I knew exactly what she was envisioning: all the awesome hikes we’d gone on, which included the dozens of times we’d had to keep an eye out for each other when other hikers came by. We’d had a lot of fun over time, and it made me so happy that she genuinely enjoyed all of our adventures back home.
My friend shrugged and took her time eyeing me up and down. “And you, my glowing angel, look like a fifteen.” She wiggled her eyebrows and ignored the noise her makeup artist made at the movement. “I’ll forgive you for cheating.”
I rolled my eyes. “Cheating. Right.”
“It’s the hormones. You got that natural glow this half-inch of highlighter and bronzer can’t compete with.” She whistled, and I curtsied about as much as I could, which wasn’t much considering how tight this dress was. “I bet Kaden’s going to shit himself when he sees you.”
His mention surprised me for about a split second. I hadn’t heard his name in… a year? One of his songs had come on while I’d been in the car with Jackie and Amos, and the two had started instantly booing before changing the station. That had been the last time I’d thought of him too, and that had been brief.
“If he shits himself, I hope someone catches it on camera,” I joked, adjusting the strap of the dress I’d been fitted for two months ago when Yuki had originally invited me.
She cackled, and we high-fived. And not for the first time, I thanked my mom for giving me such a good friend—such good friends, in general. With Yuki being one of those at the very top of the list.
We’d seen each other a ton over the last four years. She’d spent Thanksgiving with us once, New Year’s twice—even though I’d warned her we just went a couple towns over to see fireworks if it wasn’t a drought year—and randomly throughout the year, she dropped by when she could. She’d rented out a yacht that second summer I’d been in Pagosa Springs, and we had met her in Greece and spent one of the best weeks ever. Even her sister, Nori, had come too.
The following year, she invited us to do the same in Italy, but… I hadn’t been allowed to fly at that point. I hadn’t regretted it either. Neither had Rhodes. Am had huffed and puffed, but he’d hung out with me the whole week we would have been gone, and he’d even rubbed my feet once.
He hadn’t huffed or puffed at all when I’d told him we were driving to Los Angeles for the awards ceremony though. He’d hitched a ride down with a friend from school and volunteered to come along to “help out.” Uh-huh. I missed him a ton now that he was gone at college for most of the year, and I’d take any of the excuses he made to visit.
He was still writing music and even performing from time to time at small businesses around his school. If Rhodes wasn’t busy, we drove up to watch him. He still caught me up on what he’d worked on, but school, in general, took up most of his time, even though he was planning on majoring in musical composition.
“Thank you for inviting me,” I told Yuki for about the tenth time, moving my hand along my stomach.
She tilted her head to the side. “We wrote the whole album together, Ora. And you’re the best-looking date I could have brought.”
“You did most of the work; I only helped a little,” I told her. The words, the lyrics, hadn’t come back to me over time. Once or twice, I’d felt a hint of a word or two float onto the tip of my tongue… but they had disappeared instantly. I didn’t think or worry about it at all, though. No one cared, and that was pretty damn nice.
Then again, I had let Amos look through my notebooks a few years ago, and he’d stared over at me with wide eyes. “This is your bad stuff?” he’d demanded like he couldn’t believe me. So maybe they weren’t that bad. The only notebooks I still opened on my own from time to time were my mom’s, so we could squeeze in one of her favorite hikes. We did that pretty often on the days my heart hurt and I missed her the most.
Yuki, though, gave me a look that reminded me of how many times I’d found her passed out on the couch that Rhodes had eventually put in the garage apartment for guests. Of which she was one of them. My family in Florida, her sister, and his brothers being our other main visitors.
A knock at the door had her manager standing up from where she had taken a seat on one of the couches. The woman opened it, said a few words, and stepped back, gesturing the person on the other side in.
It was only my favorite man in the entire world.
Part of my heart in another person’s body.
I grinned and instantly went toward the silver-haired man. It had been all of two hours since I’d left them in the suite that Yuki had gotten for us—she’d ignored me when I insisted I could pay for it—but it felt like a whole day instead. It was different when we weren’t separated by work. Even then, he’d drop by during lunch if he was close or on his way home if he had an early day after protecting Colorado’s wildlife.
Rhodes’s gray eyes moved up and down the length of me as he came forward too. His mouth formed an O. “Wow,” he whispered.
“Too much makeup though, huh?”
He shrugged as his hands went to my shoulders for possibly the ten-thousandth time. “Way too much, but only you are even more beautiful without makeup on than with it.” His hands squeezed me. “Nice dress though, Buddy.”
“It’s ‘borrowed,’ and I don’t know how I’m going to pee in it.” The dress I’d been loaned was emerald green, heavy with embroidery, and weighed close to fifteen pounds—or at least that’s what it felt like.
“Pee yourself so you don’t rip it,” he said with a straight face.
I laughed and stepped in close to wrap my arms around his middle. I still hadn’t gotten used to having unlimited access to him. To his rock-solid body that I still perved on every night and every morning, even if I was half asleep when he got home or left.
