by Piper Lawson
Christ. The emotion her words elicit has my ribs expanding until I swear they’re going to crack. Her fingers trail over my heart, and I swallow the ache, capturing those fingers and holding them still.
If this woman ever leaves me, I don’t know what I’ll do. She’s the only one who sees me. The only one I want to go through everything with.
I could live without money, without fame, maybe even without music. But without her… I don’t ever want to feel what that’s like again.
“So, tomorrow’s the rehearsal dinner,” she whispers. “I’m sure everything will go smoothly.”
“Have we learned nothing from these past few days?” I tease, and she bursts out laughing.
“Let’s enjoy tonight.”
“Uh-huh.” I pull her mouth to mine and kiss her, hard.
But I need so much more than the feel of her sweet lips opening for me. I need to claim every inch of her, inside and out, to remind us both she’s mine.
In my head, I know I get to have her like this for the rest of my life. That knowledge does nothing to reduce the urgency inside me, the conviction that if I don’t claim her tonight, I’ve lost.
I kiss her with that inexplicable need, and she moans as my tongue strokes hers. I skim my hands down her sides, memorizing each slow curve of her breasts, her waist, her ass, as if I might never get to touch them again.
Haley kisses me back with the same sweet fervor, impatient hands grasping the bottom of my T-shirt and yanking up. I chuckle against her lips as she strips my shirt over my head.
She rears back to look at me, her hungry gaze lingering on my hard abs before dragging up my chest. I want to tell her to hurry up, but I also want her to take her time. I see her mind working, devouring each inch of me, see the desire and overwhelm on her face.
Music made me a king. She makes me a god.
Her gaze halts over my heart, her smile freezing.
“Jax? What is that?”
I shift up on my elbows, cocking my head at her. My pulse pounds in my throat. “A tattoo.”
Dark, hazel eyes search mine as her throat bobs.
“‘HJ,’” she whispers.
“Haley Jamieson.”
I don’t have to look down to picture the tat I got after the bachelor party, the letters entwined with one another, a script font.
But she’s staring at it as if it’s a snake.
“What’s wrong?” There’s an edge under my tone.
Her throat works. “I’m not changing my name, Jax.”
The words echo in the dark.
The bubble we’ve been living in, the simplicity of these hours together, evaporates.
I flip her in a heartbeat. For the first time, I’m regretting the semi-darkness because I need to see more of her face. No, I need to see into her soul right now. “What are you talking about?”
“We didn’t discuss it,” she says quietly.
“We didn’t have to. You’re going to be my wife.”
“I’ve already had two last names. I’m not in a rush to add a third.” Her hands find my shoulders, but her touch has cooled from a second ago.
Frustration has my hands falling into fists on either side of her head. “You think nothing’s going to change when we walk down that aisle?”
“Everything’s already changed. In the last two years, you launched an album, we started a charity on wheels, I sold my father’s home, moved into a new house in a new state.”
“Something changes when we get married, Hales,” I warn. “What changes is you’re mine.”
Mine to take care of. Mine to worship. Mine to keep.
She lifts her chin, eyes imploring me. “I’m already yours. This wedding doesn’t prove anything. I love you, more than I thought I could love anyone. But I wasn’t waiting around for you to save me. I…”
“What?” I force the word through my tight throat.
“I’m still me without you.”
The words are daggers in my soul.
I shift off her and fall back against the couch. The stars overhead aren’t comforting anymore—they’re cold.
Even though our arms are touching, even though she’s a breath away…
There are miles between us.
Because I feel as though the one woman I gave everything to, the one I want to give everything to, is about to hand it back.
13
Two days until the wedding
* * *
I hate sport coats. They’re the devil.
But Nina sent over clothes for the rehearsal dinner, and by the time I finished taking out my frustration on the outdoor project, I didn’t have time to pick something else.
“Nice jacket,” Mace comments, pulling up beside me.
I shoot him a withering look.
“Gotta say the place looks good,” Mace says. His long hair’s slicked back tonight, though he bucked the sport coat in favor of a crisp white shirt.
“It’s not good,” Nina retorts, breezing past in a blue dress. “The cake we were promised is delayed. How does a cake get delayed? It’s baked, or it’s not.”
The rest of the girls are scheduled to arrive at the estate where we’re hosting the reception in their own car. Mace, Brick, Kyle, Wes, Tyler, Jerry, and I rode over ourselves. I glance at my phone.
“I get why Neen’s on edge, but what’s got you so worked up?” Mace asks.
“I showed Haley the tat on the way home last night. She was… surprised.”
Mace curses. “Not a good surprise, I take it.”
I narrow my gaze. “Not a good surprise.”
We didn’t fight last night, but I went to sleep feeling heavy. Despite being back in my bed, Haley curled in my arms, the tattoo over my chest was a weight.
A reminder that everything I want is within my grasp and it’s still slipping away.
Jerry appears at my elbow.
“Jax, I hear someone’s getting married,” he informs me.
“God knows,” I say, only half joking.
