Bo & Ember (31 page)

“She needs me,” I whispered. “I need you.”

A soft hand touched the back of my neck, and Ember knelt next to me. “You’ve given me faith, Bo, even if I’m not sure what I believe or where it fits,” she whispered. “The least I could do is give it back to you.”

There, on the cold marble stairs of a building as old as the town itself, Ember and I held onto each other as the church bells rang. And, I knew we’d be okay.

Ember

A
s Bo and I cruised at thirty thousand feet somewhere over the middle of the United States, he started humming “California Dreamin’.”

“Seriously?” I grinned and shook my head. “Every time, Cavanaugh? Do you have to sing that every time we come out here?”

He nodded. “I do.”

“So…” I started hesitantly.

“What is it?”

“Besides Willow and my parents, I’ve kind of been avoiding everyone for the last month.”

Bo shrugged. “They all know, Em. It’s not like we kept
that
a secret.”

“I know, but my concern is that they’re all going to be
looking
at me … at us. You know how I am, I don’t like to have to prepare an emotional reaction.” I leaned my head back and thought about how tense I’d felt at the DROP gala two weeks prior. The event was beautiful and no one treated me any differently, but I’d been a nervous wreck about what I’d say
if
someone asked.

“Well, remember what Dr. Bittman said at our last session. All you can do is thank people for their concern and be honest about your feelings if they ask. It’s not up to you to determine if they’re asking for you or themselves. Tell them how you’re feeling.” Bo gave me a soft kiss on my temple and went back to humming.

We’d seen Dr. Bittman once a week since Christmas, meaning we’d had another three sessions under our belt before taking this trip to California for our first PR buzz with Grounded Sound. Honestly, after Christmas Eve, there was a dramatic emotional shift in our relationship. Both of us felt it, but we wanted to keep up with therapy for a while to avoid any dark surprises hiding in our psyches.

That shift, though, was breathtaking. Palpable. Bo and I were calmer and gentler with each other than we’d ever been before. We were treating each other as human beings. Dr. Bittman had suggested we stop using the term “soul mate” with each other for a while. Just because it felt that way didn’t mean we had to beat each other to death with the pressures of the tag. The assumption, she’d pointed out, was that each of us would be perfectly flawless. Infallible to the ends of time.

Turns out, we weren’t. We needed to accept each other with all the flaws that made us who we were, and support each other along our path. Especially if we intended to walk that path together.

“Hello?” Bo raised his eyebrows as he leaned forward.

I shook my head to clear my daydream. “Huh?”

He grinned and put his hand on mine. “I asked if we were still staying with Willow.”

I nodded. “My parents are out of town with The Six this weekend, remember? Even if they weren't, I'd still like some extra time with Willow. Are Regan and Georgia still picking us up from the airport?”

“Yeah. Have you talked to Georgia recently?”

It was so good to be having
normal
conversations with Bo, I felt like I wanted to stay on that flight forever.

“A few times. She’s helping me out with something tonight after dinner.”

Bo scrunched his eyebrows. “What’s that?”

I shrugged and smiled. “Surprise.
Not
like the church surprise.” I chuckled and flipped through my
Entertainment Weekly.

“Yeah, we need to work on your surprises,” Bo teased. He lifted my hand to his lips, giving me a quick kiss. “Seriously, though. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you for that.”

“Just keep being the man you are,” I whispered. My attention was quickly diverted to the page I was reading. “Holy shit!” I yelped, causing the person in front of me to jump.

“What?” Bo sounded startled as he leaned in.

“Look!” I pointed to a page of “Upcoming News” and splashed on the right hand side of the page were two studio shots. One of me and Bo, and the other of Celtic Summer, from our recording session in early December at the GS studios in New York.

Bo leaned in further, squinting slightly. “Keep your eyes and ears on the Grounded Sound Entertainment website. You’re not going to want to miss out on the two albums they’re set to release this spring.”

The article spoke a little about the musical roots of each of the artists, discussed me, Bo, and Regan touring together for a year, and gave the name of the first singles we would be releasing. Which was news to us, but fine just the same. It appeared that Bo and I would be releasing "Crimson Minute" first.

“You need glasses,” I teased as Bo relaxed his eyes and sat back in his seat. “This is crazy exciting!
Entertainment Weekly
!”

Bo’s controlled smile was bursting at the seams with pride. “I’ve got chills,” he admitted.

“Hey, look at this.” I ran my finger along the bottom of the article. “Celtic Summer’s debut album will be titled
Celtic Summer
.”

Bo shrugged. “That’s standard. And ours?”

I smiled as I continued the sentence. “Bo and Ember.” My voice choked up just a little at the end. It was printed
Bo & Ember
, and no one would know just how much that ampersand represented. Intertwined. Never breaking.

“Sounds perfect to me.” Bo grinned.

As I looked again to the page, my stomach sank just a little. I ran my thumb over the picture EW had printed of Bo and me. It was from our last recording session the day we ended up leaving New York. Bo was whispering in my ear, and I was blushing like a girl on her first date. That whisper, I remembered, was about “our little secret” as we’d called it.

The two people on that page had absolutely
no
idea what the next twenty-four hours would bring, let alone the following month.

Bo nudged me as I bit my lip. “What is it?”

I turned to look at him, and my heart swelled with gratitude that we’d made it through that dark time. We flirted with the edge of the cliff more than once, and we certainly weren’t through all of it, but we were much stronger than the couple in that picture.

