Lost and Found Read online

  We get to Macy and Liam’s and Macy and baby Jack are waiting at the door to assault us with hugs. I scoop up Jack and watch as Liam comes into the hall and shakes hands with Spence. They both do that guy thing where they say hello in a fake deep man voice. Still, at least Liam is being civil.

  We all take turns holding Baby Jack, including Spence.

  “Look at you, you’re a natural with babies,” Macy says as she watches Spence cradle Jack in his arms.

  “Yeah, I still remember when Samuel was this little,” Spence says. “They grow up so fast, enjoy the baby phase while you can.”

  “His younger brother,” I say quickly in response to the alarmed look on Liam’s face. That’s all I need, for Liam to think Spence has some secret child I didn’t tell him about.

  “Do you just have the one brother?” Macy asks.

  “Yeah, he just turned eight,” Spence says. “And now he’s very loud and energetic, not at all like you, huh?” he coos at Jack.

  If I wasn’t worried I was getting too attached to him before, I definitely am now. Who can resist a man that looks this good holding a baby?

  Macy takes Jack back from Spence and puts him in his baby seat while we order pizza. Macy opens a bottle of wine and Liam gets beers for him and Spence.

  When the food shows up, Macy and Liam retreat into the kitchen to get plates and drinks for everyone, leaving me and Spence alone.

  “Still feeling nervous?” Spence asks me.

  “I was never nervous,” I lie.

  “Oh is that panicked look you had on your face on the way over going to be your new normal face now? It’s fine if it is, but I might need some time to get used to it.”

  I flip him off and he laughs and kisses me on the cheek.

  “You looked cute holding Jack,” I tell him.

  He grins. “Of course I did. I always look cute. Give me a cute baby and my cuteness increases exponentially.”

  I roll my eyes at him. “You know what’s not cute? When you act like a cocky asshole.”

  He laughs.

  “Oh you love m—it.” Spence stops laughing and clears his throat. “You love it.”

  I take a big sip of my wine, and Spence reaches for his beer. Luckily, Macy and Liam reappear and we’re saved from this strange awkward moment.

  We eat and as we eat we talk, and everything is surprisingly nice and normal. Liam and Spence have a few more beers and then Liam breaks out the scotch. Macy and I polish off a bottle of wine. Everyone actually seems to be having a good time.

  When we leave, Liam and Spence shake hands again and say goodbye in their normal voices, which feels like a sign we made good progress here tonight.

  When we get outside, Spence tosses me the keys.

  “What are you giving me these for?” I ask.

  “So you can drive us home.”

  “Oh, you’re relinquishing control?” I ask, heading for the driver’s side of the car. He follows me and pins me against the door, blocking me in with his arms.

  “Don’t get too comfortable with it,” he says, bending down and bringing his mouth to mine. “Do you have any idea what torture it was to be with you all night and not be able to do this?”

  “Mmm, yes,” I say, kissing him back. “Let’s go home so we can do more than this.”

  “I like the way you think,” he says. He pulls away from me and goes to walk around the passenger side of the car.

  “You can drive if you really want,” I tell him.

  He laughs and shakes his head. “I would if I could, but I’m way too drunk. That’s the real reason I gave you the keys. Your brother kept refilling my scotch glass.”

  “Oh my god,” I laugh as we both get into the car. “You're the worst.”

  “What do you want from me?” Spence says, reaching over to hold my hand. “I was super nervous.”

  “I knew it!” I squeal triumphantly.

  Just then, Spence’s phone starts to ring. He fumbles pulling it out of his pocket, and it falls between the center console and my seat.

  “Aw, shit,” Spence says, trying to reach down into the narrow space.

  “I’ll get it, my hands are smaller.”

  The phone is still ringing when I fish it out. I glance down at the screen and see that “Ashley Nice Tits” is calling Spence.

  I hold the phone up so he can see the screen. “What the fuck is this, Spence?”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Spence

  Well, shit. This isn’t good. I don’t even remember an Ashley Nice Tits.

