“Yeah,” she sighs. “Two concerts and a talk show appearance. Then I’m supposed to head back home, to New York. I don’t know what we’re going to do about that,” she worries her lip between her teeth.
“We’ll figure it out.” I’m so firm in my decision that no one even tries to question it. “But right now, let’s get changed and go get sushi. Mom and Dad have talked about this place for years.”
“EJ, have you called your brother?” Mom asks as we walk slowly to the elevator that will take us up to the floor our room is on. This one, that we rented for the photo shoot, will be swept of evidence that anyone could trace back to us, and the photographer will check out once the pictures are in our possession.
“No.” I roll my head around on my shoulders, trying to work the kinks out of my neck. “He texted me this morning saying he couldn’t wait to hear what the fuck happened, but I haven’t had time. Since I’ll rejoin him and the guys in the studio tomorrow, I figure I’ll wait and just tell them all together.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” Dad agrees. “Seems like it would be the easiest plan of attack.”
“So you’re recording?” Bri asks as the elevator takes us to our floor.
“We’re writing and touring,” I explain. “Just like with pop, the summer starts the festival season for us. Right now we’re doing the US, and in early June, we’ll go overseas. We’re writing the record right now, and then when we come off tour, we’ll record. What are you doing?”
“Finishing up the first leg. I’ll come off this leg around June.” She smiles up at me. “So maybe I’ll be able to check out an overseas festival season?”
The idea holds some appeal to me, and would allow us to get to know each other so much better than what we cram in right now. “It’ll be a crazy two months,” I warn.
“I’m off for June, July, and August, so I wouldn’t mind. It’s whatever you want to do. If you’d like for me to come with you guys, if everybody agrees to it, it wouldn’t affect me in any way.”
I don’t want to make decisions without the guys, but I reach down and grab her hand, squeezing it in a reassuring manner. “I’ll talk to the guys about it.”
“Sounds good.”
“Alright,” Dad says as the elevator comes to a stop. “We’ll meet back here in an hour?”
An hour later I’m fixing my button-down and making sure I’m all tucked into the dress pants I wear, before I check that my hair isn’t sticking in every direction. This place has a dress code, and I can one hundred percent admit that I hate it already, but Dad swears the food is good.
“Better be damn good,” I mumble as I put contacts in my eyes.
“I didn’t know you wear contacts.” Bri’s voice causes me to turn my head, and I whistle as I see her wearing a little black dress with turquoise heels. The dress shows off enough leg that I know if I sit next to her, I’ll probably be rearranging my pants a few times tonight.
“I got shitty eyesight from my dad, but fuck you look amazing.”
“Thanks.” She grins, turning in a circle for me. “I wanted to ask you if you’d do something for me.”
“Anything,” I answer, probably too quickly as I put the other contact in my eye.
“Take a picture with me?” She holds up her phone. “One that isn’t staged by a photographer. Like a true selfie, and we’ll share it on our stories on Instagram before we make our posts? People are talking about us anyway. We really need to give them something.”
I grab her phone, pull her into me, with my left arm wrapped around her neck. My left hand is horizontal while hers holds mine vertical, showcasing our rings right next to each other. I don’t think either one of us planned it that way, but it happens. Resting my face next to hers, we look at one another. “Smile for me, Bri.”
She does, and it almost fucking knocks me off my feet. I press the button on the phone and pray to God the picture takes before I lean in, connecting our lips together, taking another picture. Handing her back the phone and disentangling myself from her body, I put my hands in the pockets of my pants. “How’s that?”
“We really look like we’re into each other.” She shows me both pictures. “Which one should I post?”
Something holds me back from telling her to post the one of us kissing. “The one where we’re smiling at each other, but can you text me both of them?”
“Sure, but I need your number, hubby.”
I laugh at the playful tone of her voice. “Fuck, we don’t have each other’s numbers.” I rub my palm over my eye. “Damn.”
