“I wanted to dance with you again, without teenage eyes watching. Dance with me, birthday girl.”
They danced to music from their generation, holding each other close. Hands slipped to caress and touch, stroke and tease, caught in a slow loop of foreplay that simmered rather than blazed.
When one song faded, Bastian pulled his mouth from hers and tucked a hand in his jacket pocket. A ring box appeared and her breath caught.
“It’s not what you think,” he said. “I wouldn’t do that. But I would like you to have this.” His high school class ring sparkled on a bed of white. The chunky gold held his initials and a football on each side of an oval ruby. His smile was a little goofy. “Okay, so it seems juvenile but…go steady with me?”
Charlie laughed, the loud burst echoing off the gazebo roof. “You’re crazy. No one goes steady anymore. They go straight from flirting to oral sex.”
He shrugged and slid the heavy ring on her finger. “Not us. We are steady. Solid. Unchanging. Forever. I never actually gave this to a girl in high school so you’re the first. Say yes. Consider it practice.”
Her heart leaped in her chest and something bounced around her stomach. Her lips were dry and her throat scratchy. Her answer whispered out.
“Yes.”
Chapter Twelve
“Come on, just a little while.”
Bastian thumbed her lip and shook his head. “Nope, this is where I drop you off. If I go upstairs with you, I wouldn’t want to leave.”
Charlie gripped his lapels and pulled him closer. Her tongue slicked between his lips and danced with his until he struggled to think. “This night has been…it’s been perfect No birthday has ever been better. End it with me right. Make love with me.”
His balls twitched and blood surged to his groin, but he tugged her hands away. “Are you willing to say yes?”
Her eyes were huge. “I don’t want to think about the bet. This isn’t about that. It’s just you and me, here, now. I want to be with you. Come with me.”
He brought her hands to his mouth and kissed both knuckles. “Go inside, Charlie. A gentleman always waits until his lady is safe inside before leaving. I want to see the lights come on before I drive away.”
Those wide blue eyes closed but she didn’t fight him. She nodded and stepped back. That single step shored up his courage more than any sexual act could. She was clinging to the magic of the night, of this one special innocent night he’d tried so hard to please her with.
Swaddled in his old jacket, his class ring clutched to her finger by her fist, she darted to the doorway. For one second, she paused and looked back. Even if she couldn’t say it, the love shining on her face stole his breath. The outer door closed and he climbed into Caz’s Audi, watching the window. The instant the light flared, he keyed the engine.
He knew what she would find when she walked into her apartment. Inside his chest, his heart thundered. She was close to believing him. He could see it in her eyes, feel it in her touch. He just had to hold on a little longer. The thought carried him all the way home.
No porch light was on and the house was dark but his SUV stood silent in the drive. He assumed Caz had gone to bed although one o’clock was early by his brother’s standards. So when he hit the porch and heard the music, he paused.
Haunting in its simplicity, a saxophone cried into the night. Bastian placed the tune almost absently. “Take Good Care of My Baby” by Bobby Vinton sobbed from the horn in a way he’d never heard it. This version was slower, mourning, almost begging. His gut cramped as he stepped inside.
The song hung on the air with a tearful moan. Caz’s eyes were red-rimmed, his hair tangled and loose. His body swayed, making love to the instrument. He wore only his boxer briefs. The tattoos along his back and arms flexed with each dancing step. A single candle burned on the coffee table.
The flame gave Bastian no warmth. Candles meant fire and fire was used to melt all sorts of poisons. A prickle of unease formed along his spine. “Are you high?”
The music faded away, one note hanging soulfully in the emptiness. Caz lifted the sax strap from his neck and laid the instrument in its case as if he were laying an infant to rest. His fingers trembled violently on the keys.
Bastian snapped on the overhead light, harsh illumination flooding the room. “Answer me!”
A wet snort rang out. “Thought about it. Even called a dealer.”
Bastian’s fists clenched. “Where is it?”
“I told him forget it.” Caz picked up a beer bottle, licked his lip but didn’t bring it to his mouth. It was full and Bastian glanced at the floor for empties. There were none that he could see.
“Are you drunk then?”
“I keep trying to drink it but I can’t. I want it but I can’t, story of my fucking life.”
Bastian stomped into the room and jerked the bottle out of his hand. Warm liquid spilled over his grip.