  “I don’t know,” I tell Gemma. She looks pissed and I can’t blame her.

  She throws my phone at me and I manage to catch it before it falls back into the car abyss again.

  “I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid,” she says.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  “About you. And thinking this could work.”

  “It is working!” I insist.

  “Then why are random girls calling you? Is she even random, or is this ‘Ashley Nice Tits’ someone you’ve been seeing this whole time?”

  “No, no, no, Gemma. No. I honestly don’t even remember who she is. Here, see?” I pick up my phone and pull up Ashley’s contact info. “I’m deleting her right now. Whoever she is, she doesn’t matter, okay?”

  Gemma only looks slightly mollified by this, but I don’t know what else to do to fix this.

  “I’m sorry that happened,” I say lamely.

  “Whatever.” She sighs. “Let’s go home.”

  We drive home in silence, and the entire ride I’m wracking my brain trying to think of something to say to smooth this situation over, but I can’t. It doesn’t help that I’m still a little tipsy from all the scotch Liam gave me.

  When we get back to the apartment, Gemma puts the car in park, yanks her keys from the ignition and sits there for a minute, not looking at me.

  “I’m going to stay at my place. Alone,” she says, and my heart sinks.

  “So you’re mad at me now? Because of some stupid phone call?”

  “I don’t know, Spence. I just want to be alone right now.”

  She gets out of the car and I follow her. She lets me open the apartment doors for her, which kind of feels like a good sign, but it also kind of feels like she can’t even be bothered to hassle me about it.

  At the second floor landing she makes to continue upstairs without saying anything to me, but I hold her back.

  “Gemma, come on, don’t be upset.”

  She doesn’t pull away from me, but she still won’t look at me either.

  “There are no other girls, okay? I promise.” I step closer to her and put out a hand to tilt her chin up so she has to look at me. I give her a big, sad, pouty face. “Don’t be mad at me. I can’t handle it.”

  She sighs and leans into me and I wrap my arms around her, relieved.

  “What am I going to do with you, Spence?” She murmurs.

  “Take me home with you?” I ask, giving her my best sad puppy dog face. “Tell me you forgive me?”

  “You can’t keep doing this,” she says. “I don’t like having these bombs dropped on me all the time.”

  “I know, but I can’t change my past. I’ve always been honest with you. You know all my dark, ugly secrets. Or most of them, anyway. There’s no other girls I’m talking to right now. No one other than you.”

  “Okay,” she says, but she doesn’t sound convinced.

  “Can I come upstairs with you?” I ask hopefully.

  She steps away from me and shakes her head. “No, not tonight. We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”

  “Okay, fine,” I relent, but I’m disappointed. Mostly in myself. And in Ashley Nice Tits for calling me.

  She reaches up on tip-toe to kiss me, but it’s quick and leaves me wanting more. Then she disappears up the stairs to her own apartment.

  Physically, I’m at band practice, but mentally I’m not here at all.

  “Spence, what are
you doing?” Max says, exasperated. “You’re not even playing the right song.”

  I shake my head in an attempt to clear it. “Oh. Yeah. Sorry man.”

  I fully expect Max to ream me out for not focusing, but instead he exchanges a look with Lucas. Lucas gives him a pained look, then turns to me.

  “Listen, Spence. We need to talk to you.”

  “About what?” I say, narrowing my eyes.

  “About you. And your place in this band,” Max says.

  “Excuse me?” My heart jumps into panic mode. This is the last thing I need right now.

  Things with Gemma have been strained since the Ashley Nice Tits call. She says things are fine between us, and for the most part they are, but she’s gotten super suspicious.

  It’s gotten to the point where I’m spending every spare moment I have with her, and when I’m not with her I’m sending her a constant stream of texts trying to assure her I’m not doing anything wrong.

  It’s getting exhausting.

