I wasn’t sure who was more nervous. Me or Tommy. Or Peter. Peter was probably losing his mind, he was so nervous.

Tommy drove up the mountain to the farm, both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road because the road was treacherous. But I was watching him.

“You sure you want to do this?” I asked, my legs curled up under the white skirt I was wearing. I wasn’t sure why I was wearing a skirt, except that it seemed like maybe a skirt kind of occasion.

“It was my idea,” Tommy said, glancing for just a second off the road, and of course we hit a pothole so deep our teeth rattled.

“Yeah, but I feel like maybe I pressured you.”

“You didn’t, babe.”

It was funny in this place we were in, all either one of us had to do was suggest something and we’d run over ourselves to try and make it happen. Not out of guilt—that had burned out after our first real fight. Guilt was not a sustaining emotion. That’s what my counselor said.

No, we just were in the business of making each other happy. Big things. Small things. If Tommy wanted it, I did what I could to get it for him. And he was almost worse.

Or better? Yeah. He was better.

Two weeks ago I told him I wanted to drive up to see Peter. And now…here we were.

“I could have done this by myself,” I said. “You didn’t have to come.”

“You’ve made that clear, Beth,” he said, all dry and sarcastic.

Finally we got to the top of the mountain, the trees overhead breaking up to let in great streams of sunlight. Tommy parked and turned off the engine on our truck, and we sat there for a while, staring at the house.

The dogs came around, barking.

The back door opened, and Peter came out, looking frail.

“Oh,” I breathed. “He looks old.”

Tommy beside me was silent.

“Should I feel more?” he asked.

“I think you should feel whatever you feel.”

“I just… I don’t have the energy to be angry anymore.”

“I fucked that out of you,” I said with a joke and saucy smile when he smiled at me.

“You did. It took some time, but you fucked the anger right out of me.”

I touched his face, stroked his hair. Because I liked it and he needed it. He told me once, a few months ago, that everything was better when I touched him, so like the lovesick sap I was, I touched him all the time.

“I just don’t know how I feel,” he said.

“Well,” I said, because we’d been in this car a long time and I needed to pee, “maybe we can figure it out, outside the car.”

He smiled, and we both stepped out of the car.

“Hi!” Peter said, stepping out of the shadows toward us. He’d dressed up too a little in that he’d bothered to button his shirt the right way. We didn’t hug, because he didn’t do that, but we smiled at each other.

“Hi, Peter,” I said, my heart full of love for this complicated old man.

Pest came bounding out of the backseat when Tommy opened the door, and Peter’s dogs got to their feet and wagged their tales at the sight of her, all past transgressions forgotten.

Peter was still smiling over my shoulder, though he looked like he was trying to rein it in.

“Tommy, how was traffic?” he asked like it hadn’t been six months since they’d seen each other. I’d been up a few times without Tommy, but this was his first return trip.

“Fine once we got out of LA,” he said.

Peter nodded like that made sense. “Come on in, there’s food in the back.”

He turned and shuffled through the back door, heading through the house to get to the patio. I turned toward the side of the house, ready to walk to the back without going through the minefield of pictures and mementos Peter had in the house. It’s not like he had a lot, but they were powerful and I was pretty sure Tommy wasn’t interested in getting blown up.

But to my surprise, Tommy opened the back door, held open the screen so I could go in first. For a guy raised by wolves, he had the sweetest manners.

“You sure?” I asked.

“I’m not scared of anything in here,” he said. And if I’d fucked the anger out of him, I knew I’d loved the fear out of him. Just like he’d loved the fear out of me. The lies, too.

We walked through the dark house, Tommy behind me. I didn’t look to see if he stopped to gaze at the picture of his mother on the fridge. Or the framed one of him as a baby on the table by the couch. I let him have those seconds to himself.

I stepped onto the patio, sunlit and warm. The table in the corner was already set up for us. Ploughman’s lunch on the faded yellow and pink tablecloth because that was all Peter made.

