by Lisa Suzanne
“Down to the final two and you’re still talking to him?” Tyler asks Lexi when he saunters up to us.
Turns out Tyler isn’t such a bad dude. I get why he did what he did, and when last week’s episode aired and we saw his confession to the MFB guys, I had to at least respect that he didn’t fuck up the final two with his shenanigans.
We’re ushered into the screening room.
We watch the episode.
Lexi grips my hand in hers.
I glance over at her a few times to see whether she’s upset since this is the episode where she lost, but I’ve gotten to know her pretty well over the last couple months.
Her eyes are shining. She’s excited for me, but she’s also happy in her own right. Sometimes we think we want one thing, but life has other plans. Turns out sometimes those other plans are even better than what we wished for in the first place.
Lexi loves her new role with Ashmark. She loves writing music and perfecting it. She loves interviewing musicians and managers. She loves building her band with some of the best in the business behind her.
And she loves me.
The crazy fool who used to have long hair and dress up like Nikki Sixx six times a week and made a total transformation from douchebag player to a committed man very much in love.
I watch her up on the screen. She has a beautiful grace about her that translates to the stage.
And then, just before I’m announced as the winner, we see her in a confessional. “I fell in love with him in three days, and then I had to leave him. The last thing I wanted to do was abandon him. It’s too fresh to say those feelings might go away someday, because I don’t think they will.”
Then we see me in a similar confessional. “I really love her. If she wins, I want her to fly. I don’t want to be the one who holds her back.”
Then it’s back to her. “One of us is going to be the winner of this entire thing. We both have hopes and dreams beyond this competition, and I refuse to be the one to hold him back from getting everything he deserves.”
I glance over at her. “I love you,” I murmur. She squeezes my hand.
“I love you, too,” she murmurs back. The show cuts to commercial before I’m announced as the winner, and she leans over and presses a gentle kiss to my mouth.
It’s only later, when we’re alone and the party is long over, that she addresses something she said in that confessional. “I meant everything I said, Gage. The last thing I ever wanted to do was abandon you.” My chest tightens at her words. She knows my fears, and she knows me. “And I never will. I lost the battle, and I may not be MFB’s replacement bassist, but I didn’t lose the war.”
I tangle my fingers in her silky hair and pull her flush against me before I kiss her the way she deserves to be kissed for the rest of her life.
And she will be once I get up the nerve to give her that shiny diamond I’ve got stashed away in the back of my dresser at my place.
It was my first purchase with my first MFB paycheck, and I spent nearly the entire sum on a ring for her. Maybe hindsight will tell me that was a dumb move, but I want to share everything in my life with her—the wins, the losses, the love, and even the hard times.
I finally learned what love is when the right woman stepped into my life to show me. That alone makes me feel like I won the war.
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Thanks for reading The Replacement War! If you enjoyed this story and want to spend a little more time with the MFB boys, be sure to pick up the bonus epilogue to see what’s next for Gage and Lexi. CLICK HERE to download!
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Want more MFB? Check out Take My Heart, Dax’s story! CLICK HERE to grab your copy.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My first thanks as always is to my family. Thanks to my husband for your support and love. Without you, I wouldn’t have had time to write this book (or any of them). And thanks to my kids for making me want to be the best mom and human I can be.
I can’t believe this is the last MFB book. When I wrote Not Just Another Romance Novel in 2015, I had no intentions of writing standalone novels for every member of My Favorite Band. But by the time 2018 rolled around, their stories needed to be told, and here we are SIX BOOKS later. Whether you’ve been on the journey for all of them (including their inception in NJARN) or this is your first rodeo, I hope you love these rock stars as much as I do. I’m not ready to say goodbye to them, but maybe that’s because I don’t have to. Dax is pretty tight with Mark Ashton, and it seems like there are more opportunities for those bands signed to Ashmark and other bands who might appear on Rock on the Road, so I don’t think we’ve seen the last of these boys just yet...
I want to thank Trenda London from It’s Your Story Content Editing, Diane Holtry for beta reading, Najla Qamber for the perfect cover design, Wander Aguiar for taking such beautiful photographs that nail my characters everytime, and Katie Harder-Schauer from Proofreading by Katie. You’re my team, and I couldn’t do this without you.
A big shout out to Give Me Books, my ARC team, Team LS, the Vail Tail Fangirls, and all the bloggers who read, post, and review.
To you, my reader, thank you for reading. I can’t wait to bring you the next adventure, and (*hint*hint*) it’s something totally brand new.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lisa Suzanne is a romance author who resides in Arizona with her husband and two kids. She’s a former high school English teacher and college composition instructor. When she's not chasing or cuddling her kids, she can be found working on her latest book or watching reruns of Friends.
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BOOKS BY LISA SUZANNE
MY FAVORITE BAND STANDALONES
TAKE MY HEART
THE BENEFITS OF BAD DECISIONS
WAKING UP MARRIED
DRIVING ME CRAZY
IT’S ONLY TEMPORARY
A LITTLE LIKE DESTINY SERIES
A LITTLE LIKE DESTINY (Book One)
ONLY EVER YOU (Book Two)
CLEAN BREAK (Book Three)
THE UNBREAKABLE THREAD DUET
THE POWER TO BREAK (Book One)
THE POWER TO BREAK - AUDIOBOOK
THE INVISIBLE THREAD (Book Two)
THE INVISIBLE THREAD - AUDIOBOOK
CLICK HERE FOR MORE
