The #NazandRoz Series - Chapter 1
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This series chapters are posted once per week, and focus on Naz and Roz.
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Naz and Roz Blog Series
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Five Years Later ...
Roz POV
Spinning around in her apartment, Roz looked for the box she'd just walked away from not three minutes ago. It was the one with the papers stacked close to the top, and according to the doctor's office that just called ... the information she was seeking had been in a file they mailed over the week before.
Unfortunately, her entire place was just boxes right now. Boxes to the left, and boxes to the damn right. Problem was, while most of the lower section of boxes had been packed and taped up properly, the ones on top were not. So it could be any number of boxes, and Roz just really didn't have time to try and go through each box right now because--
The chiming of her phone in the other room had her sighing. That right there was why she didn't have time, probably. She expected it to be one of her handlers for the company calling to make sure she was still on time and didn't need them to send over a driver to bring her to the Hall. Running to catch the phone, she picked it up on the fourth ring just before it would go to her voicemail. Pressing it to her ear, she let out a breathless, "Hello?"
"How interested are you in making a stop in England before heading back to the states, anyway?"
Roz blinked. "Kyle?"
Silence answered her back on the other line before the man asked, "How many English people call you with a request to stop in England, Roz?"
It took her entirely too long to blink away the confusion settling in her mind and reply to him. Not that she wasn't happy to hear from her old mentor--she was. Like she would always be whenever Kyle took time out of his very busy life to send little old her a message. Roz was getting better and better with this sarcasm thing.
Really, her former mentor didn't call a lot. Usually once a year, but he might call twice if he heard news of something big happening in her career. She knew he kept up with everything--hell, he knew about things happening to her before it was even announced in the upscale music circles. But for the most part, Kyle didn't call a lot and he let Roz have her space. After all, he wasn't her mentor anymore--she had made it to the top of her career like she wanted to be, and he helped her to get her foot through the door.
And now ...
Roz turned around to look through the entryway of the kitchen, and peer into the living room where the boxes were stacked up high. A reminder that she had finally decided to choose a different path, now. Something that would take her back home where she wanted to be the very most.
Back to New York.
Back to him.
God, she missed Naz all the time.
"Did you hangup completely, or what?" Kyle asked.
Roz rolled her eyes, and went back to the conversation. "How do you know I'm leaving Australia? You haven't called in eight months, and I only made this announcement two months ago."
"Do I have to call you everytime you do something I disagree with, or ...?"
Jesus.
"Kyle--"
"I didn't call to argue about you leaving the Australian company. And even though I don't agree with it," her former mentor quickly added, "I understand your need to do something different. But that's the thing, isn't it? I called a couple of companies in New York when I had a minute last week, and guess what I found out?"
"Probably nothing that I care to hear."
Kyle let out a sigh. "Like I said, I called a couple of companies. The only companies that I know would be worthy of you and your talents. Yet, none of the owners of those companies had even heard from you--mind you, they let me knew I should pass along the message that ifi you're looking for a new company, one closer to home, they are very willing to bring you into the company. You just have to make a phone call to get it done."
That was the thing, though. Five years later, and Roz wasn't sure what she wanted to do. When she played show after show, it started to become the same thing over and over again. The bright lights wore off, a lot like the everything else. Her name had been in lights and was able to shine.
But here she was at twenty-three, and she didn't know if she wanted to keep doing this. What she wanted to do, like she had from the moment she stepped foot on Australian soil, was go home. Constant homesickness wasn't cured by a stage, a shined piano, and a beautiful dress.
She needed Naz more than she got him. He never said a word edgewise to her--never once asked her to come back. Over the last five years, they worked it out. He flew to her, or she flew to him. When he had a job that took him out of country and closer to her, she made sure to head his way if he couldn't come to her. They took vacations to different spots. But typically, they were only able to see each other a handful of times a year, and for the most part, it might only be three or four days at a time.
The last time they had got together for a spread of days was two months earlier during a vacation to Barbados. That was really when Roz cemented her decision to leave the Australian company and head back home. Naz hadn't said one thing about it when she called to tell him after arriving back in Australia. He simply told her to do whatever she needed to do. Her company, on the other hand, tried to convince her to stay a little while longer.
She couldn't ...
It might have affected them--she loved him just as much now as she had when she was a stupid eighteen year old girl; she was faithful, and she never questioned if he gave her the same respect because she knew he did. But at the same time, she needed to close some of that distance now.
It'd been too long.
"How about you let me worry about my career?" Roz asked her old mentor. "And you worry about ... whatever it is you're doing with your career lately."
"Oh, nasty."
Yeah, well.
Sometimes that was the only way to get your point across to Kyle. He didn't understand anything else. She had to do what she had to do. Simple as that.
"What's in England?" Roz asked, folding her arms over her chest, and heading into the living room. Her gaze skimmed over the tops of open boxes while she still had time, trying to find that fucking file. "Because I can promise you it's nothing that will interest me enough to make me stay there, either."
"A prodigy, actually," Kyle said.
Roz stiffened in place. "What?"
"She's sixteen. Typical sixteen year old, too. Moody, snappy, and impatient. She doens't follow direction well, and she's already been expelled from two other prepatory schools for the musically gifted. Heathrow Prep was her last stop. If she gets kicked out of here--very likely that's going to happen--then she's going to be sent back to New Jersey where her parents have no idea what to do with her. Thing is, it'll be a might waste of talent, Roz. She just needs the right person to--"
"Why can't that be you?"
"Because I'm a man. She doesn't like ... men," Kyle said, his voice dipping a bit. "Seems everyone around this girl is more interested in trying to correct her behavior than trying to figure out why she's behaving the way she is. Not that I think for even a second she would talk to me about it, that's not why I'm calling. I thought ..."
"You mean for me to mentor her?"
"Roz, it would be a terrible waste of talent."
"There's more to life than what someone can do with an instrument," she shot back.
Kyle scoffed. "Maybe in your life. Anyway, make the stop in England. Do whatever you gotta do to get your tickets switched around. It'll be what, a couple of extra days on your trip? I'm sure your gangster boyfriend won't mind."
Roz clenched her teeth. "Don't call him that."
"I was kidding."
"Well, don't."
Kyle acted like she hadn't said a thing. "Okay, so England is a go, then?"
"Fuck you, Kyle."
He knew she wouldn't refuse. That's why the bastard called. But it didn't even matter. The asshole hung up before Roz could say anything more about the situation. Like a refusal to mentor a girl who sounded like she was troubled, and needed someone to help her more than she needed someone to further her musical career.
Roz stared at the dead phone in her hands, and glared. Asshole. Was that even something she wanted to do, really? Sure, it kind of felt like she had hit an early peak in her career, but was she so done with it all that all Kyle thought she was good for now would be mentoring the next young pianist prodigy?
Fuck.
Hormones were a bitch.
Speaking of which ...
Roz's eye finally caught sight of the box in question that she had lost earlier, and the file sitting right at the top from the doctor's office. When she's gotten off stage one night, and prompty puked into a trash can, her handler called in one of the doctor's who worked on call for the company. He came in, drew blood between sets, and sent her back out on the stage to finish her set. The results had been mailed in, but Roz had kind of passed over the file because well, she felt fine mostly. She figured maybe she ate something bad that day, and never gave it another thought.
And then her period was late.
And then she realized no, it'd actually been late for two months.
Since that vacation with Naz.
Picking up the folder, Roz opened it up, and flipped through to the page the doctor's office had told her she would find the information she was looking for. And sure enough, there it was printed in big, bold letters.
PREGNANCY CONFIRMED.
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