Everything You Are (Jukebox Heroes 3) Page 11

  “I had to learn.”

  “I guess so.”

  “I’m still learning.”

  “It’s an ongoing process.”

  A DPS song came on the radio then, and I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to turn it up or turn it off. I ended up turning it up, and Chris and I both sang along. It was a good song.

  We spent the rest of the trip alternating between singing along with the radio and making small talk about music. Chris got me back to my apartment complex and hopped out of the car long enough to hug me goodbye. Then he was off to the club, and I was digging in my miniature purse for my keys.

  The first thing I did once my front door was locked was strip out of the boots and dress. I wrapped up in my robe long enough to rustle up a sandwich and then headed for the bathtub. Just as I reached for the taps, I heard my cell phone ring. I started the water running and went to dig my phone out of my purse. I managed to answer the call just before it went to voice mail.

  “Hey, you,” I said as I headed back toward the bathroom. “Shouldn’t you be on a stage somewhere, melting faces?”

  “We had to cancel,” London said. “Adrian’s sick.”

  “That sucks. He okay?”

  “He will be.”

  “Tell him I said to feel better, okay?” I twisted on the taps and sat on the edge of the tub, watching it fill.

  “Yup. How are you? I know you were kind of upset the last time we talked.”

  “Disappointed,” I corrected. “Yeah, I was. I still am. But I’m okay. Better now that I have plans for Thanksgiving.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Going to Chris’s.”

  London was quiet for a moment. “That’s the guy from the club, right? Seth’s friend?”

  “Yup. He invited me to have Thanksgiving dinner with him and his mom.”

  The silence stretched out, and if not for random background noises I would have wondered if the call had dropped.

  “London?”

  “Do I need to be worried?”

  I thought about the night before, about Chris’s hands on my bare skin and tangled in my hair, about his mouth on mine, and I swallowed hard. “Chris is just a friend,” I said. “His mom hosts Thanksgiving dinner every year for people who can’t be with their families. I fit the bill, so Chris invited me.”

  “Okay.”

  He didn’t sound convinced, and I wondered for a moment if he’d learned to read emotions over the phone. I reached up and touched the pendant still hanging around my neck. Maybe he could just hear something in my voice. Or maybe he was paranoid. Or I was.

  I sighed as I shrugged out of my robe and stepped into the tub.

  “I found out something interesting about Chris today.” I waited a heartbeat and then added, “He’s a practitioner, too. Small world, huh?”

  “Maybe,” London replied. “Or maybe not. Ashe might be right. You might have an affinity for magic.”

  “Um. And that means what exactly?”

  “That you’re drawn to it. To magical people and places. That you can sense it, but don’t realize that you’re sensing it.”

  I thought about the way that certain places and people resonated with me, how I could sometimes feel perfectly at home in a city I’d never visited before or feel as if I’d known some people my entire life when we’d only just met. Of course, I’d felt that way about people who weren’t practitioners, too.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “When we were in Nashville, you asked me if cities had inherent magic. I asked Ashe about it, but I kind of completely forgot to tell you. Anyway, the answer is yes. Austin sits in the middle of a magical convergence, so it’s more magical than a lot of other places. Ashe said that might be why you felt compelled to move to Austin. I mean, you did say there was something about the city that called to you.”

  “I didn’t mean literally.”

  “But maybe it did.”

  “Trippy.”

  “Yup. Anyway, that might explain why you keep finding us freaks.”

  I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn’t see my expression.

  “You’re not freaks,” I scolded.

  “Mmm. So his abilities...they’re not anything dangerous, are they?”

  I could tell he was worried. “I don’t think so. He’s a tracker.” I paused, considering. “I don’t know if you even know what that means.”

  “I do. Quinn’s got one on retainer. I haven’t met the guy, but he’s been working on the investigation. Quinn says a good tracker, like the guy he hired, can locate someone from a lot farther away than an empath can.”

