“How the hell do you manage to eat with so many people asking for your autograph every five seconds?” Lyra complained to Emmett the next morning. She arched an eyebrow as she took a bite of her bacon.
Before Emmett could say anything, Matt spoke up. “Uh oh, looks like Aunt Lyra’s gonna be putting a dollar in the Swear Jar.” He rubbed his hands together as she narrowed her eyes in his direction. “What? It wouldn’t be fair to make Emmett do it and let you slide.”
“Seriously, a dollar?” When he nodded, she dropped her head to her lap and shook it. “Your boy is a hustler, Kinz.”
I twisted my lips to one side as I reached for my coffee. “Yeah, my dad always jokes we’re financing this kid’s first year of college one awful word at a time.”
She rolled her gray eyes then pointed one finger at Matt. “Fifty cents. And I won’t take no for an answer.” When he blew out a breath, lifted his face toward the ceiling and finally mumbled a “yes ma’am” she swung her gaze to Emmett.
“Let me try this again. How the heck do you manage to get in a bite to eat with your fans swarming around you? By the way, heck is an awful, awkward word.” When a grin broke Emmett’s bronze face, she continued. “It must be exhausting.”
“It ain’t that bad.”
“Well, I’m exhausted just watching you sign napkins and receipts,” she said, and he threw his head back and laughed. “Ugh, maybe I’m tired because I should’ve actually gone to bed last night.”
“Poor Aunt Lyra.” Matt polished off his second cup of orange juice then gave her an exaggerated frown. “You need a nap.”
“That word isn’t even in my vocabulary. I laugh in the face of naps. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.”
Deadpanning, he tilted his head to one side. “You stole that from The Lion King.”
“That’s because The Lion King is my generation, kid,” she retorted with a pointed look.
Stifling a smile, I took another sip of my over-sugared coffee. Lyra had shown up at Emmett’s place a little over an hour ago, and I was eternally grateful she’d thought to send me a text that she was on her way back. The phone buzzing in the pocket of my dress had jerked me awake, and I had hesitantly untangled myself from Emmett’s long, muscular body. For a long while, I’d stood in the center of his guitars and sound equipment, staring at his sleeping form. I wanted to stay. Regretted that I had to leave. And asked myself once more what the hell I was doing.
Finally, I’d taken a deep breath and left for my own room.
By the time my best friend stumbled in, complaining about eating too much food and getting too little sleep, I had showered and changed into cutoffs, white flats, and a flowy pink tank top. Still, the memory of spending the night in that white dress, curled up on a chaise that was too small for two people, was fresh in my mind, even when Matt woke up shortly after her arrival. Emmett had padded into the kitchen twenty minutes later, a grin playing on his full lips as he hummed what I could only guess was one of his songs.
I had made a mental note right then and there to listen to every single verse he’d put out since I met him.
“He’s extra chipper,” Lyra had stated dryly as he told us all good morning. “Wonder why.”
Now, I felt something hard brush against my bare toes and when I caught his hot gaze from the other side of the table, I ducked my head so I wouldn’t flush all over.
“I was thinking, Angel—” he started, but then he stopped himself, casting that lady charmer smile over my right shoulder. When I twisted in my seat, I wasn’t surprised to see two giddy blondes moving in our direction. It seemed to be the theme of brunch this morning, though he had told us in the truck ride over that his fans rarely approached him for autographs while he was home.
“There’s more coming this way, huh?” Lyra sighed, and Matt nodded with a big grin.
“Everyone loves Emmett. It’s so cool,” he exclaimed as the women stopped a few inches from our table. For the fifth time since we were seated, the man at the table next to ours rolled his eyes and murmured a brand new expletive under his breath.
“Mornin’,” Emmett drawled to the two women, and I swore the one with the cute little nose ring looked like she was about to fall over onto his plate of cornmeal pancakes when they finally came to a halt by our table.
“Nina didn’t want to come over to say anything—”
“Megan,” Nina hissed, but her friend continued.
“—But can I just say we love everything you do. Oh my god, I’m about to freak out!”
As he eased into conversation with his fans, Lyra cocked her head to one side, her gaze thoughtful as she stared across the table. Finally, she leaned close to me. “Me thinks our boy has a brand new idol, Kinz.”
I took in the sight of my son—the mirror image of his father—and felt a twinge of pride. Matt’s body was turned in his seat as he observed the entire exchange with stars in his green eyes.
