Melody of the Heart

by Katie Ashley

  Instead of laying my head on Brayden’s chest, I kept my gaze locked on his as we swayed to the music of the love song.

  “I have your presents at home for you to unwrap later,” Brayden said, with a smile.

  “You didn’t have to get me anything,” I protested.

  Brayden laughed. “Yeah, right. If you went home empty-handed on your birthday weekend, I’d be cut off from sex until my birthday.”

  I giggled. “Okay, so maybe I expect you to get me a little something.”

  His amused expression grew serious. “I wanted to get you something really big this year, but the time isn’t right.”

  “A puppy?” I asked hopefully.

  He shook his head. “No, it’s not a dog.”

  “Then what was it?”

  “I can’t tell you, or it won’t be a surprise.”

  “It’s not fair to tease me like that,” I protested.

  “Fine then. I wanted to get you a ring.”

  I swallowed hard. Oh wow, an engagement ring. Even though I knew I wanted to marry Brayden, it seemed like a big step since we were still so young. At the same time, I wanted to belong to him in all ways, and being called a fiancée meant a lot more than just girlfriend. “You know, you don’t have to get me a ring to ask me to marry you.”

  He scowled at me. “What kind of asshole would I be if I did that?”

  “One who didn’t care about material things?”

  “It’s not happening.”

  “Fine then. I’ll just wait.”

  “It’s more than just the ring, Lily. Not only do I want you to have a symbol of our commitment to wear, but I want to go to your father and ask for your hand in marriage. I don’t want to do that until I’ve made a little something of myself to where I can show him I can take care of you.”

  His earnest tone and sweet words brought tears to my eyes. “You really mean that, don’t you?”

  “I sure do.”

  Squeezing my arms tighter around his neck, I pulled him down to where I could kiss him. After a few breathless moments of making out, I eased back. Smiling at him, I said, “I love you, Brayden Vanderburg. I want nothing more than to be your wife. Although I’d be happy living with you in just a box on the street, I’ll respect the fact that you want to prove yourself to me and my dad.”

  “It means so much to me that you’re willing to wait.”

  “I’ll wait forever for you, Brayden.”

  “I promise it won’t be that long. I want us married and having kids before we’re twenty five.”

  My eyes bulged. “Twenty five? That’s only four years. Please tell me you just want us to get started having kids at twenty five.”

  He grinned. “Maybe. I just know I want a houseful. I don’t care if they’re boys or girls. I just want them to be as good looking as you and have your sweetness and beautiful blue eyes.”

  “I hope they’re as talented as their father. And have his warm, caring heart, along with his looks.”

  “We’re going to make beautiful babies.”

  “Someday.”

  He ducked his head to kiss me. “Someday.”

  LILY

  THE PAST

  ONE YEAR LATER

  “That’ll be a hundred and twenty dollars,” the cashier at the Shop and Go said.

  Brayden reached into his wallet and handed the woman a credit card. It was known among the five of us as “The Runaway Train” card. It paid for gas in the bus and groceries and food. At the end of the month, the guys just divided the bill equally among each other. It had been a necessity when we started out on the road two weeks ago.

  When I eyed all the shopping bags, I whistled for the others. “Little help here, guys!”

  AJ and Jake quickly shoved the magazines they were reading back into the rack and then scrambled to grab some of the grocery bags. “Where’s New Guy?” I teasingly asked. Poor Rhys, the new bassist, was constantly being called New Guy, rather than his name. I think it was some sort of initiation shit the guys were doing, and I had picked up on it.

  Jake grimaced. “He got a call from the rents. Didn’t sound pretty.”

  “Oh,” I murmured. I didn’t know much about the newest member of Runaway Train. Rhys had joined the band just two months ago. Teague, Jake’s cousin and the bassist, had decided that he didn’t want to embark on the summer tour with the guys. He felt like he really needed to focus on school. After he quit, the guys worried about finding another bass player who would mesh with them all.

