Page 115 of Road Trip
I mouthed the words “thank you” to him, and he blushed, looking down at his hands.
Aaron quieted the crowd down and spoke. “We have one more song for you guys tonight. This one I want to dedicate to my lovely wife, Stevie McShane.” The band started in on an old, familiar tune, and everyone started laughing as Aaron did his best Sinatra impression on “Making Whoopee.”
I never realized how bad the song got at the end, but everyone laughed, including Stevie, who was just plain glowing as she watched her man up there.
When the song was over, someone shouted to Aaron that he was a rat, and he quieted the crowd. “I was going to change the words, but Stevie told me to leave it, that it made it funnier that way. This is my lame way of telling you all that I’m going to be a father.”
Screams and shouts echoed through the small bar. I turned to Stevie, who was now crying as hard as me. I practically jumped in her lap to hug her and kiss her.
“You just had to be here tonight, Abey,” she got out between sobs.
I held her tighter.
“I am so fucking happy for you two! Oh, Stevie, this is going to be amazing!”
She pulled back and sniffled a little. Then she got serious.
“Kelly loves you, Abra. You need to fix things.”
My smile fell. “I know. It’s time.” And with that I was swallowed up by the crowd. Being so damn short, I couldn’t see anything. I made my way over to where I thought the band had been playing and had to kind of shove my way through the people who were crowding Aaron. Someone shoved back, and I stumbled and went pinwheeling backward. Strong arms caught me around my middle.
“Whoa. I’m so sorry, are you okay?” The guy reached for me, but the arms that caught me yanked me around and behind him until I found myself staring at Kelly’s back.
“Careful,” he said in a stern voice, and the guy actually stepped back from him with his hands out.
I could feel Kelly’s muscles tensing under my hands.
He took a moment to turn around. His eyes were so intense when he looked at me. I started to panic again.
“You came,” he said softly.
I nodded and tried to smile. Then remembered my crying, makeup running everywhere…my hands came up to my face, but he was quick. He took my hands in his and breathed my name.
“Abra, doll—“
“Kelly…“
“I love you, Abra. I’m so sorry.”
And like that, we were kissing and the whole world just fell away. He wrapped those ginormous arms around me and pulled me to him so tight there was no him or me anymore. Just us.
Kelly
I knew I was holding her and kissing her, but it just didn’t seem real. Tonight had been a real crapshoot. She could have decided not to show. She could have realized what we were up to and decided to turn around and leave since she hated surprises. She could have done a lot of things. I was just grateful that she was here. So grateful, in fact, that I couldn’t seem to give her any space, even when she started laughing and trying to pull back from me.
“Hey,” she finally said, laughing. “Hey. I missed you, too.”
“I kind of just want to hold you right now until I can decide if this is really happening.”
She laughed and wrapped her tiny hands around my neck. I was shaking so bad, and I knew it had to be noticeable to her. I could barely breathe, I was so overwhelmed with emotion.
“The past couple of months have been a living hell,” I began. “The mess with the child abuse case being tangled up with my assault case meant all kinds of collaboration with the CHP and the DA until I was so sick of going over the details, I thought I would scream! I was so sick of it all, I wanted to run away from everything again. I really did want to just pick you up and toss you into the Mustang and drive far, far away from here. All I could do was hope that you’d forgiven me.”
“It’s been awful for me, too. I should have trusted you, babe. I—”
“Doll, I know I messed up real bad. I can’t believe I let my work get between us like that. I promise I won’t ever let that happen again. If there’s ever—”
She pulled my lips back down to hers, and I completely lost all train of thought. All there was was Abra. I’d missed her smell, her tiny hands, her luscious lips, and the curve of her…
