The Happy Ever After Playlist

by Abby Jimenez

  Josh lifted Oliver into a towel and handed him to Kristen for a diaper. Then he kissed the side of his wife’s head on his way to the fridge. “Look, I’m gonna be honest. I like him, and I think you need to cut him some slack.” He grabbed a beer and pulled up a stool at the counter. “Did he handle the situation badly? Yes. But no guy wants to tell his girlfriend about the women he’s slept with, believe me.”

  I shook my head at him. “So he should just get a pass for this? He was about to go on a year-long tour with his old hookup and I didn’t even know about it.”

  Josh opened his beer. “I know what a man looks like when he’s in love with you, Sloan. I saw the same look on Brandon’s face once, and I’m telling you, this guy’s serious about you. Give him a break. He fucked up and he knows it. He’s probably losing his mind right now.”

  He’s losing his mind? Jason felt like a stranger to me with some torrid past and secret double life. Like the Jason I’d known was a different person from the man who’d lied to me and hooked up with Lola Simone.

  Maybe the bad guy was Jaxon.

  “Did you even listen to that song?” I asked, looking back and forth between the two of them. “Did you?” How many times had I heard that nasty Lola Simone song and not realized it was about Jason? It was like I’d just found out my boyfriend had starred in a lyrical porno that everyone had seen. The whole situation was so cringy.

  Kristen shrugged while she fastened Oliver’s diaper. “I listened to it. So he got drunk and fucked her on a beach. Then she wrote a song about it. It’s messed up, but that just makes her a bitch. It doesn’t make him anything less than a guy who was exercising his God-given right to make bad choices six months before he knew you.”

  I let out a breath. “What about the lying?”

  Kristen sucked air through her teeth. “He didn’t really lie. He just didn’t tell you. I mean, that doesn’t make it okay, but I gotta be honest, I kind of get it.”

  I stared at her, incredulous.

  “What? Jason’s a nice guy,” she said, pulling a onesie over the baby’s head. “He’s the kind of person who donates his fucking bone marrow to a stranger. He didn’t want to make you insecure. Was he really going to tell you that a gorgeous rock star showed up at his house in the middle of the night to fuck him when the two of you had only been dating for three days? How would that have gone over?”

  She did have a point.

  She put the baby in his high chair. “And when she grabbed him, same thing. He probably thought nobody saw it and he was sparing you the visual of a famous train wreck touching his dick. And he’s not special, believe me. She’s always doing shit like that. She’d give the pope a lap dance.” She sat on Josh’s knee and put an arm around his neck.

  I mopped at my nose. “You know, maybe I wouldn’t be so upset with him if he’d told me about this without letting TMZ pick it up first.”

  “You guys don’t have typical problems, I’ll give you that,” Josh chuckled, pulling on his beer. “Just tell him that from now on he needs to be honest with you so you don’t get blindsided when stuff like this happens.”

  I clutched my damp wad of paper towels, miserable. “I did. He said he can’t prepare me for every story the tabloids might make up. He sure as hell could have prepared me for this one, though,” I mumbled.

  My phone rang. I picked it up and looked at the screen.

  It was him.

  My gaze shot to Kristen. I hovered a finger over the Answer Call button. I wanted to hear his voice. Talk to him. But I wanted the old Jason. The one from before. I thought about how he’d been so oblivious to how he’d let this happen, how he’d purposely hid all this from me and how dismissive and unapologetic he’d been.

  I sent his call to voicemail and shut off my phone. What could he possibly have to say that would change my mind? The only thing that could make this different was complete and total transparency in our relationship, and he’d made it very clear he had no intention of participating in that.

  Kristen shook her head at me. “You only have ten days, Sloan. That’s all you get before his tour. Are you really willing to let this be the thing that breaks you guys up? You can end it now, like this, or calm the fuck down and give him a chance and at least enjoy the time you have left.”

