The Price of Love (Rockin' Country Book 2) (27 page)

“Thanks.” She grinned. “I hope so, but when the time comes and not before. We’ll know when we’re ready.”

*     *     *

“This game fucking sucks,” Kevin growled, disgusted at the football game he watched on TV.

“Who knew these guys got so serious about a game,” Hannah whispered. She never even knew that Garrett watched sports.

“Come the fuck on,” Jared yelled. “Break the tackle, dude, you weigh three hundred pounds.”

“Five yards, that’s all we needed. Five goddamn yards,” Robert said, surprising his daughter.

“This is embarrassing.” Garrett threw the remote down.

“And really fucking boring,” Stacey whispered back at the ladies.

They all giggled because they agreed.

“How much more time does the turkey need, Mom?” Hannah asked, ready to eat.

Liz walked over and opened the oven, then called Marie over. The two of them both gave their opinions and told the younger women that they thought it was ready. It made Hannah happy that her mom and Marie seemed to be getting along well. It was important for her to have them be friends. Their lives would never be normal, and that would mean that sometimes everyone would have to see each other at the same time. It wouldn’t work if they didn’t get along.

“Let me get the guys,” Marie told them.

“God be with you, lady, for interrupting that,” Shell threw out, having a seat at the table.

“Do you want some wine?” Hannah asked her. It wasn’t often that they pulled out the good bottle, and none of the guys liked it, but they did every once in a while.

“Ohhh yeah, that’ll be a nice change of pace.” Shell’s phone buzzed at her side. She hesitated to pick it up. It was the holidays and the guys were making their way into the room, but she worried that it was someone who needed her or needed an answer to a question. Glancing down, she did a double take; she wasn’t sure if what she’d seen was her imagination or if it was the truth or not. “Holy fuck,” she breathed.

“Could we please put the f-word away for the rest of the day?” Hannah asked, setting the glass of wine in front of Shell.

“No, you’re gonna wanna say it when I tell you what this message says.”

Hannah doubted that highly. “You know I don’t even cuss, usually.”

“Oh, you do sometimes,” Garrett piped up, a shit-eating grin on his face.

Hannah cleared her throat. “Can we not just have a quiet family dinner?”

“We sure can,” Shell said. “And I’d like to get a picture of you and Garrett, if I could.”

Hannah went over and sat in Garrett’s lap, smiling as Shell snapped a picture, asking them to pose for one more. “I’m not sure why you want one; you have to have a ton of pictures of the two of us. Why do you need another one?”

Putting her phone out in front of her face and fixing the camera, Shell shrugged. “Just wanted to get the look on your faces when y’all found out for the first time that your duet went to number one on the all-genre chart.”

She said it so off-handed that it took a few seconds for the words to sink in, but when they did, the looks on their faces were priceless, and Shell had never been so excited to capture the moment on camera.

Tears were shed, hugs were given, and fists were pumped as the small group congratulated the couple.

“Did you ever think it?” Liz asked.

“No, not at all,” Hannah answered, humble as ever. “I hoped, especially when I saw how many hits it was getting on YouTube. I’ve been getting messages about people using it at their wedding too, so I knew it was popular, but no, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine all-genre,” she squealed, pulling Garrett into another hug.

“Would it be in bad taste for me to somehow get Bryson’s phone number and text something along the lines of ‘suck my dick’ to him?” Garrett asked. He knew without a doubt that they wouldn’t be hearing anything from him, hopefully ever again. There were certain people that Jared knew in dark places and they’d done some checking on Bryson—he wasn’t as clean as he liked people to think.

Hannah shook her head. “Yes! You know this is killing him even more than the beating you gave him yesterday. According to what he said to you, what he wanted more than anything was the number one, and we got it, baby!”

He exhaled a breath. Everything that the two of them had been through had been working towards this moment. Their friends, their family, their dog, a number one song. He had known as soon as he’d kissed her that Hannah was going to be the person he spent the rest of his life with. To know that she was going to be there, no matter how ugly the world got, no matter how tired he was at the end of the—meant everything.

“So,” Liz asked as she stood. “Who’s hungry? Let’s celebrate!”

*  *  *

New Year’s Even

H
annah could hear the noise of the crowd as she made her way, along with the guys of Black Friday, towards the stage. New Years Eve was
the
night to have a concert, and out of sheer luck, the guys had managed to snag Nashville for the night. This would also be the opening night of their tour.

They’d all thought they’d have a few more weeks off, but when New Year’s Eve had opened up, they decided to go for it. Hannah was all for it. As long as she was with Garrett, there was nowhere she wouldn’t go.

“Have I told you how hot you look tonight?” he asked, putting his mouth next to her ear so that she could hear him over the noise that was just beyond the curtains.

“No.” She pouted. “And I dressed up in this just for you.” She smiled up at him.

His arm went around her, resting his hand on her hip, half of his palm on her ass. He gave it a tiny squeeze and she jumped. “The little black dress does it for me.”

Obviously, if the look in his eyes gave any indication of how much he liked it. “I’m glad.” She kissed his cheek. The heels that she wore put them closer to the same height, but he still had a head length over her.

