Changes & Time

Row 1 Month Later

Good-byes always makes me cry. Over the years, Riley and I have had a lot of them.

When Strut was on tour and he was coming and going from the tour while we were secretly dating. The times that we decided to break up because my father found out about us. Even after we were solid, the many times Riley would head out for an extended stint of Soundcrush touring or publicity. When we were newly married, and he would have to leave New Zealand while we were living apart.

The saddest goodbye was every time we had sex after I cheated on him, and he was trying to work his way to leaving me.

We've been through so many difficult things. And that doesn't include my miscarriage, the stabbing, his accident, the drugs, or our floundering career as a duo.

Now we're having another difficult moment. I've woken up crying on the morn of yet another good-bye, and he's woken up hard as I've ever felt his cock against my back. I brush a tear away and try to roll from the bed, but he slides a hand onto my bare belly, holding me in place.

"Row," he whispers in my ear. "If you don't give me those tears and let me turn them into something hot and gorgeous in our last moments in this house, I swear I'm going to burn it down. No profit. No new album. You think I care? Hell no. All I care about is loving you. You aren't letting me do a very good job of it this morning, darling."

My face is wet, but I find myself giggling at him. The sound echoes in our utterly empty home. All the carpets, curtains, and furnishings were removed yesterday. All our personal effects had been gone for a couple of weeks before that since we put it on the market. All that's here is a mattress and our overnight bag. We close a cash sale and hand over the keys in...

I reach for my phone.

Fuck! We've overslept!

"Riley!" I squeal, reaching for my shirt. "Oh my god, we're going to be late to the lawyers. We can't be late—we're getting a bonus for the sale to go through in one day!"

"Don't care," he murmurs, rolling on top of me, reaching for my arm that's grasping for clothes, and bending it above my head. "All I care about is making one last memory with you here. All I care about is—"

"A happy ending?" I say sarcastically, reaching with my other hand for his shirt. He can either put it on, or I can choke him with it.

"Precisely." He grabs his shirt from me, wiping the wetness from my face before tossing it out of my reach. That hand goes above my head too, while he kisses me thoroughly and makes a place for himself between my legs.

Since he got clean, his newfound spiritual peace can sometimes be a little annoying when I need him to hustle. He's like Leed, but smarter, and more exasperating. At least Ashlynn can pretty much get Leed to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants. Riley does only what his inner voice moves him to. Granted, his inner voice has been amazing at making miracles happen for us in the last few weeks. But right now, it's clear that his inner voice is telling him to fuck the bejesus out of me, and it's going to cost us that bonus if we miss our closing appointment.

"The quick-sale bonus is supposed to buy our new house Asheville," I whisper seductively in his ear, but I've already lost the argument because he's now kissing down my collarbone and my nipples are hardening in anticipation.

"It will. All I need is ten minutes to make this the best goodbye of your life."

He licks wickedly around one nipple and then the other. I watch him, and he watches me watch him. He's so gorgeous when he abandons himself to desire.

"We had good-bye sex last night," I protest weakly.

He snorts. "That was not good-bye sex. That was merely I-wanted-to-fuck-you-on-the-floor-sex."

I giggle again. We haven't done that in a very long time. Probably since the first year we were married. We lost the playfulness really early. We were always so busy, so stressed. In the last month we've been incredibly busy but not stressed. Now, it's like Riley sees every minute of every day as an adventure and not a chore.

"So this is good-bye sex?" I say lazily, my brain already feeling the languor of approaching ecstasy. God, what the man can do to me with his mouth on my nipple and his eyes on mine.

He sucks gently, releases me with a gentle pop. "Yes, that's the last time I suck your right tit in this house. Now the left," he lowers my head.

I scrape my fingers through his hair, giggling more as he laps his way back up my throat. "This is the last mark I'll ever make on you in this house," he bites down gently, then sucks hard. I moan into the sensation but also into his words.

"And this is the last time I ever breach your pretty little pussy," he whispers, nudging inside me.

"In this house," I gasp. Oh god, he's so hard. I feel every rod-like inch of him sinking home

"Ah," he groans. "Yes. Forgot that part, because you feel so good."

I grab his face, and he meets my eyes and begins to move. "And this is the last time these walls will hear me say, "I love you, my beautiful heathen."

