Page 111 of Fierce-Gabe

“I understand. As good as I thought you were, it’s always a long shot.”

“It is. And a life that doesn’t last for many. All those eyes on you.”

“You like the attention,” she said, poking him in the belly. “I could see it back in college.”

“Not as much as you think,” he said. “When I played in college it was at parties of people we knew.”

“There is no way you knew everyone at those parties,” she said.

“You know what I mean. People at school. Our own age. I wasn’t doing anything more than relaxing after a week of class. It was drinking music.”

“I heard,” she said. “It was great. You played the whole time you were there.”

“Did you follow me?” he asked. This was news to him.

“I might have heard your name a lot. Or if I heard you were at a party, I didn’t go.”

It bothered him that she hated him so much that it controlled her enjoying her life.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

“That’s on me and not you. And I don’t bring this up to hash that. I just want to understand you more.”

“Why?” he asked.

She put her head on his shoulder. A tender move she didn’t make often.

Normally she was playful or teasing. Sexy even, like tonight.

Not soft. Not tender. Not gentle.

It was almost loving.

“I’d like to think we are moving in the right direction in our relationship. We said no secrets and we were going to talk with each other. This is just part of it. I saw the look on your face when your mother brought up being sick.”

“It was hard,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t want to go back to that place. She is the glue that keeps us together. She balances it all. And I know her cancer was in the early stages and they said she’d make a full recovery, but you just never know those things. My father was strong and so was she, but I was old enough to read between the lines of worry.”

“Just like me,” she said. “When my father had his heart attack and then his pacemaker battery failed last year. I think our parents will always worry about us as much as we do them.”

He should have realized she’d understand this.

“I didn’t give up my singing because of my mother.”

“Do you think she thinks that?” she asked.

“It’s come up. She’s asked me in the past if I was happy in life. I am. I love what I do. I always knew I’d end up here. My parents would have easily let me try my hand at singing and put off working for the family business.”

It had come up a lot when he was younger.

That he could take the time to get gigs on the weekend and work around his job. They’d be flexible.

He knew that it’d be the best of both worlds.

It was just a world he didn’t want a part of.

“Just like my father would have done for me,” she said.

“The truth is, when I was singing in bars. We were these college kids in a band. We didn’t care so much about making a buck. At least I didn’t. But I saw other acts and other people struggling. They were tired. They were older. Adults. Some wereworking jobs and running around on the weekends still trying to find their dream long since past when they’d be discovered.”

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