  Then they remembered a guy who had been coming to some of the Runaway Train shows at Eastman’s. His name was Rhys McGowan, and he was two and half years younger than the other guys. He’d graduated high school at sixteen and was already working on his pre-law degree at Emory in Atlanta. Besides being a genius, he had mad skills at playing the bass guitar, which he had taken up only after he’d mastered the cello.

  Because of my crazy school schedule, as well as preparing to be gone for the summer with Brayden, I didn’t get to meet Rhys until I stepped on the bus two weeks ago. So far I liked him a lot, maybe even more than Teague when it came down to it.

  As we started out to the parking lot, I cocked my head at Brayden. “What’s his favorite meal?”

  “Whose favorite meal?”

  “Rhys’s.”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  Rolling my eyes at him, I countered, “Maybe because he lives with you and is your bandmate.”

  Brayden snorted. “We’re guys, Lils. We don’t talk about what our favorite foods and shit are.”

  “Impossible,” I muttered.

  Shifting the bags in his arms, Brayden cuffed the back of my neck playfully. When I cut my eyes over to him, he was grinning at me. “What?”

  “I was just thinking how sweet you are to want to make things better for Rhys by making his favorite meal.”

  “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, you know.”

  “I agree with that. Although I would also argue, that it’s through his dick too.”

  “You’re such an ass,” I replied, but I couldn’t help laughing.

  “Yeah, but you love me.”

  I grinned. “Yeah, I do.”

  We strolled up to the bus that would be our home for the summer. The guys had bought it from AJ’s uncle a few weeks back. They’d each taken turns learning how to drive it. It wasn’t a total hunk of junk. The inside furnishings were dated, and it had some mileage. But it also had enough storage beneath for the guys’ equipment, and it would get them back and forth across the country to the festivals and venues they would be playing at.

  In exchange for food and boarding on the bus, I would pull my own weight as cook, stylist, and merchandise pusher. At each of the festivals, I would sit at a table selling Runaway Train’s debut CD and some of their shirts. Brayden thought it was ridiculous I felt the need to earn my keep since I was his girlfriend, but I didn’t want the guys to come to resent me.

  I started up the steps, but then I turned back when I realized Brayden wasn’t behind me. It only took me a minute to see what he was staring at. It was a Challenger, just like the one he had sold four months ago. If he hadn’t sold the Challenger, we probably wouldn’t be on the road. Brayden financed Runaway Train’s first album with the car, along with hiring a promoter to get them into shows.

  The longing expression on his face broke my heart. “Babe,” I murmured softly.

  His gaze snapped from the car over to me. “Sorry. I’m coming.”

  When he tried to ease past me on the stairs, I stopped him. “It’s okay to be sad about the car. It was your pride and joy.”

  He glowered at me. “I know I can be sad. It’s just I look like a major pussy mooning over a lost car.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short. It was more than just a car. We had a lot of happy memories in the Challenger.”

  “And happy endings,” Brayden replied, with a smile.

  I rolled my eyes. “You had to go there,
didn’t you?”

  “It’s the true.”

  “Yeah, yeah, get on up the stairs before some of this starts to ruin in the heat.”

  Brayden and I found AJ and Jake putting away the groceries. Rhys was slumped into one of the captain’s chairs, his expression dark. “So Rhys, what’s your favorite food?”

  He gave me an odd look. “Fried chicken. Why?”

  “How would you like some fried chicken for dinner?”

  “You know how to fry chicken?” Rhys asked incredulously.

  “I sure do.”

  With a shrug, Rhys replied, “Okay.”

  I started for the door. “I’ll be right back. Don’t take off without me.”

  “Where are you going?” Brayden called after me.

  “Just the store.” I raced across the parking lot and back into the Shop and Go. Grabbing a basket, I hurried to the meat section to grab the chicken I would need. I assumed there wasn’t enough flour or cornmeal on the bus, so I picked that up as well. Some buttermilk went into the basket, so I could top the meal off with cornbread. I just hoped there was an iron skillet in the bus somewhere, or I was screwed.