"Uhhhh." I moan. "Riley. Oh god. I love you."

"However, you'll probably say all those things quite a few more times over the next few minutes," he shifts his rhythm to the one he knows will send me over the edge in a matter of about three minutes. I wrap my legs around him as he claims my mouth, my body, my mind, my soul.

Fifteen minutes later I'm crying with laughter in the passenger seat of our Airstream. We've just hustled out the door with the mattress, sheets flapping, and stuffed it haphazardly into the camper. Now Riley is concentrating very hard and driving a little too fast.

But not wildly. Just a little faster than a man who nearly lost his life in a car crash typically drives.

I lean over, rub up his arm because I won't take his hand from the wheel. "Best goodbye ever. But I can't believe we are going to this closing smelling of sweat and sex. Without even brushing our teeth."

His focus is back on the road as he says, "We're a couple of hippie folk singers, darling. No one expects us to be clean."

I pull a bottle of gum from the console, curse because it's empty, and climb from the seat to rummage a set of storage drawers in the galley of our camper.

"There's another bottle of gum back here somewhere, I think."

"What?" Riley asks, sounding almost alarmed. Then very swiftly. "No. There's no gum."

"Yeah, I know there is. Because you never let me buy it at gas stations, and you always buy more than one pack at the bulk store. Because you're cheap," I tease him.

"I'm economical. And there's no gum back there. I'm sure. Come.Sit.Down.Rowan," he commands, glaring at me in the rearview. "You're distracting me."

"Well, keep your eyes on the road!" He's acting really weird. Lots of times I walk around back here while he's driving, or vice versa.

"Rowan," his voice is nearly pleading.

"Found it!" I pull a bottle of gum from the cabinet, in the way back, behind the case of organic chicken and rice soup cans Riley also bought at the bulk store for "economical" lunches on the road.

I plop back down in the seat. "Rowan," he says.

"What?" I tug off the top to peel back the safety seal, but there's no seal. The jar is stuffed with cotton balls.

"Rowan," Riley repeats.

"Riley," I say grimly.

"Darling, it's not what you think."

"I think it's an old stash of pills you forgot about," I say calmly, plucking one of the cotton balls from the jar. "I know you're not using again."

"I'm not," he says. He sounds extremely sad, however. As sad as he can, speeding down an LA Highway at rush hour. His jaw tightens as he passes another car.

I nod with determination. "I'll just toss them, okay?" I start to pull the cotton and roll down the window.

"No! You can't toss them! It, I mean!" He leans over and snatches the bottle from me, and we weave precariously in the fast lane.

"Riley, give me the goddamn bottle!" I yell, just a little bit. I know he's not using, but he's freaking me out.

"Rowan," he says my name with the old exasperation. "It's... it's not pills. It's a...it's just a little surprise, alright?"

I grin. "For me?"

"No, for the other girl I'm living with twenty-four seven in this Airstream," he rolls his eyes at me.

I slap his arm and make grabby hands. "Gimme!"

He eyes me. "Later, all right?"

I slap him again. "Not later, now. We just said goodbye to our home, Riley. And now I'm going to the lawyers with bedhead and your spunk stink all over me to be judged by some perfect little LA Influencer couple who is getting our house!"

"You're getting a new house—a very cute one—all new furniture, a new album, and the fresh start we both want," he reminds me.

"Yeah, and even though I do really like our baby hipster house in the North Carolina Mountains—especially since it's so economical—"

"Only LA standards," he snorts. "For the Southeast, it cost a bloody fortune per square foot."

"Yes, but we can walk to downtown Asheville. That's super cool. That's not the point," I frown. "The point is some twenty-year-old with no talent other than an impressive rack and a resting bitch face which she employs while her twenty-one-year-old boyfriend dances the same three moves to a bunch of different songs on Tik-Tok is getting my LA mid-century modern, that I love, so give me my consolation prize, okay?"

"If you feel that strongly, maybe we can buy the house back at a later date," he sighs. "But we agreed—"

"I don't want the house anymore, Riley! I want whatever's in the goddamn gum bottle!"

"You're acting highly unreasonable, darling," he says mildly. "Did you take that pregnancy test?"

"Yes, two days ago. It was negative."

"Maybe you should take another one."

"Maybe you definitely give me the nice little prezzie in the Ice Breakers bottle since I'm both homeless and barren," I snap at him.

