Lennon Reborn Read online

  He shook his head. “No. But I learned pretty damn fucking quick. It felt like an out. The four of them seemed so much like a family. And they were so fucked up after Adam’s death. They’d say things around me like, “Adam never had problems with that timing,” or “Adam could manage that run of eighths,” or “Adam preferred a cleaner break.” I couldn’t escape his impact on the band, whether it was how great he played or how he influenced the music they wrote before me. We were kids, and they said shit they didn’t think about because they were still grieving. So, every day and every night I’d practice like a motherfucker to be better. I’d make my hands blister and bleed as I tried to learn, which I soon learned was a dumb idea.”

  Georgia reached for his hand and studied the palm. Aside from the occasional callus, his fingers weren’t as banged up as she expected them to be.

  He closed his hand around hers and pulled her closer to his chest.

  “I’m sorry about Adam.”

  Lennon shook his head and looked down at the floor. “You know, sometimes I feel guilty. It’s wrong, but there were times I was glad he died because I’d gotten this fucking chance to make something of myself. If he hadn’t, I’d have been sent to who-knows-which foster family, or group home, or, given the way I was headed, prison because of the dumb stuff I was doing.” He looked back up at her. “That’s a really shitty thing to say, isn’t it?”

  Georgia shook her head. “I think it’s perfectly understandable. It’s not like you caused Adam’s death. I’m sure his demons were purely his own. Suicide is such a complicated thing for all those involved.”

  Lennon pulled her the final few inches toward him so she was pressed up against his chest. He rested his forehead on her shoulder, and she could feel his heated breath through her sweater. It shouldn’t have felt so perfect. She should have moved, but instead she found herself lacing the fingers of one hand through his hair, which was slowly drying. The other rubbed circles on his back.

  They stayed that way for several moments, as his breath slowed and hers sped up. Goose bumps appeared on his skin. He had to be getting cold.

  “Why don’t you let me finish your hair?” she whispered against his ear.

  “Let me do one thing first,” he muttered against her shoulder.

  “What’s that?”

  “This,” he said as he pulled her lips toward his.

  * * *

  Toothpaste. Thank fuck for toothpaste. Crest, Colgate, whatever the fuck was in the bathroom, they all deserved a fucking pay raise.

  Because without it, he wouldn’t have dreamed of kissing her, no matter how close to the edge of an emotional cliff he was.

  Those fucking full lips of hers had been driving him crazy since the moment she’d arrived at the apartment. They were sweet and soft, like her. He’d watched them out of the corner of his eyes as she’d spoken, distracted not so much by what she’d said as how she’d said it.

  He shifted slightly, his hand gripping the back of her sweater, holding her flush against him so he could feel those full breasts of hers pressed up against his chest. Her sweater slipped off her shoulder, revealing a trail of unblemished skin that he wanted to kiss his way along.

  Lennon’s heart raced as she put her hands on either side of his face and met him in the kiss. No shyness, no fake being coy, just the low groan of a sexually healthy woman enjoying the moment just as much as he was. He’d worry about why the kiss seemed so . . . important . . . so vital . . . later, but right now, all he could think of doing was convincing her to open those pretty lips of hers. He ran his tongue along the seam of them, and like Ali-fucking-Baba they open-sesame’d.

  He let go of her sweater and reached for the hem, allowing his hand to slip underneath and skim the skin just above her jeans. She shivered at his touch, which cranked his dick all the way to full mast.

  Kissing her had been all he could think of while she’d played with his hair, running her fingers through it, occasionally running her fingertips along his scalp. Never again would he doubt that the scalp was one giant erogenous zone. He’d been trying to hide the semi he’d gotten under the towel the whole time she been moving around him, separating his hair into sections to cut it shorter.

  And then there’d been the emotional bomb. Adam. I’m sure his demons were purely his own. Suicide is such a complicated thing for all those involved.

  He wondered what she would think if she knew how close his thoughts veered to it. How often they had.

  Was he kissing her to run away from dark thoughts, or was he kissing her because it felt as natural as the beat and rhythm of every song he’d ever played? He couldn’t decide. His brain told him it was a mix of both, but his heart . . .

  Damn, if he was confused, he should stop until he was sure. Until he was certain

  He pulled away and could see the surprise on her face. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “No, please don’t be,” Georgia said quietly, stroking a piece of hair off his face. “You and I both know that kiss had been coming. I don’t mind.” She stepped out of his hold and, despite the look of concern on her face, started cutting his hair again.

  Lennon sat in silence, but the thoughts in his head were full volume.

  You fucked that up.

  Make it right.

  You can’t make it right. Not if you are serious about ending it.

  Kiss her again.

  It’s not fair to her.

  Don’t drag her into this.

  She’s already into this.

  Death is the answer.

  Death is for cowards.

  They came fast and furious, one contradictory sentence after the other. His head was a mess. He needed his notebook. Or paper. Something so he could get all the words down or they were just going to fester in his brain, growing exponentially.

  “There,” she said finally with the forced brightness he’d heard earlier. “Take a look.”