“How’s the rain?” I asked him.

“Not enough of it. How is the album?”

“Not enough of it,” I said. “But it’s getting there.”

After I’d left here with Tommy, we’d gone back to Los Angeles. I filed a restraining order against my mom, and she’d faded, mostly into the back pages of the tabloids. My record company dropped me. And there’d been no more European tour. Thank God for makeup and Tommy’s construction skills; we didn’t starve. Because my assistant, Beth, had been right all along and every contract I’d signed had been a shitty mercenary contract and we actually had to hire a lawyer so I wasn’t sued.

But four months after everything calmed down, the music came back.

It was Tommy’s idea to make an album. And Tommy had all the best ideas.

I was doing the album on my own. Katy Perry was being super cool and letting me use her studio and sound guys.

It might turn out to be nothing, nothing at all. And I was fine with that. Because the music was back and that was enough for me.

Tommy came out onto the porch behind me.

“Come,” Peter said, never a very comfortable host. “Let’s eat.”

We made our way over to the table and I wanted—because I was more nervous than I let on—to shield Tommy’s eyes from the hard-boiled eggs. Like they might hurt him.

Dumb, I know. But he’d just already been hurt enough.

“How is your work going?” Peter asked Tommy. “Beth said you got a promotion.”

Tommy knew when I came up, I answered Peter’s questions about him. And that I wouldn’t say anything if Tommy didn’t want me to, so worried about betraying him, even a little. But Tommy was cool with it.

“I did. I’m a crew foreman now. We’re working on a bungalow in Santa Monica.”

“Renovations?”

“And restorations,” Tommy said, making awkward small talk. I loved him so much. It hurt how much I loved him. The kind of ache that made me wish my body was bigger so I could hold it better.

“You like it?”

Tommy nodded. “I like the guys. I’m good at the organizing. Never thought I’d be good with budgets.” He shrugged. “But it looks like I am. I don’t have my hands on the tools much anymore, and I’m okay with that too.”

“Your grandmother was an accountant,” Peter said and then stopped, his neck all red with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… I know you don’t want to hear—”

Tommy blew out a big breath, and I held mine. This was not my situation to figure out; I knew that. I couldn’t do this for him.

“I don’t know if we’re family,” Tommy said. “I don’t know what that is outside of Beth. But I don’t hate you. And I’m not mad. Not anymore. When I think of you I’m just…I’m really sad.”

Goddamn it. I told myself I wasn’t going to cry today.

“I’m sad, too,” Peter said.

“I know you are,” Tommy sighed, and I knew Tommy’s sighs like I knew my laptop. That sigh wasn’t forgiveness. But it was acceptance. They might never be family. But they could be…something.

“Let’s eat,” I said. “I’m starving.”

We sat around the table, passing platters of avocados and tomatoes. I handed Tommy the bowl of eggs, and he picked one up and held it in his hand for a second before putting it on his plate.

“Tell me about your wife,” he said all at once. “Betsey. Tell me about her.”

Peter looked, I swear to God, like the heavens had opened up. Like the chance to talk about the woman he loved and missed with someone who shared her blood was a gift he’d never dreamed of getting.

I reached over and grabbed Tommy’s hand under the table, holding on to him so hard there was no chance I’d ever let go.

Because when it came to gifts you never saw coming—like light out of the worst kind of darkness—I knew exactly what that was like.

And I got the very best one.

Suddenly Tommy’s phone chimed, and he winced. “Sorry,” he said. “It might be work. We have the roofers coming today.”

“It’s fine,” Peter said, and Tommy pulled his phone out of the back pocket of his dark blue pants. One glance at the screen, though, and his face went deathly white.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Simon,” he said, looking up at me with stricken eyes. “It’s time for him to pay the debt.”

* * *

Thank you so much for reading WHERE I BELONG! I hope you enjoyed it! If you have a chance, I hope you’ll leave a review. Reviews – good or bad – help readers find books.

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