by Piper Lawson
But Serena’s boyfriend is working on his phone.
“Because I want to be the last person down to make sure all the details are looked after,” Nina says.
Everyone does their thing, Nina a wan presence lurking over us. She told me in the car on the way over that she tried to take her prescription pain meds this morning but couldn’t keep anything down.
“Haley, you sure you don’t want someone to walk you?” Nina asks.
I nod, thinking again of Jerry and how much I could use his sense of humor and perspective right about now.
“Okay. Start from there.”
I take my place at the doors and count to four before starting down the aisle. My gaze roves the empty pews, and my fingers hook in my belt loops as I think of all the people who will fill those seats in a few days.
“You need something to hold on to.” Serena fishes in her bag, producing one of the tiny liquor bottles from the car last night.
Nina makes a retching sound, covering her hand with her mouth.
“Here, Haley. Pretend it’s flowers.”
That’s how I end up walking down the aisle of a church toward the gaping hole my fiancé, who refused to sleep in our bed last night, should be occupying.
Oh, and I’m pregnant and clutching a mini bottle of hard liquor.
When I get to the end of the aisle, the doors bang open behind us. Relief has me sagging when I see Jax stalking toward us in a dark-blue button-down over jeans.
“Well. Look who decided to show,” Nina says on a wheezing breath.
“The hell happened to her?” Jax demands.
“Long story. I’m glad you’re here,” I tell him.
His cloud. “Yeah. Me too.”
As we rehearse the ceremony, my mind keeps escaping to how we left things last night.
I understand how Jax could read me working three days before the wedding as being distracted, but he doesn’t understand why.
Because you won’t tell him.
Still, I sent Carter an email this morning to say that if he didn’t have time to work on the proposal, I understood. We’d let this opportunity pass and wait on the next one.
“Haley?” The minister prompts. “It’s your words.”
“Sorry?”
“To love and cherish.”
Jax’s gaze works over me. The accusation from last night is gone, but there’s assessment in its place, as if he’s searching for an answer that’s under my skin.
“All right,” the minister says when we finish, as if supremely relieved we’ve made it this far. “Why don’t we take a break before running it one last time?”
“I’ll be back,” Jax says before turning and starting toward the side of the church.
“I’ve got him,” Mace says under his breath before following.
Serena falls into a discussion with Kyle and Brick over the optimal walking speed and how to accommodate Nina’s sling while Nina makes quiet inquiries with the minister after a garbage can.
Kyle inspects the altar, running a finger over the shiny surface. “Haley, does this look like rosewood to you?”
“Mmmm? I’m not sure.” A sudden wave of tiredness washes over me, and I sink into a pew.
Annie sits next to me, nodding at my heels. “Wanna trade shoes?”
“You’re sweet. Thanks. I could go for some water though. I think I left a bottle in the car.”
We walk back down the aisle, and she follows me outside. I hit the locks for my car and reach into the back.
“You don’t have to hide it,” she notes. Her amber eyes are like Jax’s but twice as perceptive. “I can tell you’re pregnant.”
I freeze halfway inside my vehicle, then pull back out with the bottle in my hand. “When did you know?”
“I’ve been wondering for a while. My dad doesn’t know.”
I take a long sip from the bottle. “No.”
This morning I woke up feeling nauseous for the first time. It was a stark reminder of what’s coming and the secret that still hangs between me and Jax.
The clock is ticking, but I won’t drop this news when one of us is already frustrated with seating arrangements or catering or—worse—with the other.
“I also wasn’t sure how to tell you.”
“Because you thought I’d freak out?”
“Maybe.” I take a sparkling water from the car and offer it to her. “I’d understand if you did. Freak out.”
Annie pops the drink open and leans against the car next to me. “When I was little, I always wanted a brother or sister. There were times I wished I could share everything with someone.”
My chest tightens with nerves. “And now?”
“The house has ten bedrooms. Besides, that’ll get my dad off my case, right?” Her lips curve.
Relief hits me in a wave. I hadn’t realized how much I was worried about what Annie might think, but now it feels as though some small weight has been lifted.
Annie produces Ray-Bans from somewhere in her dress and tucks them onto her head. “What’s it like? Being pregnant, I mean.”
“Strange. Your body’s not quite your own.”
“What if men had to deal with being pregnant?”
The ridiculousness of Jax contending with physical symptoms has me chuckling. “There would be a lot fewer babies,” I say drily. “Your father in particular would probably never reproduce.”
“I think about that sometimes,” Annie blurts. “My mom. The woman who gave birth to me. He’s never told me about her.”
I shift on my feet, my heels leaving holes in the gravel of the parking lot. “Me either.”
“Does it bother you?”
“No,” I say honestly. “I know that he was young and on the road and that she wasn’t a big part of his life romantically. But in some ways, she’ll always be part of him because she gave him you.”
She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, and I wonder what’s going on in her head.
“Would you tell someone?” I ask her. “Your dad, or me, if you were having sex?”
