My Song for You: A Pushing Limits Novel (2 page)

Oh my God
. The three freaked-out words echoed in my head at the sight of Jared Leigh walking toward me in the cereal aisle. If he had been any other rock star, dread wouldn’t have dragged me down like a cinder block in water.

If he had been any guy other than the one who used to see me as nothing more than his girlfriend’s annoying little sister, I would’ve totally been fangirling, and the
Oh my God
would’ve been screams of joy in my head.

“Mommy,” my four-year-old nephew said, pointing to a box of sugary cereal, “I have that one?” He signed the words as he spoke, using the American Sign Language he was learning in preschool, and gave me the same dimpled smile his father used to give me. The same dimpled smile that caused my heart to temporarily cease functioning whenever Jared flashed it.

“May I have that one?” I corrected.

“Yes, that one.” Logan pointed to the cereal again and once again unleashed his dimpled weapons.

“No, say the full sentence,” I reminded him. “Say ‘Can I have that one, please?’ ”

“Can I have that one, please?” Without waiting for my reply, he grabbed his favorite brand and dropped it in the cart. Then he gave me a look, daring me to say no after all the work I’d made him go through just to get the cereal he wanted.

Even though I shouldn’t have, I laughed. It was hard to argue when he had a point. My constantly correcting him like a grammar-crazed schoolteacher was a family-sized pain in the ass, but his preschool program, his audiologist, and his speech pathologist had all been adamant about it. In order to help Logan learn to hear with his cochlear implant and learn to speak, we had to go through these painstaking exercises.

“Hey, Callie?” Jared said. I startled. Somehow, with the grammar lesson going on, I’d temporarily forgotten he was here. In the same aisle as me. While I was with the son he didn’t know existed.

Jared looked at Logan, and my heart stalled in my chest.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I bit down the urge to toss Logan over my shoulder and run out of the store. Run away from the conversation with Jared I longed to avoid, much like you’d want to avoid being trapped in a room filled with pissed-off venomous snakes.

“Hi.” I also signed it, a habit whenever I was around Logan.

“Hi,” Logan repeated.

He cocked his head to the side, studying the tall man in front of him, who had the same wavy brown hair as his own. But Logan’s hair was longish and messy. Jared’s was short on the sides and longer on top and was artfully styled away from his face. He also had facial stubble that made him look even sexier. In the past five years, since I’d last seen him in person, his hotness factor had climbed exponentially. Unfortunately for me and my poor idiotic heart.

Jared smiled at Logan and crouched to his level. “Hey, buddy. You know what? That’s my favorite cereal too.”

Of course it was. Go figure.

“It is?” Logan also signed the words as he spoke.

Jared glanced up at me, eyebrows raised in confusion.

“Logan is deaf,” I explained, “but he has a cochlear implant.”

“So he can hear?”

“Not perfectly. And there are sounds he can’t handle. Like music.” Which was heartbreaking when you considered that his father was a talented guitarist.

“Then why the sign language?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you judging my decisions on how my son should be educated?” I might have stressed “my son” more forcefully than I’d meant to. Legally he wasn’t my son. I was only his guardian.

Jared slowly shook his head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean for it to sound that way.”

I let out a long breath. “I’m sorry too. Let’s just say it’s a sensitive topic. He goes to a preschool that encourages total communication. So American Sign Language, lip reading, and speech.”

“Mommy, I have a dog?” Logan asked, already bored by the current subject. He was lucky. He wasn’t the one who had spent weeks studying the pros and cons of the implant and the different types of education for him, listening to arguments from both sides of the fence, spending many sleepless nights wondering which was the right choice.

He was just the one who had to deal with the repercussions of my decisions.

“May I have a dog?” I corrected.

A huge grin broke out on Logan’s face. “Yes! We getting a dog.”

Ugh! Head, meet brick wall.

“No, Logan. The correct phrase is ‘Mommy, can I have a dog?’ And no, we can’t have a dog. Our apartment won’t allow animals.” I didn’t bother to correct his other sentence.

His responding pout was enough to break hearts within a hundred-mile radius.

