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  She felt the agitation waft from his rigid body as she knelt to lift up the footrests of the chair. “I bet you’re tired,” she said with a forced cheerful smile. “Must have been a long flight.”

  “I thought maybe you’d be sleeping in here,” he said softly as their eyes met. “Especially since I can’t ravish you in this condition.”

  Andy sighed as she perched on both knees on the floor in front of the chair. “You wouldn’t ravish me in any condition,” she replied.

  “And that’s always been the problem, hasn’t it?”

  Andy looked away. Why was he doing this to her now? She was still in turmoil from the last encounter with Vanni. She didn’t need yet another man confusing her and painting her into an emotional corner. “Graham…”

  “I want you to stay with me,” he whispered. His eyes were desperate. She knew he needed her to comfort him, to give him hope… to give him something that made him feel like a whole man again. That broken tone in his voice tore at her heart.

  “I am here.”

  He shook his head. “No, you’re not. You’re still with him. In every way that matters you’re still with him.”

  She rose to her feet. “This is not about Vanni,” she tried to explain, but he cut her off.

  “Have you seen him since you’ve been back?” he wanted to know.

  “Of course, I have,” she confessed. “That was business… about the band…”

  “Has he been here?” Graham persisted. “In my house?” Finally he choked out, “with you?”

  She sat on the edge of the bed and took Graham’s hands into hers. The very thought she could have been with Vanni in his house had eaten him up ever since she’d been gone. She could see that now. That was why seeing her belongings in another room had hit him so hard. It was a cold reminder that she loved another man and wanted to be with another man… much like the night of the Christmas party.

  She thought about confessing that Vanni had been at the house but it would have just upset him more by casting more doubt. Instead she promised, “I would never do that to you, Graham. I made my choice in Philadelphia. I am here, one hundred percent.”

  “Then stay in here with me,” he implored softly.

  “No can do,” sang a cheery voice from the doorway. It was Maggie, who held a tray full of warm cookies and milk. “If you want to be walking by the end of the year, you will need all the rest you can get.” She placed the tray down on the bedside food tray Andy had ordered in case he wanted to take meals in bed. She turned to Andy. “Looks like I forgot the napkins. Why don’t you go get us some?”

  Andy gave her a grateful nod before she scurried from the room. She lingered in the kitchen, trying to gather her wits about her. Instinctively she knew that was why Maggie had intervened. She was a smart cookie, Andy decided, and thanked God once again she had someone like her there to help.

  By the time she had returned Maggie had Graham settled in the new bed in the new pajamas that Andy had ordered. They weren’t as big on him as his regular clothes, but one could definitely see how his body was deteriorating.

  They stayed and chatted a bit while they ate the cookies, but before long Graham started to nod off. Maggie grabbed the tray and encouraged Andy to leave him in peace so he could sleep.

  The two women entered the kitchen together. Andy grabbed the plate and glasses to rinse them off for the dishwasher. She was clearly upset from the previous encounter in the bedroom. Maggie had given a lot of thought on the matter in the week and a half Andy had been in Los Angeles, and she finally decided it was time to confront the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

  “You have to be really careful how you let Graham manipulate you,” Maggie warned as she stored the rest of the cookies.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Andy protested, but she didn’t look the other woman’s way.

  “You feel guilty, it’s only natural. And it’s a bad situation. But honestly, you don’t owe him anything that comes at the expense of yourself.”

  Andy twirled around to face her. “How can you say that? If it weren’t for Graham I would be in that condition… or worse.”

  “Or,” Maggie offered, “She could have missed entirely. Maybe the bullet would have struck someone else. You can’t base your entire life on a ‘what if,’ Andy. And you can’t allow him to manipulate you into thinking you owe him any more than you are willing to give.”

  Andy sighed and put her head in her hands. Maggie took pity on her and walked over to put her arms around her. “I just don’t know what to do,” Andy finally confessed.

  Maggie pulled away to look her directly in the eye. “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do if he were able to walk. Otherwise you’re not just setting yourself up as a victim. You’re keeping him one too.”

  “That’s the last thing I want to do.”

  “Then keep him focused on the things he can control. He thinks his body is his enemy right now, but he’s not entirely helpless. He can build up his muscle mass. He can regain his independence. These are the things that will help reconstruct his self-esteem and restore his manhood. Anything that comes from a relationship may feel like it’s the same thing but it’s not – it’s just a distraction he doesn’t need.”

  “Me either,” Andy agreed. She grabbed Maggie’s hands in hers. “I’m glad you’re here, Maggie. I couldn’t do this without you.”

  She grinned. “I know.”

  When Graham awoke from his nap later that afternoon, Maggie refused to take no for an answer when it came to keeping their physical therapy routine. Andy could hear them fighting all the way across the house where she sat in his office. He’d insist she was pushing him to do things he couldn’t do. She’d counter he couldn’t have gotten that big house by being a wussy quitter. She nagged and needled and he resisted and argued… but after about an hour things calmed down again when she rolled him into the bathroom for soak in the tub.

