by Cari Quinn
“Why? Isn’t it my right to push up my damn breasts?”
“If they get any higher, you’re going to put out an eye. Works of art as is.”
She crossed her arms—underneath her works of art, thank you very much. “You’re being entirely too sweet to me, so I demand to know what you want.”
“I want us to live together. For real.”
And she was supposed to say no to those criminally gorgeous blue-black eyes how? “We already mostly are.” Before he could say anything else, she held up a hand and blew out a breath. “I talked to my landlord last week. I’m breaking the lease.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
Waiting for her to say everything. Knowing she would once she nutted up.
Or vagina-ed up. Whatever.
“I was waiting to tell you until after the meeting. I didn’t know what Lila was going to say. If we’d be going back into the studio, or extending the break, or doing a mini tour. It all seemed so overwhelming.”
“And your apartment is your safe place. I get it. I don’t care if you keep it. I just want you with me. All the time.”
The backs of her eyes burned. “I did a total Tammy Wynette for you this morning. On my way here, I was wondering if you deserved it. You so do. I’ll move in. All the way in. Try to stop me.” She sniffled. “You’re probably going to wake up one day and wonder why the hell you hooked your ride to mine. But if you ever try to unhook it, I will bury you someplace they will never find your body.”
His laughter soothed her soul in ways she could never explain. “Now that’s what I call romance.”
She rose. “I stood up to Li for you. Basically told her to stop talking. And here you knew all long.” She swallowed over the dust in her throat. “Why do you want me to move in? I mean, right now?”
His eyes softened, just enough so that she knew what was coming. “So we’d have our home to come back to once we get off this fucking crazy merry-go-round.”
Hope surged in her chest, but she had to know for sure. “You’re okay with going? Doing the tour together?”
He nodded, and she could see the truth on his face. They weren’t going to start their life together apart after all. Thank God.
With a little cry of pleasure, she looped her arms around his neck and leaped up onto his hips. He caught her effortlessly. “Here I thought we were going to have the first fight of our marriage before we even said I do.”
“First fight? We’ve been fighting since day one. Before day one. Fuckplay.” His mouth came down hard on hers, his tongue sweeping in and taking what was his.
Her. All of her belonged to him. And vice versa. Always.
“I think you mean foreplay,” she said between kisses.
“Nah, fuckplay because I’m about to take you back to church.”
She laughed and tried to hold on to his neck when he swung her onto the bed. She didn’t quite manage it, and her butt bounced against the mattress as he loomed over her. Then he cocked his head. “Who the hell’s Tammy Wynette?”
Elle closed her eyes, her grin spreading. “Man, you test me.”
Fourteen
“Your mother still hasn’t RSVP’d to the party.”
Mal grunted. Was this supposed to be a revelation? His mother didn’t bother to reply to much unless it had to do directly with her, and her eldest son’s marriage did not.
Not that he’d even wanted an engagement party anyway. They’d been engaged for months and months now. What was the point? Wasn’t an engagement party held to announce the thing? Everyone already knew.
Everyone, including the damn National Enquirer. Nothing was private nowadays. The night he’d proposed, it had been up on TMZ, for fuck’s sake.
But Ricki wanted to do all the steps, and she’d “forgotten” that one before. So now they were making up for lost time.
Yay him.
He was still hoping they could just elope.
“Your father has though. Him and Annabelle.”
“Who the hell is that?”
“You don’t know?”
“No. His wife’s name was—” Fuck, he didn’t even remember, but it surely wasn’t Annabelle. At least he didn’t think so.
He was going to hell. Or his father was, for being such an indiscriminate bastard.
“She doesn’t have his last name. So she’s not his wife.”
“Shocker. The last one squeezed out two kids before he threw her off the island.”
“I haven’t even met them yet. Your parents, not your half-siblings.”
“I haven’t met them either. They’re still in diapers. Not exactly my peer group.”
