CHAPTER 27
Evan
Two months later…
Midge strides through the restaurant looking like she’s on the catwalk in Milan. She’s wearing a lavender sleeveless dress classically cut with matching lavender pumps and a cream-color cardigan over her toned shoulders. Many of the men, most way younger than her, turn their heads to watch her strut by.
I stand up from my chair as she approaches, and she walks into my arms for a long hug. She leans back, still holding on tight to my upper arms, and lets her eyes roam all over my face. Finally, in a rare display of emotional affection, she murmurs, “I’ve missed you, kiddo.”
“Missed you too,” I say gruffly.
She squeezes my arms and releases me before sitting elegantly in the chair adjacent to mine. We’re at a table that seats four, but it’s tucked away in the corner of this upscale, downtown steakhouse. I’m vaguely aware of the people chittering around us, as I was immediately recognized when I walked in five minutes ago, and of course, Midge always makes a grand entrance.
Our waiter appears practically out of thin air, and Midge and I order drinks. A pineapple martini for her, a beer for me.
“Well,” she says dramatically when the waiter leaves. “Tell me all about it.”
She’s asking about my concert tour, of course. It’s over and now I’m back in Raleigh, getting my bearings and gearing up for the next chapter in my musical career.
Smiling fondly, I tell her the simple truth. “It was amazing. I was nervous as shit each time I went out on that stage, but then I always settled, and it always felt… just so right. I can’t wait to do it again.”
She nods in agreement. “You were amazing in New York. Never been more proud of you. I’m sure your parents are too.”
Midge had flown there to see me perform. It wasn’t a surprise, as she’d have liked, but without a manager to help arrange such surprises, she felt it best to give me a head’s-up she was coming. She watched from backstage and her presence there felt really damn good.
I cock an eyebrow at her over the comment about my parents. They’d been invited to all my shows but hadn’t attended one yet. “You really want to go there, Aunt Midge?”
She gives me a sheepish grin. “Well, I’m sure they’d be if they ever bothered to care about anyone but themselves.”
This is not typical of Midge. She usually plays the peacemaker in the tumultuous relationship I have with my parents. I rebelled a lot as a younger kid, craving the attention of parents who just didn’t have it in them to give. When Midge stepped in and took over as the main role model in my life, she did so with a determined effort for me to never forget my mom and dad.
It was a valiant attempt by her, but over the years, I stopped caring. They lived happy and fruitful lives and well, so have I. Midge gave me everything I could ever need, and continues to do so.
“Let’s get a little business out of the way,” she says, her voice going from doting proud aunt to shrewd legal shark. “The copyright lawsuit’s been dismissed and all the papers filed.”
“Awesome,” I say. Because it is. Midge took over the case since Emma left, and she got my former bandmates to agree to a lump sum of seventy-five thousand, which I assume they split three ways. They also signed a confidentiality agreement and I am now free from that drama.
“I’ve also gone over the breach-of-contract suit,” she says briskly. “He doesn’t have a leg to stand on, but I’m betting he’s going to drag this out all the way. He’s looking for a quick payday and will probably jump at any offer you make to him.”
I grimace. The “him” she’s referencing is Tyler. Two weeks ago, a sheriff’s deputy served me in Washington D.C. with a lawsuit Tyler filed against me for breach of contract and wrongful termination. Figures that fucker would still want to take a piece of me, which infuriates me considering all I lost because of him.
“Don’t offer him a fucking dime,” I growl at her from across the table. “Not one penny. Drag this out for years if you have to, and if you want to make him suffer in the process, that would make me very, very happy.”
Midge chuckles. “That’s definitely part of my DNA swimming in your veins. Never one to back down from a fight.”
“Damn skippy,” I mutter. “Now let’s move on to more pleasant things to discuss.”
We continue to chat, getting caught up on each other’s lives. While we talked frequently by phone while I was on tour, it wasn’t the same as just good old one-on-one time with a loved one. Midge spends a great deal of time talking about Cary, and this is done with an unbreakable smile on her face. It amazes me still how much she’s changed since she started seeing him. I swear, if it’s possible, she actually looks even younger because of it.
The waiter brings our drinks.
We order thick ribeye steaks with fried Brussel sprouts.
We talk about everything under the sun.
Well, almost everything.
“So, Cary and I are thinking about taking a trip in the fall,” Midge says as she daintily cuts off a piece of steak.
“Oh, yeah?” I ask. “Where are you going to go?”
She shrugs as she holds the steak poised on the tip of her fork. “We’re batting around a few ideas. Maybe Europe.”
“Sounds great,” I say with a smile. She gives me a pensive look, puts the steak in her mouth, and delicately chews as she stares at me.
After she swallows, she points the fork at me. “Want to come with us? You could use a vacation.”
I’m shaking my head in the negative. “A romantic trip to Europe and you drag your nephew along? No thanks. Not into being a third wheel.”
