Marrying Ember (6 page)

I took a sip of my coffee, wishing I’d had something stronger. “Did your mom know? Did … anyone know but your dad? Did he even know?”

“I don’t know how any of us could be surprised, really. For fuck’s sake they’re all
free love
…” Ember looked down for a second before turning her gaze out the window.

“
Was
anyone surprised?” I was trying to get details in an order that made sense to me.

“The summer and fall before we were both conceived, they’d just ended a several year run at the top of their charts. They were preparing to take a break then head to the studio for what was slated to be their best album yet. They partied hard, apparently.” It seemed as though Ember’s tears dried suddenly, and the anger was ready to take center stage.

“November, I’m so sorry. I want to take this away from you, I do.” I pulled one of her hands out of her hair and kissed her knuckles, settling our hands on her lap.

“Marry me, then.”

“What?” I tilted my head to the side as my ears started to burn.

Ember looked at me with a straight face. “I just told you that my parents never married. That they were part of a culture where that wasn’t a requirement. Apparently fidelity wasn’t a requirement either, the way it is when people legally marry. I want you to marry me, Bo. I want to be your wife.”

“I’m not going to cheat on you, Ember. If you think—”

“This isn’t about you!” She slammed her fist on the steering wheel.

“It should be!” I shouted back, startled by her shift in demeanor. “It should be about
us,
Ember, and not you running from your fears or me running from mine. I swear to you, November. I will never, not for a second, break your heart. I’ve promised you that a million times, and I’ll do it a million more. But, what I won’t do is marry you because you’re scared.” She opened her mouth to speak, but I continued, lowering my voice. “When I ask you to marry me, I want you to say yes because you feel like any other answer would be horrifically wrong. I want you to say yes because that’s the only rational thing to say. I want you to say yes because you want a life with me. An eternity. I don’t want you to say yes because you’re scared I’ll hurt you if you don’t.”

I let go of her hand, grabbed my coffee, and opened my door.

“Where are you going?” she snapped.

“Air,” I snapped back, slamming the door.

As soon as her door opened, a sinking feeling grew in the pit of my stomach. I never raised my voice to her, and in the span of a few days I’d done it twice. Once because I was afraid, and once because she was. What kind of a husband would that make me?

Ember crossed to my side of the car and held out the keys.

“What’s this for?” I asked, barely a grunt coming from my mouth.

“You’re driving.” She released the keys from her fingers, and I caught them before they tumbled to the ground.

“Fine.” I stepped away from the car and got in the driver’s side, sliding the seat all the way back and adjusting the mirror as Ember climbed in and buckled her seatbelt.

As I started the car, Ember reached for her cellphone and began texting. That was her signal to me that we were done talking. I wasn’t even sure what the hell had just happened between us, but I knew the couple of hours we had left to go till San Francisco were going to be the longest I’d had in a long time.

***

We arrived at Bay Park three hours before our scheduled show. It was enough time to set up the stage, rehearse, and pray like hell we’d be able to pull it off. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure there was enough time for that prayer.

Ember and I arrived only a few minutes before The Six caravan did, allowing us to pull our bags from the back of the car and walk to the “shed” that looked like a medium-sized cabin, which sat behind the stage.

When Ember saw the RVs pull in, she walked dutifully to the lead one, which held most of our equipment. And the Shaw family. I watched from a distance as she worked silently to pull mic stands and speakers from below the vehicle and move them to the side of the stage. After a minute, or so, Regan spotted me and jogged over to the shed.

“How was the ride? Is she okay? I texted both of you and no one answered.” He fiddled with his hands as he spoke.

“I ended up driving, so I wasn’t looking at my phone. She was texting, but if it wasn’t to you it must have been to Monica, or someone.” I started walking to the second RV, which held the instruments, and he followed.

“So … what’d she say?” He asked, sounding nervous.

I shrugged. “You were driving with Ash and Raven, did they say anything?”

Regan shook his head. “Silence has never been so loud, dude.”

“Tell me about it. All I know is that they’re half sisters and,” I lowered my voice to a whisper, “Ashby is their biological dad.”

“Daaaamn. Is she okay? Ember.”

“No. We kind of had a fight during the beginning of the drive. She wasn’t really telling me anything that made sense, then she freaked out like I was going to cheat on her, or something. We’ll talk about it more later, okay?” I nodded behind Regan, where I saw the rest of the band approaching. Including Willow.

While the band shifted awkwardly around each other, I made eye contact with Ashby, silently begging him for guidance in this situation. He seemed to understand, and nodded toward the shed, asking me to follow him. Ember had her head down as she worked to unravel cord and do sound checks, so she didn’t seem to notice my departure.

I shut the door to the shed behind me while Ashby paced the floor for a moment. Finally, he sat in a chair against the wall, motioning for me to take the one next to him.

“How is she?” He spoke with the same heartbreaking vulnerability Ember did. The similarities between the two made this even harder somehow.

I sighed as I sat, rubbing my forehead with my sweaty palm. “Jesus, Ash … not good. Can you tell me what the hell happened?”

“She didn’t tell you?”

“It came out in pieces. You’re Willow’s biological father. You and Raven aren’t married. Apparently those two go together equal Ember’s assertion that we have to get married immediately.” I looked to Ashby, who frowned as he sat back.

“We just weren’t careful, Bo. It’s not like we were swingers, in the traditional sense, but the four of us—me and Raven, and Solstice and Michael—had a very open relationship for years.
Years
. This conversation could just as easily be happening the other way, with Michael at the helm.”

