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by Laurelin Paige

  And when she looks up and sees me, my breath catches. Even with no makeup and puffy eyes, she’s absolutely stunning.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey.”

  It’s there, the current of electricity that flows between us whenever we’re in a room together. The energy that has my dick perking up and makes it hard to keep my hands off her. It’s more than just a sexual thing, though. It’s a whole-being thing. A cosmic confirmation that we are two people who are better as one. It’s like two notes of an interval—they both have their own identity and sound, but together, they’re music.

  That’s what we are together—the perfect song.

  She wipes her hands on her pant legs then twists them together, as though she doesn’t know what to do with them. “You, um. You look good,” she says.

  And I realize I’m an idiot because I should have said that to her.

  “I don’t look good,” I tell her, throwing my hand through my hair. And I don’t. I haven’t slept in days, and all I’ve eaten is junk food. I always go somewhat off the self-care wagon when tour’s over, but I’m not even near the wagon anymore. I’ve missed her too much to worry about myself. “But you do. You’re breathtaking. Literally.”

  She pulls at her ponytail. “You’re just being nice. I’m a mess. Literally.” She tries to smile, but it quickly fades into a soft pout. “Is that it?” She points to the script under my arm. “Is that what you wanted to discuss?”

  Before I can answer she corrects herself. “Where are my manners? Would you like to sit? Can I get you something? To drink or eat?” She’s already rushing past me to what I assume is the kitchen.

  I reach out and grab her wrist—gently. Just to stop her. “Nat?”

  At my touch, she inhales sharply and looks down at the place we’re joined, and I know I should let her go, but I can’t. It feels too good to touch her.

  She doesn’t pull away either. Just stares down while she answers. “Yeah?”

  “It’s just me. It’s just us. I don’t need anything.” Nothing but her, anyway. “But I will sit. If you’ll sit with me?”

  “Uh huh.” She’s still staring at my hold on her wrist. I can feel her pulse under my fingers. It’s a fast bass drum, and while I’m ecstatic that I can still get her heart racing, I decide to give her a break and let her hand go as I walk over to the couch to take a seat.

  She follows slowly. I can see the gears in her mind turn as she’s trying to decide if she wants to sit in the spot next to me or on the chair nearby.

  She compromises, choosing the couch, but leaving a very well defined space between us. I’ll take it. At least we’re sitting together inside her house. She’s willing to listen, to read. I’d half-expected her not to let me in the front door.

  Now that I think about it, she actually didn’t let me in the front door.

  I owe Hadley flowers and a thank-you note.

  Natalia fidgets with her earring, her eyes darting from the script to my mouth to my eyes and back to the script again. “So is that . . . ?”

  “Yes. This is the script,” I say. I start to hand it to her, but when she puts her hand out to take it, I suddenly pull it back.

  She looks at me with a confused expression.

  Totally understandable, because I’m confused too. This is not what I’d planned. I’d thought I’d give her the script and let it speak for me, but suddenly I have more I want to tell her, and it comes pouring out with no rehearsal. “Look, Natalia. I think you have a misconception about where I’m headed next in life, and I think these ideas are based on my age. What you’ve forgotten is that my childhood ended a long time ago. I haven’t been the ‘kid’ you’ve pegged me as all along. I stopped going to traditional school when I was twelve. I lost my virginity at thirteen. I made my first million by fourteen. I’ve been emancipated from my parents since I was sixteen. I’ve fucked enough girls to know what I like, and what I want. Who I like and want. I’ve partied all over the world. My career is exactly what I want it to be. I’m not just starting out—I’ve built what I want to build. And now I’m ready for something real and permanent and stable. I don’t want a stereotypical twenty-three-year-old serious relationship. I want to be with a woman who inspires me and makes me think and challenges me. A woman who will go to Disney World and the library with me and let me fuck her on the balcony and have my babies. I want you.”

