“What’s with all the early morning angst? Girl trouble? I saw you out by the bonfire with Gracie last night. Is that what’s gotten your panties all in a bunch? I sincerely hope you two ironed out all your shit. It’s been going on long enough, don’t you think?” Garrett sat down across from me and grabbed a donut from the box Maysie had brought over earlier. She had already been by with groceries. I think she thought that we were going to either starve or resort to cannibalism if she didn’t take care of us. Though I wasn’t going to say anything to the contrary, because I really hated going grocery shopping.
“No, this has nothing to do with Gracie,” I told him, proud of myself for saying her name without wanting to vomit.
Garrett raised an eyebrow, clearly not believing me.
“So I just imagined all that unresolved tension between the two of you last night?”
“Dude, I have a girlfriend,” I reminded him.
Maybe I needed the reminder too.
I really hated that stupid inner voice.
“Yeah, well perhaps that’s the problem,” Garrett remarked dryly. I did not want to talk about Gracie. I had dealt with that shit last night. I had been proud of how I handled things. I had laid it all out there. I had told Gracie that I didn’t want to ignore her. That I wasn’t going to avoid her the way I knew she had been avoiding me. I wanted to be civil. Mature even.
We’ll be old friends that used to be close but have drifted apart.
Just maybe I could force myself to believe it.
Because hell if I could face her apologies from here to freaking eternity. I’d had enough of those.
It’s what was best. For everyone. There was no future with Gracie.
Was there a future with Sophie?
I was trying to figure out the answer to that.
I was pretty sure I already knew.
“Are you going to be back in time for our call with Pirate on Friday? Or are you just going to conference in?” I asked him, ignoring his barb.
“No, I’ll be back for that,” he said grimly.
Neal had called yesterday as we were on our way back to Bakersville. He had already spoken with Tate and Danvers and they wanted to set up a conference call next week.
“They want to get everything out on the table. They’ve made some decisions that they want to talk to you about,” Neal had said. We pressed him about what those decisions were but he claimed he didn’t know.
I didn’t like being left hanging. None of us did.
“All of this is exhausting. I used to think there would be nothing better than landing a record deal and playing shows all the time. Now I realize how na?ve I was. How na?ve we all were. We were living in la-la land,” Garrett said, finishing off the donut.
“Yeah, well the real world sucks. I wanted to live a little while longer in la-la land,” I muttered, pulling the newspaper back towards me. I wasn’t sure what even the hell I was looking for. I poured over the want ads until my eyes hurt. There wasn’t really a job out there that was perfect for an “almost rock star.”
“I don’t know, man. Maybe it’s time we all grow up,” Garrett remarked off handedly.
I gave him a wry look. “You sound like your girlfriend.”
Garrett laughed. “Yeah, I guess I do. But it’s something to think about.”
I folded the paper and carried it over to the recycling bin, shoving it in. Garrett was right. We all had some thinking to do.
“Mitch!”
My mother held open the screen door and pulled me into a hug.
“Hey, Ma,” I said, my voice muffled by her shoulder.
Mom pulled back and gave me the maternal once over. “You need to shave. And a good haircut. Come sit down and I’ll grab my scissors. Your dad just stepped out to pick up some firewood. He’ll be back soon. Your sister isn’t here yet. She ran into traffic on 64.”
She ushered me into the kitchen and pushed me down into a chair. My mother wasn’t the sort to waste time on pleasantries. She’d have you in a chair with a plate full of food while sewing the hole in your shirt before you could even say hello.
For my entire life, my mother had been larger than life. She was the kind of woman that took her role as matriarch very seriously. “I was born to be a mother,” she liked to say and damned if she didn’t mean it.
And she didn’t think twice about welcoming anyone who needed a mother figure with open arms.