He’d told me once he worried that I’d get fed up with him working such long hours, and I’d taken my time explaining that was the absolute last thing he had to worry about. In some ways, I’d waited my whole life for him. I could wait a few hours. It wasn’t like he was gone because he enjoyed being away. That was the thing about being confident with what you had. I’d never doubted him, not even for a second.
“I wasn’t sure if I could hug you,” he said, squeezing me back.
“You can always hug me.”
His mouth drifted across my hair, and I knew he was just trying not to kiss my face because of the insane amount of makeup I had on.
“Yuki’s dad invited us to go get dinner. He wants to talk fishing,” he said quietly.
“Is Am going?”
Pulling back, he nodded, his gaze raking down me again.
Yuki cleared her throat way too loud from across the room. “Ora, it’s time to go. Rhodes, do you want to walk her down?”
With his hand settling on my lower back, he ducked his chin in agreement.
We smiled at each other before heading out the door, followed by Yuki’s bodyguard and manager. Security was tight at the hotel as we made our way through the lobby, trailing behind Yuki who was whispering about something to her manager the whole time. This whole experience was just a little surreal, and I didn’t miss it at all.
Rhodes ducked in close, his voice basically a whisper. “Are you okay? You’re not too tired?”
I shook my head. “Not yet, but hopefully I won’t fall asleep because that would be real embarrassing.”
Mr. Overprotective shot me a side look.
We’d gone to my OB-GYN before planning our trip, but I knew he was still apprehensive about the whole thing even though we had driven. Because of my age, I was at high-risk, but luckily I was healthy in every other way, and it was still early on. I wasn’t planning on going anywhere for a while after this. My aunt and uncle were planning on visiting us next. They visited every year.
We stopped at a fancy car I was sure I’d been in before, and he gave my back a little rub. “Have fun.”
“I will. I want to do this just this one time and never again. I’ll probably have enough makeup
left over on my face for the next decade anyway.”
His twisting mouth lit up my world like it always did. “You deserve it, angel.” He leaned in and lightly brushed his lips across mine. “Love you.”
And just like it had the first few times he’d said those words, my body reacted the same way: like his verbal declaration of love was some kind of addictive drug it needed to survive. The truth was, I didn’t think I’d know how to keep going without it anymore. For a man who hadn’t used the L-word very often in the past, he wasn’t stingy with it any longer. I heard it every morning and every night. I heard him say it to Azalia in quiet little whispers. He said it to Amos on the phone. My favorite lately was when he mouthed it against my stomach.
So it was second nature to pull him back down to me and tell him I loved him right back. Because a man who could spread so much of it out with not just his actions but with his words too, needed to hear it right back. And that was a job I would gladly take.
A loud whistle had us pulling away to find Yuki there, shaking her head. “You two, you make me sick with happiness.”
I snickered and went up to my toes, kissing him again. Rhodes smiled. “Text me when you’re on your way back.”
“I will.”
I smiled back at him and ducked into the car, clutching my purse as Yuki slid in after me, giving Rhodes a hug on the way. She smiled as she settled in, her manager squeezing in as well. “I love seeing you this happy, Ora.”
My exhale was choppy with the joy in my chest. “I like feeling this happy.”
The last few years had been the happiest of my life. It was Rhodes, Amos, and Azalia, of course, but it was also the whole town in general. My life in general. I’d settled in. It was home. I had family and friends. And I got to see them all the time when they came to visit the shop.
I still worked there.
I owned it now actually.
Mr. Nez had gotten even more ill about two years ago, and Clara had admitted that she needed money for his treatment—adding in a sharp look when I’d opened my mouth to offer to help financially, so I’d closed it immediately—but also admitting that her heart wasn’t in the store anymore and she was considering selling it. She wanted to go back to nursing. I loved working at the store, and I figured, why not?
So that’s what we did. I bought it. Jackie was commuting to school in Durango and helped me. I hired Amos when he was home. And I’d hired a couple more people who moved into town.
Buying it had been a terrific decision.
Just like having an addition built to our house had been.
Then again, just about every decision I’d made since that night in Moab when I had decided to drive to, and possibly settle in, Pagosa had been a great one.
* * *
“Your face when you won was priceless,” Yuki’s dad chuckled hours later.
His daughter laughed, pushing her chair back. “We were both half asleep when they announced the category, and I had no idea what was going on until I saw the screen with my name on it,” she admitted.
It was the truth.
We had gotten dropped off at the sports bar where the men in our lives had hung out during the awards ceremony. I had assumed she would want to go to one of the after-parties, especially after winning album of the year, but she had shrugged me off with a look of horror and said, “I’m starving, and I’d rather see my daddy.”
And I’d rather see my family, so we’d left; we went straight to the bar slash restaurant in our stupid expensive dresses with Yuki promising to pay for them when I told her I was worried I’d get it dirty. I’d had fun at the ceremony, but nothing was better than walking into the restaurant and seeing Mr. Young with his arms crossed over his chest, laughing at something Rhodes had said. My perfect Rhodes, who was leaning back against the booth with Azalia standing up and bouncing on his lap while Am stared hard at a table across the room. One quick glance had me recognizing the girl he was staring at. She had been at the ceremony too and won something about fifteen minutes before Yuki had.
