She dug in her bag for another ponytail holder and just as she rounded the corner, she found one and piled her hair back on top of her head. Ah, it helped immediately. She needed to get out of there before she saw anyone up close and personal.
“Over here, Mom!” Leo was hidden away, sitting exactly where she’d left him. It didn’t look like he’d moved an inch.
“Hey, bud. Thanks for being so patient. Where’s Aunt Chloe?”
“Bathroom,” he pointed at the door next to him, “right in there.”
“You should have gone with her.”
“Gross, Mom.”
“You know I don’t like you being by yourself—you-” She laughed in mid-sentence. “Don’t you give me the stink eye. Come on, let’s get out of here. You ready for some ice cream?” She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead and helped him put everything in his backpack.
“Can I have three scoops this time?”
“Uh, wow, really? Are you gonna be a hyper mess if I say yes?”
“No?” He looked at her, unsure of what to say.
Roxie laughed and messed up his hair. “You know what? Yes. I can’t believe how long you waited on me. You deserve at least three scoops.”
Leo’s eyes lit up. “Cotton candy, strawberry, and blueberry cheesecake.”
Roxie crinkled up her nose. “Can your belly survive that?”
“It certainly can.”
“Are you absolutely certain, with all certainty, that it certainly can?”
Leo raised his eyebrows. “I’m certain,” he said.
Chloe walked out of the restroom and her eyes widened when she saw Roxie. “I didn’t leave him long, just a few minutes. I told him to yell or bite if anyone came near him.”
Roxie rolled her eyes. “He should have gone in there with you. Someone could have snatched him up. Look how cute he is.”
It was Chloe’s turn to groan at Roxie. She was a little over the top sometimes. “Come on, Rox, there are guards at every door. No one would be able to take him.”
As they pushed the theater doors, an unseasonably hot wind attacked them. They walked to the car and Roxie started it before Leo and Chloe got in, cranking the air conditioner to full blast. The ice cream shop was just around the corner and when they walked in, Leo started humming. The kid lived for ice cream.
When they had their heaping cones, they sat down and started eating it as fast as they could before it melted.
“Did you see him?” Chloe whispered to Roxie when Leo got up to throw away his napkin.
“No, I made it a point to not look for him, actually,” Roxie whispered back. “I didn’t want to screw up my audition, you know?”
Chloe nodded. Her eyes searched Roxie’s, but she didn’t say anything for a long time. When they were on their way back out the door to head home, she spoke again.
“What are you gonna do if they call, Roxie?”
Roxie sighed. It was a waste of time to even think about that. They wouldn’t be calling, and if by some crazy stroke of luck they did, she hadn’t figured out yet how she could actually do it.
“I’m not gonna get the job, Chloe.” She shook her head. “You know I have the worst luck ever…” her voice trailed off quietly.
Roxie got on the highway and crept slowly in the rush-hour traffic. She looked in the rearview mirror at Leo, who was holding the good fight of staying awake, just barely.
“You were there a long time. They must have liked something they saw. Rox, you’re an incredible dancer,” she said quietly. “I think you need to think about what will happen if they call you back.” Chloe poked Roxie in the arm for emphasis.
“There’s no way I can do it!” She softened her tone when she saw the concern in Chloe’s eyes. “I don’t know why I went—I think I just needed to see if I still have what it takes.” She adjusted the air and sighed. “If they do call back, which they won’t, I’ll know to pursue opening the studio. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do anyway. It would make today worth the stress, don’t you think? And Mom and Dad might finally get behind the idea if they hear I was good enough to tour with Beckham Woods.”
“You don’t need to teach yet. Save that for later. People need to be seeing you out there, dancing the way only you know how,” Chloe argued.
“I found out today how long the tour really is, Chloe.” She swallowed hard, needing to have a good cry. “They’re going pretty much non-stop for almost a year, not to mention the months of rehearsals in L.A. I’m sure there are breaks here and there, but … a year. ”
Chloe groaned and stared out her window for a long time. Both of them had one person on their minds: Leo. When they turned onto their street, she looked at Roxie again.
“Rox … I’m ready for you to start living for you again. I hoped this was the start of that.”
“And it is. I’ve known for a while that I can’t keep living like I have been. Coming to the tryouts and making it to the last round … it helped more than I can say. It was worth it for me, just to get that far, because now I know I have to get back to what I love—but I have to do it the right way. Doing whatever I want had to end when I got knocked up,” Roxie whispered under her breath, but Chloe heard every word.
“Moms have lives too!” Chloe cried.
Leo piped up out of his stupor. “Moms have lives too! Moms have—how many lives you think you got, Mama?”
Chloe grinned. “See? They do!”
“Shall I make a bumper sticker with that on it, Chlo-bo?” Roxie snapped back and got out of the car, giving her door a good slam.
“Oh, cut the shit already!” Chloe yelled back and then clamped her hand over her mouth, cringing when Leo hopped out of the car.
Leo’s eyes got wide. “Aunt Chloe said shit. I thought we couldn’t say shit.”
Of course he could say that perfectly.
