Reconnecting: Part 3

By Morganperidot

1.

His eyes still closed, Avery stretched out on the bed. He felt a hand on his bare chest, and he smiled. "You better be gone before my wife gets back," he purred.

Juliette slid the hand over his chest. "You better not, ever, let another woman touch you like this," she said.

Avery opened his eyes and saw her beautiful face so close to his, hair hanging loose, her eyes and skin naturally glowing. He wasn't foolish enough to ask her what would happen if he did. "I won't," he said. "I'm yours for better or for worse."

"I think we've had enough of that second part," Juliette said.

"Me too," Avery said. He reached out for her and kissed her as she shifted closer to him. He slid his hand into her hair. "I love you so much," he said.

Juliette kissed his jaw and then his neck. Avery closed his eyes again as she entwined with him and whispered into his ear, "I love you too, Avery Barkley."

2.

Later Avery was making breakfast at the stove in the kitchen, dressed comfortably in a soft gray t-shirt and blue jeans. He was juggling making scrambled eggs and pancakes at the same time, with moderate success at both. When he heard Juliette's footsteps behind him, he asked about Cadence, "How is she?"

"Good," Juliette said. "You know, we could hire someone to cook."

"I know," Avery said, not pursing that further. Instead he piled the food on plates and brought it over to the table. Juliette brought over two cups of coffee, and Avery took the moment to admire how good she looked in the tight, short dark purple dress she wore. They both sat down, neither one of them talking, and Avery was OK with that, for the moment, because he found himself surprisingly happy with how things were.

"What's left on that charity album?" Juliette asked.

"There are a couple tracks to lay down yet," Avery said. He looked at her and saw how she wasn't looking at him. "I've said this before," he said. "There's room for another track of you want to do one."

"I might be interested in doing a song if you would do it with me," Juliette said.

"I could probably find some time to co-write…"

"I mean a duet," Juliette said. Avery was surprised. They had never discussed recording a duet. Of course, he hadn't discussed recording his voice on much of anything since the disaster of his early days in Nashville. "Don't tell me you're actually speechless," Juliette said. "I never thought that would happen."

Avery forced himself to say something. "I'm sure if you want to do a duet, Luke or…"

"You have an incredible voice, Avery," Juliette said. "You know that."

"I just…"

"Are you afraid?" Juliette asked.

Avery thought about it. He had sung live plenty of times since his crash and burn with the label, but the idea of recording his voice did, in a sense, terrify him. "No," he said.

"You are so lying," Juliette said.

"Yeah," Avery said.

Juliette paused a moment and then asked, "Would you want to?"

Avery thought about that. Would he want to write, sing, and record a song with Juliette? There was the potential for all sorts of problems both professionally and personally, but there was also the potential for it to be really amazingly great. "Yeah," Avery said.

"Yeah?" Juliette said.

"Yeah," Avery said. "Let's do it."

3.

Avery took care of his production duties in the morning and sat down with Juliette to write the new song in the afternoon. Although in the past he had sometimes sung during their writing sessions for her songs to get across where he was going with the lyrics, it felt different to do that with the idea of singing those lyrics himself for real. The part of him that he had buried – that part that wanted to be a real recording artist – felt alive again, and that felt so damn good.

After an hour or so of debating song lyrics and guitar licks, Avery stretched and went into the kitchen. He looked in the mostly empty fridge for a few seconds and then grabbed a bottle of wine out of a cabinet.

"Avery!" Juliette shouted from the other room.

"What?" he said, as he filled two glasses with his favorite pinot noir.

"I've got a rhyme for the chorus!"

"I'll be right there!" Avery shouted back. He hoped this one was better than rhyming misty with whiskey. He picked up the glasses and carried them back to where she was sitting on the sofa.

"Listen to this: You had my name, you wore my ring; it was a game, the whole damn thing…"

"Yeah, that's good," Avery said. He held out one of the glasses.

Juliette looked at him. "We're hot on this," she said.

"Yeah," Avery said. "It's going to be great. But right now we're taking a break."

"I don't want to lose the momentum," Juliette said.

"I get that," Avery said, "but I have a present for you."

"I'll unwrap it later, I promise," Juliette said.

Avery smiled. "Not that one," he said. She held his gaze. "OK, not just that one," he said.

