I’m excited as I make my way into the back of the bus, knocking lightly. If she is asleep, I don’t want to wake her up, but after hearing her sing my songs the other night. I want her to sing more of things I wrote, things I had a hand in, that I never imagined my partner would be an actual part of.
“Yeah?”
I open the door all the way, sticking my head inside. “Hey, you busy?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “Just reading while you two work.”
“We need a female voice. Come help us?”
Her face lights up brightly as she all but jumps off the bed. “Me?”
“Yeah you,” I laugh as she runs to me, launching herself into my arms. Easily, I catch her, pulling her thighs around my waist. It’s so natural for us to do, I don’t even think about it anymore. Whenever I can, I want to be touching her, want her to be touching me.
“I love singing with you.” She burrows her head in my neck. “Thank you for inviting me.” Her thank you a kiss.
Carrying her into the main part of the bus where we have our recording equipment set up, she laughs as I toss her down on the couch, next to RJ. “Got us our female voice.”
“Thank God you’re already married to her, because that impressed no one, big bro.”
“Eh.” I scrunch my nose. “Win some, lose some.”
“So what do you all need me to do?” She practically bounces in her seat. “This is super exciting for me.”
“Okay,” RJ starts to explain. “He and I have been working on this song off and on for a while. It’s missing something and I think it’s a harmony part. I want you to sing this verse too. On the chorus, I want you to not sing the whole thing, but add some of your voice to it. We’re gonna record it and see what it sounds like.”
“I can do this.” She grabs RJ’s phone with the lyrics on it, studying them intently. Her face is a mask of concentration. Professional to the core.
“You.” He points to me. “You can’t growl and be screamy. I think that’s another problem we’ve been having. You need to tone it down. Sing, my brother, sing with the pretty voice you have.”
“He can have a pretty voice?” She tilts her head as she looks between the two of us. I’ve never really given her what RJ likens to all my pretty voice.
RJ gives me a pointed look. “He has a beautiful voice, it’s got great tonality and range, but instead he likes the grittiness he can get in his lower range.”
“How come I don’t know this?” she asks.
“Our own mother doesn’t even know how pretty he can sing,” RJ laughs. “I found out by accident. But it’s time to show the world. The two of you are going to sound amazing together, I promise. Do not disappointment me. Feel the lyrics, and the rest will take care of itself.”
If there’s one thing RJ knows, it’s his music. “Alright, if you say so.”
“I do.” He clicks a button on the computer and the music starts playing. “Now show me what the two of you got.”
Bri
The next day, I’m sitting in the back of the bus, waiting for the guys to take the stage on their final show of this tour. It’s gone a million times quicker than I ever imagined it would. I’ve become closer to the man I call my husband, to the guys he calls bandmates, as well as his parents. Watching that man come through the front door of the bus, I can’t help but smile brightly. I’ve often wondered if I’ll get sick of the clenching in my stomach every time I see him.
I don’t think I ever will.
“What?” he asks, giving me a suspicious look.
“Why are you questioning why I’m looking at you. I mean you’re hot as hell. Do I have to have a reason?”
Those dimples of his are prominent as he smiles widely, leaning down to kiss me softly, slowly, and completely thoroughly. Inhaling deeply, I smile into the kiss as I breathe in his scent. It makes me feel at home, safe, and like I could do absolutely anything I put my mind to. With him it’s like everything is head first, fearless. I don’t even think about consequences; fuck ‘em, because this man is everything I need and everything I’ve ever wanted.
He pulls away, licking the supremely kissable lips he has. “I guess you don’t need a reason.”
“I mean, I do love you, isn’t that enough of a reason?”
His eyes shine brightly and his face lights up. Pulling his bottom lip between his teeth, he tilts his head to the side, still smiling as he whispers, “Love you too.” I wonder daily what I did before I had him in my life.
“Y’all ready?” RJ yells as he enters the front of the bus. “Last show, we head home tonight. Let’s get this show on the road!”
EJ reaches out for my hand, pulling me up off the couch. “C’mon sweet thing, let’s go!”
I giggle as he drags me through the bus, me hot on his heels. He never lets go of my hand as we walk through the backstage area, mingling with people I’ve met over the past few months. When we get to the catering area, he pulls me close, tucking his arm around my shoulders. I wrap my arms around his waist tightly. Beers are handed to the two of us, I reluctantly let go, but hold up mine in salute with everyone else. Because of my own rules, I don’t take a drink, just set it down on one of the tables nearby.
This is something we don’t have on my tour. There’s no drinking backstage, no camaraderie. I hope to inject the things I’ve learned from Grey Skies into my own touring. This hasn’t just been the most amazing time of my life, but it’s been educational too.
“It’s been an amazing summer, y’all,” EJ says as he smiles down at me.
“Fuck yeah.” I hear as everyone agrees. “Let’s go back, record a kick ass album and show everybody how we’ve grown.” RJ slaps EJ on the back.
To see how far these two have come this summer makes me smile. To see how far we’ve all come makes me smile. Part of me is ready to get back to the states, to everything I recognize and love, but then there’s another part of me that doesn’t want what we’ve all found here to end. EJ brings me out of my thoughts, kissing me on the forehead.
