Page 185 of I Dreamt That You Loved Me

“Hey, Mom.” Auden gave me a big smile and a hug, and I held on a little too long and a little too tight, but he never complained.

“You did great.” I ruffled his messy hair like he was still five years old. “Did you have fun?”

“When it stops being fun, I won’t do it anymore,” he said, quoting his dad. He dodged and weaved like a boxer, sending a flurry of punches into the air. “I’m all jazzed up.”

I laughed.

I loved this kid so damn much.

Then it was Gabriel’s turn. After the hugs were out of the way, Auden clapped his hands together. “Are we going out to dinner now? I’m starving.” He looked at me with a hopeful smile. “Do you have any snacks in your purse?”

I was like his personal vending machine. I handed him some cheese sticks, an apple, and a granola bar.

For such a skinny kid, he sure could put away a lot of food.

“God. He’s just like you.” I elbowed Gabriel in the ribs. He clutched his side, pretending to be wounded. No mystery where Auden got his flair for the dramatic. “In every way,” I added.

Gabriel wrapped his arm around me and steered me up the street to the Escalade with tinted windows idling by the curb. “Not true. He inherited your sense of style.”

I guess Ididdress like that in the 90s, and for that brief period in the early 2000s after Auden was born too, so I couldn’t completely deny it. “I never owned a pair of Timberlands.”

Gabriel and I ducked our heads and dove into the back seat as the flashes went off.Click. Click. Click.

Auden was holding his cheese stick like it was a cigar. He blew fake smoke into the air before climbing into the front passenger seat where he’d have full command of the music after asking our driver if it would be okay.

“Jesus, how do you live like this?” Sean grumbled after he’d hustled my mom into the SUV and closed the door on the camera flashes.

“We just ignore it and go about our business,” Gabriel said with a shrug, like it didn’t affect him in the least when, in fact, he hated it with the passion of a thousand suns.

Unfortunately, this was part of our lives. Videos and photos and commentary on social media. Camera phones. Crazy fans. And the paparazzi.

When Auden was a toddler, we packed up and moved to a farm in Upstate New York to get away from it all. I’d envisioned myself making jam, baking bread, and doing yoga every morning. Gabriel had all these lofty dreams of growing his own vegetables, keeping chickens, and living off the land.

None of that came to fruition. Neither of us felt inspired to create art, much less bake bread or raise chickens, and despite the drawbacks of fame, we missed our life in the city. So, we moved back to our loft, and whenever we needed a break now, we retreated to our house in Montauk.

“That’s what happens when you marry a rock star,” I said with a sigh.

Gabriel shot me a scowl.

In the front seat, Auden was rapping to a sample melody he’d mixed himself. Just like his dad, he had music in his soul. “I think I’m gonna start a band,” he yelled over his shoulder.

“Oh, here we go,” Sean said, throwing up his hands. “Another rock star.”

My mom shushed him, laughing.

“What kind of band?” I asked, humoring him.

“A marching band,” Auden responded then snort-laughed. “A rock band. I’m already working on like two songs.”

“Yeah?” Gabriel perked up at that. “You need any help with the songwriting?”

“Nope. No offense, Dad, but I have my own ideas and my style is waaay different from yours.”

It took everything in me not to laugh at the look on Gabriel’s face.

“How could he possibly know what his style is?” Gabriel said under his breath. “He’sfourteen.”

I shrugged. “He’s been surrounded by music all his life.”