  “But wouldn’t he need a link to the girl? No, you know what – I don’t wanna know.” And I didn’t. I didn’t want to hear him mention Julia’s name. I didn’t want to think about her.

  “Em....”

  “You know I don’t have a problem with magic, but I’d like to talk about something else now.”

  “Okay.”

  But neither of us spoke, the past and its ghosts hanging like a transparent wall between us. When the silence got to be too much, I said the first thing that popped into my head.

  “I miss you,” I said.

  He told me he missed me, too, and we talked a little about nothing, trading a few anecdotes about work and friends and such. He was telling me about some silly video he’d seen on the internet when a devilish idea distracted me.

  “Are you alone?” I asked, cutting London off mid-sentence.

  “Um. Yeah.”

  “Hotel room?”

  “Yes.”

  I smiled and sunk down deeper in the water. Then I proceeded to tell him just how much I missed him and what I’d do to him if I could get my hands on him right then.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I ended up spending the night before Thanksgiving at Chris’s house – in the guest bedroom this time - so that I could follow him over to his mom’s. He needed to be at her house bright and early to help get things ready, and I wanted to help out, too.

  Chris’s mom, Karen, wasn’t what I expected, somehow. I’d pictured her as a stereotypical upper-middle class mom: a trim, commanding woman in a cashmere sweater and tailored slacks, maybe. Instead I got a smiling, rosy-cheeked matron wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans partially hidden behind an apron that said, “Be nice to me or I’ll poison your food”. She greeted both of us with hugs and then put us to work.

  I paused in my assigned task – stuffing celery – when a teenaged girl stumbled into the kitchen and muttered something that might have been good morning.

  “Beth, meet Hannah,” Chris said.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi,” she replied, looking me over. “I like your shirt.”

  “Thanks.”

  Karen directed Hannah to breakfast – homemade cinnamon rolls – and gave her a task to start on once she’d finished eating. I wracked my brain, trying to recall if Chris had ever mentioned Hannah. I thought he had once, in passing, but I had no idea who the girl was. What I did know was that she looked a whole helluva lot like Chris. I tried to avoid jumping to conclusions, and I tried to ignore the strange sinking sensation those conclusions caused.

  A little while later, Chris left the room and Hannah came to lean against the counter where I was working.

  “So, are you, like, dating my uncle?”

  “Your uncle? Oh. No. We’re just friends.”

  “Oh. That sucks. You seem nice.”

  “Hannah!” Karen pointed her knife toward Hannah’s unfinished task.

  That was all it took for the girl to wander back to her work station, rolling her eyes as she went. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that I didn’t have to talk about me and Chris or disappointed that I was missing out on the chance to chat with his niece.

  After that, Karen started asking me harmless questions – where did I work, did I like my job – and the stilted question-and-answer session gradually gave way to the four of us talking and laughing while we worked.

 
We had finished most of the preparations for lunch by the time the first guest rang the bell at ten-thirty. Chris went to answer the door, leaving Karen and I alone for the first time. She smiled at me over her coffee cup.

  “I’m glad you decided to come.”

  I smiled back. “I am, too.”

  We didn’t have time to exchange any confidences; Chris came back right away, followed by a tall woman with short salt-and-pepper hair. Joseph walked in right behind them, and his face lit up when he saw me. I was glad that Chris had been right about Joseph not being angry with me.

  A quick round of greetings and introductions ensued, and I learned that the woman – Sandra – was Joseph’s grandmother. I could tell that she and Karen were good friends, and it was easy to see that she adored her grandson.

  “Where’s Hannah?” Joseph asked.

  “She high-tailed it for her room as soon as we got everything done,” Karen said.

  Sandra gave a little shake of her head. “Teenagers.” She looked at Joseph. “And some of them don’t outgrow it.”

  The two women sat down for a gossip over coffee, and Chris went to drag Hannah out of her room. I took the opportunity to pull Joseph aside, chivvying him into the living room for a private chat.