“I’m sorry.” And I was. I would do anything for him, if I could.

“Do you like dogs?” Jared asked, still crouching in front of his son. And I tried not to freak out more than I already was. In a city of more than three million people, the last thing I’d expected was to bump into Jared. Ever.

Logan nodded.

“My friends are adopting a puppy. I’m sure they won’t mind if you want to meet it. Would you like that?”

The dimples came out full force. “Can I, Mommy?”

“Um…I’m not sure. We’ll see.”
Brilliant move, Callie. How many times today are you planning to break his heart?

Jared held out his hand to Logan. “By the way, I’m Jared. Your mom and I grew up together. We used to be neighbors.” Well, technically, there had been a house between us, but close enough.

“My name is Logan.” He shook his father’s hand while alarms screeched in my head.

“Nice to meet you, Logan.”

“Nice to meet you,” the four-year-old intoned back. “I like you.”

“I like you too.”

Logan grinned again. “I love soccer.”

The corners of my mouth twitched up. Following a four-year-old’s train of thought could be an adventure in itself. “He saw your band perform last year at the soccer charity event.” The event had been a fundraiser for a soccer program for disabled kids. Logan played soccer with hearing kids his age, but when we heard about the event and how there would be soccer-related activities, he had begged me to take him.

“I thought he couldn’t hear music,” Jared said.

“He can hear music, but the sound is horribly distorted. We turned the implant off while you guys played.” This wasn’t always the situation for someone with an implant, but like everything else, the results differed from person to person.

“How come you didn’t come over to say hi?”

Very good question. “I just figured you were busy with your fans.” In reality, I had been careful to make sure Jared wasn’t aware we were at the event. For the same reasons I would’ve done anything to avoid seeing him here now.

“We have a party today,” Logan said. “You come?”

The alarms went off again, drowned out by the need to be the ideal mom to a deaf boy with a cochlear implant.

“The correct sentence is ‘We are having a party today. Would you like to come?’ ” I said to Logan.

“Sounds good to me,” Jared replied. “What time and where?” He flashed his dimples, and my heart temporarily stuttered to a stop. Father and son were definitely going to kill me if given a chance.

“No, no. I was just telling Logan so he could repeat the correct sentence. It’s the only way he’ll learn.”

“But Jared will come, right?” Logan looked at Jared with those puppy-dog eyes no mere human could say no to, ignoring me and that he was supposed to repeat the sentence correctly.

I inwardly sighed and gave up the exercise for now. I had something more urgent to deal with. “I’m sure Jared has more important things to do than come to Mrs. Rogers’s birthday party.” To Jared, I said, “She’s our neighbor. She looks after Logan while I’m at work. It’s not a big deal. Just Mrs. Rogers, Logan, and me.” Nothing like those big celebrity parties he was used to. The parties he attended with his on-again, off-again supermodel girlfriend.

“She’s nice,” Logan said, referring to Mrs. Rogers. “You like her.”

Jared unfolded himself to his full height. He was a good few inches taller than me, and I wasn’t short by any stretch of the imagination. “Well, if you like her, then I know I will. Tell me the when and where and I’ll be there.”

“That won’t be necessary,” I bit out. “I’m sure you’re busy.”
With groupies. With your band. With anything that doesn’t involve me and your son.

“As it is, I’m available. I just finished up with a band event for a local radio station.”

“It’s going to be boring, Jared. It’s not one of your rock-star parties. You won’t have fun at all. It’s just gonna be pizza and birthday cake.”

His mouth did that annoying trick of sliding up to one side. Damn sexy smile. “Rock-star parties are overrated. And I could go for some pizza and birthday cake.”

“And balloons,” Logan added. “Don’t forget balloons.” He didn’t bother to sign that, and I didn’t push it. As much as I didn’t want him to forget he was part of the deaf community, some days it was easier just pretending that plan didn’t exist.

“I won’t forget,” I said. “I promise.” To Jared I added, “I can guarantee you’ll be bored. I’m sure there’s a party you’d much rather hang out at. Maybe with a few celebrities.” I nodded with finality. Problem solved.

