GETTING OVER YOU: a novel by:, page 30
“Cros, promise me we’ll keep writing though. I want you to help me write songs.”
“Always,” I said.
“Okay. Promise me something else.”
“You’re pushing your luck, Jonny.”
“Play your songs,” he said. “Seriously. Go back to it, Cros. Play your songs.”
“Worry about yourself,” I said. “And worry about where you’re going to get new flannels since you’re packing on those rough and tough country pounds.”
I patted his stomach and laughed.
“Asshole,” he muttered.
“Want some coffee? Want to write a song?” I asked.
“I’m actually leaving.”
“Leaving?”
“I flew back to talk to you.”
I froze. “What?”
“Jackie wants me to get into the studio today. He wants to cut a demo of my three songs. I wanted to talk to you first.”
“You could have called.”
“I wanted to talk to you in person, Cros. I thought I could convince you to come out there with me.”
“Jonny, you’re crazy. This is where I am right now. Maybe that will change. Maybe it won’t. Go do your thing. Cut the demo and send it to me.”
“That’s what I’m going to do then,” Jonny said. “Take care of yourself, Cros.”
“You too,” I said.
Jonny walked through the house and left.
I put my hands to the counter and couldn’t believe myself when I had the urge to cry. In some way, Jonny was my best friend. And I could go out there with him. Make something of myself. But I wasn’t done here.
I wasn’t ready to leave.
Probably never would be.
I walked to the dining room and touched the guitar I said I would never play that song again. As I slowly lifted it, my heart started to pound in my chest. I sat down and held the guitar. I shut my eyes and strummed the chords to the song I never got to finish.
The feel good thing would be to tell myself my nephew would have wanted me to keep going with music. But that was bullshit. Nicholas was just a kid. A kid who deserved a long and happy life.
As my mind started to slip off the slippery edge of guilt, there was a knock at the door. I stood up and put the guitar down and walked to the door.
I opened it and Josie stood there.
“Want to have a smoke?”
41
Play the Song… Play the song…
NOW
Josie
We sat on top step of the porch.
Almost shoulder to shoulder.
Mostly in silence as we both smoked.
The tension between us mounting by the second.
“Jonny’s moving to Nashville,” Crosby said.
“What?”
“He’s cutting a deal with Jackie. Recording a demo.”
“Wow.”
“I’m happy for him. Honestly. He’s good at what he does. He’s been hinting about it for a while. I think he was hoping I’d jump ship too.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked.
Crosby turned his head. “You.”
“Me…”
“Yeah. You. I don’t think I’d go anyway, but because of you, I’m stuck here. My feet are cemented to the damn ground, Josie.”
“Is this you being romantic or brutally honest?”
Crosby stood up and flicked his cigarette off the porch. “If you can’t take honesty, love, then what are you doing here?”
“What happened, Cros?” I asked as I stood up. “You said all that stuff to me and then left. And you didn’t come home. I was here. Looking for you.”
“You were looking for me?”
I licked my lips. “I came here, and you were gone. I ended up at the hospital, then a hotel, then back to the hospital.”
“How is Meadow?”
“She’s good. They’re staying in a hotel now. Corey said something about renting a furnished apartment until things get squared up.”
“Damn,” Crosby said. “That’s such a shame. Do they know anything yet?”
“Electrical,” I said. “I don’t know much else. I don’t know what they’re going to do. I… well… that’s their problem. Their life. I’m here for you, Cros.”
He laughed. “Here for me?”
“What you said was true,” I said. “What’s been happening between us. But it’s a two-way street. We were bouncing off each other, Cros. I gave you everything I had to give. I told you memories that I would never share with anyone else. Because I knew you were going through the same. I shared my heart… No. I gave you my heart. How could you say what you said about Denny? Yes. I loved him. Yes. There’s a part of me that still feels confused. But you’re my future, Cros. I gave you that…”
Crosby touched my arms. “I lost myself, Josie. I lost myself when Nicholas died. I lost myself when I started running, thinking I could change the past. And I lost myself when I fell in love with you. You were the distraction. You were the light. The life. The love I needed. As I carried Meadow out of the house, I realized I would never get to save Nicholas. It crushed me. I went to Cindi’s last night. I slept there.”
“Your sister? How did that go?”
“We’re okay,” Crosby said. “It’ll never be the same, but it’s not supposed to be. That’s what I realized. And when I look at you, Josie, I realized that I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything in my entire life. Beyond what happened. You’re my future too, love. But to stand there and be the one who shares your love with someone else…”
“Never,” I said. “Crosby. Never. I let that go. I told you that. We both wear scars. We can see them and touch them, but they don’t matter unless you know the story. We know our stories and here we are together.”
We shared silence again. Slowly, Crosby slid his hands down my arms until he touched my hands. His fingers slipped between mine and took a firm hold. He lowered his head down and touched his forehead to mine.