  Her eyes brim with tears. “Nick, I’m—”

  I cut her off. “Hold on. Please. I’m not finished.” I hand over the script I’ve printed up from an email I’d sent my director a few weeks ago now. “Just read this. It will tell you everything about how I feel.”

  The video is for my last album’s next single, called “I Can Love You Right.” I was single when I wrote it, and the feelings of real love that I’d captured in the lyrics were all based on what I wished I could say to a woman.

  A month ago, when my director asked what my vision was for the shoot, all I could picture was my time with Natalia. I’m usually pretty loose on what I want for my videos. I let my directors have creative control. But this time, I wrote the concept up in detail—vignettes of my real-life romance with Nat. Nat and I gyrating together at the nightclub. Nat and I at the coffee shop. Nat and I covered in mud. The astonishing moment Natalia Lowen came into my dressing room shower. Nat in a helicopter with me flying over the city. Nat and I at an amusement park.

  “Nick, it’s us!” she gasps when she’s through the first page. It’s more than us. Not a documentary, but an homage—a vision of where we’ve been and where I hope we’re going.

  I nod, not wanting to interrupt her reading before she finishes. I watch her as her eyes scan the second page, waiting until she gets to the climax—Nat and I watching fireworks—and then I get down on my knee and present her with a diamond ring.

  I can tell when she gets there. A tear rolls down her cheek and she claps a shaking hand over her mouth.

  “If you think what I said to you last week was me being impulsive,” I tell her, “then look at the timestamp on the email.”

  Her brow crinkles as she turns back to the first page to find it. When she discovers the script was conceived and written weeks before our breakup, goosebumps break out on her skin.

  I scoot closer to her. “I already wanted to marry you,” I say quietly, brushing a tear from each of her cheeks with my thumb. “When we filmed this, I was planning to give you a ring. A real ring, not one from a costume department. I’d already bought one for you. I was planning this all along, Natalia. I’d give it to you in the video, but you’d wear it forever. Not because I’m grasping at trying to keep you—you and the pedestal I’ve had you on. Not because I’m immature and impulsive. I haven’t proposed to any woman before, or ever wanted to. Part of the reason I’ve always been so attracted to you is because you’re the first woman I’ve been with who’s on the same path I am. I meant it when I said I’d marry you today. I’ll put a baby in you tonight. This is real for me.”

  The tears are falling faster now, and she blinks to try to stop them. I want to hold her in my arms and kiss them off of her face, but we aren’t quite there yet, and she needs a tissue. Looking around, I find a box on the end table next to me. I hand her a few, and she nods in gratitude before dabbing at her nose.

  When she’s finished, she clears her throat and asks, “You bought me a ring?”

  “That’s the thing you got out of all that?”

  She shrugs with one shoulder. “What can I say? I like jewelry.”

  “If I’d known that was all I had to do to get your attention, I would have given you a ring that day outside the coffee shop.” I brush a stray piece of hair off her face, just to have the excuse to touch her.

  “You’ve always had my attention, Nick.” She smiles and then quickly gets serious. “And I heard what else you said. All of it. And I want to tell you, this is real for me too. So real that I got scared.”

  Her face crumples again, and I can’t help it—I h
ave to hold her. I wrap an arm around her waist and cup her chin with my other hand, tilting her face up toward mine. “What’s there to be scared of, baby? I’m here, aren’t I?”

  She’s trembling as she sinks into my touch. “You are. You’re here when I’ve tried so hard to keep you at arm’s length. You need to know it’s not you that I don’t trust. It’s me. I let the media tell me who I am. I make bad decisions where men are concerned. I fall for the wrong guys.”

  “And you think I’m the wrong guy?”

  “No. I think you’re the perfect guy. I’m afraid I’m the wrong girl.”

  My chest tightens at her vulnerable admission. I press my forehead to hers. “You’re not the wrong girl, Natalia. You’re the girl I’ve been waiting for all my life.” How can she not see it? It’s so obvious how wrapped up in her I am.