"You bought me something?" Juliette asked. She set down the notebook and pen she had been using. "Why would you do that?"

"Because we never had a proper engagement," Avery said. He set the wine glasses on the table and went to his jacket where it was thrown on a chair. He took out the small box he had picked up on his way home from the studio.

"We didn't need one," Juliette said. "We just wanted to be married."

"Yeah," Avery said. "I remember." He sat next to her. "But I have something I want to give you," he said. He showed her the box.

"Avery," Juliette said. "I don't need…"

"Yes, you do," Avery said. He opened the box and showed her the ring. The central diamond wasn't huge, only a few carats, surrounded by a circle of natural rubies that spread out along the band. He looked at Juliette and saw tears in her eyes. "If you hate it…"

"Shut up and put it on me," Juliette said. She held out her left hand, and he slipped the ring onto her ring finger above the wedding ring. She looked at it there for a moment and then put both hands on his face and kissed him. Avery quieted his thoughts and committed to the kiss, sliding his arms around her and drawing her close to him. After an extended moment of blissful physical interaction, Juliette broke off the kiss. "Thank you," she said, looking into his eyes. "Thank you for coming to Dallas. Thank you for not giving up on us – on me."

"Thank you for not having me thrown out of the hotel," Avery said.

"I'm serious," Juliette said.

"So am I," Avery said. "We hadn't talked in weeks, so I really had no idea how you would react to me being there."

"I never stopped missing you," Juliette said. "And I missed Cadence too. But I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to fix it. I was so lost in the album and the tour that I couldn't think of a way to…"

"It's OK," Avery said. "We fixed it."

"Yeah," Juliette said. "We did."

"Yeah," Avery said. "I want to thank you for pushing me to do this song. I've been… reluctant to record anything since…what happened the last time, which was a colossal screw up on my part. I was so blinded by the shot at stardom that I became someone I couldn't even recognize. And aside from physically destroying the evidence of that I had to mentally shut it down, lock it away, and bury it."

"And that brought you to my tour as a lowly roadie," Juliette said. "How long could you have possibly done that?"

"There really wasn't any plan to it," Avery said. "I just needed to do something physical to clear my head, but I still wanted to be around music. I couldn't let that go entirely."

"You know I was so angry at Deacon for ditching the show that night," Juliette said. "I didn't know what the hell to do about a guitar player. I just knew I needed someone immediately. And I thought these roadies – maybe one of them knows enough to make it through one show." Avery smiled. "I wish I could say I knew about you somehow, but really I just was thinking that I needed to make it through the night," Juliette said.

"I know," Avery said. "And I almost didn't say anything. I wasn't going to, but then I thought, she needs someone, and I can do it. I can fill in tonight."

"And then you got dragged into my media whirlwind," Juliette said.

"I wasn't dragged in," Avery said. "When I was there, I was there because I wanted to be there."

"And when you weren't there, I was the most alone I've ever been, and I have been alone," Juliette said.

"You never will be again," Avery said.

"I wish I could believe that," Juliette said. "I wish I could believe that I won't screw up again and drive you away."

"It hasn't been like that…"

"You know it has," Juliette said. "It's always been about me doing what I want to do and to hell with how that affects anyone else, including you and our daughter."

"It sure as hell hurts when you shut me out…"

"I'm sorry…"

"I'm not looking for apologies or sympathy," Avery said. "I know who you are. I know how we are…"

"But I don't want us to be like that," Juliette said. "I don't want to be the one who keeps breaking your heart…"

"Then don't be," Avery said.

"I'm not like you," Juliette said. "I'm not always that strong…"

"I'm not either," Avery said. "But together, Juliette, really, really together, there is nothing in this world that could be stronger than us." Juliette smiled. "What?" Avery asked.

"What if we were really, really, really together?" she asked.

"That would be good too," Avery said. They moved together into a passionate kiss, and then Avery's lips trailed down her neck. He undid the zipper on the front of her dress and pushed the material off her shoulders to continue the trail there.

And that was when Juliette's phone rang. "Crap," she said. She withdrew from Avery's embrace. "Don't move," she said, and she went to get the phone. Avery picked up one of the glasses of wine and took a swallow. "This better be good," Juliette said into the phone. She listened for a moment. "Yes, and what else? Yes, of course! Do I have to do everything? Let me know when it's done." She ended the call and tossed the phone on a chair. Then she went back over to Avery. "So where were we?" she asked.

