by Anna B. Doe
Broadway is demanding, and even though I wrote and coproduced the show, it was a marvel I got us four nights off together.
“You think spending four nights with your family will be a break?” His beautiful mouth lifts at the corner.
“Sophie will be running the house at age five. Baby Mason will be keeping Haley up. Dad will be running between the label and the kids.” Maybe it is a lot going on, but it’s family. And this is the first year things have been on solid ground.
I shift in my seat. “And you haven’t even seen what I got you for Christmas.”
Every part of me buzzes with anticipation because it’s an epic gift. I can’t wait to see him open it.
“You don’t need to get me anything,” he answers, his voice a husky whisper. “I have you every day. That’s more than I ever thought I’d have.”
My heart kicks. Even in an airplane cabin, surrounded by strangers and holiday madness, I’m crazy about this man.
We’ve been engaged six months and haven’t made plans for the wedding. At first, it was a decision we agreed on. We had other things to figure out. Now, we’re living together in New York, hustling out our dream.
Tyler threads his fingers through mine, shooting me a look that has my toes tingling. “There’s something I want to talk with you about.”
Excitement bubbles through me. “That sounds mysterious,” I say coyly. “Do you want to talk about it now?”
“Not in public. Later.” He squeezes my hand, and my heart skips a beat.
“Looking forward to it.”
Being with family will be the perfect time to talk about our wedding. Sure, my dad and Haley, plus my half sister and baby half brother, are a handful. But Tyler and I have handled packed houses and international rock tours. Nothing in Dallas could get in the way.
I play with the ring on the fourth finger of my left hand, staring at the gorgeous diamond before I fix my gaze on the snow coming down outside. “It’s beautiful. It almost never snows in Dallas. I can remember twice ever at the holidays. I’m going to miss the snow in New York.”
He cocks his head. “You mean that shit that stops traffic?”
The snow coming down in New York is the reason our small private plane was canceled and we had to switch to commercial at the last minute.
Sometimes, I have to remind myself that as full as my schedule is, his is fuller. He does it all without complaining, but the way he passes out when we go to bed, takes longer than usual to get up with the alarm, the way he rubs his eyes when he thinks I’m not looking and mainlines caffeine, shows me he’s been stressed with finishing his second album. He’s been oddly secretive about it, and I pretend it doesn’t hurt a little that he’s unwilling to share with me.
Still, he’s working his ass off, and I want to make things easier on him.
I unfasten my seatbelt—we’re still on the tarmac—and start to get up.
A flight attendant is at my elbow in a second. “Excuse me. We’re about to take off.”
“Of course.” My best embarrassed and earnest “I’m following the rules” smile is on display.
I wait for her to head back to the front before I duck across the barrier between our seats, wishing I could do away with it entirely. Tyler’s mouth is firm when I kiss him. It’s a light brush of lips, a reminder of the way I love him and that I’m glad to be spending today with him.
Before I can pull back, he threads his fingers into my hair, deliberate and languorous as he holds me against him. He’s completely confident in his effect on me, slanting my mouth over his in a way that makes me tingle everywhere.
“I needed that,” he murmurs, pushing me lightly back into my seat. “If we were on a charter, we wouldn’t have had to stop.”
I lower my voice to a whisper. “You want to fuck me on an airplane?”
“I want to fuck you everywhere.”
Groan. Damned hot musician fiancé. I melt into the seat and take my hand from his to refasten the seat belt.
“So what made it special?” Tyler asks.
“Hmm?”
My dazed expression elicits a slow, sexy grin from him. “The snow.”
“Oh! It was the year after Dad and Haley got married, after we moved back to Dallas from Philly. I was going through some stuff…”
From his knowing expression, he’s well aware of where I’m going with this.
“See,” I say, tapping a finger against my lips, “this guy I liked ghosted me. I even got him a Christmas present, and all he had to do to get it back was text me… but he didn’t get back to me. I thought we were friends.”
His expression clouds with pain and resolve. I know he’s remembering that rocky time in our relationship too. “Sounds like a dick.”
“He had his reasons.”
“Still a dick. Any guy who hurts you again is going to have to go through me.”
There it is. One of a million reasons I love this man. “Yeah, well, I went outside, and it was snowing, and I knew everything would be okay.”
His hand squeezes mine.
“This is going to be good,” I promise, thinking of the days to come and the fact he wants to talk about the wedding.
“This is the first Christmas I’ll spend with your family.”
“Huh.” That hadn’t occurred to me. “Then you’re long past due because you are my family.”
Tyler’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “Something tells me it’ll be an adventure,” he says dryly.
He’s not only been my friend for a decade, but I’ve been in love with him almost as long. He’s loved me too, but with enough twists and turns to fill a bookcase.
I’ve watched Tyler go from being an unknown guitarist with jaw-dropping talent to being discovered by my dad, himself one of the biggest rock stars in the world before he retired, to being an internationally renowned breakout in his own right. The man next to me could have any woman in the world, and he wants me. It never stops being a trip.