  I kiss the bridge of her nose and lean back to look at her. “Do you really mean it when you say you trust me?”

  “Yes. I really do.”

  “Then trust that I know what I want.” I slip down to the floor on one knee and pull the ring I bought out of my pocket. “Trust that I want you.”

  “Oh, Nick!”

  I hadn’t been completely sure when I came today that this proposal would be happening. It wasn’t until I saw her tear-swollen face that I knew I had to try. I’m still not one hundred percent sure she’s ready for the question, but there’s no reason to hold back anymore, and I want her as my bride.

  Taking her hand, I slip the ring on her finger. It fits perfectly. “Will you marry me?”

  I hold my breath until she answers, which is almost immediately. “Yes, Nick. I will. I’ll marry you.” She kisses me, and I kiss her. Salty, sweet kisses that taste so good I can’t stop kissing her for several minutes.

  Finally she pulls away, but it’s only to put her hand up to watch the three carats of princess-cut diamond sparkle in the sunlight streaming in from the window. “I can’t believe you picked this out without any help from me. It’s exactly what I would have chosen!”

  “I know you, babe. I keep trying to tell you.” I kiss along her neckline, unable to get enough of the taste of her. And I don’t have to! She’s mine. Forever.

  “You really want to marry an old hag?” she asks playfully, her mood a complete turnaround from where it was when Hadley let me in.

  But no one talks about my girl like that.

  I have to tickle her as punishment. “You’re the fucking prize of all prizes, and you know it. I should be asking if you really want to marry me.” Not because I don’t think that she wants to be with me—I know she wants to be with me—but because I want to hear her say it again.

  “I do. I really do.”

  We kiss again, short this time because I’m the one to pull away. “So . . . is this afternoon too soon?”

  Only barely too soon, it turns out.

  We marry two weeks later in my backyard with just my brothers, her friends, her parents, and her maternal grandfather present. We don’t tell the press, and because only the people closest to us are invited, the whole thing goes down without even one helicopter flyover.

  Natalia is dressed simply and classically in a white lace maxi with a neckline that plunges down to her belly button. Her hair is up in a loose bun and when she walks down the garden path toward me, I start to tear up.

  It doesn’t mean I’m not a man.

  I show her how much of a man I am that night when I keep her up until dawn making love to her in so many positions, I lose count. Then we collapse and sleep for a day, only leaving bed for food to refuel before doing it all over again.

  The following week, we leave for our honeymoon in beautiful . . .

  Atlanta, Georgia.

  Okay, so it’s not the paradise vacation she deserves, but Nat starts filming in a few days, and since I’ve just gotten back from tour, it’s my turn to follow where she needs to be. I’m definitely not leaving her side anytime soon, we’re used to fitting in our time together around work schedules, and the location has never really mattered. We can make the most of anywhere we are.

  This is the way we fell in love—on the road—and I imagine this will be how we’ll live our forever. We’ll travel with each other whenever possible. We’ll make it a priority to sync our calendars so that we’re together as much as possible. This kind of routine can even work with children, we decide. We’ll hire a nanny and, later, a tutor. It might be an unconventional way to raise a family, but we’ve decided we don’t give a shit about conventions. Our children will know that no one, no system, no societal rulebook will determine their path in life. They’ll get to decide on their own drumbeats.

  Or as Natalia has become fond of saying, write their own stories.

  It still doesn’t feel like a big deal for me to surprise the world by doing my own thing, but it’s new to Nat, and I’m proud of how enthusiastically she embraces it now that she’s decided that’s what she wants.

  On our honeymoon, the night before she goes back to work, she tells me she has a belated wedding present she’s working on. She calls me over to her laptop and shows me an email she’s sent.

  * * *

  To: Marlena Gratton @ Vanity Fair

  From: Natalia Lowen

  Marlena,

  I’m planning to open up about my relationship with Nick Ryder and would love for you to be the one to conduct the interview. You’ve always covered me with fairness and objectivity, and I admire that in a reporter.