Caz growled, “Quit trying to save me. If I want a fucking beer, I’ll have one.”
“Not in this house.”
“Half this goddamned house is mine! If I want to torch the fucker, I will.”
Disgust twisted his mouth. “Grow up. Stop with this teenage rebellious shit and be a man.”
One minute he was glaring at his baby brother, the next he was on his ass with his jaw throbbing. Blood streamed from his lip and dripped onto his pleated tuxedo shirt. He touched the wound and stared up at Caz.
“Saint fucking Sebastian!” Caz’s chest heaved with exertion. “You’re not so goddamn perfect, big brother, so stop acting like I’m the only fuckup in the family.”
Bastian pulled himself from the floor and dug the handkerchief out of his pocket. “I never claimed to be perfect.”
“Good! Because you’re not, you wimp-assed pussy.” Licking two fingers, Caz leaned down and pinched the flame from the candle. Smoke curled from the wick.
“I’m a pussy?” Bastian pressed the cloth to his mouth. “Exactly how do you get that? I wasn’t the one who tried to check out by shooting himself so full of crack he nearly died. No, I was the dumb shit they called to come and get your ass.”
“Sebastian to the rescue.” Caz flipped him off. “You don’t know shit about my life so don’t even go there. Deal with your own issues before you preach to me.”
Bastian yanked the bow tie off, throwing it on the couch. “All right, get it out. What the hell is up your ass?”
His mouth opened but snapped closed with his teeth clenched. “Forget it.”
“No, you started this earlier, so fucking finish it. What is your problem with me?”
For one long cold minute, Caz glared. Somewhere inside him, a dam must have broken because his anger rushed at Bastian like a tidal wave.
“All my life, you were the steady one, the big man, the one who never backed down. But when your own bully showed up, you ran. You had your fucking life mapped out and you bailed because your dick’s broke.”
Icy fury raced down Bastian’s body. Using his sterility as ammo in an argument was lower than he’d ever imagined Caz would stoop. “Fuck you.”
“Oh please, you fuck yourself every damn day,” Caz sneered. “You wanted to be a pediatrician! A kid doctor. You ran from it. You couldn’t even look at that little girl today.”
Air whistled through his clenched teeth. “At least I didn’t try to commit suicide with a needle and a bottle of Jack. My bully was a little bit bigger than the hottest groupie turning me down.”
Caz shoved his hair out of his bloodshot eyes. His nostrils flared. “I never denied I fucked up. All I do is fuck up. I am a champion fuckup! But I’ve got something you never will, asshole.”
Bastian huffed. “Oh yeah, what, track marks?”
“A daughter.”
The silence fell like a rock. The iron taste of blood filled his mouth and he forced a swallow down. His whisper scraped his throat with a burn. “What?”
Caz jerked around and pulled a picture from the depths of the sax case. It shook in his hand as he held it out. Bastian commanded his arm to reach out, to grasp the photo. His fingers were numb.
An infant, too small and too fragile, lay in an NICU Isolette, tubes and wires everywhere. Her tiny face was nearly obscured by a breathing tube and eye patches, and her paper-thin skin glowed beneath a bili lamp. Bastian looked up, and the silver tracks on Caz’s face ripped through him.
“That’s my daughter,” Caz sobbed. “I’ve never seen her. I’ve never touched her. Maggie said I was too dangerous, too messed up. Her father is listed as unknown.
Unknown.
But I know it.”
Anger bled away and Bastian sagged against the door frame. “Oh, Boo.”
Caz spun around and thrust his hands into his hair. “Today, Lisa’s baby…I held her. She was so little, so soft. You want a child and can’t have one, and I have one that I can’t touch. I would give my
life
to spend one minute holding my kid, just seeing her with my own eyes, and you couldn’t even look at a baby that didn’t belong to you. You tell me who is more fucked up, because from where I stand, we are both piss-poor excuses for men.”
The picture wasn’t new. It was creased along one corner and some of the gloss had been rubbed away, as if Caz had stroked it too many times to count. The shine was gone from the baby’s face.
“Where’d you get the picture if you’ve never seen her?”
“Security threw my stoned ass out of the hospital.” Self-loathing twisted Caz’s mouth. “My manager kept me from being arrested that night but I’m not sure how. He bribed a neo-nurse for it.” Caz was lost to memory, his eyes heavily shaded with ache and sorrow. The weight deepened his voice to a husky whisper. “She came too early. I was always wasted then. I…Maggie said she only weighed two pounds. Two pounds and four ounces…at five fifty-three in the morning, July twelfth.” He leaned on the window sash, burying his face in his arms. “She’ll be five and she doesn’t even know my name.”