"For God's sake, you're not barren, Rowan. Just because you went off the pill, and your cycle is a little wonky does not mean there is anything wrong with you. You're just reverse-projecting your fear that I'm infertile."

"Don't Marley me," I say. "Something is wrong with me. I'm not pregnant, but I haven't had a normal cycle since I went off the pill."

"Well, that's exactly why you went off the pill, right? To let your body restore its natural rhythms. You've been on the pill for a decade. Didn't your doctor say it could take some time to start ovulating again? And if you want, down the road a bit, we can both get checked out. So if either of us should have an issue, we'll probably know long before we're ready to try."

"Right," I say, looking out the window.

He sighs heavily. "We've talked about this, but let's talk about it again. Do you want our next project to be a new album or a baby, darling?"

I turn quickly to him. "An album. You know that's what I want for now."

"You're sure?"

"Yes. I love our music. I'm not ready to give up that dream. I just...I want it all, I guess. I want what Madam has," I confess.

He sighs, passes another car, changes back into the slow lane, and holds out the bottle, giving me a look of consternation.

"Here. Go ahead. But remember, you bloody well asked for it."

I clap my hands and grab the bottle. "I love you. Thank you for getting me an it's-a-sad-shitty-day-present."

He sighs in exasperation, but I'm already pulling out the cotton balls and tossing them all around the Airstream.

There's a tiny box two-thirds of the way down. It's probably diamond earrings, although I can't imagine how he managed them right now. I lost the ones my dad gave me a few months ago. Someone in a state park bathroom got a really nice surprise.

Giving him a big grin, I pour the box out.

It's not earrings.

It's an intricate ring that looks completely vintage, but I'm pretty sure it's new-it feels quite a bit heavier than the delicate vintage ring Riley slipped on my ring finger at Christmas. My Christmas ring is a modest piece with a center stone of less than a carat, but a gorgeous sectional halo that mimics a magnolia leaf. It's from the 1920s and the interior of the settings are just the slightest bit tarnished, lending an authentic gothic feel to its delicacy.

I suppose the Christmas present ring was a replacement for my engagement ring, but there was never any big question or declaration made at the time he gave it to me. Probably because he was high, and I was depressed, pretending not to know.

The exchange we had that day was more like me telling him that it was the most beautiful ring I never knew I wanted, and exclaiming over how I'd never had a piece of jewelry I loved as much. He had asked casually, "Not even your engagement ring? Your old one, I mean?"

"I loved it, but I love this so much more," I had assured him.

He had kissed me and said, "Back then, your style was always changing, and to be quite honest, I was mostly worried about being able to get one big enough to meet the LA standards. I didn't know the perfect ring when I saw it. This time I did."

Regardless of the vague nature of what it stands for, I was happy to have a new ring on my left hand. My old engagement-slash-wedding ring remains in a jewelry box in my parents' house. Riley never asks about it, and I never mention it. It doesn't feel right to sell it, but I know I'll never wear it again. It's just a piece of past, stuck in limbo in my old room.

I smile at my vintage Christmas ring, which probably cost a hundredth of my old diamond but is so much more precious to me. Inspecting the new ring carefully, I see that its design coordinates perfectly with the Christmas ring. Ah, I guess he's borrowing Leed's idea and working on a boho set of rings for all my fingers. Ashlynn has those, to match her wedding band.

"Did you have this made?"

"I did."

I don't ask him what he sold to pay for it. Guitars, probably. I'm no longer able to see it for the tears. It's so thoughtful that he would have me a gift made to ease the sadness of selling our house.

"I love it. It's beautiful. Sorry I was a bitch and spoiled the surprise."

As I begin to slide it on my right hand to wear in opposition to my Christmas present, Riley yells, snatching it from me, and pushing it onto his thumb. "Oi! What the bloody hell do you think you're doing? That's a wedding band, darling." He grips the wheel again but waggles his thumb at me. "You may have it, but there's only one way you get to actually wear it. When I put it on your hand, in front of God and all your godforsaken family, swearing to be your legal and lawful husband through all things, for all time. Preferably sooner than later. Enough of this bloody limbo. It's time, Rowan."

"Oh," I whisper. "Okay."