She quirks a brow. “I’m not looking for sex tips from my dad and stepmom.” I feel a flush crawl up my face. “Just because I know what you guys do together doesn’t mean I want to know, you know…what you do together.”
I hold up a hand, and it takes me a second to come up with an answer. “That’s not what I mean.” I must look super uncomfortable, because Annie laughs, and I can’t resist smiling too. “But it’s an important time. With a lot of change and a lot of feelings and a lot of big decisions.”
“You wouldn’t try to stop me?”
There’s probably some right answer to this question, but I don’t know what it is. All I know is that Jax and I both want her to feel supported and make the best choices she can. And we’ll have her back no matter what.
I take a breath. “When my mom talked to me about sex, she never bullshitted me. I appreciated that. She said, ‘If you’re old enough to do it, you’re old enough to decide.’ I believe that.”
“The first time you did… it wasn’t my dad.”
“No. Although it was different with your dad. Is different.”
She lifts a hand. “Okay, leaving the region of girl talk and approaching the city limits of TMI.”
I swallow a laugh.
“How did you know he was the one?”
I turn the question over in my head. “Every time I looked at him, I wanted him. Not physically,” I rush as she turns green, “but I wanted inside his head. His soul.”
As I say it, I realize it’s true. We’ve been through so much together—the early days on his tour, how he opened up to me the way he wouldn’t with anyone else. How he took the time to get to know me, a nameless intern. How even when there was no honest way we should have been together, he came after me.
And even when I left him, even when I pushed him, he never let go of me. Not in his heart. For every time we’ve struggled, we’ve come back stronger.
“He never does
things the easy way, but he fights for what he loves. And everything he does…” My mouth twitches at the corners as I remember things. “He’s poetry.”
Annie smiles a little. “You are to him, too. I never saw him look at anyone the way he looks at you. You’re the answer to every question he has.”
Surprise has me shifting, assessing her with new eyes.
Annie seems so young, but in some ways, she’s nearly grown. In a matter of months, she’ll be driving without supervision, taking AP classes, considering colleges.
“I guess we should head back in,” she says before I can come up with a response.
I follow her up the front steps and into the foyer to search out my almost-husband, feeling a little lighter than I have in days.
Jax
* * *
“They’ll be in this room, flitting around like butterflies,” I tell Tyler, who’s leaning against a column in the aisle off to the side, out of view of the chapel. “Everything a seventeen-year-old kid could dream of.”
He looks at me, his brown eyes intelligent and serious. “You think I should introduce myself to one of the producers who’ll be here for the wedding.”
“No, I’ll do the introducing.”
Mace comes up beside us, and I nod to him to help.
“Err, yeah,” he supplies. “You’ve been screwing around with Wicked and Big Leap for what, three years total? This could be your break. Land a contract. Go on tour. Every kid’s fantasy.”
There’s been too much out of my control this week, and I’m remedying that right now. Carter was the first fix.
The second is the boy standing in front of me, looking between me and Mace with a mix of wariness and amusement.
I don’t know what he’s doing or not doing with my daughter, but there’s an easy way to make sure it never happens: fill his head with dreams of stardom plus the means of getting there, and he’ll forget all about my kid.
Tyler finally replies, “Who said a record deal’s what I want?”
It’s my turn to stare. “It’s what every musician wants.”
“It wasn’t what you wanted,” he tosses back, reminding me I was forced into it in order to keep my family fed and sheltered.
“No, but everyone I’ve ever worked with has been kind enough to point out that I’m fucked up like that.”
Mace looks as perplexed as me.
For the first time, I think about how much I know of this kid.
I’ve spent time in the studio with him for more than a year. He not only helped me get Haley back, for which I’ll be forever grateful, but he’s also helped with the programming at Big Leap. Hell, if I was starting as a frontman today, I’d be lucky to have Tyler at my side.
He’s talented. I wouldn’t bullshit him about that. Even though we’re in a church, my religion is music. It’s my truth and my soul and everything real.
At seventeen, he has more possibility in his little finger than I ever had.
“You don’t want to be famous? For everyone to know who you are?” Mace adds. “You’re insane. The attention. The validation. The money doesn’t suck either.”
Tyler looks past me in that way teenagers do, as if you’re more air than flesh and they’re considering things beyond your grasp. “I appreciate the offer, but I’d rather not have so much money I wonder if my friends are my friends. Where everyone wants a cut of you, no matter where they take it from. Where everything I care about is at risk of being taken from me.”
Some people think all troubled childhoods leave the same scars. I know better.
The marks left by our parents, our families, our circumstances, are as unique as a fingerprint.
I don’t know the details of his situation, but life experience tells me his jeans aren’t shredded by a designer. The scuffed Converse sneakers were on someone else’s feet before his. And despite it all, every time you put a guitar in his hands, he lights up like the sun.
My gaze works over him, thinking of the million questions I have.
I settle on one.
“What’s wrong with your hair? Last time I saw it, it was blue. Hell, every time I’ve seen it, it’s been blue.”