Bastian squeezed his eyes shut. July twelfth. Caz had OD’d July thirteenth. Almost five years ago. Understanding leaked into his voice. “You tried to kill—you got clean for her.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m still an addict and an alcoholic and I always will be.” Caz drew a huge breath, his back rising with the force. “You’d be the perfect fucking dad and I’m a fuckup. Life’s cruel, man.”
The couch groaned as Bastian collapsed onto it. He tucked the bloody handkerchief into his pocket and tongued his sore lip. Realization sank into him with a sigh. Caz was long past withdrawal. He trembled not because he craved a high, he craved his child. Bastian’s eyes pinched tight. How well he knew that longing. “Have you talked to a lawyer?”
“I’m not stupid, of course I did. Unless Maggie identifies me as her father, I can’t do shit legally.”
“Where is she now?”
“Atlanta. Maggie moved back in with her parents when she got pregnant. I tried to—it got ugly. I can’t go within two hundred feet of her or I go to jail. Nice, huh?”
Caz looked over his shoulder. A depth in his eyes struck hard at Bastian’s gut.
“Don’t you get it? Everything you touched was golden. Everything I touched turned to shit. Now you’ve got Charlie. I’m jealous, asshole. How petty is that? The one thing I have that you can’t…I really don’t have.” Caz jerked his head away and stared out the window. A loud liquid sniff ripped through the air and he straightened. “But she’ll grow up one day. Once she’s eighteen, then I…I started a saving account for her. I put money in every month. Maybe I can’t be her daddy but I can give her that. She will want for nothing.”
The vehemence in his words rushed through Bastian with pride. He’d never heard his brother so determined. “That’s a good move. Colleges are expensive, weddings, stuff like that. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”
“Too little, too late, but it’s all I got.” Raking his long hair back into a ponytail, Caz looped a tie around it then dug an envelope with a California bank’s name on it out of the sax case. He pulled a folded paper out and stared. “Not enough but what else can I do?”
Knowing it was an invasion of privacy, Bastian reached out and took the paper. Two names graced the top corner, Casper Alexander Talbot and Grace MacKenzie Campbell. His daughter didn’t have his name but Caz had drawn a heart around hers in blue ink. Grace. The name tattooed on his heart. The title of the beautiful song. His daughter’s name was Grace.
After nearly five years, the savings account had grown to a healthy figure. Bastian’s brows crashed down low at the numbers of zeros on the final line. He double-checked the date. Current as of last month. “Boo, is this math right? Do you know how much is in here?”
Caz’s lips thinned but he never lifted his face from securing the sax lid. He didn’t glance up while taking the statement and picture from Bastian. The floor creaked as he headed down the hall. He paused and his voice rasped deep, tightly modulated and controlled.
“Maybe I don’t save lives. Maybe I’m not the picture-perfect example of a father. But despite being a screw-up, I’m a good songwriter, Bastian, and I get paid accordingly.”
The back door slammed shut behind him.
The second hand on the grandfather clock in the foyer
chuck-chucked
and Bastian sat staring at the forgotten instrument. A live wire hissed and sizzled in his belly, too many thoughts coursing through his head. Licking his sore lip, he rose and walked woodenly into the dining room he used as an office. The pen scratching on the paper echoed overly loud. The soft tear screamed through the silent room. His slick soles tapped on the hardwood and he eased the veranda door open.
Cigarette smoke hit him in the face but he didn’t blink. Slouched over the iron railing, Caz didn’t acknowledge his presence.
“Here.” He held out the check until Caz turned his head. “For my niece. I’ve got some birthdays and Christmases to make up for. Tell her it’s from her Uncle Bastian.”
Caz’s lids slammed shut but he took the check and then a long drag. Thin blue smoke blew into the night as he looked at it. “You sure you can afford this?”
Shoving his fists into his pants’ pockets, Bastian rocked on his heels. “I got a sweet bonus when I signed with the UC. Yeah, I’m sure.”
Caz tucked the folded check under the pack of cigarettes and stared out at the dark yard. “Tell me she won’t hate me. I really need someone to tell me that.”