“Right?” She laughs along with me.
“Give me your phone,” I hold my hand out. She throws it at me, giggling when I grab it easily. In a few minutes, I’ve texted myself, and we’re officially in each other’s phones.
Before we can do anything else, there’s a knock at the door, and I know it’s time for us to put on a bit of a show.
“I didn’t expect there to be people outside the restaurant,” she tells me later on when we’re back from dinner. “That was kind of insane, people asking questions. “It was hard just to smile since we don’t really know the answers to what they’re asking.”
“True, but luckily people still love Reaper and Harmony, so they took a lot of the focus off of us. Thank God my parents are still in love.”
“At least yours are.” She twirls a lock of hair around her finger as she sits on the couch, bringing her legs up under her. She’s still in her dress, and I want desperately to go over to her, rub the skin she’s showing. “Mine didn’t even really respond to the text I sent them about us getting married. My dad just said to let him know when it’s over, and Mom said to make sure I don’t get pregnant.”
“Wow!”
“They’re jaded. They should have gotten divorced years ago, but they stayed together for the kids. Now they hate each other, and don’t believe in love or happiness.” She shrugs.
“Being around my family? You’ll believe in it.”
“You know what, EJ? I definitely think I will.” She’s quiet for a few minutes. “You think we should post our statements?”
“Might as well get it over with.”
“Here goes nothing…” I sit down next to her, opening the app on my phone.
“Or the neighborhood,” she giggles at her own joke.
I reach out grabbing her ankle in my hand, mindlessly stroking it as I make the post. Touching her grounds me, and I can’t force myself to let her go as I copy the statement one handed, and paste it, along with the six pictures we’ve been given.
Surprise! @BriOfficial and I have been dating in secret for the past six months. This weekend, we decided to make it official by getting married in Vegas. I’m extremely happy to have this beautiful woman by my side for the rest of my life. As the product of a love like Reaper & Harmony’s, there’s no way I’d settle for less. Thank you for allowing us privacy to get used to being married, and we’ll be sharing ourselves with you shortly. EJ
“I’m done.” She hits the side of her phone, shutting it down. “I believe you said something about ordering ice cream from room service and watching The Office?”
“I did.” I reluctantly let go of her ankle as she makes a move to get up.
“Then get on it, hubs. We don’t have a lot of time, and we’ll need to fit in as much together as we can.”
She shakes her ass as she walks to the bedroom, before shutting the door to change.
“Fuck,” I breathe. “What have I gotten myself into?”
Chapter Five
Bri
“So I guess this is it, huh?” I stand in the middle of the room I’ve been living in for the last few days. EJ and I have been quiet this morning, each of us getting our stuff together, going over our travel itineraries, and trying to figure out when we might see each other again.
It’s odd. How quickly a person can worm their way into your life. How you can so quickly start to need them, even when you didn’t know you did. I’m gonna
miss seeing him sitting next to me on the couch - even though I only had it for a few precious hours. He’s quickly become my companion, and it doesn’t feel right leaving here without him.
“For the private goodbye, yeah.” He pulls his suitcase over to stand in front of me. “Bri.” He brings his big hands up to my jaw. I can feel the coolness of his wedding ring on my skin, and I close my eyes against a flood of emotion I never expected to feel. Can you fall in love in a few days? I don’t know, I’ve always thought no, but this experience, it’s teaching me things I never knew about myself. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“I don’t either.”
Wrapping my arms around his waist, I hold on tight. We’ve been in a bubble where all we’ve really seen is each other. What’s going to happen once we leave the shelter of this hotel room? How are we going to figure out how to make a relationship work, and still give the record company what they want? There’s a lot of pressure on the both of us. There’s a high probability we might mess this up, while there’s a very small chance this might be exactly what each of us has been looking for in our lives.
Odds aren’t exactly great, and that’s what scares me.
