Chapter 11
After two weeks of being without Lane, I still missed her like crazy. Life just wasn’t the same without her.
I rolled over and I picked up my cell and searched out her number. I needed her voice to be the first thing that I heard in the mornings. It was our new morning call routine and it was one of the only things that kept me going.
It rang a couple times before Lane’s groggy voice answered. “Hey.”
“Hey, baby. I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“Oh, no. I was awake.”
My brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m feeling a little sick again,” she answered.
“Are you having the same symptoms as before?” I questioned again.
“I wish.” She sighed. “I’m been sick to my stomach all morning.”
I rubbed some sleep from my eye. “You’ve been throwing up?”
“Yeah, but thank God I was able to bring Mom home after surgery last night. It would’ve been hell to feel like this at the hospital.”
I sat up in bed and then tossed my legs over the edge. “I’m coming down there.”
“Noel, you have shows to do.”
I shook my head even though she couldn’t see me and hopped out of bed. “To hell with the shows, Lane. You need me, I’m coming down.”
My suitcase was out on the bed before I even finished my last sentence.
“I’m fine, really.” She was trying to convince me, but I knew she needed me. Kathy needed help getting around after her surgery, and Lane wouldn’t be much help to her if she wasn’t a hundred percent herself.
“I’m taking the next flight in what ever city we’re closest to.”
“Noel—”
“No more arguing about this, Lane. I want to come. Please don’t fight me.” I threw some clothes in the bag and zipped it up.
“Okay.” I could hear the reluctance in her voice but pumped my fist anyway.
“I love you, and I’ll see you soon,” I told her before I ended our call.
I carried my luggage to the front of the bus and dropped it near the steps. Riff and Tyke sat at the table eating breakfast, while Trip stood at the island finishing up a bowl of cereal.
Riff eyeballed it before he turned his gaze on me. “What the fuck is that?”
I shrugged and knew this wasn’t going to go over well with the guys. “I have to go, man.”
“Go where?” Trip asked wiping milk from his lip after slurping down what was left in his bowl.
“He’s going to Texas to be with Lane,” Riff answered.
“What about the rest of our shows?” Tyke asked with a frown on his face.
“We’ll have to cancel or postpone them, I suppose.” All three of my band mates stared at me like I’d grown a third eye. “Guys I’m sorry, but she needs me for a week or so. Her mom broke her leg, and she’s sick. I have to go.”
Riff flexed his jaw muscle, clearly pissed at my decision. “Fine. If you want to disappoint all the fans because you’re being selfish—”
“Selfish? This is the first time in my life I’m thinking of others.” I met each one of their stares individually. “I love her, guys. I have to be there when she needs me. I would really appreciate a little understanding on this.”
After a couple tense moments of silence, Riff rubbed his chin. “I guess pushing back the dates a couple weeks wouldn’t kill anybody.” Trip and Tyke nodded in agreement. “I’ll work on having them change the dates. It won’t be easy, and will be a total pain in my ass, but I’ll do it. Go take care of things.”
A grin crept up on my face. “Thanks guys, I’ll owe you one.”
I instructed the bus to turn off at the next exit before I went back and to wake Kyle, who was still fast asleep in his foxhole to tell him I needed a ride. In just a few short hours, I would see Lane again. The thrill of it excited me more than the biggest rush of playing live music to thousands of screaming fans.
Four hours later, I landed in Houston and picked up my rental car. The solitary drive was a nice change. It was very rare now-a-days to be completely alone. The silence was welcomed.
When I pulled into the driveway of Lane’s childhood home, old memories of when we were in high school flooded me. I’d pull into this drive and honk my horn. Lane would come bouncing down the walkway and would hop in the passenger seat of my Chevelle. That was when life was simple.
I knocked on the front door, and Lane answered the door with a huge smile. “Hey!”
She was cheerful. A complete change from when I talked to her on the phone a few hours ago. “Feeling better?”
“Much! I don’t know what was wrong with me this morning. I couldn’t stop throwing up and every smell made me nauseous.”
I grabbed her hand and pulled her outside with me, out of earshot of her mother. Alarms were going off like crazy in my head. “Do you think you’re pregnant? It’s been nearly four weeks since you saw that little munchkin looking doctor. It’s possible.”
Lane flinched. “No. I’m on birth control.”
“It’s not uncommon for birth control to fail if someone is on an antibiotic,” I told her.
