Only The Beginning (Rockin' Country)

by Briscoe, Laramie

  “Love you too, and I am so glad that you invited me here. I really have missed you,” she said with uncharacteristic tears in her eyes. Marie Thompson was a strong woman, and she hardly let anything ever get her down, but the water he saw swimming there hit him in the gut.

  “I missed you too, but you’ve got me for one more day.”

  “I know, but that doesn’t mean that it’s enough. I hope you slow down, we’re all missing you,” she told him wiping at her cheeks.

  “I’m planning on it very soon.”

  She nodded and went over to stand with his dad as they watched Hannah put on her show. Quickly he uploaded his picture to Instagram, tagging his mom and Hannah.

  Me and my beautiful mother @ReapersMom watching the equally beautiful @HarmonyStewart kill it tonight here in Vegas.

  “Hey, Shell,” he yelled as he realized what song Hannah was on.

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you get that shirt I asked you to?”

  She grinned. “I did, let me go grab it for you. She’s going to call you out on stage during the next song.”

  He waited patiently for Shell to come back, and when she did, he shed his shirt and placed the one she had handed him over his body. It fit very tightly. “Does this make me look fat?” he joked, trying to stretch the sleeves so that they didn’t cut into his arm muscles.

  “That’s the biggest we have, and you know all those are feminine cut. You look ridiculous,” she giggled. Jared sat next to her, tears streaming down his face as he laughed.

  “Do I look that bad?”

  “Damn, son. What the hell are you wearing?” Kevin asked as he and Marie got a good look at what was going on.

  “It’s a Harmony Stewart shirt, but they aren’t made for 6’3”, 245 pound men,” he said as he stretched the bottom of the shirt, hoping that it covered his stomach. A flash in the corner caught his eye. “Oh, tell me you didn’t just take a picture of me,” Garrett pointed at Shell.

  “It’s not like all those people out there aren’t going to do it once you walk on stage,” she reasoned. “Just let me have my fun.”

  “Y’all want to see my boyfriend Reaper come out here?” they heard Hannah ask the crowd from on stage. When there was an overwhelming scream of affirmation, he plastered a smile on his face, made sure his sunglasses were in place, as well as the hat he normally wore on stage, before making his way out.

  “Tell me,” Jared said, putting his arm around Shell’s neck and pulling her against his side. “Did you purposely get him a smaller shirt? You can be honest.”

  She bit her lip, shaking with the effort it was taking to hold in her laugh. “I did. It’s a large; I can’t believe he even got it over his head.”

  “That was great. He’s going to be so pissed when he looks at that tag.”

  “No he won’t,” she shook her head. “I removed it.”

  “You’re kinda evil, and I kinda like that,” he told her, his mouth close to her ear.

  “Thanks,” she smiled. “It takes one to know one.”

  He kissed her temple, and they both turned their attention to what was happening on stage.

  “So y’all may have heard or read, or seen in some magazine or online, that I’m dating this guy right here. Who is looking hilarious in a Harmony Stewart shirt,” she laughed, bending over at the waist.

  “Hey, it takes a real man to wear a Harmony Stewart t-shirt,” he said deeply into his mic. “I’m a real man when it comes to this woman,” he told the crowd.

  They roared in approval. “It sounds like you’ve won them over.” She pointed out to the crowd. “So do you want to sing with me or not?”

  “Why you gotta put me on the spot like that?” he teased her.

  “I dunno, I seem to remember a bet that was made between the two of us. Your part of that bet was that you have to sing with me.” She walked up to him and tilted her head back to look at him.

  “I guess you’re right. You did do your part, so now I guess it’s time for me to do mine. What do you want me to sing?” he asked her, putting an arm around her waist.

  “We seem to sing one song pretty well, and my band learned it just for you. Do you think we could do it again?”

  “Does this crowd know it?” he asked out to the crowd. It was his song, he wasn’t sure that they would know it. They screamed that they did. “Well if you know it, why don’t you start it off?” He held his mic out to the crowd, and a large grin broke over his face as they sang the opening line and the band started.

  “I think they do know it,” Hannah grinned right along with him.

  For the first time, he thought that maybe he would fit into her life. Maybe together they would help and not hinder one another.

  * * *

  “I about died when you came out on stage wearing that shirt,” Hannah laughed. They sat at the table in their suite, eating room service.

  “Tell me the truth. Was that shirt really an extra-large?” Garrett asked as he looked at Shell. “That damn thing about cut the circulation off on my arms.”

  “They told me it was,” she answered vaguely.

  “For some reason I don’t believe you, but I’ll let it go for now.” He pointed at her, a mock scowl on his face.

  “Did you two like it?” Hannah asked his parents. They were sitting at the table with them, also eating, but the older couple looked tired.

  “I don’t know how you have so much energy. Just watching you, I feel like I need to go have a nap,” Marie told her, taking a bite of her burger.

  “I am kind of tired tonight, but it’s like when you get on stage, you just feed off the crowd. Heaven forbid your crowd sucks, because then it can be like pulling teeth.” She wrinkled her nose. “Those nights aren’t fun.”

  “I can’t imagine that you ever have a crowd that’s not excited to see you.”

