Chapter 40: No Tomorrow: Chapter 40

Piper,

I love seeing you asleep in my bed. You have no idea how much peace you bring me. You’re like an angel in my dark mind.

Come downstairs when you’re awake, I’ll make us breakfast.

Love,

Blue

I smile at the note he left on his pillow for me. He’s been incredibly sweet since I arrived yesterday. Dare I say romantic in many ways?

After I make his bed I find my clothes from last night and hold them against my body as I sprint down the hall to my room. I take the note with me and stash it in my purse so I can add it to all the others I have saved at home.

I shower and blow dry my hair, then pretty myself up with a little makeup. I’m not sure what Blue’s got planned for us today, so I dress casually in skinny jeans, low black boots, and a purple gypsy top with wide butterfly sleeves.

The happy, carefree feeling I’ve had since I woke up takes a slight nose dive when I find him in the kitchen. I frown in confusion at the scene of disarray around me. The countertops are covered with glasses, mugs, bowls and dishes. All the cabinet doors are wide open, showing the bare shelves. Blue is standing at the center island, looking quite boyish and young in a band T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, black sweatpants, and black and white high-top sneakers with the laces untied.

I observe him quietly from the doorway. A niggle of worry burns my stomach. His eyes are darting from one piece of glassware to the next. He touches each one, lifts it up to the light to examine it, then places it with a different group of glasses or dishes.

“Hey, you.” My voice comes out louder than I intended.

He looks up and smiles crookedly.

“Oh. Hey.” He runs his hand through his hair.

I move to stand on the other side of the island. “I thought you were making breakfast?”

He nods quickly. “I am. I was. But when I took out the coffee mugs, they didn’t match. And I hate that.”

“They don’t have to match, hon. I’m good with anything.”

He moves a few salad bowls around, then stacks them within each other.

“No, they should match.”

Reece appears in the doorway, and rolls his eyes. “Fuck me. Not this again,” he says.

Blue holds up a glass. “One of these is missing. There’s an odd number. There’s five.”

Reece blows out an exasperated breath. “You dropped it when you were wasted last year, remember? You stepped in the broken glass and bled all over the place. Guess who cleaned it up?”

“I don’t remember that.” Blue doesn’t look away from the glass he’s inspecting.

“Because you were drunk off your ass.” Reece plucks a beige coffee mug from the assortment on the counter. “Stop sorting all our shit, Blue.”

“Sorting?” I repeat.

Reece fills the coffee maker with water and adds coffee grinds from a marble canister on the counter before he answers.

“Welcome to my world.” He gestures toward Blue with his hand. “His OCD gets in an uproar and he starts to sort everything by size or shape or color or who the hell knows what. A few weeks ago it was the towels.”

“We had one white towel and sixteen gray ones,” Blue explains, shaking his head as if it’s absurdity.

“What’s wrong with one white towel?” I’m almost afraid to hear the answer.

“It’s just…unbalanced.”

Reece and I exchange a glance. He leans against the counter and shakes his head as Blue continues explaining.

“Everything was a fucking mess in the cabinets. The glasses were mixed with the coffee mugs, the salad bowls were mixed up with the ice cream bowls. The tall glasses were in the front, the short ones in the back. Why can’t you just put things back where they belong?”

His roommate shrugs. “Because it doesn’t bother me, bro. I’ve got more important shit on my mind than to worry about stacking things by color and shape. We have a maid, tell her to do it.”

“Does it really bother you that much, Blue?” I ask.

He looks at me with apology in his eyes. Like a little boy caught doing something he didn’t want anyone to see. “Not all the time. But I wanted things to be nice for you. Mismatched mugs make us look fucked up. I’m not fucked up anymore.”

“She knows we’re not a resort, man. She doesn’t give a shit about mugs.” He turns to me. “Do you?”

“No… of course not. But I can understand why he wants things to be nice.”

He’s trying to impress me, that’s all. He used to have nothing, now he has things and he wants it all nice. I don’t see any harm in that. And I absolutely hate when I have a mismatched number of socks. Where do the missing socks go? And why do they never resurface? It’s no big deal if Blue feels that way about other household items.

“I’ll help you put all this away,” I say. “Then we can have breakfast. I’m starving.”

He chews the inside of his lip and glances at all the items spread out over the counter. A moment ago he seemed so determined to tackle this self-imposed task, but now he appears overwhelmed.

“I’m going to go have a smoke first,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”

I nod and watch him go out into the backyard through the French doors in the adjoining dining room.

“Does he do this a lot?” I ask Reece.

“Not really. It’s been worse since he stopped smoking weed. I think that used to calm him down.”

“It’s good that he quit, though. I’m proud of him.”

“I am too. It’s a bad scene when he uses and I’ve battled with him over it for years. I think he’s just got some anxiety issues and without the drugs to calm it down, he gets a little batshit.”

“He’s okay, though, right?” I start to put the glasses back in the cabinet, hoping I’m putting them back the way Blue wants them.

Reece sips his coffee. “Seriously? He’s brilliant. He’s better than he’s ever been. The new material he’s been writing kicks ass. And he’s actually living life now. He wants you and his daughter to be part of his life. That’s a big thing for him, to let people get close. I think he just needs to find some balance and figure out how to deal with stress without using drugs and alcohol to fix all his problems.”

“Maybe he should be on some meds for anxiety? I used to take Xanax when I was younger when my boss was a total bitch to me and stressing me out all day. It helped.”

He looks skeptical. “I don’t think he should take anything like that. He has addictive tendencies.”

“Oh.” I’m grateful his friend knows so much about him. Things I have no way of knowing. “I didn’t think of that. I’m glad he’s got you to look out for him. It means a lot.”