"You were going to tell me what all that is about," Avery said. He held the other glass out to her, and after a moment she accepted it and sat on the sofa.

"It has to do with…"

"Jeff Fordham," Avery said. "Yes, and what else?"

"Very funny," Juliette said. "The lawyers are looking into the contract. Glenn thought it would be a good idea to update me on the fact that nothing has been accomplished yet."

"I thought Glenn was…"

"That was temporary," Juliette said.

"Of course," Avery said. "So what does Jeff have?"

"Are you sure that…"

"Yes," Avery said. "We're not going around that again."

Juliette smiled. "OK," she said. She sipped some wine and then set the glass down. "How would you feel about working with film?" she asked.

"Is this the same topic?" Avery asked.

Juliette laughed. "Yes," she said. "I set up a film crew to record for a tour DVD – performances and some behind the scenes stuff."

"Really?" Avery said. "Behind the scenes?"

"Shut up," Juliette said.

Avery laughed. "I just mean there's a lot of behind the scenes stuff that wouldn't look so good on someone's living room TV," he said.

"It's obviously going to be edited – or that was my intention," Juliette said. "We would go through it and decide what would work…"

"We?" Avery said.

"Well, I would want you to give creative input if you wanted to," Juliette said.

"Yeah?" Avery said. "That's a little different from producing songs."

"If you don't think you can do it…"

"Hey, I didn't say that," Avery said.

"So you would want to?" Juliette asked.

"Sure," Avery said. "As long it doesn't involve working with Fordham."

"Well, that's the problem," Juliette said, picking up her glass again. "He says that according to the contract, the footage is under his control. That's what we have the lawyers working on. But if that doesn't work it may be necessary to sort of…"

"Work with Fordham," Avery said.

"Yeah, work with Jeff," Juliette said.

"No," Avery said.

"You'd rather that I just work with him myself?" Juliette said.

"Neither one of us should have anything to do with him," Avery said.

"So, I should just let him do whatever he wants with that film," Juliette said.

Avery was silent for a moment. Finally he said, "Can we cut to the end of this?"

"What?" Juliette asked.

"Arguing like this just wears me out," Avery said. "What's the point? What do you want me to say?"

Juliette stood up. "You know what, just forget it," she said. "I know you don't give a crap about this." She looked over at the notebook where she had been writing lyrics for their song. "It's probably better if we just don't collaborate," she said. She turned away.

"You really want to fight about Jeff Fordham so badly that you're going to pull the plug on our song?" Avery said.

"We would just wind up fighting about that and…"

"I would sure as hell rather fight about that than about this," Avery said.

"Well, you're not in charge of what we fight about," Juliette said, turning back to him. "We can't just schedule things around what you like and don't like."

"Why not?" Avery said. "It seems like if we are going to fight about everything, we should pick things that are at least worth fighting about."

"And my tour footage isn't worth fighting about," Juliette said.

Avery said nothing for a moment, not because he needed to think about that, just because he wanted to slow the pace of the argument. "I want to do the tour video, and I want to do the song," he said finally. "But I cannot be in a room with Jeff Fordham; that's a deal breaker."

Juliette was briefly silent, and then she said, "You want to do the tour video?"

"Yes," Avery said.

"OK," Juliette said. "Then we'll work it out."

"We will?" Avery said.

"Don't push it," Juliette said. She sat down next to him again. "So, we should order some food and get back to the song," she said.

"Yeah," Avery said, but his enthusiasm was gone.

"I'm sorry about what I said about collaborating," Juliette said. "That was…unfair."

"Yeah, it was," Avery said. "Maybe we should just take a break for tonight. We can get some dinner and some sleep, and just let it go for now. We can pick it up tomorrow."

"If you're upset about…"

"I'm not upset," Avery said. "I just feel burned out." Juliette looked at him. "I just don't feel like I have the motivation in me right now," he said.

"I bet I can think of a way to motivate you," Juliette said.

"Yeah?" Avery said. "How?"

"Like this," Juliette said, and she moved closer to him. Avery closed his eyes and took a breath. A moment later Juliette's lips were on his in a full, deep kiss. And yeah, Avery thought, maybe he could find that motivation after all.