“I can tell.” I bit into the chorizo omelet Emmett had suggested I try and downed another sip of coffee. Pressing my napkin to my mouth, I added, “He was all on board for your hamburger run this morning until Emmett brought up how amazing this place is.” I said the last few words in Emmett’s thick, sexy drawl, and Lyra snorted.
“Oh shit, you sound just like him. But you’ve gotta admit, the man’s got good taste in food.” She stabbed her fork into my omelet and closed her eyes as she sampled it. “You should keep him.” Ignoring my glare, she focused her attention on Megan and Nina as they gushed about some music festival Emmett was set to perform at later this week.
“We’ll definitely be there!” Megan promised. She clutched the napkin he handed her to her chest like it was a five-carat engagement ring. “I was hoping to see Gabe McGhee sing, but then I read the news this morning. Honestly, as long as you’re there, I don’t care who else’ll sing.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be there,” Emmett told her smoothly as my ears perked up at the mention of Gabe’s name.
What had Megan read in the news about the brother-in-law from hell? Lyra’s gray eyes were questioning as she mouthed, “Who the hell is Gabe McGhee?”
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who’d never heard of the guy.
“Long story,” I whispered but she was already fishing her phone from her tiny pocketbook to investigate.
“Anyway, do you mind if we get a picture with you?” I heard Megan ask when I tuned back in to their conversation. When he nodded, she glanced over Lyra, whose fingers were flying across the screen of her phone, to me. “Can you take it for us? I left my selfie stick at home like a dumbass.”
“Don’t see Matt making her pay a cuss tax,” Lyra said under her breath, never lifting her gaze from her phone as she blinked at whatever she was reading.
I would have smiled, but I could barely concentrate on anything other than the fact my best friend’s surprised look was slowly giving way to a deep frown. Clearing my throat, I ripped my eyes up to Megan and moved my head up and down.
“Yeah, sure. No problem.” My hand felt numb as I motioned Matt over to my side of the table. “Come stand over here with me, baby.”
My hands shook as I took the obligatory slew of photos of the two blondes fangirling over Emmett because all I could think about was what the hell Lyra was looking at. Finally, after they were gone and he excused himself to the restroom, I touched her arm gently. “What’s going on?”
She shot a look at Matt pouring more syrup on his pancakes then slid her phone across the table’s surface toward me. “Thought you said everything went just fine last night.” There wasn’t a hint of accusation in her voice but concern, and my heart dropped to my stomach as I picked up the phone.
“It did. Mostly,” I breathed, reading the headline at the top of the screen: Dallas Summer Fest 2015: Gabe McGhee OUT and Cady Nichols IN After Independence Day Showdown.
Oh, hell.
I scanned over the accompanying article but quickly regretted my decision after I read the first paragraph.
An anonymous source at famed music manager Peter Hudson’s annual Fourth of July party claims that more than just fireworks were exploding after an altercation between his top-40 son-in-law and Grammy-winning son. SCOOP fans might remember that the “Came Here for More” heartthrob, who will be touring this fall, recently announced the birth of his first child—born seven years ago.
There was more story after that, but I couldn’t seem to get past those first few sentences or the grainy image attached to the article. It was obviously taken by a camera phone, and it showed Emmett in all his angry, muscular glory with his hand placed possessively on the small of my back as he confronted his sister and her husband.
Dear lord, I was on the front page of a country music gossip page.
Clutching Lyra’s phone with both hands, I prayed my father’s lady friend in Jacksonville—or worse, my gossip-loving, social media expert of a receptionist—wasn’t a reader or there was a good chance Dad would end up calling to give me an earful.
“Son of a bitch,” I mouthed, releasing a breath before I scrolled to read the rest of the story. When I went too far down, I found myself in the comment section instead.
And the first comment my eyes made contact with—well, it brought my blood to a quick boil.
Funny this is happening after Emmett finds his “long lost son.” Things that make you go hmmm… This is either for publicity or the mom has something to do with it if you know what I mean.
I felt my nostrils flare as I thought of exactly where HudsonGrl93 could put her stupid implications.
“Why do you have that look on your face, Mom?” Matt’s question drew my focus from the phone, and I bit the inside of my cheek as I looked across the table at his worried face. “You look mad.”
“I’m not, baby.”
He reached for the syrup again, but this time I shook my head and pulled it to my side of the table before he put himself in a sugar coma. “But Ma, it’s soooo good.”
“And cavities are really bad. No more syrup.”
“You sure you ain’t mad?” He scratched his head as he gave his already drenched pancakes a sad sigh. “Because you look it. Like that time Coach Chaney took me out of the game and wouldn’t put me back in.”