“Nothing,” I whispered as I lay my head on his shoulder. “I’m just really proud of us.”

Bo wrapped his arm around my shoulders and kissed the top of my head. “Me too.”

Walking through the airport after retrieving our luggage, Bo and I were on the lookout for Regan and Georgia. About a second later, we heard a loud whistle at the same time that we saw Georgia’s head pop up through the crowd.

Standing on a bench in the middle of the crowded space, Georgia waved her arms frantically.

“It’s Bo and Ember!” she squealed like a rabid fan before jumping off the bench and running toward us.

“Oh my
God
,” I teased back. “Are you
the
Georgia Hall? The one who owns
Sweet Forty-Two
? Did you see
Entertainment Weekly
?” I was speaking a thousand miles a minute, and it felt good.

We met each other in the middle of what felt like a thousand tired and travel-worn strangers as we danced and hugged. Two years ago you could have bet me that this scene would be happening on this day with me and Georgia and I’d have lost that bet three-fold.

It was
so
good to see her again. She texted me three days after my miscarriage. Saying she was shit with talking about hard stuff—which I’d observed firsthand. She’d said she hoped the text didn’t come off as impersonal. Frankly, I was grateful for the casual communication. Each of us could talk when we were ready, and no one was waiting for an immediate response. The week following that, she’d sent an overnight package of her cupcakes. Four of them, to be exact. I ate two that night, and the other two were gone in the morning. I’d assumed Bo had eaten them, but we weren’t exactly on smooth communication at that point.

“I missed you,” I said as I squeezed the hell out of her.

Quickly, I exited that hug and dove into one with Regan. He held me tightly and whispered. “I’m so happy you’re here. Thanks for not running off to Ireland on me.”

I chuckled softly and hugged him harder. Regan and I had shared several texts over the last month, too. Ours started more somber in nature. After I’d ignored his first few texts in the two days following the miscarriage, he sent me another one and told me I better not take off for Ireland, the way he had when Rae died. That made me laugh and cry at the same time, earning him a three AM phone call. He confiscated my emotional passport, as he’d called it, and we’d talked and texted fairly regularly from that point on.

After all of the reunion hugging quieted down, we all stood across from each other for a few silent seconds. Georgia had a curious look on her face as she tilted her head.

“Whoa,” she said inside of her exhale.

“What?” I looked around.

Georgia grabbed my suitcase and started walking toward the exit. “I don’t know what the hell happened to you two, but someone better call Grounded Sound and tell them to change the name of your album from ‘Bo and Ember’ to ‘Bo and Zenber.’ Seriously, you’re, like, floating across the floor.”

Bo gripped my hand and winked at me as Georgia tossed my suitcase into the trunk of her car. Bo placed his in and shut the trunk. Georgia stood with her hands on her hips and smiled.

“Whatever it is you guys have been doing, keep doing it. You’re all … glowy and shit. To go through what you’ve been through the last month and to look like
that?
You’re doing something right.” Georgia moved to the driver’s seat, and the rest of us got in the car.

I, for one, was grateful to have the
baby ice
broken. They didn’t need to know all we’d been through in what we’d later call ‘the dark month.” They just needed to see we were where we were. Bo and I committed to each other, in the confines of Dr. Bittman’s office, that we wouldn’t share all the negative pieces of our relationship with even well-meaning family and friends. While it was acceptable—and sometimes necessary—to vent, Dr. Bittman had reminded us, it was also our responsibility to make our relationship our own, and not one governed by outside opinions. The more people we let into our relationship, she’d said, the harder it would be to keep it
our
relationship.

“You guys are staying with Willow, right?” Regan drummed his thumbs on his legs as he spoke.

“Yeah, but she’s going to bring us back there after our session today,” Bo answered.

Despite just getting off a six-hour flight, we were all headed directly to Grounded Sound’s West Coast offices for a meeting with Yardley. Willow would be there, as she’d been promoted to assistant sound engineer, and her first project was Celtic Summer’s debut album.

“She’s really good,” Regan entered in the middle of my thoughts.

“Yeah, people can be surprising, huh?” Georgia said as she looked in the rearview mirror and winked at me.

Georgia had the day off, so she was going to be able to hang out with us at the studio. As soon as we arrived, the tanned and toned surfer receptionist—a far cry from Brielle in NYC—whisked us into the conference room, where Yardley and her assistant waited.

“You look well,” Yardley said as we hugged.

I nodded and pulled a smile from deep within. “I’m feeling better all the time. Thank you for the lovely flowers. And for that mention in
Entertainment Weekly
!”

Yardley cracked a grin as we all took our seats. “We wanted to keep that a surprise. Looks like it worked, huh?”

“Yeah,” Bo scoffed jokingly. “A huge surprise at thirty thousand feet.”

Shortly after, Shaughn and Chris joined us, while Georgia ran out to grab lunch. Yardley updated us on what had been going on behind the scenes over the last several weeks. Celtic Summer had finished recording their album, and both of our albums were in post-production.

“We’re ready to talk about publicity.” Yardley nodded seriously as she handed out sheets of paper peppered with dates and events. “You’ll see that our PR team has carefully crafted the build to your album release. Bo and Ember, your album will release at the end of April, and Celtic Summer’s album will drop two weeks later. We want the anticipation at its peak by the time tickets go on sale for the tour, which will be the third week in May.”