He sighs, tilting his head back, before bringing his gaze level with mine. “I know neither one of us thought this would happen when we came to Vegas, and there’s a lot that’s going to be written about us in the next few weeks, possibly months. I want you to know, before we leave, there are a few facts you can count on.”
“I’m listening.”
We’re racing against the clock and we both know it. Soon Knox and Madison will be here to get us. All four of us will ride together to the airport and then we’ll go our separate ways for the week. I have two days off, Sunday and Monday, where I’ll fly to Nashville and set up a household with this man I met a few days ago. I need these words now more than anything.
“I’ve always thought you were hot. When you meet my brother, RJ, you can ask him. On our last tour bus, there was actually a poster of you in the lounge. It was put there by me.” A bad boy smirk lifts the side of his mouth up.
My face burns bright, but a spot in my chest warms, a real smile spreading across my face.
“I’ve always told myself that when I get married, it’ll be for life. I mean, look at my parents. In my family, we take it seriously. I’m actually a little embarrassed that this happened,” he stops, rubbing his thumb along my cheek. “Not embarrassed that we got married, but really fuckin’ pissed that I did it the backwards way. I should have walked up to you, asked you out on a date, wined and dined the fuck outta you, and done things the right way. Getting drunk and not remembering what you look like naked is probably the biggest damn regret of my life.”
I laugh slightly. “We’ve definitely done things unconventionally.”
“But this is my promise to you.” He leans in close, tilting my chin up so that our eyes meet. His burn bright with a promise even I can’t deny. “I’ll do my best to make this work and I’m committed. What I’ve learned about you over the past few days, I like. I want to get to know more.”
Smiling widely, I push my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, already claiming this particular spot for my own.
“That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me. I make the same promise to you. It’ll be hard, and I understand that, but I’ll work every day at getting to know you. I think we’ll be compatible.”
“And ya know?” He grins, his eyebrows pumping up and down suggestively. “Maybe we’ll have sex that we actually remember.”
I laugh loudly and even though my face is boring in embarrassment, I have to be honest. “Yeah, I think I’d like that.”
“When the time is right?”
“Definitely when the time is right.”
An alarm goes off on his cell phone, and I watch as he reaches into his pocket to take it out. He lets go of me for a few seconds, and the carefree smile on his face falls slightly. “That’s my five-minute warning. Knox will be here, and he hates to be kept waiting.”
“He’s trained you well.”
“Nah, I just don’t like to hear him whine like a little bitch. It makes it run easier for all of us.”
He’s quiet again, studying me intently and I’m unsure of what he’s about to do, when he dips his head. That deep voice of his is smoother than bourbon straight from the barrel. “Bri, can I kiss you?”
“Yeah.” I lick my lips in anticipation, because I don’t remember the real kisses we’ve already shared. The ones that were just between the two of us. I know what it’s like to kiss him in front of a camera for our fake pictures, but not this right here. I don’t remember how he kisses when he gets out of hand. Does his tongue coax, or does it take and demand? Is he slow and seductive or is he the type to take what he wants and apologize later? These are things I don’t, but want to know.
His eyes flame, the green turning deeper in color, almost a hazel, as he situates my head the way he wants. His thumb wipes my bottom lip before he leans in, capturing mine with his. This kiss is slow, seductive, and everything I imagine EJ Thompson can be. He’s not sloppy. Slow, deliberate, his tongue thorough as he coaxes my lips apart, leaving no space untouched in the wake of his invasion. My fingers grip his hair between them as I hold on tight for this ride he’s taking me on. I stand on tiptoes to get even closer to him, molding my body to his, feeling the heat of him. I wish we had days, and not minutes, or now even seconds. I wish we had an unlimited supply of time to make moments, to fall in lust like new relationships tend to. Just from this kiss, I know we would burn hot.
But as we hear knocking at the door, we realize quickly that real life is intruding, and it’s intruding fast. We break apart, both breathing heavily as he goes to answer.