Emmett slid into his seat. “Who’s mad and who’s Coach Chaney?” Did he already know about Gabe and the crap that was written online about us? Because he didn’t seem the least bit surprised when Megan brought up reading the news a few minutes ago.
“Coach Chaney used to be my football coach. He didn’t wanna let me play because Mom wouldn’t go out with him. Mom said he was a turd.”
“Matt,” I groaned.
His mouth dropped open. “But you called him one first!”
Emmett nodded his head in understanding. “Well, he sounds like something, but that’s not exactly the word I was thinking of.” Resting his elbow on the table, he drummed his forefinger against his lips. “So why’s your momma mad now?”
“I’m not mad.” But when I squared my shoulders and forced myself to look at him, I blinked, and he gave me a skeptical lift of his thick eyebrows. I unclenched my hands from Lyra’s phone and pushed it toward her until it hit the edge of her plate. “Have you talked to your PR people today?”
“Kinz,” Lyra started, but he answered me anyway.
“I have.” He cut into his pancakes, never lowering his green-eyed gaze from mine. “But I promise you Gabe’s old enough to make his own decisions. I’m not begging him to do that show. If he wants to pout and throw a hissy fit because—”
“Did you know that my picture was right up there along with yours on some trashy gossip site?”
“Like the ones you say Addison’s always reading? Why’s your picture there?” Matt asked between chews of his pancakes, and I watched Emmett’s posture go rigid. Damn, my kid was a little parrot. Instantly, I felt horrible for letting my irritation get the best of me.
“Good question.” Turning toward our son, the muscles in Emmett’s shoulders went stiff. “Listen, son, I’m gonna take your momma outside and talk to her for a minute.” When he flicked his eyes to Lyra and parted his lips to speak, she beat him to the punch.
“Matt’s fine with me, but I can’t say the same about your pancakes. And don’t look at me like that, I have no self-control and spend nine months of the year training like a mad woman.”
“I wasn’t about to say a word. Eat to your heart’s content.” Standing, Emmett motioned for me to follow him. I sucked in a breath when I felt his hand on the small of my back. With my luck, another photo would end up online.
* * *
"Stop looking at me like I just told you there’d be no Christmas this year, Angel, and tell me what’s going on,” he said as soon as we were standing beneath the blazing sun.
“I—” Cupping my hand over my forehead to shield my eyes, I pulled in a harsh breath. “There was this write up on some gossip site about how Gabe pulled out of that concert.”
“I told you already, he’s a big boy and—”
“The author made sure to mention that you just announced you had a kid and there was a picture of us on there too,” I interrupted, each word sounding a little more riled than the last.
“Of us meaning you, me, and Matt.” His scowl deepened until his face was almost unrecognizable. Lowering his chin to his chest, he rubbed his hand over his face. “Fuck, I didn’t want them to get to him.”
“No, the photo was of us.” Carving my hands through my hair, I shook my head and then dropped the wavy strands, letting them fall around my face. “Meaning you, me, your sister and Gabe.”
Relaxing his broad shoulders, he breathed a sigh of relief. “Good.”
“Good?” I demanded, moving a step closer to him until my breasts bumped against his torso. “There’s a picture of us on some damn gossip page, and all you can say is good? On what planet is that a good thing?”
He cast a wary glance behind me at the man who’d stepped outside to light a cigarette. “Let’s move over here and finish this.” Pressing his hand between my shoulder blades, he guided me to the side of the building. We walked until we were a good thirty feet from the entrance of the restaurant before we stopped and he dropped his hands by his sides.
“That’s better. Now, the planet where that’s a good thing is the one where my son’s face isn’t plastered all over that shit. I can’t control it either way, but at least he’s not on there.”
Resting my back against the brick behind me, I hugged my arms around myself. “Well, yes.” He was right. I would have been belligerent if Matt’s photo had shown up on that website, and I would have probably left a few comments of my own. “But it doesn’t change the fact that we’re on there.”
“Afraid of being seen with me?”
I slid my tongue between my teeth at his condescending tone. “Don’t be an asshole, Hudson. I’m spitting mad at your fans right now for assuming your disagreement with Hazel and Gabe had something dirty and awful to do with my son, and the last thing you want is for me to—”
He shut me up with a kiss that left me too out-of-breath to speak as he drew away from me.
Damn you, Hudson, and your stupidly talented mouth.
“That’s better,” he drawled. “I can actually think straight when you’re not threatening to junk punch me or whatever you were about to say next.” When I narrowed my eyes into tight slits, he continued, “Alright, Kinsey, you’re right. Matt not being on there doesn’t change that there’s a picture of us. Believe me, I’m sorry you were dragged into this. It’s wrong as hell, but that’s what those sites do, and that’s what we’ll have to live with if we’re together.”
