I’d thought her telling me privately had been the best moment of my life, but this right here might just even top that. She was admitting her feelings in front of the only ‘family’ she had.
Beau and Natalie’s mouths simultaneously dropped. “What?”
“I know none of this makes sense,” Bex said. “But we need to go make our statement. We’ll come home after we’re done and explain it all, okay?”
Beau fixed his eyes on me. “You better not fucking hurt her. She was a raging bitch for the last month because of you.”
I nodded. “I promise. You have my word that if I do anything to hurt her, you can kick my ass.”
“I want you to know that I’m not sure I’m okay with this,” Beau said to Bex.
“You will be,” she said, letting go of me to hug him quickly. “Because you want me to be happy, and after everything, I finally am.”
I put my hand on her stomach. “We’re going to be a family. I’ll protect them with my life.”
“Natalie told me,” Beau said to Bex. She nodded, placing her hand over mine. “I guess congratulations are in order?”
Bex nodded. “I get another chance, Beau.”
Beau looked up at me and we had a silent conversation, man to man. I understood. I’d show him, just like I’d show everyone. Including myself.
“I can’t believe we’re going to have a baby,” I said, tracing my fingers along her tattoo. “I can’t believe you said you love me.”
Bex laughed, making her stomach move. “I can’t believe it, either. Are you sure we know what the hell we’re doing?”
“I know for a fact we don’t know what we’re doing. But the great part about it is, we have no idea if we’re fucking this up or not, so let’s just go with it.”
“Sounds good to me,” Bex said. “I’m sure as hell glad this day is over. It definitely didn’t turn out the way I thought it would.”
After leaving the hospital we’d made our statement at the police station. Neither of us even knew which one had actually pulled the trigger, but I had my suspicions that Bex had done it. However, I would never say that to her because I wasn’t sure how she would feel about being the one that cost the man his life. It wasn’t a first for me, and if I had to choose one life over the other, it was a no brainer.
We’d then spent the rest of the night talking to Natalie, Beau and the band, and then we made our way over to Julia and Carter’s. Julia had bawled her eyes out when we’d told her we were together and were having a baby. She then dropped the bomb that she, too, was expecting again. Their second baby and our first were due within a week of each other. Calia was going to be a big sister and a cousin.
“Johnny,” Bex said. She sounded serious.
“Bex,” I said, teasing.
She rolled out of my bed and walked to the wall where she’d left my Gibson all those weeks ago. Picking it up, she brought it back to the bed and sat cross-legged in front of me.
“Are you going to play for me?” God I loved when she played just for me. It made me want her in so many ways.
She shook her head. “No. You’re going to play for me. And our baby. He or she needs to hear both of us.”
Tightness strangled the breath from my lungs. I shook my head, fighting the panic.
“Johnny,” she said, softer now. “You can do this. I’m right here with you. I love you, and you love me. There’s nothing holding you back anymore. All of your reasons for not playing are gone. You’re free, we’re both safe, and we’re starting a life together. I want you to play with me, Johnny. I need you to play with me.”
She needed me to play with her? “Why?”
She furrowed her brow. “Why what? Why do you I need you to play with me?” I nodded. “Because I need to feel that part of you, the part that makes you come alive. I know you, Johnny. I’d die without playing music. It’s been the only constant in my life. I know a whole part of you has been lying dormant for so many years. For you to fully heal and move on, for us to be able to do this, you need to realize that this is a big part of who you are.”
We sat in silence for a moment while I tried to calm my racing heart. She didn’t say anything else or force the guitar in my hands. She just . . . waited.
After a few minutes, Bex moved closer to me. She held out her hand to me, and I took it without hesitation. She reached our hands over and placed them on top of the guitar strings. The guitar was lying in her lap, calling to me. A feeling I couldn’t quite explain spread over me.
“That’s not so bad, is it?” Her voice was just above a whisper. After another moment she moved my fingers so that I was strumming the strings. I gasped at the feeling. It had been so long but felt like just yesterday all at the same time.