“I shouldn’t have said what I said,” he whispered. “Or let my mind discount your niece’s life.”
“You’re a hero, Cros. That’s all anyone sees.”
“And that makes everything feel worse.”
“I know that,” I whispered. “That’s why I’m here. That’s why I love you. So we can face our pain hand in hand and not let anything get in the way of what we want.”
“And what exactly is it that we want?”
“I have no fucking clue,” I said and smiled.
Crosby grinned. “I warned you not to fall for me. Loving me is going to drive you mad.”
“I already am mad.”
“Me too.”
Crosby inched his lips down to mine.
The kiss was soft, sweet, the stubble of his upper lip flirting with my upper lip.
I loved the way he smelled. I loved the way he tasted. I loved the way he made me feel.
“Hey, love,” he whispered with his lips still touching mine.
“Yeah?”
“I want to play a song for you…”
* * *
I stood with my hand over my mouth as I fought back the tears. Crosby played a guitar I’d never seen him play before and sang a song I’d never heard him sing either. The way he did it was so different too. He wasn’t just playing this song, he was living it. He was part of it. He was feeling it. This was the kind of musician Crosby was meant to be. Or maybe who he was before he lost his nephew.
As if I needed another reason to love him more, I now had it.
He strummed the last note of the song and stood up. He spun the guitar around and put it down and just stood there. Completely vulnerable to me.
“That’s the one I never finished, love,” he said.
I let out a shaky breath. “That was amazing, Cros. I mean it.”
“I feel like hell, but when I look at you, I feel okay.”
“I know,” I said.
“I want you forever, Josie. I want your messy clothes and messy hair. And your paintings. I want to see everything you do and see who you are all the time. Good times and bad. I want you here with me. And if this house isn’t what you want, then I’ll fucking leave right now.”
I rushed toward him and jumped into his arms.
As he held me, I felt the emotion finally win the battle.
Watching him walk away was hard to see. Not knowing where he was going or if I’d ever see him again. I never wanted to see that again. Wherever he went, I would go too.
Crosby sat down and kept me in his arms. I straddled him as his hands ran up to the sides of my body. The touch was anything but innocent and so were my thoughts that raced through my mind.
“I lost an ending once before,” I said. “I can’t lose this one. Whatever the ending is, Cros, I need to see it through.”
“And I saw an ending once before,” he said. “I want to see the ending to what we have.”
“So, are we just going to not get along?”
“On most things, yeah.”
“But we can still run and smoke?”
“Actually, I was thinking of taking a break from running,” Crosby said. He stood up, taking me with him again.
“Oh?”
“I have a better way of getting my heart racing,” he said. He kissed me. “I have a better way of getting in my cardio.” He kissed me again. “And I have a better way of torturing myself…”
His next kiss went to my neck.
He started to walk, and I hurried to reach out and managed to grab at the top of a guitar. It fell down with a loud booming echo.
“Sorry,” I said. “Right here, Cros.”
“What?” he asked.
“Right. Here.”
Crosby grinned.
He looked left to right and nodded.
Still holding me in his arms, he reached with his right hand and swiped it across the table, knocking away equipment and notebooks.
I let out a gasp, hoping he didn’t ruin anything.
My attention changed back to Crosby as he quickly opened my pants. My hands fought back at his pants.
It took a matter of seconds before we were both ready, his right hand flat to the table, his left hand between his legs.
“Private recording session, love?” he teased and nodded to the soundboard next to us.
“Private show,” I said back as I dug my nails into the back of his neck and pulled.
He kissed me and brought his body to mine.
I let out a gasp and put my head back.
Crosby kissed down to my neck and then to my ear.
“We’re here forever, Josie,” he whispered to me. “There’s no getting over you…”
I pulled at him, wanting more. Wanting the same as he did.
I opened my mouth to tell him I loved him, but no sound came out.
That was okay though…
I had the rest of my life to tell him how much I loved him.
Epilogue
Paint the Picture…
MONTHS LATER
Crosby
I kept a black hat on my head to let the bill cover my eyes. I wished I had more room to pace around because being in a little café left me with very little room. It wasn’t the first show I had played, but it was still the same feeling as I waited to get up on that stage and do my thing. The music mattered to me. The words mattered to me. And finding a way to keep people watching and being there with me was the most important thing.
When I took to the small corner stage, the applause was probably ten people. Most of them I already knew. Josie had taken it upon herself to invite her brother and his family. I reached out to Cindi, but she wasn’t able to make it. That was okay with me. Just being able to talk to her was good enough for now. I wasn’t sure what time would bring us, but as long as we had time, I was okay with it all.
The first time I looked out to the small gathering of people, I saw Jonny.
