The Price of Love (Rockin' Country Book 2) (12 page)

H
annah felt her stomach drop as she opened the link that had been sent to her. Did she really want to look at this? When she had called Garrett the night before, he had been ranting and raving about some woman who’d sat on his lap. He was drunk, so at first, she’d thought it was cute. He’d admitted to getting drunk because he’d missed her, that he’d needed some way to deal with the loneliness. That had torn her apart, had made her feel like crap because she knew how much she missed him. When he admitted things like that, it gutted her. She wished in those moments that she’d never told the record company that she would do this final tour. Seven more weeks, that’s all they had to get through, but it felt like a million years.

“Have you seen it?” Shell asked as she came back to Hannah’s bedroom and had a seat on the bed.

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure that I want to. Have you?”

“Yeah, and I’ve talked to Jared.”

Jared had been the one person sober last night, so she was very interested to hear what he had to say. “And?”

“He went to the bathroom for five minutes. He figures those girls were waiting for him to leave because he’d been sitting on the outside of the booth so that nobody could get to Garrett. As soon as he was gone, they must have moved in. Jared swears that Garrett could hardly hold his head up. He just kept talking about how much he missed you and how much he wanted to see you because it’d been so long since you’d even Skyped or FaceTimed.”

That was true, and Hannah felt shame burn her face hot. They had become comfortable with just texting one another and the occasional phone call. Funny how quickly that had happened, that they’d become complacent. That was not what she had wanted at all. That wasn’t how she wanted her marriage to work. Not how she wanted to make things easy when the staying together part became harder.

“Do you need to see this picture?” Shell asked her. “Will it change anything?”

“No, it won’t change anything, but I do need to see it. I need to see and know that he couldn’t keep his head up, that this person preyed on him because he was drunk. It would make me feel better. I know that’s weak, but after Ashton, there are just certain things that I need to see with my own two eyes.”

“Okay, but I’m warning you, I’m not even married to the guy and I want to kick her ass.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Never in all my almost-twenty-five years have I wanted to kick someone’s behind, I highly doubt I’m gonna start now.” She opened the link and her eyes narrowed.

“I’m watching you, and it looks like you’re irritated,” Shell provided commentary.

“It’s because I am,” she whispered as she took a good look at the picture. She wouldn’t say it out loud, but Hannah did want to kick this girl’s ass.

“Irritated at him or the skank ho throwing herself at him.”

“The skank ho,” she breathed out. “He really couldn’t hold his head up,” she said, her voice thick with emotion.

Anyone who knew Garrett and looked at this picture could tell that he wasn’t putting the moves on this girl. His lips were nowhere near her neck, his forehead rested on her shoulder. There was a series of pictures, and in the first one he looked irritated, while in the next one he was slumped over the table with his head in his hands.

“I can’t believe the media is running with this,” Shell told her. “If this was a woman, they’d all be talking about how he took advantage of her and blah, blah, blah.”

Hannah had to agree. “I wonder if he’s seen these yet.”

“I would say he’s in the process of sleeping off one of the worst hangovers of his life. This doesn’t bother you at all?”

“I won’t lie; I don’t like seeing another woman perched on my husband’s lap like that. I really don’t like that his mouth is near her neck either, because that’s my spot. I have to be realistic about this. I can’t let the paparazzi win; they do things like this to get a rise out of us. I’m sure that’s what this skank ho wanted too. While it doesn’t feel good, and it makes me more than a little sick to my stomach, I’m not giving them what they want.” Hannah’s voice was thick with emotion. “What they want is to break us up, and that’s not going to happen.”

Shell couldn’t believe the person talking to her was her best friend. At one time, this picture would have ruined her life and her self-esteem. She wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on anything besides the picture. Then the questioning would start. Was this the first time he’d done something like this? Was he doing this behind her back? How many women had he had? In all honestly, Shell had prepared herself for the worst and was pleasantly surprised at what she was getting from her best friend. “I’m glad this isn’t a huge deal.”

“I know what you were probably expecting, but I am working very hard on not letting these jerks rule my life. I mean, look what I was going to do a few months ago—send myself back into that downward spiral of an eating disorder. I’m trying to be my own person and not let other people’s issues affect me. I’m not gonna lie though, I would like to rip this chick’s brown extensions out of her head.”

Shell laughed. “Me too. I mean, he’s married. Who asks a married man to pose like that, and when he’s obviously that intoxicated? She gives women a bad name.”

“I wish I had time to sit here and google her and see what all I could find out about her, but I have another flippin’ radio interview,” Hannah sighed.

“When they ask you about this, don’t go off,” Shell warned.

“I’ll do my best.” And that was all she could promise.

*     *     *

Garrett felt like his head was being pounded on by a herd of wild horses. Late afternoon sunlight streamed through the curtains of his bedroom, and he hugged the pillow tighter to his body. It was the one that Hannah always used and tended to smell like her for weeks after she was gone. Hannah, his eyes popped open as he heard more pounding. It wasn’t just his head, someone was beating down his front door. Getting up on wobbly legs, he saw that he was still wearing his clothes from the night before. It was foggy, but he knew he had gone to the bar with the band. He was missing his wife, and everything after that was a blur.

