I stare into her beautiful face, the girl I’ve loved since before I knew how. “I suppose not. I want to talk about a date.”
“A date?” Her eyes brighten, and she shifts toward me as if she knew this was coming.
I guess it was inevitable, but I’m surprised she knows me so well that she’s figured out what’s been on my mind. “Yeah. I talked to the studio. We were thinking March.”
“March!” Her voice rises an octave. “That’s soon. And why’s the studio involved?”
“You know they call all the shots.”
“I get some say,” she teases.
“Sure. Do you have something else going on?”
Her mouth works for a moment. “The show, but I guess it’s always possible to take a few performances out.”
There’s so much anticipation in her voice. I fucking love her even more for wanting this with me. I can’t resist brushing a kiss across her lips once, twice. She presses against me, right there in the middle of the driveway.
I swear the curtains in the front window move, but I can’t bring myself to care.
“So, I should tell them March,” I murmur when I pull back, my fiancée still close enough I can smell her shampoo. “Because there’ll have to be a tour after, and summer’s as good a time as any.”
Annie cocks her head in confusion. “Wait, why do you need to tour so soon after?”
“So people can hear the new album.” She blinks, and I wonder if she slept last night. “The album we’re talking about dropping in March.”
Her hands stiffen on my arms, and instantly I know something’s gone very wrong. “That’s what you wanted to talk about. A date for the album.”
“Of course.” I frown. “What’d you think?”
She pulls back, surprise and pain in those wide, amber eyes. I hate that I’ve done something to put it there, but before I can respond Annie turns away and takes the steps one a time.
She turns the handle and pushes the door open without knocking.
I follow her into the huge, vaulted foyer decorated for the holidays, a giant spray of greenery on the table and accents of green, white, and gold in every corner and up the grand staircase.
“Hello?” Annie calls into the cavernous house.
Seconds later, Sophie comes barreling down the hall, her amber eyes wide and her dark hair in messy pigtails. Her five-year-old legs are getting long, sprinting in green tights under her matching dress. She grabs her half sister’s hand and tows her toward the living room.
“Look!” Sophie declares, proudly showing off her decorations.
Swags of gold and white grace the baby grand piano. A miniature holiday town fills three of the shelves of the built-in bookcases, and a towering tree in one corner has gifts underneath. It’s more opulent than anything I grew up with, and even though my life the past few years since making it with my music has outdone my wildest dreams, moments like this remind me I came from nothing.
No gifts. No decorations. But looking back, what I missed most was love.
Love isn’t absent in this household, and I still feel as if I don’t deserve it sometimes.
“It’s great, Sophie,” my fiancée comments. “And it might snow tonight.”
“Snow?” her little sister says. “Like in the movies?”
“Yup.”
“Only promise what you can deliver because this one won’t forget.”
The humor-filled female voice has us turning toward the doorway to the kitchen. Haley, Annie’s stepmom, hardly looks older than Annie in a black dress with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, a broad smile on her face.
The tension in my shoulders eases a degree. I’ve known Haley for years, since I started recording music at the Wicked label as part of an after-school program when she worked there too. The label was how she met her husband.
“Don’t tell me Jax has made you stick to the kitchen for the day,” I say as Annie wraps Haley in a hug.
“When was the last time Jax made me do anything?” Haley retorts evenly before giving me a squeeze.
As if on command, the man in question enters from the same direction as his wife.
Jax Jamieson might be more than five years removed from headlining tours and concerts himself, but he’ll always be a multiplatinum recording artist, and now, he’s a producer too. He’s clad in a dark button-down and well-worn jeans, a shadow of a beard on his face. There’s a hint of grey in his hair that wasn’t there a year ago, though he’s not yet forty. His expression is long-suffering, but he carries himself like the man he’s always been—one who can command a stadium. Hell, an entire world.
Jax’s shoulders relax as he crosses to his eldest daughter. “Hey, kid. How’s my Broadway star?”
Annie’s lips twitch for a moment before she breaks into a smile. “Surviving.”
He wraps her in a hug, and her eyes close as she hugs him back.
“Have you read any reviews?” she asks.
“Reviews are bullshit.”
“They were really good, Dad.”
“In that case, they should always be trusted.”
Jax tosses me a look I recognize immediately. It’s the “I don’t care that you’re practically my son, you better be fucking taking care of my daughter” look.
That’s partly why I need this holiday to go well. To show myself I can be what she needs, be worthy of her and this family. Even though they’ve always insisted I’m part of it, I’m close to actually becoming part of not only genuine rock royalty, but a close-knit family unit that would go to the wall for one another. I take that responsibility seriously.
“Where’s baby Mason?” Annie asks.
“Kid’s with his personal baby whisperer. If we’re lucky, he’ll sleep two hours.”
Serena, Haley’s best friend, appears from the same direction as Haley, her blond ponytail bobbing as she eyes us over the baby in her arms. Her boyfriend, Wes, is at her side. She’s in marketing, and Wes is a top scientist, but they could easily be modeling for some ad campaign.
“Well, you look very comfortable with a baby,” Annie teases.
“You’re the one getting married. Have you set a date?” Serena demands.
“Have you?” Annie retorts, lowering her voice as she crosses to peer down at her half brother.
“Don’t change the subject,” Serena says, narrowing her eyes.
At the same time, Wes says, “Soon. But I have to ask her first.”
Serena turns to look at him in shock. I’ve never seen Serena shut up so fast, and it makes me grin.
“But when I do, it’s on,” Wes finishes easily, smirking at his girlfriend.
Annie watches them with envy, and a tumbler falls into a lock somewhere deep in my mind.
Fuck. I know what outside was about. She thought I was talking about a date for the wedding.
When we got engaged earlier this year, we decided to take our time. We have an apartment in New York together, and she was working on getting her show to Broadway. But she’s been dropping hints lately.
I should’ve known. I’m pissed I didn’t.
I fucked up earlier, and I need to fix it. But now’s not the time, because everyone’s here and Sophie’s tugging on my jeans.