Ricki sighed. “I’m going to need an antacid if I keep thinking about this party.”
Mal glanced over to where Ricki was going down her handwritten checklist in the passenger seat of his truck. She had the cap of her pen clamped between her teeth as she checked off things and made notes in the margins. “Then stop thinking about it.”
“Um, hi, it’s next weekend.”
As if he could forget. He was having night terrors where he was strangulated by miles of white streamers dangling from fat wedding bells.
Christ, he just wanted to be married already. Cut the other crap.
“I thought Jules and Denver were dealing with most of the details?”
Denver was a no-brainer when it came to planning the party, but he was still shocked Jules had stepped up. In the old days, he wouldn’t have been. Juliet was a team player down to the marrow, especially when it came to her bandmates. But last fall had changed everything. The rift that had grown between Jules and him and Ricki had been deep and wide enough that he hadn’t been sure it would ever close.
Nothing was any different in his direction. When the girls got together to plan party shit, Jules mostly ignored him and Denver heckled him. Usually, he split as fast as humanly possible.
He loved Ricki, but he did not love girl talk or blowing up balloons shaped like penises. Which he swore he’d heard mentioned at the last “planning sesh”—Ricki’s term, not his.
“They are, but they can’t do everything. Jules has the baby, you know.” Ricki’s tone told him that he was an idiot and selfish to boot.
Which meant tonight he’d be worshipping at the altar between her thighs long enough to drink all the wine.
Oh, the sacrifices a man had to make.
“I get that, just it’s supposed to be relaxing for you as the bride.”
He supposed. Maybe?
“What do you know about it?”
“Nothing. Nor do I want to. All I know is if Mike comes at me to plan the bachelor party, I’m gonna shank him.”
“You do understand they want us to enjoy these festivities?” At least she sounded amused at his ineptitude. “They ask so they don’t do something we won’t like.”
“So you’re telling me you like penis balloons?”
“Oh, yes, especially when they’re built to scale.”
He wasn’t falling for her bait. Not again. She probably didn’t discuss the dimensions of his dick with her friends, but if she did, he wasn’t going to worry about it. If anything their significant others should be worrying, not him.
Time for a topic change.
“You’re sure about doing this today? Your landlord said you could take a little time.”
“No, he wants me out. He was surprisingly nice about it, but he needs to get the place rented again. Better all-around if I get packed up and moved out.” She capped her pen and sighed. “I don’t have a ton of stuff anyway. The biggest thing is my guitar collection. I don’t know where you’re going to store those.”
“I was thinking the living room wall. The brick one would be perfect.”
She looked at him aghast. “And risk scratching the finish?” If she’d shaken her head any harder, she would’ve broken something. “I don’t think that’s a great idea.”
“They’re guitars. They’ve already got scratches, just like my drum kits
do.”
“Yes, but wear scratches are different than against a brick wall.”
He pulled up down the street from her apartment building. He wouldn’t be disappointed when he didn’t have to come into this area anymore, that was for sure. “Just think about it.”
“I already did. No, but thank you.”
She hopped out and he barely resisted banging his forehead against the steering wheel.
He met her at the back of the truck and they hauled out cardboard boxes and bags, then toted them inside and upstairs. When he glanced at her in the elevator, she was gnawing on her lip and watching the numbers climb above the doors.
“We don’t have to do this today,” he said again.
“No, it’s good.” She flashed him a smile. “Moving on is good. Whatever we don’t need, I’ll just throw out.”
Since he knew she had a sentimental heart, he had his doubts about that one.
They got off the elevator on her floor and walked down the hall to the sounds of The Golden Girls emanating from one of her neighbors’ apartments. It was an eerie repeat of the first night he’d come over to her apartment and been horrified she lived in such a rundown place when she clearly had enough money to live in a far better place. Nearly a year later and his feelings hadn’t changed.
But this time, she was coming home with him.
