Page 6 of Rim Shot Rebound

“Can’t,” she said. “Meeting Eric to work on that song.”

Natalie cursed Robin under her breath.

“We’ll make it work,” Kelsey said. “It’s only a few sessions. I’ll write most of the lyrics on my own. We’ll just meet a few times to line everything up. It’ll be fine.”

Natalie shook her head. “Jeez, you’re a horrible liar.”

“How about…I’m gonna make the best of it?”

“I don’t see how there’s a best here.” She looked down at Kelsey’s stomach, then back up at her friend’s face and raised her eyebrows. “Does he know yet?”

Kelsey tried to keep her expression loose and cool. To completely ignore the alarm bells going off in her head. She didn’t want to let Natalie sniff out the fear percolating inside her.

She took a long drag on her sucker. “Know what?”

Natalie lowered her eyes and crossed her arms, determination set firmly in her face. “Does he know you’re pregnant?”

Being the decent friend that she was, Natalie kept her voice low. But they couldn’t have this conversation in the record store, and she clearly wasn’t going to let this slide.

Kelsey sighed, walked to the office in the back, and told her boss she was taking an early lunch while the store was quiet. Not that she had any plans to actually eat lunch. She had a sleeve of saltines and a plastic bag of almonds behind the counter that would get her through the rest of her shift.

She nodded toward the front door, and Natalie followed her outside into the bright, fresh spring air. They turned left and strolled down the sidewalks. The dwarf azaleas lining the curb were in full bloom along the road beside them. Southern Louisiana in all its March glory.

Natalie broke the silence. “You keeping it?”

Kelsey had weighed all of her options for a few brief minutes after she’d found out she was pregnant. She would never put a kid, especially not her own, into the foster system if there was another choice. Sure, there were lovely families taking in kids, but she’d grown up in the system. She’d been bounced around and had seen enough of the ugly side to know she didn’t want any kid of hers in foster care. Adoption meant she had no control whether or not her kid ended up in the system later, so that was off the table, too.

And while she knew it was ultimately her decision and that Eric’s complicated religious beliefs were his own to deal with, she also knew that ending the pregnancy would tear him apart. The last time had been out of her control. She couldn’t intentionally inflict that kind of pain on him. She couldn’t inflict that kind of pain on herself. She was grateful to have options, but only one choice made sense for her in this situation.

“Yes,” she said, emphatically.

“Okay,” Nat said. “You plan on telling him at all?”

“Eventually.”

“Any reason later is better than now?”

Kelsey took a deep breath and grounded herself. Felt the pavement through her Converse soles. Acknowledged the cool breeze hitting the hairs on her forearms. Focused on the present. The here. The now.

She was safe downtown with her friend. She wasn’t in a dark, sterile exam room looking at an unmoving image in the center of an ultrasound screen.

“There might not be anything to tell later.”

Natalie froze midstep. “Shit. I’m sorry, Kel. I didn’t—”

“It’s fine.” Kelsey paused with her friend for a second, then they both continued their walk.

She’d been pregnant once before, about a year ago. Had a miscarriage late in her first trimester. Neither of them handled it well, to say the least. Kelsey had shut down emotionally and shut Eric out, leaving the door open for him to walk away and for her to have to heal on her own. Their split nearly tore the whole band apart once Kelsey’s instincts told her it was time to hit the road, no matter how much the thought of leaving these new friends would have killed her just when she needed them most. Thankfully, Natalie and Camille had talked her out of that decision.

A moment later, Natalie said, “I didn’t know you two…”

“It was just a one night thing right before Mardi Gras. Before he got together with Bria.”

“No wonder you were so sick over that.” Natalie swore under her breath again. “I’m gonna kill that bastard.”

“We’ve both made mistakes.”

So many mistakes. And as much as he’d fucked up, she had to own the fact that she’d played a part in pushing him away. She knew better than to feel guilty about that, given the circumstances and the pain she’d been dealing with, but she’d played her own role in their break-up, and she couldn’t let him take all of the heat for it. Not anymore.

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