  I had a twenty of my own in my pocket that I paid for the food with. Then I hightailed it back to the bus. The guys had finished putting away the groceries by then and were staring expectantly at me. “Sorry,” I said, breathlessly.

  “What’s in the bag?” Brayden asked.

  “What I need to fry chicken.”

  When I met Rhys’s gaze, his dark eyes bulged. Then a tentative smile curved on his lips. “Just for me?”

  I returned his smile. “Yeah, just for you.”

  “Thanks, Lily.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Brayden clapped his hands together. “Well, all right then. We better get out of here.” He went over to the driver’s seat and cranked up.

  “Who wants to help me?”

  Jake snorted. “Men don’t cook.”

  AJ smacked his arm. “That’s so not true. I love to cook.”

  With a roll of his eyes, Jake replied, “I’m sorry. I should have said ‘real men’.”

  When they started shoving each other, I took a spatula and smacked them both to get them to stop. “How kinky of you, Lils,” Jake mused.

  “You can roll the chicken,” I commanded. When he started to argue, I held the spatula up again. He flashed me a wicked grin. “That’s not really a deterrent since I like it when a beautiful woman hits me.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “Fine, fine, I’ll help.”

  “I’ll get the pan and oil heated,” AJ said, as he reached into one of the cabinets.

  “What do you want me to do?” Rhys asked.

  I shook my head. “Nothing. This is a meal in your honor, so just sit back and relax.”

  After mixing the flour and corn meal together, I had Jake start rolling the chicken. When he rubbed in some pepper on the chicken, I raised my brows in surprise. He winked. “I might’ve helped my mom do this a couple of times.”

  “I see.”

  It was actually kinda nice having the guys help me cook. With all the teasing banter, I had a smile on my face the entire time. After opening a can of green beans and making some instant creamed potatoes, we had a Southern meal in the middle of nowhere West Virginia.

  “This chicken is fucking fabulous,” Rhys said, after taking a bite and closing his eyes.

  “Thank you.”

  “Seriously, it’s almost as good as our cook’s, and she was known for being one of the best cooks in Savannah.”

  “High praise indeed,” I replied with a smile.

  While the guys continued chowing down, I took a plate over to Brayden. Sitting down next to him, I started feeding him bites as he drove. “You’re so good to your man for doing this,” Brayden said, after swallowing a bite of cream potatoes.

  “It’s my pleasure, baby,” I replied.

  Jake groaned. “You two with the lovey dovey shit are going to make me lose my dinner.”

  “Bite me,” Brayden shot back.

  I wouldn’t mind if Lily did,” Jake teased. That earned him both a quick glower, as well as a growl, from Brayden. “Keep your eyes on the road, dickhead.”

  “I’ll be happy to. Just keep yours off my girl.”

  “All right, boys, that’s enough,” I warned.

  “He reminds me too much of Mitch sometimes,” Brayden muttered under his breath.

  I smiled at him. “Once again, you are so misguided.”

  He cut his eyes over to me. “Am I?”

  “Just like with Mitch, there will never be anything between me and Jake.”

  “Give me a kiss to prove yourself.”

  With a giggle, I leaned over and gave him a quick kiss. When I pulled back, Brayden winked at me. “Love you.”

  “Love you, too.” As I spooned him more chicken, I said, “At the next stop, we’ll get one of the guys to take over the wheel. Then we can have some alone time.”

  “I like that idea very, very much.”

  BRAYDEN

  THE PAST

  “Brayden, are you coming?” Lily impatiently whined from the front of the bus.

  As I slipped the ring box into my jean pocket, I called, “In just a minute.”

  I couldn’t help grinning when I heard her stomp her foot in disappointment. We’d pulled into the RV area of the Great Southeastern Fair somewhere in Mississippi about an hour ago. We had a show from eight until ten. While we played, Lily would be manning the merchandise, which was mainly our CD’s and T-shirts.

  Of course, I hadn’t expected Lily to be dying to go to the fair. I hadn’t seen her this excited in a long time and all for a half-assed version of what we could get back home on a much bigger scale at Six Flags in Atlanta.