“Gotta head out there. You wanna sing with me tonight?”
I smile brightly up at him. “The song we worked on yesterday?” My excitement is out of this world when he nods.
“Yeah.” He pulls his bottom lip in between his teeth in that self-conscious way he does. “Think we can do it?”
“I know we can do it.”
As the concert starts and I watch EJ perform, I can tell he’s on fire. He’s as ready as I am. They didn’t give me absolutely any idea when I might be called to the stage, so I have my in-ears ready for whenever that may be. Halfway through, EJ turns to me and smiles widely.
“Hey, babe.” He waves.
The smile I give him back is one I can’t hold back. “Hi.” I wave at him too.
“You ready?”
RJ brings me over a mic. “I’m ready,” I speak clearly into it as I step from the side of the stage, down to where he is.
The crowd goes wild as I walk down to him. Standing on tip-toe, I make it to his chin. Dropping a kiss there, I wait for him to introduce the song.
“RJ and I have been writing this for a while, and last night, he suggested maybe the reason we hadn’t gotten it down yet is because we didn’t have a female voice. Since I’m married to one of the best in the business, we invited her to come hang. What you’re about to hear is what came out of that session. We recorded it and everything.”
“I’m so excited,” I admit into the mic.
Me too, girl! I hear from the crowd.
That causes a round of laughing, but as RJ starts the music, EJ grabs my hand, and we start singing. The next four minutes are possibly the most intimate he and I have ever shared. And when we’re done, we both know our lives have just taken another turn. One, neither of us, ever expected.
Chapter Thirty
EJ
“You ready to head home?”
Bri turns around, nodding enthusiastically. We’re in line at the airport, in whate
ver fucking country we’re in right now. All I know is we just performed our last show, took quick showers, and here we are. Twenty-six hours from now we’ll be home. We could have waited a few more days and flown private, but our beds are calling.
“So ready. I can’t wait to lounge in our bed, lay on the couch, cook in the kitchen. Maybe finally do something with all my shit in the guest bedroom.”
It’s weird. How quickly both of us started referring to my place as home.
“You do feel comfortable there, right?” I question. “Is there anything you wanna change? Something that would make it easier for you? I don’t think I’ve asked you this before.”
She puts her arms around my waist, resting her head on my chest. “No, I love it. If there are changes, I’d like made after we’ve been there for longer than a month, I’ll let you know.”
I absentmindedly rub my hands up and down her back. “Maybe we could look into buying something together.”
I don’t even know where this thought comes from. I’ve never even lived with another woman before, much less thought about buying a house with them. It just seems like it’s the next step for us. Something we both picked out, something we decorated with both our styles in mind.
“Everett, I’m not looking to kick you outta your house,” she laughs.
The laugh reverberates through my chest. “I know,” I assure her. “But it’s a bachelor pad, ya know?”
“Which is what you were before we got married.”
“Exactly.” I point out where I’m going. “Maybe we should see about picking something out with each other in mind.”
She’s stalling, I can tell by the way she’s playing with the back of my shirt, running it through her hands and then twisting it up.
“What’s wrong?” I push her back from where she hangs onto me.
“Nothing.” She tries to snuggle back in.
For one of the first times, she sees a glimpse of what I got from my dad. My voice is hard, tone flat when I speak again. “Don’t tell me fuckin’ nothing. I can feel it’s something by the way you’ve tightened your body, in the way you’re avoiding the question. Don’t lie to me, Bri. That’s something I don’t deal well with.”
“Hey.” RJ taps me on the shoulder.
“Not right now.” I don’t even look at him.
“Gotta be right now, it’s our turn.”
All of a sudden, I’m back where we are, realizing we’re in the middle of a foreign country and I almost let my anger get the best of me. Been a while since I let my dad’s temper take over. I’m not forgetting it though, we’ll just have to talk about it when we’re finally on the plane.
“Why did you stall back there, when I said we should pick something out that represents the both of us? Don’t lie to me and say you didn’t. I wanna know, no bullshit excuses, Bri.”
“Do we have to get into this right here, right now?”
“I’m not the type of guy who waits until the time is right, babe. You should know that about me by now.”
She situates herself in her seat, obviously uncomfortable with my question, but I can’t pull back. That’s not who I am. That’s not who my dad raised me to be.
“I mean, what if we don’t stay together?”
The thought hasn’t crossed my mind since the very beginning of this, and I’m worried I’ve missed things that have been staring me right in the face. “Are you having doubts about us?”
“No, it’s just the way we’ve started this, it’s not normal.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, nothing in my life has really ever been completely normal, Bri.”
Her face reddens. “You don’t have to make fun of me.”
“I’m not, but you have to understand - my childhood is way different than most everyone else’s.”
“Hannah did her best to give you a normal life.”
“Yes, and for the most part it was, but I still had famous parents with a love story everyone knew. Even when I was a teenager, people expected me to uphold that legacy. They may have seen me walking with a friend, someone who would never be more than a friend and suddenly sixteen-year-old me is following in his dad’s footsteps. So yeah, most of my life hasn’t been normal, which is why this.” I point between the two of us. “Doesn’t seem as out of the box as you think it is.”