  Please let me know if you’re interested in the scoop.

  Natalia

  * * *

  “I’ve been gathering pics to include,” she tells me, beaming. “I have some candid shots from Vegas and New York, and I’ll give her some wedding pics too. I’m not hiding anymore from anyone. I want the world to know how I feel about you.”

  See? She’s a new woman.

  And I’m more in love with her than ever. “I love it, Nat. But don’t release it quite yet, will you? The press still hasn’t caught on that we’re married, and I like the idea of having you all to myself a little while longer.”

  “I can stall a bit,” she says coyly. “And whatever will you do with me in the meantime?”

  “Love you,” I say. Then I move her laptop to the floor and scoot up close so I can show her exactly what I mean.

  Epilogue

  Six months later

  VANITY FAIR

  Up Close and Personal, Natalia Lowen is Her Own Complicated Woman

  by Marlena Gratton

  Natalia Lowen is lounging on a chaise in her sunroom when I’m brought in to meet her. She’s wearing white drawstring linen pants and a white oversized button-down, rolled up at the elbows. Even in her baggy outfit, it’s evident her body is in superb shape, defined by running and yoga. This is only the second time we’ve met in person, but she greets me with an effusive smile and a warm hug.

  “It’s my favorite room in the house,” she says after I’m seated on the couch adjacent to the chaise. “I fell in love with all the light the minute I saw it. It’s why we chose to live in Nick’s house and sell mine. Well, because of this room and the studio.”

  The Nick she’s referring to is former boy band singer Nick Ryder. He’s twenty-four to Natalia’s thirty-seven, and not only are the two living together, but Nick’s also her new husband. Though they wed more than six months ago in a quiet ceremony in the very backyard we’re looking at now, they didn’t announce their nuptials until just last week.

  This was a very deliberate choice, Natalia explains.

  “This has been the first relationship I’ve had in over a decade that didn’t evolve with the press constantly updating the world about our status. It’s given us the freedom to figure out how we felt about each other instead of relying on the media to tell us what we should be, or plant seeds of doubt. By the time we got married, we’d been outed as a couple, but by then we’d found we enjoy our privacy. It made sense to keep it to ourselves for a while.”

  They
hadn’t been dating long, Natalia admits, before their wedding. The two started a whirlwind romance last summer during Nick’s Want More tour. Natalia was on a break from filming and met up with Nick several times as he traveled across the country.

  The affair that spanned nearly three months culminated in a trip together at Disney World where the two were first photographed as a couple. The pictures went viral within days and soon the media had labeled Natalia as a “cougar” and a “cradle robber.” Tabloids speculated endlessly and social media was flooded with “Get U a Man That Looks at U Like Nick” memes.

  “My fans were much nicer than the press,” she tells me now. “There were some really nasty headlines, but all the letters and emails and tweets I got from my fans were very supportive. Still, the experience didn’t make us eager to blast details from the highest mountain. We decided the best approach was to not engage, and after a couple weeks of being hounded by papz, the buzz died down.”

  She frowns as she remembers it. “It wasn’t that bad of a PR explosion, in the end. I’d been afraid it would be much worse.” When I press her on the reasons she’d been worried, she shrugs dismissively. “You know. I have a certain reputation of being a good girl, and I guess I was concerned that dating a young rocker would taint that.”

  And did it?

  She wrinkles her forehead as she thinks. “I don’t know, actually. I decided I didn’t care.” She lets that sit for a moment then adds, “I’m ready for a new image, anyway. I’m bored with playing this pure and innocent role. I don’t think that’s who I ever was at heart, but I let myself act like it for the sake of my career. I feel much more at home with who I am since meeting Nick. I’m more alive and more of a risk taker. I’m more adventurous, more passionate, and definitely more in the moment. If being who I am now stops me from getting parts, so be it. I’ll make my own parts. I’m privileged to have enough cachet in Hollywood to make that happen.”