Page 19

I stand up too fast. My throat burns and chest hurts and head spins. I bump into the table behind the couch. Willow notices the sound and looks my way.

“Everything okay?” Willow mouths, her head tilting toward me as she brushes a curl from Poppy’s cheek.

“Yeah. I just ... I’ll be back.”

I step out of the room, into the hallway, and away from all of it. I lean against the wall and drag a hand down my face.

It’s all perfect.

Too perfect.

And I don’t know how to exist inside perfect without breaking something.

I need air. To get out of here. To ... get some space. I head toward the garage, slam the door behind me, and do the only thing I can—Idrive.

Through the Hollywood Hills, past the winding streets that know me too well. I roll the windows down and blast music loud enough to drown out the voice in my head in an attempt to make my own rhythm in its place.

My fingers tap against the steering wheel—a chord, a beat, a melody I don’t understand that’s inside of me, fighting its way out.

I drive until the traffic fades and the chaos dies down. Until the ache in my chest eases and doesn’t feel like it’s going to suffocate me.

I hit the Pacific Coast Highway and head for Santa Monica where the sun’s dipping now and will soon cast its colors over the horizon. The beach has always held peace for me so I’m grateful that I find an empty spot to pull into amid the grifters, the diehard surfers, and the tourists.

The beach is a place where everybody belongs, regardless of how fucked up their life is, and right now I feel that more than anything.

But my life isn’t fucked up. That’s the catch, isn’t it? It’s just ... changed at the drop of a dime. How do you adjust and adapt to something you never saw coming? How do you look at something you unknowingly created and try to love it when you’ve always felt that part of you was broken?

Fuck, man.

I take in everything around me. The waves crashing in the distance. The tourists strolling along the boardwalk and taking pictures of the sunset. And I just sit in my car andbreathe.

But my heartbeat doesn’t go back to normal.

I don’t think it ever will.

My phone buzzes against the console. I expect it to be Willow. It’s Vince. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.

Vince can read me like a book. There’s no hiding anything from him, and no doubt he’ll most likely hand me my ass. Motherfucker.

I sigh and answer.

“Hey. You good, man?” he asks.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because you missed our call with the label.”

“Fuck.” Shit . I could blame it on the wives coming over, but I don’t even try. I tell him the truth. “It slipped my mind. I have a lot going on. I didn’t—”

“Fine. Whatever. We covered for you, but ... you don’t miss shit like that.” He pauses and lets the concern loaded in his voice wash over me. “You okay?”

I open my mouth to speak, but words don’t come out—just a strangled sound instead.

“You’re spiraling. Nothing else needs to be said. Where are you?” he asks.

“The piano bar.”

He chuckles at our inside joke that this is where I write my best music. “I should’ve assumed. The waves big?”

“Can’t say I’m paying attention,” I say, eyes fixed on the stretch of Pacific outside my windshield.

“Valid.” He pauses. “You working your shit out? You writing music? Did our wives drive you to walk into the ocean and never come back? ”

I chuckle at that.

“Seriously though, do I need to come get you because you’re gonna cause trouble?”

“No,” I say through an exhale. “I’m good. Well, not really. I just need ...”

“To breathe?” he finishes for me.

“Something like that.” Poppy on the counter with her little bare feet crossed and her pigtails bouncing flash through my mind.

“You drinking?”

If I have any more visuals like that, I’m going to be.

“Not yet,” I murmur. “Most likely not far off though.”

Another pause. Just long enough to mean something. “Don’t do anything stupid, Rock.”

My chuckle sounds bitter. “Never.”

“That wasn’t too convincing.”

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

He cusses softly, and it sounds like he scrubs a hand over his face.

“When you’re in a better headspace, remind me to tell you about the time I found out about Jagger,” he says, referring to his son.

“How Hawkin had to bail me out of jail at two in the morning because I punched a guy and then sat in the bed of a truck—probably not too far from where you might be right now—for a long time while Hawke straightened my ass out.”

A real laugh escapes me this time. “At least I haven’t punched anyone out.”

“ Yet .”

“Yes. Yet .” I twist my lips as the horizon swallows the last bit of the sun. “I’m an asshole, right? Like she just lost her mom, and I’m here feeling sorry for myself that I have to grow the fuck up when I don’t want to.”

“Or maybe you’re worried you have to actually be the man you thought you could never be.”

And there he goes with the zinger.

“Christ,” I mutter.

“Feel the emotions, brother. Own them. It’ll be easier to come to terms with them than it will be to keep outrunning them.”

I stare out at the crashing waves. At the last remnants of color fading to dark on the horizon.

“I don’t know how,” I admit.

“You don’t have to know. Just don’t run from it. Especially not now.”

“That’s all I know how to do. ”

His silence tells me he understands, but doesn’t want to hijack my feelings or my confusion, by telling me about his experience in a similar situation. He knows that’ll make me feel pathetic, and I’m grateful that he stays silent.

“Here’s what you need to do. You need to go find a bar and then park your car.

Go in. Get shitfaced if you’d like. Don’t if you don’t.

Leave your keys with the bartender, and I’ll get your car picked up and brought home for you.

Do what you need to do. Drink. Fuck. Cry.

Rage. Whatever it is that helps, but when you walk through the door of your house, you need to not bring that back with you. ”

I grunt.

“It’s going to be okay. I promise. Just ... remember we love you, okay? Even if you don’t believe in that shit.”

I grunt, throat too tight to do much more.

Then I end the call.

Because if I say anything else, the pieces I’ve held together for the past week are going to crack open completely.

And if they do, I’m afraid I won’t be able to put them back.

Vince is right. I start the engine. I drive back over the roads I took hours ago and end up parked in the lot of a dark, seedy-as-fuck bar. Perfection.

I sit there for a few minutes before I go in, alone with my silence and the weight of two words I never thought I’d hear.

She’s yours.

And I wonder what it’s going to take to finally believe it.

And if I will ever be able to father a little girl who has no one else.