  She appeared in the doorway of the bathroom. “We only have three hours before you have to go on.”

  Cocking my brows at her, I said, “Wow, only three hours? We may not get to ride everything twice.”

  She poked her lips out in a pout that made her incredibly sexy. I had to fight the urge to throw her over my shoulder and head to the bedroom. I knew she would kill me if I even tried.

  “Okay, okay, just let me put on my tattoo cream and pull my hair back.”

  Lily’s blue eyes widened with pleasure when I unbuttoned my shirt. A week ago we had pulled into a tattoo parlor. Jake wanted some more ink, and considering I only had two tattoos, I thought it would be a good idea to get some as well. One in particular that I wanted was to go over my heart, and it was Lily’s name. The guy had made it look really bad ass with these flames and the word Lily in the middle of them.

  “There I am,” she said softly, as I began to rub the cream over her name.

  “Always on my heart.”

  She leaned in and gave me a kiss. “I love that you wanted to get my name on your body.”

  “Maybe we can work up to getting mine on yours.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Your name is a lot longer than mine.”

  “So?”

  “It’ll hurt more. That’s not fair.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “Am I not worth a little pain?” I countered.

  “Mmm, hmm, and I consider that taken care of when I have our babies.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “Here. I’ll do your hair for you.” Lily wedged herself between me and the mirror. She ran her fingers through the strands of my hair as she swept it out of my face. “I can’t believe how long it’s getting.”

  “Don’t you like it?”

  She smiled. “Mmm, I love it.”

  I grinned at her. “I’m glad to hear that.” In the last month on the road, my hair had grown past its usual length on my shoulders.

  “There,” she said.

  Glancing past her, I surveyed her work in the mirror. “What the hell is that?” I asked, pointing to the bob at the back of my head.

  “It makes you look edgy.”

 
; “It makes me look like a samurai warrior or something.”

  Crossing her arms over her rack, Lily countered, “Well, last time I checked, samurai’s were pretty bad ass.”

  “Hmm, Lily Marie said a bad word,” I teased.

  “You’re impossible,” she muttered before she shoved away from me.

  I pulled her back to me and started tickling her. She dissolved into giggles. “Stop it, Bray!” she shrieked.

  “Do you promise to lighten up?”

  Jerking her chin up, she countered, “And do you?”

  I grinned at her. “Yeah, I do.”

  She returned my smile. “Good. Now can we please go?”

  “Lead away.”

  With a squeal, she took my arm and dragged me down the aisle. Jake and the others were milling around outside. “You guys going in to0?” I asked.

  Jake shrugged. “Might as well. Nothing else to do until show time.”

  AJ grinned. “Oh, I’m going in. I’m going to have a fucking blast.”

  “Me too,” Lily answered.

  “Race you to the ticket stand?” AJ asked.

  “Deal,” Lily said, and then they took off, kicking up a cloud of dust behind them.

  Jake, Rhys, and I followed them at a much slower pace. By the time we caught up to them, they’d bought a ridiculous amount of tickets and were impatiently bouncing on the balls of their feet as they waited for us.

  We did the bumper cars, the Tilt a Whirl, and the hokey Tunnel of Love. Lily even managed to drag me on the Merry Go Round. That’s when we eventually split up from the guys. Then we hit the food stands trying fried Oreos and fried pickles. I didn’t make it through half of my corndog before I was feeling way too full. Lily on the other hand had a never ending stomach when it came to fair food. I couldn’t help but laugh at her dainty self as she packed away the goodies.

  As we walked around the other side of the fair, I nursed my growing indigestion. I knew it wasn’t just the fair food. It was the ring box in my pocket and what I had in mind to do with it when the time was right.

  “Let’s do the Ferris Wheel,” I suggested.

  Lily’s eyes lit up. “Okay.”

  As we got in line, she started trying to devour what was left of her cotton candy. “Babe, I’ll get you some more if they won’t let you take it on with you.”