I’d gone and given them all kisses and hugs, taking Azalia and play-eating her cheek before my daddy’s girl had reached out for her older brother, who took her without hesitation.
Azalia was a miracle who’d made her tiny, tadpole-sized presence known a little over a year after Rhodes and I had gotten married. My eyes had teared up, his had too, and if I’d thought he’d been protective before, it was nothing compared to after that. I’d thrived on it too.
But focusing back on the present and not on the two-year-old passed out in Am’s arms, I still couldn’t believe that Yuki had won. Actually, I could, but it was still surprising and amazing. She’d thanked me twice in a nervous rush of gratitude onstage, and I’d cheered as loudly as I wanted, annoying the people around me.
She promised to send me a plaque, and I had just the perfect wall to put it on. In our bedroom. Beside the last one she’d given me for that fateful album we’d written together at a low point in both our lives. Yet here we were, better than ever.
It was late as we all got up to leave, and I watched Yuki slide her arm through her dad’s as they exited the restaurant and started the walk a block down back to the hotel. Her bodyguard trailed behind them.
The rest of us followed him. The night was cool, and there were a lot more people than I would’ve expected at nearly midnight on a Sunday, with just about everyone doing a double take at the view of Yuki, obviously recognizing her.
Rhodes squeezed my hand. “I think I saw you when they were showing the nominees and zoomed in on Yuki,” he said.
“Did you see us both staring blankly forward?”
“Oh yeah.”
I laughed.
“I thought that sort of thing was fun?”
“It’s not. It’s so boring. We played rock paper scissors and tic-tac-toe on her phone.” I squeezed his hand. “I brought two granola bars, and she had two packs of gummy bears, and we took turns bending over and eating them so the cameras wouldn’t catch us.”
He laughed so loud before releasing my hand and slipping it over my shoulders, pulling me into him. My favorite position.
“We had to help each other use the bathroom,” I admitted too.
He squeezed me even harder. “That doesn’t sound like fun at all.”
“I’m good never doing it again, that’s for sure,” I said, peeking over my shoulder to find Amos holding his sleepy little sister behind us. He tipped up his chin just like Rhodes did.
He had matured so much over the last few years; he wasn’t as tall as his dad, but I thought he was going to get close. To me, he looked a hell of a lot more like his mom, but when he smirked or rolled his eyes, I swore he was a mirror image of his dad. His Dad Rhodes at least. He’d gotten his laid-back attitude from his Dad Billy, I’d discovered.
Just as I opened my mouth to ask them what they wanted to do tomorrow, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted two familiar figures coming in through the hotel’s other set of automatic doors.
One of them was Kaden.
In a black tuxedo just like the one I’d seen him wearing a hundred times before when he’d leave me in a hotel room. His shirt white, his bowtie still on. And beside him, his mom was there in a stunning gold gown.
She looked pissed. It was funny to see some things hadn’t changed. Wow.
Kaden had managed to stay “relevant” enough to still be invited to awards shows and win sometimes, thanks to whoever he was hiring now. He’d been nominated for something or another tonight but hadn’t won. I hadn’t seen him in person, just the image of him that had appeared on the stage’s massive screen.
Peace like I hadn’t felt in forever filled my heart and, honestly, my whole body.
There was no anger in me. No pain or resentment. Just… indifference.
Like he could sense my gaze on him, Kaden’s eyes moved toward us, and I could tell the moment it landed on the very soft swelling at my stomach. I was four months along now, and the dress di
d little to hide the second baby we were having. Another little girl. We hadn’t settled on a first name yet, but since Azalia was named after my mom, we were thinking about giving baby number two Yuki’s middle name: Rose.
Rhodes and I were so excited. So, so excited. Am was too. He’d put up one of the ultrasound pictures in his dorm room. Beside it, he had one of Azalia the day she’d been born. After all, he’d been the one to drive me to the hospital, and he’d hung out in the room with me looking green and letting me squeeze the shit out of his hand until Rhodes had shown up literally two minutes before I’d given birth. Amos had been the third person to hold his baby sister, and that, I’d guessed, explained their closeness perfectly.
We’d called him right after we’d left the doctor’s office, and he had let out a noise that made us both laugh. “Holy shit. We’re gonna be overrun with girls now, Dad.”
The man sitting in the car beside me, still holding my hand, had grinned forward through the windshield with bright eyes and said the best thing he could have ever come up with, “I’m not complaining.”
He meant every word of it too.
God knew I could never forget the way that Rhodes’s whole body had trembled after the doctor had confirmed that I was pregnant. How his eyes had filled with tears, how his mouth had pressed against my cheeks, forehead, nose, and even my chin after I’d given birth to Azalia. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner, father, or a better man than him to spend the rest of my life with. He lifted me up, believed in me, and filled my life with more love than I ever could have asked for.
“Are you good, angel?” Rhodes asked, running his palm up and down my upper arm warmly, saving the day like always.
Moving my gaze away from the people that I used to know—I had a feeling it would be the last time I would ever see them—I nodded at Rhodes. At my husband. The person who would go through heaven and hell to get to me if I was ever lost. The man who had given me every single thing I had ever wanted and more.
All Rhodes Lead Here Page 50