“We look out for each other. He’s not just my roomie and bandmate, he’s family.” He grabs a stack of bowls and places them in one of the cabinets. “That makes you family now, too, since it’s pretty obvious he’s keeping you around if you let him.”

That’s music to my ears. “I’m definitely sticking around no matter what.”

Blue comes back into the room at that exact moment. “You two talking about my fucked-up obsessions?”

“No,” I say with a smile. I touch his shoulder and crane my head up to kiss his cheek. “We’re talking about how amazing you are.” I hold up two matching black stoneware mugs. “Look. They match.”

Coffee, bagels, and donuts have always been Blue’s and my usual breakfast together. Not just because it’s cheap, easy to get, and yummy. But also because we haven’t spent many mornings together. And when we did, there were very few times we had a kitchen available to us.

Suffice to say, I didn’t know Blue liked to cook, or that he’s any good at it. But he is.

Sorting of dishes and glasses aside, he’s a master in the kitchen. I watch him with a mix of pride and amusement from the table where Reece and I sit as Blue cracks eggs perfectly with one hand, whips up pancake batter from scratch, and fries sausage and ham. He puts a plate piled high in front of me that could easily rival what I’d get at a popular pancake house—complete with whipped butter and sliced strawberries.

I blink at it, wondering how on earth I can possibly eat all this.

“I had no idea you could cook.”

“This is what happens when you’re high all night, have nothing to do, and get the munchies,” Reece says.

Blue puts a plate of food in front of Reece and laughs. “That’s sad but true. I cooked, and Reece and whoever else was crashing at our place would eat everything I made. I’d watch those cooking shows on TV for hours.” He sits next to me and winks at me. “You’re finally seeing all my hidden talents.”

Reece nods and swallows. “I’d rather not hear your hidden talents again tonight, man. I could hear you guys all the way from my wing.”

My face heats with embarrassment. “I’m so sorry….”

Blue laughs. “Don’t be sorry, he’s just jealous. And payback’s a bitch. How many times have I had to listen to your chicks yowling like cats all night?” He points his fork at Reece, who leans back in his chair and laughs.

“Yowling?” I repeat, cutting into my second pancake, which is surprisingly delicious and fluffy, flavored with a hint of vanilla. “Please tell me I don’t yowl.” I’ll die of embarrassment if I’m considered a yowler in the bedroom.

“You are definitely not a yowler, babe.”

When I first arrived, I thought hanging out with two rock stars would be uncomfortable and noisy—like staying with two teenagers. I envisioned Reece having various girlfriends in and out of the house and his bedroom. I expected the rest of the band and their friends and fans to be partying by the pool. I guess I watched too many music videos and let my imagination go wild, because Blue and Reece act just like two regular guys.

After breakfast we video chat with Lyric, and my mother stands in the background behind Lyric, trying to get a low-key glimpse of Blue. Lyric tells us she’s been practicing her harp every day, and that my father told her he’s never heard anything so beautiful in his life.

That gives me hope. Maybe my father will learn to accept Blue and me as a couple in time.

Later, Blue takes me for a drive to show me his favorite local attractions. We cruise with the windows open, rock music blasting, our hair blowing in the wind. He holds my hand and he kisses me into a frenzy at almost every red light. I feel like we’re teenagers, enjoying young innocent love together for the first time, rather than two thirty-something-year-olds who’ve shared almost a decade of dysfunction and heartache with each other.

Maybe I’m crazy, but I think we’re finally, finally, getting our new beginning.

After dinner we go for a walk along the water and sit on the rocks. We kiss with the sun setting and the sound of the water lapping the shore behind us.

“We should get a puppy together,” he suggests, pulling me between his legs so my back rests against his chest. “We can go to the shelter and adopt the one with the saddest eyes and do whatever we can to make him the happiest.”

My heart clenches at the sweetness and pure empathy of that idea.

“I’ve been thinking about a puppy. Lyric has been asking if we can get one.”

“Then we should.”

He puts his arms around me from behind and hugs me close. Hundreds of times I’ve read in romance books about feeling love pouring out of someone, and now, in his arms, I feel exactly that. It’s even better than I fantasized it would be.

“I wish we could but that would be really hard with all the traveling you do, and me living back in New Hampshire….”

“Maybe we could sorta live together.”

He says the word sorta like he’s tap dancing around how I might react to the idea. Or maybe he’s still getting used to such thoughts living in his own head, like new tenants who might either trash or cherish his space.

“Where?” I ask.

“I don’t know…you could live here, or I could stay at your place sometimes. If you want me to.”

In the past forty-eight hours he’s brought up marriage, living together, and adopting a puppy.

I want all of that with him. It’s everything I’ve always dreamed of and wished we could have together.

It’s also everything he’s always been scared of and avoided. Things I let go of, to give him the space and freedom he needed.

Now I don’t know what to believe… or what feelings to trust.

Is he finally ready to move forward with our relationship? Has the absence of drugs and alcohol cleared his mind and made room for love and happiness with me?

Or is he mourning the loss of his other chemical loves and filling the void left by them?

I feel like we’re walking a very fine line between what could be recovery and distraction for him, and I’m petrified of getting caught on the wrong side. My biggest fear is him making all these promises to me now, when he’s at the very beginning of a sober life, only to realize later he doesn’t really want those things.

That would completely crush and devastate me. My heart would be broken beyond repair.

He nudges his face behind my hair and touches his warm lips to my neck, inhaling deeply as he does so. “Think about it. That’s all I’m asking,” he says. “I love you, Piper. I promised you someday I’d make you the happiest woman alive. I’m not gonna give up until I make it happen.”

I lean back against the comfort of his body, close my eyes, and try to believe in happiness.