  My only solace is that eventually she’ll come around and start trusting me.

  I hope.

  But it means my brain isn’t exactly focused on the band right now. And it hasn’t been for awhile.

  “You’re not kicking me out of this band,” I say, immediately getting defensive.

  Lucas holds his hands up. “We never said we were.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Do you still want to be in this band? Because it kind of seems like you don’t,” Max says.

  I’m sure they expect me to say yes right away, but I hesitate, and they look worried.

  “What would you guys even do without me?” I say instead.

  Lucas and Max exchange another look. I wonder how many conversations they’ve had about this behind my back.

  “Do not tell me you’re kicking me out and replacing me with fucking Pete Crawford,” I say, the anger building.

  “We wouldn’t do that,” Max assures me.

  Coming from him it’s actually a relief to hear that.

  “But you need to decide if you actually want to be in this band. A Fine Sound asked us if we wanted to tour with them this summer, and we need to give them an answer.”

  “Holy shit, really?” A Fine Sound is another local band that’s gotten pretty successful. Successful enough to tour. Touring with them would be huge for us.

  “Really,” Lucas confirms.

  “Nothing is confirmed,” Max amends. “But it’s basically a go as soon as we give them the word. We’re playing a show with them next weekend. So we really need you on top of your game, and we need to know if you’re committed.”

  “Yeah, right. But what kind of tour would this be? Have you told Sophie and Amanda?” I ask. There’s no way Gemma would go for this. She’d lose her mind wondering what I was doing every night.

  Lucas and Max exchange another look, and it’s really starting to bug me how buddy-buddy they’ve gotten since I’ve been so focused on Gemma.

  “They’re fine with it,” Lucas says. “It would be a few months this spring and early summer. Nothing too far away, just up and down the east coast.”

  “I can’t just say yes to this,” I tell them. “I have a job to think about. What’s your plan if I say I won’t do it?”

  This time, Max looks at Lucas but Lucas doesn’t dare look back at him.

  “We’re considering other guitar players,” Max says.

  “Like who?”

  “You know who,” Max grumbles.

  “You just said you weren’t going to kick me out and replace me with Pete fucking Crawford!” I yell, outraged.

  “We’re not kicking you out! We’re giving you a choice!” Max protests.

  I shake my head. “Some fucking choice.”

  “Listen, he’s on the list, that’s true,” Lucas interjects, “but he’s not on the top of the list. Not even close.”

  “Oh that makes me feel a lot better,” I say sarcastically. “Is practice over now? Because practice is over now for me.”

  Max sighs. “Yeah, practice is over. You’ll be at the A Fine Sound show next weekend, right?”

  “Of course I will.”

  I start packing up my stuff. If I was in a shitty mood when I got to practice it’s even shittier now.

  The second I get in my car I pick up my phone to call Gemma. Both because she’ll be expecting a call and because I need to hear her voice.

  “Practice sucked,” I tell her when she picks up.

  “Oh no, what happened?”

  I hesitate, realizing I’ll have to tell her me going on tour might be on the table and not knowing how she’ll react to that. I can’t lie, so I fill her in on everything that went down.

  “Are you going to go on tour or are you going to leave the band?” Gemma asks when I’m finished.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Well, what was the first thought you had when they told you?” Gemma presses.

  “I don’t know. Mostly I was just worried they were going to tell me I was kicked out of the band and they were replacing me with Pete Crawford.”

  Gemma sighs. “Well it’s kind of important to know what you plan on doing.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know what I plan on doing yet.” I hesitate again, wondering if it’s wise to even ask her this. “What do you think I should do?”

  She’s silent on the other end of the line.

  “Hello?”

  “I can’t make this decision for you, Spence,” she finally says.

  “I know. But I wish you could,” I whine.

  “I don’t even know what I’m doing with my own life. How am I supposed to figure out what you should do with yours, too?” Gemma grumbles.

  “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Gemma sighs. “I’m sorry. I’m just stressed tonight. It’s not your fault.”