Me, who feels too much, who’s way too earnest, who grew up without knowing who she was or who her family was, who had the deep-seated need to prove herself. The one person I never had to prove myself to was him.
My phone buzzes with a message from my stepmom. Earlier, I’d asked her to confirm Tyler’s gift had arrived in Dallas via special shipping. It had. Thank goodness. Next, I asked what we could bring.
Her response:
Haley: Anything but chaos. We have enough here.
“What’s up?” Tyler asks.
I tuck the phone away without showing him the screen. “Nothing.”
The smile I give him feels similar to the one I gave the flight attendant, and he eyes me warily but lets me get away with it.
The plane takes off, and we’re on our way toward something.
I hope it’s not chaos because what I want this Christmas is a wedding.
Chapter Two
Tyler
I’ve seen a lot of big houses. Jax’s is one of the biggest. I still appreciate it every time I head up the driveway.
“How does it feel to be back?”
Annie’s voice has me looking at her across the back seat. I squeeze her hand.
The limo that picked us up at DFW pulls up in front of the sweeping porch and double doors. It’s not my home, but it does feel that way sometimes. The residents here have done everything they could to make me feel that way.
“It’s good,” I say.
Good doesn’t capture it as I shift out, the driver already getting Annie’s door for her. After the year we’ve had, my feelings are nowhere near that simple.
The album I’m making is the best I’ve produced, and I’m pouring all of myself into it. Working with my label in LA and at Annie’s dad’s studio in Dallas, plus my almost-full-time commitment to her show in New York, has been a lot.
“You know,” she starts as the driver collects our bags from the trunk, “I know you didn’t want to talk about the future on the plane, but I’m kind of dying to. Do we
have to wait?”
I stare into her beautiful face, the girl I’ve loved since before I knew how. “I suppose not. I want to talk about a date.”
“A date?” Her eyes brighten, and she shifts toward me as if she knew this was coming.
I guess it was inevitable, but I’m surprised she knows me so well that she’s figured out what’s been on my mind. “Yeah. I talked to the studio. We were thinking March.”
“March!” Her voice rises an octave. “That’s soon. And why’s the studio involved?”
“You know they call all the shots.”
“I get some say,” she teases.
“Sure. Do you have something else going on?”
Her mouth works for a moment. “The show, but I guess it’s always possible to take a few performances out.”
There’s so much anticipation in her voice. I fucking love her even more for wanting this with me. I can’t resist brushing a kiss across her lips once, twice. She presses against me, right there in the middle of the driveway.
I swear the curtains in the front window move, but I can’t bring myself to care.
“So, I should tell them March,” I murmur when I pull back, my fiancée still close enough I can smell her shampoo. “Because there’ll have to be a tour after, and summer’s as good a time as any.”
Annie cocks her head in confusion. “Wait, why do you need to tour so soon after?”
“So people can hear the new album.” She blinks, and I wonder if she slept last night. “The album we’re talking about dropping in March.”
Her hands stiffen on my arms, and instantly I know something’s gone very wrong. “That’s what you wanted to talk about. A date for the album.”
“Of course.” I frown. “What’d you think?”
She pulls back, surprise and pain in those wide, amber eyes. I hate that I’ve done something to put it there, but before I can respond Annie turns away and takes the steps one a time.
She turns the handle and pushes the door open without knocking.
I follow her into the huge, vaulted foyer decorated for the holidays, a giant spray of greenery on the table and accents of green, white, and gold in every corner and up the grand staircase.
“Hello?” Annie calls into the cavernous house.
Seconds later, Sophie comes barreling down the hall, her amber eyes wide and her dark hair in messy pigtails. Her five-year-old legs are getting long, sprinting in green tights under her matching dress. She grabs her half sister’s hand and tows her toward the living room.
“Look!” Sophie declares, proudly showing off her decorations.
Swags of gold and white grace the baby grand piano. A miniature holiday town fills three of the shelves of the built-in bookcases, and a towering tree in one corner has gifts underneath. It’s more opulent than anything I grew up with, and even though my life the past few years since making it with my music has outdone my wildest dreams, moments like this remind me I came from nothing.
No gifts. No decorations. But looking back, what I missed most was love.
Love isn’t absent in this household, and I still feel as if I don’t deserve it sometimes.
“It’s great, Sophie,” my fiancée comments. “And it might snow tonight.”
“Snow?” her little sister says. “Like in the movies?”
“Yup.”
“Only promise what you can deliver because this one won’t forget.”
The humor-filled female voice has us turning toward the doorway to the kitchen. Haley, Annie’s stepmom, hardly looks older than Annie in a black dress with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, a broad smile on her face.
The tension in my shoulders eases a degree. I’ve known Haley for years, since I started recording music at the Wicked label as part of an after-school program when she worked there too. The label was how she met her husband.
“Don’t tell me Jax has made you stick to the kitchen for the day,” I say as Annie wraps Haley in a hug.
“When was the last time Jax made me do anything?” Haley retorts evenly before giving me a squeeze.
As if on command, the man in question enters from the same direction as his wife.
