Her face fell and she took a step closer. “You don’t have to handle this on your own. I get that things were stressed last night, but we do need to talk about this. I’m worried about you.”
“I know, and we will.”
A heavy sigh. “Will you call me tomorrow so we can talk?”
“Yes.”
Anne gave me a slow nod. “Okay.”
With a faint smile, Sam rose from his position on the couch and squeezed past me, out the door. Or what remained of the door. I still needed a what the hell on that count.
“Someone’ll be by to fix it shortly, Miss Rollins,” Sam said.
“Thank you.”
“Holler if you need anything.” Lauren left too.
“Thanks.”
“But I don’t want to leave,” hissed Mal. Heated whispers continued on between him and my sister. He even brushed her hand off of his tensed, folded arms. “She doesn’t know what’s best for her. Not like we do. Me in particular.”
More whispers.
“Well, does Ben have to go too? I’m not leaving unless he is.”
“Mal,” I groaned. “Please? If I promise to come over tomorrow and talk to you both about it all, please will you go for now?”
His eyes and mouth narrowed.
“Pretty please?”
“Fine.” He slung an arm around Anne’s neck, dragging her in against his body. “We know when we’re not wanted. Don’t we, Pumpkin?”
“Eventually, yes.” My sister gave me a small smile.
“Thank you,” I said, giving her free hand a squeeze before turning back to Mal. “And I need to know I haven’t broken up the band.”
Mal scowled and snarled.
Actions had consequences. I’d learned the lesson well. “Please.”
“Fine. But only because you asked so nicely. Outside of band business, he is dead to me,” Mal said to Ben, motioning a finger across his throat.
“Dude.” Ben sighed.
“I mean it. I’m really pissed at you, bro. You knocked up my new little-sister-in-law. This is way worse than the time you broke my bike trying to take that jump in middle school. And that was bad.” The newlyweds headed for the door. “See you tomorrow at rehearsal.”
“Yep,” said Ben, collapsing onto the love seat. His head fell back against the wall and he eyed me tiredly. “You gonna throw me out too?”
“I probably should. Are you what happened to my door?”
He wiped a hand over his face. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“I couldn’t help but notice that it’s kind of no longer attached.”
“I kind of broke it down.”
“Right.” I wandered over and planted my butt in the black leather wingback chair opposite him. Mal and Anne had left me some seriously sweet furniture when they vacated the apartment. “Why, may I ask?”
“Anne called, said she couldn’t find you and you weren’t answering your phone.” He set one ankle on the opposite knee, his sneaker jiggling, constantly moving. “I got worried you were in here alone, freaking out about shit after this morning or something and refusing to talk to me.”
“Ah.”
“I overreacted.” He wore his usual blue jeans and a T-shirt. Damn he wore them well. You’d think with my being pregnant that the hormones would settle down a little. But the silly things still burst into a happy dance every time he came near. It was ridiculous. I needed to gird my foolish loins, invest in a chastity belt or something.
Instead, I stuffed my hands between my legs, squeezing my thighs tightly together.
“We’ve got a problem,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“No, I mean a new one.”
“What?”
He sat up, putting both feet on the floor. “Sasha didn’t take my breaking up with her too well. Threatened to go to the media about you.”
“You broke up with her?” My heart beat double time.
He paused. “Well, yeah.”
“Why?” Oh, hell. My mouth. I blurted out the question before I even stopped to think. “I mean. Okay, none of my business. I don’t want to know.”
It wasn’t hope firing to life in my belly. No way could I be that stupid. Again. It had to be something else. Maybe Bean had taken up water aerobics or something.
Ben just kind of stared at me, stuck on pause for the longest moment. “Anyway.”
“Yes?”
“You staying here on your own probably isn’t a good idea. Especially now that the door needs fixing.”
“True.”
“Security is pretty shitty here anyway. So, I was thinking maybe it would be best if…”
“If?” I sat perched on the edge of my seat, literally waiting with bated breath. He couldn’t be about to ask me to move in with him. Into his actual personal space. No one ever hung out at his hotel room or wherever the hell he lived. I had to admit, I’d been curious. Plus, the thought of living with him made me break out in a cold sweat. “If what?”
“If you moved in with Lena and Jim until we went on tour.” His dark eyes never left my face. “I mean, I’m just assuming you’ll come on tour now. You might not want to.”
“You want me on tour?” But he didn’t want me in his place. How confusing and disappointing both. Or maybe he wanted me on tour to keep an eye on me, the old silly-young-Lizzy-can’t-look-after-herself standard. Christ, it hit me: I was going to be a mother. Apparently, I was going to be a single parent, no matter what soothing noises he was making. Come what may, I could only depend on myself.
“Figured with Anne planning on going, and Lena being pregnant too, that you might come,” he said. “People will pack you up, all you’ll have to do is get on and off a private jet every couple of days and then relax. These places have masseuses and whatever. There’ll be doctors available to keep a check on you. I’ll make sure you’re looked after.”
“I don’t know.…”
To stay behind with Anne and the other girls gone wouldn’t make me happy. I guess making friends wasn’t really my forte. After the early-teen nutso period, I’d pretty much kept to myself. Anne and I had perfected the art of putting on a normal home front. Anyone looking beyond it would not have been good, because clearly mom wasn’t functioning as the responsible adult. When Anne left to go on tour, I’d basically be alone. But there was more than me and my lonely girl ways to consider. There’d been so many dubious tales about what happened on tour. Him and other women. I didn’t need to see that. Not this year, or the next. The Sasha thing had hurt enough. Wonder why he’d dumped her?
“I don’t want to be in your way,” I said, hands twining in my lap. “It might get awkward if we were in each other’s faces every day.”
I got a caveman grunt. It sounded serious, of the deep thoughts variety. Didn’t clue me into shit, however.
“What do you think?” I asked.
The face he gave me was complicated, brows drawn together but lips slightly apart. It seemed he was on the verge of saying something.
Waiting.
“Speak, Ben.”
He tensed. “I want you to come.”
“Why?”
“To make sure you’re okay, so I can keep an eye on you, so you’re not here dealing with all this on your own. Lots of reasons.”
As reasons went, they weren’t bad ones. But as Mal had pointed out, Ben had issues with follow-through. History dictated he would eventually change his mind and leave me high and dry. What sort of father would he be? Lord help him if he ever pulled that shit with my child. No matter his size, my rage would be epic.
“Come on,” he said, voice firmer. “We need to start figuring this out together. How to get along and be parents and everything. I don’t want to be the guy Mal’s accusing me of being. Give me a chance here, Liz.”
“I honestly don’t know what’s best.”