  “I wanted to apologize for the other night,” I told him.

  “You had me worried.”

  “Sorry. I know it’s a pitiful excuse, but everything just went to shit at the same time.”

  “It’s okay, Em.” Joseph held his arms open, and I moved in for a brief hug.

  “Chris said you weren’t mad at me, but I didn’t believe him. I saw how pissed you were.”

  Joseph sighed and sat on the arm of the couch. “I was a little mad at you. I was mad at me, too, and at whoever was buying you drinks. But mostly I was pissed at your shithead brother for dragging you out to the club and then bailing on you.”

  “I’m so not his responsibility, Joseph.”

  “I know that, sweetie. I never meant to imply that you couldn’t take care of yourself or anything like that. But when someone rides with you to a club, you don’t drink and you don’t leave without them.”

  “He said he wasn’t feeling well.”

  “Oh he was feeling just fine.”

  Demonic Joseph from the other night was threatening to reappear. His anger seemed a little extreme for the circumstances.

  “What are you not telling me?”

  Joseph stared at his hands for a minute and then looked around to make sure no one was near enough to overhear. “You don’t really want to know.”

  “Yeah, I really do.”

  “Well he and Blas obviously didn’t want you to know. Not that I give a damn about that.” He paused, studying his hands again, but before I could ask again, he said, “They met some guy.”

  “They left to go home with some random guy?”

  “I don’t think he was all that random, but...yeah.”

  My brother and his boyfriend had picked up some guy in Joseph’s bar, after flirting with Joseph for weeks. And maybe more than flirting for all I knew. I loved my brothers, but right then I was really glad they were way the hell down in Laredo.

  I took Joseph’s hands in mine, and he raised his head to meet my eyes. I gave him a weak smile, and he returned it.

  “Bygones,” I said.

  “Bygones,” he agreed.

  “Come on,” I said, giving his hands a little tug. “Let’s go see how much sampling we can do before Karen chases out of the kitchen with a wooden spoon.”

  Soon enough we were joined by a string of guests that I knew I wouldn’t be able to recognize a week later. The next couple of hours were an oasis of companionship, good food, laughter, warmth, faith, and love in the desert wasteland my life had become over the past week or so. When it came time to leave for work, I didn’t want to go. But of course I did. After a round of hugs and handshakes, a chorus of ‘nice to meet yas’, and a motherly demand by Karen that I come back soon, Chris escorted me out to my car.

  “So?”

  I smiled up at him. “It was exactly what I needed. Thank you so much for inviting me.”

  Chris hugged me, rocking me from side to side before he let me go. “I’m glad you had a good time. Mom’s serious, you know. About coming back soon.”

  “Have your people call my people.”

  He grinned. “Will do.”

  I climbed into my car and headed for work feeling better than I had in days.

  That day seemed to be a turning point. Even though London and I still didn’t talk often, it became easier to take it in stride. Spending more time with my family and new friends helped with that. I got over being mad at my brother and Blas, and they came up a couple of times. There were Sunday dinners at Karen’s and Monday game nights with Amy and her friends. I spent time at the club, without any more drinking binges, and joined Chris and his crew for late night dinners. Most of all I spent time with Chris – dinners, movies, Hannah’s school play. I tried to ignore the fact that it felt a lot like dating, and I tried not to wonder if London and I would spend as much time together if we had the chance.

  Another turning point came a couple of weeks later when London asked me to come spend New Year’s Eve with him in LA.

  “We’re done with the tour this weekend,” he told me. “I mean, we have some fly dates, but that’s it. Got a little downtime before we hit the studio in January.”

  He’d given me enough warning this time that I thought I might be able to make it work, so I promised him I’d talk to my boss. As it turned out she had already decided I was taking New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day off, since I’d worked Thanksgiving and would be working Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. She didn’t have a problem with my taking a couple of extra days – without pay, of course. London and I made arrangements for my visit, and I started counting down the days.