She tilted her head and crunched her brow. “How would you know that?”
I shrugged and I felt my cheeks burn in my embarrassment. “I read up on pregnancies a lot when I thought I was going to be a father. As you know, there’s not much to do on that bus. A man can only stomach video games so long. Well, most men, anyway. The twins are addicted to them. So, I thought I would educate myself on babies.”
She dropped her head. “What would we do if that’s why I was sick this morning?”
I tipped her chin up with my index finger so she’d look at me. “We’d get married of course.”
She pulled away. “You can’t marry me because you feel guilty if I’m pregnant. I’m not Sophie.”
“Hey.” I wrapped my arms around her waist. “What we have is real. Sophie doesn’t even exist on your level. A baby for us wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
She shook her head. “I still wouldn’t want you to ask me solely because of it though. This isn’t the 1800s. We can have a baby and not marry.”
The temptation to dig the ring out of my luggage was overwhelming. If I gave it to her now, she’d never believe I’d had it before there was even a possibility of a baby. She would think I bought it on the way down here because I suspected she was pregnant after the way I had just jumped to the conclusion right off the bat.
I would just have to wait and plan out a beautiful proposal to make things perfect. She needed to know we could be perfect together and my reasoning for wanting to get married came straight from the heart.
She laid her head against my chest. “Now curiosity is killing me. Do you mind sitting with Mom while I run to the drugstore to buy a test?”
I ran my fingers through her dark hair. “Sure.”
A half an hour later, Lane returned from the drugstore with a plastic bag in her hand. While she snuck off to the upstairs bathroom to take the test, I drummed my fingers on the arm of the couch and watched television with her mom. It was hard to believe the balance of my life would be determined by a ten-dollar test.
“Noel!” Lane called from upstairs.
I swallowed hard. “I’ll be right back, Kathy.”
I took the steps two at a time as I raced up to Lane. She waited in the doorway of her room. After she yanked me inside her bedroom, she plopped down on her bed. Tears filled her eyes before they rolled down her cheeks.
I instantly dropped to my knees in front of her and took her hand in mine. “Whatever it said, it’s going to be okay.”
She sniffed and batted away a couple tears. “You think a baby bed will fit on that tour bus?”
“Oh my God.” I wrapped my arms around her waist. It was true, we probably weren’t ready for this, but it didn’t change the fact I was excited about the news.
I bit my lip and pulled back. I took her left hand in mine and peered up at her. “Lane, will you marry me?”
She shook her head. “No. I told you I won’t marry you just because of a baby. This is just a decision on a whim for you. I don’t want you to regret asking me or resent me later in life.” She stood up, leaving me still kneeling on the floor by her bed.
“Where are you going?”
She stopped just short of walking out the door. “I need time to think and adjust to this news.”
Watching her walk out and tell me no to one of the biggest dreams I’d ever had nearly crushed me.
I needed advice, and since I couldn’t ask Lane for it, I went to my go-to person. I pulled my cell from my pocket and dialed my mom’s number.
“Hi, honey. How are you?” Mom answered.
“I’m in need of some advice, actually. You got a minute?”
“All the time in the world for you. What’s up?”
I cleared my throat as I stood and walked over to the window. The dock was in perfect view from here. My hand pressed against the warm glass when I saw Lane at the end of it looking out over the lake. It hurt me to know she was sad and didn’t take my proposal seriously.
“Noel, you still there?” Mom’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
“Sorry, Mom, I’m here. I need your help. I want to plan the perfect proposal for Lane,” I said.
A giddy laugh echoed through the phone. It had been a long time since I’d heard Mom laugh like that. “I’d be honored to help. What do you have in mind?”
From there I broke into the entire story of how Lane and I reunited and how we were nearly torn apart by Sophie’s lies. I didn’t have to explain why I loved her so much to Mom. She knew. She always knew. I remembered how she would tell me how much she liked Lane and couldn’t wait until the day she officially became part of the family.
The only thing I couldn’t tell her was about the baby. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t feel right telling people before Lane was comfortable about the idea of letting our families know.
“So you’ll help me? Lane is taking Kathy for a follow-up appointment tomorrow, so we’ll have to work quickly.”
“We’ll decorate the dock and make it the most romantic thing she’s ever seen. There’s no way she won’t take you seriously after we’re done,” she gushed. “I’ll email you a list of everything you need to buy tomorrow. Just call me when you’re ready for me to come over to help.”