  I shook my head. “It’s bigger than that, Kristen. This isn’t just about the next ten days. It’s about whether I’d even consider dating him again when his tour is over. He wants me to wait for him. And you know what? I was actually considering it. I figured, what’s the harm? It’s not like I’m gonna be dating anyway. We can just put our relationship on hold, do what we have to do, stay faithful to each other, and get back together when his tour’s over. And all I can think now is, how much crap will I learn about him this way while he’s gone?”

  I wiped at my nose. “Even if I forgive the lying—the omissions, which he didn’t even seem to be sorry about—what about the next time? And there will be a next time. He was right, this shit is going to happen. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do this with him again and again while he purposely keeps me in the dark. I mean, if he didn’t feel like Lola Simone and the song sitting at number two on the damn music charts warranted mentioning, what else isn’t he telling me? Am I just going to find out about his skeletons with everyone else when they hit the celebrity gossip circuit?” I shook my head. “I’m not cut out for this life and I don’t think I really realized it until today.”

  Kristen and Josh looked at me like they felt sorry for me and didn’t know what else to say.

  “I’ve been able to compartmentalize this whole fame thing because I didn’t ever see the Jaxon side of him. And now all of a sudden it’s this enormous, glaring spotlight on everything,” I said, waving my paper towel around.

  My chin started to quiver. “He’ll do nothing to protect me from the tabloid onslaught. He’ll keep doing things behind my back. I’ll get no warning, just like this time. Then when the inevitable happens and some story breaks, he’ll tell me I need a tougher skin. He’ll brush it off, justify hiding whatever it is from me, take no responsibility.”

  I’d be a lunatic. I would be twitchy and worried, waiting for the other shoe to drop the whole time he was away.

  Stuntman Mike peered up at me from my lap.

  My eyes filled with tears again and I looked back and forth between Kristen and Josh. “I have to break up with him,” I breathed. “I have to do it now.”

  The finality of it crushed me. Tears came again and I sobbed into my paper towel.

  He’d given me no choice.

  Chapter 29

  Jason

  ♪ Mess Is Mine | Vance Joy

  She sent my call to voicemail again.

  I put my palms over my eyes and let out a ragged breath. It was almost midnight. I’d been calling and texting her all day.

  “She still not talking to you?” Ernie stood in his kitchen and dropped ice into a tumbler behind the darkness of my eyelids.

  “I fucked up,” I muttered.

  “Yeah, you fucked up. Your first mistake was arguing with a pissed-off woman. You should have backed away slowly and agreed with everything she said. Pissed-Off Woman 101.”

  I looked up at him as he set down the bourbon he’d poured me on the coffee table.

  He plopped into the couch next to me and crossed his leg over his ankle, holding his own glass.

  I felt haggard. The last two days had been hell. I was at the point that I’d apologize for being born if it meant she’d speak to me. I just wanted this to be over. She’d brought me to my damn knees on silence alone.

  “I think she’s going to break up with me.” Even saying the words out loud made the lump bolt into my throat.

  Ernie let out a long breath. “You guys were breaking up anyway.”

  I shook my head. “No. Not like this. Not because she didn’t want me, not because I fucking disappointed her. And I would have never let it happen. I would have begged her to come with me.” I p
ut my forehead into my hands. “It can’t end like this.”

  Fuck, I should have told her everything. Why didn’t I tell her everything? I had no idea how to navigate any of this. Lola, my tour, my fame. All of it felt like some giant snowball, gathering momentum and destroying my life on its way down.

  “You know, maybe she’s doing you both a favor,” Ernie said.

  I took my forehead from my hands and glared at him.

  He swayed his whiskey at me. “How fair was any of this gonna be for her anyway? Think about it. She stays behind and she’s alone for fourteen months while you travel the world. Or she goes on the road with you and she doesn’t see her friends or family the whole time, doesn’t sleep in the same bed for more than three nights in a row. She can’t work, can’t even fucking unpack. Either way, she’s doing nothing but living for you and you’re living for your career. You really want that for her?” He took a swallow of his drink, the ice clinking in the glass. “You’re getting famous, and what is she getting? It’s a little selfish.”