What we’ll have to live with if we’re together.
Just when I’d managed to talk my lungs into behaving, he had to go and drop a line like that. I closed my hand around my necklace because, other than the moment when the doctor congratulated me on my eight pound, three-ounce baby, those nine words held more promise than anything I’d heard in my entire life.
“I—” My eyelids lowered over my blue eyes, and I considered my words carefully before I said, “It’s always like this for you, isn’t it?”
When I looked up at him, he was moving his head up and down. “And I hate it, but here’s the thing: I knew this would happen the moment I put myself out there. So did Gabe.” A brief but dark gleam flashed in his eyes, but it disappeared just as quickly as he shrugged and added, “He eats that shit up.”
“I bet,” I said dryly. Emmett put one hand on the brick wall directly by my head, and my pulse sped for every other reason but the anger that had brought us out here.
“Just about every single thing I’ve done in the last seven or eight years has been thrown out there to be dissected by everyone who follows my music. I didn’t ask for my family to be targeted, but it comes along with the territory. I hate it. But I love the music. As long as I’m singing, there’s always gonna be someone wondering or writing about what the hell we’re doing.”
We. Christ, Emmett was full of scary, beautiful, breathtaking words today. I wasn’t sure my heart could take it, especially after spending the night with his heart beating against my ear and his fingers in my hair.
“You can’t do anything to stop it?” I asked through the pressure in the back of my throat. “The gossip, that is.”
He bent his head until his face was close to mine and his short brown hair brushed my forehead. The scent of freshly-prepared food drifting from the restaurant took a backseat to his cologne, but I decided I much preferred him over the scent of bacon and cornmeal pancakes. Even if it was a distraction.
“You’re not denying there’s a we anymore, Angel?” He inhaled, drawing in my vanilla-scented perfume, closing his eyes for a second as if he were committing it to memory. “When did that happen? Last night? Before then?”
“Are you intentionally trying to change the subject?”
Opening his green eyes, he twisted his lips into a heartbreaking smile. “There’s no winning that subject, beautiful, no matter how I feel. So that’s why I’m more interested in something I can win.”
My breath hitched. “And I’m guessing that something’s me.”
“Always you.” He fanned his fingers over my cheek, skimming a path from my temple to the corner of my mouth. “If you let me win, that is. But I’ll be one hundred percent honest with you and say I won’t play fair. Hell, I’ll probably play real dirty because I won’t give up on you again. I’ve done that before and look how that turned out for us.”
“If I let you,” I repeated, a harsh pain pushing against my ribcage. Was that what I was doing now? Letting him win me? Letting myself fall deeper, harder? I shut my eyes for a long pause, waves of emotion coasting through me as our inhales and exhales intermingled. Looking at him again, I ran my tongue over my lips. “I’m a fool.”
“Because you want me?”
No. Yes. I gave him a husky laugh. “Because I brought you out here to give you a piece of my mind about my face showing up online and you’ve probably got a fan or two hiding behind a bush snapping hundreds of pics.” When I started to push away from him, he shook his head.
“There ain’t nobody out here but us, McKinsey. We’re not surrounded by people who smile in our face one minute and then talk shit behind our backs the next because they don’t give a damn if we fail.” He inched his mouth just a little closer to mine and when he spoke again, our lips brushed. “It’s just you and me.”
“So what happens next?” I murmured, and the nerves in my face tingled because our lips were still touching.
Leaning away from me, he eyed the watch on the wrist right next to my face. “Next, I’ve got a surprise for Matt that can’t wait. It’s close to noon and we’ll be late if we don’t take off soon because I’ve got to stop by home first. And then—then we’ll figure out us. You’re not going back to Georgia until we do.” When I numbly bobbed my head, he traced a knuckle around the outline of my face, groaning in encouragement when I sighed. “You still mad, beautiful?”
I focused on the emblem of a Cadillac parked nearby for a few seconds. “No,” I said, blinking when I looked up at him, and he chuckled.
“You know I can tell when you’re lying, don’t you?” He nudged his finger beneath my chin, raising my face as he lowered his lips to mine for a brief yet mind-altering kiss. My stomach and heart crashed together, and my body was fuel to his fire before he amended his question. “Are you still mad at me, Angel?”
“No.” I looked him right in the eyes this time, refusing to drop my stare. “I haven’t been mad since that night in my kitchen when you told me you believed everything I’d told you.”