URGENT (Book 2 of the Soundcrush Series)

Chapter 54: Bad Girls Go Off

Mac

As Adam escorts me across the lawn, keeping me close by his side with a firm hand-hold, I'm struck by conflicting emotions. Kat is right, the dinner preparations are beautiful. The votive candles softly lighting the creamy displays of magnolias. The crispness of the linens, the sparkle of the crystal. The eclectic mix of old chairs, wood worn by years of dinners like this.

This family is beautiful too, even if they aren't so beautiful to me right now. I can see their love for another, their closeness, in their smiles and easy ways with one another. The murmurs of the beautiful people, strewn around in groups, glasses and manners in hand. The pretty little girls with shining hair topped with bows and caring eyes and the handsome little boys itching with mischief and the need to get their white shorts and pastel polos dirty.

And this man beside me, holding my hand tight, grimly pulling me toward his beautiful history, trying to find a fit for us there. He's beautiful, too. In his too-tight khaki pants, and a finely patterned plum summer dress shirt, stretched across his gorgeously broad frame, the short sleeves rolled up slightly, revealing his lean but sculpted arms. Most of the Heartley men are wearing dress shoes and expensive watches, but Adam is beautifully Adam in his black, white-souled vans and wristful of leather bracelets. A perfect balance of the genteel Southern boy he used to be, and the So-Cal cool rocker he's blossomed into.

I don't know if I can find the balance that Adam achieves effortlessly.

It's not that I don't understand this world he's from—the traditional, close-knit, family. At times in my childhood, I hovered on the edge of this world—depending on the stepmother of the day, of course. How many times as I child did I do this exact same thing—get all dressed up like a doll, meet a new step-mother, sometimes even her family—eerily similar to this.

How many times did I press my face up against the window-pane of the finer life my dad thought she was offering us? But I never felt like I belonged with any of them, because every time I almost got comfortable in their world, it was ripped from underneath me. I got good at smudging the window with my rebellion and walking away, because I knew that even if I was invited inside their world, I wasn't going to be allowed to stay.

It's never only been Adam's love that scared me. It's been this...this world of his. No matter how many times I've walked through a similar life, I've never gotten to stay.

But I'm not smudging the window and walking away this time. I'm gonna sit my ass down at the dinner table and they will have to bodily remove me from their world if they don't fucking like it. Because I belong with Adam, and where ever he is, is where I'm going to be from now on.

As we approach, every one eagerly moves to the dinner table, leaving Adam and I two spaces by Peter and Joely, of course. As Adam pulls out the chair for me, I see that he's sweating. Can't say that I blame him. It's not just that it's August. Adam is definitely in the hot seat, now.

Peter remains standing for grace. I smile at Tyler, whose holding Eli on his lap and folding the baby's hands in prayer as he bounces his son. I nudge Adam to look, and his mouth twitches in a smile but fades as he looks at his mom, who has her head bowed.

Grace is pretty standard—the gratitudes for family, health, prosperity, and the blessing of the meal. Until the end, when the Reverend Heartley hesitates and adds, "Lord, we pray for the souls among us that need uplifting, healing, and understanding. Let us do the work we are called to do as family, in your name..."

The strength of the resounding "Amen" is surprising to me...especially because I hear all of the Soundcrush guys' voices among them, earnest and strong. I look down the table and give my brother a quizzical look, but he only blows me a two-fingered kiss.