Chapter 33

Friday – Nashville - Luke

When Meg walked into the studio, I knew I was in trouble. One glance at her with her hands on her hips and that judgey look on her face told me she was about to say something I didn't want to hear.

I'd got a new nurse the day after Ellie left. A guy this time. He merely came over each day and checked my bandage and wound. It had taken some back and forth with the insurance company to get them to agree to it, but I'd insisted upon it. The sling had finally come off my arm about a month later.

Now that I was able to play the guitar again, I spent day and night in the studio in the basement writing songs for the second album. The tour had been rescheduled and moved back. It wasn't set to start again 'til October. And since it was early August, we hoped to have the whole new album ready by the time we went back on tour.

Meg stood there, arms crossed over her chest, glasses firmly in place, tapping her bossy little foot on the floor and glaring at me. "Well?"

"Well, what?" I kept strumming on the guitar.

"Jeremy and I are about to fly back to Milwaukee. Have anything you want to say?"

I kept my gaze trained on the strings. "I thought I told you bye about an hour ago before I came down here."

"You did." More bossy foot tapping.

I finally glanced up at her and lifted my brows. "Clearly, there's something you want to say, Meggie. Go ahead and say it."

She tilted her head back and forth. I was pretty sure she was about to start swirling her finger in the air too. "You know where we're going tomorrow night, don't you?"

"Where?" I blinked at her innocently.

"The Milwaukee Children's Hospital Charity Gala. The one Ellie spent all summer planning."

Just hearing Ellie's name sent a knife through my chest. But I'd be damned before I let Meg know it. "Oh, yeah? Tell Ellie I said hi." I'd wanted to call her Nurse Ratched, but I couldn't get the words to come out of my dry throat.

Meg's nostrils flared. "Is that all you want me to say to Ellie for you? Hi?"

I let my hand drop from the guitar and tipped it upright, resting the bottom on my thigh. "I take it from your snarky tone that you think I should say more."

"Of course I think you should say more." She scowled at me.

I bit the inside of my cheek. "What do you want me to say, Meg?" My voice was curt.

"Don't play dumb with me, Luke."

"What if I'm not playing?" My voice was oddly flat. I couldn't even pretend not to care about this subject.

My sister looked like steam might just come out of her ears. "Fine. But I have to tell you that I think you're being an idiot."

I adjusted the guitar back onto my lap. "What the hell? What did I do?"

"It's what you didn't do."

"And that would be?"

"You didn't stop Ellie from leaving here."

"She's a grown woman, Meg. I couldn't make her stay."

I hadn't talked to Ellie about it, of course, but apparently she'd given Meg the impression that it had been her choice to leave, and I wasn't about to contradict that story. I mean, it had been her choice to leave in that she'd never wanted to be here in the first place. I'd merely given her an out. Anything else that Ellie might have told Meg I could only imagine because I'd never worked up the courage to ask. I mostly pretended like the entire thing had never happened. Which was both cowardly and shitty of me. And very untrue to form, Meg had not mentioned it…until tonight.

"And you couldn't think of any other reason you might have wanted her to stay? Asked her to stay, Luke?"

I narrowed my eyes on her. "What do you know about it?"

Meg tossed a hand in the air. "Only that you kissed. And you're an idiot. Ellie won't tell me anything."

"Fine. Then we can agree that I'm an idiot. Now. Have a safe flight." I tried to go back to my song, but I felt my sister's dark eyes boring into me. "What?" I finally said, glancing up at her again.

"You miss her, Luke. I know you do."

"What if I do?" I blurted. "We both know I'm not long-term boyfriend material. Look at what happened to Mom and Dad." I clenched my jaw so tight it ached.

Meg's face immediately softened, and she padded over to me and put a hand on my shoulder. "Look. I know it's hard for you, Luke. I do. Mom and Dad were a complete dumpster fire together."

"There, you see. You know." I took a deep shaky breath. Things were about to get real. "I cannot see that look I used to see in Mom's eyes in the eyes of my own wife. Damn it, Meg. That would break me."

"Wife?" Meg's brows shot straight up.

I shook my head slowly. "You and I both know Ellie is wife material, Meg."

Meg gave me a sympathetic smile and shook her head too. "You're right. She is." Then she took a deep breath and patted my shoulder again. "Oh, Luke. I know you're scared. But I also know that you've never been one not to play the odds. Is there a chance that you'll be a shit boyfriend or husband one day? Sure. Maybe. But you've always been kind and loving to me. You aren't like Dad. You're not an addict or a deadbeat or a flake. You're an inspiration. Look how successful you've become. Look how you followed your dreams. I mean, you're sitting in your mansion playing songs from your next sure-to-be-platinum album. All Dad ever did was sit around and complain about how the world was out to get him. I've never heard you say that a day in your life. You deserve every bit of your success. You overcame the odds to get into Stanford, and then you overcame the odds again to be the lead singer of a band with a string of number one hits in a single album. You'd take a chance on all of that, but you won't take a chance on love?"

"Love?" The word hit me in the center of my chest like a shot from a gun. I could barely breathe.

"Yeah. I said it." Meg pulled her hand away and moved back toward the door. "There's one more thing I want to say before I go."

"I know I can't stop you," I replied, sighing and shaking my head.

"Ellie has a date next week with a cute, single doctor. You don't have much time to make this right."