NOTHING IN THIS HOUSE HAS CHANGED but me.
The pencil dashes Mama made charting my height from childhood and through adolescence still mark the kitchen wall. The same white and green hand-made eyelet curtains hang at the window over the sink. Many a night after dinner, I’d stand here washing dishes, watching Mama cross the yard to her work shed out back where she canned vegetables from our garden, made her soaps, and jarred preserves. She could have done that here in the house, but I think she had Mr. McClausky build that little shed as an escape. As one of the few places she truly had to herself. With Glory Bee below, me sleeping across the hall, and Aunt Ruthie within snoring distance, there wasn’t much room. I know because near the end, I felt these walls closing in on me. With death hovering over our little house and the demands of Mama’s illness heavy on my back, there was barely room to dream. And when Mama could no longer leave her bed, I’d slip off to that little shed to see if there was any peace out there. To my dismay, all I found were shelves of Ball jars stuffed with fruits and vegetables, captured at their peak of freshness. I hope that little shed offered Mama more than that, but I’ve never been sure.
“You up here, babe?” Rhyson asks from the living room.
I heard him clomping up the steps that lead to our little place above the diner, but I was too caught up in memory to offer my help. Not that I’m much help. For all my blustering that I felt better and was ready to go home, my body is worn down. What the infection didn’t ravage, exhaustion did. All bold and sure when I was stretched out in a hospital bed and freshly un-sedated, but I was embarrassingly weak the first time I tried to even get out of that bed. Aunt Ruthie had to help me to the bathroom. Rhyson left the room, faking a phone call, but I know seeing me like that made him furious.
I don’t know how much time I have before he brings up Malcolm’s contract, but I know it’s not long. I seem to have quite a growing list of things I’m too embarrassed to share with him. First the sex tape from a one-night stand with a guy he detests, and now a bad deal I foolishly signed when we were apart, which I see no way out of.
Yay, me.
“Pep!” he calls again.
“Sorry.” I go back into the living room, my legs still trembling a little from the climb up the stairs. “Let’s put the bags in my room.”
He follows me down the narrow hall leading to the room where I used to sleep, pausing by the room where Mama died. One thing in this house did change. Mama’s old room is now an office of sorts. A desk on one side, littered with invoices and bills. Mama’s old sewing machine, crammed in a corner, and baskets of what Mama used to call ribble rabble. Just crap you never can find the right place for. I don’t think Aunt Ruthie even sews. She just probably can’t make herself take that Singer down to Goodwill.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen these rooms again. I was here for Christmas, and all these things were the same and Mama’s room was already different. I think I feel it so profoundly this time because I’m so different. The girl who slept in this room listening to Rhyson’s music never imagined he’d be standing by her bed.
“This okay?” He places my bags at the foot of the bed.
“Yeah, that’s cool.” I lift up on my toes, wrapping my arms around his neck, waiting for the familiar weight and heat of his hands to settle just below the curve of my hips.
“Where are you?” he whispers in my ear.
I know what he means.
“What do you mean?” I ask anyway.
“You’re in your head or something.” He toys with the end of the braid looping over my shoulder. “You okay?”
I nod because I can’t put words to it yet. I would sound crazy if I told him I envy that girl with her simple life waking to make biscuits before sunup. That girl with the hope of a dream burning in her bright and strong. That girl who never considered sex tapes and sketchy contracts. Her life, though hard, was open and honest. With the tour behind me, Rhyson wanting to go public, and that sex tape still hanging over my head, I’m wrapped in lies. The girl I thought was so lost back then was in many ways much more sure than I am now.
“Really?” Rhyson searches my eyes. It’s such a blessing and half a curse how attuned we are to one another. You tend to pay close attention to someone you’re obsessed with, and we’re happily obsessed with one another.
“I promise I’m fine.” It’s not a lie, but it’s not the whole truth. Half-truths are becoming a habit.
“Coming here was a great idea.” The palm of his hand cups my chin. “Fresh air. No commitments.”
He leans down to drop a quick kiss on my lips.
“No worrying that someone will find out we’re together.” He pulls back, cocking one brow. “I don’t have to pretend I’m not crazy about you here, do I?”
Instead of answering, I lift up to kiss him, my hands sneaking inside his leather jacket and under his t-shirt, gliding over the warm muscles of his back. I pursue the kiss, deepening it, making promises with my lips and tongue that my body longs to make good on. He squeezes my butt, brushes his fingertips across my breast, caresses my neck, rediscovering what’s his as I rediscover what’s mine.
The sound of Aunt Ruthie entering from downstairs and closing the door slows our kiss, little by little until we’re just brushing lips and holding on. Rhyson pulls back, sucking in air, bracing his hands on my shoulders and caressing my throat with his thumbs.