With that, the women walk in the front doors. Haley looks beautiful in a knee-length black dress, her hair swept over one shoulder.
Before I can approach her, Nina calls us all to order. “Dinner will be served in thirty minutes. You have time for one drink before we go over the details of how the evening and speeches will run, so make it count.”
I make a beeline for the bar and order a bourbon.
Annie drops into the seat next to me at the bar, taking a moment to adjust her dress. “Tyler said you offered to set him up with producers. Why?”
I lift a brow. “I’m a nice person.”
“You’re not that nice.”
“You gonna tell her?” Mace shifts his elbows onto the bar on my other side.
“Tell me what?” Annie demands.
“He found your condoms, Squirt.”
Silence hangs over the bar, the bartender freezing mid-pour before turning his back on us to give some semblance of privacy.
My daughter shifts out of her seat, straightening to her full height. “Dad? Explain.”
I reach for the drink the bartender sets in front of me, then on second thought, set it down. “They were in your suitcase.” I meet her fiery gaze. “The green one.”
Annie shakes her head slowly. “I don’t have a green suitcase. I haven’t in two years. I gave it away to—”
“My green suitcase?” We all look over at the sound of Kyle’s voice.
Fuck me.
Annie makes a choking sound. “You found condoms and thought they were mine, and instead of asking me about it, you what, decided to send Tyler away?”
Pretty much.
“Wow. We’re friends. It is possible to have friends of the opposite sex, you know. Though I can see why Haley doesn’t tell you anything.”
That comment has me straightening. “Wait. What doesn’t Haley tell me?”
But Annie’s already stalking toward the bathroom.
I want to tear after her, but Lita’s voi
ce pulls me back. “Where’s Jerry?”
I pull up halfway across the room, my gaze scanning the bar, the table where Haley’s still talking with Serena, and the corner where Nina’s gesturing wildly at Brick as if they’re playing some awful game of charades. “Where is Jerry?”
Lita and I go outside and down the front steps of the restaurant, past the venue security hired to stand watch.
“You seen an old guy?”
“He went that way.” One of the men gestures down the road.
“And you didn’t think to stop him?” I holler. “Fucking great. Jerry!”
Leaving Lita with the guards, I go after him.
My shoes slip on grass that’s damp from sprinklers, but I don’t care. I stare into the darkness as I pace the grounds, starting with the parking lot and working my way farther out.
I don’t look back to see if anyone’s joining me.
Those security guys are going to be out of a job.
After a few minutes, the irritation’s gone and panic has fully taken its place.
I’m scanning a treeline when I see a familiar hunched outline.
“Jerry. Jerry!”
He looks up the second time I call his name, and when I run to meet him, he narrows his eyes.
“How’d you get all the way out here?” I demand, trying my best to inspect him for injuries in the dark.
“Needed some breathing room.” His thin voice is decisive. “It’s stuffy in there. I don’t know why we booked that hall. It’s a terrible place for a show.”
I grunt, relief edging in as I realize he’s fine—physically, anyway. “It is a terrible place for a show,” I agree.
No matter his mental state, or how soaked my shoes are, I’m grateful to be standing with the man who’s seen me through years on the road, helped me deal with a decade of triumphs and heartaches.
“It’s also a terrible place for a wedding.”
His voice sounds more lucid than it has since he arrived. “I never got married. You know that. But a wedding’s like a good mix.
“The biggest array, the best board, the latest toys can’t do what true intimacy can.”
I turn that over, thinking of one of the first conversations Haley and I had on tour. “Leonard Cohen at the Orpheum.”
“Leonard Cohen at the Orpheum,” he agrees.
A breeze lifts the fine hairs on his head, and I glance down at his dress shirt.
I shrug out of my sport coat and help him into it, fastening the button over his too-lean frame so he doesn’t get cold.
“You’re giving me your jacket?” he asks in a tight voice, inspecting the sleeves.
“Don’t tell Nina.”
“Worse. I’ll tell Haley. Make her jealous.”
I laugh under my breath, shoving my hands in my pockets. “She’ll understand.”
“She understands most things. If I ever found a woman like that, I would’ve got married.”
“I’m sure you would’ve.” Despite his condition, Jerry understands more about life than I could hope to. It’s why I can’t resist continuing. “But no matter how close I hold her, I’m on top of the world one moment and helpless the next.
“I’ve been out of the industry more than a year, and I keep waiting for the moment I feel like I’m in control of my life.”
His wheezing laugh carries through the night until I’m concerned he’s going to bust a lung.
“Jax, you were never in control. Control is an illusion men create to avoid the truth.”
I lift a brow. “What truth is that?”
“That every single shit you give makes you that much more vulnerable.”
His words settle into me. “God knows why any of us risk it.”
“Because we aren’t meant to be all knowing, all powerful. We’re meant to feel. With love comes fear. With gain comes loss. Your only choice is this: are you in or out. For all of it.”
