Considering their lavish wedding, she was lucky it wasn’t higher.
It took him six months, but he did take care of the balance and he replenished their savings account, too. That was the thing about Liam. He worked harder to correct his mistakes than he ever did to avoid them in the first place. It was almost as if he enjoyed the challenge. He never held it over her. He never once said I told you so. And he always came through.
* * *
“Can I take the leash for a while?” Layla asked. Josh had removed his glove to get a better grip and his fingers had to be freezing.
“Sure, but only because I need my fingers to do my job.” She took off her glove and their fingers brushed as he handed her the leash.
“Leaving Storm Warning was the right decision, really,” Layla said. “And I do love my job. I love the kids and how open they are to learning about music. And now I get to play again, for me. Maybe someday for others again.” She told Josh about playing with Brian on New Year’s Eve.
“What happened with the band?”
“It fizzled out. We had these big plans to record a demo, but that didn’t work out. Then our bassist took a full-time job so he could pay his bills. Kevin, our drummer, wanted to focus more on songwriting. Sam got married. We called it a break, but it was really the end.”
“Did you ever play together again?”
“No. I watched Rick play one night at a country club my ex-husband wanted us to join.” She would never forget what had happened that night. The things she’d discovered. How she would always think of that night as the catalyst for the end.
“You must miss it.”
“I miss the way it made me feel,” she said. “Have you ever been driving in your car alone and it’s a beautiful day and you’re in a really good mood and the sun is shining and you’ve got the sunroof open and you’re on your way to do something that you’ve been looking forward to?”
“Sure,” he said.
“And then a song comes on the radio and it’s one of your favorites and you sing along and you don’t care how loud you’re singing or if the car next to you notices your little concert for one?”
“I may have done that once or twice.”
“That’s what performing feels like for me. And if doing it in the car feels good, doing it up onstage with an audience feels indescribably good. And I didn’t really like that I had to stop doing it.”
“Then why did you?”
“Because it was time to be a grown-up.” Layla’s house was in sight when the alarm went off on her phone. “The lasagna’s ready,” she said. “Let’s eat.”
chapter 33
Josh
On Friday, Josh swung by the grocery store on his way home. He consulted the list he’d typed into his phone after googling “easy dinners for beginners” and started gathering the ingredients for chicken and snap pea stir-fry. “Excuse me,” he said to the woman who was putting bell peppers into a produce bag. “Scallions?”
She smiled at Josh like isn’t he clueless and said, “Green onions. They’re next to the cucumbers.”
“Thanks.”
He’d texted Layla around lunchtime yesterday and asked if she had plans for the evening, and she’d responded with Nothing yet.
How about dinner at my place?
I’d like that.
He liked it, too.
Layla wasn’t always available, though. Sometimes, when he texted her to see if she was free, she’d write back that she already had plans. He found himself feeling more let down by that than he’d expected to.
When Sasha was with Kimmy, he liked to spend one night alone enjoying the solitude. He spent another with a friend or one of his brothers. But that left another night wide open, and the thought of spending it with someone like Layla felt increasingly appealing. She was easygoing and didn’t take herself too seriously. There was nothing pretentious about her and he’d never heard her gossip or speak unkindly about anyone. She was independent and she had her shit together and there wasn’t a single thing he didn’t like about her.
“So, quick disclosure,” he said when she arrived at his house on Friday night. “Dinner isn’t quite ready yet.”
“That’s okay. I can wait.”
“Additional disclosure. It hasn’t actually been started. I need your help because I’m nowhere near the cooking-for-other-people stage yet. I cook for Sasha, but chicken nuggets and buttered noodles are all she’ll eat and that’s a menu I can handle. I think I can level up with a little help.”
“What’s in it for me?” she asked. “I can’t just give away all my culinary knowledge.”
“Cheesecake that I picked up at the bakery counter.”
“You drive a hard bargain, but cheesecake is one of my favorite desserts. Okay, what are we making?”
“Chicken and snap pea stir-fry.”
“Sounds good,” she said as he began pulling ingredients from the fridge. He didn’t have exactly the right frying pan, but she dug around in the cupboard and found one that would work. He took on the role of sous-chef as she explained each step, and soon the kitchen filled with the smell of sizzling chicken and garlic and rice vinegar.
“You never cooked with your ex-wife?”
“She didn’t cook, either. She took up baking a few years ago, but we ate a lot of fast food when we were younger and made it about as far as sandwiches and frozen pizza. We tried harder when Sasha came along, but mostly we just ended up making two meals. We learned how to do a lot of things together, but cooking wasn’t one of them.”
Back then, they’d had much bigger problems to solve than what they were going to eat for dinner.
* * *
A few months after Kimmy lost her job, Josh came home from work expecting to see his wife under the covers, the house a mess, and nothing for dinner because if he didn’t go through the McDonald’s drive-through on his way home there would be nothing for them to eat. Their financial situation had improved immensely, and that allowed some of the anxiety and stress to dissipate, but he had no idea how to help Kimmy. He’d finally spoken to his parents about it and their concern only added to his. “You’ve got to get her some help,” his mom said. “This can’t go on. Do you think she’s in danger of harming herself?”
That had scared Josh more than anything ever had, including the night they pumped her stomach. It hadn’t occurred to him that she might be so depressed that she’d consider something like that. He had insurance now, good insurance, and he made a call at work and found out there were options—inpatient, outpatient, counseling, and medication.
But when he got home that night, Kimmy was not under the covers. She was sitting on the couch with her hair combed and a weird look on her face. Not weird bad, just different. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his heart sinking. He didn’t think he could handle any more bad news.
“Nothing. I just wanted to talk to you about something.”