Page 90 of Here's to Yesterday

17

Four weeks.

That’s how long it has been since Maura and I began playing this game of tug-of-war. That’s how long it has been since she unofficially becamemine.

In those four weeks, I’ve managed to meet with three other record executives and make a decision about whom I’m going to signwith.

Now I only have to hand over my signedcontract.

The biggest thing holding me back from doing so is the blonde beauty I can’t seem to get off my mind. I know that by letting our future together be my deciding factor in signing, I would be breaking the promise we made to one another about working on ourselves and doing things for us. But I can’t help wanting to hold on to her for as long aspossible.

Because I know signing will mean recording. Recording will lead to touring, and touring will lead to more recording, and then the cycle will continue. It will be a legally binding never-ending cycle. It’ll be exhausting and time consuming. And that will be a relationship not a lot of people are going to be willing to investin.

That especially makes me uneasy with Maura, considering her history with long-distancerelationships.

So it’s easy to understand why I’d be hesitant to embark on this journey. It will mean losing her, and I’m not ready for that. Not evenclose.

While I’ve been struggling with letting go, Maura has spent the last four weeks telling her parents to “suck it” in every way she can without talking to them. She sold her car and bought a nice used one with the money. She got out from under their cell phone plan and got her own (yes, sticking them with early termination fees). And she’s exploring possible careers because she’s decided to do something with her decorative business degree her parents forced her toget.

In the last year that I’ve known her, she has grown and changed so much. She used to bend at the will of others. Now, rather than bending, she pushes back and puts herselffirst.

I am so fucking proud of her forit.

Neither one of us has talked to Tanner since “the phone call,” as we refer to it. I’ve reached out to him a few times. A few to yell at him for what he did to Maura and a few to attempt to explain my side. All calls went unanswered andunreturned.

While we still tiptoe around bringing him up, being able to let things go and focus on the here and now is becoming easier by the day. We’ve just been trying, living for us and not for what happenedbefore.

And it’s working sofar.

“Ready!” she calls as she walks back down my hallway and into the living room where I am. “Let’s go. We don’t want to belate.”

I smile becauseshe’sthe one causing us to run behind schedule by showing up five minutes late and then taking another five in thebathroom.

Over the many days we’ve spent together, I have learned that Maura is perpetually late. We go bowling—she’s late. We go to the movies—she’s late. We go to dinner—she’s late. I say I’m going to meet her at her place—she’s late. How that last one is possible, I’m notsure.

But the best part about her lateness? Shealwaysmakes up an excuse.Always.And they are ridiculouslyadorable.

Tonight it was that she couldn’t get her eyeliner to “even out,” whatever the hell that means. That was also the reason she rushed into the bathroom immediately after she got here. And then came out looking the same as before in her skintight jeans and loose top. As usual, she’s classy and casual all atonce.

It’s a trait so small and quirky, but it makes her soirresistible.

“Yes,princess,” Itease.

She glares at me and walks over to the door to slip her shoes back on. “Scoot! You have a set to play, and I don’t want to missit.”

“It’s not like I don’t know the owner or anything,” I tell her, pulling myself off the couch. “Bet I could sweet talk him into moving my slotaround.”

“Poor Gary. He beats a tumor and gets you as the consolation prize. Doesn’t seem very fair tome.”

I swat her on the ass as I brush past her and open the door. Over my shoulder I say, “I consider him quite lucky,actually.”

“Lucky my ass,” she grumbles, following me down thehall.

* * *

“Who all is goingto be heretonight?”

I wave at my father, who is behind the bar, as we walk into Mic’s. Grabbing Maura’s hand, I pull her toward our group’s usualtable.

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