“I’m just saying we should be realistic. Let’s get through the first year of marriage before we talk about combining our finances and buying a house together. That’s the smart thing to do.”
It might be the smart thing, but there’s something inside of me that wonders if she’s trying to run away from us. Trying to put distance in between us now that we’ve made our feelings known. I do my best to push that feeling back, but now that it’s there, I’m not sure it’ll ever go away.
The muggy Nashville air greets us as we walk out of the airport, waiting to catch our ride home.
“Ahhh, heat and humidity.” RJ puts his arms out to the side, turning around in a circle. “I wish I could say I missed it.”
I laugh, because everyone always says it’s not the heat that gets you, it’s the humidity. As a life-long southerner, it’s fucking both. Don’t let anyone fool you. Bri, stands beside me, this time not hanging onto me, and I miss it. Miss her being close, miss her touch.
“Hey.” I grab hold of her hand. “Sorry if I was too harsh on the plane. I come by it honestly, if you ask my dad, but I don’t like hearing we may not make it.”
“I don’t like thinking it.” She squeezes my hand. “But you have to understand, while your parents have the perfect love story, mine have the complete opposite. I’m still trying to figure out where I fit into all of this with you. It’s going to take me more time, please let me have it.”
I tug her into me, caressing her neck with my hand. “There’s not much I won’t give you, Bri. I’m sorry for being an ass.”
She giggles, leaning up to kiss me. “You’re forgiven.”
As she pulls back, our ride shows up, and I’m almost positive I’ve never been more excited to take a ride in my life.
“Are you sure?” I don’t even open my eyes as I lay in my bed, at home. Fucking finally. We got home at two a.m., and it can’t be later than eleven, given the way the light shines into the bedroom.
“Yes! Do you think I’d lie to you?”
This is my mother, and while sometimes she’s slightly evil, I know she wouldn’t be evil about this.
“That’s pretty sweet.” I grin, even though she can’t see it, I know she can hear it.
“That’s all you got to say? EJ, you had almost three hundred adds overnight for a live recording ripped from a performance.”
Prying one of my eyes open, I glance over at the woman sleeping naked next to me. “I got a lot to say.” I clear my throat, hoping to knock some of the sleepiness from it. “But first I have to wake up. We’ll be by to see ya later, Mom.”
“Be sure you do.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Love you, EJ.”
“Love you too, Mom.”
I sigh before dropping the phone beside me and rolling over. My arms go tightly around Bri’s body, holding her closer to me.
“Who was that?” she asks softly, burrowing deeply into my arms, her lips brush against my chest, tickling slightly as I adjust her.
“Harmony Stewart,” I joke. “She wants us to come see her, and she’s proud.”
“Proud of what?”
“Us, apparently we had almost three hundred adds to radio overnight.”
Bri is up quicker than I ever imagined she could be. She’s jumping on the bed, jarring my body. “Holy shit, EJ! Are you serious?”
“You can’t be excited for this,” I argue. “You’re a pop star. Three hundred adds is nothing for you.”
She hops down, straddling my waist, her hair every which way, a smile on her face. “I am excited, because I’ve never had three hundred adds with you.”
Wrapping my arms around her, I br
ing her down, snuggling in. “Can’t fucking argue with that logic.”
“You sure can’t.” She leans in, bringing our lips together.
“I have a message from Madison,” she says a few hours later after we’ve gotten up, gotten dressed, and are ready for the day. “It makes me nervous because I’m supposed to have another two weeks to get ready for the tour they want me to do. If Madison is calling me, then something’s changed.”
“Don’t freak out yet, you don’t know that for sure.”
But I can’t lie, I’m feeling the same way as her. I know what the music business is like, and I know it can change on a dime. I watch as she calls Madison back.
It’s almost as if I’m observing a car crash. She goes from smiling to frowning, pacing to sitting on the couch with her legs folded up under her, a look of utter devastation on her face.
When she gets done with the phone call, turning the phone completely off, she faces me.
“The record company is worried they can’t control us. Our songs have gone viral too fast, people are latching onto us quicker than they assumed. We’re too popular. They want us to break up, because according to them, the implosion of our marriage is worth more than the happiness.”
And that’s when I know for sure I fucking hate this side of the music industry.
Chapter Thirty-One
Bri
“Did you know?”
What is he even talking about? How can he think I knew? “What do you mean did I know?”
“It was you talking less than forty-eight hours ago about what would happen if we didn’t stay together?” His jaw ticks so hard, I bet his teeth are almost cracking. “Seems suspect.”
“Oh fuck you, Everett.”
“Fuck me? If you knew about this, fuck you, Bri.”
I’m going to be sick. That’s the only thing I can think of as I watch emotions flitter across EJ’s face. From disbelief to the same sick feeling I’m experiencing, and then anger. Complete and total rage transforms the face of the man I’ve come to love. We seem to come out of the fuck you stage real fast.
Power Couple: A Marriage of Convenience Romance (The Nashvegas Series Book 1) Page 16