“I’m coming,” he whispered, not able to make his voice rise any louder at the pounding on the door. Finally he got there, swinging it open. Shit. It was his mom. What the fuck had he done?

“Garrett, you look like hell.”

She didn’t pull any punches as she swept by him, into his house.

“Come on in,” he mumbled, putting his hand to his forehead. It hurt like a motherfucker, and he had the worst case of cottonmouth he’d ever had in his life.

“What’s going on with you?” Marie did a once-over, curling her lip in disgust that he was still wearing his clothes from the night before. “I figured when you got married you would be done with all of this.”

His brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders, and he needed her to take a small step back in her judgment of him, but he didn’t know how to say it. “I went out and got drunk last night because I miss my wife and we as a band had nothing better to do, that’s it.” He always thought he got his temper from his dad, until he pushed his mom to the breaking point. It wasn’t often that it happened, but when it did, he was actually scared of her.

“No, son, that’s not
it
.” She spit the word out. “Do you even remember what happened last night?”

Suddenly he got a bad feeling. Had he done something that he didn’t remember? He knew without a shadow of a doubt there had not been another woman in his bed, for that he could be thankful, but what had happened before he got home? “I went to the bar and started doing shots, after that it’s kind of fuzzy,” he admitted as he had a seat on his couch and tilted his head back against the cushions.

She watched him with what could only be described as an evil eye, pulling her smart phone from her purse and pressing a few buttons. When she had what she obviously wanted to show him, she whipped it around in his face. “This looks like a hell of a lot more than doing shots.”

“The fuck?” he asked as he saw the picture of him with a brown-headed girl. She was sitting in his lap, and he had his head on her neck. From the angle, it looked almost like he was trying to kiss her, but when he took a good look; he saw that his forehead rested against her shoulder. He probably hadn’t been able to keep his head up at that point.

“That’s my question. Why would you go and do something like this?”

“I don’t even remember it. Jared promised me that he wouldn’t let me do anything stupid.” Where had Jared been?

“I already talked to him. He took a five-minute bathroom break, and when he came back, this was going down,” she told him. “But Jared isn’t responsible for you making good decisions. Have you heard from Hannah? I’m sure she’s seen this.”

Fuck. His wife. “I woke up to you pounding on my fucking front door, Mom. No, I haven’t talked to my wife yet.” Fear took hold around his stomach. They were at a good place. What if this caused a setback?

“I think you need to call her.”

This was all too much. He was hung over; he needed water, aspirin, and a shower to be able to think straight. He was going to lose his shit, and he didn’t want to do that with his mom. “I think you need to get the fuck out of my house. She’s my wife; I’ll do what I need to do.”

“Don’t talk to me like that, son.” She emphasized the word son.

He sighed. “I know you mean well, but I will take care of this in my own way. I love you, but I really need you to leave.”

Marie hesitated, then walked over to where he sat, pulling him up for a hug. “No matter how old you get, I want to fix things for you, and I’m going to give you some unsolicited advice right now. Call your wife, apologize, tell her you love her, and for the love of God, take a shower. You stink to high heaven.”

He smirked, a small chuckle coming from his throat. “Will do, Mom. Thanks for coming to check on me.”

“It’s what we do. Love you,” she told him as she let herself out of the house.

Suddenly feeling tired again, Garrett fell back against the couch cushions. What the fuck was he going to do now? How did he explain this to Hannah? He couldn’t even make his finger move over the button that he knew would connect them on his phone. The dilemma was answered for him when the phone vibrated in his hand and he saw the picture of the person that he most wanted to see. He wasn’t sure how he would be received when he answered, but he knew he had to answer. Swiping his thumb across the screen, Hannah’s picture disappeared and the call engaged.

“Hey, beautiful,” he answered, hoping with everything he had that a little sweet talk was what she needed to forgive him.

*  *  *

J
udging from the way Garrett’s voice sounded, he was not having a good day. “How are you?” she asked, carefully.

He cleared his throat twice and then cursed. “Fuck this, answer my FaceTime, I need to see you.”

The call disengaged, and then she got his FaceTime request. Accepting it, she was surprised at the way he looked. Her mouth hung open and she whistled.

“I know, I look like hell.”

“Garrett, babe, what did you do to yourself last night?” she questioned, her eyes taking in his appearance. He looked awful.

“Something very stupid if the tabloids are to be believed.”

Hannah could see the guilt on his face, could almost physically feel it through the phone. “Did you wake up by yourself this morning?” she whispered.

“Fuck, Han, I was drunk, but I wasn’t that drunk.”

“Are you sure? Because from what I saw, you could barely hold your head up.”

The hurt was there in her eyes as he watched but so was anger. She was mad. “I know it looked bad.”

“It did, almost as bad as the pictures with me and Bryson.” She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. “What we have to remember is that not everybody is happy about our marriage. There are some people that want it gone or want to see us struggle. We have got to stop putting ourselves in situations like this.”

She was right. He had been a dumbass to think he could go out in public and drink his loneliness away. He should have done it in the comfort of his home with his friends. They were no longer the locally known band that everybody wanted to buy a drink. They were now internationally known, and some people chomped at the bit to wait for them to fail. He couldn’t put himself in that situation again, not when it threatened what he had with her.