Standing in the back, leaning against the big window, looking proud and cocky all at the same time. He had been begging me to go out to Nashville to visit. But I knew how that would go. A visit would turn into being thrown into a recording studio. And Josie would be behind it all the way too. She wanted me to record my songs and get them out there. My compromise with both of them was to keep writing with Jonny as he took the music world by storm.
For Josie, she finally got her break with a small gallery showing through some woman she’d been working with for the park mural. At the showing she met someone who was putting together classes for painting with kids. Kait jumped at the chance to help too, which turned into a big project for Josie. She taught painting classes and took all the side work she could get.
My love was an artist, living the dream she had always wanted to have.
Our walls were filled with amazing paintings that were changed almost daily. The house was never settled and never really organized like a normal home should have been. And I loved every second of it. I loved sitting there, throwing together a new song while listening to Josie hum terrible sounding notes as she painted. The smell of her skin and the smell of her paint were forever the most intoxicating smells in the world.
We ran five times a week together.
We smoked a little less. But not much.
And we loved in a way that I never knew could exist.
I stood on the small stage and played my five songs with everything I had to give.
When I hit that last chord and thanked the people for being there, they all applauded. With a quick wave, I exited the stage to make room for the next person up to perform. Sometimes it dug at me that I wasn’t in Nashville with Jonny. But I couldn’t take Josie away from what she was doing now. She was amazing at teaching how to paint. The kids loved her, and she loved the kids. And I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with music. Just playing shows around the area was good enough for me.
I packed up my guitar and walked through the café as a woman stood on stage, reading poetry from a notebook. She read the poetry in a rhythm that was instantly addictive. Her passion and drive showed through the words and it caught my attention for a few seconds.
She had the place almost completely silent.
I saw my fan club standing near the door and pointed and nodded to go outside.
Outside, Josie attacked me with a hug and pulled me down for a kiss.
“You did so amazing,” she said. “Your best show ever.”
I always laughed when she called it a show. She was so adorable. And I loved her so much.
“Great job, Crosby,” Corey said.
We shook hands. “Thanks for coming.”
“That was good,” Kait said. “Very good sound.”
“I taught him everything he knows,” Jonny said.
“Yeah, right,” I said. “Mr. Big Shot here.”
I looked down at a yawning Meadow. “What did you think?”
I crouched to meet her at eye level.
“It was okay,” she said.
“Meadow,” Corey snapped.
“Just okay?” I asked.
“I mean, it didn’t change my life or anything.”
I started to laugh.
“Wow, she’s a tough critic,” Jonny said.
“You have no idea,” Josie said. “She tells it like it is.”
“What could I do to make it better?” I asked Meadow.
“Maybe add some lights,” she said. “Or lasers. Or some dance moves.”
“I’d pay to see that,” Jonny said.
I noticed a slight twang in his voice.
I looked up at him. “Are you changing the way you talk to fit in?”
“What?” he asked, looking flustered.
“That’s what I thought,” I said. I looked at Meadow again. “I will keep that in mind. I hope you’ll come to another show.”
“The hot chocolate was worth it,” she said.
“Good then.”
I stood back up and put an arm around Josie.
“We’re going to head home,” Kait said. “Way past bedtime.”
“For Meadow too,” Corey said.
“How’s the house search coming?” I asked.
“We’ve narrowed it down to two,” Kait said.
“Does it have a guesthouse?” I asked.
“Shut up,” Josie said.
“Not for you, love,” I said. “For me. When you finally kick my butt out.”
“Crosby, you’re welcome over anytime,” Corey said. “We owe you everything for the rest of our lives.”
I felt the sting in my heart.
Josie casually touched my back and tapped me three times.
That was her thing. When anyone brought up the fire and me rescuing Meadow, she would do that. To let me know she was there, because she understood what it all really meant.
“Well, we should get going,” Kait said.
I shook hands with Corey again. I hugged Kait. I offered a fist bump to Meadow, but she reached for a hug. I lifted her up and she squeezed me tight. Call it what you want, but I swore she knew what happened to her and what I did for her. That helped to ease the pain. Knowing she would continue to be herself and grow up.
Meadow reached for her father and they walked away to their minivan.
“You played amazing, man,” Jonny said.
“I appreciate the support,” I said.
“You’re a fool for not being out there with me,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “But what I have here is more than anything a stage could give me.”
I reached for Josie’s hand and she put her head to my arm.
“Such a wimp,” she said. “I’ve broken him.”
“Yeah, you have, darling,” Jonny said.
Except it sounded like daaaalin…
“Holy hell, brother,” I said. “Take that fake accent and go somewhere else.”
“Sorry,” Jonny said. “It’s good for the image.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m going to catch a flight out. You should visit soon.”
“I will,” I said.
“No, you won’t,” he said.
“Stop offering.”
“Never,” he said.
He threw his hand out.
