What We've Become (My Kind Of Country Book 2) (8 page)

“Your dad didn’t approve of your decision to go to Nashville, I take it?”

“My dad sold my one and only guitar—my first guitar—to buy alcohol when I was in the twelfth grade. Supportive was definitely not in his vocabulary.”

Katie hesitated. “I’m sorry, Chad. I didn’t realize your father was an alcoholic.”

“I don’t know if he ever realized it, either. Besides, I don’t announce it, so it’s not like you would know. He is one of the reasons I spent so much time there with Liz in her hometown.”

“When was the last time you had contact with your own family, Chad?” Katie’s tone indicated she already had a sinking suspicion what his answer would be.

“I speak to my mom and my sister every few months or so on the phone to let them know I’m all right. And to make sure they’re all right.”

“But you haven’t actually seen them?”

“Not since I was eighteen and left for Nashville,” he replied flatly.

“That was more than ten years ago!”

“Twelve to be exact, but thanks for reminding me I’m old.” His mouth twitched upward.

Katie exhaled audibly, and he knew she must have been trying to make sense of his story. He had given up on that a long time ago. “You had no one standing by you. But you were just a kid...” Her voice trailed off.

“I had Liz. She was my rock while we waited for eighteen candles on the cake to appear.” Even now, the admission of how much he had relied on his ex-wife throughout the years was hard to take.

“And when she left...” Katie cleared her throat as she approached the subject. “...with Jay, I mean—”

“That’s why it was so hard to bear, Katie. She really was my everything, and had been for so long that I couldn’t imagine continuing on the same path without her. So, it was
my
turn to leave.”

“And you headed straight back to her hometown.”

“The only place I’d ever felt comfortable.”

“The place you grew up with her.”

“The place I met you.”

Silence answered him. Chad was relieved she wasn’t sitting in front of him to see the wry smirk forming on his mouth. He could picture her now, her hair pulled up in a messy pile atop her head, the steam from the hot water rising slowly around her, her arm jutting over the edge of the tub with the wine bottle dangling from her fingertips. And right now, at that moment, she was thinking of him—the good times, the kiss they’d shared by bonfire light not so long ago—he was sure of it.

“I should have listened to you...from the beginning. I should have believed you.” Her voice came out weak, laced in a veil of regret.

Chad lowered his voice. “It’s okay, Katie. What’s done is done. I should have just told you the truth from the beginning. I should have...done a lot of things.”

“Me too,” she whispered. “Maybe things would have been different now.”

He wanted to tell her they could be. He wanted to tell her that they’d both made a series of wrong choices, but that putting herself and Mason through trying to make it work with Jay was the worst choice yet. He wanted to beg and plead with her to stop all the unneeded heartbreak and foolishness, and walk away from him for good.

“We’ve still got the future, Katie. The past is behind us, but we’ve still got the future ahead of us,” he said instead. Hope was furling inside him. What he once thought were only cracks in the foundation of her relationship with Jay, were actually wide, gaping holes, and the regret and unhappiness was pouring from them with aggressive power, threatening to destroy the entire formation. Katie regretted her choice; she wondered what could have been. That was all Chad needed to keep the hope alive within himself.

“I’m sorry. For how it all got so messed up.”

“Don’t give it a second thought, Katie.”

“Where does that leave us now?”

Chad had a few potential answers, but chose the safest one. “As friends.”

“Friends.” Katie repeated the word as though testing it on her tongue.

“Yes, friends. We were friends before, and we can remain that way still. And I think that, as my friend, you should call me when you get back to Nashville.” He inflected as much lightheartedness into his voice as he could muster.

“I’m not sure Jay would like that,” she admitted, and quickly gave him a vague rundown of the events that happened a few days ago. The thought of Jay being angry at Katie made his jaw clench involuntarily.

“Jay is not allowed to be upset, Katie, especially when he’s the one who brought us together again. I suppose I really should thank him,” Chad quipped.

“I thought we were over. I thought you and I were done. Why, now, does it seem like no time has passed between us?” Katie sounded distant. He resisted the urge to tell her to put the bottle of wine away.

“That’s how it is when you’re the kind of friends we are, Katie.”

“I can always count on you to make me smile.”

Chad bit his lip to suppress his grin. “Well, when you get back into Nashville and need a reason to smile, you know who to call.”

KATIE

Katie was trying hard to be quiet as she shuffled through the door into Jay’s apartment just before midnight, which meant she ended up making more noise than she ever would have otherwise. She wasn’t even sure her eyes were focusing properly after being awake and in transit from the farm since seven o’clock that morning, but the darkness wasn’t helping the situation, and she groped the hallway wall for the light switch. It fleetingly occurred to her that she didn’t even know if the switch was on that wall, and cursed under her breath for the millionth time for ever having agreed to stay somewhere she was so unaccustomed to. She vowed to pay attention more to her surroundings once the sun rose again in the morning.

“You’re home.”

A startled yip escaped Katie’s throat and she whirled around to face the voice. At the same moment, Jay flicked the light on—using the switch on the other wall.

“You scared me. I couldn’t find the light switch.” She took in his comfortable appearance—plaid pajama pants, a white t-shirt, and tousled hair. He’d been asleep. She rarely saw him like this, always preferring to be all business with little need for downtime. She tilted her head to the side and idly wondered if a few days with Mason had maybe been good for him.

“Are you checking me out?” A sleepy smile played on his lips.

Katie shook her head, snapping herself out of her thoughts. “What? No. Sorry, just in a daze. I’m tired, I guess. How was your—”

“You were staring.” Jay’s grin grew wider as he stepped forward. “And now you’re blushing.”

