Page 13 of Falls From Grace
He got up and toddled over to a low cupboard, tugged it open and began to pull out toys, adding to the mess on the ground.
“Ugh, he’s a cute one,” she said to Savannah, realizing she was being watched closely.
“You’re good with him,” Savannah said after a long moment of quiet. “And his favorite thing is music, actually.”
“Of course it is,” Brynn said. “Must get that from you, right?”
Savannah smiled at her.
“I mean, both sides, I guess.”
“Oh, his dad is musical?” she asked.
Savannah looked surprised and then laughed.
“Yeah. He is.”
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. Just, it’s refreshing. You’re obviously not a tabloid reader, huh?”
“Uh, no. Sorry. Am I…missing something here?”
“Really? Noah didn’t talk about it?”
“Uh…no. I don’t think so?”
“My ex-husband is Cole Corbin,” Savannah said, clearly watching for her response. When Brynn looked blank, she smiled broadly. Tucker was now playing with a pair of toy dinosaurs at her feet, making little roaring sounds. “We were in a band together. It was big. Then he cheated repeatedly and I was the sucker who believed his lies until I didn’t. Now we’re divorced and I’m this guy’s mom,” she stroked Tucker’s hair, “and trying to make a comeback on my own.”
“That’s a lot,” Brynn said, nodding her head as several things started to slowly make sense to her about Savannah. “I’m sorry you were married to a douchebag.”
Savannah spluttered with a short laugh before shrugging her shoulders.
“Me too,” she said simply. “I guess it sounds self-obsessed of me, but I just walk around assuming everyone in the world knows. That I was the stupid, trusting wife. The dupe, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” Brynn said simply. “And that’s not what I think.”
“What do you think?” The answer seemed to matter to her.
“Well, that he was blind, obviously,” her mouth said before her brain could filter it. She decided to brazen it out, looking Savannah clear in the eye and just hoping she wasn’t blushing at her slip. “Blind and undeserving of you. And that you must have loved him well to decide to trust him. He was lucky and he abused that.”
Savannah gathered Tucker up in her lap and kissed his head. When she looked up, it was obvious she’d been trying to hide tears in her eyes.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “God, does Noah have a brother or something?” Brynn could see she was aiming for a joke.
“Only child,” Brynn shrugged. “Can’t you tell? The man is far too calm and secure to have grown up competing with siblings.”
“You’re lucky,” Savannah said, still snuggling her adorable son, who had tilted his head up to look at her, his small chubby fingers reaching for her ponytail. Brynn watched them together. She thought of her life as Savannah understood it, and then of the reality of it.
“Yeah,” she said wistfully. “Totally.”
Chapter Six
Savannah felt different as she entered the band room today. She couldn’t put her finger on the exact feeling, she just knew her body felt lighter. Her shoulders weren’t hunched and her jaw wasn’t clenched. Something had lifted.
Perhaps it was her song. Her song. Not only her first since the big split, but her first ever that was truly her own. Both she and Cole had only dabbled in writing their own songs when they met. Everything that Twice Struck released, they’d co-written. There was a secret terrified part of her that had wondered if it was only in combination with Cole that she was a song-writer at all.
And then, last night, it had all just poured from her, the rage, the grief, the shame, all into one explosion of a song. She’d taken Noah aback, she could tell - hell, she’d taken herself aback - but she knew it was a good song, maybe even a great one.