He gives me a quick glance as he speeds around a car in the slow lane. He's grinning. "Yeah? You'll marry me? Now? I know you said you wanted to wait until for a good publicity window, but the way things are going that Grammy nomination feels a little less certain than it once did—"

"Shut up, Riley," I sob. "I don't care about a goddamn Grammy. Yes, I'll marry you!" I launch myself into his arms—well sort of. I'm flung across the console hanging onto him for dear life.

"Hang on then," he swiftly maneuvers us into the emergency lane and throws on the flashers, then hugs me tightly to him.

"I'm sorry for the terrible proposal," he whispers into my hair. "This one. And the one at Christmas. And the first time too. I'm bloody awful at them, aren't I?"

"Well, the first time, we were drunk. At Christmas you were high. This time is all my fault. I forced it," I sob into his neck.

He's stroking my hair, and still kissing my temple, murmuring in my ear. "We'll have everything this time, Rowan. I swear it. I feel it in my heart. Not every day will be perfect nor glamorous, but it will be bloody wonderful as long as we're together." His breath is shaking. He's crying too.

"I know. I'm so happy, Riley. I was only sad about the house because it was our roots. So much love has blossomed there, but I guess we've learned to take our love on the road, so it doesn't really matter, as long as we're together."

"Love on the Road," he murmurs. "That's an excellent name for the album."

And he kisses me for a long time. We're late to the house closing but we're so happy, and Riley is so bloody charming, no one seems to mind.

###

A Month Later

Asheville, NC

"No! Are you crazy!?!" I squeal, trying to edge away from Riley on the porch of our new home.

He grabs me by both hands and pulls me face to face with him. "Yes. A new beginning, remember? It's important to me."

I look up at the clean, clear, mountain sky, and embrace optimism. It's important to him, and his confidence is important to me. It will be fine.

"Okay." I put my arms around his neck, and I don't tell him to be careful.

He bends at the knees and carefully lifts me in his arms. The danger is not that his back can't take it. His back is perfectly healed. The danger is, will always be, his balance.

But fuck it. If we fall, we fall together.

He carries me across the threshold of our new house, and we do not fall. Then he eases me onto my feet and wraps me in a hug. "Welcome home, Mrs. Emsworth."

He's getting a great big kick out of calling me that. He never once did, before. He said we shouldn't dilute my brand, either in public or in private, but I think there was a part of Riley that always felt a little unsure about our first marriage. He thought I was too young, at barely twenty-one, to be a Mrs. Anything. Or maybe he was worried about his own reputation, having married his client.

That's all over now. Along with all the other baggage.

He's proud that I'm his wife. I'm overjoyed to feel only happiness and no shame in our new marriage.

He leans against the kitchen counter, still holding me in his arms as he surveys the completely decorated home. "It's tremendous, darling. Amazing what you did with a modest budget, a cell phone, a Pinterest board, and one highly motivated brother."

Street's wedding gift was setting up our household. Leave it to the artist to take a few ideas from my Pinterest board and create a gorgeous, cozy home on a budget. I can tell that all the art on the walls is his work. Mostly quick contemporary color splashes or interesting scenes from the life of a musician, but he's tied it all together perfectly.

We haven't actually been in the home before now; we bought it only from pictures. Riley eyes the stairs to the loft. Their steepness didn't come across the realtor shots.

"Shall that be your private getaway? A place where I can't follow?" he jokes.

"No, that's only for security on the rare occasion we need to them stay in-house. Or maybe an occasional guest," I say gently. The entire rest of the floor plan extremely accessible. Not at all like the split level areas of our old home which required him to keep his braces on.

It's a three-bedroom house. Small, but we don't need more right now. We'll be back on the road again by the end of the year, and for much of the foreseeable future. But being located in the heart of our gig circuit means that we can come home for breaks, whereas we never took the time to travel to LA.

This is exactly where we need to be right now. No, it doesn't have a gorgeous view of LA or incredible outdoor spaces, or a sprawling floor plan. But it's ours. I already love the artsy vibe. It's where we're going to write our next album, and explore our new town, and make love, and do Marriage2.0 so much better than the first time.

I wrap my arms around Riley, still smiling at our living room, and he kisses my temple.

"Shall we christen the place, Mrs. Emsworth?"

