Page 95 of Unbound
“Do you even know how to change a diaper?” I ask Tyler, teasing him as I lean back in my chair, taking a long draw from my beer.
“What is this, ‘pick on me’ day? Do you know how to change a diaper?” he counters, glaring at me.
“Yes, but the last time I changed Landon’s diaper, he peed in my mouth.”
Landon’s our four-month-old son. Sophie and I certainly didn’t plan Lyric, though he turned out to be the best thing in our lives. However, we did plan Landon, and I loved being a part of the pregnancy and delivery this time.
True to our situation, Sophie and I did everything backwards. It wasn’t until after Landon was born in late spring, when he was three weeks old, that I asked her to marry me.
For three years we’d been living together in an apartment across town from my mom, raising Lyric. For a while, I put off asking because I didn’t feel like we were ready yet and why mess with something that clearly worked, right? You know the saying, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”
And then, one morning as she was feeding Landon, and I was attempting to get Lyric dressed before I headed to California for a two-month tour, I looked over at her and something just clicked. I had an overwhelming feeling, a need to take the next step. I wanted her to be my wife. I always knew we would eventually get married but at that moment, I knew it was time.
So while our hectic lives unfolded around us, I dropped to my knees with cheerios stuck to my shirt, spit up on hers, and asked her to marry me.
Only she didn’t answer me and moved to set Landon down in his Pack ‘n Play.
I wasn’t really sure what to think. I mean, I just asked her to marry me and she wasn’t saying anything.
And then she started to cry, big emotional “I just gave birth” tears. “How could you wait until I’m such a mess to ask me? It’s been three years since we’ve been back together and this is the moment we’re going to remember for the rest of our lives? You with Cheerios in your hair and me smelling like baby puke? I didn’t get more than three hours sleep last night. I can’t remember the last time I took a shower… I mean, how could you?”
I had to remind myself it was the hormones talking and she wasn’t really mad at me, maybe just that I had bad timing for asking?
And then I started laughing and she glanced up at me. “Oh, so now you’re laughing at me? You’re such a stupid jerk!”
As she tried to push past me into the other room, I captured her against the wall, my hands framing her face. “Sophie.” I let my breath carry over her. “Don’t you see, the moment’s perfect. I want to be with you forever. You and me, the boys, we’re a family. I proposed to you because you’re always beautiful, even with baby puke on you. I’m sorry if this isn’t how you pictured it, but I can’t think of a better moment because this is our life now.”
She was just about to answer me when Lyric walked by and smacked her ass with his hand, something he’d been doing a lot these days. “Pretty mama!”
Laughing, she picked him up and stared at him like she was trying to come up with something to say to me.
“Well…” I dipped my head forward, catching her gaze. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes!” Lyric yelled in her face, causing us both to laugh.
With a heavy sigh, Sophie met my anxious stare. “What he said.”
Two months later, the day I came back from California, I married her in my parents’ backyard. It seemed backyard weddings had become a sort of tradition in our family. First Red and then just a year later, Raven, and now us. I think we all felt this was the only place to do it. It made us all feel closer to our dad and felt like he was a part of it.
“When do you leave for Nevada?” Tyler asks, drawing me from my thoughts.
“In the morning. I think we’ll be back on the eighteenth. Dylan said it’s something like eleven shows in fourteen days.”
After the mess with Sam and Nick, we parted ways with them for good and took Dylan up on his offer to work with him. He’d never been much into managing a band, but we took pride in the fact he wanted the same things from music. We wanted to make music, but on a more intimate level. The heart of where it starts for most bands. Bars and clubs. The smaller venues where the fans are able to hear the music with a more personable experience where we’re literally just feet away from them.
We still played at Murphy’s Friday and Saturday nights and twice a month we were at Bailey’s in Seattle. It was exactly the kind of schedule we wanted. After we released our first album in August, we toured only local stuff and sold out of every bar we played at. It was insane but never once did we consider the world wide tours offered to us.
Beck, Lincoln and me, well, we decided if we were going to do this and remain the same boys of Torque we were when we began, we couldn’t give into the machine of the music industry. We’d say when and how much we’d put ourselves out there and always give the people listening to our music a more personal side.
In turn it allows us to live our lives away from any kind of spotlight and for me to see my kids grow up. I wasn’t there for Lyric’s birth and that’s something I’ll always regret. But I was there for his first birthday and every one of them since. It’s not the same, but it’s the next best thing. And I was there when Landon was born.
“Have you seen Kinsley?” Tyler finally asks, drawing me from my thoughts again when Red takes a seat next to us. Chevy’s on his lap and he’s trying to get what looks to be marshmallow and bark from the flower beds off his sticky hands. At least he doesn’t have a lighter in his hand anymore. “I can’t change her diaper if I can’t find her.”
I smile at Raven when she eyes Tyler like he’s crazy for losing her. “Why’d you name that kid Kinsley?”
“Because Cinderella was taken. Now have you seen her or not?”
I turn to Tyler, my arm draped over the back of the chair between Red and me. “On any given day, how many times do you lose your daughter?”