“I am not,” she insisted, even though she could feel the heat rising in her cheeks. “I’m tired.” She stooped to grab the duffle bag from the floor, and Jay quickly eased it out of her hand into his own.

“I’m just playing, Katie. I’m glad you’re back.” He leaned in and pecked her cheek lightly. “Mason has missed you.”

She immediately picked up on the fact that
he
hadn’t missed her, but she left her thoughts unspoken. “The feeling is mutual, believe me. Is he asleep?”

“Has been for hours. He spent the afternoon at Julia’s with her boys again. I think it tuckered him out.”

Katie turned the lock on the apartment door and shimmied out of her jacket, leaving it hung on the back of the armchair. She would hang it properly in the morning when she felt she could see clearly. “Why did he go to the neighbour’s place for the afternoon?”

Jay’s posture stiffened. “I had to go to the office for a few hours to make up for staying home with Mason the day before. He didn’t want to go with me.”

Katie suppressed a disappointed sigh, not wanting to argue with him. Evidently, things had
not
changed. She tried to walk past him, and his hand jutted out, flattening gently against her abdomen.

“Don’t be mad at me.” His eyes were locked with hers. “We’ve got three weeks, and I don’t want to spend it avoiding each other.”

She nodded her agreement. “Can the three weeks start tomorrow? I can barely hold my eyes open.” She offered him a halfhearted grin, mentally flipping a coin to decide whether she believed he would actually spend tomorrow with her and Mason or not. Heads, he wins; tails, she loses.

***

The sun had no sooner begun to peek through the apartment windows and Jay was up and rifling through his closet...for a suit jacket. Katie frustratingly chastised herself for not betting money on that mental coin toss from the night before.

“It’s the first day into this holiday that
you
talked me into, and you’re leaving?” She was snapping at him as she followed him out into the kitchen, but she didn’t care. Lack of coffee and little sleep had that effect on her.

“I’ll make it up to you, Katie.” He pulled the pot from the coffeemaker and poured some into a travel mug.

“Do you ever get tired of saying that?”

He whirled around to face her squarely. “I said I was sorry, but I have to work. I have to make up for some of the time I spent here with Mason while you went off to Canada. What is it you want from me?”

“You said you’d be here, and yet you can’t get out that door fast enough. I want you to admit that this—” she motioned between them emphatically. “—isn’t working.”

Jay snatched his coffee mug from the counter, stepping closer to Katie in the process. “You may be right, Katie, but it’s because you don’t want it to.” His gazes flitted across her face, daring her to say otherwise. When she pursed her lips and stared back at him defiantly, he let out an angry chuckle. “You know what? I’m not having this conversation again. When Mason gets up, tell him I said I’ll call him later to say good morning.”

Katie watched him storm out of the apartment without looking back.

***

“You really shouldn’t watch this show, Mr. Mase. It will rot your mind.”

Mason giggled, perched in front of the flat screen television as SpongeBob SquarePants dawdled across the screen. He turned slightly, his chin resting awkwardly on his hands, and gave her a goofy grin. “I like it ‘cause you don’t.”

She tossed the pillow from the sofa at him in jest, and Mason scampered from his laid out position to his knees, preparing for a playful fight. “We can’t sit here all day. The sun is shining and it’s actually quite nice out there. We should do something.”

This conversation had already taken place a few times in the last few hours, yet it always resulted in the same response. “But there’s nothing to do, Mom.” Mason was beginning to whine. Katie hated to admit it, but she had to agree with him. Unless she was willing to dish out money for the attractions around the city, spend her money in the malls and shops where thousands of other folks were running around in scatter-brained frenzies to do Christmas shopping, or bribe Mason into having fun by buying him things he didn’t need, there was little for the two of them to do. Seeing as Katie was rationing what little money she had left from her spring and summer at the farm, and the inheritance her father left her, she was in no mood for frivolous spending just to pass the time.

“Well, what did you and your dad do while I was away?”

Mason screwed his face up in a scowl. “Dad was in a bad mood the whole time you were gone.”

It seems not much has changed on that front
, she thought immediately. “Even in a grumpy mood, you two must have done something together.”

Mason answered with a shrug. “Dad had his papers and briefcase and stuff all over the table. He mostly talked on his cell phone and sat there while I watched cartoons and played on my Nintendo DS.”

“Your dad worked the entire time you were here alone with him?” Frustration was building in her throat, along with the guilt she felt at thinking that leaving her son with Jay for a few days was a good idea.

“We did go out for dinner; that was pretty cool. When dad wasn’t on his cell phone, I mean.”

Katie sighed, feeling defeated. “Mason, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. Did you at least have fun at Julia’s place with her kids?”

Her son’s eyes widened, beaming with excitement. “Yeah! Bobby and Lucas have some cool video games, and their mom lets them build forts in the living room to play the games in! I watched Bobby play a whole level of Call of Duty and when he won, he jumped up so fast the fort fell down around him!”

Katie laughed as Mason re-enacted the scene, and she made a mental note to thank Julia for her hospitality. Lord knows, Jay didn’t seem to have much of it.

“You can build a fort here anytime, Mase. Don’t ever think you can’t.”

He turned back to the television. “I don’t feel like it right now, but it was cool then.”

She nodded, huffing at the boredom that plagued her as well. “Well, we can do whatever you want, Mason. The sky is the limit.”

Mason wielded himself around again to face her, folding his legs in front of him in one fluid movement. “Let’s go see Chad.”

He could have asked to go to the zoo, or even to the mall to see Santa Clause. Hell, he could have asked to go to the moon. Katie would have expected all those requests from her seven year old long before she expected Chad’s name would fall from his lips.

“We can’t do that, Mr. Mase.”