Just One Week (Just One Song) (28 page)

The fact that he’s asking to talk to me is new. And I’m still curious as to why he’s here in the first place.

“So what’s up?” I ask, once we’re settled in the living room. The kitchen isn’t too far away, but it’s suspiciously quiet and empty. I laugh to myself. Both my mom and my brother have totally set me up. Ways to exact my revenge on Eli in his sleep flash through my mind.

“I want to talk to you,” my dad says, and I stop wondering if Eli’s pillow is firm enough to smother him with.

“So talk.” I sit back in the couch and cross my arms, wincing slightly at the pain in my chest. My drains are gone now, but I’m still sore and there’s a lot of bruising.

He leans forward, rubbing the palms of his hands on his khaki pants, and I realize my dad is nervous to talk to me.

“I’ve let you down ever since you were a little kid.”

When I was a little kid, he was awesome. It was only since I turned thirteen that my dad became my greatest disappointment.

“I’ve had a drinking problem since before you and Elijah were ever born.” His words shock me. My dad was perfect when I was little. It makes no sense. “Your mom was my entire world and always helped keep me in line with my drinking. It runs in my family, but that’s not an excuse. I was able to stay clean for a long time after you were born, but do you remember when you were about eight that I had to go on a trip for a month?”

I nod. I remember that. My dad was a sales manager for a manufacturing company and it meant travelling a lot when I was growing up. Not that I always understood it, but when he was home, he was always the best.

My throat begins to feel a little pasty, my tongue thick, as I realize what he’s saying. “You were in rehab?”

His lips purse and he looks down, running his hand through his hair before looking back at me.

“I was never really the dad you thought I was, even though I always tried to be better. Your mom kept me grounded. When she got sick, I just lost it. I know I should have been able to be better for you and Eli. I should have been able to be better period, but I wasn’t. I just hate feeling like you think it’s the cancer’s fault that I turned into the man I’ve become. The cancer and your mom getting sick didn’t change who I was, I just lost the person who was always so good at helping me hide it.”

I struggle through my own tears, wanting to scream at him. For being such a fake and for not telling me this sooner.

Cancer didn’t take my dad from me. I never had him to begin with – not really. Not if what he’s really saying is true.

I press my fingertips over my eyes. I press so hard I feel like I might shove my eyes back into their sockets and be blind forever. I get little flashes of my childhood in between the small bouts of pain in my chest. My dad throwing the ball with me and Eli, bike riding, taking us to parks, reading me books and tucking me in at night, cooking birthday cakes for my mom. Was he sober for any of that? Does he even remember any of it?

“Why are you telling me this now?” I swallow my tears and set my hands in my lap. This isn’t fair to me. What’s the point of it anyway?

“I’m going back to rehab. I can’t make up the time I’ve lost with you or the mistakes that I’ve made, but when I heard you were sick, it made me realize how much you truly deserve better than who I am. I want to be your dad, and I want to be able to be there for my daughter. I want to be the man who has a daughter who will crawl into his lap and I know you’re too old for that, but I hate that I’ve become someone you despise.”

“So you’re doing this for me? Isn’t the whole point of rehab to get better for yourself and not others?”

“It is. And I do want it for me. I want it to repair the relationships I’ve done such a good job at ruining over the years. Eli hasn’t hated me as much as you.”

I feel like I should argue with him over the word hate, but I don’t. Mostly because I can’t. I do hate him.

“But you, I’ve seen the looks of disgust you give me. I’ve been around enough to see how your mom’s illness changed you, affected you in a way it didn’t your brother. And I wasn’t there for you to help you through that. I was too lost in my despair at losing my queen that I didn’t see my princess disappearing before me.”

He gives me a pathetic smile. His queen and princess. The nicknames he used when I was a kid. Before my mom got sick. I haven’t heard that name since I was twelve.

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say to you now.”

He stands up and comes to sit down next to me. He puts a hand gently on my thigh and my hand covers his, although I’m not sure why I’m trying to comfort him.

“Nothing. I just want you to know that I’m going to rehab for thirty days and I want to fight it this time. I want to be able to call you when I’m well, and maybe … I don’t know … talk occasionally.”

It’s too late, I think. But then I think that maybe I’ve spent too much time looking at my dad through the eyes of a child. The innocence that doesn’t see the darkness and perhaps I’ve thought more highly of him than I should. He might not be the man I ever thought he was, but does that mean he’s a terrible man? If he was always this way and I simply didn’t notice then maybe I shouldn’t hold his failures against him.

“We’ll talk,” I finally say and see a tear escape his eye. I look away before he brings forth my emotions, not ready to share them with him yet.

This tour is sucking the fucking life out of me. Our manager, Aaron, has been giving us our reviews, and they’re all good. People love Nicole. They love the romance between her and Zack. Midwestern everyday girl snags the rocker. They get married, she joins the band, and they live happily ever after. Touching.

It is. If I weren’t feeling like such a caged up prick right now, I’d want to celebrate with the guys tonight. I can’t though, because I’m pretty damn sure I left half of my heart in Minnesota the day I left Mia.

There’s an ache I can’t get rid of. No matter how many times I bang the drums and regardless of how many beers I drink, it’s always there.

It doesn’t matter though because it’s been six weeks. Six weeks of wondering how she’s healing and how she’s doing.