“I’m gonna sleep on the couch.” His eyes slip over the simple button down shirt clinging at my breasts and the curve of my hips in my jeans. “It feels like forever since that night in Berlin, and as I’m sure you noticed my dick is quite hard, but yeah. The couch. I may not share Aunt Ruthie’s beliefs, but I don’t want to disrespect them under her roof.”
Just when I think I couldn’t love him anymore, he goes and does or says something to prove I have no idea how much this guy holds my heart.
“Yeah. OK.” I grab his hand and lead him over to the bed where I slept growing up. “Just lie down with me for a little while. Talk to me for a bit while I fall sleep.”
He peers down at me, and I know he’s searching my face for signs of exhaustion. He’ll find them. The lines around my mouth. The smudges under my eyes. The heavy eyelids fatigue keeps dragging downward.
“Please.”
I pull him to the bed with me, squeezing against his broad chest.
“I used to listen to your music in here every night before I’d fall asleep,” I whisper.
“So in a way, I was with you back then.” He smiles against my cheek.
“In a way, yeah.”
“I want to be with you every step of the way.” I can almost hear his hesitation. A pause that says so much before he voices it. “Kai, it doesn’t have to be tonight, but we need to talk about your contract with Malcolm.”
I knew this would come, but was hoping it wouldn’t be day one.
“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m with him for two years.”
“But what are the terms?” he presses. “I’d buy your contract out. You know I would. I’ve wanted you on Prodigy for a long time. Malcolm mismanaging you on your first tour, compromising your health—”
“No one knew I was sick, Rhys. I didn’t even know how much.”
“Yeah, but—”
A light rap on the open door stops whatever he would have said. Aunt Ruthie stands at the entrance, her eyes moving between the two of us facing each other on the bed.
“You guys okay in here?” She leans into the doorjamb, one fist on her hip. “Ya hungry?”
Rhyson sits up, looking back and pushing a chunk of hair behind my ear, traces my eyebrows with his thumb.
“I think we’re just tired.” He smiles, some of the irritation from our contract discussion clearing from his face. “Especially this one.”
“Well, get some rest.” Aunt Ruthie turns to go.
“Could I get some sheets and a blanket for the couch?” Rhyson walks over to where Aunt Ruthie stands. Surprise flits across her face before she looks back at me on my bed.
“Sure,” she says. “Oh. Kai, I know you’re just getting back, but Mr. McClausky wanted to cook chicken in the pot for you tomorrow. He’s the only one I told about you coming home.”
“Chicken in the pot?” Rhyson looks between the two of us. “Is this a thing?”
“It’s my favorite thing.” My lips are almost too tired to grin, but I manage. “And, yeah, Aunt Ruthie, I’d love that. You can invite a few other folks you know won’t talk about us being here or make a big fuss. I’d love to see everybody who was here for Christmas dinner.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Aunt Ruthie smacks her hands together, eyes bright despite the lateness of the hour. “I’ll call ‘em all in. They’ll love seeing you. Well, I’m gonna turn in.”
She blows me an air kiss.
“See you in the morning. Sleep as late as you want.”
Aunt Ruthie leaves, and as much as I love Rhyson considering her beliefs, which were once mine, I want him crawling under the covers with me. Not to do anything other than hold me all night, but I can tell it’s important to him that Aunt Ruthie knows he’s behaving. I have no idea why, but I love him for it.
He digs into my suitcase until he finds one of my vintage nightshirts, tossing it to me.
“Put that on and go straight to sleep. Dr. Wells won’t be blaming me for your relapse.”
A wicked, wanton imp possesses me for one last hurrah before I surrender to the sleep dragging at my consciousness. I slip one button and then another loose on my shirt until the lacy edge of my pink bra peeks out.
“Why don’t you come put it on for me?” My raspy, barely-there voice sounds even huskier in the confines of my childhood bedroom.
“I don’t think so.” Rhyson leans out into the hall, looking in the direction Aunt Ruthie went. “There’ll be plenty of time for that when we get back to LA.”
“You’re kidding, right?” My mouth falls open. We haven’t made love in a month and he’s serious. “But we—”
“Kai, I want Aunt Ruthie to like me.” Fatigue and desire darken his eyes to slate.
“She does, Rhys, but I think she knows we sleep together. I was practically living with you a few months ago. I didn’t hide that from her. I didn’t have to.”
“I know. I just . . . Let me do this, okay?”
I never thought I’d be the one pushing for sex. The thought of me pressuring Rhyson to sleep with me makes me smile all the way into my dreams.