That damn sexy smile was still there. As were the damn sexy dimples. The guy wasn’t playing fair. He checked something on his phone. “Nope, no rock-star parties with celebrities on today’s calendar. So I’m definitely free.”

My traitorous nephew whooped at that news.

“Seriously, why do you want to do this?” I asked, somehow not stomping my foot at how stubborn he was being. Father was definitely like son. Logan could be pretty stubborn too.

“Because I haven’t seen you in something like five years. I thought we could catch up. Maybe give me a break from all these crazy rock-star parties I’ve been attending.” He winked at me.

I had no idea what it was about that wink, but combined with the dimples, it was lethal. If I hadn’t been in full-out panic mode, my panties would have dampened with need.

Okay, maybe there was a little dampening going on, but he didn’t need to know that. A dampening you could blame on the long drought—aka my lack of a sex life.

“What’s the sign for balloon?” Jared asked Logan.

Despite my current freak-out mode, I couldn’t help but smile. I’d always believed Jared would’ve someday been a great father. My sister, Alexis, Logan’s biological mother, had disagreed. Even before Jared formed Pushing Limits with Nolan Kincaid, Alexis predicted he would one day make it big. So far it looked like her prediction was coming true. There was already speculation that their second album, which was due out soon, would outdo their debut album on the charts.

But Alexis had been positive that once Jared hit it big, he would end up regretting Logan. She’d feared that his son would be nothing more than an inconvenience to him, especially since Logan had been the result of a one-time fling years after they had broken up. They hadn’t been in love. They weren’t even friends at that point. She had wanted so much more for Logan, more than what she’d felt Jared could give him, regardless of whether his band hit it big or not. She wanted her son to grow up loved and appreciated. She wanted her son to grow up as part of a loving family, complete with the white picket fence and a father with a white-collar job. She wanted the same thing for her son that we had growing up.

That might’ve been all true, but the man standing before me wasn’t acting like Logan was an inconvenience. Quite the opposite. But would he still feel that way if he found out the truth? Or would Alexis’s predictions come true? Pushing Limits was a favorite when it came to the media, and not always in a good way. My dead sister’s fears were justified when it came to what the media would do if they discovered Jared had a son. A son who was now deaf.

Logan would never get to be just a normal kid if that happened.

Logan proudly demonstrated the sign for balloon, which involved miming inflating one. Jared repeated it and was rewarded with a grin from the four-year-old. Warmth filled me at the bonding between father and son. I doused it with icy water. I had to end things between them before Logan got hurt. And I knew he would be. There was no way to avoid it.

The other part of me argued that I was making a big deal out of nothing. It would only be for the one time. Jared was busy and would be leaving soon on another tour. After the party, we’d probably never see him again.

While the yea and the nay were battling it out in my head, Jared raised an eyebrow at me. “So do I get an invite to the party? Or am I not cool enough to hang out with you guys tonight?”

He had asked
me,
but Logan decided to answer for me instead. “You’re invited.” Then he looked at me with those eyes that were impossible to say no to. “Right, Mommy?”

Just this one time,
I reminded myself.
Jared will come over, we’ll catch up on whatever I can tell him, and then I can go back to pretending he doesn’t exist in my life.

I told him where we lived. “Mrs. Rogers is coming over at five p.m.”

He told us he would see us then and left, suddenly leaving me to inwardly freak out again. I’d just made a huge mistake and it had nothing to do with Logan.

Instead, it had everything to do with the girl who Jared had once seen as his girlfriend’s annoying little sister, the little sister who’d wanted to tag along with the guy she idolized. The little sister who one day grew up and realized that the guy who was four years older than her really was an amazing guy. The real Jared, not the one the fans thought they knew. The Jared who I had been crushing on since I turned seventeen.

The little sister who couldn’t risk the crush becoming something more.

But by the time I realized it would be a mistake for Jared to come over, he was gone—and I had no way to cancel on him.