I turn that over as I stare at him, his frail form. The eyes cast in shadow that I know better than my own. The ones that can be bright one moment and bleary the next.
“Are we going back?” he asks as if I’m the one who brought us out here.
I glance back toward the lights of the estate, soaking in the stillness around us.
“Another minute.”
I stand in the dark with him.
I’ve finally gotten Jerry back up to the estate house and given the security guards shit again for not stopping him from wandering off when my phone buzzes in my pocket.
“Father, this isn’t the best time.” My hand tightens on the phone as I listen to him. “Are you kidding? We said we’d pay for the damages.”
He speaks again, and my eyes squeeze shut.
“There’s nothing I can do to convince you?”
I listen to his firm words before hanging up and making my way back toward the doors.
Haley’s there to greet me, her expression troubled. “Jax, Jerry’s back with Mace and Brick. Is he okay?”
“He’s fine.”
Her body sags in relief.
“I phoned the police after you left to see if they could come out and help search,” she says. “They told me they don’t usually do that sort of thing, but they had a car in the area and promised to stop by.”
“Good thinking.”
The relief on her face is replaced by nerves. “Jax…” Her throat works, and the tension has my chest tightening in turn. “I need to tell you something. It’s not the best time, but I can’t keep it from you any longer.”
She steps closer, drawing in a breath and holding it, her anguished eyes searching mine.
Immediately, my call with the minister is the last thing on my mind. It’s nothing compared to the worry on her face right now.
A dozen possibilities flash through my mind, each worse than the last, ending with one that turns my stomach to stone: she’s changed her mind about the wedding. About us.
Grief and denial twist inside me, and I regret every harsh word I’ve uttered in the past week. I’d take it all back in this moment. “Hales, listen to me—“
“I’m pregnant,” she blurts.
The words spill out, settle between us. My brain turns them over once, twice but they might as well be another language.
None of the scenarios playing through my head a moment ago were anything like this. This is…
Impossible.
“You’re pregnant,” I echo at last.
Haley’s throat bobs as she nods. “Twelve weeks. It happened before I left for Philly. I missed a couple of pills by accident. I’ve never done that before, and I didn’t think it would matter.”
I soak in her expression, but her words are drowned out by the hammering in my ears.
Haley’s pregnant. It’s what’s been causing the shadows under her eyes. Why she’s looked so stressed. Why she won’t talk to me.
“Will you please say something?”
That phrase penetrates my thick skull, and I blink back at her.
But before I can answer, the doors open behind me and a too-familiar voice interrupts. “Haley!”
The hairs are already rising on my neck before I turn to find Carter in the doorway.
The security people here will never work again.
He crosses to my fiancée, and every muscle in me strings tight with the urge to hurl him across the room.
“You weren’t answering your phone, so I had to come down here. You were right about this contract, and the bid is due tonight. We don’t submit by midnight, we’ll lose our shot.”
“Chris…” Haley trails off.
I don’t wait for her to finish. Every ounce of my rage and frustration crystalizes into the blond pinhead that is Christopher Carter.
I roll up my sleeves, then grab him by the collar of his shirt, pushing him toward the door.
“What are you doing?” Carter spits as I shove him out the doors.
“You’re trespassing. I’m removing you.”
The security guards str
aighten, snapping to attention.
“This isn’t your property,” Carter presses.
“No? I could buy it with a snap of my fingers,” I say, the cool night air hitting my face and adding to the adrenaline coursing through me. Flashing lights appear on the horizon, but I barely acknowledge them. “But that would be a waste because by then, it’ll be over.”
“What will?”
“This.”
And I hit him.
Hard.
14
Haley
Everything goes crazy from the second Jax’s fist connects with Carter’s face. Our friends are shouting, bodies rushing toward or away from the scene.
The police cruiser I called for halts at the foot of the steps, doors slamming as two officers dash toward us.
I can’t move. I’m frozen even though I’m screaming at myself to do something.
It’s the security guards who pull Jax off Carter. The blood on my business partner’s face finally jolts me into action.
“Are you okay?” I ask Carter as he sits on a stair, his eyes spacey.
“No! I’m fucking bleeding.”
“We need a cloth,” Serena barks from somewhere behind me. “And some ice.”
“I think his nose is broken,” says Nina.
Ice and a cloth appear, and I make a homemade compress and hold it to Carter’s face.
“Why are you here?” I demand.
Carter lets out a pained sigh as he shifts back on an elbow. “You were right. This bid was big. We need to finish it.”
I gesture around us. “This is my rehearsal dinner, Carter!”
His gaze moves over me as if for the first time. “And you look gorgeous.”
The earnest comment is so out-of-place, I suddenly empathize with Jax’s desire to hit him.
“Hold this.” Instead of indulging, I pass him the ice pack as I search out Jax with my gaze. He still hasn’t reacted to my confession.
Finding Jax’s tattoo last night was confirmation that everything around me is changing, and the world isn’t giving me a chance of keeping up.
But the expression on his face when I blurted out the pregnancy, the disbelief in his eyes?