  Shell and Hannah both laughed, loudly. “You weren’t around for her early years. There were many nights that she played to around five people. On more than one occasion, those five people were pervy old men who wanted to know if she would be willing to give them a blow job for a little bit of extra money, and I was only her makeup artist back then. I wasn’t even around for everything.”

  “Are you serious?” Kevin asked. “You were very young.”

  “She is absolutely telling the truth,” Hannah confirmed. “I was nineteen or twenty. It was definitely something that I wasn’t used to. It was crazy, because these men could see that we were hungry, that we were riding around in a van. My mom came with me sometimes, but she and my dad own their own business and she was needed at home. I told her that since I was technically an adult, she could let me go on my own. Sometimes that wasn’t the best idea, but we made it through.”

  “It’s made you appreciate this a lot more hasn’t it?” Garrett asked.

  “Oh yeah, I remember when I had to share a hotel room with my band. Now I have my own suite. I’m not gonna forget where I came from. That’s for sure.”

  Garrett’s phone buzzed, and he looked at it before laughing loudly. “Stacey’s sad,” he told them.

  “Who’s Stacey?” Shell asked.

  “My sister,” Garrett told her, showing the picture to everybody. She was sitting on what looked like her bed with the picture of Garrett and Marie behind her on her laptop, her bottom lip sticking out in a mock pout.

  He connected to FaceTime with the push of a button. “You were invited, you brat.” He didn’t even start the call with a ‘hello’, and Hannah had to shake her head.

  “Some of us have class,” she told him, and Hannah had to do a double take. Their accents were so similar. “Some of us also have overbearing older brothers who bitch if we don’t bring home a certain GPA average.”

  “Hey, if you’re gonna do something; you gotta give it all you got, balls to wall and alla that.”

  “If you haven’t noticed, bro, I don’t have balls.”

  “As if you couldn’t tell, she gets her mouth from him,” Marie p
ut her face in her hands. “He had absolutely way too much influence on her as a child.”

  “Is that mom?” she asked.

  “It is,” he turned so that she could see the rest of them. “And we also have Hannah, and her friend Shell, you know Jared, and then there’s mom and dad.”

  “Nice to meet the two of you,” she waved. “I so should have come,” she sighed.

  “We’ll come again. You graduate next month,” he told her.

  “Finals are the first week of May, my last final is Wednesday. If you want to be an absolutely kick-ass brother, you could fly me out Wednesday night.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Jared, what we got going on?”

  “Our last concert is that Tuesday night. It’s the final add-on at the back end of the tour,” he told them as he scrolled through his phone.

  “Then we’ll all come out, how’s that?” he asked her.

  “Will Hannah be there too?”

  Hannah didn’t want to speak up because she wasn’t sure if that’s what Stacey wanted. Maybe she wanted to spend time alone with her older brother.

  “Do you want her to be? You have to speak up, sis. Can’t read your fuckin’ mind.”

  “I would love to meet her. I definitely want her to come along. Can she?”

  “I don’t know. Can you, babe?” he asked, turning to look at Hannah.

  “The first week?” she confirmed to make sure she had heard the conversation correctly.

  “That Tuesday night through Friday, would that be too long? Stace, we’ll stay until Sunday if you want, but that’s a long time to ask her to stay, especially if she’s still touring.”

  “Sounds good,” Stacey answered.

  Both Hannah and Shell were looking through agendas on their phone. “Well what the fuck do you know?” Shell grinned, looking up at Hannah.

  “Did you really have to say that?”

  “I did, her last concert on this leg is that Monday. Then she’s off for a full six weeks. How awesome is that?”

  “All right, Stace. We’re partying big in Vegas in two weeks. Go big or go home. Better get your liver prepared,” he grinned, his dimples deepening in his cheeks.

  “Shut up, Garrett.”

  “You better be nice to me or you won’t be coming out here at all,” he told her.

  “Garrett,” Marie chastised him from the other side of the table. “She’s working hard and she deserves it.”

  “Thank you, Mom,” she heard from the phone.

  “Okay, okay, so I’ll send you the info that you need. We’ll see ya. Love you, Stace.”

  “Love you too! It was nice to see everybody,” she said as he turned his phone and she waved at the group.

  After he hung up, he turned to the group, a big smile on his face. “Vegas twice in two months, oh fuck yeah!”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  * * *

  “Do we have to leave here today?” Hannah asked as she lay in bed, her head on Garrett’s chest. His hand rubbed against her back, much like it had the morning before.

  “Unfortunately. And you have to be gone way earlier than we do. At least I get to spend a little bit of extra time with my parents, but I would love to spend some more time with you,” he admitted, kissing her forehead.

  “I know, but you heard what Shell said last night. In a mere fourteen days we will have a whole six weeks free. Obviously, I don’t think we’ll spend that whole six weeks together, but maybe we can spend some of it together. I would love for you to meet my parents, and I would love to see your house in California. Just, you know, do regular couple things.”

  He sat up in the bed, bringing her with him. “I think we do normal couple things now. I mean, it would be nice to spend the day in bed with you, no clothes on, no place to go. I think that’s gonna be the first thing I do with you when we see each other over the long break. Keep your cute ass in bed for one full day. Do everything I’ve always wanted to do to you,” his grin was salacious and it warmed her—to know that he wanted her this much.