  I looked away from him.

  I was supposed to marry this woman. I’d known it the moment I thought I might lose her. She was it for me. The thought of being without her was as unacceptable to me as never seeing daylight again, never picking up another guitar.

  If I’d fucked this up for good, I would suffer for it for the rest of my life. I’d never get over it. I needed to fix this and then put a ring on her hand and let every man who looked at her know there was already somebody hopelessly in love with her.

  And they did look at her. I was going to need a very big ring.

  I dragged my hands into my hair and squeezed. “Fucking Lola. I hate her.”

  “I gotta tell you, none of this Lola shit sits right with me. My Spidey senses are tingling.” He tapped a finger on his tumbler. “And you’re sure you didn’t give her the gate code?”

  “I didn’t give it to her,” I mumbled.

  He squinted out at the fireplace like he was thinking.

  Fuck this. I got up. “I’m going over to Sloan’s. I can’t sit here and do nothing.”

  I’d given her space. It had been two fucking days. If she was going to break up with me, I’d rather she swing the ax now instead of leaving me kneeling with my head on the block. Not knowing was killing me. I couldn’t do this anymore.

  The drive to her house felt like I was delivering myself to my own execution. I sat in her driveway rallying my courage to even get out and try my luck at getting in the door.

  It was midnight. The house was dark.

  I had my key, but Sloan always put the chain on. I’d probably have to ring the doorbell and wake her up. And would she even let me in? Or answer it after she looked through the peephole?

  I had to be braced for the very real possibility she would break up with me tonight. That I’d had all I was going to get. I imagined her asking me to leave, taking my key. Making me empty my drawer and then never seeing her again.

  My heart would break. It would fucking shatter.

  The floodlights came on when I got to the porch. I put my key in the lock and turned it under the judgmental glare. I pushed the door open an inch, then another, and the moment when the chain would have gone taut came and went and Tucker spilled out and jumped on my legs.

  She didn’t put the chain on.

  It was the first ray of hope I’d had in days. I stood with my forehead to the open door and my hand on the knob for a solid minute.

  She didn’t lock me out.

  I prayed this meant something. That it wasn’t just some oversight. And I hoped that this wouldn’t be the last time I ever spoke to the woman I loved.

  Chapter 30

  Sloan

  ♪ Holocene | Bon Iver

  The dip of the bed jostled me from my sleep. Somewhere in my misery I’d drifted off. Familiar hands wrapped themselves around my waist from behind and pulled me in.

  Jason…

  The scratch of his beard brushed the side of my neck and then in a husky voice, “I’m sorry.”

  None of it mattered suddenly. None of it. The change in my brain was so fast it gave me whiplash. All my plans disintegrated. My mind flipped in a single heartbeat. I rolled over in the circle of his arms and kissed him. Even if there hadn’t been an apology, I’d have kissed him. He was forgiven, and I immediately became whole again.

  He held my cheeks in his warm hands. “Sloan, I’m so sorry. I should have told you everything. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

  “I’m sorry too,” I whispered. “I missed you so much. I don’t know what I was thinking. I should have trusted you, I just got so in my head…”

  “It was my fault,” he said. “I was just afraid you’d think less of me or wouldn’t be able to handle it, and I thought I was protecting you. It was stupid.”

  He put his forehead to mine. “You didn’t put the chain on,” he whispered.

  I shook my head. No, I hadn’t put the chain on. I couldn’t speak to him, but I couldn’t lock him out, even though I didn’t think he would come home. Not after the way I made him leave.

  But Jason never did have self-preservation instincts when it came to me, did he?

  He brushed the hair off my forehead in the dimness. “Don’t ever take yourself from me again. Promise me. Please.”