"I love the sound of that but you know I'm not actually changing my name, right?" I work on opening up the bottle of champagne left by the Realtor.

"I know that, and I wasn't talking about that kind of christening," Riley says, wrapping around me from behind and kissing my neck. But when I struggle with the cork, he puts his hands over mine and pops it for me.

It will be our second drink since his detox, but I'm not worried about the occasional celebratory bubbly.

The only other drink was at our wedding.

We were married two weeks ago, in a frantically planned but wonderfully executed ceremony on the beach in Hawaii. Riley graciously agreed to my mom stepping in as our wedding planner and didn't even fight my dad on paying for it. We know we robbed them of the opportunity to attend the first time. Not only that, we wanted them there all. All of the del Marco clan and our extended family, too.

Even Riley's mom came. She and Riley are semi-estranged, I guess you could say. But I've met her a few times for very brief layovers. She's fragile and uncertain around Riley. I think she carries a lot of guilt for what happened to him in his teenage years— the drugs, Priscilla, the suicide watch, the jail time. It was the first time she'd ever met my whole family or the Soundcrush gang, and the big party let her relax a little more. I even saw her and Riley laughing together once, and I was very happy about that.

The dress I wore was very different than the first one. I liked to think it shows how much I've grown. It was still not a traditional wedding dress, but it was softer, more womanly, and more romantic.

A custom-made beige sheath dress overlaid with a champagne fabric Bridge found on a trip to India with Dev. No sequins, but the sheer fabric was intricately embroidered with some mysterious sparkly thread that made me look like I was clothed in ropes of beautiful crystals. I felt gorgeous, but when Riley saw me walking barefoot toward him, and he mouthed "My Beautiful Heathen," and his eyes were the clearest and bluest I have ever seen, I felt complete.

We were married at dusk, just after the glowing sunset, in the sweet, tender gray, so that our love was the shining thing.

I loved him so much the first time I married him, but now, after all, we have been through, I love him endlessly, and I trust that he loves me more fearlessly than I ever believed possible.

I'm so happy we made it official and forever all over again, even if it was nearly as impromptu as the first time. All the stuff I said before about wanting to do it for publicity seemed really ridiculous on my wedding day. I've finally accepted that we're Indie Performers. We're never going to be rock stars. Fame and huge tours and number one records and millions pouring in by the month aren't ever going to happen and they aren't what's important.

What's important is the music and how we love making it.

"Mmm, if you won't change your name, I can always change mine to del Marco. I'm pretty sure it states somewhere in the prenup that Matt will give me my own trust fund if I do." He pours two flutes of champagne.

"It does not," I laugh at him. "And we don't have a pre-up."

"That's because we didn't need to arrange any pre-nuptial matters. Our finances are ridiculously simple now that we've restructured. All we have is this house—paid for. The airstream—paid for. The proceeds from the sale of the old house to pay promotion of the next album, which we'll cut for free at The Clink. My salary from the agency for expenses. Your monthly advance on your trust to pay for your security. We're practically middle-class, darling."

I grin at him. "It's wonderful, isn't it?"

"Utterly liberating." He winks and clinks his glass to mine, taking a swallow and then setting it down.

He's right. Things are much simpler now. Before the wedding, we signed a deal with my dad in which I agree to roll my trust fund over into another binding trust until I'm thirty-five in exchange for being allowed an income from it now to cover the expenses of being a del Marco. That may sound egotistical, but it's not cheap, being second-generation famous.

Since we were married, security, travel, and extraneous celebrity lifestyle expenses have always been the biggest single line item on our joint finances. When we got married the first time, Riley considered it a point of honor that we should take over those expenses that my dad had always paid. After the Girl Band lawsuit and the loss of virtually all my income and accessible savings, it was a financial burden too great to bear on his income alone. It took me a long time to realize how much that bothered him. It was a real blow to his ego, the idea that he couldn't "protect" me properly without bankrupting us.

He has finally agreed to try to see it my way. It's not that he can't pay to protect me, it's that he shouldn't have to. I can't even pay to protect myself, given my current career choices. So we need to let the del Marco fortune pay for the hassle of me being a del Marco.

But the deal we struck with my dad gets better than that, at least for me. In nine years' time, if we are still married—which of course we will be— Riley agrees to accept half of whatever interest the trust has earned since our marriage into his personal financial portfolio.