Tyler rubs a hand over his neck. “Thought this might be more respectful. Since it’s a wedding and all.”
“Well,” I say at last, “if you change your mind about meeting producers, you let me know.”
“Sure.” He nods as if we’re peers. “But I won’t.”
As Tyler walks away, Mace says, “What the hell was that?”
I stare after the kid. “An interesting development.”
Tyler talks like he doesn’t give a shit about the world’s temptations. The fact that he changed his look means he cares about fitting in with our family. He wants to do the right thing, even if he’s not sure what that is.
This past week, I’ve been worrying about him and my daughter.
But this changes things.
“Any word from Fiona?”
Mace’s voice drags me back.
“Got a call from the lawyer on my way over. It’s why I was late. She insisted it was a card and nothing more.”
“You don’t think she’s out of the picture?” Mace echoes my doubt.
My hands tighten into fists. “Not when a track on her phone shows she’s in Dallas.”
I’ve barely gotten the words out when a loud voice drags our attention back to toward the pews.
“What the hell, Brick?” Serena’s gesturing wildly with the iPad Brick was playing games on earlier.
“I didn’t mean to tell him!”
She throws it at him, and he catches it inches from his face.
“If it’s not a big deal, why are you freaking out?” Wes’s usual calm voice is raised.
“I’m not freaking out. You’re the one who sits on this all night, then ambushes me in the middle of a church!”
“Right. Because my girlfriend slept with a rock star in the wedding party and didn’t tell me, and I’m in the wrong here.”
My head swivels, trying to find Nina.
I spot her dress on the far side of the pews, where she’s bent over what looks like an urn, emptying the contents of her stomach.
Haley and Annie are frozen right inside the doors.
I stalk toward the altar, trying to figure out how to get this all under control, when Kyle’s voice grabs my attention.
“This church in Dallas supposedly helps its fellow man, but does it?” Kyle strokes the altar, tilting his camera phone down. “This altar is made of rosewood, an endangered tree species with an illegal black market trade worth millions of dollars a year.”
“What is going on here?!” the wide-eyed minister interrupts before I can take charge, his voice shaking as he surveys the scene.
“No shouting. This is a place of worship. And that urn you defiled is an antique!” he screeches at Nina, wresting it from her hands as she guiltily meets his gaze.
“And you!” He stalks toward Kyle. “No social media exposés.” He knocks the phone from my drummer’s hands.
“We are finished for today. Everybody out!”
“Father—” I say.
“I need you out from under my roof.”
Wes moves up the aisle, and I’m grateful for a voice of reason as he stops in front of the minister.
“I thought it was God’s roof,” Wes says.
Mace and I exchange a look before the minister’s face turns purple as he points a shaking hand toward the doors. “Out!”
11
Haley
“Well, that was interesting,” Annie says as she drops into a lounge chair on the patio.
Serena sits next to her, Wes hovering between them. Tyler takes a seat on the low stone wall a few feet away, and Brick, Kyle, and Mace find seats too. We’re all facing one another except Nina, who stands next to the pool, staring at the surface.
The drive back was near silent, as if we were all stunned we had been kicked out of a church.
“I need
to make some calls,” Nina says, reaching for her phone with her bad hand and cursing as she realizes what she’s done.
“No.” Jax’s low voice rumbles as he emerges from the patio doors. “What we need is to get on the same damn page. This week hasn’t been easy, but we dealt with bigger problems on tour all the time.”
“It’s true.” Serena shifts out of her chair, nodding to Nina. “You’ve run tours your entire life, and you want to plan weddings. The shoulder thing sucks, but you’re living your dream.” She turns to Mace, Brick, and Kyle. “You guys are the best band on the planet. You’ve always been there for Jax. This shouldn’t be any different.” Finally, she takes in Wes, who’s eyeing her with a combination of longing and mistrust. “I know this week has come with some surprises, but we all have a history, Wes. That doesn’t mean we’d repeat it.”
“She’s right,” I say, and every head turns to me. “Every wedding comes with its share of craziness.” I take in my almost-husband. “Ours was bound to have more than most.
“What we need is to take a break,” I decide.
Jax’s eyes harden on mine, and Serena sucks in a breath.
“Not you and me, Jax,” I hurry to add. “All of us. Today.”
“How?” Mace asks.
“Haley, there’s so much still to do,” Nina adds. “Decorations and final check and—”
I hold up a hand. “I understand. And I will pitch in to make sure everything comes together, even if that means setting up flower arrangements and laying out table numbers. And I know Jax will too.”
Shock and horror cross Nina’s face. “Absolutely not.”
I wave her off. “The point is we’re family. Everyone here has been through it together. We’ll do this together, too.”
Before anyone can respond, Jax reaches into his pocket for his phone, staring at the screen in annoyance. “What the…?”
“What?”
“C’mon.” He hits a button, then starts toward the house. We all follow, trailing him through the main floor and spilling out onto the front porch to find a giant van pulling up the driveway.
Not a van. A bus.