“Text me when you land?”
“I will.” I hold EJ’s hand as we make our way into the airport. We have precious moments to spend together before we separate. “There’s gonna be a time difference, with me being on the West Coast and you being in Nashville, but it’ll work.” I use a positivity I don’t feel. This week I’m working the Pacific Northwest. Two shows, one in Seattle and one in Portland.
“Whenever you have time, I’ll be around. That’s the beauty of being in the studio and writing.”
Knox taps EJ on the shoulder. “We gotta go, we’re boarding in the next few minutes.”
“This weekend? You’ll come to Nashville?” he asks the question urgently. Like it’s the most important question he’s ever asked.
“I’ll be there.” I give him a smile with a confidence that I’m not sure I totally believe.
He hugs me tightly, kissing my forehead. “Then this isn’t goodbye, it’s a see you later.”
I want to cry. So many emotions bubble up to the surface as he tells me “see ya later”. The feeling of loneliness I have can’t be explained. I manage to choke out a “see ya later” to him through a tight throat as Madison and I watch the two of them walk away. The media is there, but they’re being polite enough to give us our space. So badly I want to run to him, wrap him in my arms, and demand we spend at least a month together, figuring out the intricacies of our personalities and how we fit together. But that’s not the world we live in, and as he turns around to offer me one more wave, I let a few tears escape.
“C’mon, Bri. Let’s get going. The quicker we can get to work, the better it’ll be for you.” Maddie puts her arm around me as we walk toward the security check point.
That’s been my go-to since I was seventeen. Bury myself in work to forget all the shit that’s going on. This time is different, though. This time, I don’t want to bury myself in work. This time I want to chase after the man who just left me and learn everything about him.
And just the thought is enough to scare the shit out of me.
Chapter Six
Bri
My stomach clenches as I hold my cell phone in my hand. Nothing with my parents ever comes easy, and I know this will be no different
. I should be used to it and prepared for it, but somehow, I’m not.
It takes everything I have to make this phone call. It’s the first one I’ve made to them since news of the marriage broke, and I’m more nervous than I should be.
“Brianna.” My mom answers first, like she always does.
“Hey, Mom.”
In the background, she yells my dad’s name, telling him to pick up the other phone in his office so they can both go in on me at once, I’m sure.
“Brianna?” Dad’s voice, like normal is a little softer, less accusing.
“Hey you two.” I do my best to smile through the nerves, hoping they can hear the happiness in my voice. “So I just wanted to call, to let you know I got married.”
“Yeah, Bri, we got that from your text,” Mom interrupts. “The question I have for you, is was there a prenup? You have a lot to lose if this goes sideways.”
Leave it to her.
My voice is small. “No, there isn’t a prenup, but it’s something we’re working on.”
I lied. I don’t ever lie to my mother, but for EJ I will. For so long I’ve wanted someone to care about me. Brianna Jenkins, the girl who went to work too early to support her family, not Bri the pop star who bumps and grinds her way into homes by targeting teenage girls, guys, and their fathers. Who cares if I have a six-octave voice and could sing Opera if I wanted? Definitely not the demographic I’m marketed to - that’s for damn sure.
“I hope you realize just because you’ve gotten married doesn’t mean you can stop giving money for your siblings.”
My eyes roll so hard they hit the back of my head. “Don’t worry, Mom. I have them taken care of.”
What goes without saying is they are the only ones I’ve taken care of. As soon as I’m able, I’ll be dropping the support I offer my parents. I’m not looking forward to those conversations at all, but it’s time I do something for myself. If this was meant to make me stronger, it’s already starting to work. Now that I’m a married woman, I don’t have to answer to them anymore. If I answer to anyone, it’s my husband, and something tells me the son of Harmony Stewart knows better than to ask his wife to answer to him.
Power Couple: A Marriage of Convenience Romance (The Nashvegas Series Book 1) Page 4