My fists clenched. When she had said she needed to change, I didn’t expect that.
Somehow she had gotten one of my white button-up oxford shirts. It fell to her upper thighs, like a short dress. But it was what was underneath that would drive me to insanity. She was still wearing that black corset lingerie. Her tits were pushed to the heavens, and she’d left the top half of her buttons undone so we were all blessed with the view.
The shirt had been given to me with my initials stitched into the cuff. Even if no one else noticed the RG on her wrists, I did.
She looked freshly fucked. By me.
The second our set finished, she would be.
“Come on, boys, let’s do this. One and done. I can’t do retakes all night.”
“One and done!” Jared pumped his fists.
“One and done,” Nixon repeated. “My balls can’t take any more than that.” He shifted his package for the thousandth time.
When we’d decided to channel the 1D boys, we wanted to go with their all-black phase. The three of us all wore the nut-hugging black pants. I went with a black t-shirt. Simple. Very Niall. We all knew he was the real musician of the group. Nixon went with a black button-up. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, probably just so he could show off his tattoos. Lastly, Jared went with the black t-shirt and black blazer. He would never be able to play the drums in a blazer, so I guess he wanted to take advantage of the moment.
Ever took a seat all by herself, and I wanted to run out there and kiss her face before we started. I probably would have busted my ass if I ran though. Nixon stuck his fist out to bump and we fucking missed each other. Laughing, I slowly tried again. My reflexes were terrible. His weren’t so great either. He stumbled and Jared caught him. Damn whiskey. We should have cut ourselves off hours ago.
While the crew filmed Missy announcing us, a stage assistant gestured for us to come closer so we could get ready to make our appearance. Lola ran up with a sponge and dabbed some shit underneath our eyes, like some kind of attack makeup artist. I felt a bit assaulted. She dug her fingers into my hair and then blasted me with hairspray.
“Lola, chill the fuck out.” I coughed.
She ignored me and continued her onslaught of Nix and Jared.
Nixon spat after Lola accidentally got some in his mouth. “A little warning next time. Shit, Lolz.”
“Knock ‘em dead,” she whispered.
“Only for you, babe.” Nixon winked at Lola and I raised an eyebrow. Did he just hit on her?
“Did you just hit on me?” she blatantly asked the same thing out loud. I liked that about her.
“What?” He wobbled and held his hands up. “You been looking real good lately. Thought I’d try.” There’s that whiskey talking again.
A throat cleared loudly. We all turned our heads slowly, so we wouldn’t make ourselves nauseous. Nixon cursed under his breath when he saw Gage leaning against a speaker. He was typing something out on his phone as if he couldn’t be bothered. Then he pocketed the device and raised his eyes to Nixon.
Dead man walking.
Run, Nix, run. I’ve seen Gage with a lot of women. I’ve even seen him date some for a little while. But never have I seen him get this bent out of shape like he has for Lola.
And those scary eyes he had now—I knew what that felt like. I knew that even though his hands appeared calm, they wanted to clench into fists and pound a few of Nixon’s teeth out. I knew because any time a guy even took a second look at Ever, I wanted to pee a circle around her. “She’s mine!” I wanted to scream. You know… if that were socially acceptable. Sadly, it wasn’t, and Ever told me I wasn’t allowed to shout those types of things.
“Ignore him, Gage. He’s plastered.” I wrapped my arm around Nixon’s shoulders and moved him toward the stage.
As we began walking away, I heard Gage’s deep voice say, “I see he’s not the only one. Don’t do anything stupid.” Sometimes the line between Gage, my lawyer, and Gage, my best friend, was quite confusing. Tonight, he was only supposed to be my best friend, but I could see how he didn’t want to have to bail me out of jail or something crazy like that.
The same stage assistant from earlier motioned that our time had come. The three of us bounced around and tried to not rip our pants. I shook my hands out. They felt so empty. I knew I should have fought harder for my guitar.
The sound of piano keys from “They Don’t Know About Us” started playing, and we knew we needed to get out there. There were only seventeen seconds before Nixon needed to be mouthing the opening lines.