“Heels are fucking hot too.” He looked down at the hot pink stilettos she wore.

“Do I need to go change before I join you onstage for our duet?” she asked, clasping his free hand in hers.

He breathed deeply. “Nah, it’ll just give me something to look forward to when we get done with the show. Then you and I can have our own little party to ring in the New Year. How’s that sound?”

“Perfect.” She stepped back as the guys started to circle.

“Two minutes, guys,” Mike told them.

“Give me a kiss,” he told her, grasping her hips to bring her back where she had been before.

She did as she was told, and then waited as they chanted something that she couldn’t make out, but made her laugh anyway. “I’ll see you later,” she told him.

“Don’t make me wait when I call you out,” he warned.

Hannah didn’t. When he called her out, she came out to an amazing cheer from the crowd, and they sat closely together, singing the duet that had made them both bigger stars together than they had ever been separately. As they finished, Hannah stood up and took a small bow. Grasping Garett’s hand she pulled him in for a kiss. This was exactly what she’d been missing when she’d met him. She hadn’t known it then, but she knew it now, and she would never give it up for anything that anyone promised her—there was no monetary value they could put on the price of love.

The End

(Will also include an exclusive Rockin’ Country Novella!!)

Coming early 2015

H
annah looked out over the German crowd; ninety thousand strong, as Black Friday performed their set for the summer festival. She was so thankful she had taken this time off. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t be here for this, and she knew that she wouldn’t want to miss it. Garrett held the huge crowd in the palm of his hand. Every time he asked them to do something, they did it without hesitating. She had never seen this many people before in her life. These rock festivals were much larger than the country festivals that she attended.

“Amazing, isn’t it?”

She glanced up at Shell, nodding. “It is. I can’t believe all these people have been out in this intense heat all day.”

From where she stood, Garrett was in the shadow of the setting sun, and his silhouette was beautiful against it. Pulling her phone out, she snapped a few pictures, uploading one of them to her Instagram account. So far, everyone that had told her the fans would love to get glimpses into their private life was right. Any picture she uploaded of the two of them got more likes than the last one. Pictures of just him were probably the most popular, but she didn’t let that affect her one way or another. Since taking her break in November, she had been careful to keep the posts at a regular interval. Call her crazy, but it was important for her to keep them informed. She didn’t want to lose the fans that meant so much to her, no matter what she ended up deciding about her career. The past six months had been amazing, and she knew that she would never give them up for anything.

“Are you nervous?” Shell asked, a soft smile on her face.

“Kind of. I mean we didn’t expect for this to happen so soon. We thought it would take longer,” she told her friend, putting her hand on her stomach that, even though still flat, held a little bit of extra weight.

“The two of you are magnetic together, I’m pretty sure that as soon as he looked at you when you went off birth control, it was like boom, pregnant.”

Hannah laughed. “Kind of.” She turned her attention back to the concert, watching Garrett.

He was now the father of her child. Conceived in early April, they were expecting the birth in January. It still wasn’t ideal. While she would be off, he would still be touring, but by the time she had to go back to work, the baby would be six months old and hopefully on some type of schedule.

“Stop thinking ahead. I can see the panic on your face,” Shell told her. “We’ll deal with it, no matter what it is.”

She knew that Shell spoke the truth. Her attorney had found a clause in some of the legal language that would allow her to terminate a portion of her contract if she so wanted to. It would allow her to take off as much time as she wanted, up to two years, after the birth of a child. Hannah still wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, but she figured that by the time all of that rolled around, she would know. Her CD was still selling well, the lyric videos released on social media were well over the millions of views, and the record company was happy that she was still active. Right now, they were all happy. She hoped it would continue to be that way. Just that morning, she had let the record company know she was pregnant, and they seemed okay with it. She was relieved they hadn’t asked her to get an abortion; she had heard of that before, even had a few friends in the music industry that had done it at the suggestion of a record company. It would ruin their image and their career, they had been told. For her and Garrett, this was planned, a symbol of the love that they shared for one another—only they hadn’t expected it so quickly. She smiled as she thought back to the morning she’d woken up feeling sick, wondering if the one time they’d tried, it had taken. He had been so freaked out when she went to take the pregnancy test, and then he’d gone white when she’d come out of the bathroom holding it, not needing the five minutes it was supposed to take.

“I can’t believe I’m here right now.” Hannah gestured out to the crowd and then looked back at her husband. He wore a T-shirt with the armholes cut out—white in deference to the hot day. Sweat caused the material to stick to his body. The longer hair style he now sported caused his hair to curl up at the ends, and she hoped with everything she had at that moment they had a son that looked like him. She would love for their child to have the curly hair he got once it got long enough. He looked over at her and she could feel his gaze, even though she couldn’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses.

“My wife is here today,” he was saying to the crowd. “I’d like to invite her out here, if it’s okay with you?” There was a huge uproar from them, clapping and whistling.

They hadn’t talked about this. She knew that he wanted to make the announcement today, but she hadn’t been aware that he wanted her to go out and be with him.