“I have one question for you,” Carmela asked as Lizzie watched Nolan, looking a new kind of hot to her, walking across the parking lot.
“What?”
“If you love him, really love him, don’t you have to love the Fortune part, too, not just the Forte?”
She didn’t know. But she feared whether she had to or not didn’t matter. It was becoming pretty clear to her that she already did. She let her silence speak for itself.
“And that being the case,” Carmela continued, “wouldn’t that mean at least trying to like New Orleans?”
Her chest tightened and Lizzie’s good mood evaporated. “You know me, Carm. You really think I’d be happy there? Living in their atmosphere?”
“No. You hate attention.”
She hated pity even more, not that anyone was offering her any. She’d learned a long time ago to keep her private life private. She’d been truly happy for the first time in years when she’d come to college and escaped the persona of the “poor, sweet little girl who’d lost both of her parents so tragically.”
The plane crash had been all over the news. The weekend ski trip, the well-to-do Mahoneys and their friends, a couple from Chicago, a friend of Barbara Mahoney’s from high school, in a private jet. Her parents hadn’t even been named. Just “a couple,” “a friend of Barbara’s.” The news had talked about the Mahoneys’ assets, about siblings who’d fought over them. It had never mentioned the little girl who’d been left with nothing but an aunt who’d loved her enough to take her in, but who’d had to struggle financially to do so. There’d been no basis for any kind of lawsuit and it wasn’t like her parents had been insured for such a catastrophe. Their life insurance policies had only covered funeral expenses.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, putting a halt to her thoughts, something she’d learned to do out of self-preservation many years before. She’d had the world, even after she lost her parents, because she’d had love. “He’s not going to ask. Now, can we please just have fun today?”
The path to joy was learning to find it in the little things. In the life she had. In the choices that were her own. The things she could effect.
“Of course,” Carmela said. “Do I get to have a picture with Stella and Santa?”
As it turned out, Stella didn’t like Santa. Stiffening the second Lizzie placed her on his lap, she started to cry, and Lizzie ended up holding her while Lizzie sat on Santa’s knee. Carmela jumped in on Santa’s other side for a shot, but when Santa’s helper asked Nolan if he wanted to come up, he shook his head. He was busy taking shots from his cell phone.
Nolan loved being with Lizzie, being a part of Stella’s Christmas firsts. He cataloged as much as he could, knowing that, if nothing else, he’d always have the pictures. With Carmela along there was no time for personal conversation with Lizzie and his time had run out. Either he was on the plane the next day or he wasn’t.
Which was why, when they pulled into the apartment complex with just enough time for him to get back to his hotel room and change—hopefully without running into his bandmates so he wouldn’t have to explain the clothes—he grabbed Lizzie for a quick conversation before he took off.
“Can we...talk tonight? I can come by as soon as I’m done at the club.”
Her easy expression instantly stiffening, she asked, “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he quickly assured her, praying that she’d still see it that way when she heard what he had to say, that he’d come up with something that would please everyone who was counting on him. “I just... We’ve got so much going on, we’re doing so much, making life-changing decisions, and I’d just like to talk. You know, you and me. To make sure we’re both on the same page.”
True. All true.
“Okay,” she said, nodding, seeming to relax again. And he took that as a good sign.
He was still telling himself the changes in her since they’d reached their agreement and purchased the house—the way she’d let him hold the baby, and then taught him to change her, the way she’d given him her key and let him go back to the apartment for the diaper bag—were all good signs as he walked to her place hours later as soon as the band wrapped up.
Because they weren’t playing Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, he was carrying his horn with him. Daly and Glenn were staying at the hotel over the holiday. Branham was on a late-night flight back to his hometown of Baton Rouge.
Nolan had texted Lizzie, just like she’d asked, when he was out front, and, in jeans and a zipped-up dark hoodie, she came out to join him. As if by telepathic communication, they started walking down the block together, toward a small park that had a lighted fountain in the middle of it. It was a walk they’d taken before, several times, before going back to her place after a night at the club.
It never had been just all about sex for them.
Though, man, the sex had been incredible...
“Thank you for coming out so late,” he started in, still not certain where the conversation was going to end up. Only that he’d determined he couldn’t make the Christmas decision until he talked to her.
He felt her shrug next to his shoulder, hadn’t realized they were walking that close, but he reached down and took her hand.
When she didn’t pull immediatel
y away, he walked in silence for a few seconds. There was a nip in the air, but it was more cool than cold.
“How was the club tonight?” she asked, and he took hope from the fact that she wasn’t asking him to get to his point.