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For his sake, I should quit mine, too.
Which means not getting yanked back into looking, wanting, hurting over a man who trashed my heart.
“Okay. Let’s take it from the top,” I say with a smile.
He’s looking forward.
After everything that’s happened to him, Dad’s looking forward, and I should, too.
Still, even as I settle into strumming the opening, I can’t stop thinking about the hand Roland played in my father’s second chance at life.
Would a snake-dude care so much about helping an alcoholic who isn’t even related to him?
Why would he care about Dad?
...unless he cares so much for me it kills him?
* * *
Dad’s studio is great for acoustics, but the reception kinda sucks.
When I head upstairs to shower and change for the show, I’m not surprised to find a pile of missed messages and voicemails. Even a few from old friends and colleagues I actually want to talk to instead of yet another reporter who cribbed my not-so-private number.
The one I’m not expecting, though, is Easterly Ribbon.
When I see her name in my call log, I plunk down hard on my bed, pulling up my voicemail faster than I ever have in my life.
“Hey, Callie,” she says on the recording. She sounds shy, tentative. “Um, listen...I’m really sorry I like, fled your office the way I did. I didn’t...you know. I didn’t know what you were doing. I didn’t know he’s actually kinda nice. He’s done a lot for me, and I think maybe everything’s gonna be okay thanks to Mr. Osprey.”
What, what?
Easterly’s been talking to Roland?
Did I pass out and wake up in another year?
I just sit there dumbfounded, my tongue lead, listening while she keeps talking.
“But anyway...it’s also thanks to you. I feel so dumb. You’re a great person, Callie, and I’d be pumped if we could be friends again. And I know this is personal but I hope you and Mr. Osprey get back together. That whole thing, that article he wrote...Milah showed me. She thought it was the sappiest shit ever.” Easterly giggles. “But she said it in this really sappy, sad voice. She’s not as big of a hardass as she pretends. Honestly, it was really sweet.”
Article?
I’m so flipping lost right now.
I feel like I just Rip van Winkled my way into an alternate reality where Easterly Ribbon and Roland Osprey are working together, there’s some unnamed Hail Mary in the works to help her, and Roland did something marvelous for me.
Call me weak.
Now, I have to look.
As Easterly’s message ends with a chirpy okay, later! I’m pulling my phone off my ear so I can pull up The Tea, my heart a burning hole in my chest.
First I see a front page article with Roland Osprey in the byline.
The headline says, “When You’re in Love and Starting to Drown, That Suit of Armor Drags You Down.”
...huh?
I click on it, biting my lip as I start reading.
My breaths come faster, my heart tripping over every word.
My little brother’s favorite thing to call me when we were kids was a flaming dumbass.
I’m not sure what made him decide to string those two words together, but they had a certain satisfying ring to them that made him love to say it every time I stumbled.
I fucked up a lot as a kid.
It’s a trend I’ve continued as an adult.
Sometimes, however, when you fuck up, you man up.
You try to make everything right because it’s the only thing you can do.
My brother’s talent with words didn’t end with insults. The title of this article is a line from his song, “Suit of Armor.”
The first time I heard it, I flipped him off.
He just grinned.
He knew he’d hit a home run, and the Chicago music scene agreed.
My whole life, I’ve hidden myself behind a suit of armor. First because our father had such high expectations, enough that I felt like I couldn’t be myself or I’d let him down. Then because someone I care for deeply was hurt, and I blamed myself so much that I walled myself away.
I avoided the guilt trip like an imminent acid bath, even as I tried to atone for it every day of my life. It’s something I never understood about myself until now.
But my brother did.
He always knew me.
He always saw that one day my suit of armor would drag me down, if I didn’t find a way to shed it before I ruined the best thing that ever happened to me.
I’m not sure how I managed to fall in love. You don’t exactly plan on some cheeky little cherub with an archery kink shooting you in the ass with a love dart.
I wish it was that simple.
I still haven’t worked out how I cracked my armor just enough to let love creep in.
Somehow, Callie Landry got inside me.
She, with her rainbow of lipsticks and world-stomping style and the way she paired colors with the sole purpose of getting my attention—and to aggravate the hell out of me.