The last time I saw Callie was five years ago, just before my world was turned upside down. Her sister, Alexis, was two years older than me, and had been my girlfriend when I was seventeen. Well, more accurately, she was the hot babe I’d enjoyed equally hot sex with on a regular basis. We’d dated for a few months, but then realized we were more interested in having sex together than having a relationship. Not that Callie knew that. At the time she had been a cute but awkward thirteen-year-old who I had always known would one day be beautiful.

No, Callie had been like no other girl…and she was still like no other girl, but in a whole new way. She might’ve been wearing baggy jeans and an oversized white T-shirt with paint splattered on it, but the awkward thirteen-year-old had clearly grown into the woman I had predicted she would be. A beautiful, curvy, sexy woman.

Logan’s dark hair must’ve belonged to his father. A father who wasn’t coming to the party. Callie hadn’t been wearing a ring, so she wasn’t married nor was she engaged. Maybe she had a boyfriend but he was too busy to attend tonight.

On the way home from the grocery store, I bought flowers for the mysterious Mrs. Rogers. I also found a dog-shaped helium balloon that was perfect for Logan. At home, I tossed the phone numbers that had been shoved into my jeans pocket during the radio event, then showered.

Afterward I sent Mason a text:
Will be late meeting up with you
.
Have something I have to do first
. I still wanted to hang out with the guys, but I was curious what Callie was up to these days—other than being a mother. The girl I remembered was a talented artist and had dreamed of one day working at Pixar, the animation studio.

My curiosity, though, extended only to Callie. The last thing I cared to hear about was the woman who had aborted my child two days after telling me she was pregnant, no matter what I wanted. Yes, at that point all Alexis and I had been to each other was a hot and satisfying fuck. A one-time thing. Nothing more. We had bumped into each other one day, and it hadn’t taken long before we were reminiscing about the backseat of my car…only the reminiscing took place in my apartment.

The restlessness that had struck while I was at the radio event returned. It had been hovering around me for the past year while touring. Back then it had been easy to ignore. But now, ever since I’d returned to L.A., it was harder to pretend the restlessness didn’t exist. It was like a mosquito bite. The more you tried to ignore it, the more it itched to the point of driving you completely insane.

But unlike with a mosquito bite, there was nothing I could put on this itch to soothe it. I just needed something to distract me.

Callie’s apartment was in a part of L.A. where rents were higher than most twenty-two-year-olds could afford. It was definitely in a nicer part of the city than where I lived. Maybe Logan’s father was in the picture after all, or she was living with a boyfriend. It seemed an ideal neighborhood to raise a child. The streets were clean, as were the houses and low-rise apartment buildings. The surrounding gardens were green and well maintained. People took pride in living here.

I found Callie’s building and parked my car in a visitor space. I gathered my gifts and walked to the front entrance. Inside, the place smelled clean and safe. Callie buzzed me in a moment later and I rode the elevator to the third floor, then walked down the hall to her apartment.

I knocked on the door, and a few seconds later it opened. Callie flashed me a small, uncertain smile and let me in. She had changed out of her T-shirt and jeans and was now in a red sundress, the color faded.

“Did you have any trouble finding the building?” she asked, voice slightly shaky. She glanced up at the balloon and smirked. “I take it that’s not for me.” The smirk slipped away, and her teeth pressed into her lower lip. Some girls did that when they were nervous. Callie did it whenever she was worried.

“No,” I said with a laugh. “I remembered how terrified you were of them.”

She rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t terrified of balloons.”

I leveled my gaze at her, enjoying this as much as I had enjoyed teasing her when she was a kid. “Really?”

“Hey, I couldn’t help that I didn’t like the loud bang when they popped.”

I snickered. “Is that why you always shrieked like a large hairy monster was after you?”

“Says the guy who freaked out when a caterpillar fell down the back of his T-shirt.”

“Hey, in my defense, I had just watched a TV special on venomous caterpillars. I thought it was one of those. Nice place, by the way.”

“Thanks. We like it.” She led me down the hallway, past an open door into what had to be Logan’s room. The pictures on the hallway wall ranged from when he was a baby to more recent ones. No one else was in them. Only the baby picture looked to have been taken by a professional. The rest were snapshots that had been enlarged to fit the frames.