  Their relationship struck Andy as so odd. Maggie refused to take any excuses due to his understandable condition and though he screamed and yelled at her he seemed comfortable to let her hang around. It was as though he treated her as the personification of his injury. He could get mad at her. He could submit to that primal rage. It felt good to be mad. To scream at the fates. To rail at the gods. But in the end he followed her instructions and got a few inches further than he would have gotten on his own.

  Maggie wanted him mad. Being mad meant he was going to attack his disability rather than submit to it. There were no guarantees that he’d ever walk again, but there no guarantees that he wouldn’t. She was perfectly comfortable pushing him in full faith it could be done. Even if he couldn’t walk again this would build his strength, which he would need to adapt to his life as a paraplegic. Just one more rep with the weights or one more lift from his chair and he would learn he was not confined by anything more than a sour attitude. By the end of their sessions he was no longer yelling. He was amazed that he could do just a bit more than the day before.

  That night he insisted they eat together in the dining room. Andy lit candles and opened the door so he could feel the ocean breeze cool everything off after the heat of the day. Maggie left them alone to sit together one the veranda overlooking the ocean. Andy lit the stone fireplace, and then walked over to the chair she had set up at his side. They didn’t say anything as they watched the tide roll in and out. She didn’t protest when he took her hand in his.

  She grasped it softly as she gave him a smile. Finally, for the first time in a while, he returned it.

  The next day, however, presented a whole new set of challenges. Vanni had arranged a meeting. He wanted to introduce the new bassist to the label and get the P.R. machine cracking on what he called the New and Improved Dreaming in Blue. Andy thought Graham should be there to oversee everything but even though Maggie considered it a positive step, Graham wasn’t having it.

  “I’m not going,” he decided as he pulled his covers up over his lifeless legs.


  Andy tried to be sunny and supportive. “I think it might do you good to get back to the office, to get back into your normal routine.”

  Graham glared at her. “Nothing is normal anymore,” he repeated yet again.

  “Of course it is,” Maggie offered from where she sat in the corner of the room. “So what if you can’t walk across the office. Your brain still works.”

  “That’s not the point,” he insisted. “You both tell me to focus on my health. Why not let other people handle the business for now? Andy you know more about that band than anyone. You could go.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She thought back to the last time she had seen Vanni and the state he was in. “It’s just really complicated.”

  “When wasn’t it?” he challenged.

  Andy sighed. He had a point there.

  “Leo Newman is one of the best managers in the business. He’s managed a successful tour. He can manage the change-up in the band.”

  “Iain wasn’t totally sure he could be trusted,” Andy pointed out.

  “Iain’s not here anymore, is he?” Graham countered. “All you need is my signature on a revised contract, and I can do that from here. I trust you with everything else.”

  Somehow she doubted that, but she didn’t challenge him. Instead Andy glanced back at Maggie helplessly, but she just shrugged. While she wasn’t worried that a trip to the office would set him back, she couldn’t really argue that making him go would help him in the long run. She’d long since learned to pick her battles with Graham. They could work on his physical therapy while Andy took care of an individual Maggie already knew agitated Graham to the point of uselessness.

  Andy pursed her lips. “Fine,” she said as she rose from where she sat next to him on the bed. She stalked off to her room to shower and change. She had a sneaking suspicion there was no way to ever be ready to see Vanni, much less in the self-destructive state he seemed determined to enjoy right to the bitter end.

  Chapter Seven

  August 22, 2010. Los Angeles.

  Vanni

  In just seven days Dreaming in Blue experienced the most unprecedented creative growth in its history. The day after he met Vanni, Julian met the rest of the band and felt around with the bass in some of their best known songs. He took to it immediately, as though he’d learned their biggest hits in the space of twelve hours. This impressed Yael and Felix even though they were primed to hate their musical brother’s replacement.

  After impressing them with his preparation, he then wowed a normally stoic Yael with an impromptu jam session that featured what he could do on guitar. His skill was undeniable. Julian admitted he’d been playing almost non-stop since he was seventeen, when he and his sixteen-year-old sister made their way west by hitchhiking all the way from Ohio.

  They finally made it to Los Angeles after years of living like gypsies as they traveled from town to town. In the interim Julian had learned a lot as part of any bar band that would take him in. There were never formal classes and training like Yael had been privileged to have. Instead he toiled by the sweat of his brow and the luck of the draw.

  Yael hated to admit he thought that took way more guts. It gave him an edge in his playing that had been missing from their material up to that point. Yael and even Felix kept up with the pace. They stretched beyond their more structured and layered sound for something more powerful and raw. Vanni looked on with a smile on his face. It fit his mood way more than the ballads he was more than happy to shelve for the near future.

  By that weekend they had written four new songs and Vanni had been only moderately drunk through the duration. Resurrecting the music sparked his creative drive. This helped dull somewhat the ache that had taken root in his soul.

  Also there to distract him were the sparkling blue eyes of a cheerful pixie that stayed just to the sidelines of their creative frenzy. Though she probably didn’t know it, Holly Neal was the biggest reason that Vanni no longer stayed blindly intoxicated 24/7, even though it was a struggle every minute he was anywhere near sober.