Jax Jamieson might be more than five years removed from headlining tours and concerts himself, but he’ll always be a multiplatinum recording artist, and now, he’s a producer too. He’s clad in a dark button-down and well-worn jeans, a shadow of a beard on his face. There’s a hint of grey in his hair that wasn’t there a year ago, though he’s not yet forty. His expression is long-suffering, but he carries himself like the man he’s always been—one who can command a stadium. Hell, an entire world.
Jax’s shoulders relax as he crosses to his eldest daughter. “Hey, kid. How’s my Broadway star?”
Annie’s lips twitch for a moment before she breaks into a smile. “Surviving.”
He wraps her in a hug, and her eyes close as she hugs him back.
“Have you read any reviews?” she asks.
“Reviews are bullshit.”
“They were really good, Dad.”
“In that case, they should always be trusted.”
Jax tosses me a look I recognize immediately. It’s the “I don’t care that you’re practically my son, you better be fucking taking care of my daughter” look.
That’s partly why I need this holiday to go well. To show myself I can be what she needs, be worthy of her and this family. Even though they’ve always insisted I’m part of it, I’m close to actually becoming part of not only genuine rock royalty, but a close-knit family unit that would go to the wall for one another. I take that responsibility seriously.
“Where’s baby Mason?” Annie asks.
“Kid’s with his personal baby whisperer. If we’re lucky, he’ll sleep two hours.”
Serena, Haley’s best friend, appears from the same direction as Haley, her blond ponytail bobbing as she eyes us over the baby in her arms. Her boyfriend, Wes, is at her side. She’s in marketing, and Wes is a top scientist, but they could easily be modeling for some ad campaign.
“Well, you look very comfortable with a baby,” Annie teases.
“You’re the one getting married. Have you set a date?” Serena demands.
“Have you?” Annie retorts, lowering her voice as she crosses to peer down at her half brother.
“Don’t change the subject,” Serena says, narrowing her eyes.
At the same time, Wes says, “Soon. But I have to ask her first.”
Serena turns to look at him in shock. I’ve never seen Serena shut up so fast, and it makes me grin.
“But when I do, it’s on,” Wes finishes easily, smirking at his girlfriend.
Annie watches them with envy, and a tumbler falls into a lock somewhere deep in my mind.
Fuck. I know what outside was about. She thought I was talking about a date for the wedding.
When we got engaged earlier this year, we decided to take our time. We have an apartment in New York together, and she was working on getting her show to Broadway. But she’s been dropping hints lately.
I should’ve known. I’m pissed I didn’t.
I fucked up earlier, and I need to fix it. But now’s not the time, because everyone’s here and Sophie’s tugging on my jeans.
“Come see my tree!” she insists, and I follow to where she’s pointing.
“It looks great. Nice work on the decorations.” I play with one of the artificial needles. “You could probably leave them on all year since it’s not a real tree.”
“What do you mean, ‘a real tree’?”
“A live one. One that smells like the forest.”
I realize my mistake the second Sophie’s smile fades.
She turns to her dad, summoning the reigning king of rock with a pleading tone and two little outstretched arms. “Daddy, I want a live tree.”
“Sophie,” Haley says, “there’s nothing wrong with this tree. We’ve always had this one.”
“I didn’t know I could have an alive tree.
”
I expect Sophie to cry, but she doesn’t, just crosses to the tree and plays with one of the bottom branches, pouting.
Jax groans. “It’s a while still till dinner.”
“It’s Christmas Eve,” Haley points out. “The rest of our guests are arriving this afternoon.”
“The rest?” I ask. I thought this was going to be a small, low-key holiday. Evidently not.
“A few surprise additions,” she says to me with a smile.
“But we have a couple of hours until the catering comes,” Jax points out.
Haley folds her arms. He steps toward her, the ink poking out of the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt as he takes her reluctant arms in his hands and drops a kiss on his wife’s lips.
“Our kid wants a tree, Hales.” His murmur is just audible. “There’s a place thirty minutes away. We’ll be there and back before you know it.”
“We?” she asks.
Jax tosses me a look. “Yeah. Loudmouth earned himself a ticket.”
I exchange a look with Annie. We haven’t talked yet about what went down outside, but we can both tell it’s not the time.
Jax grabs Sophie and boosts her up on his hip. “Let’s go get your tree.”
I brush a kiss over Annie’s cheek. “We’ll talk after.”
She nods. “You two strong guitarists go get the girl a tree.”
But I’ve messed with two Jamieson girls, and while I’m going to help one, it’s the other I care most about.
“You mean you cut the tree and kill it?” Sophie’s horrified expression as we stand beside the sparse row of cut trees that remain contrasts with the handful of other people at the tree lot: an excited family and a harried man on a cell phone doing last-minute shopping.
“That’s how it works,” Jax tells her.
“I want an alive tree.”
“And it is,” he repeats.
“But alive plants need to be in the ground. Can we put it in the ground at home?” She squats next to the cut end of one wrapped tree.
Her dad exhales. “No, Sophie. In January, it goes to tree heaven.”
We’d hoped to be here and back with a tree inside of an hour. Now, the prospect is unlikely—at least the “with a tree” part.