Like the apartment building itself, the furniture was nicer than I would’ve expected for a twenty-two-year-old. The couch was beige, with a few stains on the puffy cushions, but despite that, it was obviously of quality. As were the dark wooden end tables with the simple yet masculine lamps, and the coffee table on the rug, which had rectangles in various shades of brown. Everything was expensive—and oddly familiar.

More pictures of Logan, of Callie’s family, and of Callie with Logan were scattered around the room, both on the walls and on the dark-wood bookshelf. No pictures of a boyfriend were visible. Maybe he was camera-shy…or was the photographer.
Or he didn’t exist.

The other pictures on the walls were ones I recognized as the style Callie would’ve created. They were the kinds of drawings and digital art you’d expect to find in a kid’s picture book, the colors bold.

Before I could ask her about her dreams of working at Pixar, an energetic Logan catapulted from the couch and rushed over to me.

“Is that mine?” he asked, pointing at the dog balloon.

“Is that for me?” Callie corrected.

“Is that for me?” Logan grinned at the oversized balloon.

“I was gonna give it to Mrs. Rogers,” I said, “but do you think she would like the flowers more?”

Callie laughed, the sound of it more beautiful than I remembered. “I don’t know. I think Logan loves flowers even more than balloons.”

“No, I don’t,” Logan said with a pout. “Balloons better.”

I expected Callie to correct his sentence, but she didn’t this time. She laughed again. “You’re right. Balloons are much better.”

Logan took the balloon from me and grabbed my hand. “I show you my room.” He led me away, but not before I caught Callie worrying her lip again.

The bedding in his room was bright green, as was the rug covering the light gray carpet. An oversized soccer-ball-shaped cushion lay on the floor. On the wall behind the head of the bed, a soccer goal had been painted with trees in the distance and a blue sky behind it. Scattered on the floor was an assortment of toys.

“Do you like it?” Logan asked, clearly proud of his room.

“It’s very nice. Did your mom paint that?”

He nodded. “Mommy’s an artist.”

“I know. She’s a very talented artist.”

“Thanks,” Callie said behind me, voice so soft I almost missed it.

She was standing in the doorway, her eyes fixed on the painted walls but her gaze far away. It was as if she was somewhere else. Another time. Another place.

“Weren’t you planning to eventually work at Pixar?” I asked.

Her gaze flicked to Logan and the sad smile said it all. She had planned to work there, but then she’d had Logan and everything changed.

Unlike Alexis, Callie hadn’t aborted her baby, even if he had put an end to her dreams.

Logan was so busy with the balloon, he missed the look on his mom’s face. When he glanced up at her, she was all smiles again for him.

“I decided being a graphic designer was a better career choice. More job opportunities.”

That was probably true, but I suspected that before Logan came along, it wouldn’t have made a difference. She would’ve found a way to survive until her big chance came. She’d never been into expensive things. None of that mattered to her, as long as she was happy. Which was why her choice of furniture was not what I would’ve expected.

“So you work for a company?” I knew zero about graphic design.

“Maybe one day, or I can work freelance. Right now I’m working on my degree and doing freelance work on the side. Mostly covers for a few romance authors, designs for their website banners. Swag. Stuff like that. Nothing major, though.”

The enthusiasm she used to have whenever she talked about her dreams was missing. It sounded like her career choice was a chore. It was just a job for her, nothing more.

“Where’re you studying?”

“The Academy of Art University.”

“Isn’t that in San Francisco?”

Her eyes widened in surprise that I remembered. “Yes, but I was able to switch over to graphic design and take the program online.”

“Switch?”

Her eyes widened even more. “I should finish getting ready for the party. Mrs. Rogers will be over soon.” She didn’t give me a chance to say anything else. She was already out the bedroom door.

Logan showed me around his room, signing the names for the various items.

“What’s the sign for dog?” I pointed to his balloon.