As soon as they entered her apartment, she directed him to tackle the closet off the living room while she handled packing up the bedroom. She put on some seriously loud rap music, which he might’ve balked at if she hadn’t entertained him between her packing with shaking her ass and her high blond ponytail, whipping it around in a frenzy that was both amusing as fuck and hot as hell.
He was staring at an old pair of ice skates—obviously child’s size—when she offered him a beer from the fridge and uncapped a water for herself.
Silently, he took a swig from the beer and set it aside, then held up the ice skates in question. He didn’t like drinking in her presence when he knew she had to be careful about that stuff. It didn’t seem fair.
“Wondering if those should stay or go?” She perched on a now empty end table. “My mama bought me those when I was seven. There was this one rink we’d go to.” She motioned for him to turn them over. “Unicorns, see? My whole room was unicorns. Bedspread, curtains, sheets, even a rug.”
“You do enjoy big horns.”
She barely smiled. “That was the last present she ever gave me before she split.”
Wordlessly, he set the skates in the box of things to keep. But she popped to her feet and immediately took them out, dumping them into a giant garbage bag.
It was already surprisingly full.
“You’re sure? You don’t want to be too hasty and regret it once it’s gone.”
“If it doesn’t make me happier or it’s not something I can pass on to our future daughter, if we have one, or to Nick’s girls, then there’s no reason to keep it. I can’t keep wallowing in the past.”
“It’s not wallowing to keep a memento.”
“Do you have anything from your childhood?” He could tell from her sharp tone that she figured he’d kept few things besides his sports trophies and stuff like that.
She wasn’t wrong.
“Not much,” he admitted. “But I have pictures. A lot of them actually. I never threw those out.” He frowned and glanced around. “You don’t have any?”
“I have some in albums. I didn’t spend a lot of time here. And for a chunk of it, Nicky and I weren’t close like we are now, so it was hard to have those reminders. You know, with my mama gone and my daddy dead and Nicky hating me—”
“He didn’t hate you. He couldn’t.”
“You didn’t know me then.” When Mal stared at her, she let out a little laugh. “Okay, you met me once for what, a half hour? Trust me, you didn’t know me. I was a junkie. Strung out and didn’t give a shit about much except getting high and getting laid. Usually in that order. I only called him when I needed money. And he almost always gave it to me, even knowing what I’d use it for.” She rubbed under her eyes. “He was so afraid I’d end up owing the wrong people that he gave me cash anyway.”
“He fucking adores you. He might’ve been mad at you, but he never hated you. I’d stake my life on that.”
“I made his life difficult.”
“Like your parents made yours? Your mother taking off, your father using drugs in front of you…with you, for Christ’s sake. How were you going to turn out any different?”
She moved into him and pressed her face against his chest. He clenched his jaw as it turned damp. “I never would’ve guessed you could defend me as fiercely as you do. All those months, I thought I was beneath your contempt.”
He made himself be gentle as he wound the end of her ponytail around her fingers and tugged back her head. “And I never would’ve believed you would marry me. Can you blame me for wanting to get you on lockdown?”
“Is that what you’re doing?” She eased back and tilted her head.
He shrugged. It had been a joke, but it was more truth than not. “Let’s just say I never had the most awesome family life either. If I didn’t fight to hold on to something, it was gone.” His lips twisted. “Even my parents.”
“We don’t have to have them at the wedding.” When he turned his face away, she laid her hand on his cheek and made him look at her. “I’m serious. I know I made it seem like it was important, but we can’t make a Hallmark moment out of ashes.”
“That’s the damn truth.”
“If you don’t want them there, they’ll just get accidentally left off the guest list. Your mother already hasn’t replied about the engagement party. Doubt she’ll care about the ceremony.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. They get their backs up if they think they aren’t being given their due.” And he was just tired of dealing with them. Thinking about them, wondering what way they’d fuck him or Mike over now.
It was his fucking wedding.