And though he won't ever be able to access the principal of my without my authorization, he also agreed with my refusal to protect the principal in a prenup. By that time it's available to us, I figure Riley will have learned to accept that our life and our wealth is a joint venture. So for now we have no debt, a modest but comfortable income, a little money in the bank to pursue our dreams, and an entire decade to build a career and a life together, without debts complicating our immediate future nor my trust fund complicating our emotional landscape.

All it took was a little compromise on both sides. I agreed to sell the home and the cars that we hadn't used in more than a year, and Riley agreed to sit down with me and my dad and actually talk about the financial burden of my del Marco celebrity in a logical, not prideful, way.

"So, what's for dinner, wife?" Riley teases me as pours me another glass of champagne but rinses his glass in the sink.

I prance over to the fridge, impersonate a game show hostess and throw it open. It's stocked from the meal service I ordered and Street took delivery of.

Riley smiles but then quickly frowns. "Street's not still here, is he?"

"No. He left this morning."

"Thank fuck. Speaking of fuck, let's..." he trails off, closing the refrigerator door and tugging me toward the bedroom. We're already shedding clothes when we switch on the light and Riley freezes and pushes me back slightly by the shoulders. He cocks his head, staring at something on the wall opposite the bed.

"Think that was your father's idea of a joke or only Street's bizarre sense of humor?" he asks mildly.

I turn in his arms. There's a life-sized poster of My Dad The Silver Fox, shirtless, leather-vested, arms-crossed, with a shit-eating grin on his face. He's like a goddamn Mona Lisa. No matter where I move in the room, he's giving me lurid smile.

"Both. Fucking bastards," I mutter, ripping it down from the wall and stuffing it in the closet.

Riley grabs me, kisses me again, pushes me away. "No, sorry—"

"Garage," I say automatically and he nods, pulling his shirt back over his head dragging the poster from the closet.

He ambles out the door, "But when I get back from disposing of your damnable father, Mrs. Emsworth..."

"I'll be ready to do my wifely duties, Mr. Emsworth." I sing-song.

"See that you are."

###

Two weeks later

We're lying together in bed. I'm nearly asleep when Riley strokes my back and says, "Mrs. Emsworth, there's something we really need to talk about."

I know what it is. We didn't use a condom again. We've been lax about it a lot, especially since the wedding. Most of the time if he doesn't wear one, he pulls out, but not always. Not our wedding night. Not our first night in our new home. And not tonight.

"You want to talk about what happens if I get pregnant because we're not being careful," I say.

In the dark, I feel him nod. "The last time, I promised you I'd never let that happen again—a pregnancy we weren't prepared for. You say don't want a baby right now. And yet here we are, not doing anything to prevent that. Not only that, I feel like... Rowan, I feel like when I make love to you, you're...I don't know...you're...always..."

"Hoping we get caught up and have completely natural sex?" I whisper.

"Yeah," he says.

"I am," I confess. "I know in my head, I'm not ready, but in my heart, I want... that."

"A child? You really want to become a mother right now?"

"I don't know. It's like a drive more than a decision. I love you so much, it's like every part of my being is wanting the ultimate union with you. It's not just that I want a baby. I want your baby. I know it doesn't make sense—"

"No, it does," he says low and swift, hugging me a little harder. "After everything we've been through? It does. I sometimes feel that, too. When I see Marley with Violet, especially. I want to see you, with our child."

Hearing him say that floods me with feeling. I can see us. All three of us. Riley. Me. The black-haired little girl I dreamed of once. Then more feelings flood me. Horror. Fear. Grief. Dread. Because that little girl wasn't a dream. She was real, and I couldn't keep her safe.

"There's another thing," I whisper, and tears come now. "I really think there is something wrong with me, Riley. I think maybe, I won't be able to have a baby. I think that's part of the reason I can't stop thinking about it. Because you always want what you can't have."

Riley makes a noise of deep sympathy and rolls me over so that we are side-to-side, face-to-face.

"Darling, there is no reason for you to believe that. It's true that I might have difficulties, but a procedure will help with that if it's needed. There's no reason to suspect you aren't perfectly healthy."

"That's not true. I lost our baby before. And there was nothing wrong with her. They sent me the report. No genetic problems at all. It was my body that couldn't keep her healthy. My body that...rejected her."