He attempted to snap his fingers then patted his leg. I repeated the action and was rewarded with one of his contagious grins. He continued showing me his stuff, and I practiced the signs he showed me. I had no idea why I was bothering. It wasn’t like I needed to know them, or like I would even remember them beyond today. But it was fun watching his reaction when I got a sign right and when I purposely screwed it up just to see him giggle.

As Logan showed me his favorite picture book, a loud knock came from the front door. He didn’t even glance up at the noise.

A moment later, a woman in her early sixties entered the bedroom. She was dressed in a light blue blouse and navy pants, her gray hair skimming her shoulders. Logan tossed his book aside and hurled his small body across the room to her. She barely had enough time to react before his arms wrapped around her legs.

She laughed and hugged him back. “Hi, Logan. I see you have a visitor.” Her gaze swept over me, but not in the same way groupies and fans checked me out. I’d seen this look before, back when my parents had interrogated my sister’s old boyfriends before deciding if the guys were worthy enough to date her.

Apparently I met the woman’s standards. She nodded to some unspoken question in her head and smiled at me.

“Jared, this is Mrs. Rogers,” Callie said from the doorway.

“You can call me Sharon,” the woman said.

“Jared’s an old friend of mine from when we were kids.” Callie bit her lip again and suddenly looked like she longed to be anywhere but here, with me. I’d been getting the same vibe from her since bumping into her at the store.

Sharon’s face brightened as she looked between me and Callie. “Oh, is that so?”

Before I could figure out what she meant, Logan blurted out, “Look at balloon he gave me.”

Sharon bent down to Logan’s level. “Did Jared give you this balloon?”

He nodded. “And his friend has dog. I want dog.”

“His friend has
a
dog.” She emphasized the “a.” “I didn’t know you wanted
a
dog.” Again she emphasized the “a.” I could easily see her as a teacher in another lifetime.

“Yes, I do. And he has flowers.”

“I see that. They’re pretty flowers. I bet your mom likes them.”

“They’re for you,” Callie blurted out in a way that came off as comical.

“How sweet. I haven’t had a gentleman give me flowers in years.” She winked at me. I chuckled and handed her the bouquet. They were my mom’s favorite spring flowers, so I’d figured Sharon might like them too.

We returned to the living room. Callie and Logan had been busy decorating for the party. Clusters of silver and purple helium balloons were tied to the backs of the chairs set around the elegant dinner table. The pair had also painted a birthday banner, with Logan’s handprints scattered over it.

The table itself hadn’t been ignored either. Purple and silver streamers curled around every available space. The Callie I remembered loved birthdays, and it looked like nothing had changed since she had grown up.

And for the first time in who knows how long, I realized how much I’d missed her. How much I missed her curiosity, her determination, her generosity. The last time I’d seen her was when I had been visiting my family for our weekly dinners. She’d been walking along the sidewalk near her house with a group of seventeen-year-old girls. All giggled when they saw me, except for Callie, who had turned bright red.

“So what do you do, Jared?” Sharon asked as we sat. Logan was next to Sharon. I took the only other available spot, next to Callie.

“I’m a musician.”

“He plays drums in a rock band,” Logan said.

“Actually, it’s guitar.” I’d tried playing Mason’s drums once. After he’d stopped howling with laughter, he told me to not quit my day job and to leave drumming to the professionals. I hadn’t thought I was that bad, but the guys’ expressions had suggested otherwise.

Sharon nodded, the corners of her lips curling down slightly. “Are you any good?”

“He’s brilliant.” Callie’s face reddened, and she busied herself with serving the pizza.

An odd sensation in my chest stirred at her words. She wasn’t the first person who had told me something along those lines when it came to my guitar playing. Groupies and fans said it all the time. But somehow hearing her say it felt different. Like her opinion meant more to me than anyone else’s did, including the critics.

Shit, what was I even thinking? Callie was just an old childhood friend.

A friend with a young child, a complication I didn’t need.

An incredibly sexy friend whom I suddenly wanted to get to know better, and not in the same way it had been between her sister and me. I wanted to get to know more about the woman she had become.