“We can’t, Leo. Aunt Chloe just let it slip on accident.” Roxie’s eyes narrowed on Chloe.
“It sounded like she could say it. Why we can’t say shit?” Leo looked between his mom and aunt, confused.
“Just stop already,” Roxie said.
“I’m sorry, Leo. I’ve gotta watch my mouth,” Chloe said and mouthed ’sorry’ to Roxie, but her shit-eating grin wasn’t convincing.
The next morning at ten, Roxie was just finishing up on a loan at work when her cell phone rang. She checked to see the time of her next appointment and picked up the phone.
“BB Credit Union, this is Roxie. How can I help you?”
“I … must have the wrong number. Wait, did you say this was Roxie?”
“Oh sorry, habit … yes, this is Roxie.” Roxie tucked her cell under her ear and rolled her eyes at herself. Of course, her work phone started ringing then, just to nail the point home that she was an idiot.
“This is Anthony Douglas, Beckham Woods’ choreographer. How’s it goin’?”
“Uh, I’m good. How about you?”
“Great. Listen, you really impressed us with your audition yesterday.”
Anthony sounded so sincere, Roxie had to sit up a little straighter in her rolling chair.
“Thank you.”
“I was seeing here that you’ve been dancing practically your whole life, but on your resume, I’m not seeing a lot to show for that. However, I would have never known by the way you dance. Were you just being modest? Do you teach in a studio or something like that?”
“I’ve taken a lot of classes and dance every chance I get, but no, I don’t teach anywhere. I have a boring 9 to 5 job.” Roxie laughed awkwardly.
“Well, that would normally scare me off, but I’ve never seen someone catch on so quickly to my routine OR someone who seemed so completely comfortable on stage. You’ve got quite a gift, girl.”
Anthony sounded like a friend she’d like to keep. Too bad he was going to hate her soon.
“Thank you so much.” She bit her lip hard to see if this was really happening. Ouch. It was.
“Beckham specifically a
sked that you be invited on his tour. He saw you yesterday and you knock-”
“What? He was there? I … didn’t see him.”
“Oh yeah, he was there. We couldn’t take our eyes off you, hon. He thinks you’re perfect for this and so do I. In fact, I’m already envisioning featuring you with Beckham on a few of his slower tunes. He’s 6’2” … you’re 5’9”, 5’10”? Perfect proportionally to work next to him.”
She knew that.
“The thing is-” she started.
“I’d like to fly you out by October 12th, so you’re ready to begin rehearsal the next morning. We’ll be in L.A. until December 20th and then off for about a week and a half before Christmas and just before the New Year. We’ll start back up with a final week of rehearsals on the 2nd and our first performance will be the 5th. I can fax over the schedule, if you’d like … or email, whichever you’d prefer.” He finally stopped to take a breath and Roxie put her head in her hands. “Make sure you’re conditioned between now and then. Even if you’re dancing a lot now, it’ll be a grueling schedule. Do you have any questions for me?” he asked.
“See, the thing is, I have…” The words seemed to lodge in her throat. She coughed and then a lunatic took over her brain. “Can you email the schedule and all the details?”
“Absolutely. I’ll do that right now. Anything else?”
“No, not that I can think of,” she lied.
“I’ll email the contract and terms of the salary along with the schedule.”
“S-sounds good,” she stuttered.
She hung up the phone and looked around at her co-workers, answering phones and working with customers, and thought about how her whole life could change. Two minutes later, she opened up her email. The first page she saw took all the air right out of her body.
Actually it was just one line: $1,000 per show for 120 shows, $500 per rehearsal, and a $100 per diem each day on the tour.
She tapped the numbers quickly into her calculator and put her fist against her mouth to stay quiet when the amount came up: $184,500.
Everything blurred and all the sound in the credit union was swallowed up. Roxie was worthless the rest of the day. Her mind had already landed on the figure that was more than she could even wrap her mind around. Really, even if it had been half of that, she would have been heavily swayed. With a little boy to raise and no winning lottery ticket, she couldn’t imagine any single mom passing up that money.
Ian looked at his two girls snuggled up on the plush rug in the living room, sound asleep. Their little one was the perfect mini replica of her mama. They both took his breath away. As always, when he looked at Sparrow and their daughter, Journey, his heart picked up and lit into a cadence he’d based many songs on—his muses, both of them.
His fingers latched onto his hair and he pulled until he realized what he was doing. Sparrow told him all the time that his hair would fall out if he kept it up. He didn’t want to be old and bald for his gorgeous wife. If his hair was going—which, truthfully, it didn’t seem to be in any danger of quite yet—he wanted it to be from Sparrow yanking on it when he was deep inside her.
He ran his hand across his face instead, trying to quell the anxiety that had been in his chest since he’d spoken to Donny. He’d known deep down something wasn’t right; Donny had been avoiding meeting him in person for the last three months. Ian had attributed it to both their schedules, but when he pressed again to meet and talk about the tour, Donny finally came clean. Donny had stage IV cancer.
Ian spent the first week after hearing the news devastated about Donny. They’d only worked together a couple of years, but had gotten close in that amount of time. Donny had been really good to him.