“I’m going to take my hand off,” she said. “Just touch it, okay?”
She removed her hand from mine. It was just a guitar. Why did I act like it was a poisonous snake ready to attack? Pick it up, I willed myself. We were sitting so close that our knees were touching, our bodies facing each other.
I reached over to her lap and picked up the Gibson that had been sitting mocking me for way too long. I ran my fingers along the smooth exterior. When I looked up, Bex was grinning.
“I’m so proud of you,” she said. “This is huge, Johnny. Huge.” She smiled. “Will you try to play?”
I looked down at my fingers, perfectly positioned on the strings like they’d never left. I thought about all of the songs that I’d written over the years, most of which I had memorized. I thought about Bex’s songs, the ones I watched her play. I knew all of those by heart, too.
I began strumming the chords, closing my eyes as I felt the reverberation of the notes all the way through my body. I let my mind go, letting go of all of the pent up anxiety and fear about allowing myself to feel this again. Who was I becoming? The man that years ago swore to never fall in love again and never play again was doing both of those things, right here in this room. Because of her.
Before I realized what I was playing, I heard Bex’s low voice joining in to the melody. I was playing her song, ‘Broken.’ I identified with a lot of things that she sang, but this one really encapsulated so much of my past. Just like that, the final piece of me came back together again. Bex had done so much for me. She knew just when to push and when to let things go. She knew me.
When I lifted my fingers at the end of the song, I opened my eyes and looked into hers.
“Wow,” she said. “That was amazing. You did it, Johnny.”
I nodded, my throat so closed off I couldn’t speak. I did it. I played again. And I loved every fucking second of it.
“Do you feel okay?”
“Like a fucking rock star,” I said gruffly. I leaned over and captured the back of her neck with my hand, pulling her to me. “Thank you,” I said against her lips.
“Thank you,” Bex said when I pulled my lips from hers. “For being willing to open that part of you back up again. For sharing it with me. I want to play with you every day for the rest of our lives.”
I got an idea, one that I couldn’t believe I was even entertaining. It had been mere hours ago that I didn’t even know whether I’d see her again or not, and now I was having a baby and we loved each other and I was playing again.
“I want to play you something,” I said. “I wrote it a long time ago, and I was going to give it to my sister and her husband for their wedding, but I couldn’t do it. I changed it a little since then.”
“You should play it for them,” she said.
I shook my head. “It’s not for them anymore. It’s perfect for you. I’ve never actually played it, though, so it might be rough.”
Bex settled herself on her knees, bouncing like a little girl on Christmas morning. “I can’t wait.”
Was I going to do this? Was she ready for this?
I began strumming the strings again, humming in my throat until I got the tune I wanted. “This is called . . . My Forever . . .”
Who
knew if my voice would even hold out, it had been so many years. “To me, love has always hurt. To you, love was never enough. It was never in the cards, never in my heart. Until you. When I see you standing there, I can’t imagine life without you in it . . . I always swore I would never fall, but when I look at you I see . . . My Forever . . .”
My voice cracked and Bex moved to my side, stroking her hand through my hair and kissing my neck. But I wasn’t done. I had to get it out.
“Now I want what I thought I couldn’t have, didn’t deserve. I want you. I want us. I want the family we will have. I want my forever . . . I always swore I would never fall, but when I look at you I see . . . my forever . . . please be, my forever . . . say you’ll be my wife . . . forever . . .”
I stopped, turning my head slightly so I could see her reaction. She was sitting stock still, her eyes so wide I could see the different colors around her pupils.
“Are you . . . was that . . .” Bex moved the guitar and climbed into my lap, her eyes full of questions that she didn’t want to ask. “You’re so fucking talented, Johnny. I knew you would be.”
“Say yes,” I whispered, gripping her hips as I flexed against her core. “Be mine. For good. Be my wife, Bexley Bryant.”