I have never, in the six years since I've felt that way, ever said that aloud. I showed him the report, but we never discussed how we felt. But now that I told Riley my deepest grief and shame, everything I never let myself feel back then comes pouring out. I sob for the child I never really let myself think about. I sob for the baby whose picture Riley carries in his wallet and I never ask to see.

My cries go on and on, and Riley holds me to him, my head pressed into his shoulder. He accepts it all—all the pent-up grief that has festered into fear. He doesn't tell me I'm unreasonable. He doesn't tell me I'm not entitled. He only tells me he loves me, and he loved our child, and he's scared, too. Scared that he won't be able to give me what I need from him.

I fall asleep, and in the morning when I wake, my eyes are red, my throat is sore, and we haven't really reached any conclusion about whether we are trying to have a baby or just behaving really stupidly.

###

Two months later

Asheville is amazing, but not nearly as walkable as we had hoped. After a few days here, we realized the only accessible places from our house are breweries, head shops, hemp clothing stores, and vegan hamburger joints.

Which is awesome, but sometimes one must leave the world of hipsters and do like, adult stuff. Banking and haircuts and doctor's appointments and the like. So we bought a car. A two-year-old nothing special sedan. I've never had a car that wasn't either Italian or an American classic, but we sold all our vehicles to get out of debt. I'm longing for my vintage Mustang, as I push this little import around town, and there's no vroom beneath the hood.

I have one appointment, and two errands, and I'm home before lunch. We'll spend the afternoon and evening songwriting, but right now we have plenty of time for me to tell him about my morning.

Riley is sitting on the couch, on his headset, a pen perched mid-air above a notebook. He gives me an adorable grin and a thumbs-up as I enter, and I silently clap and give him the thumbs-up back. I know he's trying to get us in a big showcase event in Nashville, so that must be what the thumbs up is about.

I pull out some vegetables and crackers and hummus for lunch while Riley finishes up his call. He joins me in the kitchen and devours my neck with a playful growl. I giggle and squeal, which only encourages him more.

When he finally relinquishes me in favor of a carrot coin swirled in hummus, I ask him, "So the Showcase?"

"In the bag," he mumbles as he follows the carrot with a cracker. He holds up a hand and I give him a high-five and an "awesome job, husband."

"Speaking of bags..." He nods at the one from the pharmacy and swallows with some difficulty. "Prenatal vitamins?" he says with a smile, but much too evenly.

Our gazes meet for a long moment. I shake my head. His jaw twitches. He pulls me to him, giving me a long silent hug. But he doesn't say he's sorry that I'm not pregnant. We are both feeling a lot of things, I suppose. Some regret maybe. But probably also some anxiety that I'm not. And some relief. Despite the fact that we keep having random intervals of unprotected sex, neither of us is without reservations.

He leads me over to the couch. He wraps the fingers of his left and my right hand together. "What did the doctor say?"

"He said I'm not pregnant," I mutter.

"Don't be cheeky." Riley smiles tenderly as he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. "You wanted to go alone, and I didn't mind, but I do want to know what happened."

"Honestly? Not much. A pregnancy test, obviously. A new patient history. I told him about the miscarriage. He did an ultrasound. He said there was no scarring or anything from the D&C. No reason to suspect any complications. He didn't seem at all concerned that I wasn't pregnant after hit or miss unprotected sex for only three months. But he did ask me a lot of questions about my weight."

"Your weight?" Riley blinked. "Your current weight? You look perfectly healthy."

"Those are your Hollywood lenses, I guess," I smiled at him. "Technically I'm a little underweight for my height. But that led to a discussion about my past history with weight loss," I sighed. "Apparently people who've struggled with... anorexic behaviors... sometimes have infertility effects even if they are no longer struggling with their behaviors or their weight. He thinks that's why my cycle is so screwed up. Because I spent years starving myself, and even now..."

"You're very careful about what you eat," he looks at the celery and carrots on the counter. "I always assumed the pressure you felt to be thin was applied heavily from the show. And an emotional side-effect of our marital problems at the time. But you got better on your own when circumstances changed. You've lost a few pounds that you gained during our first year back together, I suppose. I chalked that up to the physicality of performing again. Do you feel like you still have anorexic behaviors?"

