Finding Us (Finding #2) (12 page)

Parker

The next study group was the last before Thanksgiving. It was an interesting one to say the least. We hadn’t seen Ivy outside of class since she left with Grady after they performed. Things went well with the music execs, and apparently Grady wanted a private celebration with Ivy.

She was already there when we walked up to our table. I could tell Maggie was dying to ask her about Grady, but Maggie had a thing about being nosey. I, on the other hand, had no problem asking considering the last I heard from Grady was Friday night, and that never happened.

“So, how’d it go on Friday?”

“Friday?” Ivy asked. “Oh, you mean Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and yesterday. The boy won’t give up. I’m supposed to call him when I leave here.”

Maggie giggled and gave me her “I told you so” look. I wasn’t convinced. “You spent the weekend with him? Impressive. That might be his longest relationship ever.”

Maggie’s elbow came out of nowhere and left me with a stabbing sensation in my side. “So things are going well?” Maggie asked before giving me the stink eye.

“Yeah. We’re just having fun, so you don’t have to worry, Parker. I’m not about to tattoo his name on my ass or anything, but I’m going to see where it goes. He’s cool and interesting. That girl he lives with though…is she crazy?”

Maggie groaned and fell back in her chair with an eye roll. I laughed. “Something like that. Why?”

“Girlfriend has no boundaries. I don’t know. She just seems…off.”

Maggie sat up and started to get heated. “Oh, she’s off all right. She is the-”

“Maggie,” I snapped when she started getting loud in the middle of the library.

She stopped and looked at me then noticed everyone staring at her. Her cheeks turned bright red, so I put my hand on her leg reassuringly and spoke to Ivy. “Alexis can be a complete bitch, especially right now. She has shit going on, but she’s like a sister to Grady.”

“Hmm…figures,” Ivy shrugged.

It was then that everyone else joined the group, and we started on our work for the week. Unfortunately work seemed to be the last thing on our group’s mind. Tony seemed unusually interested in Maggie’s plans for the upcoming Thanksgiving break. Everyone was talking about the break, and then it led in a direction that almost earned him a fist to the face.

“My husband has to work, so we’re staying here. My family is planning to come into town the day of Thanksgiving though,” Sophie shared after Ivy asked what she was going to be up to the following week.

Ivy huffed, “I have to fly to Ohio on Wednesday. The airports are going to be crazy, but my mother won’t let me miss a holiday with the fam.”

Tony then turned to Maggie and said, “What about you, Mags? You staying in town?”

I looked up at him when he casually called her “Mags,” but Maggie put her hand on my leg instantly calming my ire. “No. Parker and I are celebrating Thanksgiving with my family on Thursday and coming back to celebrate with his family on Saturday.”

“Two Thanksgivings sound good to me,” Ivy smiled.

“So you spend holidays with each other’s families?” Tony asked with raised eyebrows.

“Yes,” I snapped and wrapped my hand around Maggie’s shoulders. He needed to wipe that surprised look off his face before I did it for him. Tony may be book smart, but he was definitely not smart enough not to mess with a guy who was feeling particularly possessive of his girl.

“You two must be more serious than I thought,” Tony said to Maggie while purposely ignoring my glare. The other members of our study group looked at each other nervously as the tension at the table increased.

Maggie laughed. “Guess so. We’ve been serious since the moment we decided we wanted to be together. We were friends first.” I knew she was trying to ease the tension, but the moron wouldn’t let up.

“It is just surprising that a smart, beautiful girl like you would get involved with a guy like him. Maybe you aren’t as smart as you seem.” He winked playfully at her, and that was when I had enough.

I started to stand, but Maggie beat me to it. She flattened her hands against the table and leaned forward. “Yes Tony, Parker and I are very serious. We live together and have been together for almost a year. Your insults and lame attempts at flirting are nothing more than a joke between us. When we meet in the future maybe you could focus on our work and less on me.”

I leaned back in my chair with a wide smile on my face as I wrapped my arm back around my girl. I didn’t need to put this punk in his place. Maggie handled it just fine, and I couldn’t be prouder. Her slight blush and lack of eye contact told me she surprised herself, but I found this new, confident Maggie very sexy.

Maggie

It was Thanksgiving when Parker answered the call. We had just finished dinner and were settling down in the theater to watch a movie and enjoy our food comas. Everything had gone relatively well at dinner. By “going well” I mean my mother didn’t speak to me, acknowledge me, or even look in my direction for the entire two hours we had guests in the dining room. I was thrilled with the lack of attention.

Parker and I had just snuggled onto one of the couches when Grady started texting. Parker ignored them at first until Grady started calling. Finally he answered the phone and stepped out of the room. Max looked over at me with question, and I just shrugged because I honestly didn’t know what was going on. We were halfway through our movie before Parker returned. His hair was sticking out, and his easy-going expression had been replaced with stress and despair.

“What’s going on?” I whispered when he sat back down and pulled me back to my place on his chest.

“We’ll talk later, Maggie.”

I knew it was bad if he was calling me Maggie. He always had some kind of sweet name for me unless we were having a serious conversation. Suddenly it seemed like the movie would never end, but I couldn’t tell you a single thing that happened on the screen after Parker left the room to answer his phone.

I didn’t find out what was going on until later when we were in bed. When I came out of the bathroom after washing my makeup off and brushing my teeth, he was staring at the ceiling with his arms behind his head. He would have appeared completely relaxed if I didn’t know him as well as I did.

I crawled up next to him and sat on my knees, so I could see him when we talked. “Time to talk, Parker. Whatever that phone call was, it upset you like I haven’t seen in a long time.”