  I knew that the two and a half weeks between London’s invitation and my flight to LA were going to be torture. I figured the best way to combat that was to stay busy. It helped that I had presents to buy and wrap and a couple of Christmas parties to attend.

  As an intern, I wasn’t making a lot of money, so I didn’t have much to spend on Christmas gifts. I fretted over that a lot, trying to figure out how to turn my limited funds into a pile of presents. I ended up maxing out two credit cards, selling my game system, and putting off buying much-needed new tires for my car, but I managed to get at least a little something for everyone on my list.

  On the Thursday before Christmas, Chris threw a small party – more of a catered lunch, really- for his staff, their “plus ones” and a few friends. Joseph, Michael, Chris, Amy, and I stayed after everyone else had gone. We exchanged Christmas gifts, and I was pleased to see that everyone liked the small gifts I’d chosen for them. I was also pleased with the gifts I received and that no one had given me anything expensive.

  After the gift exchange, we all headed our separate ways, to work or finish Christmas shopping. Chris walked me out to my car and leaned against the door.

  “Joseph told me you’re not spending Christmas with your brother, either.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and tucked my hands in, huddling against the chill in the air. “Yeah, he’s spending it with Blas’s family.”

  “You should have told me. But you weren’t going to, were you? You were just going to spend Christmas cooped up in your apartment.”

  “Actually, I’m going to spend Christmas at work,” I reminded him.

  He leveled a look at me that said, ‘You know what I mean, smartass’. Aloud he added, “Come to Mom’s Christmas Eve. It’ll just be us – me and Mom and Hannah, I mean – but we’d love to have you there.”

  I knew when he said ‘we’ he meant it. I got on well with all of them. Sometimes he accused his mom of liking me better than him, which always made me smile.

  “I don’t have to work until eleven on Christmas morning,” I said, “so...yeah.”

  “Yeah, you�
�ll come?”

  I nodded, smiling. He pushed away from the car and wrapped me in a bear hug.

  “Good. You want me to come get you?”

  “And then have to bring me back for work? Not necessary.”

  “I don’t like you driving back and forth across town,” he said, giving one of my crappy tires a half-hearted kick.

  “It’ll be okay,” I said, though I wasn’t sure it would be. The tires were little more than rubber bands at this point. I would probably end up having to ask Dylan for a loan while I was in LA so that I could replace them when I got back into Austin. I didn’t like asking anyone for money, but I knew she wouldn’t mind.

  For a minute or two, I thought he would argue, but he didn’t. He just said, “Fine. But meet me at my place. We’ll ride over together.”

  Christmas Eve at Karen’s was low-key and homey. The four of us cooked and ate dinner together and then played board games and drank homemade eggnog. Our little party broke up, reluctantly, just after midnight.

  As Chris and I got ready to go, Karen hugged me and told me she was sorry that I couldn’t go to their church’s candlelight service the next morning and extracted a promise from me to attend church with her sometime after my visit to California. Then she told us all ‘Merry Christmas’ and headed off to bed. Hannah hugged me, too, and told me she was glad I’d come over. She thanked me, again, for her Christmas gift and told me to have fun on my trip.

  Once we were outside, Chris stopped me with a hand on my arm.

  “It’s late. You’re welcome to stay at my place.”

  “I think that’s a good plan,” I admitted. I was tired, and I didn’t feel like driving back across town.

  I followed Chris back to his house and got ready for bed – a process which involved washing my face, brushing my teeth with one of those horrible little Barbie-sized disposable pseudo-toothbrushes, setting the alarm on my phone, and stripping off my boots, socks, and jeans. I contemplated sleeping arrangements for about ten seconds before inviting myself into Chris’s bed. He greeted me with open arms – literally – and I snuggled as close to him as physics would allow.

  “Merry Christmas,” I told him.