  He wanted to explain the turmoil he felt—and that he felt like a shit for sending such mixed signals—but the explanation would get stuck between his head and his heart again like it always did. Instead, he walked to the mirror in the entrance hall and ran his fingers through his damp hair. He really liked what she’d done. It was definitely shorter, and he could wash and wear it or throw it under a ball cap. He wouldn’t have to worry about tying it back.

  “It’ll look a little shorter when it dries completely,” she said, walking up behind him and coming to a stop just out of his reach, arms folded across her chest.

  “You know,” he said, meeting her eyes in the mirror, “I’ve never seen your neurosurgery, but if it is half as good as this haircut, you must be pretty damn talented.” The smile didn’t quite reach Georgia’s eyes, and he hated himself even more. He’d done that. He looked out of the window as the grayness began to give way to bluer skies. Spring was meant to be a period for new growth, but he’d just snapped the stem of what they were growing. He felt relief and remorse in equal measure—but most of all he felt loss. He rested a fist on the mirror and looked down at the floor.

  “I’m sorry, Georgia. I’m a shit friend. I’m shit company. And . . . fuck . . . I’m just sorry.”

  Georgia stepped forward and placed her hand on his back. The beauty of it made him flinch. It was something he was not often offered, and it almost brought him to his knees.

  “I’m sure . . . I’m sure all of this, everything you are going through, everything you have gone through, is difficult to process. I like you, Lennon. I’m old enough not to need to lie about stuff like this. To pretend to be hard to get or something. But I don’t want to make your life tougher than it already is.”

  She stepped back into the kitchen, and he heard her drag the stool away and crumple up all the newspaper that had his hair on it. He should go help her clean up, or even better tell her to leave it and that he’d deal with it later.

  Instead, he remained against the floor-to-ceiling mirror and studied his reflection. The dressing on his arm
was cream-colored and clean. His stump was much thinner than his other arm. Stump. It was an odd word, but better than the medical terms he’d been hearing. Residual limb was a mouthful. And phantom limb sounded like a Stars Wars movie spin-off. He wondered how he’d feel looking at the stump in the mirror every day for the rest of his life. For the first time, he wondered what he’d look like with a prosthetic. After only two weeks of not working out, he was losing definition in his mid-section. Working out had been a large part of his life. You didn’t stay healthy as a drummer through an entire concert tour without maintaining a strong core. You wouldn’t be able to play for two or more hours straight without a conditioned upper body. Not that it would be an issue for him anymore. At that thought, something pounded deep his chest, like two bass drums in a syncopated rhythm.

  Georgia came back around the corner with her purse on her shoulder, the box she’d brought down with her in one arm, a garbage bag of paper in the other. That damn sweater was off her shoulder again, begging him to lean forward and lick his way from her bicep to the sweet spot on the underside of her jaw.

  “I cleaned up. I fly to Mexico tonight, but I’ll be back to change your dressing on Sunday if you still want me to. If you change your mind about me doing it and decide to give the hospital a call, I’ll completely understand. Just drop me a text and let me know.”

  She walked to the door.

  Come back.

  Don’t go.

  I get that I’m a fuck-up.

  You should leave.

  Go.

  Before I bring you down with me.

  I promise I’ll take care of you like you take care of me.

  Just be here with me.

  Let me be enough.

  For fucking once, let me be enough.

  “Gia. Wait,” he called out, and she stopped, turning slowly to face him. Thankfully there were no tears, but he hadn’t expected any. She was too sensible, too pragmatic for that. But her brows were pinched, and hurt danced around the corners of her eyes. “You aren’t making my life harder. I’m a fucking mess. I’ve always been. But this . . . you and me,” he said, gesturing between the two of them. He shook his head. “Honestly, you’re a fucking rainbow in my gray sky. You’re the only bit of color I have. And I don’t know what to do about that.”

  Her eyes went wide, and he couldn’t decide if his honesty had been a good thing or not. He found his heart dropping in his chest as he waited for a response. When he couldn’t bear it any longer, he walked toward her.

  Georgia juggled the box of medical supplies on her hip. “Lennon, I don’t know what to say to that. To say to this.”

  He ran the knuckle of his forefinger along her shoulder, along the route he wished his mouth could take, but now really wasn’t the right time. “In case I’m not making myself clear,” he said, “it’s going to take me a while to adjust to all this. And I can’t promise that I am going to handle it well. But whatever decisions I make, whatever fucked-up things I do or say . . . I need you to know none of it is ever your fault.” He stopped just a couple of inches away from her. “You should go, not because of anything you did, and not for any reason you can fix, but because I need some space right now.” Lennon pressed his lips to her temple, breathing in the sweet floral scent of her. Something that would linger with him later when he drank the rest of the bottle of Grey Goose sitting on the counter.

  Uncertainty graced her features. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  He didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. Didn’t want to lie to her.

  “Okay,” she said. “Are you good enough? To be left on your own?”

  Lennon huffed and smiled at her sadly. “I’ve been on my own for twenty-eight years, Gia. A few more nights aren’t going to kill me.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Thank you, Susan,” Georgia said as the housekeeper placed her eggs Benedict in front of her on the oversized round table. She knew better, though, than to pick up her cutlery to start eating until her father and brothers had been served.