  His beautiful deep voice sounded like suffering. The room was dim. The only light came from the glow of my alarm clock on my nightstand. But I could see the dark circles under his lids and the hollow look in his eyes and my heart broke a thousand times in a single beat and I knew instantly that I would never have been able to break up with him when he left for his tour. Never. His plane would have still been sitting on the tarmac and I’d have been calling him, begging him to take me back. Fourteen months of being separated was nothing compared to nothing at all.

  “Jason, I don’t want to break up when you go on tour. I can’t.”

  “I love you.”

  The words sucked the air right out of my lungs and I blinked into the darkness.

  “I love you, Sloan.”

  “I love you too,” I breathed.

  He let out a noise that sounded like a mixture of joy and relief, and I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his beard.

  He held me so tightly I couldn’t breathe. “Sloan, come with me on my tour. Please.”

  I laughed into his neck from happiness. “Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  I nodded. It was crazy. It was so not the kind of spontaneous thing I did. But it wasn’t even a question. I had to.

  I wanted so much to be me again. I’d promised myself I would chase joy, climb out of my in-between, live a life of happiness that was worth living—and the only life I wanted to live was with him.

  “I’ll pay your mortgage,” he said into my hair, a grin in his voice. “I’ll give you as much as you need.”

  I pulled away so I could look at him. “No, I can’t let you do that. Maybe I can rent it?”

  “It needs too many repairs to rent,” he said, his hands on my face. “Why don’t you sell it?”

  Sell it?

  “When we get back we can buy a new place,” he said. “Something better. Close to Kristen and Josh.”

  I smiled at him. “You want to live with me?”

  His eyes moved back and forth between mine. “I want everything with you.”

  Screw it. If I was going to do this thing, I was going to do it. And I wanted to start over. I wanted to start over with him.

  I nodded. “Okay. Let’s do everything. Let’s do it all.”

  He paused and beamed at me. And then he smothered me with kisses. My mouth, my cheeks, my neck, telling me over and over and over again that he loved me, and I laughed and clutched him.

  Every time he said it, the words filled me up. They wrapped themselves around me like warm, strong arms and made me feel safe and cherished, pushing out every doubt that his past and his fame had made me feel.

  He loved me.

&n
bsp; And I loved him back.

  This was why we could weather his fame. Why I could trust him, always, no matter what came up. He belonged to me and we were in it together. How could I ever question it?

  We were in love.

  Chapter 31

  Jason

  ♪ Diamonds | Ben Howard

  I bought a ring. A very, very big ring.

  Chapter 32

  Sloan

  ♪ Big Jet Plane | Angus & Julia Stone

  Are you sure you don’t want to come with me? Saturday Night Live is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime deal,” Jason said. He talked against my lips as he kissed me goodbye on my porch. His guitar case sat next to us and his hands twined in the hair at the nape of my neck. His eyes practically smoldered.

  He did this on purpose, of course, because he knew how defenseless I was when he sucked me into that vortex of his.

  I had to be strong. I had too much to do.

  “If you want me to be ready to leave my whole life behind in less than a week, I can’t give you three more days,” I said, nuzzling his nose with my eyes closed.

  It was actually a good thing he was leaving for New York. The man was highly distracting. I couldn’t get anything done when he was home—well, nothing that required clothes, anyway.

  “I’m going to miss you,” he breathed.

  “I’m going to miss you too.” I kissed him, wrapping my arms around his neck. “But mostly I’m going to miss being the other woman for a few days.”

  He snorted.

  “I’m going to frame it,” I said. “Maybe Kristen will put it in the Christmas calendar.”

  Yesterday a picture of me and Jason holding hands at Trader Joe’s ended up on the cover of the National Enquirer. JAXON WATERS CHEATS ON LOLA SIMONE! was plastered all over the front. I’d been wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap and my tattoos were covered, so only I recognized myself. But it was still really funny.