Nixon walked out first and grabbed the middle microphone, something he had been adamant about having. Jared and I took the ones on each side of him. The second the lyrics started, I snuck a glace over at Ever. She was standing, and Missy was next to her. I could see the death grip she had on poor Missy’s arm. Her eyes were wide as she recognized what we were about to perform.
I knew she had assumed we were going to go with someone like James Taylor, because he was on constant repeat in my headphones. But sorry, James, you just weren’t right for my girl tonight. Ever continued to gawk at us as the words poured from our silent mouths. I made sure to look directly into the camera as I sang, “I just wanna tell the world that you're mine, girl.”
During practice, one of the choreographers that had been assigned to us told me that I needed to make love to the camera. At the time, that sounded fucking embarrassing to me, but tonight, humiliation didn’t exist. Only whiskey and the goal of making that smile on Ever’s face never leave.
She had found her way back onto her seat, but her hands were clasped together so tightly in front of her I could see them growing white. Nix, Jared and I continued to make fools of ourselves. Anytime it was our turn to mouth the words, we made a scene of pushing the others out of the way for that middle spot on the stage.
And each time the lyrics came around about waiting all of my life for a love that felt so right, I lifted my hand toward Ever. I could feel the camera moving closer to me and saw that another one was pointed toward her. The viewers would eat this up. They would love the mushy love story behind my actions. The funny thing was that it was completely real. Stupid One Direction had all the right words.
Jared and Nixon leaned on each other’s backs to end the song. It was so cheesy, and we died laughing every time they had to do it in practice. I, on the other hand, got to end the song by sliding on my knees toward Ever. I grabbed her hand and brushed my lips across it. Missy grabbed her chest and did that thing girls do when too many emotions overcome them… swoon is what I think they call it.
The music filtered out, and when the last note played, Missy brought her microphone to her mouth. “That was… the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“It was,” Ever said, so quietly I wondered if the cameras would even be able to pick it up.
I lifted up onto one knee and kissed her cheek. I didn’t want to show too much PDA out of respect for Ever, but my lips needed to touch her somehow. “I love you,” I whispered in her ear. Missy oohed and ahhed, obviously overhearing.
Ever mouthed I love you back as she squeezed my hands. Her smile was brilliant. I wished I had my phone so I could capture her like this forever.
The craziest thing about Ever is that she was so unexpected. I never even considered finding the girl of my dreams that day when I played in the subway. I never expected to be so surprised by her talent and her hard work. And I definitely never anticipated how caring and generous she was toward the people who cared about her. She was the best thing I never knew I needed in my life.
Ever tugged my hands, and I looked down at my position. I hadn’t planned it this way. I hadn’t planned anything about this relationship with her. It just happened naturally. One thing I had said to her from the very start was that I would marry her. I hadn’t been kidding then, and even though my body’s ratio of alcohol to water was totally imbalanced, I wasn’t kidding now.<
br />
I looked up into her eyes to see if she was expecting it. She beamed, and I could tell she wasn’t. I reached into my pocket to pull out the jewelry I had carried for the past few days. No box. I didn’t care for that display.
When we’d landed in Vegas, I snuck away and went into the first jewelry store I could find. I explained to the nice lady at Harry Winston that my girlfriend didn’t wear any jewelry. No rings, no bracelets, not even earrings usually. I didn’t think she would care for a giant rock on her finger; that didn’t seem like Ever. But I still wanted something a little flashy. I wanted everyone to know she was taken, for fuck’s sake.
She guided me past the engagement rings to the wedding bands. I immediately asked her to show me one of the sparkliest ones they had. She pulled a band out that was completely encircled by emerald-cut diamonds. Seventeen of them, to be exact. The ring was close to eight and half carats total. It was crazy and beautiful. But if I had to choose two words to describe Ever, ‘crazy and beautiful’ would be spot on.
The ring dangled from my index finger as I lifted it toward her. The second Ever realized what was happening, I heard her gasp. Her eyes widened in what kind of looked like a mixture of terror and excitement.
