Maia
* * *
“Bug, you need to go to bed for Mommy,” Jasper pleads, staring at Adalyn’s bright green eyes on his iPhone through FaceTime. “You’re so tired. I can see it. And tomorrow Daddy is coming home. We can play all afternoon.”
We’re in the greenroom, the last show just finished up and you’d think all the guys would want to do is go out and celebrate. But it’s a weird vibe tonight. They played an incredible show. I mean, I think it was their best yet. So much energy. The fans were beyond anything they’ve been thus far on this trip. And now the guys are sweaty, but instead of exalted as they typically are after a show, they’re a bit on the unsettled side.
I’m thinking they just want to get home.
“No, Daddy. No. I no wanna to go to bed right now.”
Jasper puffs out a breath. I can feel his frustration from here. He hates not being there with his girls. He hates leaving it all for Viola to do.
“Ady, baby doll,” Gus jumps in with his signature smile for his little lady, as he calls her. “You gotta go to sleep or tomorrow you won’t be able to come over to play with me and Aunt Naomi at the beach.”
“Love you, Gus,” she says, and I can’t stop the smile that cracks on my lips. Neither can Marco and Henry. Adalyn Diamond really is so flipping cute.
“Love you too, doll. Always. But you gotta go to bed. You gotta snuggle Mickey and Minnie for me.”
“Can you be a good girl for Mommy?” Jasper cuts in, and I catch Viola’s blonde head kissing Adalyn’s cheek as she picks her up.
“You wanna snuggle with Daddy?” Viola asks. “I’ll bring the phone into bed with you and you can snuggle with Mickey and Daddy.”
“Want hugs and snuggles,” Adalyn states on a big yawn, and I think I see Jasper’s heart both breaking and melting at the same time.
As if proving my point, he rolls his head over his shoulder and finds Marco. “Next time they come with us or I can’t do it.”
Marco doesn’t reply because he knows that’s between Jasper and Vi. The tour dates are already set in another six months and tickets have been purchased. The shows won’t be canceled. Jasper just has to find a way.
“Where’s Keith?” I whisper to Marco while Jasper and Gus sit there on the phone, giving Adalyn air squeezes and kisses through the phone, coaching her to bed. I mean, just watching them has my ovaries sighing with longing. I wish the world could see this side of the band. These hot, sexy, tatted-up rock stars as they lose their mind over the five-year-old little girl. Forget all the other stuff, this is what makes them sexy. Their love and commitment turns me on more than anything else.
“You need to sleep just like Cora is.”
Adalyn adamantly shakes her head. “Cora is a baby. I a big girl.”
Oh boy.
“I don’t know,” Marco states, resting his head on my shoulder. He’s also feeling the weight, and this is nothing near what their last tour was. That was five months. This was ten days. “He was here a few minutes ago and then it was like he disappeared.”
It’s true. He came in sweaty and charged with the rest of the guys, but he wasn’t smiling the way they were. He grabbed his bottle of Jack Daniels and said he’d be right back. Then Viola called with Adalyn and we all got distracted.
“I’m gonna go look for him.” I kiss Marco’s head and stand. I don’t say goodbye to the guys as they’re all still working on Adalyn and I don’t want to interrupt. Even Henry’s now getting in on the action, strumming a song on Gus’s acoustic for Adalyn while Jasper sings it to her. Damn these men.
I meander my way through the tunnels of the arena and stop when I nearly bump into Marsellus. “He’s on the stage,” he tells me without my even having to ask.
My brows pinch in. “Is he okay?”
Marsellus nods and then shrugs a huge shoulder. “He’s just playing guitar and drinking. Seemed fine and the stadium is now empty. The crews aren’t set to break down everything until tomorrow morning since we’re done with the tour.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I pat his arm as I continue on, heading for the stage. A bubble of unrest starts to grow in me until it becomes a pang of nausea when I see him. He is just sitting on the stage, his legs dangling off the end, a guitar resting on his thighs that he’s strumming away on. It’s not a song I know. Not one of Wild Minds’. He takes breaks every couple of seconds to sip on his Jack Daniels.
I can feel the turbulence in his mind from here.
For the longest time, I can’t propel myself forward. I can’t make myself move from this spot as the silent voyeur.
It feels wrong.
Like I’m intruding on him while he’s trying to work through whatever it is he’s trying to work through.
But I don’t know how to leave either.
Keith made love to me in DC that night. That’s what happened. I felt it in his touch. Saw it in his eyes. And then we flew out here and it was non-stop movement since. Radio interviews and a photoshoot and a meet and greet with fans and sound checks and a hundred other things. We didn’t have any time to ourselves and when we did, we slept.
And tomorrow we’re set to return home. Back to California. Back to me looking for a new place to live even though the thought of not living with him after the month in his house and the ten days on the road with him is crushing. I want to be with Keith more than I want my next breath… and despite how close we’ve gotten and how much we care for each other, right now, watching him, it doesn’t feel like enough.
I don’t want bits and pieces of him, I want all of him.
Maybe that’s unfair to ask and expect after such a short amount of time together, but I don’t think so. I think I deserve that in return when that’s exactly what I’m giving out. I’m just not sure that’s possible for him.
Something inside of me starts to crack. Starts to crumble.
It’s my tough-girl shell. The one I started building when I was just a kid. It saw me through more times than I can count. The one I never wanted to break because I needed it so much.
Movement behind me startles me and I turn to find Gus there with a sheepish expression on his face. “Sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
I shake my head, letting him know I’m okay. Well, at least from that.
“I didn’t even know he plays guitar,” I say instead of anything else, turning my focus back to Keith.
“He doesn’t often. But yeah, he can. Just like we can play each other’s instruments if we had to.”
“You can play the drums?”
Gus laughs. “Not well. Bass, yeah. Piano, a bit. Drums, well, let’s just say I’m not so great with those.”
I grin, thankful that I can still manage it when everything inside of me feels so heavy and dejected. “He’s battling a lot of demons.”
“Yeah. He is. He’s battling that he loves you more than he ever loved her.”
“What?” I spin around to face him.
Gus smiles but it’s filled with such sadness it quickly slips into a frown. Not a look you see on Gus Diamond often. “He loved Amy. We were all there while they were together, and we were all there after she died. But the last couple of months of her life, she didn’t give him much. She couldn’t. I think she tried in her limited way and I think Keith hung on because he loved her and didn’t know what else to do. He wanted to be her hero. But the truth is there was no saving that girl. That’s what he hates. That’s what haunts him. Because deep down, he thinks he could have. He blames himself for something there is no blame for. His heart is too big, and when she died, a huge piece of him died right along with her.”