I scoffed. It was meant to be silent. It wasn’t, and I could tell it hurt Ashby’s feelings.

“You can’t judge us, Bo. It was a lifestyle we all chose. We never meant for anyone to get hurt.”

I stood, pacing the short length of the room with my hands in my back pockets. “Someone did get hurt, though. Two someones, and it was none of the four of you who made that original decision, Ash. Those girls didn’t get to decide this. Now Ember is in full panic mode, and I don’t know how to help her. She’s pulling away, though I’m sure me losing my temper didn’t help. Why didn’t you guys tell them when they were growing up? Did all four of you know?”

Ashby nodded. “We all knew, but not until the girls were two. That’s when Michael found out he couldn’t have children. He and Solstice had been trying for a sibling for Willow, and it wasn’t working. They went to a doctor, and …”

“So Willow could be anyone’s child, then?” I stopped and turned on my heels to face him again.

He shook his head. “It was just the four of us, no one else. We were monogamous in our group … if that makes sense.” He looked up at me with the shame of a two and a half decade-old decision scrolling over his face.

“None of this makes sense. Why didn’t you tell them?”

Ashby sighed and stood. “By the time we found out, we’d all bonded in our families. I didn’t feel closer to Willow just by learning she was biologically mine. And, Michael didn’t feel any distance from her. We accepted the results of our actions and agreed to just … keep our families the way they were. It would have been too confusing otherwise. We did what we thought was right, I—”

I cut him off as he started to ramble through his guilt. “I really don’t mean to judge, Ashby. I’m just trying to understand how I can help Ember. How’s Willow, anyway?”

“Same. Though it seems that she was resolved this would be the outcome, so it didn’t come down on her as hard as it came down on Ember. I’m scared I lost my little girl, Bo. I’ve spent twenty-eight years falling in love with her, and the way she looked at me today … it was like she was staring at a stranger.” Ashby put his hand over his mouth as a sob escaped.

“Christ.” I walked over to him and pulled him into a hug. If nothing else, spending all of this time with Raven and Ashby taught me how to love them. Ashby needed a hug.

After a long five seconds, Ashby cleared his throat and pulled away. “Do you think she’ll be okay to do the show tonight?”

“If for no other reason than to spite all of us, yes.” I smirked, and he followed. “Is Willow going to stay on tour with us?” I’m not sure what answer I’d hoped for.

Ashby nodded, and I realized I’d been hoping for the opposite movement. “She will. We asked both girls to stay.We don’t want or expect them to suddenly behave like the family they are, but we can’t bear to have them at each other’s throats anymore.”

“Ash?” Raven knocked on the door to the shed. “We’re ready to do sound checks. Are you guys all right?”

Ashby looked at me hopefully, and I nodded. He called over my shoulder. “We’ll be right out, hun.” He redirect his words to me. “Let’s get through the shows tonight and tomorrow. Then we have a couple of days before the next one to hopefully sort through some things.”

I opened the door, motioning for Ashby to exit ahead of me. “Here goes nothing, huh?”

The last song before intermission had me nervous, and holding my breath. While the whole band was involved instrumentally, the vocal showcase belonged to Ember and her mom, while Ashby and I led the melody on our guitars.

Ember looked as poised as ever as she stood inches away from her mother, sharing a microphone as they sang:

Sing, baby, sing, baby, sing tonight

Sing for the good and sing for the bad,

oh sing for the life you thought you had

I took an anxious breath but Ember kept smiling. It may have been my imagination, but her vocals sounded better than they had in a long time.

Kiss me sweetly, one last time

Kiss me like we never lost our shine

Hold on tight, and tighter still

Breathe in the life we had together

The life we never will

Oh,

Sing, baby, sing, baby, sing tonight

Hold me, kiss me, love me

Through the night

Sunrise comes, shadows disappear

The only thing we’re left with, baby

Is our fear

I exhaled loudly as Ashby and I strummed the lengthy interlude, before the gorgeous mother-daughter team finished out the last song of this set.

Oh, fear is a hearty mistress, cutting no slack

Grab my hand, stop looking back

The moonlight is ours, the sunlight for us.

Baby, nothing comes between us

No matter the cost.

Once the song ended, and the crowd lifted us up with their applause, we announced our short break and headed to the shed.

“That was stunning, Ember.” I tugged her hand until her body was against mine, kissing her neck as I spoke.

She overrode my system every time she sang. I’d fallen in love with her on a stage, and every time we took one together. It felt like that first night all over again, only it was better. Now she was mine.

Ember squeezed my hand and backed away from my lips. “Come with me.”

She pulled me through the back door, where we were greeted by a large field and the canopy of every star in the universe hovering over us. The crowd hummed on the other side of the sage, but they seemed a million miles away as Ember led me down a small hill, sitting us in tall grass dotted with wildflowers.

I sat next to her and wrapped my arm around her shoulders, pulling her flush with me once again.

She lifted her face to me, allowing me to kiss her nose, making her smile as she spoke. “I’m sorry for this morning.”

I took my other arm and squeezed her tighter. “I’m the one who’s sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. I was an asshole for losing my temper with you.”

Ember sat back, crossing her legs as she grabbed my hands, the intensity of her gaze grounding me. “No. I’m sorry for not telling you everything. You deserve more than my tantrum, Bo. We’re a fucking team. You remember that. Every day you tell me what you’re feeling, good and bad. No matter how much it hurts. You let me ask you about nightmares you have in the middle of the night, and you answer me even if its two thirty in the morning. You would never dream of brushing me off like I did to you today.”