She reached her hands down and lifted my shirt, throwing it behind us. She then followed suit with her own, leaning her head down and kissing me with abandon. I twined my tongue with hers, snaking my fingers up her small shorts and to her dripping wet center.
“Answer me,” I said into her mouth, rubbing my thumb right where she wanted it.
“Johnny,” she breathed into my mouth. Her eyes opened and she stared into my face, searching for the meaning behind my words. “Are you sure?”
“Never so fucking sure of anything in my life.” I pressed a kiss to my fingers and then touched her stomach where our baby was growing. “I don’t have a fucking ring . . .”
“I don’t care about that shit,” Bex said. “I’m no fucking girl.”
I slid my finger into her, making her eyes roll before she focused back on me. “I beg to differ. You are most definitely a girl. A woman. A hot as fuck one, too.”
Bex ran her hands through my beard and up through my hair, her eyes scanning my face like she was memorizing this moment. “Yes. Abso-fucking-lutely yes.”
“That’s the best thing I’ve heard today, second only to you telling me you love me and that we’re pregnant. Now I’m going to do the other thing I’ve wanted to do all day.”
“Which is?” Bex batted her eyelashes. Playing coy with me, huh. We’d see how she liked it in a few minutes.
“I’m going to make love to my fiancée.” I’d never said those words to a woman in my life, but then again I did many things now I’d never done before.
Bex reached into my pants and caressed me, leaning over so her lips were against my ear. “Why don’t you show me how much you’ve missed me and give it to me like you want to. You know just as well as I do you don’t want to ‘make love’ right now.”
“But we’re engaged,” I said, hissing through my teeth as she rubbed me. “And pregnant.”
“And?” Bex climbed off of my lap and took me in her mouth before I could even react. She looked up at me, her lids hooded. “Do me like you want to, Johnny. Like I want you to.”
Well, I couldn’t disappoint the lady.
Johnny
Six months later . . .
“Ready?” I nodded, and Bex tapped her foot on the ground and counted us off. We started playing simultaneously, the notes flowing from our fingers like we’d always played together.
I closed my eyes, our rhythm so seamless I could do it in my sleep. We’d been playing together every day for the last six months, ever since the day our lives had changed forever. When I’d thought Bex had been shot, everything changed for me. She was carrying my baby. I loved her. She got me to play again. We were engaged.
She made me alive.
I looked over at her baby bump, so cute at almost eight months pregnant. We opted not to know what we were having. Bex was more worried than she would let on about having a stillbirth again, so we convinced her doctor to let her have a scheduled caesarean. Our baby would be born on its due date, which was not much past what would’ve been Gibson’s eleventh birthday.
We were practicing for what we were going to do later. It was a surprise that no one but Natalie knew about. We’d tried to keep it from her, but she was the band’s manager and all.
Ryver had decided a few weeks ago that he was going to move to Mexico to be with his mother and her family, leaving a spot for a guitar player in Jaded Regret. Bex had asked me the same day if I would join and not only be her second guitarist, but sing with her as well. I hadn’t needed two seconds to answer her.
Seemed that we were a powerhouse not just in bed, but also on the stage, too.
We were making our debut together tonight at a sold out show of our own. Seemed that their month long tour with Halestorm had gotten the attention of a record label. We were recording a new album with that label starting in a few months, after the baby was born. Until then, they had us playing around the state to keep Bex close to home. After hearing me play and Bex and I sing together, they’d had no issue with Ryver being replaced by me.
They even wanted Bex and me for the cover of the album. Front and center. The bad boy and bad girl of rock that were not only band mates, but about to be married, too.
We’d taken the song ‘Broken’ that she had sung to me all those months ago and rewritten it. It was now called ‘No Longer Broken’, and it would be not only our debut song tonight at our first live concert together, but also the first single to our new album.
“We’re ready,” Bex said, setting her guitar down gently and walking up to me.