What Ian hadn’t known until today, was that Donny only came partially clean. The tour was off. Donny admitted that he’d hoped he could still work it out, but now knew that wasn’t realistic. Everything Ian thought was already set in stone, wasn’t. Donny had fired the tour manager months ago and tried to do it all on his own. ‘One last gift to Ian’ that hadn’t worked out. At all.
He couldn’t be upset with Donny—it was minuscule compared to his friend being so sick—but it did mean he’d have to figure out what to do next. The lease on their house was up the same date as the ‘tour’ was scheduled to start. He’d also worked on a surprise for Sparrow that he hadn’t planned on showing her until a few days before they went on the road, but now he was regretting the whole thing.
Sparrow’s eyes opened and shifted to his. She stayed completely still, so she wouldn’t wake up Journey.
“You okay?” she mouthed. “Donny?”
He nodded and swallowed hard. “I saw him,” he whispered. He shook his head and bit the inside of his cheek, looking away.
Sparrow carefully moved Journey’s arm and leg off of her and stood up. She looked at the mantle, making sure the monitor was on. She walked toward him and took his hand, leading him to their bedroom.
Ian pushed the door behind him but didn’t close it all the way. They’d be able to hear the little one crawling when she woke up. She was nearly seven months, but Journey had inherited her mom’s long legs and her—as Sparrow put it—‘complete lack of gracefulness’. Sparrow couldn’t help it if occasionally her feet got ahead of her. And even if nothing stood in her way, Journey seemed able to make a racket when she went mobile.
Sparrow turned and wound her hands around the back of his neck, studying his face.
“I’m worried about you,” she said. “This with Donny and leaving soon … the stress of moving everything into storage. It’s a lot.”
“It is. And there’s more. I’ll tell you all about it, but right now I just want to sink into you and not think about anything else.”
Her eyes widened and then she smiled, pressing closer to him
He kissed down her neck and whispered: “How long do you think we have?” He lifted her short skirt and had the tiny scrap of lace underneath pulled off before she even answered.
“Maybe a half hour,” she whispered, unbuttoning his jeans and moving his boxer briefs down, as she took hold of him.
“Oh, you’re not messing around,” he said, grinning.
“Neither are you, apparently.” She smirked, her hands cool on his hot skin.
His fingers dipped inside her, one at a time. “What’s got you all worked up, baby?”
She shifted her hips toward his hand, greedy.
“You,” she purred.
He had barely moved his fingers aside and inched into her, making contact with his favorite place on earth, when the sounds of their monkey crawler came barreling down the hall toward them.
Sparrow’s legs unwrapped from his waist, and he was hanging in the cold air, hurriedly pushing himself back into his boxer briefs, all in split seconds.
When Journey pushed through the door, looking for them, they were both grinning at her.
“Dadadadada,” Journey chanted, crawling toward him.
“Pumpkin! Prettiest little cock-block I ever did see,” Ian cooed at her, picking her up and hugging her.
“Ian!” Sparrow smoothed her skirt down and turned pink.
He loved making her blush more than anything. He tried to get her good and flustered at least twice a day.
“Just telling it like it is,” he said. “She doesn’t know yet how she’s making her daddy suffer.”
“And hopefully she won’t ever figure it out,” Sparrow mumbled, nuzzling into Journey’s chubby baby neck.
Ian blew a raspberry on Journey’s cheek and the sound of her laughing made them all laugh. He sighed a long sigh when he stopped laughing, some of the heaviness coming back to him.
Sparrow touched his cheek. “Come tell me about it while I make dinner.”
He nodded and then took her hand from his cheek and kissed it. “Okay. And I intend to finish what I started as soon as the little blue-baller goes to bed tonight.”
Sparrow groaned and her eyes narrowed, her cheeks doing their thing.
“You need to get out of the naughty name-calling habit right now,” she said.
He laughed and she growled, which only made him laugh harder.
Journey wiggled out of his arms when she heard the phone ringing and scuttled over to try and pick it up. He hadn’t even remembered where he’d left it, but his daughter had a keen sense of where the cell phone was at all times. It was just out of her reach, so Ian grabbed it and thanked her for finding it before she took it too hard that it wasn’t in her little hands.
She didn’t care that he’d thanked her—her lower lip stuck out and instant tears filled her eyes. He tried saying ‘hewwo’ before he answered, to distract her. Sometimes that made her laugh, but this time it wasn’t working. Something like ‘Heww-lo’ came out when he pressed talk. Sparrow giggled as she picked up Journey.
“Hello. Am I speaking to the Sexiest Man Alive?” The guy started laughing midway through his sentence.
“Uh…” Ian paused. “Who’s callin’?” People had crowned him with that doozie last December and it never failed to embarrass him.
“Sorry, Beckham Woods calling. I hope you don’t mind—my manager got your number from Donny…”
“Holy hell. Of course I don’t mind. You’re Beckham Fu-rickin’ Woods.” He’d tried desperately to clean up his mouth, especially since Journey was born, but holy shit he had a rock star on the phone. “I think you might have been elected Sexiest Man Alive a few dozen times yourself.”