"Not really. I'm not trying to lose weight at all, but I put on weight quickly if I don't watch what I eat carefully. Because I spent so long starving myself."

I continued with the explanation the doctor gave me. "The doctor explained that works against me, too. Our bodies still operate on ancient biological principles. My body thinks my diet restrictions are a famine or something. It doesn't know there's a MacDonald's on every corner, and that I could eat more calories if I wanted to. So now, it's always working to put weight back on my frame, after my initial "severe famine." Because I'm always guarding against weight gain, and I'm never "feasting"—my body doesn't trust that there's enough food available for me and a baby. My own body believes I can't support a pregnancy. That's why I hardly ever ovulate or have a period. Talk about the ultimate self-sabotage," I laugh.

Riley shakes his head. "It's not your fault, Rowan."

"It's exactly my fault, Riley," I say softly. "You tried to tell me so many times I was hurting myself. I had no idea I might be hurting our future, too."

"But you are much healthier now. I know you don't eat a tremendous amount of calories, but you're getting good nutrition in the calories you do eat, you stay active, you look radiant," he smiles at me. "Surely this doctor isn't saying there's no hope for you ever to have a child because you suffered one period of anorexia in your life."

"No, he said, try to put on some weight," I could hear the dread in my own voice at the thought. "And give my body more time to normalize."

Riley nods slowly. "So that's it? Just eat, wait, and see?"

I shake my head. "No. He said one other thing. He said...there's a higher percentage of miscarriage in recovering anorexics. And since I've already had one...he said I should be aware of that. A pattern of early pregnancy loss is a kind of infertility, too."

He touches my shoulder with one hand and strokes my fingers with the other. We sit in silence for a long time.

"Okay, you've told me what was said. You haven't told me what you're feeling."

I go to the counter to retrieve the bag from the pharmacy. I hand it to Riley. He pulls out the box and reads the label. I can't help but smile as curiosity gets the better of him, and he opens the package of my new diaphragm and inspects it.

"I've never actually seen one of these," he admits with a sheepish expression. "Aren't they a bit obsolete as birth control?"

"No. It's a good option for us. I don't want to take anything hormonal, and it's pretty clear that after so many years of being together without condoms, neither one of us are wild about using them."

"Right." He snaps the lid closed and returns the device to the bag, sitting it on the table. He strokes my cheek. "This is what you want? To go back to using birth control? Every time?"

"Yes," I say firmly.

"Because you've decided for sure you don't want to have a baby right now, or because you're scared to have another miscarriage?"

"A little bit of the former, but definitely the latter. I don't want to go through that again, Riley. Especially not now. We just got married, we're writing a new album, and this is a happy time. I'm so happy. Except whenever we lose our heads and have unprotected sex and then I obsess for two weeks about whether I might or might not be pregnant. Then we take a test and I feel a little sad I'm not, but happy again in a day or two. And then everything is wonderful until it happens all over again.I feel like we've opened Pandora's Box of Baby Crazy and it's too soon. Way too soon for more stress. Right now I want you and me and the music. I want to wait a year before we reopen baby talks, okay?"

He pulls me to him, and I mold to his chest, feeling safe and loved. "Okay. If you were truly adamant about a child right now, I'd get on board. I swear I would because I want children too, and I want you to be happy most of all. But I won't lie and say I'm not happy with the idea of putting it off a bit. I'm selfish, Row. The first time around, I had to share you with your career. Now it's our dreams, our partnership. I know the first year of R&R was a little rougher than we expected, but I still believe in us, darling. I still think there is a place for our music, a place where we love making it and audiences love hearing it."

"Me too. I love you. Thank you for being so amazing while I've been working this temporary baby craze."

"It's my job. Top-notch husband this time around." He hooks a thumb at himself as he winks.

He truly is. The months since Riley has been clean have been the best of all our years together. He's inspired. He's patient. He's energetic. He's funny. He's strategic. He's lusty. He's communicative. He's happy.

And I am, too. The baby thing will work itself out in time. We've got plenty of it.

Riley kisses my head and rises, retrieving our lunch. He's added some charcuterie and avocado slices to the board. I roll my eyes at him, but I pile a cracker with cheese and salami, and he smiles to himself. He looks so pleased, I guess five pounds of weight would be a good goal to start. It's not like he won't still love me, that's for sure.