  “Do you want me to come over and make you feel better?”

  “Yes, but no. I’m working on a nightmare paper for school and Amanda is hassling me about my internship applications. I’ve got a lot of work to do tonight and I need to concentrate.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, thanks though.”

  “Okay, I’ll let you get back to work then. You’ll come to the show this weekend, right? The one with A Fine Sound?”

  “Of course, I wouldn’t miss it.” Gemma pauses. “And Spence? I think you should do whatever you think will make you happy. With the whole band situation.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  We hang up, and at this point I’m back at the apartment. Gemma’s advice is echoing in my head. Does she want me to quit the band and stay here, with her? I realize that’s what I hoped she would tell me to do.

  I’d planned on going to Gemma’s tonight, and now I don’t know what to do with myself. My mind is still racing, and I really need a distraction.

  My first instinct is to do what I used to do when I felt this way - go to a bar and find a girl to go home with - but that’s not an option anymore. Not only is it not an option, it doesn’t even appeal to me anymore.

  Instead I head into my apartment and open a bottle of beer. Lucas isn’t home, so I have the place to myself. Despite the empty apartment, I go out on the deck to try and clear my head. For a long time I’ve felt like I’ve known what I was doing. I never had to think too hard about what my next move would be. Now suddenly I have no idea. A couple years ago I wouldn’t have hesitated at all about going on tour. But if you’d asked me a couple years ago if I wanted a serious girlfriend I wouldn’t have hesitated before laughing in your face, either. Settling down with a girl and a job is something I thought would happen at some point in the distant future, when I was old. Fuck, am I getting old? This whole not knowing what to do thing is exhausting, and I end up going back inside and passing out on the couch in front of the TV, a half-drunk bottle of beer on the coffee table in front of me.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Gemma


  School is trying to kill me. It hasn’t always been easy for me, but I’ve been doing a lot better the past year and a half. But senior year of college is no joke. Between all the papers and prepping for finals I can’t wait for this to all be over.

  Then there’s also Spence. Juggling school and life was a lot easier before I had a boyfriend. All I want to do is spend time with him, both as an escape from all this stress and because I’m not sure how much time with him I have left.

  Amanda hasn’t been making things easy on me, either. She keeps harping on me about applying for the internship at her agency, which I haven’t done yet. The closer the application deadline gets, the more sour my stomach feels when I think about applying.

  It feels like everyone around me knows what they want to do. Liam has the bar, Amanda has her job, Spence has the band. And I have no clue.

  “Welcome to the real world,” Amanda tells me when I bemoan the mountain of schoolwork I have. “None of this is going to be easier when you have a job.”

  It’s not exactly helpful advice.

  For right now my only focus is finishing school. Once I get some of this schoolwork off my plate I’ll be able to juggle everything better. Including things with Spence.

  I know I’m being an asshole to him by checking in on him all the time, but I can’t seem to stop. I so badly want to believe things between us are real, and see the good in him, but I still can’t help comparing him to Boomer. The last thing I want is to look like a naive idiot. Again.

  Seeing the way other girls act around him makes me nervous. And that phone call he got the other night really did a number on me. I’m just trying to protect myself, but I don’t know how to do that without looking like a psycho. It’s a lot. Especially when I wasn’t even looking for a relationship. I didn’t plan on getting myself tied down like this three months before graduation. Not that it matters, since he’s apparently planning on going on tour with Losing Streak this summer anyway.

  That news blindsided me.

  I don’t want to be the girlfriend who begs him to stay, but I’m also terrified at the thought of him going.

  School keeping me busy and away from him is almost a relief, since it’s at least keeping me from thinking too hard about any of that. Because if he goes on tour, how will I know who he’s hanging out with? What he’s doing? It’s a paranoia I can’t shake. No matter how many times he assures me I have nothing to worry about, no matter how stupid and annoying I feel questioning his whereabouts all the time.