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Tia was so glad to finally be home for a decent amount of time.
It had been a long year: starting with touring with her ex’s band for almost three months, getting home for two weeks, before going on another band’s tour for two months, then being home for three weeks, then going back out on the road for over four months both in the States and in Europe, getting home for another two weeks, then moving to LA for a month to run shows there, and then going on another tour with her ex’s band. Luckily that had been a short – and relatively easy – job, but considering all her ‘down time’ this year had been spent preparing for her next stint on the road…Tia was exhausted.
And that was without even starting to think about all the stress she’d been under touring with Emerson and his brothers.
True to his word, Emerson had gotten Remington and Sebastian to back off a bit. The two of them stopped being hostile, but they’d still obviously wanted as little to do with Tia as possible. Tia understood that; she was their brother’s ex, no-one was expecting them to be best friends. But that didn’t make it any less tiring trying to manage the tour of people who wanted nothing to do with you.
Palaye Royale were a difficult band to manage at the best of times; they had a strong vision of what they wanted, would do anything to put on a good show, and wanted to interact with their fans as much as possible. It made them a brilliant band to watch, but a very hard band to manage. With Remington, Sebastian avoiding her, Jenny and Andrew taking their led from those two, and the crew divided between ‘Team Palaye’ and ‘Team Tia’…it had been fraught. And very, very stressful.
All of which was without Emerson’s…‘efforts’.
Even though they’d broken up over a year ago, and for very good reason in Tia’s opinion, Emerson was determined to try and win her back.
It was nothing intrusive; Emerson wasn’t a creep, but it was…wearing Tia down.
The thing was, she did want to be with Emerson again. When it had been good, it had been very good; Emerson was a romantic, and he’d always been so, so loving when it had just been them on their own together…but as soon as he’d been around his brothers, he’d become the opposite. Tia’s wants and needs had been pushed aside for rough-housing with his brothers.
She’d asked him not to playfight with his brothers around her – but they’d carried on. She’d asked them to please not fight in her house – but they’d ignored her. She’d asked them to stop fighting the night she’d broken up with Emerson – but they’d ignored that, top. They’d nearly kicked her dear old cat across the room, and broken the picture frame of one of the two pictures Tia had of her Nana.
Luckily, the picture had been undamaged: but it had been too close of a call. Tia had driven Emerson to A and E, sat with him while a nurse stitched his hand back together, and then driven him home: where she’d broken up with him. She just hadn’t been able to take it anymore…but now she missed it.
A lot.
Logically, Tia knew it was silly to be pining over a relationship that hadn’t even been sixth months long: especially now that they’d been apart longer than they had been together, but…she did. She missed the cuddling on the sofa with Emerson in the evening, she missed Emerson bring home colourful flowers to brighten up her kitchen, she missed cooking together and laughing at all the things going wrong. She missed the poems he wrote her, the phone calls where they spoke for hours, the lazy mornings in bed.
She missed everything.
She missed Emerson.
And he kept reminding her of how much she missed him by trying to win her back. He always made sure to bring her dinner when got too busy to eat, found her cute little gifts when he went out exploring the city they were in, and checked in with her to see how she was feeling at least once a day. He never even got mad when she didn’t have time to speak to him: just accepted her terseness with good grace and offers of help.
He’d matured a lot since they’d been together. And it was really making Tia doubt her decision to break up with him.
It had been a good idea at the time. Tia couldn’t have put up with all the fighting, especially with Emerson spending as much time with his brothers as he did. But now Emerson seemed more mature…
Tia didn’t know.
Luckily, she didn’t have to keep thinking about it, since there was a knock on the front door, announcing that her dinner had arrived.
Only, when Tia opened her door, she saw it wasn’t her dinner. Or, it was, but it wasn’t in the hands of a delivery driver.
It was being held by Emerson.
“Hi, Tia, I…uhm…thought we could talk?”
Tia let him in without a word.
She didn’t know what to say – or even what to feel – in response to seeing him…but she knew that they needed to sort out whatever was going on between them. And they needed to sort it out tonight – because Tia couldn’t go on like this.
“I’m sorry for showing up without warning,” Emerson started, when Tia didn’t say anything to begin with: “I just…I just really needed to speak to you.”
Tia let out a long breath, and then nodded: “We probably do need to talk, yeah.”
Emerson swallowed nervously: “Before we say anything else…I want you to know that I know I can never really make it right that I never listened to what you needed. I shouldn’t have let it get to the stage where you had to leave me to make me see sense. I will never stop trying to make up for that…unless you want me to. It’s been a year, and you still seem…unhappy around me, and that’s the last thing I want. So if you want me to just stop this and leave you alone…I will.”
“After all the effort you put into trying to win me over…you’d drop it all if I told you?”
“I would.” Emerson nodded, looking devastated…but honest: “I caused all this by not listening to you when you told me you were uncomfortable. I couldn’t prove I had improved by making the same mistake.”
Tia nodded slowly.
Emerson looked heartbroken, obviously assuming that him leaving her alone was what Tia wanted…but not trying to fight her on it. He was obviously going to respect her wishes, even if he didn’t like them.
“I love you, Tia, and I think I’ll always love you…but if you want me to go, and never come back, then I swear that that’s what I’ll do.”
Tia swallowed her own nerves…and then tried to say everything on her mind before she could let her unease get the best of her: “I don’t want you to leave, Emerson. I never wanted us to be apart. I just felt so upset and disrespected and even a little unloved…and then I was scared that if we got back together, I’d start feeling that same way again, that things would got back to how they were, and I didn’t know how to deal with that so I tried to keep you at arm’s length because I thought it would be safer…but the being on tour with you…I just don’t know anymore.”
Emerson paused for a few seconds, looking as if he was trying to choose his next words carefully: “I understand why you’d be afraid things would go back to the way they were. I was a prick, and…yeah, the way my brothers have been acting hasn’t been that convincing that we’ve changed. I can see why you’d think we’d go back to fighting and upsetting you…and I don’t really know how to reassure you that that’s not the case, except for asking you for another chance and swearing to you I won’t fuck it up.”
It was a big ask.
Every cautious part of Tia’s brain was telling her not to do it. The best way to protect her heart would be to not put it on the line again…only Tia’s heart was telling her to do it. Her heart didn’t want to be protected: it wanted to be where it had always belonged.
With Emerson.
Emerson, who was standing in front of her, watching her with eyes shining with emotion…but not trying to push her. Not trying to circumvent her wants and needs or just ignore them like he had done in the past.
And in the end…that was what made Tia’s decision for her.
She’d wanted Emerson even when he was bad for her. Now he was better (or at least trying to be better) for her, she couldn’t think of a single good reason to stay away. It wasn’t that she wasn’t afraid…but she wasn’t going to let that stop her.
…Just slow her down a little.
“I…I can’t go back to what we were doing before, not straight away.” Tia decided: “But…maybe we could try dating? See where that goes?”
Emerson fucking beamed: the expression breaking through the gloomy expression on his face like the sun coming over the horizon: “I won’t let you down, Tia, I promise. I’ll plan the best date – I can pick you up tomorrow?”
“Well, we could do that…but I was going to go and pick out a Christmas tree at that place that stays open late...” Tia replied: “…so maybe we could go choose one together? As a date. If you’d like that.”
Emerson grinned broadly: “I’d love that.”
Finally, Tia felt settled. She'd felt uncertain, moorless, without Emerson. Even though they hadn't been dating long, he'd made himself a fixture in her life in a way that would take years to erase, and being without him had felt like being cast adrift...but with him, Tia finally felt secure again.
It felt like they were finally home again.