  The five of them, excluding Randall who wasn’t expected to fly in from Atlanta, had gathered for their monthly traditional “immediate family only” brunch. It was ridiculous that her brothers’ girlfriends, wives, and children were left at home because her parents wanted a child-free catchup with their progeny.

  She looked around the wood-paneled dining room she’d grown up in, resisting the urge to dive in and scoop up the sublime Hollandaise sauce their chef always made. The same large tapestry still hung on the far wall, one she’d stared at while completing her homework in the very chair she was sitting in now. It depicted some battle during the crusades that her father was adamant his ancestors had taken part in. A rare first-period Worcester blue and white fan-paneled plate, dated to the late seventeen hundreds, sat on a mid-eighteenth century French chestnut dresser. The plate had been one of a pair until she’d gotten a little carried away pretending to be King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. The parry with her cardboard sword had been meant to defend her from her brother Winston’s strike, but she’d mistimed it and sent the plate shattering to the ground.

  She’d lost two months of Saturdays with her grandfather and gained five hours of extra weekly tutoring as punishment. The additional classes had been a breeze, but missing out on jazz concerts and Knicks games and hugs from the only person who ever returned them had hurt on a way more primal level—not that she’d ever let her father know.

  Susan and Antoine, the family chef of twenty-two years, reappeared with the rest of the meals. “Bon appétit,” Antoine said as they left the room.

  “So, let’s hear it then,” her father said as he tucked into his scrambled eggs and gravlax with a side of fresh-baked sourdough bread.

  Her mother shook her head as she scooped some of her Greek yogurt and summer berries onto her spoon. Her mother lived in fear of getting fat, lest the New York riche ridicule her behind her back. “William, let the girl alone. She’s barely been here ten minutes.”

  “Shh,” her father said. It was among his most annoying habits—shushing her mother—and while she often wanted to defend her from her father’s condescension, it was futile. Her mother would always side with him. “If she’d gotten here on time,” he continued, “we could have talked about this properly in my study.”

  Garran nodded, equally annoying as always. She was five years younger than Garran, but they were on equal footing as far as their careers went, which made him the most threatened by her career successes. Plus, in Garran’s mind, she’d cost him this home. With Ezra having been already established in one of the family’s finest brownstones, and Randall living in Atlanta, he’d been promised the family home by their father when their grandfather had died. Her father had assumed that he and her mother would move into the duplex penthouse, which he’d expected to be willed to him, but when her grandfather had instead left it to Georgia with enough money to ensure she’d never have to worry about fees, all their housing plans had been thrown into disarray.

  She looked over to Winston, who was head down, tucking into his stack of pancakes, the breakfast he had been requesting whenever he was home for the last thirty-plus years. He was closest to her in age, and she saw the occasional flicker of conflict in his eyes when their father was in one of his moods, but when battle lines were drawn, he would ultimately side with his father. How could her brothers be so spineless when it came to him?

  “We need to debrief,” her father continued. “Go through the steps. Despite your claims of success in the multi-surgery approach to separation, I remain unconvinced. Yes, you have a lower mortality rate than the traditional approach, but we need to see the impact on their development over the next few years before you gloat. This path of yours has the power to ruin the Starr name if it backfires five years from now. What you do affects us all.”

  She chewed her food thoroughly and deliberately before answering. They never did this with any of their surgeries, not that her father was conducting as ma
ny these days. They never dissected them or polled the table on whether something was the right call. She was strongly beginning to doubt their motives, which they had always declared to be about learning and improvement.

  Why couldn’t he just be proud of her?

  Hadn’t she done enough yet?

  Hadn’t she graduated with a GPA higher than any of her siblings?

  What on earth was it going to take for him to tell her she’d done good work?

  “I’m not going through a multi-operation, multi-hour surgery with you,” she said, even though she’d love nothing more than to tell him how it felt to be in that room ready to attempt something that was still so new. “Not over the brunch table. Not in your office. Not ever. I’m not breaking patient confidentiality so you can dissect whether my already successful surgery could have been executed better. The girls are doing great and responding to stimuli appropriate for their age.”

  Her father’s knife clattered to the plate. “For now. But who knows what ongoing challenges might arise? They’re too young for the extent of their brain functions to be fully assessed. You may have done damage as yet unknown.” His voice rose at the end of the sentence, and her mom jumped.

  Georgia quickly cut some more food and forked it into her mouth to quell her urge to respond. To fight. To defend. Maybe it was maturity, maybe it was an awareness of how misogynistic the men in her family were, but she’d spent the last year learning how to unapologetically say her piece and move on.

  “Anyway, not peer-reviewing is not exactly how we improve as surgeons,” her father replied, suddenly calm again. Their family was well used to his outbursts. “You need to share your techniques, write papers so others can learn.”

  “Father’s right,” said Garran. “It’s pretty selfish of you. And if you don’t get on and write the paper straightaway, one of your peers will and you won’t get any credit. You can bet that Robert Woo will be quick to get one out. He’s hungry for recognition. You could let one of us assist you in writing the paper. Coauthored by more than one Starr, it would have more impact. Perhaps Father and I could help.”