Fix It Up - Mary Calmes Page 0,62
hell and all that. He’d been on his own for so many years. The fact that I’d felt the need to step in and fix his life—whether that was my job or not—would not sway him in the least. The thaw was new, after all. We’d been enemies longer.
“Well, listen to me!” he yelled into the phone. “There could never be anything serious between me and James Reider!”
“Why not?” I asked, because if this was the last conversation we were truly ever going to have, I wanted it to last as long as possible. It turned out the gravelly, sexy, whiskey-soaked sound of his voice was very appealing.
“Why not?” he repeated like I was insane. “Do you get that we’re both creative people, and creative people need someone there to be a rock in their life. We need support and nurturing like orchids from Borneo.”
“Like what from where?” I asked him. “The fuck are you talkin’ about?”
“We need constant care, you asshole!”
“Why’re you yelling?”
“Because you’re being ridiculous.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about right now.”
He growled at me. “I can’t take care of someone else; I can barely take care of myself.”
Finally, he was making sense. “Yes, that’s very true.”
“I mean,” he growled, “I can take care of someone I love, be there, make a home with them. I’m not useless, but I need, I want, shelter.”
“Sure,” I said, because of course he did. Everyone did to a degree, but Nick, who had been hurt more than he ever should have been by people he trusted, needed a person to stand between him and the world.
“I have things to do, and I need someone who is all about being there. Not doing, being. Someone who grounds me and makes my home, home.”
It hit me then, because that whole being instead of doing, the feminine part of grounding yourself in the moment and paying attention to the space around you, and the masculine doing, the running around to make sure the world remained turning, was a little bit out there for him. “Oh God,” I groaned loudly, utterly horrified. “You’ve been talking to my mother.”
“How dare you imply that––”
“Listen to me, my mother has an agenda and––”
“Jamie doesn’t fit into my life. He can’t. It’s the same way I can’t fit into his. You can’t both be eagles; someone has to be the nest.”
Oh please, God in heaven, save me from her new-age mumbo-jumbo bullshit. I made a sound I wasn’t proud of, somewhere between a whimper and a snarl.
“The hell kind of noise was that?”
“That’s a book, you know,” I apprised him, trying not to moan in agony. “The whole premise is about what the nest means to each person and how far the eagle flies from it and…Christ. I need to get you out of there.”
“No,” he told me. “I think the vortex is going to help me with my album.”
“You know what,” I said instead of screaming, because now I was going to have to hurt him with my news and then deal with the fallout of him breaking my mother’s heart when he decided to leave without giving her a chance to nurture him. “I’ll see you guys sometime tomorrow, but I’m going to pull over at one of these motels and––”
“No.” His tone was flat and hard, and he said the word implacably, as though he had a say.
I scoffed. Loudly.
“Loc,” he murmured, and I was tired and not myself, vulnerable when I usually was not. “Please, just come home.”
“But you’re gonna want to know stuff, and I––” My voice cracked, because there had been the adrenaline spike that was gone now, and I was simply spent. “Just—I’ll come home like––”
“You can’t run away,” he soothed me. “It’s me and your mom, baby. You have to come home to us.”
It took a second to process his words. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
“Loc,” he said, his voice deep and sultry, a promise of sweetness. “Come home.”
“I don’t wanna.”
“I need to see you, so come home.”
“Fine,” I growled and hung up, trying to figure out what in the world I was going to say.
Parking the car in front of the house, I sat in it for a few minutes before I finally turned it off and got out. The front door was closed, but since it was glass, I could see the dogs lined up, waiting to greet me.
When I got out and walked to the front door, once I had it open, they came out,