My heart kicks. Even in an airplane cabin, surrounded by strangers and holiday madness, I’m crazy about this man.
We’ve been engaged six months and haven’t made plans for the wedding. At first, it was a decision we agreed on. We had other things to figure out. Now, we’re living together in New York, hustling out our dream.
Tyler threads his fingers through mine, shooting me a look that has my toes tingling. “There’s something I want to talk with you about.”
Excitement bubbles through me. “That sounds mysterious,” I say coyly. “Do you want to talk about it now?”
“Not in public. Later.” He squeezes my hand, and my heart skips a beat.
“Looking forward to it.”
Being with family will be the perfect time to talk about our wedding. Sure, my dad and Haley, plus my half sister and baby half brother, are a handful. But Tyler and I have handled packed houses and international rock tours. Nothing in Dallas could get in the way.
I play with the ring on the fourth finger of my left hand, staring at the gorgeous diamond before I fix my gaze on the snow coming down outside. “It’s beautiful. It almost never snows in Dallas. I can remember twice ever at the holidays. I’m going to miss the snow in New York.”
He cocks his head. “You mean that shit that stops traffic?”
The snow coming down in New York is the reason our small private plane was canceled and we had to switch to commercial at the last minute.
Sometimes, I have to remind myself that as full as my schedule is, his is fuller. He does it all without complaining, but the way he passes out when we go to bed, takes longer than usual to get up with the alarm, the way he rubs his eyes when he thinks I’m not looking and mainlines caffeine, shows me he’s been stressed with finishing his second album. He’s been oddly secretive about it, and I pretend it doesn’t hurt a little that he’s unwilling to share with me.
Still, he’s working his ass off, and I want to make things easier on him.
I unfasten my seatbelt—we’re still on the tarmac—and start to get up.
A flight attendant is at my elbow in a second. “Excuse me. We’re about to take off.”
“Of course.” My best embarrassed and earnest “I’m following the rules” smile is on display.
I wait for her to head back to the front before I duck across the barrier between our seats, wishing I could do away with it entirely. Tyler’s mouth is firm when I kiss him. It’s a light brush of lips, a reminder of the way I love him and that I’m glad to be spending today with him.
Before I can pull back, he threads his fingers into my hair, deliberate and languorous as he holds me against him. He’s completely confident in his effect on me, slanting my mouth over his in a way that makes me tingle everywhere.
“I needed that,” he murmurs, pushing me lightly back into my seat. “If we were on a charter, we wouldn’t have had to stop.”
I lower my voice to a whisper. “You want to fuck me on an airplane?”
“I want to fuck you everywhere.”
Groan. Damned hot musician fiancé. I melt into the seat and take my hand from his to refasten the seat belt.
“So what made it special?” Tyler asks.
“Hmm?”
My dazed expression elicits a slow, sexy grin from him. “The snow.”
“Oh! It was the year after Dad and Haley got married, after we moved back to Dallas from Philly. I was going through some stuff…”
From his knowing expression, he’s well aware of where I’m going with this.
“See,” I say, tapping a finger against my lips, “this guy I liked ghosted me. I even got him a Christmas present, and all he had to do to get it back was text me… but he didn’t get back to me. I thought we were friends.”
His expression clouds with pain and resolve. I know he’s remembering that rocky time in our relationship too. “Sounds like a dick.”
“He had his reasons.”
“Still a dick. Any guy who hurts you again is going to have to go through me.”
There it is. One of a million reasons I love this man. “Yeah, well, I went outside, and it was snowing, and I knew everything would be okay.”
His hand squeezes mine.
“This is going to be good,” I promise, thinking of the days to come and the fact he wants to talk about the wedding.
“This is the first Christmas I’ll spend with your family.”
“Huh.” That hadn’t occurred to me. “Then you’re long past due because you are my family.”
Tyler’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “Something tells me it’ll be an adventure,” he says dryly.
He’s not only been my friend for a decade, but I’ve been in love with him almost as long. He’s loved me too, but with enough twists and turns to fill a bookcase.
I’ve watched Tyler go from being an unknown guitarist with jaw-dropping talent to being discovered by my dad, himself one of the biggest rock stars in the world before he retired, to being an internationally renowned breakout in his own right. The man next to me could have any woman in the world, and he wants me. It never stops being a trip.
Me, who feels too much, who’s way too earnest, who grew up without knowing who she was or who her family was, who had the deep-seated need to prove herself. The one person I never had to prove myself to was him.
My phone buzzes with a message from my stepmom. Earlier, I’d asked her to confirm Tyler’s gift had arrived in Dallas via special shipping. It had. Thank goodness. Next, I asked what we could bring.
Her response:
Haley: Anything but chaos. We have enough here.
“What’s up?” Tyler asks.
I tuck the phone away without showing him the screen. “Nothing.”
The smile I give him feels similar to the one I gave the flight attendant, and he eyes me warily but lets me get away with it.
The plane takes off, and we’re on our way toward something.
I hope it’s not chaos because what I want this Christmas is a wedding.
Chapter Two
Tyler
I’ve seen a lot of big houses. Jax’s is one of the biggest. I still appreciate it every time I head up the driveway.
“How does it feel to be back?”
Annie’s voice has me looking at her across the back seat. I squeeze her hand.
The limo that picked us up at DFW pulls up in front of the sweeping porch and double doors. It’s not my home, but it does feel that way sometimes. The residents here have done everything they could to make me feel that way.
“It’s good,” I say.
Good doesn’t capture it as I shift out, the driver already getting Annie’s door for her. After the year we’ve had, my feelings are nowhere near that simple.
The album I’m making is the best I’ve produced, and I’m pouring all of myself into it. Working with my label in LA and at Annie’s dad’s studio in Dallas, plus my almost-full-time commitment to her show in New York, has been a lot.
“You know,” she starts as the driver collects our bags from the trunk, “I know you didn’t want to talk about the future on the plane, but I’m kind of dying to. Do we have to wait?”