  The first night Julian had confided in Vanni how much their father’s drinking had scarred her. The reason they left home at such a young age, facing the unknown dangers of life on the road, was because their dad had beaten the hell out of her in a drunken rage. She had reminded him too much of his wife, whom he resented for leaving him to care for two kids all on his own, and often bore the brunt of his frustration. Where their mom bolted while she was still young and desirable enough to catch a rich man, Holly was forced to step into the caretaker role in their family early, with a strength belied by her tiny stature.

  The way she took care of her brother was especially enduring to Vanni, who had grown up as a lonely only child. There were many times he wished he’d had a sibling… a brother to play baseball with or a sister to protect. But he grew up alone, with only his mother and his aunt to buffer him from the unkindness of the world.

  Despite their rocky beginnings, Holly did that for Julian with a cheerful smile and faithful consistency. Once Julian joined the band she took everyone under her wing with that same thoughtful maternal attention and care.

  The more she took care of him the more he wanted to man up for her so she didn’t have to. He certainly never wanted to give her another sloppy drunk to clean up after. So Vanni made the conscious decision not to do anything that would trigger horrible memories from a life they had fought so hard to overcome.

  This was much easier in thought than in deed. He learned early on quitting cold turkey was not in the cards. Sobriety punched through his consciousness like a fist. He was jumpy and irritable, making him even more of an ass than he’d been while stone drunk. He sweat like a pig and nearly vomited the coffee he had consistently tried to force down.

  Like an angel Holly would appear with some aspirin and water to help him wash the poison from his system. And when it became crystal clear his moodiness, depression and suppressed rage were not under control, she slipped him some pills to take the edge off.

  She also looked away when he’d swipe a beer because even with her magical pills he felt like he was coming unglued inside his skin. She tried to smile away her disappointment, but it was clear as long as he drank he would never truly get close to her.

  Once again he realized a woman needed him to be strong, and once again he failed her. Each day ended up a painful exercise in futility matching who he wanted to be with who he really was.

  Whenever he lumbered through the door at two o’clock in the morning he’d grab the nearest bottle of booze he could find and make up for lost time as he sat on the leather sofa that faced the Pacific. Sometimes he’d call for a prostitute and sometimes he’d just pass out trying to pleasure himself to snippets of all the women he’d ever made love to. They all ran together, their faces and their bodies and their names.

  He couldn’t bear to see anyone familiar, which was why he steered away from any Andy or Holly look-alikes from the service after the first couple of times. He was frustrated and unfulfilled. Trying to substitute them only made it worse, just like the alcohol.

  At that point he really didn’t know what would make it better. He just drifted from remedy to remedy praying for a cure.

  Juxtaposed with the band’s growth was Vanni’s struggle to keep up. Each morning he showed up for band rehearsal he looked progressively worse. Leo slipped him some prescription pills to help him sleep, which kept him from reaching for the booze during the day.

  Holly rewarded him with longer hugs and homemade lunches. It was as though she knew how hard he was trying to man up for her. The way she pampered him was reminiscent of a different time, when women were socially conditioned to care for their men as their top priority.

  It was the one thing he had never had in all his relationships, even with Andy – who had now promised to give exactly that treatment to another man. This made Holly’s behavior all the more welcome. She still stopped him short of any kind of phy
sical contact beyond a hug. She gave him just enough to want more.

  Thanks to the ongoing struggle and Holly’s welcome distraction, by that Monday morning he had barely thought about Andy at all. This was good news for Leo, who never missed an opportunity to remind Vanni it was useless to pine over her when she had made her choice. Much like Holly’s mom she had gone on to the bigger better deal, and had sent him on his way rather than try to save him that first awful night back in Los Angeles.

  She had another man to save. She was no longer his rock or his salvation.

  Vanni felt empowered as he showered to prepare for his first meeting with Graham. Not only was he going to take control of his career path, he had to congratulate himself on how quickly he was able to get Andy out of his head. He lived most of his adult life by one consistent rule: it only took one woman to forget another one. There was never any reason to pine over one like a heartsick loser because there were way too many lined up ready to take another girl’s place, especially when you’re Giovanni Carnevale.

  Why break his own rules for anyone? Even one as luscious and amazing as his Andy?

  That was the thing, he had to remind himself. She wasn’t his anymore. While Holly was waiting on Vanni hand and foot, Andy was tending to Graham. Vanni knew all too well the arms that would be there to catch Graham whenever he would fall, and lift him higher than he had ever dreamed reach.

  And just like that his mood took a turn for the worse. All his progress evaporated at the mere thought of her embrace, her touch… her devotion. That all belonged to someone else now – he hadn’t gotten over her. She had rejected him. That realization never failed to make his confidence plummet.

  As the time marched forward that he’d go see the man she had chosen, Vanni’s stomach twisted into a knot. For the first time in days he started his morning with a drink. He convinced himself he just needed a little bit, but before he knew it the vodka bottle was empty. When that didn’t do the trick he reached for some of Holly’s magic pills, which he had come to learn were an anti-anxiety medication.