Free Fade to Red by Willow Aster Page A

know what I did to make you so angry, but I promise I’ll make it up to you. I need you on this tour.”
    She wiped her face and nodded once. He backed away from the car and she slammed the door. Her tires squealed as she drove out of the parking lot.

    Chloe and Leo were outside when Roxie pulled up, and they both came running when they saw her crying.
    “Why you cryin’, Mommy?” Leo wrapped his arms around her leg and looked up at her with the sweetest eyes.
    “I’m just tired and frustrated,” she told him. “And I needed to see my boy.”
    Leo hugged her harder. “Here I am.”
    “Here you are.” She hugged him tighter.
    Chloe studied her and finally came over to hug her too. “Well, we’re glad to see you. We were gonna go to the beach as soon as you got home. Want to head out soon?”
    Roxie nodded. “Sounds good.”
    Leo reached up for Roxie to pick him up. He put his hands on either side of her face and peered at her carefully. “You feelin’ better?”
    “I am now.”
    “Good. Wanna hear a joke?”
    “Of course.”
    “’K … what did the cat ask the zombie?” He bit his bottom lip to keep from yelling out the punchline.
    “Hmm … I don’t know. What?”
    “ Meow’s life? ” He’d started laughing before he got it all the way out.
    “Meow’s life?” Roxie pulled back, looking in Leo’s eyes.
    He stopped laughing but couldn’t stop grinning. “Yeah, you know, like … how’s life? Meow’s life … ’cept zombies are already dead .” His lisp was extra heavy when he got excited.
    “Wow, that’s actually a pretty good one, Leo.”
     
    The beach calmed Roxie more than she’d thought possible. When she left Beckham, she was strung so tight, every muscle felt jittery. Now, just looking out at the endless waves and feeling so incredibly small—it made her anger slowly fade away into the tide. She would get back to hating Beckham again tomorrow, but for now, she welcomed the peace.
    They found a spot to lay their blanket and stretched out. Leo barely ran in the water and quickly hightailed it back to their towel, teeth chattering. The cold water always shocked him, but he kept going back in for more.
    “So what happened?” Chloe asked.
    “I don’t wanna talk about it,” Roxie groaned.
    “Oh no, you’re not getting out of it.” Chloe poked Roxie in the side.
    “He asked if we’d met before,” Roxie whispered.
    “Shit!”
    Of course that’s when Leo surprised them by running back to get warm.
    “What’d you say, Auntie?” Leo’s head whipped around faster than lightning.
    “I said, ‘Sit!’ Come on, sit by me and I’ll warm you up!” She looked at Roxie guiltily.
    “Hmm, yeah,” Leo said, but he went and sat by her anyway.
    Roxie flicked Chloe in the arm. Leo sat for all of a minute and then ran back to the water.
    “What did you say back?” Chloe stared at Roxie, who was watching Leo jump up and down in an inch of water.
    “I got out of there … after I basically got stuck on the f-word and told him all the ways he was fucking stupid.”
    “ No! What did he do?”
    “He apologized for whatever he’d done to make me angry and asked me not to leave the tour.”
    “Wait—you’re thinking of leaving? No, Rox. You have to do this.” She grabbed Roxie’s arm and forced her to look at her. “I know this is so hard, but you’ve done the hardest part—seeing him again. Now that you’ve gotten past that initial shock, you have to go all the way. We’ll finally get ahead a little bit. You’ve worked so hard, for so long. There’s no other way you can make money like this—not any time soon, anyway. And this is the safest I’ve felt since I met Alex. I didn’t even realize until being away from him this long, how much I was still fearful that he was around every corner…”
    Roxie put her arm around Chloe. “I’m so relieved you got away from him. You seem more like yourself than you have in a really long time.”
    Chloe leaned her head on