“Sure seems we are,” I said, setting my Gibson down and placing my hands on her protruding stomach. She was the fucking sexiest pregnant woman I’d ever seen. Her stomach being in the way had done absolutely nothing to deter our sex life. We had it just as much as ever before, and in some damn creative ways, too.
“Are you ready to marry me?” Bex smiled, looking down at my hands on her stomach. “Or should I say, us?”
“Hell yeah,” I said. “Can I practice the honeymoon first?”
Bex ran her hands up the front of my shirt and back down, stopping at the button to my jeans. “I thought you’d never ask.” If I thought that woman was a sex goddess before, her being pregnant made her even more so. I’d keep her knocked up for the rest of our lives if her drive stayed this high. She was fucking insatiable.
Bex stood up on her tiptoes and put her lips against my ear. “I want to still feel where that rock hard cock was inside me hours from now, Johnny. Do me. Hard. Take me from behind and make me scream your name.”
“Fucking hell, Bex,” I said, making quick work of clothes. Bex strutted to the futon where we’d spent so much time doing this same thing. Except after today, she’d be my wife, not just a lead singer of a band I wanted to fuck. She was the mother to my child and my whole world.
And I was going to give her every fucking thing she wanted. And then some.
“Are we crazy?” Bex laughed, wrapping my finger with a new Band-Aid to replace the ugly white gauze it had been wrapped in before.
“Well duh,” I said. “We knew this a long time ago.” She handed me a Band-Aid, and I wrapped it around her finger.
“Sexy,” she said, putting her finger next to mine.
“Only for a little while,” I said. “Then we get to reveal them.”
“Everyone here?” Bex smoothed her bump. She was wearing a short black lace dress with her favorite leather jacket. Her hair was curled and falling down her back. A black pearl choker finished off her outfit, and she had on bright red heels. It wasn’t anything you would normally see at someone’s wedding, but that was us. She was the most smokin’ hot woman I’d ever seen.
“Yes,” I said. My parents, Julia, Carter, and Calia, our band, and
Cal were here. The only people we wanted with us on our special day.
Bex helped roll up the sleeves to my dark grey button down shirt. “You look good enough to eat,” she said, cupping me through my dark jeans.
“It’s our wedding night,” I reminded her, pushing against her hand. “And I can’t knock you up.”
“You already did that,” she laughed. “Now get out of here. It’s bad luck for you to see me before the wedding.” We both exchanged a look and rolled our eyes. Screw superstition. We’d already defied all odds.
I walked out and took my place by the stage in the bar where I’d first laid eyes on Bex, where I’d thought I was going to lose her, and where I realized that I loved her.
The beach was shut off for a ‘private event’ as the signs said and guarded with hired security guards. Our newfound notoriety made us be a lot more cautious than before. However, after our private party, we were set up for the biggest wedding reception/concert on the beach. We’d sold two hundred exclusive tickets for a hefty price within minutes of putting them on sale. Every single dime we raised would go to the foundation Bex had recently started to help young teen girls who were in foster care learn life skills and techniques to help them adjust to the real world once they aged out of the system. She’d also started a housing program to give them a safe place to live, which was now at capacity. Bex was looking into a bigger facility. Best of all, she was involved there and spent as much time as she could being a mentor for the girls.
“She okay?” Beau was officiating the ceremony, having taken an online course to be able to marry us. It went right along with us doing things out of the norm.
“Perfect,” I said. “Start the music. Let’s get this show on the road.” I looked over to my sister, who already had tears in her eyes. Carter was holding her hand tightly. My mom dabbed her eyes with a tissue, and my dad nodded his approval at me.
Things with my parents were better, and Bex had a lot to do with that. She’d encouraged me to heal that part of my life as well, especially since they were the only grandparents our baby was going to have. They were planning to be in Florida for the birth of both of their grandbabies, mine and Julia’s. While there were still things that were hard for me to get past about our relationship, I was willing to keep trying. I wanted to see them redeem themselves through my child.
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