Midge chuckles and puts her fork down. Picking up her second martini, she rotates her wrist to swirl the liquid before taking a sip. When she sets the glass down, she looks at me slyly. “You don’t have to be a third wheel. You could bring someone.”
I thought that empty feeling would have diminished by now, but every time I think of what could have been with Emma, my chest cramps from a deep hollowness within.
While I had promised myself I was not going to ask Midge about Emma, I find myself almost obsessively curious about her right now. I’ve purposefully refrained from bringing her up to Midge over the course of the last few months as she has intimate knowledge about Emma and what she’s up to. While I refused to ask it didn’t mean that I wasn’t always secretly hoping Midge would drop me a little nugget of information that would appease my curiosity, but she never did. I think she was trying to make me suffer for the fact that I refused to reach out to Emma, particularly after she sent me that email telling me not to take the Phoenix deal. I didn’t know what to make of it, but ultimately… it didn’t matter. She clearly wasn’t moving past the “incident” because she didn’t say a damn word about it. Didn’t ask me how I was doing or if I was lonely, or tell me she missed me.
Her message was blunt and to the point, and totally nothing more than some legal advice, I’m sure.
So I moved on.
Sort of.
Not really.
“So how’s Emma doing?” I ask casually even though I swore to myself a million times today that I wouldn’t ask. I keep my gaze on my steak as I cut a piece.
She doesn’t answer me, and I’m forced to look up. She’s staring at me in amusement. “It’s about time you asked.”
I shrug like it doesn’t matter. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I was just making some conversation.”
“Sure you were,” she says with a chuckle. She doesn’t say anything else, and that totally grates on my nerves.
But because I’m a stubborn son of a bitch, and I’m not feeling up to amusing her further, I change the subject. “I’m thinking of selling my house and getting something a little smaller.”
“She’s in Asheville,” Midge says, finally answering my question, and that causes a jolt of surprise to spear through me.
“What?” I ask, completely forgetting about my totally fake plans to downsize just to make conversation.
“She moved to Asheville a few months ago,” she says nonchalantly. “Had me get her a job at an old law school buddy’s firm, doing mergers and acquisitions.”
I stare at Midge, slack jawed as that sinks in. I realize with brutal clarity I had some level of comfort being back in Raleigh, knowing Emma was just miles away from me if I ever got the nerve to go see her. But she’s clear across the state now, and that couldn’t be a clearer message to me.
Feels like I lost her all over again.
“Oh,” is all I can say. I put my fork and knife down on my plate and push it away, no longer feeling hungry.
“Totally a coward move,” Midge adds on. “And frankly, I thought she was a little conceited for doing so.”
“Pardon?” I ask, completely off kilter now from the frosty tone of Midge’s voice.
Midge leans across the table a bit and says in a low, judgmental voice. “It’s clear, Evan. She thought you would return and try to woo her back, and she knows how devastatingly charming you can be. So she made the decision to cut and run, and she’s probably betting you’ll come running after her. She wants to lead you on a merry chase across the state.”
I’m shaking my head. “She’s not like that.”
“Of course she is,” Midge scoffs. “Conceited and self-centered if you ask my opinion. I mean, you explained everything to her, and she didn’t even give you the courtesy of considering the truth. You’re probably better off to be rid of her.”
One of my eyebrows slowly rises upward and I give Midge a sardonic smile. “Really? You’re taking that tack with me?”
She grins slyly across the table. “Is it working?”
“No, Midge,” I tell her truthfully. “You can’t bait me into doing something about this whole fiasco. Ball’s in Emma’s court.”
She shrugs. “Fine. Sit around and wait until you get gray hair. You’re missing out on some happiness.”
“Emma’s made her choice,” I remind her, sounding determined to my own ears but knowing deep inside that I’d do anything to get her back.
“Whatever,” she says dismissively. “So, back to our fall trip. Cary and I are thinking of taking a month off, maybe more.”
“That’s great,” I say half-heartedly, because while I didn’t like anything she just told me about Emma, I still enjoyed at least talking about her. The hollowness returns with a vengeance.
“It is great,” she agrees. “I’m looking forward to it. No work. No stress. No obligations.”
“You deserve it.”
“I’m glad you think so,” she says bluntly “Because you’re going to have to find another attorney to represent you against Tyler’s lawsuit. I won’t have time, and the responsive pleadings will be due when I’m gone.”
My jaw drops. “You can’t be serious?”
“Dead serious,” she says. And oh yeah… that look in her eyes.
Absolutely serious.
“Assign another attorney in the firm,” I challenge her.
“No can do, nephew,” she says with a sweet smile. “They’re all too busy.”
“You have almost seventy attorneys,” I say in exasperation.
“And all of them are just so very busy,” she coos at me.
“You’re a pain in my ass,” I mutter, but secretly inside… I’m glad she’s cutting me off.
That means I have to find a new attorney to help me, and it appears I know of one such other person who could be right for the job.