“It was Grady on the phone. He’s taking Alexis back to rehab tomorrow morning. She was in bad shape earlier today, I guess.”

“What happened?”

“He invited her over to his parent’s house for Thanksgiving this afternoon. She and Billy go with Grady every year since they don’t really have family. She refused to go. When he got home, she was so messed up he couldn’t wake her up.”

“Oh my. Is she ok?” As much as I hated her, I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. I didn’t know much about drugs or her addiction, but not being able to wake her up had to be bad.

He looked pained when he said his next words. “I guess. I don’t know. He called an ambulance. They had to pump her stomach, and I guess she isn’t awake yet. He’s going to talk her into going or kick her out of the band and his house.”

“Poor Grady.”

Parker scoffed. “Yeah.”

“You ok? You want to go home and see her?”

“Nah. No need. I’d just cause more harm than good.” I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I didn’t have time to ask. The news didn’t end there. “He said the record label asked the band to open for Last Chance on their tour. Apparently the band they have now isn’t working out, and they want Grady to cover for the next few stops.”

“So now they can’t go?” I asked knowing how disappointed Grady, Billy, and Nick would be. Last Chance was a band growing in fame that had made their way onto the radio via You Tube. People filmed them playing in bars much like Grady’s band, but Last Chance hit it big with their videos. Even I knew who they were, and I only listened to classic rock for the most part.

“Well…not exactly. He asked if I could replace her. He said they’re only going for two weeks, and it happens to fall right after we get out for semester break.”

“Two weeks?”

“Yeah. The band will break for Christmas, and by then they’ll have either signed Grady for a record deal and get him in the studio or send them on their way if the fans aren’t taking to them.”

“You mean you.”

“What?”

“You mean if the fans are taking to
you
. You’ll be part of the band.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

I didn’t know what to think. This was too much information for me to process. We would finish our first semester of law school then what? Parker hops on a plane to God knows where for two weeks. In the back of my mind I knew I should be happy or supportive, but all I could think about was the time apart and the girls who would be throwing themselves at my very attractive and supremely talented boyfriend.

After a momentary freak out, I asked, “What did you tell him?”

He looked right in my eyes when he spoke. “I told him I had to talk to you. You’re the most important person in my life, and I don’t want to leave you for a minute, let alone two weeks.”

“But?”

“But this is a great opportunity for Grady, and he’s been my best friend for a long time.”

“It’s also a really amazing chance to get to live out your dreams,” I added.

“Yeah. How many people have gotten to open for a huge band in a House of Blues?”

“No one I know,” I told him less enthusiastically than I would have liked.

He frowned and pulled me down, so my head was resting in its place right over his heart. I could hear the rhythm clearly before the rumble of his voice interrupted the steady beat. “Babe, you know I’m not going anywhere unless you’re on board. We have school and can enjoy the break together. Maybe we can take a trip or whatever during those weeks. I don’t have to do this.”

I let out a deep breath. He just had to go and say the one thing that made me feel like I had to push him to go. There was no way I would be
that
girl.

“You should go,” I told him, and I actually meant it. Who was I to hold Parker back from his dreams? I knew he wanted this, and this opportunity wouldn’t knock twice.

“We’ll see,” he said before ending the conversation by pulling me up to his lips for a kiss.

Parker

I didn’t sleep at all the night of Thanksgiving. Turkey supposedly has something in it that makes you tired, but it turned out that chemical can be counteracted by finding out a girl you have known for several years had almost overdosed and was asking for you when she woke up. Why she was asking for me, I couldn’t say. I hadn’t spoken to her in weeks, but I couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible for the overdose.

On top of everything Grady’s career was about to take off. Now he needed me to say yes or he may lose his one chance to do what he loved for a real audience.
No pressure, Parker
. Yeah, right.

I had dreaded telling Maggie all night, and she reacted like I expected: pretended to be happy because she thought that’s what a good girlfriend would do. It was unfair to leave the decision up to her, but I wanted her to be the one to make it because she would have to live with it too. I didn’t tell her I could potentially end up missing Christmas and not be here for the start of the next semester, but I didn’t want to overwhelm her. She didn’t need to know how much I thought about quitting law school to follow in my mother’s footsteps with music before this opportunity. Now it was like my mom was shining a light for me down a path that I hadn’t known existed until now.

I lay there imagining what it would be like to be on tour with a band like Last Chance. They were new to the music scene as well, but they were selling out smaller venues left and right. Grady was a huge fan, and even dealing with Alexis in the hospital, he still sounded hopeful and excited about his future. I hadn’t felt excited about my future since I started playing with him earlier that summer. Sure, I had Maggie. We were going to get married, and that was undoubtedly something to be excited about, but I was going to be a lawyer if my life stayed on track. I wasn’t sure if that was what I wanted or what I had convinced myself of doing once Mom had passed. I didn’t want to play music if Mom wasn’t around to hear it, so I found something else, something secondary.

Decision day came quickly. Grady took Alexis to rehab, and she surprisingly complied. It was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and we were having lunch with Pops and Preston. Of course Preston was helping Maggie in the kitchen because he wanted to badger her about how his new girlfriend was acting, and he knew I cared less.

Pops had been watching me since they arrived at the house, and I knew he knew something was up. I hadn’t told him about the tour, but it was all I could think about because Grady needed to call the record exec, Dallas, that night at the latest. I was the deciding factor.

Pop’s pulled off his glasses and set down the paper after my millionth sigh of the day. “What’s going on, Park? You’ve been inside that head of yours all day. Law school getting to you?”