Nicole told me a few weeks ago about Mia’s dad going back to rehab. It took five guys to talk to me down from hopping on the next plane to be there for her. She hates her dad, and I’m not sure of all the shit he’s put her through, but I can only imagine how hard that talk must have been for her. And I was here. Or in South Carolina, or wherever the hell I’ve been for the last two months.

Two months. It’s too damn long. I want to see her smile again. To know that she really is going to be okay. And the few texts she’s returning aren’t enough.

It’s enough to let me know she cares. Which maybe should be enough for me right now, but it’s just … it’s just fucking not.

I take a drink of my beer and lean back on the couch with my eyes closed, and the noise of the road and the voices of the band drifting around me. I don’t hear them. Not really. Mia’s the only thing that consumes my head. She’s in my head and my heart and it’s going to be six more damn weeks before I can see her.

I want to wrap my arms around her waist, rip her clothes off, kiss her soft lips, and then I want to bury myself in her. I want to inhale her, drag my tongue across every small scar she’s going to have, and then kiss them until she realizes that I just don’t give a shit what she looks like or that she might get sick again. I want to make love to her and then fuck her into oblivion; erasing every bad memory she’s ever had, every thought that she’s not the woman I need.

Because she is. I think she’s the only thing I do need. I need her in my life, in my house – our house – in my bed, and in my damn arms before it’s been so long that I forget how she feels wrapped up in them.

Fuck it. I pull out my phone and send her a text; not quite sure she’ll answer, but still needing to try. I promised I wouldn’t give up chasing her, and I won’t.

Me:
Hey gorgeous. How’s the day?

I set the phone down and open my eyes to see Zack watching me.

“What?” I bark out, and then take a pull from my beer.

“You look like you lost your dog.”

I flick my beer cap at him. “And your point, asshole?”

“It’s just nice to finally not be the only pussy-whipped man on this bus anymore.”

I look around. Garrett is on the phone with Chloe, Jake is texting Sammy, and Nicole is reading a book. “Open your eyes, fucker. We’re all pussy whipped.”

“Speak for yourself,” Jake says without taking his eyes off his phone. “I’m not getting any pussy. Yet.”

Zack leans over and punches his arm, and Jake cries out. “Shut up, ass. That’s my sister.”

“Yeah, well your sister’s hot.”

I watch Zack move to the fridge and pull out his own beer. He’s still not happy with whatever is going on with Sammy and Jake. He’s probably fighting the urge to not punch Jake in the face. I shake my head slowly at Jake, telling him to just leave it alone.

“I’m not getting any pussy either,” Garrett sullenly says, finally closing his phone.

I raise an eyebrow and smirk. “Your wife’s pregnant. I’m pretty sure that means you’ve been getting pussy.”

“Yeah, but then she got pregnant and sick. Then she got big and swollen and she barely let me touch her before we left. It’s killing me.”

“You guys are a bunch of babies.” Nicole closes her book, stands up, stretches her arms over her head, and she gives Zack the look. That one. The one that tells us we’re all going to be sleeping with ear plugs in our ears tonight. “But speaking of pussy … Zack?”

He chugs down the rest of his beer before tossing it in the trash. “See you later, suckers.” And with a one-finger salute, he follows his pregnant wife to their bed, proving to us all that he really is pussy-whipped.

God I miss Mia.

“What’s going on with Mia?” Jake asks as he pulls up the table and starts dishing out cards. Garrett and I move on instinct to the table and grab the cards he’s dealt.

“Don’t know, man. She won’t talk to me.” And just to make sure, I check my phone but there’s no return text.

“You going after her when the tour is done?”

I look at Garrett like he’s become the biggest idiot on the planet. The question is so stupid he doesn’t deserve an answer.

“Two cards,” I say to Jake and slide two from my hand towards him on the table. There’s only so much poker you can play to pass the time, but tonight I just want my head numbed. To do something this mindless to take my mind off the rest of the crap going through it.

“I like her. I think she’s good for you.” I punch Garrett in the shoulder.

“You’re such a pansy,” I tell him, and then look up.

Good god, we are all a bunch of pansies. Sitting on a tour bus, driving around the country, drinking beer and playing cards, and all we can talk is about the women we’re missing.

We keep this up and we might need to become a country band.

Jake switches the conversation to music and the tour and the talk of girls is gone, but not forgotten. As soon as I’ve cleaned Jake out of a few hundred dollars, my phone buzzes in my pocket.

I don’t have to take it out to know who it is.

I throw down my cards and move to the lounge room, closing the door first.

Mia:
Good day. Saw the doctor. How was yours?

She saw the doctor for her six week check-up this is the best news I’ve had all day.

Me:
And?

I type back, anxious to know what he said.

Mia:
He thinks they’re good, but won’t know for a few days until results come back.

Me:
I miss you.

Mia:
I know. Good night, Chase.

I squeeze my phone so hard I think I might crush it. This is how she ends them, every damn time. I’ve learned enough to know that as soon as it’s said, her phone is turned off and she won’t respond to anything else I say.

It doesn’t stop me from trying though.

Me:
I love you. See you soon.

I’ve been saying the same thing to her since the first text she returned. I can’t wait to see her and tell her to her face that I love her. I’m going to tell her every day for the rest of my life until she realizes she is the woman I need.

She’s it for me.

Hopefully someday soon, she’ll believe me.