Fix It Up - Mary Calmes Page 0,80
love or anything,” I told him. “You should pick someone easier.”
“I don’t want easy,” he said, leaning in. “I want you.”
I kissed him again, enfolding him in my arms, and he wrapped his around my neck so I couldn’t pull away. The shining eyes told me how happy he was when I let him breathe. Even panting for air, he’d never looked better.
I tried to tell myself I would take off the ring and just stop, put an end to his infatuation before it got any further out of hand.
“Don’t make me cry,” he whispered against my mouth. “Please, Loc, I only want to smile from now on.”
How was I supposed to say no to that?
At dinner, he was looking at me expectantly, and it hit me.
“Oh yeah,” I said, taking a breath and a deep gulp of chianti. “What was your epiphany?”
He put down his fork and scowled at me.
“Sweetheart, that’s not the way we ask about something as important as an epiphany,” my mother scolded me.
“No, I didn’t mean it like––” I growled at him. “Tell me or don’t.”
He tipped his head and squinted at me.
God.
“Fine, that was crappy. Please, tell me.”
His face lit up. “I had this great idea, and I talked to the guys, and they agreed to come with me, so I’m taking my aunt Gwen up on her offer.”
“Guys? Aunt who?”
“My guys, the guys in my band who back me up, Silas, Merce, and Flint.”
“Jesus Christ, I’m not even kidding. You don’t know anybody with a normal name.”
He shrugged. “Says Locryn.”
“What?”
“Never mind,” he replied, chuckling.
“And again, I ask, aunt who?”
“Okay, so, after the stories all hit the news,” he explained, putting his fork down so he could curl my hair around my ear, “my aunt Gwen, who’s my mother’s sister, reached out to me through Sawyer’s office and invited me to rediscover my Kentucky roots, in Irvine, which is where my mother’s family is from.”
“Sawyer? I didn’t know you guys were on a first name basis.”
He nodded, wincing. “Yeah. Since the beginning. You’re the only one who actually calls him Mr. Cox. I’ve always just called him Sawyer.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was mad at you. I didn’t want to talk to you at all, and I certainly wasn’t going to divulge anything remotely personal.”
That made sense. “Okay,” I said as he slid his hand over my thigh under the table. “So you want to go do that? Go to Kentucky and visit these people?”
“Well, meet them, actually.”
“How have you never met them?”
“Well, when I was very young, my father made my mother cut off all contact with her side of the family because he didn’t want to associate with them.”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” my mother told him. “Your poor mother.”
“My aunt told me that my father threatened to throw my mom out and not let her see her children ever again if she went against his wishes.”
“He secluded her from her own family,” my mother said sadly, her eyes scrunching up. “I bet she didn’t have friends, either.”
“No,” Nick told her. “Not that I remember.”
“Oh, love,” she said with a sigh. “I think your mother would love it if you spent time with her family.”
“I agree,” he told her, turning to me. “So that’s what I want to do, and here’s where the epiphany comes in.”
I waited.
“We’re going to film it.”
“I’m sorry?”
“We’re going to, you know, make a documentary.”
I looked at my mother and then back at him. “What?”
His grin was huge, and lit his whole face. “I’m going to go to Irvine, Kentucky, and meet my family, spend time with them and rediscover my roots, and it’s gonna be great.”
“And who’s going to film it?”
“Netflix is. They’re sending a crew with us, and we’re going to tie the whole thing into the new record. Like how Dave Grohl did with Sonic Highways.”
“I watched all those, and what you’re planning is nothing like Sonic Highways.”
“I’m not saying it’s—just, you know what I mean.”
“Holy shit,” I replied, stunned. “When were you gonna tell me all this?”
“Right before you called me a kid again and made me lose my mind.”
“I—what?”
“Like I said, you call me kid when you want to put this manufactured distance between us, and I’m so done with it I could puke.”
“The fuck is with you all calm and grown-up and easygoing alluva sudden?” I groused at him. “The hell is up with that?”
“You,” he announced, leaning over to kiss the side of my neck. “You, Locryn Barnes. You fixed me all