hand on my shoulder, but all I heard was garbled noise.

I took my headphones off. “What?”

“I said, give it a rest, bud. We’re done. Freed!” Though he looked exhausted, he managed a smile and a fist pump into the air.

“I’m sleeping from the minute we get home until the day after tomorrow.” Ember yawned and lazily slung her backpack over her shoulder. “Let’s go, Bo.”

I cut off her attempt at hugging him. “Actually, can I take you home? I have some stuff I want to talk to you about.”

Bo backed up in mock defense. “What? You can’t talk to me?”

“This is...”

“Girl stuff?” he teased.

Ember smacked his stomach. “Shut up, ass.”

Bo laughed and Ember did too, so things seemed okay there, I guess. Though navigating the complex knots of Bo and Ember’s relationship wasn’t something I had the time or training for.

After locking up the studio, Ember and I headed to my car. A few minutes into our drive, she yawned and looked at me. “I’ve missed seeing you every day.”

“You mean you miss keeping an eye on me. Spying on my emotions,” I teased.

“Regan, I couldn’t spy on your emotions if you drew me a map.” She knocked softly on my head. “Closed book.”

I shrugged. “I’m not
that
closed off, I’m just not ... Bo.”

She chuckled and leaned her head back on the headrest. I’d intended to tell her about the card from Rae but was getting gun-shy.

“So ... Willow...” I didn’t have enough emotional attachment to the San Diego socialite to care that I was throwing her under the bus in my cowardliness.

“Argh! What about her?” Ember growled.

“Last week she told me about ... you know.”

Ember snapped her head back around, looking deadly at the side of my face. “No, I don’t know. What’d she say?”

“She said you were all pissy at her because she put the moves on Bo.”

“Is that all she said?”

Dear God, what did I just get myself into?

“Isn’t that ... all there is?”

Ember chuckled, but it wasn’t the friendly kind. It was the kind that made you expect to see a crow on her shoulder, the way her eyebrow didn’t arch, but pitched to a severe point. “I guess that’s all there is.”

“Okay...” I didn’t believe her.

She continued, “Unless you count her telling me she thinks we’re half sisters.”

I swerved into the next lane, grateful that weekend traffic this early in the morning was nearly non-existent. “
What?
”

“Can you fucking believe her?
Seriously!
Always something to get attention.”

“Did she ... are you ... do your parents—” Given my history with the emotions of Ember, she seemed to be handling this well. Maniacally, maybe, but well.

She reached her hand over and patted my leg. “Calm down. She’s full of shit. No, I haven’t said anything to my parents. Willow blurted it out one night when we were drinking when we first got here. She said we had to have the same dad.”

“Had to?”

“She went on about how our families were always together growing up. Even when I pointed out that they were all fucking
hippies
who lived in co-ops together and shit our whole lives, she had to point out the vague similarities in our looks.” Ember ran her hand through her hair and left it there, as if mentally comparing it to Willow’s.

Vague was not the correct term to discuss the similarities between Ember and Willow’s looks. Sure, Willow had darker skin, since her mom was black, but they had the same long wavy hair. Willow’s was only slightly less auburn than Embers, but their eyes were identical. Not just the color—a striking jade that often had me staring at both of them for too long—but the same shape and same size. Slightly too big for their face by some standards, but breathtaking by anyone who could see clearly. It wasn’t a far stretch to believe they were related, but I wasn’t about to tell Ember that.

“What?” she cut into my thoughts. “You believe her?”

Shit.

“I ... I don’t have ... any facts?” I shrugged, trying not to sound like a complete bastard. I knew that girlfriends were supposed to believe each other no matter what, but I wasn’t her girlfriend. And, when I looked at Willow and Ember side by side, I saw two counter culture children who could very likely share DNA.

“Oh you know what, you and Bo can just go shove it, okay? There’s no way that on top of everything else I went through in my childhood that my parents would have lied to me, too.”

“Ember, your childhood wasn’t anything to
go through
. Calm down. And, who’s to say that even if it were true, which I’m not saying it is, that anyone knows about it?”

Ember rested her elbow on the tiny ledge next to the window. “Willow says she asked her parents about it when she was in college and stumbled across pictures of us as kids.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“I know it is.”

“So ... why not ask your parents? I mean, seriously. Willow’s one ... interesting chick, but ... why would she lie about this?” Ember glared at me, but I continued. “Think about it, Ember. She’s got money, status, and plenty of family and friends. Why would she lie about this, but only tell
you
about it? If she wanted to make a thing about it, wouldn’t she, like, I don’t know, put it on Twitter, or something?”

Ember was silent for a few seconds, and when I looked over at her, I found her wiping under her eyes.

“Em, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be pushy.”

“No,” she sniffed, “it’s okay. This has just been really under my skin. I don’t know if it’s because I think it’s true, or what ... Bo thinks I should just talk to my parents and get it over with. I feel bad, though. I didn’t mean to be so bitchy with Georgia, but this was just ... taking up my brain space.”

I pulled my eyebrows together. “
This
is why you were so ... touchy a couple of weeks ago?”

“Yeah, why?”

Nope, not mentioning the pregnancy scare.

“Regan...” she prodded.

I shook my head and shrugged, trying for the standard non-committal response.

“What’d Bo tell you?”

Damn, she
’
s good.

“He said you had a pregnancy scare, and not to mention it to you.”

She threw her head back in full laughter. “That shit.”

“It worked, didn’t it? No one’s asked you about your mood.”

She yawned again. “God, I need to sleep. So, what did you want to talk to me about?”

It only took me a second to rethink the earlier decision I’d made to not mention Rae’s mail to Ember. She was under enough stress, and I couldn’t ask her to keep a secret from Bo. I wasn’t ready to tell him, because I didn’t know if I decided to read the letter if I’d want him to know what was in it.

“Nothing,” I lied effortlessly. “I just wanted to sneak a few minutes of alone time with you. Good thing I did, or else I wouldn’t have known what was going on with you. Talk to me, Ember. Any time, okay?”

I pulled into her driveway and put the car in park.

Ember leaned over and kissed my cheek. “I will. Promise. Don’t say anything to anyone about this.”