  “If that’s what you want to do, who am I to stop you?”

  “Exactly, who are you to stop me?”

  “Nobody,” she squealed as he tickled her sides so that she moved up his body, trying to get away.

  He hauled her over his body and pulled her face so that it nestled in the crook of his neck. He ran his hands over her hair, smoothing it back from her neck and cheeks. Surprised, he felt wetness on his neck. “Hey.” He cupped her cheeks and pulled her back from him. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s stupid,” she laughed, scrubbing at her face with her hands.

  “No, it’s not,” he told her, pushing her back so that he could completely see her. “What’s got you upset? Please talk to me.”

  Letting the wall around her emotions slip was the hardest thing she ever did, but something told her she should allow him to see this side of her. “I don’t want to leave you,” she admitted, her lower lip trembling.

  “Oh, babe, I don’t wanna leave you either.” He hugged her tightly to him.

  She gripped his shirt in her hands, and she held on for dear life as she sniffled. “It’s stupid, I know the life we lead, and I know this is going to be the way our lives are. I don’t know why it’s getting to me today,” she whispered.

  “Because, for me anyway, I feel like these past few days have given us a taste of how our lives could be. How they will be at one point, when we get everything straightened out.”

  “Exactly,” the tremble in her voice was killing him. “I don’t want to lose that. Because I feel like if I leave here today, I’m going to lose it, and we won’t get it back.”

  He knew without her having to say the words that this was leftover bullshit from Ashton, and he knew that he would have to deal with it. There were no words that he could say that would make her forget about it. The only thing that would make her forget out about it would be him showing her that this was going to be different.

  “Look at me.” He pushed her head up with his hands, forcing her eyes to look at him. “We aren’t going to lose this. What we’re going to do is build on it. Just because we’ve had a great few days doesn’t mean that’s all this is going to be. We know we’re going to see each other in a few weeks. We can make it, remember, you were just telling me. It’s only going to be fourteen days. But you’ve got to stop crying, you’re tearing me apart,” he told her, allowing his own walls to come down and moisture to pool in his eyes.

  “You’re right,” she sighed. “You’re right. I just gotta get my head around it.”

  “We’ll just keep doing what we’ve been doing. No relationship with either one of us is going to be easy, and it may be a little bit more difficult because we’re both entertainers, but we will make this work. We’re the only ones who can make it work. We’re also the only ones who can put doubt there about our situation.” He kissed her softly on the lips. “I’m in this with you, are you in this with me?”

  “I am,” her mouth tilted at the corner. “And I know you’re right. Together, we can make this work.”

  “Damn straight.”

  * * *

  “Thank you for inviting us out to spend time with all of you,” Kevin told them as they stood in front of Hannah’s bus.

  “You are so welcome, and it was such a pleasure to meet and hang out with the two of you. I can see where Garrett gets all his quirks and amazing qualities from,” she told them as she hugged each of them. “Will the two of you be here when we come back?”

  “I think Vegas once in six months is enough for us,” Marie confessed. “We’re getting just a little too old for this.”

  “Then I will definitely see you when I come to California in a few weeks, and you two will have to come see me in Nashville. It’s not Vegas, but it’s got its own small town/big city feel. I think the two of you would like it.”

  “We will, we’ll plan something soon.” Marie hugged her again. “Thank you for caring about my son, I see it in your eyes.
He seems much more settled, even in the short time the two of you have been together.”

  “You are very welcome, and I think he cares for me too, at least I hope it’s not one-sided,” she teased.

  “It’s not, at all. Trust me on that one, pretty girl. It’s not one-sided at all.”

  Hannah laughed and hugged the older woman one more time. Kevin also offered her another hug. She waved at Jared, knowing that she would see him again very soon. The next person on her list was Garrett.

  “I’m not gonna cry this time,” she did her best to grin.

  “I’m going to hold you to that. I can’t stand to see that right now,” he told her, putting his arms around her and lifting her against him.

  “So I’m not saying goodbye, I’m just saying see you when I see you.” She reached up, clasping her arms around his neck and burying her hands in his hair.

  “Is that how we’re going to do it?”

  She nodded. “That’s how we’re going to do it.”

  “Then I will be seeing you when I see you,” he told her, leaning down to give her one last kiss.

  He held her in his arms for what felt like hours. But after a while, Shell came off the bus. “We gotta be leaving to stay on schedule, Hannah. Let’s go.” She touched Hannah’s arm lightly and directed her onto the bus.

  “See you,” she blew a kiss at Garrett.

  He waved, a smile on his face, but there were no dimples, which meant the smile wasn’t genuine. He was hurting as much as she was, and there was some comfort in that thought as she boarded the bus.

  “Sucks, doesn’t it?” Shell asked, putting her arms around her friend and putting their heads together.

  “It really does, but we’ll FaceTime later, and it will be just like it was last week. I just hate that I got used to him, you know?”

  “I know, but it’ll make those times that you are together that much better,” Shell assured her. “You know what they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder.”