“Time for me to throw out some skates too.”
She nodded, her blue eyes bright.
“I don’t want them there. I want it to be just people we love. And who love us back. Or at least tolerate us, for fuck’s sake.” As she nodded again, he brushed a loose blond strand away from her cheek. “I wish I could give you that perfect family. You deserve it,” he said thickly. “But Christ, it just isn’t mine.”
“Perfect doesn’t exist. What does exist is happiness. Loyalty and trust and safety. Joy. We have those things. And if we’re lucky enough to have our own family someday, then we’ll work on making sure they aren’t screwed up like we are.” She laughed and rubbed her thumb under her eye, catching another stray tear. “Well, me. You’re not screwed up. Kind of a jerk sometimes, but altogether you’re pretty well-adjusted—”
He drew her up on her tiptoes and covered her mouth with his own, teasing her lips apart so that her sigh flowed into him. Smoothing out all the jagged edges inside his chest. Always.
“Let’s get married before the tour.”
Fifteen
Ricki didn’t seem to hear him at first, just slipped her hand up under the back of his shirt to knead his muscles. Her nails scraped his skin and he swallowed a groan, finally using her thick ponytail to drag back her head. Her cheeks were prettily flushed, her still-shiny eyes that dark, sexy blue that reminded him of the sea.
Mal saw the whole of his life within them, and didn’t know how he’d lived as long as he had without her.
Couldn’t fathom going without her for a day. An hour.
“Let’s get married before the tour,” he repeated. “Just us and a JP and Nick and Li and Mike and Chloe. Oh, and my grandparents. That’s it.”
He expected her to balk. To say he was crazy. Instead, she smiled wider than he’d ever seen. “You mean it? Just run off and get hitched?” She threw her arms around his neck. “God, that’s so romantic.”
If this didn’t prove he was stupidly in l
ove, nothing would.
“Not just that. I don’t want you to miss all the other shit you’ve been looking forward to. The engagement party, the bachelor and bachelorette crap, the ceremony at Happy Acres. Just we’ll be married for all of them. Minus the engagement party. Probably should at least still be illegal for that.”
“Illegal, huh?” She laughed and tipped back her head, her excited expression dazzling him. “You’d do two weddings? For me?”
“I’d do anything for you.”
She pulled her head down to hers and pressed their foreheads together. “Even keep this is a secret?”
His brow furrowed. “You mean us getting married?”
“Yeah. Maybe it’s selfish or wrong, but I sorta want to keep it a secret until our wedding date with all our friends and family. Plus, it goes along with the romantic theme. Getting married in secret, only our super close family knowing…” She gave a wistful sigh. “It’s so swoony.”
“Swoony?” He held up a hand before she could explain. “Never mind. I’ve already crossed far enough onto the side of cock floats, I don’t need any more details.”
“Cock floats? Oh, you mean balloons.” She snorted and pinched his hip, then stepped back and clapped her hands. “I have to call Nicky and Li. They’re going to freak.” She squished up her nose. “Especially since the last time I talked to Li I basically told her to shut up.”
“Wish I’d been there to see that.”
“I just bet. It’s her fault for acting like she didn’t know why you weren’t at the meeting. Fakers, both of you.”
He smirked. “I have never faked anything with you. Not sure how a guy could.”
“Uh-huh. Smooth talker. But before I call them and you can talk to your peeps, there’s something else we should do.”
He looked around her sparsely furnished apartment and shrugged. “Sure. We can fuck it goodbye.”
“You are an ass. No, not more sex. You’re an animal. Stay right here.” She pointed at him before disappearing into the bedroom.
She was gone longer than he expected, so he went back to the closet he’d been cleaning out. He made a pile of stuff he wasn’t sure if she’d want and other things he seriously doubted she’d think about keeping—like a Vanilla Ice tank top with slashes all through the back. What the hell? She’d been a tiny kid when he’d been popular.