Page 34 of #Moonstruck

An overwhelming need to do just that filled me. I did want to talk about it. I wanted to tell him.

I didn’t know why.

So I nodded.

“Do you want to come in?” He pointed behind him with his thumb.

Still not trusting myself to speak, I nodded again. It probably wasn’t a good idea to go into his hotel room, but I didn’t want to take the chance, however slight, that someone might stumble upon us. Especially somebody who shared my DNA.

Ryan stood up and offered me his hand. After a moment of reluctance, I let out a big sigh and accepted. And remembered why I hadn’t wanted to shake hands with him that night at the diner. Because everything I thought would happen did. As his warm hand wrapped around mine and our palms pressed together, every nerve ending in my hand lit up like the Las Vegas Strip at night. That electrical explosion traveled through my entire body, stealing my breath, forcing my heart into overdrive.

I wanted to touch him. For him to touch me. To be held by him.

That one action made everything a million times worse. He made me want things I shouldn’t want.

Not shouldn’t. Didn’t. He made me want things I didn’t want.

Shaking, I tugged my hand away from his and folded my arms against my chest. As he unlocked his door, I wondered if he could sense the way I trembled. Which was not due to my emotional upheaval but just from standing this close. Ryan went inside and held the door open, allowing me to enter first.

His room was about five times the size of mine, and it was decorated in a modern European way in grays, burgundies, and blinding whites. I noted he had a huge balcony with trees and furniture before he led me over to the couch. I sat and felt surprised when he plopped down right next to me, considering there were roughly four hundred other places to sit in this one room.

“Tell me.” He put his arm around the back of the couch, and I fought the desire to snuggle in close to him and let him soothe away my hurt.

What was wrong with me?

I cleared my throat. “I may cry a lot.” It always made my siblings supremely uncomfortable when I cried, which was why I usually tried to keep my tears to myself.

At that, he leaned forward, grabbed a box of tissues off the coffee table, and handed it to me. “I can handle it.”

I took two tissues. I used one to blow my nose and the other to wipe my eyes. Despite my warning, it felt like I had dried myself out. There were no more tears to cry. “My mom met my father when she was nineteen. He was ten years older, and the piano player in a jazz band. She fell hard and fast. She had planned to become a neurosurgeon, but she dropped out of college and followed my father around the country. Until she got pregnant with Fitz. She wanted to get married and start a family, but my father said he was too much of a free spirit to settle down. So my mom went back to California and bought herself a home with her inheritance.”

I had to blow my nose again, and I thought about how gross Ryan probably thought I was now. “My father kept touring with his band, but whenever he came to Los Angeles, he stayed with us. He got my mom pregnant with Parker and then with me. She didn’t know it at the time, but he was cheating on her constantly. He had dozens of women just like my mom stashed around the country. She found out, though.”

A concerned look crossed his features. “What happened when she found out?”

“The first time? Nothing. The doctor had just told her she was pregnant with me, and my father brought Cole home. Cole’s mother had died giving birth to him, and my father got on an airplane with a newborn and flew from New York to California to see if my mom would take him.” I couldn’t help but smile as I remembered the way my mother described that moment. “She took one look at Cole and fell head over heels in love with him. Because we were so close in age, he and I were always in the same grade. Some people assumed we were twins or that my mom must have cheated on my father. She didn’t care what people thought and ignored the rumors. Sometimes I felt like Cole was her favorite. Like she had to make up for how he’d started out in life by loving him even more.”

Ryan shifted beside me, and I couldn’t tell, but it felt like he’d moved a bit closer. “She sounds like a great woman.”

“She was.”

“Was?”

Ryan had already asked me whether my mother had passed away. A legitimate question, considering that his own had and that I spoke about my mom in the past tense. “Later she found out there were more women and more children. It broke her.” My voice caught, and I held my breath.

“What is your dad like? He must have some good qualities for your mom to put up with his cheating.” It was like Ryan sensed how close I was to falling apart and changed the subject so I could pull myself back together.

My parents’ relationship had been hard for me to understand growing up; it didn’t surprise me that other people wouldn’t get it, either. “He was not a great guy. I don’t really remember ever spending time with him or even talking to him. It was like we were nonentities in the household. What I do remember is how he smelled. Like a club. Cigarettes and booze. And that he drank coffee constantly. To this day I loathe those smells because they make me think about him.”

“That must really work out well for you, given that you’ve been playing in clubs.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at his wry observation. “That was our lives. My father didn’t contribute to our care in any way. He didn’t pay child support, didn’t really interact with us. Showed up when he wanted and left when he was done. When I was fifteen, he did something that ruined my entire life.”

My voice broke again, and even though there were no more tears, I still wanted to cry. “He came home for another short visit. At the end of it, he went into the kitchen, where she was making dinner, and told her he wouldn’t ever be coming back. That he had impregnated his nineteen-year-old girlfriend with their second child and, as even more of a slap in the face, that he planned on marrying her. I didn’t know it then, but the women in our family have always dealt with severe anxiety and depression issues. My mother just ... snapped. Something happened to her as he explained all the affairs and all the children. Like her mind couldn’t handle it, and she had a total mental breakdown. She started throwing things at him and screaming. Fitz was twenty-one at the time and happened to be home that weekend from college. He physically removed my father from the house. Then my mom locked herself in her bedroom for hours.”

I had to swallow down the knot that had formed in my throat. “When she came out, she made us her famous brownies. Then she called all of us into the kitchen.” The memory of that night was so clear that if I closed my eyes, I was fifteen years old again, sitting at that kitchen table. I could hear how her voice sounded different. How she wore a wild expression I’d never seen. The combined aroma of burned food and the coffeepot still brewing on the counter. The taste of chocolate in my mouth. “She said she would be going out for a little while. She made Fitz promise to take care of us. She told Parker to always be happy and bright. She reminded Cole that he was her best kitchen helper and to never let anyone else’s words affect him. She told all three of my brothers that they had to keep me safe. Then she said I should never fall in love with a musician and always be a good girl. She said she loved us and that someday we were going to change the world with our music. She hugged us and left.”

My chest hurt, like it was being squeezed by a vise. “I didn’t realize at the time that she was saying goodbye. That night she got into a horrible accident. Head-on collision with a telephone pole. She sustained a severe traumatic brain injury. She was in a coma for weeks. When she woke up, she thought she was eighteen years old again. The doctors assured us it would be temporary and she’d regain her memory. She never did. Now they think it might be something psychological combined with early-onset Alzheimer’s. She has to stay in an assisted-living facility. I go and visit her every week, and she has no idea who I am.”

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