I shrugged. I couldn’t help it. It was just something that had been clawing to come out of me for months now.
“All of a sudden, all the love songs were about you,” I said to her. “I hear a song on the radio, and it’s about you. I put my pen to paper, and I write about you. You consume me. Your life is crazy and I guess that crazy life is mine now too, but I hope you’ll always take me with you on this crazy ride. I’m sorry if you think this is insane, but that’s what you do to me. Everly James, will you marry me?” I finished and held my breath. I could practically see the thoughts racing behind her eyes.
“This is insane,” she rasped out. I nodded and knew the worry lines were etched across my forehead. Ever brushed her finger across the diamonds that still hung from my finger. She held her hand out and let the jewelry slowly slide down her ring finger. Then she stared at it for too fucking long.
It looked perfect on her hand, especially knowing it was my ring on her finger. But she still hadn’t said a word. I grasped her hand gently in mine and kissed the ring slowly while never letting my eyes leave hers.
Maybe I should have waited. Maybe we should have dated for longer. Maybe I shouldn’t have done this while both of our eyes were swimming in the liquor we had consumed backstage. But damn it, I loved this girl and I wanted her to be mine. Officially mine.
“Yes.” She cleared her throat and spoke louder, “Yes, Rhett.” I scooped her up before she could even finish saying my name. I spun her around and hooted for all to hear. I let her body slide back down mine, but I quickly held on to her face and pulled her lips to mine. She laughed and tears fell from her eyes as she kissed me back.
“This is insane,” she said against my lips.
“You said that already.” I kissed her again. “But you also said yes.” My lips couldn’t stay off of hers.
There was a round of applause as the crew around us broke out into cheers. The director, Dee, gave us the thumbs up, which I hoped meant that we were done filming. Our friends were standing off to the side with eyes as big as saucers. I wondered if they were going to clap for us or just continue standing there looking shocked as hell. I knew this had come out of left field. I hadn’t told anyone. Not even my best friends, Alex and Gage.
They knew me when I was just a guy playing it safe in the subways and hole-in-the-wall bars. Never taking any chances on my music, too afraid of the rejections I could receive. Then, out of nowhere, this rock star flips my word upside down. She was a little lonely and a little lost, but I hoped I’d been able to show her her worth. Hell, she was worth it all.
She taught me about taking chances and that it was okay to be a little wild sometimes. I remembered sitting at that big-ass conference table signing contracts with the label, adrenaline still running through me from the night before. Singing with Ever on that stage at the bar had been everything I ever wanted music to be. I remembered thinking to myself during that meeting… well, shit, here goes nothing. Who knew that was the start of everything?
Everything being the curly-haired blonde who now wore my ring around her finger and looked up at me like I were her safe haven. Her home. And maybe that’s exactly what I had become for her in this tumultuous life. But I hoped she understood that she was home to me as well. And how great was this life when no matter where it took us, we would always be home if we had each other?
The End
You didn’t think Ever and Rhett’s story would be that easy, did you?
Not even close.
Stay tuned for their explosive continuation in
EVER YOURS
Coming soon!
You won’t want to miss this. ;-)
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I need to thank you the readers! Especially if you are a former reader of mine. From the bottom of my, thank you, thank you, thank you. I wrote three books years ago and then I basically disappeared. My husband got out of the Marine Corps and we learned how to adjust to this civilian life. We had a baby that made me so incredibly sick every single day I was pregnant. Then he didn’t sleep, who am I kidding, he still doesn’t sleep! The anxiety of coming back with a book years later is astronomically high. So just know, that if you stood by me, sent me messages, sent me notes on Facebook, or just sent out good vibes for a new book — I appreciate you! I PROMISE the next book wont take as long!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA Today Bestselling author Kimberly Lauren started out life as an avid reader. Inspired to challenge the more traditional relationship roles she came across while reading romances, she decided to write the scintillating and celebrated new adult series Broken. Then went on to write the Ever James Band series. She currently resides in Texas with her husband and their sons.
Ever Lonely (Ever James Band Book 1) Page 34